(CONNECTICUT) Faxon Elisha The Agreeable Surprize

Sale 2287 - Lot 199

Price Realized: $ 6,240

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000

(CONNECTICUT.) Faxon, Elisha. The Agreeable Surprize. Manuscript broadside, 15 3/4 x 12 1/2 inches, with watercolor illustration and decorative borders; minor loss at folds, minor foxing, 2 tape repairs and mount remnants on verso. Stonington, CT, 18 November 1793

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Additional Details

Elisha Faxon (1771-1849) was a Stonington merchant when he wrote out this artistic presentation of romantic poetry in 1793. Faxon took his poetry from popular sources of the day. "The Agreeable Surprize," which fills the top half of the sheet, had been published in "The Goldfinch, or, New Modern Songster" in 1782. It tells the story of a shepherd who falls in love with a beautiful maiden he finds asleep in a field, and concludes "Yesterday made her his bride."
The recipient of this advance, Abigail "Nabby" Hallam (1760-1842), was considerably older than Faxon. She never married, but Faxon did a year later--to Nabby's younger sister Desire Hallam (1769-1828).
Provenance: Property of Avis and Rockwell Gardiner, when it was reproduced in the January 1984 issue of Country Life.