Joanna Quiner (August 27, 1796 – September 20, 1868) was an American

seamstress A dressmaker, also known as a seamstress, is a person who makes custom clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and evening gowns. Dressmakers were historically known as mantua-makers, and are also known as a modiste or fabrician. Nota ...

and self-taught sculptor.

Early life

Quiner was born in

Beverly, Massachusetts Beverly is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, and a suburb of Boston. The population was 42,670 at the time of the 2020 United States Census. A resort, residential, and manufacturing community on the Massachusetts North Shore, Beverly incl ...

, the daughter of Abraham Quiner, Jr. and Susannah Camell.

Career

For much of her early life, Quiner worked as a seamstress in her hometown of Beverly and in nearby Salem; she did some upholstery for the family of

Theodore Parker Theodore Parker (August 24, 1810 – May 10, 1860) was an American transcendentalist and reforming minister of the Unitarian church. A reformer and abolitionist, his words and popular quotations would later inspire speeches by Abraham Lincol ...

, and came to admire Parker's views. In 1838, she took a position in the household of Seth Bass, the librarian at the

Boston Athenæum The Boston Athenaeum is one of the oldest independent libraries in the United States. It is also one of a number of subscription library, membership libraries, for which patrons pay a yearly subscription fee to use Athenaeum services. The instit ...

. She lived in the Athenaeum building with the Bass family; sculptor Shobal Vail Clevenger kept studio space there, and she observed him at work. 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 42-year-old at the time. Quiner 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 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 Alonzo Lewis (1794–1861) was a teacher, writer, surveyor, poet, reporter, editor, and publisher of Lynn, Massachusetts. He was an ardent abolitionist and edited the ''Lynn Weekly Mirror'', the ''Lynn Record'' (in 1830), and ''Freedom's Amule ...

, and James Frothingham, whose own portrait of the sculptor is held by the Beverly Public Library in

. The Beverly Historical Society collection includes portrait busts of Quiner's father and of

Phebe Ann Coffin Hanaford Phebe Ann Coffin Hanaford (May 6, 1829 — June 2, 1921) was a Christian Universalist minister and biographer who was active in championing universal suffrage and women's rights. She was the first woman ordained as a Universalist minister in Ne ...

, a good friend. Hanaford wrote a biographical sketch of Quiner, and also penned two

sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's invention, ...

s inspired by her and her work.

Death

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.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quiner, Joanna 1796 births 1868 deaths 19th-century American sculptors American textile designers People from Beverly, Massachusetts Sculptors from Massachusetts 19th-century American women sculptors