Joanna Quiner (August 27, 1796 – September 20, 1868) was an American seamstress and self-taught sculptor.
Quiner was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, the daughter of Abraham Quiner, Jr. and Susannah Camell.[1]
For much of her early life, Quiner worked as a seamstress in her hometown of Beverly and in nearby Salem; she did some upholstery for the family of Theodore Parker, and came to admire Parker's views. In 1838, she took a position in the household of Seth Bass, the librarian at the Boston Athenæum. She lived in the Athenaeum building with the Bass family; sculptor Shobal Vail Clevenger kept studio space there, and she observed him at work. She borrowed some of Clevenger's clay and crafted a likeness of Seth Bass that was of such quality that he encouraged her to continue her art. She was 42-year-old at the time.
Quiner exhibited work at the Athenaeum in 1846–48, and in 1847 worked there briefly as a gallery attendant in the Orpheus Room, but ill health combined with financial pressures caused her to give up sculpting and return to sewing in her last years.[2]
Quiner worked exclusively in plaster during her career.[3] Her best-known work is a portrait of Robert Rantoul, cast in plaster and presented to the Athenaeum in 1842;[2] it was the first sculpture by a woman to be shown there when it was exhibited in 1846.[4] She also crafted portrait busts of Fitch Poole, Alonzo Lewis, and James Frothingham,[2] whose own portrait of the sculptor is held by the Beverly Public Library in Beverly, Massachusetts.[5]
The Beverly Historical Society collection includes portrait busts of Quiner's father and of Phebe Ann Coffin Hanaford, a good friend. Hanaford wrote a biographical sketch of Quiner,[2] and also penned two sonnets inspired by her and her work.[6]
Quiner died either at her sister's residence in Lynn[7] or in her hometown of Beverly, and is buried in the Central Cemetery in Beverly.[1] A laudatory notice appeared in the Beverly Citizen around the time of her death.[8]