Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Amazing Find!

I was so excited to find this print by a well know Vermont Artist named Sabra Field in our local antique barn this past weekend! I have had to do a little sleuthing, because it is signed Sabra Johnson, which turns out to be her maiden name, so I figure it must be from her early years in Vermont before she was married.  The framing seems to be original, since the framers label on the back is dated 1971, and she moved up here as a part of the back to the land movement in 1967.  I was given a small work of hers as a child, and it now is hanging in Emmett's room, so I was familiar with her signature and handwriting, so I was pretty sure it was hers.  I plan to email her about this, since she is still alive and living in Vermont, and hopefully get some more information about it.  Her current work is very different, and is mostly landscapes and more cheerful bucolic Vermont scenes.  But I just love this print, which is a lithograph over a grave rubbing from a historic Vermont graveyard.  I am assuming the portrait is an imagining of the woman who is in that grave, who died at age 20 in 1890.  I know it's a little dark, but what an amazing find, no?  I am so thrilled to have found it, and I think it just looks like it belongs in our house.  If anybody has any additional info about this period in Sabra Field's career I'd LOVE to hear it!  I'm so curious to learn more!

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