Object of the Month

Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site has a large museum collection consisting of thousands of objects, many of which are not regularly displayed in the house's furnished exhibit rooms. Every month, an object will be featured on this page, providing a look at an unusual piece from the collection.

 

These two framed wax portraits depict a woman and a man dressed in early 19^th-century fashion. The wax reliefs are mounted on cardboard, set behind glass that has been painted black with a gilt-edged clear oval in the center through which the portrait is viewed, and housed in a gilt wooden frame. The artist is unknown, but certain aspects of the work identify the likely maker as John Christian Rauschner.

John (or Johann) Christian Rauschner was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1760. His father was a modeler who worked with stucco, and John also followed a career in the sculpting arts, but of a different kind. By 1799 he was living in New York City, and making a living as a portraitist whose primary medium was wax. He made several trips throughout the northeast U.S., visiting cities from Philadelphia to Boston to seek out work. His career in America was fairly short, as he disappeared from the record and seems to have died by 1812.

Rauschner’s work was known for its high level of detail. Several characteristics of these two portraits are indicative of his work. One is the use of colored wax. Other wax artists of the period, of which there do not seem to have been many, sometimes used white wax that was then painted, whereas Rauschner was known for using multiple pieces of different colored waxes which were pressed into a mold, with some painted details added later. The fine detail, visible in these examples upon close inspection in the subjects’ hair, as well as in the pages of the book held in the woman’s hand, is also a sign of his work. Finally, the frames these two portraits are set in are likely the originals, and are identical to those used with many other examples of work known to be Rauschner's.

Rauschner executed portraits of wealthy and prominent people, including James Hoban, architect of the White House and contributor to the design of the U.S. Capitol. The identity of the two people portrayed in these works is unknown, as is who originally acquired the portraits and put them in the Longfellow House. Their creation predates Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s arrival in Cambridge, but they may have belonged to Andrew and Elizabeth Craigie, who occupied the Brattle Street mansion from the 1790s up until 1819 and 1841, respectively, or perhaps they arrived at the house through Fanny Longfellow’s Appleton family connections, as did many other pieces of artwork.

 

Click here to view past Objects of the Month.