Vase of Fruit

Dateca. 1825

Artist Eleanor L. Coward (active ca. 1825)

MediumPaint on cotton velvet

DimensionsUnframed: 15 1/2 x 16 3/8in. (39.4 x 41.6cm) and Framed: 20 3/8 x 21 1/4in.

Credit LineGift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

Object number1931.403.1

DescriptionMounded fruits on a brown compote set on a marbleized tabletop. The fruits include a pineapple, pears, grapes, etc. Some fruits are cut open, others are not. The background is unpainted.
The 2 1/4-inch gilded molded frame is a period replacement.
Label TextThe wide, brown compote holding an abundance of fruit stands on a blue, marbleized tabletop. The spindly baluster stem seems an improbable support for the heavy load in the dish above. Coward restrained her freehand embellishments to only a few grapevine tendrils.
Monmouth County, New Jersey, genealogical records reveal two second cousins named Eleanor Coward, either of whom could have been the creator of this theorem. One of the cousins, daughter of Enoch and Nelly Lloyd Coward, would have completed the theorem before her marriage to Sidney Woodward on May 11, 1828. The other Eleanor Coward (1792-1845), daughter of Jonathan, Jr., and Mary Emley Coward, did not marry and is buried with her parents.

InscribedIn ink in script in the lower right corner is "Done by/Eleanor L. Coward".
ProvenanceFound in Freehold, NJ, by Edith Gregor Halpert, Downtown Gallery, New York, NY; bought from Halpert December 21, 1931,by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, by whom given to CWF in 1939.