Winter 2016

Drawing, Map of the World, Mary Hollister, Ballston, New York, March 24, 1832. Watercolor and ink on paper, 23¼ x 38¼ in. Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York, Museum Purchase (N0005.2010). Mary Hollister, who was just eleven years old when she painted her masterpiece, drew the hemispheres of the world on two large sheets of paper. Her work includes fanciful outlines of various countries filled in with vibrant strokes of watercolor and embellished with calligraphic inscriptions. She topped the Western Hemisphere with a patriotic American eagle and shield and put a hot air balloon above the Eastern Hemisphere, perhaps as a symbol of adventure in far-off lands. The entire work is covered with minute penwork marking everything from the waves in the oceans to well-executed mariner’s compass motifs. She also included her instructor’s name, S. Cole, although we do not know who she or he was. Mary Hollister was born in Burnt Hills, New York, a hamlet within the town of Ballston, on May 8, 1820, and her inscription indicates that she completed this work on March 24, 1832. Winter 166 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com Memorial to Enoch H. Long, Mary B. Danforth (1807–1848, Manchester, Massachusetts), 1823. Silk embroidery on satin, ink on paper, die-stamped leather, 16¼ x 19⅜ in. Collection of Jane and Gerald Katcher. This unusual and evocative mourning picture was executed by Mary B. Danforth of Manchester, Massachusetts. Her Memorial to Enoch H. Long, which is dated 1823, depicts a line of twelve children and adults in formal mourning attire beneath a pair of bending weeping willow trees. The mourners ascend in height, from youngest to oldest, as they approach the urn-shaped memorial, which reads: “Sacred to the memory of Enoch H. Long/who departed/this life June 28, 1823/Aged 6 years, 6 m.” The composition is further enriched by its combination of silk embroidery and watercolor, floral borders that include a row of miniature willows beneath the main scene, and inked paper inserts on the monument and in the bottom border. Enoch was the brother of Mary Danforth’s future husband, Rufus Long, whom she married in 1826.