This jewel of a portrait is precious for multiple reasons. It is a virtuoso example of the early work of John Singleton Copley, and is an undeniably beautiful painting. But perhaps equally, it is significant for the private story it tells. When John and Judy Herdeg acquired this painting in the late 1990’s, they began a years-long effort to uncover the full story behind the painting.

Boston apothecary Dr. John Greenleaf married Priscilla Brown in 1743 and had three children, Priscilla (b.1746), Elizabeth (b.1748), and John (b.1750). Tragically, Priscilla Brown is thought to have died after the birth of John, Jr.

Dr. Greenleaf engaged the foremost Boston portraitist of the time, Joseph Badger, to paint portraits of his children in 1750. Badger painted Priscilla and her sister, but did not get a chance to paint their brother John Jr. before all three children died, in a tragedy that defies reason.

By tradition in the family, found on an old slip of paper on the Back of Elizabeth’s portrait, all three children were poisoned. “Their mother had died and they were in the care of a nurse. She, wishing to go to the Boston Common and watch the “Redcoats” drill, gave them all laudanum to put them to sleep. All three were dead in the morning. The nurse confessed, and was hung, quartered, and burned on Boston Common.” (Herdeg, p.56)

John and Judy Herdeg consulted with many experts during their research. Finally, D. Brenton Simons, of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, found Boston newspaper articles from 1751 reporting the deaths, the trial of “Phyllis”, and her execution. The Massachusetts State Archive confirmed the deaths of John and one of his sisters. Since there is no record of a surviving sister, it is probable that all three perished as described.

Dr. Greenleaf was left alone, in circumstances that must have seemed unbearable.

A member of the Brattle Street Church in Boston, Dr. Greenleaf learned of a brilliant young painter in the neighborhood: John Singleton Copley (1738-1815). Still a teenager, Copley had studied the work of the Boston painters, and was already far superior in talent. Copley painted the three portraits either in 1753-54 or in 1756-57.

Together, the three portraits of the Greenleaf children rank among the most noteworthy of Copley’s early work. They are masterpieces in the rococo style, with rich fabrics and coloring, dramatic bright lighting. The figures have intense character and directness. Hanging together, the portraits must have spoken to Dr. Greenleaf, with a vitality akin to physical presence.

The career of John Singleton Copley in America “was not only significant, it was the signal achievement of American colonial art.” (American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vol. I) Until Benjamin West and Joshua Reynolds encouraged him to leave in 1774 to study art in Europe, Copley captured the faces of America’s colonial past. These are the faces that come to mind when picturing Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Samuel Adams. Copley is considered the greatest American painter of the 18^th century.

Please join us at Pook & Pook on January 16^th and 17^th, 2025, for our Americana and International sale to view this portrait, as well as the original work by Joseph Badger, upon which it is based.

By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence

The Coin & Jewelry Auction at Pook & Pook on October 30^th is composed of pounds and pounds of gold and many, many carats of diamonds, but my favorite item is of a humble nature.

Lot 2228 is an assortment of sterling silver. The jewel of the collection is a charm bracelet. Most charm bracelets reflect the interests of their owner. This bracelet captures the essence of the 1970’s and the ethos of an entire decade of suburban housewives. It took me back to the Bicentennial, the Oil Embargo, and DDT. Moms wore lipstick to the grocery store. People still received telegrams. It inspired me to re-read my grandmother’s Erma Bombeck book “If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What am I Doing in the Pits?” Every charm is like a quote from Bombeck, who stated “Housework, if you do it right, will kill you.” Bombeck’s humor lightened the load of housewives across America, dispensing with the notion that everything had to be perfect and ironed.

Among the twenty-five charms is a folding ironing board, of which Bombeck said “My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk until I faint.” There is also an alarm clock, scissors, eyeglasses, a tabletop fan, and a backyard mosquito fogger. A frying pan contains bacon and eggs, although the day of cooked breakfasts was waning. As Bombeck said, “In general, my children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced on television.” The gas pump charm has a sign “Sorry! No gas!”, which brings back memories of long lines at the pumps, if you could find them. A covered wagon reminds me of the America’s Bicentennial celebrations. A Social Security Card charm reminds us of why Bombeck was a working mom, “I was too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security, and too tired for an affair.” A baby buggy reminds us that “Motherhood is the biggest on-the-job training program in existence today.” There is a martini shaker, a Western Union telegram, a retractable lipstick, and a U.S. mailbox with a working letter slot. There is a rocking chair, a bingo card, and a birdcage with canary.

This bracelet is a perfect time capsule. As Erma herself said, “I’ve been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I’ve lost a total of 789 lbs. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.”

by: Cynthia Beech Lawrence

Some of the most intriguing lots of jewelry in Pook & Pook’s upcoming Coins & Jewelry auction include examples of Victorian hair jewelry (Lots 1959, 2525, and 2584). The practice of incorporating human hair to create intricately designed bracelets, brooches, lockets, and braided watch chains has its roots in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, when infant mortality rates were high. Alfred, the fourteenth child, and youngest son, of King George III and Queen Consort Charlotte succumbed to complications following a smallpox inoculation. After Alfred’s passing in 1782, Queen Charlotte sent the child’s governess a lock of his hair enclosed in a locket of pearls and amethyst expressing in a letter “Receive This … as an Acknowledgement for Your very affectionate attendance upon my dear little Angel Alfred, and wear the inclosed Hair, not only in remembrance of that dear Object, but also as a mark of esteem from Your Affectionate Queen.” This piece is now housed at The Royal Collection Trust.

Alongside elaborate mourning attire and post-mortem photography, these distinctive hair jewelry pieces peaked in popularity during the 1860s following Queen Victoria’s loss of her husband. After Prince Albert’s death in 1861, Victoria entered a period of mourning that lasted up until her passing in 1901. Along with wearing black while mourning, she also wore a locket containing Albert’s hair. This encouraged the act of mourning loved ones to become fashionable, not only in England but America as well.

The Civil War also played a significant role in driving this trend in the United States. Civil War soldiers would often leave a lock of their hair before going to war; women would hold on to their sweetheart’s hair as a way of keeping their loved one close while they were away. Sadly, this keepsake also served as a tangible memory of those soldiers who never made it home.

Hair keepsakes did not always corelate to death. Women would send their sweetheart a lock of hair and a photograph in valentines and postcards. Couples who got married would have braids created from strands of their hair, which would then be incorporated into a wedding band. Hair served not just as a medium for jewelry, but also for creating art and family trees. Hair serves as a lasting memento because it can endure for decades, or even centuries, thanks to its protein structure.

Eventually, the trend of making jewelry from hair declined in popularity for several reasons, including the onset of World War I, the advent of funeral homes, and the rise of the Women’s Rights movement that introduced the “bob” hairstyle. There are still echoes of this long-lost art in our modern world; you might take your child for their first haircut and ask the stylist to save a lock of hair as a token of the occasion. One-of-a-kind hair jewelry pieces such as those in our upcoming sale are an ode to a person’s essence. Each piece declares: “I Loved…”. How special it is to be able to own such a rich piece of someone’s personal history.

By Erika Lombardo

Bibliography:

1. com: The Ugly History of Beautiful things: Lockets.
2. Wikipedia
3. Kentucky Historical Society – Artworks with Human Hair: Victorian Pastimes and Mourning Customs.
4. com: The Curious Victorian Tradition of Making Art from Human Hair
5. Rosenberg Library Museum : Victorian Hair Jewelry
6. The Order of the Good Death: They’re Not Morbid, They’re About Love: The Hair Relics of the Midwest
7. com: Hair Jewelry

Wm. B. Stark’s Campaign, in the war of 1862-63-64 and 65.

Written by himself from his diary kept during the war.

William B. Stark kept a diary of his days serving in the Civil War, a fascinating first-person historical account of the 34^th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers. Stark tells tales of harrowing escapes, hard labor, endless marches, extreme temperatures, fearsome battles, and patriotism. Day after day he records his experiences, and the history of the Civil War.

Recruited in 1862, the 34^th spent long months learning on the job, marching, drilling, and picket detail. Stark itemizes everything included in the soldier’s packs, and the weight: over 100 lbs. The troops also guarded everything from camps to railroads, Unionist houses, and prisons. In the prisons the inexperienced men were sometimes greatly outnumbered in open rooms, surrounded by enemy soldiers, but what they dreaded the most was guarding the female prisoners, because of the barrage of foul-mouthed abuse. (While Stark refers to these insults more than once, he unfortunately did not preserve any of them for posterity.) After crossing the Potomac at Harper’s Ferry with General Mead, the 34^th saw its first action August 18^th, 1863 in the Battle of Ripon. On the move over the next months, challenges became greater, “A cold day with rain and sleet. The rain freezes on our clothing and loads us down with ice. The bridges are burned and we for(d) the streams to the armpits, a tedious time. We camp at Woodstock in the woods at 3 P.M. 12 miles. We build fires after a long time everything being soaked with water and covered with ice. It was hard making a fire… We fall in line try to fire off our pieces but cannot…” Little did Stark and the 34^th realize, what was to come would be infinitely worse.

Volume II of the diary begins with news that the 34^th is going to Lynchburg under General Hunter’s command, in what became known as the Lynchburg Campaign. They were to march through hostile territory, inadequately provisioned as they would be living off the land. Expected reinforcements from General Sheridan were held up and, reaching Lynchburg, Hunter found himself critically outgunned by the Confederates. The battle quickly turned into a retreat. Stark was shocked: “When any one would mention such a thing on our way down I would tell them that such a thing was out of the question. We must and would take Lynchburg at all hazards; rations we must have and we could get them only at Lynchburg. We could never retreat, that was impossible. If we were not all captured we should most certainly starve.” Stark recorded in detail the daily sufferings on retreat. Pursued through the mountain wilderness of West Virginia, the troops retreated for a month towards safety in Ohio. In the mountain passes they lost artillery and many horses, and were forced to burn wagons. Soldiers too poorly to cross the peaks were abandoned to die. Stark details his daily struggle to keep marching, leaving behind tents and even ammunition to lighten his burden. Drought and starvation claimed many. Meanwhile, the Confederates under General Early marched unimpeded through Maryland, a double humiliation.

Volume III opens with the exhausted troops marched back towards the action. Engaging with increasing frequency, the 34^th still wore their uniforms from the Lynchburg Campaign debacle, and were nearly naked and shoeless. “July 25: We have a heavy cold rain. We are barefoot and many have no tents, blankets, rubbers, or anything to make them comfortable and we are obliged to lie out in the cold rain.” There is great relief when General Wells ordered the 34^th to bathe in the creek and receive new uniforms and kit. Smartly dressed, the spent troops were then marched towards Pennsylvania to cut off the rebel army. In the intense July heat many were lost, falling out on the side of the road. Stark himself fell out, exhausted and delirious. In desperation, after an hour’s absence, he was able to pull himself together and continue. Daily diary entries detail the skirmishing, which at this point was intense, and nearly constant.

September 19^th saw the 34^th engaged in the bloody Third Battle of Winchester, in which thousands were lost on both sides, including about a third of the Rebel forces. Stark writes of the charge, “The shot, shell and grape was now poured in perfect showers for we were now in range of their heavy Artillery and several battalions were blazing away at short range carrying death at every discharge. Col. Harris rode in front of our lines like a mad man shouting ‘Come on boys’ and swinging his broadsword over his head.”

A few short weeks later, the battle-hardened 34^th engaged again in the Battle of Cedar Creek, another bloody and desperate fight in which they lost half of their men and their beloved commanding officer Colonel Wells. They fought again in the Appomattox Campaign, including the Fall of Petersburg and the Pursuit of Lee. Stark describes every battle, every camp, and every day in precise detail. His account of the thick of the battle of Petersburg is harrowing: “The noise was terrific. The smoke of a thousand furnaces and the roar of many thunder storms could not have equaled the scene before us. We marched and drew up before that nothed spot. The air was full of bursting shell. The forts looked like volcanoes belching forth their liquid fire.”

Stark’s journal is full of elaborate drawings of the many camps, marches and battles of his campaign. This first-person, detailed record of the daily life of a soldier is of great historical value. Stark was both a participant in and a witness to pivotal moments in the history of the nation. Please join us on September 25, 26, and 27^th for a chance to bid on this important piece of American history.

by: Cynthia Beech Lawrence

Lot 1340

Two lots not to be missed are #248 and #317. They are a glass perfume bottle and a shadow box frame containing five bottles and a book, items easy enough to walk past without a second glance—but once their context is understood, they are impossible to forget.

In July 1^st, 1874, in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia two brothers, ages four and five, were playing in their front yard when they were lured into a wagon by two men who had been seen giving them candy on several occasions. The older boy, Walter Ross, was found miles away outside a store. The younger boy, Charley Ross, was never seen again. Soon afterwards, their father Christian Ross received the first of many shocking ransom demands, $20,000 for the return of his son. Ross had lost a great deal of money in the stock market collapse of 1873 and did not have $20,000. He turned to the Philadelphia police department for help.

The organized police force had only been around for two decades before Charley was kidnapped. The police and the city had no idea what to do. The kidnapping of Charley Ross was the first recorded kidnapping for ransom in the United States. There were no procedures to follow. Kidnapping wasn’t even recognized as a crime, and many crimes were ignored, either because they were not yet recognized as crimes, or because the fledgling institution was still short of attaining the professionalism needed. Because of low pay, policemen were allowed to claim monetary rewards for solving old cases, and many police worked second jobs as thief catchers, compromising their integrity.

People had little faith in the ability of the police to catch the kidnappers. The New York newspapers were instantly critical of Philadelphia’s force. Once the Philadelphia newspapers expressed frustration over the lack of success, a city-wide effort began- which quickly became nationwide. Once the City posted a $20,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the kidnappers, everyone became a detective. People reported sightings of strangers with children, and searched gypsy camps and the countryside. Reports flooded in from all over the nation. Civilian search parties scoured the city. The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote “Almost every man has been a detective in the case.” Charley’s disappearance became a cultural phenomenon. Sentimental songs were written imploring for his return. Leaflets and posters were put up everywhere, many paid for by the Ross family. Christian Ross also wrote a book, a personal narrative of the tragedy. Glass bottles were impressed with Charley’s image, like an earlier version of today’s milk carton children. The general population’s obsession lasted for decades, the nation riveted by a tale of true crime.

The City of Philadelphia, led by Mayor Stokely, who was himself directed by an unofficial committee of party advisors, advised Mr Ross not to pay the ransom, fearing it would lead to a kidnapping epidemic if the criminals could snatch a child and get paid $20,000. Their motives will never be fully known, but one major concern was the upcoming Centennial Exhibition of 1876, the first World’s Fair to be held in the United States, and the centennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence. Philadelphia was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars preparing the city for a huge influx of visitors. If the kidnappers were successful, how would any family feel safe bringing children into the city? The Mayor and the committee advised Christian Ross not to give into the kidnapper’s demands. They helped the Ross family by responding to the ransom notes, always putting off the payment. More helpfully, the City ordered a search of every house, and changed the law to make kidnapping a crime and established sentencing for it. The City’s grandest gesture, the $20,000 reward, had unforeseen consequences.

While the New York papers were highly critical of the Philadelphia police force’s competence in the case, it was one of their own police who impeded its resolution. NYC Superintendent George Walling received a report from an officer who had immediately recognized the description of the kidnappers: William Mosher, a middle-aged river pirate and known criminal whose nose cartilage had been destroyed by syphilis, leaving him with a shortened, highly distinctive snout, and Joseph Douglas, a young career criminal with bright orange hair. They lived in Philadelphia but were frequently found in the Five Points neighborhood of New York City, organizing and committing crimes. Mosher’s wife was the sister of a former NYC police officer, William Westervelt. Once this connection was made by Superintendent Walling, he hired Westervelt to spy on his sister’s husband. Months passed with no new developments, other than a series of malign ransom letters and news speculation. Walling could at any time have arrested Mosher and Douglas, but he waited until he could get irrefutable evidence, and perhaps Charley himself, because then he could legally claim the $20,000 reward.

But Westervelt was a double agent, informing the kidnappers of the police department’s every more. The sinister ransom letters continued. Mosher and Douglas returned to river pirating, and were shot one night while robbing a home on Long Island. As he died, Douglas confessed to the kidnapping, and said that Mosher knew where Charley was, not knowing that Mosher was already dead.

Even though Westervelt was later imprisoned as an accomplice in the cover-up, Superintendent Walling escaped any blame. In her 2011 book on the subject “we is got him”, Carrie Hagen reasons that Charley had remained, except during the city-wide search, in Philadelphia the entire time, mingled in amongst the four or five children of the Mosher household. During this time, one of the Mosher children died of an illness. The dead child was likely Charley. Martha Mosher never confessed any involvement in the crime, but in interviews muddled her children’s ages and names, especially that of the deceased child.

The Ross family never stopped searching for Charley, and spent some $60,000 on the effort to recover him. Meaghan Good, founder of the largest online database of missing persons, named her creation The Charley Project in honor of him. Today, the database counts nearly 16,000 missing persons, and of Charley, Ms Good notes “He was basically the Lindbergh baby of the 1800s.” A cultural icon, the law was changed because of his abduction, the nation’s thoughts were focused on his return, helping to pull the populace together after the divisions of the Civil War, and we have the universal childhood admonition “Don’t take candy from strangers.”

by Cynthia Beech Lawrence

Another of my favorite paintings in the April 18^th & 19^th sale is also by a Philadelphia native and student of The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Mildred Bunting Miller (1892-1964).

Born in Philadelphia, Miller studied at the Academy from 1910 through 1915 under Thomas Anshutz, Hugh Breckenridge, Daniel Garber, Robert Vonnoh, and Violet Oakley. A recognized talent, she twice won both the Cresson Travel Scholarship and the Mary Smith prize. Mildred’s vocation was set. She wrote “No one knows better than an art student the difficulty- almost the impossibility- of capturing the fleeting beauty that is life. But the desire to do this becomes almost a religion.” (Brown, p.27)

Mildred Bunting Miller has a special connection to our area. After graduating from PAFA at the age of twenty-three, she married classmate Roy Miller, who was hired to manage PAFA’s new country school program in Historic Yellow Springs. Mildred became resident artist, co-director, and instructor. During the years 1916 to 1934, Miller painted and taught classes in the old ochre-washed Small Barn Studio and the surrounding village, which had been purchased in its entirety by PAFA. The country school became wildly successful and extended to year-round attendance. Students were frequently seen gathered around models both animal and human, or found plein air painting among the mineral springs and farm fields. While Miller’s art flourished and was exhibited in museums and galleries, her marriage to Roy crumbled and his management became erratic. In 1934 the Millers were forced to leave the country school, setting up one of their own nearby; but this school was Roy’s dream, not Mildred’s, and although all of her and their money was sunk into it, Mildred departed to paint commissions and teach elsewhere, from New Jersey to Baltimore. Finally, in 1945, she got on a bus for San Diego alone. In California she settled down,  buying a small fruit tree farm and teaching art for state-sponsored programs. She relished her independence and lifestyle. Solitude led to more time for painting and for introspection. She filled many journals, which have been published in book form by her niece Virginia Brown, Mildred Miller Remembered. Her writings reveal that her mind constantly returned to the inequity of the male-dominated art world (and world in general) and her years in Chester Springs. Plagued by self-doubt, Mildred’s moods alternated between the elation of a job well done, and the day-to-day reality of toiling in obscurity and achieving little fame or glory. Regardless of the prizes she had won and the praise her work received, she was not considered to be a great artist during her lifetime. She wrote “But when my body is no longer on earth my paintings will still be hung in people’s homes. They will glance at them as they go about their work. They will not think of me! But there I shall be, what I saw they will still have in their minds,” (Brown, p. 181).

Miller’s strong prismatic colors and broken brushstroke technique identify her as a Pennsylvania Impressionist, specifically, as a student of Daniel Garber. Her paintings have clarity, and a masterful handling of light.

In this still life, the table spreads horizontally from the viewer like landscape, the horizon disappearing over the table’s edge like the curvature of the earth, the distant wall the atmosphere. The plane is tilted toward the viewer, the perspective looks down on the dinner napkin, yet there is almost a side view of the wine bottle in the distance. The composition is strong and balanced, with parallel lines and angles that lead the eye. The forms are defined by variation of color. The napkin is sculptural. Miller’s brushstrokes also show dimension, particularly of the table. One of my favorite things about this still life is the tablecloth, with its vertical and horizontal brushstrokes, the latter shimmering like the flakes in an opal. The surface is fascinating, as is the sense of space.

Mildred Bunting Miller exhibited at the Academy, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery, the National Academy of Design, the Phillips Memorial, and many other places. Her works can be found in the collection of the Woodmere Art Museum and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

By Cynthia Beech Lawrence

–The Woodmere Art Museum

–Brown, Virginia, Mildred Miller Remembered, Xlibris, 2006.

Walter Steumpfig (1914-1970) was one of Philadelphia’s most influential painters of the mid-20^th century. A Philadelphia native born in Germantown, Steumpfig studied at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Henry McCarter, Daniel Garber, and Francis Speight. In 1934 he won the Cresson Travel Scholarship for study abroad and headed to Europe, where he studied his idols Poussin, Caravaggio, and Corot. He exhibited regularly at the Durlacher Brothers Gallery in New York, and the Pennsylvania Academy, later becoming the Academy’s teacher of composition and drawing.

Steumpfig’s style was personal and fresh, outside the mainstream of his contemporaries. He considered himself a “romantic realist”, and was noted for his figure compositions and Philadelphia and New Jersey shore landscapes. These views, with just a few people embedded in the landscape, invoke an aura of mystery and detachment in their composition, as in the work of contemporary Edward Hopper, with whom he was frequently compared.

“Marshland” is an example of Steumpfig’s best landscape works. The composition is based on light values and structure. Bathed in the golden light of afternoon, seven boys are engaged not too seriously in activity along the riverbank, reminiscent of Poussin’s shepherds. The intensely illuminated foreground, bare torsos and bright articles of clothing, immediately engage the viewer. The immensity of the river is matched above by a sky with white clouds. On the far riverbank, the afternoon sun illuminates the spring green of the trees, and the undersides of the clouds. The poetic realism sets a mood, sending the viewer back in time to antiquity, but appears fresh, with fluid, modern brushstrokes. It is impossible not to want to join the group on the riverbank and soak in the sun’s rays.

“Marshland” bears a Maynard Walker Gallery label verso. A New York City art dealer from 1935 to 1975, Maynard Walker was among the first to show works of leading American regionalist painters. Walker is noted for organizing the 1933 exhibit in Kansas City that first brought together the works of Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood.

Today Walter Steumpfig’s works can be found in the collections of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Phillips Collection.

by: Cynthia Beech Lawrence