Provenance:

By descent in the Wister Family to the present owner.

Note: At least one other period version of this silhouette is known to exist and descended in a branch of the Wister family. One was sold at Freeman's April 12, 2012, Lot 189.

The eldest child of Quakers Daniel and Lowry Jones Wister, Sarah was educated at a progressive girl's school run by French-born Anthony Benezet (1713-1784), an abolitionist and advocate for equal education. Her Grandfather John Wister built Grumblethorpe as a summer house in Germantown in 1744. It became the Wister's year around home after the yellow fever epidemic. During 1777 and 1778 Sarah, called Sally, kept a journal in the form of letters to her friend Deborah Norris recounting life under British occupation. The complete journal, A True Narrative: Being a Quaker Maiden's Account of her Experiences with Officers of the Continental Army 1777-1778 ,was published in 1902 and a silhouette, the only known likeness of Sarah Wister, was illustrated. A sampler worked by Sarah in 1773 is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and published in Betty Ring, Girlhood Embroidery American Samplers & Pictorial Needlework 1650-1850 (1993) p.337, Fig. 354.

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