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Lot Essay
Painted and inscribed when the artist was fourteen years old, this watercolor tribute to George Washington is a rare survival of “schoolboy” artwork from early America. In the early nineteenth century, girls’ education placed great emphasis on needlework, drawing and painting resulting in a large body of surviving “schoolgirl” art. In contrast, boys were exposed to a range of academic subjects but rarely produced tangible evidence of their learned skills. Here, Asa Alford Tufts (1798-1884) displays his artistic and penmanship abilities by rendering a profile of George Washington under a Masonic arch with transcriptions of verse. The profile is an indirect copy of Joseph Wright’s 1790 etching, which was widely copied by other engravers. The son of Asa Tufts (1764-1799) and Martha Harris (1771-1854), Asa was born in Dover, New Hampshire, where he lived throughout his adult life. He was educated in Malden, Massachusetts as well as at “several private academies” and presumably executed this work at one of these schools.
Possible direct sources for this image include Amos Doolittle’s “Display of the United States,” produced in several versions during the 1790s, an illustration by Samuel Wetherbee for sheet music for the “Battle of Prague” sonate published in Boston in 1810, and an unknown artist’s rendition published in Edinburgh in 1791 (for one of the Doolittle engravings, see Mount Vernon, acc. no. SC-4; for examples of the latter two, see Charles Henry Hart, Engraved Portraits of Washington (New York, 1904), nos. 153a, 158 also discussed at rareflags.com). Like the image on this watercolor, all three reverse the direction of Wright’s profile. Tuft’s watercolor features a bust with S-shaped lower edge like those on the works of Wright, Doolittle and Wetherbee; however, the knot in Tufts’ epaulette is rendered with a simple X cross, a detail only seen elsewhere in the Scottish work. Tufts was probably working from an uncolored print as he mistakenly rendered the collar of the shirt in the blue of the jacket instead of white.
The text transcribed by Tufts appears to be an amalgamation of at least two poems. One of these is “Ode to the President” by eighteenth-century Boston’s most illustrious poet, Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton, which was first published in 1789 and includes the lines “Of Age the HOPE, of Youth the LEADING STAR/ The Soul of PEACE, the CONQUERING ARM OF WAR” (somewhat inaccurately reproduced by Tufts in lines three and four; see William Thomas Sherman, Forgotten Poems and Poets of Early America, 1776-1805, p. 48). The four lines beginning with “Fame stretch’d her wings…,” are the verse written on a page inserted in the Bible used to administer the oath of President to Washington on April 30, 1789. Hastily provided at that first inauguration by New York’s St. John’s Lodge, the bible and the poem remain the property of the Lodge today. The son of a Mason and later a Mason himself, Tufts depicted Washington within a Masonic arch and was no doubt aware of the verse’s Masonic associations.
Upon leaving school, Asa Tufts entered into a partnership and later ran a highly successful business selling apothecary wares and painting supplies. He subsequently was a cashier at the Strafford Bank and held numerous and wide-ranging civic positions within the Dover community from City Treasurer to Secretary of the Haydn Society. He married Hannah Phillips Gilman (1800-1869) in 1820 and the couple had four children, including John Wheeler Tufts (1825-1908), a renowned musician and composer. Masonry appears to have been a life-long interest of Asa’s. His father had been the first Mason made at Dover’s Federal Lodge, which operated from 1792 to 1797 and Asa A. Tufts was later an officer in the Strafford Lodge, no. 29. In his 1884 will, he bequests to his daughter Caroline, “the old Mason mourning ring which I have worn for many years” (Jay Franklin Tufts, Tufts Family History (Cleveland Heights, Ohio, 1963), p. 152; History of Rockingham and Strafford Counties, New Hampshire, vol. 3 (Philadelphia, 1882), p. 842; New Hampshire, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1643-1982, available at ancestry.com).
As detailed in G.W. Samaha’s 1985 receipt, this watercolor descended in the Tufts family until 1985, when Samaha purchased it at an auction in Wilmington (presumably Delaware) on July 5 of that year.
Possible direct sources for this image include Amos Doolittle’s “Display of the United States,” produced in several versions during the 1790s, an illustration by Samuel Wetherbee for sheet music for the “Battle of Prague” sonate published in Boston in 1810, and an unknown artist’s rendition published in Edinburgh in 1791 (for one of the Doolittle engravings, see Mount Vernon, acc. no. SC-4; for examples of the latter two, see Charles Henry Hart, Engraved Portraits of Washington (New York, 1904), nos. 153a, 158 also discussed at rareflags.com). Like the image on this watercolor, all three reverse the direction of Wright’s profile. Tuft’s watercolor features a bust with S-shaped lower edge like those on the works of Wright, Doolittle and Wetherbee; however, the knot in Tufts’ epaulette is rendered with a simple X cross, a detail only seen elsewhere in the Scottish work. Tufts was probably working from an uncolored print as he mistakenly rendered the collar of the shirt in the blue of the jacket instead of white.
The text transcribed by Tufts appears to be an amalgamation of at least two poems. One of these is “Ode to the President” by eighteenth-century Boston’s most illustrious poet, Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton, which was first published in 1789 and includes the lines “Of Age the HOPE, of Youth the LEADING STAR/ The Soul of PEACE, the CONQUERING ARM OF WAR” (somewhat inaccurately reproduced by Tufts in lines three and four; see William Thomas Sherman, Forgotten Poems and Poets of Early America, 1776-1805, p. 48). The four lines beginning with “Fame stretch’d her wings…,” are the verse written on a page inserted in the Bible used to administer the oath of President to Washington on April 30, 1789. Hastily provided at that first inauguration by New York’s St. John’s Lodge, the bible and the poem remain the property of the Lodge today. The son of a Mason and later a Mason himself, Tufts depicted Washington within a Masonic arch and was no doubt aware of the verse’s Masonic associations.
Upon leaving school, Asa Tufts entered into a partnership and later ran a highly successful business selling apothecary wares and painting supplies. He subsequently was a cashier at the Strafford Bank and held numerous and wide-ranging civic positions within the Dover community from City Treasurer to Secretary of the Haydn Society. He married Hannah Phillips Gilman (1800-1869) in 1820 and the couple had four children, including John Wheeler Tufts (1825-1908), a renowned musician and composer. Masonry appears to have been a life-long interest of Asa’s. His father had been the first Mason made at Dover’s Federal Lodge, which operated from 1792 to 1797 and Asa A. Tufts was later an officer in the Strafford Lodge, no. 29. In his 1884 will, he bequests to his daughter Caroline, “the old Mason mourning ring which I have worn for many years” (Jay Franklin Tufts, Tufts Family History (Cleveland Heights, Ohio, 1963), p. 152; History of Rockingham and Strafford Counties, New Hampshire, vol. 3 (Philadelphia, 1882), p. 842; New Hampshire, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1643-1982, available at ancestry.com).
As detailed in G.W. Samaha’s 1985 receipt, this watercolor descended in the Tufts family until 1985, when Samaha purchased it at an auction in Wilmington (presumably Delaware) on July 5 of that year.