Jewelry for mourning, love, and fancy, 1770-1830

30 For more about iconography, see Schorsch, "A Key to the Kingdom"; Diana Scarisbrick, Tudor and Jacobean Jewellery (Tate Publishing, London, 1995), pp. 42-69; and Shirley Bury, Sentimental Jewellery (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1985).

31 Emblematical Devices with Appropriate Mottos Collected by Samuel Fletcher, drawn and etched by A. Van Alsen (London, 1810), p. 36. Similar imagery and meanings are also found in earlier books, such as Emblems, for the Entertainment and Improvement of Youth (c. 1729), which Philip Freeman advertised in the Boston Gazette on June 17, 1765.

32 Emblematical Devices with Appropriate Mottos Collected by Samuel Fletcher, p. 28.

33 Ibid. The image was usually used to signify love and romance. For example, an advertisement in the New-York Packet of February 21, 1785, sought a "Lost...gold Locket...the device of the face of it, executed with hair representing a large tree and two doves flying in contrary directions, with a cord in each of their beaks so disposed in the middle as to form a knot, which as they separate united still firmer, with this motto Amor Sinceres." According to Emblematic Devices with Appropriate Mottos Collected by Samuel Fletcher, the same interpretation may be given to two hands pulling at the ends of a knot (p. 34).

34 Although the image generally signifies love or romance, it could also mean united in life and death. Field's composition and its history are discussed in Harry Piers, Robert Field: Portrait Painter in Oils, Miniature and Water-Colours and Engraver (Frederic Fairchild Sherman, New York, 1927), pp. 168-170.

35 (London, 1735), vol. 1, n. p. The book appears to have been readily available in the American colonies: a private individual advertised a copy for sale in the Boston Weekly News-Letter on January 21, 1748; a copy is listed in the 1754 and 1757 catalogues of the Union Library Company of Philadelphia and the Library Company of Philadelphia; and James Cox owned a copy (now in the Library Company).

36 I am grateful to Ellen McCallister Clark, former librarian of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, for sharing this letter with me. "Thibault" could have been Felix (w. 1814-1837), Francis (c. 1816-1850), or Frederick (c. 1818-1835) Thibault of the firm Thibault and Brothers of Philadelphia.

37 Among those who offered instruction were John and Hamilton Stevenson in Charleston, who taught "the Art of Working Designs in Hair upon Ivory, etc." (South-Carolina and American General Gazette, December 23, 1774); and Judith Foster Saunders (1772-1841) and Clementina Beach (1774-1855) taught "Hair Work on ivory" at their school in Dorchester, Massachusetts (Boston Columbian Centinel. - Massachusetts Federalist, February 5, 1803).

38 Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser, March 6, 1793.

39 Philadelphia Mail; or, Claypoole's Daily Advertiser, March 13, 1793, and Dunlap and Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser, September 25, 1795.

DAVIDA TENENBAUM DEUTSCH writes and lectures about women's accomplishments, particularly needlework, and the patterns and designs used by American artists.

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