Objects

Masonic Apron
ca. 1826
Mannevillette Elihu Dearing Brown (1810-1896)
USA: New Hampshire
Pen and ink on silk
overall: 17 in x 15 3/8 in
Loaned by the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts
GL2004.1113

White Silk Masonic apron with pen and ink design; blue silk border with linen backing. Apron design is slight variation of the Edward Horsman 1814 design. Traced (possibly) designs on silk include all-seeing eye, sun, moon, stars, columns, globes, arch, "G", flooring, ark, anchor, Bible, columns, plumb, hourglass, beehive, and others; on bottom, "Master Masons Apron / M.E. D. Brown". Under flap reads: #22 / S.K. Hutchinson." On reverse in pencil: "Bought in / Portsmouth N. H. / in the year 1826 / S.K. H." In pen in upper left "1749".


Mannevillette Elihu Deering Brown (1810-1896) painted this apron as a sixteen-year-old. At the time, he may have been studying drawing and painting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire—the town where the apron’s first owner purchased it. In ornamenting this apron, the young Brown likely copied an existing apron printed by Edward Horsman (1775-1819) in the 1810s. After studying in Portsmouth and Boston, Brown opened a lithography business in Philadelphia.