An Assembled Group of Items Associated with Washington Augustus Roebling (1837-1926) and His Descendents, Circa 1860s-1930s

Comprising a hand-painted porcelain shaving mug by Ovington Bros., Brooklyn, enamel- decorated with birds and monogram, "W.A.R."; a Civil War kepi hat, by W.H.J. Dinsmore, Massachusetts; a cased photograph housed in a gilt pendant case, of Washington A. Roebling in Civil War uniform; a group of photographs, one gravure print depicting Washington A. Roebling, by J.M. Elliot of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, inscribed and dated, "Washington A. Roebling/ March 1908," and interior and exterior views of his house in Trenton, New Jersey; and a group of documents and letters pertaining to Siegfried Roebling (1890-1936) and Mary Gindhart Roebling (1905-1994), including a letter written to Mary by Countess Sonia Fontaine, dated April 21, 1937, regarding her invention for airplanes, non-crashable "Fontaine Rotary Wings," in which she describes her struggle to launch production and imploring Mary to support the financing of the project, with attached photograph of the invention.

H: 3 3/4 in. (shaving mug)

Provenance:

Washington Augustus Roebling (1837-1926) and Emily Warren Roebling (1843-1903), thence by descent.

A Pennsylvania gentleman.

Note:

Washington A. Roebling is best-known as the civil engineer who built the Brooklyn Bridge, and his wife Emily W. Roebling took over and finished the project after he fell ill. The construction began in 1869 and was completed in 1883.

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Lynda Cain

VP, Head of Department, American Furniture, Folk and Decorative Arts

Lynda Cain serves as a Vice President of Freeman's and is the Head of Department for American Furniture, Folk and Decorative Arts.
She specializes in American furniture and decorative arts, Native American art, American folk art, and Pennsylvania furniture and decorative arts.
Cain joined Freeman's in 2001 as the company's first American furniture and decorative arts specialist. She began her career in American Decorative Arts as assistant curator at the Detroit Historical Museum. In 1984 she became curator of costume at the Detroit Historical Museum. In 1986, she relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts and switched from museum work when she joined the American Furniture and Decorative Art Department at Skinner Inc., Bolton and Boston, Massachusetts. Before leaving New England in 1997, she had the great pleasure of directing the cataloguing project of the Folk Art Collection of Nine Fletcher and Bertram K. Little at Cogswell’s Grant, Essex, Massachusetts for the Society of the Preservation of New England Antiquities, now Historic New England. Ms. Cain joined the cast of the popular PBS series Antiques Roadshow in Season 19.
Growing up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, she was greatly influenced by the rich collections of American paintings, furniture, and decorative arts held by Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum. She notes her good fortune of working in our two great “attic states:” Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Each Commonwealth has tremendous inventory of historic material, great institutions, and citizens who treasure their inherited and collected items. Cain appears on the television Antiques Roadshow as an appraiser of decorative and folk arts.

American Furniture, Folk and Decorative Arts

An Assembled Group of Items Associated with Washington Augustus Roebling (1837-1926) and His Descendents, Circa 1860s-1930s

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