Register

A Global Perspective Circa 1835

By Peggy Roalf   Wednesday November 25, 2015


"Think Big" might have been the mantra of American school-masters and -'marms in the decades following the "second American Revolution". After the War of 1812, civic leaders and merchants put historical rivalries aside, concentrating instead on expansion and industrialization, and pouring resources into education. 

Students of the time tested their memory and developed a global perspective by studying geography. This Map of the Animal Kingdom, painted around 1835, was based on a pictorial atlas published a few years earlier. Thought to be made at the Litchfield Female Academy, the delicate border of thorny roses draws on stencil patterns commonly used in the decorative arts of the time.

Map of the Animal Kingdom was included in the 2012 American Folk Art Museum exhibition Compass: Folk Art in Four DirectionsInfo


DART