Written by “Plenty” allegorical sculpture
Workshop of JOHN SKILLIN (1746–1800) and SIMEON SKILLIN, JR. (1757–1806)
Wood, probably White Pine, gessoed and painted white
Boston, c. 1790
H: 22¼”
The fully articulated painted, carved-wood, standing allegorical sculpture of “Plenty,” draped in flowing robes and with a laurel wreath on her head is holding a cornucopia issuing fruit, standing on a molded rectangular plinth. The Cornucopia was a devise of a ram’s horn overflowing with fruit and wheat, as symbol of abundance, also referred to as a horn of plenty. This devise is often used in classical iconography such as in a pair of figural candelabra, seen here.
Condition: An approximately 3 inch piece of the narrow end of the cornucopia is broken off and missing. There are old breaks at the crook of the figure’s proper left arm and at the base of the fingers of her left hand. These brakes have been restored by a conservator. There are small losses to the upper-most point of her garment and to laurel leaves at the back of the head on both right and left sides. There is a very old loss and repair to the proper right corner of the plinth. There is a cluster of small nail holes on the back of Plenty’s garment where the figure was attached to a wall.
In the second half on the 18th century, the Skillin brothers were the preeminent carvers of the city of Boston. According to Sylvia Lahvis, “they fashioned figureheads, stern board figures, scrolls, brackets and catheads for ships of the Continental Navy and the United States Navy, merchant ships and privateers; They also carved emblematic busts and figures for the homes and gardens of the wealthiest merchants in coastal Massachusetts.”[1]
This figure is closely related to that of the allegorical figure of Hope, attributed to the Skillins, also gessoed and painted white, in the collection at Winterthur Museum, and relates to the reclining figure of Plenty, documented to the Skillins, on the chest-on-chest made by Stephen Badlam for Elias Hasket Derby in 1791 (now at the Yale University Art Gallery). Another related figure attributed to the Skillins, possibly of “Peace,” is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1791, Derby commissioned the Skillins to carve the figurehead and other decorations for his ship, Grand Turk, one of the largest ships built in America at the time. Two years later, Derby, who also patronized the great Salem carver, Samuel McIntire, commissioned ornamental carved figures from the Skillins for his new home including a hermit, a shepherdess, a gardener and a figure representing Plenty.[2] It is not known if this is that figure. The relatively flat contour of the figure’s back suggests that it may have been made to be placed against a wall and/or above a door.
Surviving examples of the work of these important artists are exceedingly rare.
O-DT-2302152
[1] Sylvia Leistyna Lahvis, “The Skillin Workshop and the Language of Spectacle” Winterthur Museum Journal, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Winter, 1992), pp. 213-233.
[2] Pauline A Pinckney, American Figureheads and their Carvers (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1940), 55.
