Sarah Orne Jewett House

Fire Screen

This fire screen represents two of Jewett’s closest friends. It was made by Sarah Wyman Whitman as a wedding gift for Charles Eliot Norton’s son Richard. While Whitman’s greatest commercial success was as a designer of book covers, she was also a very successful stained glass artist. Her windows can be seen at Trinity Church in Boston, Harvard’s Memorial Hall, and the Boston Athenaeum, among others. Jewett commissioned Whitman to create windows for Bowdoin College and Berwick Academy.  Like Jewett, Whitman was friends with Charles Eliot Norton and his family. Norton and Whitman were both founders of the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston.