Helen Corson Hovenden (1847–1935) was a Philadelphia-area painter known for her portraits and domestic scenes, sometimes of children with pets, and for watercolors of birds and flowers.
Both her parents had been abolitionists, and risked heavy fines and federal prison to assist persons escaping enslavement.
Corson married the Irish-born genre painter Thomas Hovenden. Their son, Thomas Hovenden Jr., became a civil engineer. Their daughter, Martha Maulsby Hovenden, became a sculptor.
The Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia holds a number of Helen Corson Hovenden's works, along with works by her husband and daughter.
Family, education and marriage Helen Corson was born in Plymouth Meeting, Whitemarsh Township, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Quakers George and Martha Maulsby Corson. She attended the Plymouth Friends School, and the Philadelphia School of Design for Women.
Corson moved to France in 1875 to study painting at the Académie Julian in Paris. She was invited to exhibit at the Paris Salons of 1876, 1879 and 1880.
In 1879, Corson met Irish painter Thomas Hovenden at the summer artist colony at Pont-Aven, France. Hovenden painted her as the lady and himself as the cavalier in The Favorite Falcon (1879).The Favorite Falcon (1879), from Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts. She later modeled for both Elaine and Queen Guinivere in his major painting Elaine (1880-82), which Hovenden began in France and finished in a studio in New York City. They returned to the United States in late 1880, and were married at the Plymouth Friends Meetinghouse on June 9, 1881.
"He [Thomas Hovenden] would often speak of his wife's talent being superior to his own. However that may be, it is certain that she was both an inspiration and a help to him in the execution of his great work."
Abolitionist upbringing
The newlyweds settled into her late parents' house, across Germantown Pike from the meetinghouse. Helen Corson's maternal grandfather, Samuel Maulsby, built the house in 1795. () He and her paternal grandfather, Joseph Corson, had been lifelong friends and ardent abolitionists. In 1831, both were founding members of the Plymouth Meeting Anti-Slavery Society.Hiram Corson, M.D. "George Corson," The Corson Family: A History of the Descendants of Benjamin Corson, Son of Cornelius Corssen of Staten Island, New York. (Philadelphia: H.L. Everett, 1906).
The Maulsby-Corson House was an important stop on the Underground Railroad for close to thirty years, until her father's death in 1860. Waking up each morning as children, Helen Corson and her five siblings never knew whether there would be newly arrived guests around the breakfast table.Roy Wilson, The History of Abolition Hall (July 2024), from Whitemarsh Township, Pennsylvania.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 increased the penalties for giving assistance to someone escaping enslavement to six months in federal prison and a $1,000 fine. George and Martha Maulsby Corson were involved in hiding Jane Johnson, whose 1855 escape to freedom exposed a loophole in the federal law. Following a nationally-publicized victory in Philadelphia federal court, Johnson was hidden at the Corson house in Plymouth Meeting to prevent pro-slavery activists from abducting her and returning her to bondage.
Plymouth Friends had allowed the Anti-Slavery Society to use its meetinghouse for lectures for twenty-five years, but that permission was denied in 1856. George Corson responded by building a second-floor lecture hall over his coach house and stable — Abolition Hall.
Twenty-five years later, Thomas Hovenden turned Abolition Hall into his studio, and found inspiration in the righteous anti-slavery arguments that had been made there.
Selected works
Breton Courtyard (1878, oil on canvas), private collection, Plymouth Meeting, PennsylvaniaBreton Courtyard from SIRIS. Still Life [Wine Carafe, Wineglass & 3 Apples] (1879, medium), unlocated. Exhibited at the 1879 Paris Salon.Illustrated in Harper's Weekly, vol. 23, no. 1173, (June 21, 1879), p. 488 (left side, middle image). Note that Corson's future husband, Thomas Hovenden's The Favorite Falcon is illustrated directly above her work. Still Life (1880, medium), unlocated. Exhibited at the 1880 Paris Salon. In Front of the Stable (1880, oil on canvas), unlocated. Exhibited at the 1880 Paris Salon. Portrait of Dr. William Corson (1880, oil on canvas), Historical Society of Montgomery County, Norristown, Pennsylvania. Dr. Corson was Helen Corson Hovenden's uncle, her father's brother. Portrait of Dr. Louis W. Read (year, oil on canvas), Historical Society of Montgomery County, Norristown, Pennsylvania. Dr. Read was Helen Corson Hovenden's uncle-by-marriage, husband of her father's sister Sarah."Louis Wernwag Read, M. D.", Clifton S. Hunsicker, History of Montgomery County, Volume 3, New York and Chicago: (Lewis Historical Publishing Company, Inc., 1923), pp. 626-27. Uncle Ned and His Pupil (1881, oil on canvas), Wells Fargo Bank N.A. Headquarters, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.Uncle Ned and His Pupil from SIRIS. An elderly Black man teaching a boy (grandson?) to play the banjo. Mother and Daughter (1882, medium), unlocated. Exhibited at the National Academy of Design, October 1882Maria Naylor, editor, The National Academy of Design Exhibition Record, 1861-1900, Volume 1 (New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1973), pp. 456-57. I Take My Pen in Hand (1883, watercolor), Dawson Gallery, Annapolis, MarylandI Take My Pen in Hand from SIRIS. Lillie and Mamie (1884, medium), unlocated. Exhibited at the National Academy of Design, October 1884 Short Days and Long Lessons (1885, ink on paper), Woodmere Art Museum, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia The Little Housekeeper (1885, medium), unlocated. Exhibited at the National Academy of Design, October 1885 Playing School (1886, medium), unlocated. Exhibited at the National Academy of Design, October 1886 Martha Hovenden and Her Dog Rob (1887, oil on canvas), Woodmere Art Museum, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania The Concert (1890, oil on canvas), Woodmere Art Museum, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.The Concert, from Woodmere Art Museum. Six-year-old Martha Hovenden playing a harmonica to a dog. In the Gallery (1901, oil on canvas), private collection, Virginia Beach, Virginia. A boy (Thomas Jr.?) looking at paintings. A Misanthrope (year, medium), unlocated. Exhibited at PAFA's 100th Anniversary Exhibition, January–March 1905.
Exhibitions Helen Corson Hovenden exhibited at the Paris Salons of 1876, 1879 and 1880.
She exhibited a portrait of a mother and child at the National Academy of Design in 1884, and domestic scenes of children in 1885 and 1886.
She exhibited sporadically at the annual exhibitions of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The nine works she showed between 1885 and 1905 were portraits or domestic scenes, some of which included animals.Peter Hastings Falk, ed. The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Volume 2, 1876-1913 (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1989), p. 259
She exhibited with the Society of Washington Artists in 1899 and 1900.Virgil E. McMahan, The Artists of Washington, D.C. 1796-1996: Volume 1, (Washington, D.C.: Studio House at Walbridge, 1995), p.105 .
Daughter Martha Maulsby Hovenden later served as a director of the Conshohocken Art League. In 1966, the League hosted the first posthumous joint exhibition of works by Thomas and Helen Corson Hovenden.History, from Conshohocken Art League.
Widowhood
Fifteen years after her husband's death, Helen Corson Hovenden wrote a biographical sketch of him: "Thomas Hovenden lost his life on an unguarded grade crossing of the Pennsylvania Railroad near his home, August 14, 1895, in an attempt to save the life of a little girl [nine-year-old Bessie Pifer] who was crossing in front of an approaching engine. Both were killed."Helen Corson Hovenden, "Thomas Hovenden," Historical Sketches: A collection of papers prepared for the Historical Society of Montgomery County, Volume 4, (Norristown, PA: Historical Society of Montgomery County, 1910), p. 5. The accident occurred about two miles south of the Hovendens' house, at Spring Mill station, along the Schuylkill River.Sean M. Heuvel, ed., Life After J. E. B. Stuart: The memoirs of his granddaughter, Marrow Stuart Smith (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc., 2011), pp. 93-94.
Rev. William Henry Furness gave the eulogy at Thomas Hovenden's funeral, and the pall bearers were painter Thomas Eakins, sculptor Samuel Murray, and four Corson relatives.Ernest Pfatteicher, "Thomas Hovenden," The Book News Monthly, vol. 5, no. 25 (January 1907), p. 305.
Helen Corson Hovenden channeled her grief into advocacy, leading a successful public letter-writing campaign by Quaker women to pressure the Pennsylvania Railroad into elevating the tracks of its Trenton Cutoff, separating high-speed PRR trains from the grade level tracks of streetcars.
She donated her husband's last completed painting, Jerusalem the Golden (1892-94), to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in his memory.Jerusalem the Golden, from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It features a sickly young woman, a worried husband, and the woman's sister playing "Jerusalem the Golden" in the background. The hymn "was meant to provide solace and comfort to the faithful in the face of death by offering salvation and promising peace in the afterlife."
Helen Corson Hovenden and her two children moved to Washington, D.C., staying for several years with her unmarried sister Ida. Both children attended the Sidwell Friends School. The family moved back to Plymouth Meeting following Ida Corson's April 1900 marriage to William Augustin DeCaindry.
Helen Corson Hovenden's 1910 biographical sketch of her late husband was written for the Historical Society of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. In that same volume, Rev. Ernst P. Pfatteicher gave a detailed account of Thomas Hovenden's funeral, and wrote about the continued popularity of his paintings; Harrison S. Morris, Director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1882-1905, wrote about his friendship with Thomas Hovenden, and their years of working together.Rev. Ernst P. Pfatteicher and Harrison S. Morris, "Thomas Hovenden," Historical Sketches: A collection of papers prepared for the Historical Society of Montgomery County, Volume 4, (Norristown, PA: Historical Society of Montgomery County, 1910), pp. 6-17.
Children Thomas Hovenden Jr. (1882–1915) graduated from Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. with the class of 1899.W. W. Lindsay & Co., "Thomas Hovenden, Jr., Associate Member, American Society of Civil Engineers", Papers and Discussions to be presented to the Annual Meeting, January 19, 1916, pp. 2793-94. He earned bachelor's (1903) and master's (1904) degrees in civil engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. He worked as an instructor at the university for a year, and was certified as a civil engineer in 1905. He joined the Philadelphia firm of W. W. Lindsay & Co., Inc., engineering consultants and contractors, and rose to general superintendent of the company. Over a decade, he designed and built blast furnaces, manufacturing plants and highway bridges in the United States and Cuba. Thomas Hovenden Jr. died of typhoid fever at age 33, September 18, 1915.