(DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE) Early handkerchief printing of

Sale 2633 - Lot 85

Price Realized: $ 1,625

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

Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000

(DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.) Early handkerchief printing of the Declaration with facsimile signatures and state seals. Copperplate engraving on cotton, 32 x 26 1/2 inches; foxing, 7-inch tear along horizontal fold with slight loss, other small areas of loss and minor wear, lightly stitched to a later sheet of backing paper. No place, circa 1820s

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The first handkerchief of this design was apparently produced in 1821 by Colin Gillespie of Glasgow, Scotland for the American market. It took its basic design from the 1819 William Woodruff printing of the Declaration, with an interior oval oak wreath frame featuring of portraits of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, and the seals of the 13 original states. The facsimile signatures are taken from the Binns broadside of the same year (or perhaps from Woodruff's separately printed sheet of facsimiles), though with some rearrangement, and the oval is topped with draped spears and an eagle much as Woodruff had used. Gillespie added two vignettes in the lower corners: one of the Boston Tea Party ("the Patriotic Bostonians discharging the British Ships in Boston harbour") and another of "Genl. Burgoyn's Surrender to Genl. Gates at Saratoga."

The New York National Advocate newspaper offered a glowing review of the production in 1821, calling it "the finest specimen of printing on cambric ever produced" and urging that "our manufacturers should make it a practice to print their handkerchiefs with such representations of national events as will tend to perpetuate them, by exciting patriotic feelings, and keeping alive the remembrance of such events." The review was reprinted in several newspapers across the country, such as the York Independent Republican of 22 May 1821, Hagerstown Torch Light of 29 May 1821, Maryland Gazette of 31 May 1821, and the Vincennes Western Sun of 30 June 1821.

We have seen at least three different textile printings using this design, each with different borders and other subtle differences. One has a border of stars circled in rope; and one has a border of grape vines, beehives, and flags. The present example has a border of cannons, anchors, and stacked cannon balls. None are dated and none bear any imprint line. It is possible that the later printings were done in the United States in imitation of Gillespie's work. All three versions would appear to date from the 1820s. Two examples of the present version appear in Collins, Threads of History, 23 and 58.