Price
$12,500.00
Condition
used
Product Condition
Very good, professionally framed
Size
35.5" x 20.75"
George Washington Rare Pair of Personally-Owned Buttons & Handwriting fragment from 1773, with Framed Provenance. The display is comprised of two separate pieces. The first being a pair of buttons that were personally owned by George Washington. The second section includes a fragment of a document handwritten by George Washington. A truly amazing historical display regarding our nation's first President.
Section One Left: The two buttons are displayed with a signed note of provenance and two images providing graphics of Washington's buttons. The larger of the two buttons is a conch shell style button that measures 1 3/8" in diameter. The smaller button is approximately 1" in diameter and is a copper gilt button as seen on military waistcoats. An additional loose note that accompanies the display states the conch shell button is "one of a set of coat buttons worn on dress coat of black velvet. Ordered made by Washington while President and residing in Philadelphia."
According to the note affixed to the mat, these buttons "were given by Martha Washington to her nephew, George Washington Bassett, who married Betty Burnett Lewis, the granddaughter of General Washington's sister, Betty Lewis. Betty Burnett Lewis gave them to her daughter, Ella More Bassett, the second wife of Colonel Lewis William Washington, my grandfather. These buttons were inherited by their son, William d'Hertburn Washington, from whom, during his life, they were acquired by my younger brother, Lewis William Washington...from whom I inherited them." At the bottom of the note it is signed William Lanier Washington.
Also included in the left section of the display which comes for the J. Doyle Dewitt Collection, is an article by William Armstrong in Century Magazine in 1896 titled "Buttons of a Man Who Could have Been a King" and a reference to Conch-Shell Buttons from Washington's Coat. Also included is a Certificate of Authenticity signed by William Gray of Gray Collections, in South Carolina.
Section Two Center: This section includes a fragment of George Washington's handwriting from July 14, 1773 of an early survey Washington wrote with the words "This survey reported in two" Mounted on an early period engraving showing a very young George Washington originally done as a painting by Col. Trumbull. Included below the engraving is a printed signature of G Washington. Included is a Letter of Authenticity from JSA, James Spence Authentication with a registration number that matches.
Section Three: is an overview produced by the most recent owner of the button and handwritten fragment who painstakingly acquired all the pieces of the display along with the Certificates of Authenticity and then had the items professionally mounted, matted and framed.
An opportunity to acquire several items in a beautiful display that were once owned by our nation's first President, George Washington.
Fragments from documents is a niche of ephemera collecting where large documents are cut apart and sold in pieces rather than as the document as a whole. This enables collectors to be able to afford a part of a document that they could not otherwise afford and simply did not want to invest a larger sum of money.
$12,500.00
used
Very good, professionally framed
35.5" x 20.75"