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Rare Declaration of Independence Copperplate-printed Handkerchief Richard Gillsepie (printer), Anderston, Scotland, c. 1825
US$5,000 - US$8,000
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Elizabeth Muir
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale
Amy Griffin
Cataloguer

Paul O'Hara
Sale Coordinator & Cataloguer
Rare Declaration of Independence Copperplate-printed Handkerchief
Plain-weave cotton textile with selvedge edges oriented across top and bottom, the sides hemmed and hand-stitched, copperplate-printed with red ink and mordant to depict a facsimile of the Declaration of Independence, encircled by state seals of thirteen original U.S. colonies and crested by portraits of Presidents George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, the bottom corners embellished with scenes of the Boston Tea Party (left) and General Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga (right), approx. 30 x 27 in.
The composition derives from an 1819 engraving by William Woodruff, itself copied from a broadside published in the same year by John Binns of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Footnotes
Provenance
In the Mack family of Londonderry, New Hampshire, since the 19th century.
Provenance Note
A paper label hand-sewn to the upper left corner indicates that the handkerchief was displayed at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, the notation signed by Robert Clark Mack (1818-94). The Mack family loaned the handkerchief for display at the New Hampshire State Building during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.
Note
Never before published, this newly discovered handkerchief is among fewer than one dozen examples known in museum collections and auction records. One most recently sold in The Kindig Collection: Important American Furniture, Paintings, Silver & Decorative Arts, Sotheby's, New York (21 January 2023), Lot 628.



