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Florence E. NosworthyLaundry Day. Child hanging cloths in Breeze. Cover. The Household Guest1930
1930
$9,000
£6,682.02
€7,786.39
CA$12,494.91
A$13,976.34
CHF 7,273.37
MX$172,053.50
NOK 92,532.33
SEK 86,813.56
DKK 58,094.26
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About the Item
The Artist captures a "caught moment" of cloths blowing in the wind. It's being witnessed by an inquisitive bird, while be ducklings and a cute kitty cat accompany her.
Signed lower left.
Cover illustration for The Household Guest, published March 1930
Housed in a beautiful high-end contemporary frame that has a distressed looked.
Signed "Fle. Nosworthy" in lower left image.
Matted with double mat ; and archivally frame
- Creator:Florence E. Nosworthy (1872 - 1936, American)
- Creation Year:1930
- Dimensions:Height: 13 in (33.02 cm)Width: 10.75 in (27.31 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:a few very minor surface issues commensurate with age. Otherwise the work is ready to hand.
- Gallery Location:Miami, FL
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU38536720592

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View AllThe Sunbonnet Babies - Modernist Female Artist
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Bertha Corbett Melcher's The Sunbonnet Babies, with their flat, minimalist, semi-abstract, and symbolic style, are an early example of American Modernism/Surrealism by a lesser-known female artist/illustrator. The present work demonstrates a delicate balance between abstraction and representation and between the commonplace and the mysterious. Her signature use of a hat or sunbonnet to hide the identity of her subjects is a big conceptual and visual idea that has been overlooked in the fine art canon. The exact meaning of this is unknown, but 120 years after they were done, it resonates as somewhat surrealistic. Her work is a contradiction. She shows innocent children engaging in everyday activity but are depicted in vail of mystery. Why does she not show the faces of her subjects?
Watercolor on paper (each)
Six drawings in all on one board. 6-1/8 x 5 inches (15.6 x 12.7 cm) (each)
One signed; two initialed; three not signed.
Six drawing in all on one board. 6-1/8 x 5 inches (15.6 x 12.7 cm) (each)
One signed; two initialed; three not signed
The Sunbonnet Babies characters were created by illustration Bertha L. Corbett when she was challenged to create a faceless character who nonetheless was engaging and appealing. The characters were a wild hit and appeared in books, comics, and popular collectibles. They also became a popular motif in quilting. Few of Corbett's original drawings for the babies are known to survive, making this a rare offering.
From: Wikipedia
Sunbonnet Babies are characters created by commercial artist Bertha Corbett Melcher (1872–1950). Sunbonnet Babies featured two girls in pastel colored dresses with their faces covered by sunbonnets. Sunbonnet Babies appeared in books, illustrations and advertisements between the years of 1900 and 1930. Sunbonnet Babies were later used as a popular quilting pattern also known as Sunbonnet Sue.[1] Melcher created a male version of the Sunbonnet Babies, named the 'Overall Boys' in 1905.[2][3]
History
Bertha L. Corbett Melcher
Sunbonnet Babies were created by Bertha Corbett Melcher (1872–1950).[4] Melcher was born in Denver and moved with her family to Minneapolis in the 1880s. Melcher attended art school in Minneapolis with plans to become a commercial artist.[5] She may have also studied with Howard Pyle.[6] By the 1920s, Melcher had moved to Topanga, California.[7][4]
Melcher started drawing the Sunbonnet Babies in 1897. The origin of the signature style of the faces being covered by sunbonnets is contested by different members of Melcher's family and by Melcher herself. In an interview, Melcher's brother said their mother suggested Bertha avoid the difficulty of drawing faces by covering them with sunbonnets.[4] Melcher herself said that covering faces allowed her to communicate with body position.[4] Melcher has also said that the design came about in "answer to a friend’s challenge to convey emotion without a face."[2]
Melcher published her first book, The Sun-Bonnet Babies in 1900.[3] Later, she shopped her illustrations to publisher Rand McNally of Chicago, and nine subsequent books were written by Eulalie Osgood Grover and illustrated by Bertha Corbett. In 1905, Melcher wrote The Overall Boys.[3] Many of these books were used as primers and used widely in primary schools in the midwest.
Melcher used the sunbonnet babies in advertising and later established the Sunbonnet Babies Company. She started a studio to illustrate and create merchandise of the Sunbonnet Babies.[2] The characters also appeared in a comic strip.[2]
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Melcher herself did not originate the use of the sunbonnet babies as quilting pattern. The Sunbonnet Babies quilting pattern appeared in textile art 1910's in the Ladies Home Journal 1911–1912 in a quilt stitched by Marie Webster. The pattern was popular during the Great Depression. In the American South, it was often known as "Dutch Doll" until the 1970s.[3] There was also a quilt pattern based on the "Overall Boys," known by the various names including “Overall Bill, “Overall Andy,” “Sunbonnet Sam,” “Suspender Sam,” “Fisherman Jim."[3] Many patterns for quilts and sewing were designed by Ruby Short McKim and published in nationally syndicated newspapers.[8]
Sunbonnet Sue became symbolic of 'female innocence and docility'.[9] Linda Pershing collected accounts from women quilters who depicted 'Sues' doing activities such as smoking, wearing more revealing clothing, and subverting feminine stereotypes.[10] In 1979, the “Seamsters Union Local #500," a group of quilters from Lawrence, Kansas, created “The Sun Sets on Sunbonnet Sue," a quilt depicting the character murdered in a variety of ways.[3]
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Sunbonnet Babies merchandise includes school books, valentines cards, postcards, china, and quilts.[2][5][11]
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Early life and training
During the 1870s, Upjohn's family lived with her grandfather, a well-known architect named Richard Upjohn who had retired to a scenic home in Garrison, New York. Richard Upjohn's biographer says when she was about five she would accompany him as he sketched and painted. She questioned him about his color choices and learned that artists often chose colors different from the ones present in the subjects they painted. He also showed her engravings of famous paintings, explaining what made them great and where they fell short in his view.[2] Her family was living in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin when she graduated from high school in 1887.[3] A few years later, the family moved to New York, where, in the early 1890s, she took classes at the Cooper Union Woman's Art School.[4] She began her foreign travels in 1893 and during the next few years studied art in Munich, Florence, and Paris.[5] In 1902, she took an illustration class at the National Academy of Design and the following year won the Academy's Suydam silver medal for her work.[6] Between 1909 and 1912, she studied and traveled in Europe's other major cities.[7] In 1922, Upjohn told a reporter that she had studied art "in many places, usually for a few months at a time and disconnectedly, but what counted most was the work she did in Paris under Castelucho and Lucien Simon.”[1] Born in Barcelona, Castelucho's birth name was Claudi Catelucho Diana, but he went by his surname alone. In Paris during the early years of the twentieth century, he and Simon both trained private students and both taught at two mondernist alternatives to the École des Beaux Arts: the Académie Colarossi and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.[8] Upjohn did not say whether she took private lessons, classes, or both.
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