Joanna Quiner, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Joanna Quiner

American seamstress and sculptor

Date of Birth: 27-Aug-1796

Place of Birth: Beverly, Massachusetts, United States

Date of Death: 20-Sep-1868

Profession: tailor, sculptor

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Virgo


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About Joanna Quiner

  • Joanna Quiner (August 27, 1796 – September 20, 1868) was an American seamstress and self-taught sculptor. Born in Beverly, Massachusetts, Quiner was the daughter of Abraham Quiner, Jr.
  • and Susannah Camell.
  • For much of her early life she worked as a seamstress, both in her hometown and in nearby Salem; she did some upholstery for the family of Theodore Parker, and came to admire his views.
  • In 1838 she took a position in the household of Seth Bass, librarian of the Boston Athenaeum.
  • She lived in the Athenaeum building with the Bass family; sculptor Shobal Vail Clevenger kept studio space there, and she would observe him at work.
  • One day she borrowed some of Clevenger's clay and crafted a likeness of Seth Bass that was of such quality that he encouraged her to continue her art.
  • She was forty-two at the time.
  • She exhibited work at the Athenaeum in 1846–48, and in 1847 worked there briefly as a gallery attendant in the Orpheus Room, but ill health combined with financial pressures caused her to give up sculpting and return to sewing in her last years.
  • Quiner died either at her sister's residence in Lynn or in her hometown of Beverly, and is buried in the Central Cemetery in Beverly.
  • A laudatory notice appeared in the Beverly Citizen around the time of her death. Quiner appears to have worked exclusively in plaster during her career.
  • Her best-known work is a portrait of Robert Rantoul, cast in plaster and presented to the Athenaeum in 1842; it was the first sculpture by a woman to be shown there when it was exhibited in 1846.
  • She also crafted portrait busts of Fitch Poole, Alonzo Lewis, William H.
  • Lovett, Andrew Thorndike, and James Frothingham, whose own portrait of the sculptor is held by the Beverly Public Library.
  • In the Beverly Historical Society collection are portrait busts of the artist's father and of Phebe Ann Coffin Hanaford, a good friend.
  • Hanaford wrote a biographical sketch of Quiner, and also penned two sonnets inspired by her and her work.

Read more at Wikipedia

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