Frances Mecia Campbell, Mrs. Saunders and Miss Beach's Academy, and others
Telemachus and Mentor in the Island of Calipso
1806
Scroll
- Maker: Frances Mecia Campbell
- School: Mrs. Saunders and Miss Beach’s Academy
- Artist: Angelica Kauffmann
- Artist: Francesco Bartolozzi
- Framer Roxbury, Massachusetts: John Doggett
Telemachus and Mentor in the Island of Calipso
1806
Physical Qualities
Silk ground, silk embroidery threads, watercolor, 18 x 20 1/2 x 2 1/2 in. (45.7 x 52.1 x 6.4 cm.)
Credit Line
Purchase with exchange funds from Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James R. Herbert Boone; Gift of Maria Lovell Eaton and Mrs. Charles R. Weld; Gift of J. Gilman D'Arcy Paul; Bequest of John Henry Scarff; Gift of Florence Hendler Trupp; and Gift of the Women's Eastern Shore Society
Object Number
1989.352
Original gilded frame with eglomisé mat
Students at the fashionable Mrs. Saunders and Miss Beach’s Academy in Dorchester, Massachusetts, worked elegant silk embroideries based on themes from painting, literature, and antiquity. Frances Mecia Campbell’s exemplary embroidery depicts Telemachus, son of the Greek hero Odysseus, and his elderly companion, Mentor, shipwrecked on the island of the goddess Calypso. Decades earlier, in Europe, neoclassical artist Angelica Kauffman had painted this same subject. The image was subsequently reproduced by master engraver Francesco Bartolozzi, and his printed version made its way to America, where it was interpreted by needlework teachers for their students. Although Campbell stitched the embroidered portions, the faces and background may have been drawn and painted by her teacher, Clementina Beach, an accomplished woman who had studied with American portraitist Gilbert Stuart.
-The Baltimore Museum of Art: Celebrating a Museum. Baltimore, MD: The Baltimore Museum of Art, 2014.
Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 1989; Stephen and Carol Huber, Inc., by purchase, East Lyme, CT; Christie's, New York, NY June 4, 1988
Anita Jones, The Baltimore Museum of Art, "Lessons Learned: American Schoolgirl Embroideries," November 23, 2014-May 10, 2015.
Anita Jones, BMA, 'The Accomplished Stitch: American Samplers and Silk Embroideries from the Collection, May 11-July 20, 1997, no catalog, checklist, no. 15.
Wendy Cooper, BMA, "Classical Taste in America", 1800-1840, June 27-September 26, 1993.
"Important American Furniture, Silver, Folk Art and Decorative Arts," Christie's, New York, May 28-June 3, 1988.
Anita Jones, BMA, 'The Accomplished Stitch: American Samplers and Silk Embroideries from the Collection, May 11-July 20, 1997, no catalog, checklist, no. 15.
Wendy Cooper, BMA, "Classical Taste in America", 1800-1840, June 27-September 26, 1993.
"Important American Furniture, Silver, Folk Art and Decorative Arts," Christie's, New York, May 28-June 3, 1988.
"Important American Furniture, Silver, Folk Art and Decorative Arts," Christie's, NY (TOWER-6622), lot 107, p. 63, ill.
Wendy A. Cooper. Classical Taste in America 1800-1840. Baltimore, MD: Baltimore Museum of Art; New York: Abbeville Press, 1993, page 257.
Andre, Linda, and Jessica Skwire Routhier, eds. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Celebrating A Museum. Baltimore, Maryland: Baltimore Museum of Art, 2014.
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