Digressions of V. and Problematic Primary Documents

According to his autobiography, Digressions of V., Vedder completed the painting, The Motherless, in 1864-5 in Turner, Maine. It was a cherished painting, accompanied by a drawn study, based off of an orphan girl he had seen in Turner feeding orphaned chicks. 
He states in his book that the work was later sold to a Mr. Cousins in New York. In the Appendix under “A List of the Works by V.,” though, the painting is not listed, while another painting entitled Girl Feeding Chickens is listed as having been “sold by Doll in Boston” in 1867. This assumption is seconded by Regina Soria in her book, Elihu Vedder: American Visionary Artist in Rome (1836-1923) as she states, “Many years later he used to tell how his Girl Feeding Chickens could have become much more popular had he followed the advice to call it Motherless. It would have suggested a very pathetic story for, after all, both the little girl and the chickens were motherless in the painting.”

Text Source:

Elihu Vedder papers, 1804-1969 (bulk 1840-1923). Miscellaneous Personal Papers: Artwork Sales and Disposition Notes, 1856-1938, Reel 528, Frames 854-856.Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Soria, Regina. Elihu Vedder; American visionary artist in Rome (1836-1923). Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970. 

Vedder, Elihu. The Digressions of V.. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1910. https://archive.org/details/digressionsofv00veddrich (accessed February 19, 2014). 

Image Source:

http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/container/viewer/Artwork-Sales-and-Disposition-Notes--284842