Images(2)

Portrait of John Stockbridge Vickery (1805-1879)

Date1834

Attributed to Joseph H. Davis (1811-1865)

MediumWatercolor, pencil, gum arabic, and ink or watercolor on wove paper. The frame is original, a 1 3/8-inch black-painted, quarter-round molding with a flat inner lip.

DimensionsPrimary support: 10 7/8" x 7 13/16" and Framed: 13 3/16" x 10" x 1 1/8"

Credit LineGift of the family of Martha Ellen Vickery Eden (1876-1973)

Object number1993.300.2

DescriptionA full-length portrait of a man standing and facing right. He wears a black suit and mottled vest. The thumb of his near hand is stuck in his trouser pocket. With his far hand, he points to what appears to be a small model of a large red building belching smoke. (However, the model is placed on top of a drawing of other buildings, and it is difficult to tell what the artist intended to be read as three-dimensional, what as two-). Model and drawing lie on a grain-painted table, along with a small book and an upside down black top hat. Table and man stand on a floor (or cloth or carpet) loosely patterned in orange, turquoise, black, and gray. A lower margin reserve bears an elaborate inscription (see "Inscriptions"). The area of the pictorial composition is marked off in pencil at the sides and top.
Label TextIn the mid 1830s, Joseph H. Davis executed a considerable number of full-length watercolor portraits for clients living on both sides of the Maine-New Hampshire border. Among these likenesses, John Vickery's portrait is most unusual for its inclusion of a model (or sketched) building that belches smoke.
The prominence of the building and the pride with which Vickery points to it suggest that the portrait subject played a critical role in the history or use of the structure. City Directory listings for Dover, New Hampshire, indicate that Vickery was an employee of the Cocheco Manufacturing Company (a large cotton mill) in 1833-1874, and listings during the 1833-1871 period specifically describe his job as "watchman." The smoke whimsically issuing from the building's chimney may, in fact, allude to one of Vickery's primary concerns: ensuring that fires in the building were kept under strict control.
The significant role played by the small-scale structure in the portrait points to fascinating---but historically inadequately documented---concepts of self-definition and self-esteem as developed by an emerging middle class work force. This rare portrait also calls for further exploration of the extent to which individual workers identified with, absorbed, and shared the larger goals of their employers, particularly in the relatively early phases of widespread industrialization.

InscribedIn ink in script in the lower margin is "John S. Vickery. Aged 29 years. 1834". (N. B. The subject's name is in flowered script, having small blooms decorating the vertical centers of some of the letters).
In modern block letters in ink in the upper left corner of the exposed (outer) side of the backboard is "SIMES". A watermark in the primary support runs vertically and roughly corresponds to the man's trouser legs: "G & Co" in open block letters. The latter appears to be the watermark of George Goodwin of Connecticut. See Thomas L. Gravell and George Miller, A CATALOGUE OF AMERICAN WATERMARKS, 1690-1835 (NY: Garland Publishing Co., 1979), entry no. 261 on p. 11, illus. as no. 261 on p. 71. Biographical information on Goodwin appears as entry no. 79 on pp. 178-179.
MarkingsSee "Inscriptions."
ProvenanceThe portrait was donated along with 1993.300.3 and 1993.300.4 (portraits of the subject's sister and wife, respectively). It is unclear whether the three watercolors have always been together or, conversely, joined company early in the line of descent. The donor believes they descended from the subject to his son, William Henry Vickery (b. Feb. 16, 1839; d. Mar. 13, 1916); to his daughter, Martha Ellen Vickery (b. July 4, 1876; d. Nov. 1974); to her daughter, Natalie Eden Walter (Mrs. Donald Wesley Walter)(b.May 22, 1920); to her daughter, Mary Walter Henkel (Mrs. Dennis Henkel).