Joanna Quiner (August 27, 1796 – September 20, 1868) was an American seamstress and self-taught sculptor.
Early life
editQuiner was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, the daughter of Abraham Quiner, Jr. and Susannah Camell.[1]
Career
edit| External image | |
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 Sculpture of Robert Rantoul at the Boston Athenæum |
For much of her early life, Quiner worked as a seamstress in her hometown of Beverly and in nearby Salem; she did some upholstery for the family of Theodore Parker, and came to admire Parker's views. In 1838, she took a position in the household of Seth Bass, the librarian at the Boston Athenæum. She lived in the Athenaeum building with the Bass family; sculptor Shobal Vail Clevenger kept studio space there, and she observed him at work. She borrowed some of Clevenger's clay and crafted a likeness of Seth Bass that was of such quality that he encouraged her to continue her art. She was 42-year-old at the time.
Quiner exhibited work at the Athenaeum in 1846–48, and in 1847 worked there briefly as a gallery attendant in the Orpheus Room, but ill health combined with financial pressures caused her to give up sculpting and return to sewing in her last years.[2]
Quiner worked exclusively in plaster during her career.[3] Her best-known work is a portrait of Robert Rantoul, cast in plaster and presented to the Athenaeum in 1842;[2] it was the first sculpture by a woman to be shown there when it was exhibited in 1846.[4] She also crafted portrait busts of Fitch Poole, Alonzo Lewis, and James Frothingham,[2] whose own portrait of the sculptor is held by the Beverly Public Library in Beverly, Massachusetts.[5]
The Beverly Historical Society collection includes portrait busts of Quiner's father and of Phebe Ann Coffin Hanaford, a good friend. Hanaford wrote a biographical sketch of Quiner,[2] and also penned two sonnets inspired by her and her work.[6]
Death
editQuiner died either at her sister's residence in Lynn[7] or in her hometown of Beverly, and is buried in the Central Cemetery in Beverly.[1] A laudatory notice appeared in the Beverly Citizen around the time of her death.[8]
References
edit- ^ a b "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-01-31. Retrieved 2017-05-19.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ a b c d Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein (1990). American women sculptors: a history of women working in three dimensions. G.K. Hall. ISBN 978-0-8161-8732-4.
- ^ Patricia Cronin; Maura Reilly; American Academy in Rome (2009). Harriet Hosmer: lost and found : a catalogue raisonné. Charta. ISBN 978-88-8158-732-2.
- ^ "Robert Rantoul – Boston Athenæum". www.bostonathenaeum.org. Archived from the original on 24 February 2019. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
- ^ "Joanna Quiner". npg.si.edu. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
- ^ Phebe Ann Hanaford (1871). From Shore to Shore: And Other Poems. B.B. Russell. pp. 88–.
- ^ The New England Historical & Genealogical Register and Antiquarian Journal. S.G. Drake. 1869. pp. 211–.
- ^ Duane Hamilton Hurd (1888). History of Essex County, Massachusetts: With Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men. J.W. Lewis & Company. pp. 737–.