Sand Art Bottle "MR. & MRS. H.J. BOARDMAN/CENTENNIAL PRESENT"
Andrew Clemens, McGregor, Iowa, 1876
The stoppered apothecary bottle filled with colored sand designed as a central reserve with spreadwing eagle flanked by American flags atop a banner lettered with the Boardman name and dates "1776" and "1876," all surrounded by elaborate abstract and geometric devices incorporating hearts, spirals, wavy lines, and intersecting diamonds, maker's label underneath the stopper. Height 10 1/2 inches, diameter 3 1/2 inches.

Note: It is possible that the H.J. Boardman for which Clemens made this bottle is Halsey J. Boardman (1834-1900), of Boston, Massachusetts. An H.J. Boardman, described as a "Boston capitalist" in a January 1893 New York Times article, and in other places as a lawyer, a politician, and a board member of the North Star Construction Company, appears to have had interests in several midwestern railroad lines. There was an Iowa Central Railroad locomotive named the HJ Boardman built in 1881. It is therefore quite possible that Boardman's travels would have taken him through or near to McGregor, Iowa, in the mid-1870s. There, he may have been exposed to the new and noteworthy work of deaf-mute Andrew Clemens, whose fame grew in the late 1870s and early 1880s, and who was just 19 years old when he made and labelled this bottle.

C Property from a Massachusetts Family

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