Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library

"Degree Night at the Robing Room"
1935-1939
Frank Abner Stockwell (1890-1970)
USA: New York, Buffalo
Oil on canvas
frame: 40-1/4"h x 47-1/4"w x 3"d
Extended Loan from Buffalo Consistory, Valley of Buffalo, New York, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, USA
EL2006.001.2

"Degree Night at the Robing Room," shows members of a Masonic Scottish Rite degree cast getting dressed and made up to perform a degree.

In this work, artist Frank A. Stockwell captured a scene backstage, as Scottish Rite Masons prepare to present a degree. A commercial artist, Stockwell was a Scottish Rite Mason with firsthand knowledge of staging degrees. After his death, his brothers remembered him for “his dramatic roles in many of the degrees.” For further information, see Burgess, Richard B., et al., "A Sublime Brotherhood: Two Hundred Years of Scottish Rite Freemasonry in the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction," 2013, p.131 AND see blog post, June 14, 2011 http://nationalheritagemuseum.typepad.com/library_and_archives/2011/06/inspired-by-fashion-american-masonic-regalia.html