William Stearns Watercolor Drawings and Copybook

William Stearns Watercolor Drawings and Copybook, Mansfield, Massachusetts, c. 1821, including a picture of exotic birds and a leopard surrounded by flowering plants inscribed "PAINTED BY WILLIAM STEARNS," an ink wash portrait of a man, and a copybook with pages of practice penmanship and a watercolor farm scene with a yellow house and gray outbuildings set against a hilly background, the copybook inscribed "William Stearns of Mansfield, Aged 12," ht. to 9 in.

Note: William Stearns is likely the uncle of Mansfield, Massachusetts, artist George Frederic Stearns (1826-1902), whose family portrait Skinner sold in the American Furniture & Decorative Arts auction, August 13, 2017, Lot 489. William Stearns was born in Mansfield on August 21, 1808. His profession is noted as "Painter" in the 1850 Federal Census. He died in Mansfield on August 14, 1879.

Found in a home near Norton, Massachusetts, in 1962.