Images(2)

Portrait of Mary Ann Cook [later, Mrs. John Stockbridge Vickery](1812-1873/1874)

Date1834

Attributed to Joseph H. Davis (1811-1865)

OriginAmerica, New Hampshire, Dover

MediumWatercolor, pencil, gum arabic, and ink or watercolor on wove paper.

DimensionsPrimary support: 10 15/16" x 8" and Framed: 13 1/8" x 10 1/8" x 1"

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

Object number1993.300.4

DescriptionA full-length portrait of a woman standing and facing right. She wears a dark green dress with a large white collar, an embroidered white apron, black slippers, drop earrings, and gold beads fastened with a dark green bow at the back of her neck. Her dark hair is caught up with a large tortoiseshell comb. She carries a patterned orange and green purse in her near hand. Her far hand is extended slightly upwards bearing an open book. She stands on a floor (or cloth or carpet) patterned in oval designs marked out in orange, black, and pale blue, and a rose bush grows out of a pot set on the floor before her. A lower margin reserve bears an elaborate inscription (see "Inscriptions").

The frame is original, a 1 3/8-inch black-painted, quarter-round molding with a flat inner lip.
Label TextThis full-length profile is typical of the work of Joseph H. Davis, who created a considerable number of portraits of subjects who lived on both sides of the Maine-New Hampshire border.
On May 31, 1837, Mary Ann Cook married John Stockbridge Vickery (1805-1879), the subject of a companion portrait. The two were living in Dover, New Hampshire, when they married, and both, at various times, worked at the local cotton mill, the Cocheco Manufacturing Company. Occasionally John's job there is described as "watchman," but Mary Ann's role is unknown.

InscribedIn ink in script in the lower margin is "Mary Ann, Cook. Aged 22 years. 10 months/and 11 days./Painted at Dover/November/16th 1834". (N. B. The subject's name is in flowered script, having small blooms decorating the vertical centers of some of the letters). In the remaining inscription, some parts are block lettered, some script.
No watermark was found in the primary support.
An old piece of irregularly torn newspaper was found inserted between the primary support and the backboard (see photocopy in file); discoloration patterns indicate that it had been in place for some time, but its relevance to the portrait has not yet been determined. It seems to be a New Hampshire, possibly Concord, paper; no date was immediately evident. Most articles in the torn piece of paper are neither whole nor intact.
In modern block letters in ink in the upper left corner of the exposed (outer) side of the backboard is "SIMES." In modern‚ ink script on the modern brown paper dust cover is "Mary Ann Cook/aged 22 years 10 months/and 11 days/Painted at Dover/Nov. 16, 1834".
ProvenanceThe portrait was donated along with 1993.300.2 and 1993.300.3 (portraits of the subject's husband and sister-in-law, 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).