Mourning Picture for Bezaleel Woodward (1745-1804)

Annette Woodward, American, 1787 - 1824

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about 1810

Silk satin embroidered with silk thread, handpainted

Image: 19 1/4 × 14 in. (48.9 × 35.6 cm)

Overall: 21 5/8 × 16 1/2 in. (54.9 × 41.9 cm)

Frame: 26 × 21 1/8 in. (66 × 53.7 cm)

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of Mrs. John Howes Waters in memory of her husband

T.933.13

Geography

Place Made: United States, North America

Period

19th century

Object Name

Textile

Research Area

Decorative Arts

Not on view

Inscriptions

Inscribed: Bezaleel Woodward Esqr Obit Augst 25th 1804 AE 59

Label


This artwork resulted from a collaboration between embroiderer Annette Woodward and an unknown artist who painted the figure’s face and portions of the background. Woodward’s elaborate needlework in golds, greens, blues, and pink flowers draped over the coffin might appear macabre, but such works became popular during a period of national mourning following George Washington’s death in 1799. 

In her exquisitely worked textile, Woodward honored the memory of her father, Bezaleel Woodward (1745–1804), who served as Dartmouth’s first librarian, as a trustee, as treasurer, and as the College’s first professor of mathematics and natural philosophy. In the early 19th century, upper-class women learned needlework in private academies, where they copied prints or pictures made by their teacher.

From the 2024 exhibition Beyond the Bouquet: Arranging Flowers in American Art, curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

HIST 27, WGST 23, Gender and Power in American History from the Colonial Period to the Civil War, Leslie Butler, Spring 2012

Exhibition History

American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, William B. Jaffe and Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 9-December 9, 2007.

American Art, Colonial to Modern, Israel Sack Gallery and Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26- July 21, 2019.

American Decorative Arts at Dartmouth, Jaffe-Friede and Strass Galleries, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 10-March 1, 1981.

Beyond the Bouquet: Arranging Flowers in American Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 18, 2024 - late 2025.

Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, July 16, 2015.

The Object World, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, ARTH2, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 5-March 15, 2015.

Publication History

Dick Hoefnagel and Virginia L. Close, Charles N. Haskins and the Woodward Room at Baker Library, The Dartmouth College Library Bulletin, Nov. 1998, XXXIX No. 1, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, November 1998, p. 14-25, ill. p. 15.

Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 212-213, no. 187.

John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 108, ill. plate no. 39.

Provenance

From the artist, Annette Woodward Searle (1789-1824); bequeathed to a distant relative on her husband, the Reverend Thomas Coleman Searle, Class of 1812 (1787-1820) side, Annette Howes Waters; to her son, John Howes Waters (1852-1933); to his wife, Mrs. John Howes Waters; given to present collection, 1933.

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