Philadelphia Antiques Show 2022

87 THE PH I LADE L PH I A SHOW Parade Hat, 1850-1860 Attributed to Elizabeth Harriet Stevens Gray Bowser (1831-1908) and David Bustill Bowser (1820-1900) 7 inches high Collection of Robert and Katharine Booth 2004 (1980) • FOLK ART ON FIRE Once again in 2004, the dynamic collections, insightful commentary, and snazzy presentations of Robert and Katharine Booth treated visitors at the Philadelphia Show to “Folk Art on Fire,” a follow up to the 1980 loan exhibit “Battle of the Blaze.” The Booths’ collecting bends highlighted their passions for those artisans whose work was often anonymous but brought visual pleasure and delight to the daily lives of regular people. The Booths—fixtures at the Philadelphia Show and most others on the East Coast— assembled parade hats, pumper models, presentation shields, fire horns, and fire buckets from their own collection and others (including dealers) and arranged them in a way that in and of itself created a work of art. Like today, life in the 18th and 19th centuries was “fraught with physical dangers” (p. 82) but they were significantly more poignant and resulted in more deaths before the dawn of modern heating, lighting, and cooking or widespread access to anesthetics, penicillin, and vaccinations. Fire was certainly at the forefront of the mind of William Penn, who after witnessing the burning of London in 1666, arranged the streets and building plots of the “greene countrie towne” of Philadelphia in a grid punctuated by squares for protection from the spread of fire and disease. Enter, “to no one’s great surprise” (p.83), Benjamin Franklin who organized the Union Fire Company on December 7, 1736, the first volunteer fire company in Philadelphia (and most likely America). Along with twenty- three others including the silversmith Philip Syng, Jr., Franklin’s Union Fire Company established a model for others in the city. The need for fire companies encouraged membership, and men who—like the later so-called surf men seen in the museum’s treasured “The Life Line” of 1884 by Winslow Homer—were on the fast track to become heroes. Such chivalric aspirations burgeoned membership, and the increasing population expanded the number of fire companies, including the Pennsylvania Fire Company (No. 18), for which this parade hat was commissioned and painted. Elaborate and high-stacked parade hats were initially meant to designate volunteer firefighters at the often-chaotic fire scenes. Soon, they morphed into regalia for the many parades of the 19th century when fire company membership became akin to a fraternity, often signaling a man’s political affiliation, religion, and type of work. Such hats were limited to Philadelphia fire companies, but several fire companies in Baltimore and Washington adopted their use in parades. The well-proportioned parade hat and its energetically painted version of (aptly) the arms of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania were most likely executed by a free Black couple David Bustill Bowser (a painter) and Elizabeth Harriet Stevens Gray Bowser (a seamstress). David trained with his cousin Robert Douglass, Jr. (1809-1877), the artist who had studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts with Thomas Sully (1783-1872). Together, David and Lizzie Bowser operated a prominent portrait and ornamental painting business, collaborating on the many and various—and usually ephemeral—flags, banners, hats, buckets, horns, floats, and other accouterments of Philadelphia’s parade and procession-loving organizations and citizens. Though free in Philadelphia, the Bowsers lived under the constant threat of being kidnapped and enslaved elsewhere; it was this reality that encouraged their philanthropy and political activity on behalf of Black Americans. The Bowsers’ talents, industry, and intellect earned victories such as full citizenship for fellow free Black community members living in Philadelphia. David was active with the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, the African-American arm of what was then the all-white Independent Order of Odd Fellows.