Ross Sterling Turner (1847 - 1915)

Interior:

Stephanie Adams, Sildeli Antiques Show, 1984;

Exterior:

George and Florence Dittmar, Colts Neck, New Jersey.

Remi Spriggs, “Living with antiques: An Americana collection in New Jersey,” Magazine Antiques (April 2005), 94-105;

Leslie and Peter Warwick, Love At First Sight: Discovering Stories About Folk Art & Antiques Collected by Two Generations & Three Families, (New Jersey: 2022), pp. 198-9, fig. 355-6.

Ross Sterling Turner (1847-1915) was born in Westport, New York, but his family moved to Alexandria, Virginia in 1862 where his father published the Alexandria Daily News located at 112 South Royal Street. Turner’s first job was as a draftsman in the Patent Office and his early watercolors reflect his drafting background in being precise. He studied in Europe in 1876, going to Munich, Florence, Rome, and Venice and painted in impressionist and realistic styles. He returned to America in 1882 and married Louise Blaney in 1885, the sister of Dwight Blaney, an early collector of American antiques. Turner was professor of watercolors at M.I.T. where he taught for 30 years. Celia Thaxter invited him and other artists such as William Morris Hunt and Childe Hassam and authors such as Emerson and Hawthorne to her artists’ colony on Appledore Island in New Hampshire where Turner painted, “A Garden Is a Sea of Flowers” in 1912, now in the Museum of Replica Handbags s in Boston.

The Warwicks purchased the Turner watercolor showing the interior scene Stephanie Adams Wood’s booth at the monthly Sildeli Antiques Show in 1984. This watercolor is featured in Elisabeth Donaghy Garrett, AT HOME The American Family 1750-1870, p. 67, and contains a"2" written in pencil on the left bottom corner, which prompted the question of where and what was painting "1." Several years later, their friends, George and Florence Dittmar happened to have painting "1," the exterior of the Daily News Building and sold it to them. The Daily News building was demolished in the late 1980s.