“By the Name of Nickerson.” Late 18th to early 19th century original watercolor coat-of-arms for the Nickerson family of Massachusetts, possibly for American Revolution Minuteman, Phineas Adams Nickerson of Winchester.

Once kept in the hall and home of a Massachusetts Minuteman?

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Watercolor arms were produced by a number of New England painters, but the most prolific of the post-Revolutionary heraldic artists was John Coles, Sr. (1749-1809) and his son, John Coles, Jr. (1778–1854) who studied with Frothingham under Gilber Stuart. The Senior Coles first appears in the Boston directories in 1796 as a “Heraldry Painter,” but he was also a printer and publisher of engravings. From 1806-1807, he was located at 61 Newberry Street. Coles, Jr. began his career in 1803. (Nina Fletcher Little; American Antiquarian Society)

The present coat-of-arms was accomplished for the Nickersons of Massachusetts:

“The first of this family to come to America was William Nickerson, whom it is believed was a descendant of William Nickerson, Lord Bishop of Derry, Ireland, whose coat-of-arms, hanging in the hall of of the home of Captain Phineas Adams Nickerson in Winchester, Massachusetts is: Azure two bars ermine, in chief three suns, and is attested as followings: (This writing was found on the back of the original picture in Boston, 1802 [Possibly the present object, but this writing now effaced or erased.]) From the beginning of the settlement of this family in this country, the members thereof have figured prominently in its commerce and trade during the colonial period, and they also asserted their patriotism during the struggle for independence….”

Phineas Nickerson (1733–1812), a descendant of William Nickerson, served in the American Revolution as “corporal in Captain Elijah Smalley’s company, Major Zenas Winslow’s regiment and [as a Minuteman], on alarm at Bedford and Falmouth, September, 1778.”

Phineas, or his father, John Nickerson (1702–1794), might have enlisted the Coles, who sometimes painted as itinerants, to produce this watercolor.

Price: $850.00