Rebecca elizabeth davis picture

Rebecca Davis Patrick (1797-1835), Worcester County, Massachusetts, c. 1815
Depicting a mourning woman clad in blue next to a tomb under a willow tree, the row of buildings in background including a view of Boston's Faneuil Hall likely copied from an illustration printed in the March 1789 issue of Massachusetts Magazine; the tomb inscribed: "In Memory of Levi Davis Who was Born Feby 1 and died Feby 4 1796 & Simon G Davis Who Was born Jany 10 1813 and Died June 20 1815."
eglomisé mat signed "Rebecca Davis" (lower right)
watercolor, pen and ink on paper decorated with silver thread with an eglomisé surround and likely original frame
38.1 x 42.5cm (15 x 16 3/4 in).

Footnotes

Provenance
Important Americana: The Bertram K. Little and Nina Fletcher Little Collection, Part I, Sale 6526, Sotheby's, New York, New York (29 January 1994), Lot 192.
Collection of Thomas D. Williams, Litchfield, Connecticut, 1954.

Literature
Illustrated in Nina Fletcher Little, Little by Little: Six Decades of Collecting American Decorative Arts, (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1984), fig. 187, p. 142.

Exhibitions
Land and Seascape as Observed by the Folk Artist, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection, Williamsburg, Virgin

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Star of Lemoyne Quilt

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Rebecca DavisAmerican

Not on view

This Star of Lemoyne quilt, along with two others in the Museum’s collection (1980.498.1 and 1980.498.2) was made by Rebecca Davis, grandmother of the donor, Mrs. Andrew Galbraith Carey. Although this example is not signed, it can be assumed that all of Davis’ quilts in the collection were made sometime around 1846, since her Honeycomb quilt (1980.498.1) is dated to that year and all three share some of the same fabrics. Most of the fabrics sewn into these quilts appear to be English printed cottons, an attribution confirmed by the sections of English design-registration marks visible on a number of the pieces. The most complete mark is found on this quilt on a lavender cotton with star-shaped figures that identifies the fabric’s design as having been registered in 1844.

Of the three Davis quilts in the collection, this is the only one without a central focus. In her other two quilts, the centralized designs are subtle compared with those made earlier in the century (see 23.80.75). This illustrates the mid-nineteenth-century change of fashion from the pieced quilt with a strong central motif to the repeating block format that