Coates family silhouette collection

Contains 77 negative silhouettes mounted on black backgrounds, all but three of which are identified on a "List of Names" at the beginning of the volume. There are also six leaves of 'Scherenschnitten' pictures; and then eight un-mounted silhouettes (six of which are identified) laid in. These loose silhouettes are now in separate sleeves. Many members of the Coates family are pictured, as are members of the Hornor, Morrison, Evans, Redman, Randolph, Pickering, Hopkins, Snowden, and Yarnall families, and others. (Number 37 from the list in the front is a pencil sketch profile; numbers 73 and 74 are missing.)

One Scherenschnitten picture depicts a house with fenced garden, a figure on horseback, a girl in a swing, and a woman walking. Pasted above this are two sprigs of flowers. Two other of these pictures depict houses (one quite small), with figures in the yards. A rather elaborate picture shows two houses, each on either side of a stream spanned by a bridge; two men are in a boat on the stream, and a man on horseback approaches the bridge. Also on this page are several vignettes: a wreath, an incomplete wreath, two birds at a bird bath, a squirrel on top of a hutch, and a woman with a bird cage. On the next page are more vignettes: two of men on horseback, one of a man on a horse driving cattle, and the last depicting two squirrels on a branch. The next picture shows a farm scene, with house, a boar, and sheep tended by a shepherd. The last picture shows rural homes, with a shepherd, a man on horseback, and a strolling couple.

The accompanying mounted photographs show 55 of the silhouettes, with pencilled identifications below that correspond to the "List of Names" in the bound volume.

Dealer noted that most of the silhouettes "have embossed emblem of the Peale eagle or 'Museum' identifying the items as coming from the Peale Museum," and that the "collection has been in the Coates family since its creation until 1989."