“As a start to our initiative to increase awareness and understanding of Shipley’s past and its founding principles, we created plaques for two of the major paintings in the Main Building,” says Tim Blankenhorn, Shipley Archivist and Interim Assistant Head of the Middle School. 

“It is easy to understand how the school acquired the lovely painting of the Shipley sisters.  It is not clear, however, how the ‘Father Shipley’ piece made its way in. I researched the Shipley genealogy to see if there was some hidden family connection with Maxmilian II Emmanuel. The only thing that I came up with was that, a few years ago, one of the Elector’s heirs married an Englishwoman surnamed Shipley. That doesn’t of course solve the mystery of how he came look upon thousands of Shipley students over many years.”

The Shipley Sisters
Anna Lea Merritt, 1902

Mary Shipley Allinson ’10 and Dorothy Shipley White ’13 were young cousins of the three Shipley sisters who founded the school. Dorothy, seven years old when she posed for this portrait, was made to keep her knee on the bench as a way to stop her from moving around.  She grew up to be a prominent scholar of French culture, publishing two books on Charles de Gaulle.

The artist, born in Philadelphia, lived most of her life in England. She was a member of the Pre-Rafaelite School of painting.

Maximilian II Emanuel
Artist Unknown, 1704
 
Maximilian II Emanuel was an ally of France’s Louis XIV in the War of the Spanish Succession. How the painting came to be a fixture at Shipley is not known. Years ago, the students referred to him as “Father Shipley,”  not as Maximilian Emanuel von Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, his proper title.