The Winterthur Library

 The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera

Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum

5105 Kennett Pike, Winterthur, DE  19735

302-888-4600 or 800-448-3883

 

 

OVERVIEW OF THE COLLECTION

 

Creator:         Coates family.                                    

Title:               Silhouette collection

Dates:             [1800?-1825?]

Call No.:         Doc. 139

Acc. No.:        90x34

Quantity:        1 vol. + 55 leaves

Location:        31 B 2

 

 

 

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT

 

The Coates family included early prominent residents of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: merchants, importers, and doctors.

 

 

SCOPE AND CONTENT

 

Contains 77 negative silhouettes mounted on black backgrounds, all but three of which are identified on a "List of Names" at the beginning of the volume.  There are also six leaves of 'Scherenschnitten' pictures; and then eight un-mounted silhouettes (six of which are identified) laid in.  [These loose silhouettes are now in separate sleeves.]   Many members of the Coates family are pictured, as are members of the Hornor, Morrison, Evans, Redman, Randolph, Pickering, Hopkins, Snowden, and Yarnall families, and others.  (Number 37 from the list in the front is a pencil sketch profile; numbers 73 and 74 are missing.)

 

One scherenschnitten picture depicts a house with fenced garden, a figure on horseback, a girl in a swing, and a woman walking.  Pasted above this are two sprigs of flowers.  Two other of these pictures depict houses (one quite small), with figures in the yards.  A rather elaborate picture shows two houses, each on either side of a stream spanned by a bridge; two men are in a boat on the stream, and a man on horseback approaches the bridge.  Also on this page are several vignettes: a wreath, an incomplete wreath, two birds at a bird bath, a squirrel on top of a hutch, and a woman with a bird cage.  On the next page are more vignettes: two of men on horseback, one of a man on a horse driving cattle, and the last depicting two squirrels on a branch.  The next picture shows a farm scene, with house, a boar, and sheep tended by a shepherd.  The last picture shows rural homes, with a shepherd, a man on horseback, and a strolling couple.

The accompanying mounted photographs show 55 of the silhouettes, with pencilled identifications below that correspond to the "List of Names" in the bound volume.

 

Dealer noted that most of the silhouettes "have embossed emblem of the Peale eagle or 'Museum' identifying the items as coming from the Peale Museum," and that the "collection has been in the Coates family since its creation until 1989."

 

   

LANGUAGE OF MATERIALS

 

The materials are in English, albeit largely pictorial in nature.

 

 

RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS

 

Collection is open to the public.  Copyright restrictions may apply.

           

 

PROVENANCE

           

Purchased from Thomas Cullen, Rockland Bookman.

 

 

ACCESS POINTS

 

Topics:

Peale Museum.

Quakers - Pennsylvania - Philadelphia - Portraits.

Boats and boating - Pictorial works.

Farms - Pictorial works.

Paper art.

Paper work.

Swings.

Philadelphia (Pa.) - Biography - Portraits.

Silhouettes.

Albums.          

 

 

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE COLLECTION

 

Location: 31 B 2

 

Alphabetical list of names in the album:

 


Ail[?], Elizabeth   loose silhouette

Ashton, George   50

Ashton, Hetty   49

 

Clark, Deborah   47

Clement, Beulah   loose silhouette

Clement, Zebedee   80

Coates, Alice   loose silhouette

Coates, Benjamin H. (Dr.)   28

Coates, Beulah   3

Coates, George M.  41

Coates, Josiah   4

Coates, Josiah L.   19

Coates, Rebecca   42

Coates, Samuel   27

Coates, Sarah   15, 58

Coates, Sidney  14

 

Dawson, Charles   36

Dawson, Mary   32

De Benneville, Ann   23

 

Ely, Elias   73  [missing]

English, Jane Fell   53

Evans, Anne N.   24

Evans, John   18

Evans, Rebecca   17

Evans, Sidney   46

 

Foster, Sarah  31

 

Gardner, Rachel   55

 

Hopkins, Ann   43

Hopkins, Beulah   71

Hopkins, James   34

Hopkins, Rebecca   66

Hopkins, Sarah   9

Hornor, B.   loose silhouette

Hornor, Benjamin   2, 60

Hornor, Benjamin, Jr.   loose silhouette

Hornor, Benjamin C.  20, 63, 64

Hornor, Mary    1

Hornor, Rebecca   16, 57

 

Johnson, William   69

 

Levis, Eleanor   22

 

Minturn, Lydia   54

Morgan, Rebecca   33

Morrison, Elizabeth   12

Morrison, Evan   11, 21

Morrison, George   56

Morrison, Mary   39

 

Paxson, Ann J.   70

Peirson, Elizabeth   62

Pickering, Alice C.   6

Pickering, Charles   79

Pickering, Elihu   5, loose silhouette

Pickering, Samuel (Dr.)   72

Pleasants, Samuel   30

 

Randolph, Elizabeth   25, 61

Randolph, Jacob (Dr.)   74  [missing]

Randolph, Julianna   26

Redman, Elizabeth L.  10

Redman, John (Dr.)   29, 38

Roland, Mary   7

Roland, Sarah   8

 

Scull, Hope  48

Snowdon, Joseph   75

Snowdon, Myles   68

Snowdon, Rebecca   67

Stokes, Abigail    78

 

Thomson, Ann   52

Thomson, Hannah   51

 

Waln, Nicholas   37

Warner, George   40

West, Charles   35

Wickersham, Mary   45

Wickersham, Sarah R.   59

 

Yarnall, Benjamin H.   76

Yarnall, Sarah   13

 

Not identified:  44, 65, 77, two loose silhouettes