Details
Creator Douglass, S. M. (Sarah Mapps), 1806-1882, artist.
Title No marvel woman should love flowers... [graphic] / Selected by S.M. Douglass.
Publisher PA. Philadelphia. 1833
Date [ca. 1833]
Physical Description 1 drawing: watercolor and gouache; sheet 24 x 19 cm (9.5 x 7.25 in.)
Description Album page containing a drawing of coupled red and blue flowers above six lines of allegorical verse about unappreciated beauty. Shows the red camellia with fluffy stamens below three, five-petal blue flowers, possibly forget-me-nots. The flowers are also depicted with buds, leaves, and stems. The stem of the red flower contains thorns.
Notes Title from manuscript verse.
Date inferred from complementary entries in album.
Contains six lines of verse: No marvel woman should love flowers, they bear/ So much of fanciful similitude/ To her own history; like herself repaying/ With such sweet interest all the cherishing/ That calls their beauty or their sweetness forth;/ And like her too—dying beneath neglect. Verse from a poem by English writer Letitia Elizabeth Landon that was frequently published, including in the Ladies’ Miscellany (Salem, Mass., April 7, 1830).
RVCDC
Description revised 2022.
Access points revised 2022.
Biographical / historical note Douglass, was an artist, prominent Quaker member of the Philadelphia African American elite community, educator, and anti-slavery activist.
Subject Beauty.
Flowers.
Poetry.
Thorns.
African American women artists -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia.
Genre Gouaches -- 1830-1840.
Watercolors -- 1830-1840.
Location Library Company of Philadelphia| Print Department| Amy Matilda Cassey album [P.9764.24]
Accession number P.9764.24