Full Details for Lot 759

American Memento Mori Embroidery by Eliza Siter

1806, probably Philadelphia, variety of stitches in fine silk, cotton, and chenille threads on a silk ground, background, hands, and heads delicately rendered in watercolor, central monument inscribed "In Memory of an Affectionate Father, Adam Siter".
Presented in an antique giltwood frame; glazing with a gilt and black eglomise border.
sight 23" x 24-1/4", framed 30-3/4" x 31-5/8"

Literature: John Woolf Jordan A History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and its People (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1914); Gilbert Cope Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Chester and Delaware Counties, Pennsylvania (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1914), p. 274.

Notes: A prominent Pennsylvania industrial family, the Siters owned tan yards and mills throughout Delaware County. Accounts of 1776, 1782 and 1788 list Adam Siter as primary owner - by 1802, his name has disappeared from the records and is replaced variously by John, William and Edward Siter - presumably his heirs. His daughter Eliza wed David Wilson, also an industrialist, in 1811; they had seven children.

The composition, color palette and stitching technique of this fine memorial embroidery bears a striking resemblance to such works created by the young women of the famed Folwell School of Embroidery in Philadelphia.

Estimate $1,000-1,500