AFA Autumn 2021

2021 Antiques & Fine Art 71 The First Congress, Lemuel Blake, Boston, Massachusetts, 1789. Ink on paper. 18 × 21 inches. Gift of the Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society, 1871 (R0407). This elegant exercise in penmanship by 14-year-old Lemuel Blake is a virtual snapshot of the birth of a new nation. It records the names of President George Washington, Vice President John Adams, and the various senators and representatives who were gathered in assembly in April 1789 as the first quorum held under the dome of Congress. The first Congress certified the Electoral College’s unanimous election of Washington and the election of Adams, who received thirty-four of the sixty-nine votes cast. The names of the thirteen original states are placed in an arcade at the top and interspersed with columns (the “Federal Pillars”) representing each state and its support of the Constitution and the new government. At the bottom is a poem, seemingly adapted from verse published in the Massachusetts Centinel of January 12, 1788, that characterizes the attendees at the Massachusetts convention to ratify the Constitution. Blake adopted its somewhat purple prose to apply to the new Congress. Lemuel Blake signed this work at lower right with his name and initials. He was born in Boston in 1775 and attended the South Writing School on Pleasant Street, as he indicates in the lower left corner. Clear and elegant handwriting was considered an essential part of the education of gentlemen and men of business. Blake’s mastery of the craft at age 14 is well demonstrated here.

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