Tag Archives: Auction Lots

November 3, 2025

A Sampler of Salem Folk Art

By daseger

Salem is not particularly known for its folk art, I think. The standard for craftsmanship during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century was so high, and production so prolific, that the curatorial and collecting emphasis always seems to be on the best and the brightest of the decorative arts rather than the more idiosyncratic. But I’m always looking for interesting examples of folk art, and every once in a while I do a round-up of samplers, silhouettes and signs. The Peabody Essex Museum has wonderful examples of Salem-made folk art in their huge collection, including my favorite trade sign, featuring a bust of Paracelsus made for James Emerton’s Essex Street apothecary shop, samplers from the famous Sarah Stivours school, and the “soft sculpture” (I’m not sure what else to call it) of textile artist, author and abolitionist Lucy Hiller Lambert Cleveland. And all manner of maritime objects of course. The amazing decoys of Captain Charles Osgood, carved while the Captain was biding his time waiting for his gold rush ship to set sail from San Francisco back to Salem in 1849 and hidden in a friend’s hunting lodge in Rowley for a century thereafter, are valued quite highly. Most are in the collection of the Shelburne Museum in Vermont, but one came up for auction recently with an impressive result.

Lucy Hiller (Lambert) Cleveland, Sailor’s Home, mid-1800s, cotton, wood, leather, pigments, Gift of Mary T. Saunders, 1915, Peabody Essex Museum; Sally Rust’s Sampler from the Sarah Stivours School, 1788, Peabody Essex Museum; three Osgood decoys, Shelburne Museum.

But a lot of anonymous pieces crafted in Salem seem to sell for very little money. There’s a painting of Salem Harbor by an anonymous artist coming up for auction later this month at Eldred’s Auctions that is so beautiful I could fall into it—and it has a higher starting bid than I’ve seen before for folk art marine paintings. It seems worth it; this is not just a painting of a ship, but of life on land and sea. Contrast this with another nautical view below, a reverse glass painting of “Ship Siam of Salem / Built 1847 / Capt. Ebenezer Graves” sold by Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates Auctions. There’s certainly a lot more going on. Also from Evans, these two wonderful carved allegorical figures, which were apparently located at Salem Willows! I really can’t imagine where, precisely. Silhouettes cut in Salem appear at auctions frequently, but I’m not sure these would count as Salem art as such artists seemed to have been characteristically itinerant.

Folk art painting of Salem Harbor, Eldred’s Auctions; reverse glass painting and allegorical figures, Jeffrey S. Evans & Associations Auctions; Massachusetts cutwork silhouette “of S.P.H. of Salem, cut by S.A.D,” Dovetail Auctions.

Besides the first painting above, my favorite recent folk art finds are twentieth-century creations: a c. 1910 popcorn popper and a wooden house purse made by Mercedes Hitchcock of Houston, Texas. You can find more about her business, “Houses by Hitchcock,” here. Apparently women from all over the country would send in photographs of their houses to her, and she would make scale model wooden pocketbooks for them! The owner of a Summer Street house commissioned a purse, and it came up for auction a few years ago. I’ve got to go for a walk–not quite sure which house it is. But it’s November, so safe now.

Scary Salem Popcorn Popper, c. 1910; Mercedes Hitchcock Folk Art Wooden Salem House Purse, Fairfield Auction; Salem Popcorn Popper, Bray & Co. Auctions.