The Residence of Gen. Washington

Date1842

Artist Susan Whitcomb (active ca. 1842)

MediumWatercolor and graphite on heavy wove paper.

DimensionsPrimary Support: 18 x 21 7/8in. (45.7 x 55.6cm); Pictorial Composition: 15 7/8 x 20 3/16in. (40.3 x 51.3cm); and Framed: 22 13/16 x 26 3/4in.

Credit LineGift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

Object number1931.302.1

DescriptionLandscape, watercolor. A view of a large, cream-colored, blue-roofed building with two-story columns set atop a knoll, the foreground green and rolling with large trees framing the view on either side of the foreground.
Pobably a period replacement 3-inch mahogany veneered splayed frame.
Label TextIn the early 1800s, watercolorists often simulated the appearance of embroidery stitches in their work, but as the century progressed and as painting gradually supplanted needlework as the favored fashionable pastime for young women, artists began to discover and exploit characteristics and technical possibilities of their chosen medium. Whitcomb's watercolor is most unusual in that, despite its mid-century date, it faithfully reporduces the effect of a late-eighteenth or early-nineteenth-century silk embroidery.

The tiny dots that cover the majority of the painted areas were certainly meant to suggest French knots. Small shrubs and sprouting plants that emphasize and help delineate rolling contours of land were often used to give the appearance of spatial depth and recession in needlework pictures, and the watercolor's blue, green, and gold-brown color scheme was a favorite of silk stitchers. The tree at right represents a more apparent link between the two mediums, for it is laid out in erratically shaped areas of contrasting color, a typical embroidery design to be filled with satin stitch.

A now unlocated 1816 work may explain Whitcomb's seeming retrogression. The earlier composition is quite similar to the Folk Art Museum's piece and conceivably may have been used as a model or guide by Whitcomb. Lovia Chatterton (1795-1868), who created the 1816 piece, later married German Hammond, and between 1838 and 1846, several of her children attended the Literary and Scientific Institution at Brandon, Vermont, where Susan Whitcomb was a pupil in 1841-1842. The German Hammonds may even have lived in Brandon at some point, and possibly Whitcomb had a chance to study and copy the 1816 piece through her association with one or more members of that family. At the institution, an extra charge of one dollar was made for "Drawing or Painting, with use of patterns".
InscribedIn blue watercolor in block letters in the lower margin is"The residence of Gen. Washington Mt. Vernon Vir./Painted by Susan Whitcomb at the Lit. Sci. Institution. Brandon Vt. 1842."
MarkingsNo watermark found.
ProvenanceFound in Boston, Mass., by Edith Gregor Halpert, Downtown Gallery, New York, NY; purchased from Halpert by Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who was CWF's donor.