Dolly Warriner Silk Embroidery,
Mary Balch School, Providence, Rhode Island,
circa 1810

Sight size:
17" x 21½"
Framed size:
23" x 28½"

Price: $18,500

Enlarged and Printer Version

An outstanding group of silk embroidered memorials was made at Mary Balch's renowned school in Providence, Rhode Island. Examples were included in the groundbreaking and scholarly exhibition at The Rhode Island Historical Society in 1983 entitled Let Virtue Be a Guide to Thee: Needlework in the Education of Rhode Island Women 1730 - 1830, and are published in the book by the same title by curator Betty Ring. Writing specifically about the silk embroidered memorials from this school, Mrs. Ring states that these ambitious embroideries are identified by their shimmering willow trees, marbleized monuments with blended shading and the extremely fine black silk lettering used for the epitaphs.

This is an outstanding and large embroidery with extremely fine needlework and a composition that includes the characteristics that best represent the Balch School memorials. These specific marble monuments, a large, graceful willow and a neoclassical column in ruins dominate the setting, with abundant foliage in the foreground and a painted sky forming the background. Three members of the Warriner family are honored on the monuments, Deacon Noah Warriner, his wife, Mrs. Mary Warriner (born Mary Ainsworth of Providence, Rhode Island in 1751) and one of their children, Mary Warriner.

The maker was Dolly Warriner, born July 6, 1793, a younger sister of Mary. Dolly married in 1813 and must have attended the Balch School as a boarding student prior to her marriage. Her mother's ties to Providence would have likely contributed to this choice of school. In Let Virtue Be a Guide to Thee, Mrs. Ring writes, "Names were customarily painted on the glass mats, and the identity of the maker was often lost when the glass was broken." Indeed the original glass mat, inscribed D. Warriner, had broken but did remain with this embroidery, and a faithful reproduction of this reverse painted gold leaf and black paint mat has been made.

Deacon Noah Warriner was born in 1748 in Wilbraham, now part of Springfield, Massachusetts. He was a sergeant in the Revolutionary War and part of a brigade of Minute Men, serving in Roxbury and Lexington. Later he served as Town Clerk of Wilbraham. After his first wife died in 1778, he married Mary Ainsworth and they became the parents of seven children. A published family genealogy, The Warriner Family of New England Origin, by Rev. Edwin Warriner, 1899, contains much information about the family of Deacon Noah Warriner. The entire tragic narrative of the death of young Mary Warriner in 1799 at age 15 years and 9 months is included; she drowned during a sailing expedition on the local pond along with five young friends.

The needleworker, Dolly, married Col. Warren Lincoln, also of Wilbraham. They continued to reside there and became the parents of four children, William, Albert, Charlotte and Maria. The Warriner genealogy states that this Lincoln family is "one of the most influential in the nation" the same family as that of President Abraham Lincoln, however this information has not been confirmed. Their eldest, William Lincoln, was a noted business man in western Massachusetts whose wife was related to John Quincy Adams and other men who figured prominently in the history of this country.

An inked inscription was written onto the silk in the space provided, after the death of Mary Warriner in 1831, at age 79 years and 6 months.

It is in excellent condition and it is in a 19th century gold leaf frame.

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