Information below is the lot/description information from our Holiday Estates Auction, December 2nd & 3rd, 2006. Descriptions listed below are NOT guaranteed accurate. Call 1-800-467-5329 for general information on Neal Auction Company. Follow the catalogue link to order our beautifully illustrated catalogue.
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17. William John Hennessy, N.A. (American, 1839-1917), “Dogwood Branch”, oil on canvas, signed lower right and dated “1874”, 20 1/2 in x 13 1/2 in. [$1500/2000]

18. George Gunther Hartwick (American/New York, active by 1840s, d. 1899), “A Bridge in the Catskills”, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 22 in. x 36 in., in a period carved and gessoed gilt frame. [$2000/3000]

128. Charles Caryl Coleman, A.N.A. (American, 1840-1928), “House by the Waterside, Nuremberg”, 1871-1872, oil on canvas, signed, titled and dated 1871 lower right; further inscribed and dated 1872 en verso, and in a handwritten card on the period frame, label of Alexander Gallery, New York, en verso, 16 1/4 in. x 7 1/8 in. [$2000/3000]
Note: Coleman studied in his native Buffalo with William H. Beard (1824-1900), but went to Paris at age nineteen. After serving in the Union army from 1862-1865, he returned to the Continent in 1866, and was living on the Via Margutta in Rome when he painted this evocative canal scene in Nuremberg. He eventually moved to Capri, where he died at the age of eighty-eight.

129. Thomas Worth-ing-ton Whittredge (American, 1820-1910), “Landscape Near Newport”, oil on artists board, Alexander Galleries, New York, label en verso, 13 1/8 in. x 18 3/4 in., in a period frame. [$5000/7000]
Note: Though uninscribed, this important painting clearly relates to a series of domestic landscapes with distant ocean views and similar diagonal motifs of fences, walls, or bushes, painted (mainly in the years 1877-1881) in the environs of Newport and Cape Ann, where Whittredge – whose ancestors came from Rhode Island – had purchased a summer home, after his return from ten years in Europe (1849-1859), and three journeys of exploration in the American West (1866, 1870, 1871). His large Continental painting of “The Roman Campagna” (c. 1856-1859, 26 in. x 40 in.) already adumbrated this compositional structure; but his Rhode Island paintings of this same size and type (“Freshwater Pond in Summer”, “Fields at Tiverton,” and “Fields Near Newport”, all approximately 14 in. x 22 in., and mostly of early 1880s) are still more closely related to this painting. The scene may possibly be the same, from the other side of the fence, as that depicted in Whittredge’s masterly “Farm by the Shore” (11 ½ in. x 22 in.), sold at Sotheby’s, New York, March 17, 1994 (lot 9).

130. Arnold E. Turtle (American, 1892-1954), “Cabin in the Hills: Letle (sic) Cedar”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, signed and titled en verso, 16 in. x 20 in., in a period wood frame. [$1800/2400]

W 131. Arnold E. Turtle (American, 1892-1954), “Vase of Flowers”, oil on canvas, signed and dated “1930” lower right, 20 in. x 16 in., in a painted period frame. [$1200/1800]

132. Anna Louise Thorne (American, b. 1878), “Farm House”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, Thirty-Seventh Annual Toledo Area Artists Exhibition 1955 label en verso, 24 in. x 30 in., in a period frame. [$3000/5000]
Note: The American Impressionist painter, Anna Louise Thorne studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Students League with William Merritt Chase, and later in Paris. Primarily a resident of Toledo, Ohio, Thorne traveled extensively. She was a visiting artist at Spokane Art League School, lived for time on Dumaine Street in the French Quarter and in 1937 opened a studio amidst the art colony centered in St. Augustine, Florida.

170. Knute Heldner (Swedish/New Orleans, 1877-1952), “Louisiana Live Oak”, oil on canvasboard, signed and artist monogrammed lower right, signed, artist monogrammed and titled en verso, The Farish Art Store, New Orleans label en verso, 15 in. x 19 in., in an antique gilt frame. [$8000/12000]
Provenance: Purchased from the artist and descended in a New Orleans family.

171. Alexander John Drysdale (American/New Orleans, 1870-1934), “Early Morning in a Louisiana Swamp near New Roads, La”, oil wash on board, signed and dated “1909” lower right, signed, titled and dated “1909” label en verso, pencil inscribed “Mrs. Campbell” and remnant of artistboard label en verso, 10 1/2 in. x 17 1/4 in., in a period frame. [$3000/5000]

172. George Hand Wright (American, 1872-1905), “At Pigeon Point, Beaufort, South Carolina”, pastel on paper, signed lower right, two Carolina Galleries, Charleston labels en verso, 18 1/2 in. x 24 in., attractively matted and framed. [$6000/8000]

173. Alexander John Drysdale (American/Louisiana, 1870-1934), “Live Oaks in the Louisiana Bayou”, oil on board, signed lower left, remnant of Devoe & C.T. Reynolds Co. label en verso, 16 in. x 23 in., in a period gilt frame. [$5000/7000]

214. Walter Inglis Anderson (American/Mississippi, 1903-1965), “Tree-Horn Island”, watercolor, estate stamp lower right, titled and inscribed “150-L” en verso, 9 in. x 11 in. [$10000/15000]

215. Robert Wadsworth Grafton (American/Indiana, 1876-1936, active New Orleans 1916-1920) and Louis Oscar Griffith (American/Indiana, 1875-1956, active New Orleans, 1916-1917), “The Start”, oil on canvas, 1917-18, unsigned, 56 in. x 153 1/4 in. [$250000/350000]
Provenance: Men’s Cafe, The Saint Charles Hotel, 211 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans.
The Neal Auction Company is grateful to Eugene Daymude for his inital research on this painting.
Note: The Midwestern artists Robert Wadsworth Grafton and Louis Oscar Griffith made an immediate and enduring impression on New Orleans. During the early twentieth century, the two artists wintered in the Crescent City and became active members of the artistic and literary community centered in the historic Vieux Carré.
Grafton and Griffith’s collaborative mural “The Start” captured the cool crisp late afternoon at the New Orleans Fair Grounds and the exhilaration and anticipation as the race began. Setting up a temporary studio in the lobby of the St. Charles Hotel, the two artists worked in tandem on the two companion horse racing murals “The Start” and “The Finish” to the delight of onlookers, tourists and fellow artists and art students.
The New Orleans Fair Grounds, originally named the Union Race Course, is the oldest site of racing in America still in operation. In 1908 the Louisiana Legislature passed the Locke Law that prohibited pari-mutuel gambling, which directly resulted in the closing of Fair Grounds and all New Orleans racetracks. Seven years later the law was repealed and the Fair Grounds reopened on January 1, 1915 under the auspices of the Business Men’s Racing Association. It seems likely the commission of the mural by the St. Charles Hotel was set into motion by the excitement of the revitalization of horse racing in New Orleans and the reopening of the Fair Grounds.
As talented American Impressionist painters, the artists used a dazzling array of colors in “The Start” while emphasizing the brilliant Louisiana sunlight reflecting off the muscular bodies of the horses as they bolted out of the starting gate and jockeyed for position. The intensity of the race was clearly etched on the faces of the jockeys. Their silks identified the leading stables of the day including Belmont, Morris and Keene. The mural is filled with details of pre-electronic workings of the fairgrounds in the early twentieth century, including the time keeper in a wooden tower, a crescent shaped moon clock announcing the time of the next race at 4:10 p.m. and the results board with two men readied to place the winning horses’ numbers in their appropriate slots.
Times-Picayune Newspaper’s art reporter Flo Field expressed her excitement and enthusiasm for “The Start” and “The Finish” murals when they were placed on the walls of the Men’s Café at the prestigious local St. Charles Hotel. She wrote in her February 18, 1917 article, “It isn’t a picture. It moves! The horses are not painted. They are racing.”
Topped by a gleaming white dome visible for miles, the first St. Charles Hotel was built in 1835 by acclaimed architects James Gallier Sr. and Charles Dakin. The hotel was situated in the heart of the central business district and directly on the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line. In 1851 the hotel burned to the ground and the second St. Charles Hotel was rebuilt two years later. Forty-three years later, fire destroyed the hotel for a second time. In 1896 the third and last St. Charles Hotel was rebuilt on the same location. A favorite of locals, the grand hotel hosted Mardi Gras balls and society events, until it was torn down in 1974.
After the completion of the murals, the artists maintained an enduring relationship with the St. Charles Hotel. At this time the hotel had a permanent collection of American and European paintings in the lobby and a gallery on the mezzanine floor for temporary exhibitions by contemporary artists. In 1922, the hotel held an impressive exhibition of Robert Grafton and Louis Oscar Griffith paintings of New Orleans. An illustrated catalogue and set of postcards were published in conjunction with the exhibition. A selection of these paintings had been exhibited in Chicago at the Thurber Art Galleries in 1917 to critical acclaim. Grafton and Griffith paintings of the historic vistas of the Vieux Carré, French Market, St. Charles Hotel, New Basin Canal and the recently rediscovered New Orleans Fairgrounds mural “The Start” are highly prized today.

216. Knute Heldner (Swedish/New Orleans, 1877-1952), “Fishing Boats, Normandy”, oil on canvas, signed and artist’s monogram lower right, 25 in. x 30 in., in a period frame. [$3000/5000]

217. Knute Heldner (Swedish/New Orleans, 1877-1952), “Birch Trees, Minnesota”, oil on canvasboard, signed and artist’s monogram lower right, signed, monogrammed, and titled en verso, Devoe and Raynolds Co., New York label en verso, 16 in. x 20 in., in a period gilt frame. [$4000/6000]
Provenance: Purchased from the artist and descended in a New Orleans family.

218. Blanche Nettie Lazzell (American/West Virginia, active Provincetown, Massachusetts, 1878-1956), "Bouquet of Flowers", oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right "1914", with inscription en verso "Woodstock, N.Y", and other illegible writing; with label from Martin Diamond Fine Arts, Inc., New York, New York, 10021, 16 in., in an attractive cove molded frame. [$15000/25000]
Provenance: William Koch Private Collection, Mobile, Alabama, October 5, 2006.

W 219. Emilie de Hoa LeBlanc (American/New Orleans, 1870-1941, active Newcomb College, 1897-1905), “Pine Trees”, oil on board, signed “E.M. de Hoa LeBlanc” lower right, signed “E. Le Blanc” en verso, 8 3/4 in. x 7 in., in a period gilt wood frame. [$1000/1500]

220. Marie Atkinson Hull (American/Mississippi, 1890-1980), “Laundry Day”, watercolor and colored pencil, signed lower right, 1931, sight 9 1/2 in. x 13 1/2 in. [$4000/6000]
Provenance: Until Marie Hull’s death, this painting hung in her home in Jackson, Mississippi.

221. Julian Onderdonk (American/Texas, 1882-1922), “A Path through the Texas Hill Country”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 12 in. x 16 in., in a period gilt frame. [$12000/18000]

222. Mary Francis Robinson (American/New Orleans, b. 1908), “Evening in the French Quarter”, oil on canvasboard, signed lower right, sight 19 1/2 in. x 15 1/2 in. [$1800/2400]

223. William Woodward (American/New Orleans, 1859-1939), “Red Sumac”, oil on canvas affixed to board, signed and dated “24” lower left, 20 in. x 14 in. [$8000/12000]
Provenance: Estate of Marguerite (Margot) LaBarre Ingles (American/New Orleans, d. 1962, active Newcomb College 1905-6).

224. Helen Maria Turner, N.A. (American/New Orleans, 1858-1958), “A Lady Reading”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, c. 1920, 20 in. x 16 in. [$25000/35000]
Provenance: To be included in Kaycee Benton’s forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Helen Turner. The painting “A Lady Reading” was listed in the book Biographical Sketches of American Artists published by Michigan State Library in 1915 and 1924 as of the best of Turner’s works.
Note: The unknown model is seated in the artist’s summer cottage in Cragsmoor, New York.

225. Seldon Conner Gile (American, 1877-1947), “By the Sea”, oil on panel, signed and dated “39” lower left, signed and dated “39” en verso, 9 in. x 12 in., in a period gilt frame. [$4500/5500]

226. Cyrenius Hall (American, 1830-1896), “Path Through the Mountains”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 17 1/2 in. x 29 1/2 in. [$8000/12000]
Note: As an itinerant painter Cyrenius Hall traveled extensively to the frontiers of the American West and exotic locales in South America. The artist arrived in Portland in 1853 by traveling over the Oregon Pass. For over twenty years, Hall roamed through the American West and Canada painting the awe-inspiring vistas and pristine landscapes.

W 227. Frederick Ferdinand Schaeffer (German/American, 1839-1927), “Mt. Hood”, oil on canvas, signed “F. Schafer” at lower left, 32 in. x 43 in., in original late 19th c. foliate-stenciled and carved gilt frame. [$5000/7000]

228. Marie Therese Bernard de Jaham (American/New Orleans, 1869-1916), “Steamboat in the Bayou”, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 20 in. x 16 in., in a period gilt wood frame. [$4000/6000]
Note: A student of George David Coulon and Andres Molinary, Marie Therese Bernard De Jaham maintained a painting studio on Burgundy Street in the French Quarter from 1900 to 1915. Her most significant commission was the ceiling mural of four life-size figures of the evangelists and a copy of Murillo’s “Assumption” for St. Augustine’s Catholic Church on Governor Nicholls Street in 1910.

229. William Carl Anthony Frerichs (Belgian/North Carolina, 1829-1905), “North Carolina Cabin”, oil on canvas, c. 1855-1865, unsigned, 41 in. x 58 in., in a period gilt frame. [$30000/50000]
Provenance: Carolina Fine Paintings & Prints, Charleston, South Carolina.
Note: Born in Belgium, William A. C. Frerichs studied in The Hague with noted landscape painters Andreas Schelfhout and Bartholomeus J. van Hove and at the Royal Academy in Brussels. Initially, Frerichs immigrated to New York City in 1852, but two years later he accepted a position as Professor of Drawing, Painting and French at the Greensboro Female College (today Greensboro College) in North Carolina. Tragically a fire destroyed the college in 1863 including Frerichs studio filled with his paintings. He continued to teach art in North Carolina at Edgewood Seminary and at a local Quaker college. During the Civil War, the artist was drafted by the Confederate Corps of Engineers to supervise mining in the Sauratown Mountains. By living and working in North Carolina, Frerichs became intimately familiar with the distinct mountainous terrain. In this striking painting, an isolated rustic log and stone cabin sat amidst the mountains and cascading waterfall. With rifle in hand, a man walks down the path to hunt, while his wife on the porch tends to the daily chores.

W 230. After Henrietta Johnson (American/Charleston, early 18th c.), “Portrait of William Rhett of Charleston”, oil on wood panel, c. 1790-1800, titled en verso in pencil, 7 1/2 in. x 4 1/4 in., in an antique wood frame.  [$500/700]

231. Ben Austrian (American, 1870-1921), “Cavalry Officers on Horseback”, oil on canvas, signed and dated “1902” en verso, illegible stencil en verso of canvas, 15 in. x 13 in., in a period birdseye maple frame. [$8000/12000]
Note: After selling his interest in the family business, Ben Austrian pursued a successful career as painter. In 1902, he left Pennsylvania to open a studio in Paris to critical acclaim. Upon returning to America, Austrian maintained a studio-home in Palm Beach, Florida during the winter months painting southern landscape and genre scenes. Primarily known for his trompe l’oeil paintings and farms scenes of chicks and hens, this rare subject depicted distinguished cavalry officers on horseback.

232. Henry Casselli (American/New Orleans, b. 1946), “Three Confederate Soldiers”, pencil drawing, signed lower left, sight 16 1/2 in. x 11 in., attractively matted and framed [$1500/1800]
Provenance: Purchased from the artist in the 1970’s.
Note: Upon returning home from his tour of dutyin the Vietnam War, Henry Casselli resumed his education and career as an artist. The impact of the war experiences on the young artist inspired Casselli to create a series of drawings and paintings on the Civil War. Born and raised in New Orleans, Casselli was well aware of the significance of the war to the South. The drawings from this series are particularly poignant in that the artist was personally familiar with the anguish, horrors, bravery and honor of war.

W 233. Henry Casselli (American/New Orleans, b. 1946), “Five Civil War Soldiers”, pencil drawing, signed lower left, sight 16 in. x 13 in., attractively matted and framed. [$1500/1800]
Provenance: Purchased from the artist in the 1970’s.

W 234. Morris Henry Hobbs (American/New Orleans, 1892-1967), “Magnolia Blossoms”, watercolor, signed lower left, 14 in. x 20 in., unframed. [$1000/1500]

W 235. Morris Henry Hobbs (American/New Orleans, 1892-1967), “Hilly Landscape”, watercolor, signed lower left, 14 in. x 20 in., unframed. [$1500/2500]

W 236. Morris Henry Hobbs (American/New Orleans, 1892-1967), “Still life of Gardenias”, watercolor, signed lower right, 8 in. x 10 in., unframed. [$1000/1500]

W 237. Morris Henry Hobbs (American/New Orleans, 1892-1967), “Architectural Drawing of Home”, watercolor laid down on board, signed lower left, signed and inscribed “Lester A. Abel, Associated Architects, 4 East Ohio, Chicago” lower right, 14 in. 19 in., unframed. [$600/900]

238. Edith Emily d’Hemecourt Hibbard, Mrs. W.C. Vetsch (American/New Orleans, 20th c., active Newcomb College, 1923-27) A Collection of Student works of art on paper including over thirty life drawing studies of female nudes, sketch book of drawings and pastels, drawings of chairs, furniture and architectural elements, drawings of cats and watercolor and pencil drawings of still lifes. [$1200/1800]

W 239. George Orry-Kelly (American, 1897-1964), “Life on the Bayou” (pencil sketch “French Quarter Street” en verso), oil on board, unsigned 8 3/4 in. x 10 in. [$1000/1500]
Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Hollywood, California.
Note: Australian George Orry-Kelly initially studied to be an artist, but decided to move to New York City in 1921 to pursue a career in acting. In New York City he became friends with Archibald Leach (Cary Grant) and they shared an attic apartment. Instead of finding acting roles, Orry-Kelly was hired to paint murals and draw illustrated subtitles for Fox Film Studios as well as designing costumes and sets for Broadway’s Schubert and George White revues. As a movie costume designer, he went on to win Academy Awards for “An American in Paris,” “Les Girls” and “Some Like it Hot.” This watercolor was painted by Orry-Kelly during a trip south to New Orleans.

294. American School, c. 1840, “Portrait of a Gentleman”, oil on canvas, unsigned; labeled en verso “From Kentshire Galleries-United States Silver Co.-37 East 12th New York, NY”, 30 1/8 in. x 25 in., in a period cove molded carved giltwood frame. [$2000/3000]

W 295. American School, 19th c., “Deer in a Landscape”, oil on canvas, signed indistinctly and dated “1895” lower right, 31 in. x 45 1/2 in. [$1200/1800]

308. William Tolliver (Mississippi/Louisiana, 1951-2000), “Four Cotton Pickers in the Field”, signed lower left, 40 in. x 30 in. [$12000/14000]
Provenance: Live Oak Gallery, Lafayette, Louisiana, c. 1980s. Bob Crutchfield, owner of Live Oak Gallery discovered the artist and promoted him throughout his career.
Note: In this colorful and expressive painting “Cotton Pickers in the Field”, the African American artist William Tolliver referred to his youth in rural Mississippi. Images of laborers hard at work were a common theme for the self-taught artist. In 1977, Tolliver got married and moved his family to Lafayette, Louisiana and worked as house painter. After losing his job, he focused on painting and selling his artwork with great success. Tolliver’s paintings are in the collection of the Corcoran Museum and New Orleans Museum of Art.

309. Benny Andrews (American/Georgia, b. 1930), “Sign of the Cross (The Revival Series)”, oil and collage on paper, unsigned, artist’s label en verso, 29 3/4 in. x 22 3/4 in., attractively matted and framed. [$8000/12000]
Provenances: Bill Hodges Gallery, New York City, 1998.
Note: One of ten children, the African-American artist Benny Andrews grew up on a tenant farm in rural Georgia. Despite their poverty, the Andrews family was loving and creative. His father, George, was a self taught artist and his mother, Viola, a writer. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, Benny Andrews used the G.I. Bill to studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1954. Rejecting the prevailing Abstract Expressionist movement, he developed a figural expressionistic style. Upon graduating, Andrews moved to New York City and established a nationally renowned career as artist, teacher, writer and advocate of the arts.
Early in his career as artist, Andrews started working with collage. Andrews found that oil painting tended to be too academic and sophisticated and he found the textural quality of collage appealing. In “Sign of the Cross” Andrews effectively applied fabric with lace work to the paper surface for the white dress. Andrews also tends to prefer working in series, this piece being from his “Revival Series” which related to his religious upbringing and the African-American church life in the Deep South.

311. John Warner Barber (American, 1798-1885), “Orphan Asylum Charleston, South Carolina”, pencil on paper, strengthened with sepia ink, 4 7/8 in. x 5 7/8 in., Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York, label on mat. [$700/900]
Note: Prepared for engraving and used in John W. Barber and Henry Howe, Our Whole Country, or, The Past and Present of the United States: Historical and Descriptive, Cincinnati, 1861. The Charleston Orphan Asylum, built through citizen initiative and completed in 1794, was remodeled and enlarged in the mid-1850s.
Reference: Marvin Olasky, “The Rise and Fall of American Orphanages”, in Richard B. McKenzie, Rethinking Orphanages for the 21st Century, 1998.

312. John Warner Barber (American, 1798-1885), “House and Monument of President Polk, Nashville, Tennessee”, pencil on paper, strengthened with sepia ink, 4 3/4 in. x 6 in., Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York label on mat. [$700/900]
Note: Prepared for engraving and used in John W. Barber and Henry Howe, Our Whole Country, or, the past and present of the United States: historical and descriptive..., Cincinnati, 1861. This view shows President Polk’s retirement home, including the tombstone marking his place of burial in 1849.

W 313. John Warner Barber (American, 1798-1885), “Northwest View of Chucks Springs, 10 miles from Greenville, South Carolina”, pencil on paper, strengthened with sepia ink, 4 1/8 in. x 6 3/8 in., Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York label on mat. [$500/700]
Note: Prepared for engraving and used in John W. Barber and Henry Howe, Our Whole Country, or, the past and present of the United States: historical and descriptive..., Cincinnati, 1861.

W 314. John Warner Barber (American, 1798-1885), “First House Built in Wilmington, North Carolina”, pencil on paper, strengthened with graphite and sepia ink, 4 1/8 in. x 6 1/4 in., Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York label on mat. [$300/500]
Note: Prepared for engraving and used in John W. Barber and Henry Howe, Our Whole Country, or, the past and present of the United States: historical and descriptive..., Cincinnati, 1861.

W 315. John Warner Barber (American, 1798-1885), “Knoxville Hotel, Knoxville, Tennessee, First Tavern and Legislative Hall in Tennessee [sic]”, pencil on paper, strengthened with sepia ink, 4 1/2 in. x 5 3/4 in., Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York label on mat. [$700/900]
Note: Prepared for engraving and used in John W. Barber and Henry Howe, Our Whole Country, or the past and present of the United States: historical and descriptive..., Cincinnati, 1861.

W 316. John Warner Barber (American, 1798-1885), “Southwestern View of the Ancient Stone Church near Pendleton, South Carolina the first church erected in the Upper Country”, pencil on paper, strengthened with sepia ink, 4 5/8 in. x 5 1/2 in., Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York mat. [$500/700]

W 317. John Warner Barber (American, 1798-1885), “Grave of John C. Calhoun, Charleston, South Carolina”, pencil on paper, strengthened with sepia ink, 3 5/8 in. x 3 5/8 in., Kennedy Galleries Inc., New York label on mat. [$300/500]
Note: Prepared for engraving and used in John W. Barber and Henry Howe, Our Whole Country, or, the past and present of the United States: historical and descriptive..., Cincinnati, 1861.

320. Antonio N.G. Jacobsen (1850-1921), “Creole, Screw Steamship”, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right “A. Jacobsen 1895/(New) 31 PALISADE AV. WEST HOBOKEN, N.J.”, canvas size 22 in. x 36 in., frame size 28 1/2 in. x 42 1/2 in. [$20000/30000]
Note: The Creole was built by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company of Newport News, Virginia and launched August 8th, 1896. She was built for the Cromwell Steamship Company and, as a passenger ship, made regular runs between New York and New Orleans. She eventually was sold to the U.S. Navy and saw extensive service in the Spanish-American War. Jacobsen frequently painted from plans and blueprints, which accounts for the lag time between launch and painting dates.

329. Edmund Darch Lewis (American, 1835-1910), “Distant View of a Farm with a ‘Salt-Box’ House”, watercolor on professional paper, signed and dated “1860” lower left, 12 1/2 in. x 19 7/8 in., handsomely matted and framed. [$1000/2000]
Provenance: Kennedy Galleries, New York, label en verso (erroneously identifying the scene as a possible view of Washington’s Headquarters at Newburgh-on-Hudson, apparently only because of the image’s inclusion of a flagstaff).
Note: This beautiful early watercolor by the fashionable Philadelphia socialite and artist E. D. Lewis was probably made in New England, where he exhibited about this time at the Boston Athenaeum; its pair of figures, prominently included in the left middle ground, suggests that this may well have been a commissioned view of a newly-built country seat. As something of a prodigy, Lewis first showed his work publicly at age 19, at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1854. He at once became the darling of rich collectors, and even after converting a pair of large Philadelphia row houses into a lavishly stocked private gallery, his worth at the time of his death was said to have exceeded $300,000—a sum accrued entirely through the astute sale of his landscapes.

331. American School, late 19th c., “General George Washington’s Headquarters at Newburgh, New York”, 1893, oil on canvas, 18 in. x 24 in., framed. [$3000/5000]
Provenance: Former collections of R. Allison; and Gary and Martha Ludlow, American Antiques, Lyndhurst, OH.
Note: This appealingly naïve view of the Hasbrouck House, which Washington rented as his headquarters from April 1782 to August 1783, appears to be based primarily on an engraving by Joseph Andrews (1805-1873), after a drawing made on the site by John Ludlow Morton (1792-1871), that appeared in the first edition of Jared Sparks’s Life of Washington, published in 1837. This considerably later painted version is twice inscribed “93”in ink, on the stretcher; the fact that those numerals represent the picture’s date of production in 1893 is confirmed by the special metal stretcher-clamps, which display cast-in patent registrations of 1883 and 1885.
Jonathan Hasbrouck (1722-1780) and his wife Tryntje built this house in 1750, and added a row of rooms on the west (here the right) side, twenty years later. This traditional view southward down the Hudson River shows the north wall, with the single window of Washington’s study (adjoining his bedroom) on the ground floor at left; to its right are the double windows of the parlor added in 1770. The west wall of that extension, with its single hall door and two kitchen and office windows, is rendered more accurately here than in any other well-known view.
We are grateful to Melvin Johnson, Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site Assistant, for his generous help in cataloguing this lot.

332. Edmund C. Coates (American, 1816-1871/2), “The Hudson River Below the Kosciusko Monument at West Point”, oil on panel or board, signed and dated “E.C. Coates 1854” lower right, 20 in. x 24 in., in a finely carved giltwood frame of the period, with an ornamented oval giltwood liner, sight 17 1/2 in. x 21 1/2 in. [$8000/12000]
Note: This delicate and highly coloristic painting offers a wide view of the Hudson Highlands, focusing on the monument to the Polish artillery officer Thaddeus Kosciusko (or Kosciuszko, 1746-1817), a patriot hero of the Battle of Saratoga in the Revolutionary War (whose ashes are interred in the crypt of Wawel Cathedral in Krakow). The sculptural base and commemorative column at West Point were designed about 1820 by the Cadet son of the famous Anglo-American architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764-1820), that is John H. B. Latrobe (1803-1891, appointed Cadet in 1818), who was obliged to resign from the Academy following his father’s untimely death in New Orleans; the completed monument was inscribed by the Corps of Cadets in 1828. Coates, who lived and worked in Manhattan and Brooklyn from 1837 to 1871/2, borrowed the composition of this 1854 painting from a small steel engraving (about 5 in. x 7 in.) by G. K. Richardson, after a drawing of c. 1836 by William Henry Bartlett, which was published by Nathaniel Parker Willis in American Scenery; or, Land, Lake and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature (2 vols., London and New York, 1840). The print provided an almost exact prototype for this painting, except for the staffage: in the engraving, a Cadet and another young man are entertaining three young women on the foreground knoll, a brisk wind is bending the foliage to the right, while the sailing craft are fewer, and conspicuously oversized. Coates’s calmer, more measured, and slightly more distant view exemplifies his working method, which (because of his preoccupations as an entrepreneurial art dealer in New York) was often based on just such sources among published prints: he painted a similarly-sized distant view of West Point from the opposite direction, “Crow’s Nest from Bull Point”—a promontory directly behind the monument in this painting—based on another of the engravings in American Scenery (and see also his “Fort Putnam” in this same catalogue).

333. Robert Havell (British/American, 1793-1878), “View from Verplanck’s Point”, watercolor on paper, signed in monogram with initials and dated “1865” at lower left, with remnants of presentation inscription en verso, sight 6 3/4 in. x 10 1/8 in., framed. [$1500/2500]
Note: Best known for his work in London as the aquatint engraver who published the plates of John James Audubon’s superb Birds of America (1827-1838) – a masterwork which owes much of its brilliance to Havell’s skill as a printmaker – Havell emigrated to New York to rejoin the Audubon family in 1839, then moved progressively up the Hudson River to Ossining (1842) and Tarrytown (1857), where he was living when he painted this expansive view. Although principally active in America as a painter, he also continued to work in aquatint engraving, and published a “View of the Hudson from Tarrytown Heights” that is somewhat similar to this engraving prospect.

350. Junius Brutus Stearns (American, 1810-1885), “The Capture of Major John Andre”, oil on canvas, signed ‘J.B. Stearns / A N A.(?)’; 27 1/4 in. x 34 1/2 in.” in a finely carved giltwood frame (including liner with arched spandrels). [$30000/50000]
Provenance: Private collection, 1947, thence to Hendershott collection; Sotheby’s, New York, September 14, 1995, lot 10.
Note: The charming and popular British army officer John André had been appointed in 1779 by Sir Henry Clinton, commander-in-chief of British forces in America (whose aide-de-camp he was) as deputy adjutant-general with the rank of major. He was put in charge of undercover negotiations with General Benedict Arnold, a secretly loyalist American officer who was plotting a betrayal of the principal Revolutionary stronghold, the fortress of West Point (which he commanded) on the Hudson River. André sailed upriver from New York for a clandestine rendezvous with Arnold, at Stony Point; but his British sloop, the Vulture, was forced to retire downstream before André could reboard it, and he set off in civilian clothes to recross the lines. When he was within sight of the British outposts at Tarrytown, on the morning of September 23, 1780, he was detained by three militiamen: John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart, and David Williams. Stearns’ dramatic painting shows the tense moment in which Williams (kneeling) has found the incriminating West Point plans in André’s boots; the officer proffers his gold watch and a monetary bribe to Paulding (the leader and hero of the incident), who refuses them. André was turned over to General George Washington, who convened a military court at Tappan; the young agent was condemned to death as a spy, and was hanged on October 2, 1780. The British nation dedicated a monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey, to which his remains were transferred in 1821 (Winthrop Sargent, The Life and Career of Major John André, Natchez and New York, 1861).
The understandably much less laudatory American view was that the serendipitous capture and execution of the spy André, and the defection of the traitor Arnold (by averting an almost certain military catastrophe), marked one of the crucial turning-points in the War of Independence. The highly charged political and psychological drama of this pivotal encounter—in which the physically imposing Paulding, even if initially motivated perhaps by greed, emerges as an exemplar of patriotic ardor—thus exercised a continuing fascination for American artists. Thomas Sully (1783-1872) executed apparently the first major painting of this theme in 1812, in reaction to another tense moment in Anglo-American relations (Worcester Art Museum, 22 ½ in. x 30 ½ in.); an even more influential treatment was offered in a rare history picture of c. 1835 by Asher B. Durand (1796-1886), in which Paulding’s energetic pose is derived from the Apollo Belvedere (also Worcester Art Museum, 25 in. x 30 ½ in.). Stearns, in this largest and in many ways finest of this trio of masterworks, concentrates more tellingly on the taut eye-to-eye contact between André and Paulson; Van Wart and Williams are much more successfully drawn into the tension of that clash of wills, as a contest of virtue. The superb mastery of line, tone, and color, bound together by Stearns’ meticulous, glowing brushwork, makes this one of the most impressive of all 19th-c. American history paintings. If the somewhat unclear inscription is here correctly interpreted, Stearns apparently signed this early tour-de-force in the single year of his rank as an Associate of the National Academy, that is in 1848.
We are indebted to Karen Mansfield, Assistant Registrar, Worcester Art Museum, for her kind assistance.

351. Albert Gallatin Hoit (American, 1809-1856), “Daniel Webster (1782-1852), as United States Senator (1827-1841)”, c. 1836, oil and gouache on ivory, apparently unsigned, 5 ½ in. x 4 in., sight (through original oval mount), in fitted case [$2000/3000]
Note: The great American statesman Daniel Webster (Class of 1801) and the miniature, portrait, and landscape painter Albert Hoit (Class of 1829) were both graduates of Dartmouth College, in their native New Hampshire; they may have met through the political career of the painter’s father, Daniel Hoit, who served many terms in the state legislature, as well as one in its senate (Webster was a New Hampshire representative in 1813-1817, and served as counsel for Dartmouth College during the celebrated Supreme Court case in 1816-1819). This apparently uninscribed miniature certainly represents Webster—through its physiognomic identity with daguerreotypes by Mathew Brady (1845-1849), as well as Southworth & Hawes (1851)—and it finds its closest parallel with an anonymous Metropolitan Museum of Art miniature, inscribed with Webster’s name, which is dated stylistically to 1822-1832. That New York miniature shows a somewhat lower hairline, and a slightly more youthful face; its costume and pose are virtually identical with this painting, and suggest that this four-times-larger “miniature” (almost at the size of a small easel painting) might well have been made only a few years later. In 1836 Webster ran as the Whig candidate for the Presidency; in that same year Hoit began to turn from his concentration on miniatures to portraits on canvas, and the conjunction of those facts suggests a plausible association of this painting with that year.
In 1850 Hoit joined Webster at his home outside Boston, where he completed a full-length portrait for the New Hampshire State House (installed 1861; replica, Union League Club, New York). During those same sittings Hoit also made a series of bust-length Webster portraits (ink drawing, private collection; chromolithograph from that model, with intervening painting unlocated; canvas, Union League Club; canvas, private collection). The likenesses in those 1850 images are somewhat idealized, especially in the New Hampshire state portrait, in which Webster’s appearance is close to that in the painting offered here; moreover, both the pose and costume of this portrait are identical to the 1851 daguerreotype by Southworth & Hawes. It is thus possible that this fine and mature masterwork might have been one of the fruits of Webster’s 1850 sittings to Hoit—as an unusual, large, late miniature—rather than a work of the mid-1830s.

352. George Catlin, N.A. (American, 1796-1872), “West Point Military Academy”, c. 1824-1827, watercolor on paper, sight 12 in. x 18 3/8 in., in original gilt-lined walnut frame. [$2500/3500]
Provenance: Collection of James A. Klein.
Note: This sheet, which is a noteworthy discovery in the study of this famous “artist of the American Indians”, as well as in the development of American printmaking, is one of two original watercolors that Catlin consigned to the celebrated New York engraver John Hill, in late 1827 or early 1828, and which were issued on May 15 of the latter year as a pair of aquatint etchings, tinted with watercolor (at plate sizes of about 14 in. x 20 in. each, making their images one-to-one reproductions of Catlin’s drawings). The inscription on the print of this scene (see illustration) reads: “To the Cadets of the WEST POINT MILITARY ACADEMY this print is respectfully dedicated, by their friend and Servant, Geo. Catlin. / Drawn by G. Catlin. / Engraved, Printed and Coloured by J. Hill. / Published May 15th. 1828. by G. Catlin N. York.” Catlin’s two West Point views are thus among the earliest polychromed prints of Hudson River sites, paralleling the aquatints published earlier in the 1820s in Henry Megary’s Hudson River Portfolio (after watercolors in that case by William Guy Wall, that were also principally engraved by John Hill).
Catlin’s beloved younger brother Julius was enrolled at the Academy from 1820 to 1824, when he took his commission; thus, to judge from the artist’s description of himself as a “friend” of the Corps of Cadets, it seems probable that he may have drawn this view during Julius’s student years, when George (then resident in Philadelphia) might well have visited him. Indeed, Catlin is documented to have been already working on a miniature portrait of the New York Governor DeWitt Clinton, in nearby Albany, in December of 1824 (see his immediately subsequent, half-length “Clinton” portrait, in this same catalogue). After being elected as a member of the new National Academy of Design in 1826, and moving to New York in 1827 (where he met John Hill, already well known for his Portfolio aquatints), Catlin continued to travel the Hudson: he was in fact married in Albany, just five days before the issuance of the print of this scene, on May 10, 1828. Unfortunately, this published view and its pendant (which shows the parade ground from the opposite direction) almost at once became memorials, rather than brotherly homages: while delivering a replica of the third of Catlin’s “Clinton” portraits—a standing full figure—to the Franklin Institute at Rochester, in September 1828, Julius joined a group there for a swim, and was drowned.
References (for the prints): Gloria Gilda Deák, Picturing America, Princeton, 1988, vol. 1, p. 242, no. 356; vol. 2, figs. 356.1 and 356.2; and E. McSherry Fowble, Two Centuries of Prints in America, Charlottesville, 1987, p. 396, no. 277, with color plate.

354. George Catlin (American, 1796-1872), “Portrait of Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York (1769-1828)”, oil on canvas mounted on board, c. 1825-1827, 30 in. x 25 in. [$5000/7000]
Note: Before his first travels to the American West in 1830, (eventually resulting in some 1000 images of North and South American Indian life, for which he is now most celebrated), Catlin began as a miniature painter in Philadelphia around 1820. His first portrait of Governor Clinton was a miniature painted at Albany in December 1824 (engraved in Philadelphia in the following year); his second, of 1825-1827, was the large seated portrait (first version, 30 in. x 25 in., at the New York Historical Society); this present version is an exact reprise of that canvas; while Catlin’s third Clinton painting was a full-length standing portrait of 1828 for the New York Common Council (also contemporaneously copied at full size, in a version for the Franklin Institute in Rochester, New York).
DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828) served four terms (1817-1822 and 1825-1828) as Governor of New York State; he also served in the U.S. Senate (1802-1803), introducing the 12th Amendment, which outlined the present method of electing the President and Vice President. He was Mayor of New York City for twelve years (1803-1815), and ran as an unsuccessful candidate for President on the Republican party ticket in 1812.

361. Robert Walter Weir, N.A. (American, 1803-1889), “Columbus before the Council of Salamanca”, oil on wood panel, signed and dated “1877” lower right, 8 7/8 in. x 12 in., framed. [$7000/10000]
Provenance: By inheritance, through the family of the artist; purchased from a descendant by the present owner.
Published: G. W. Sheldon, “An Artist at Home”, New York Evening Post, October 1, 1877 (“On his easel was his latest work almost finished, ‘Columbus before the Council of Slamanca’...”).
G.W. Sheldon, American Painters: with...Examples of their Work Engraved on Wood, D. Appleton & Co., New York, [1st ed.; enlarged ed. 1881], this painting published as engraving opp. p. 162.
Exhibited: National Academy of Design, New York, annual exhibition, 1878, no. 536.
Note: This significant rediscovery is the principal preliminary version of Robert Weir’s masterpiece, “Christopher Columbus Arguing for a Western Route to the Indies, before the Council of Clerics and Scholars at Salamanca” (inscribed with the same form of signature as this panel), an oil on canvas dated “1884” (29 1/4 in. x 40 1/8 in.), in the West Point Museum Art Collection, U. S. Military Academy. That same collection also holds an intermediate preparatory drawing for the larger canvas (ink on paper, unsigned, 13 ¼ in. x 17 ½ in.), adumbrating some of the changes introduced in that version: the relocations of certain figures, and the substitution of a “Stoning of St. Stephen”—the first Christian martyr, as a reference to the hostility with which Columbus’s own new ideas were received—in place of the royal arms of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic Kings, which are here displayed on a hanging between the pilasters. The handsomely balanced composition—with its debt, of course, to Leonardo’s “Last Supper”, as well as to intervening compositions by the Dutch masters—provides a foil for the impassioned pose of the protagonist, who is also set off from the white and black habits of his inquisitors by the vibrant intensity of his doublet, coloristically linking him and his global vision to the distantly-woven “Turkey carpet”, and to the triumphant blazon of the royal arms.
This picture, which made such an impression on the critic Sheldon that he caused it to be engraved for his American Painters in the year of its completion, was painted immediately after Weir retired as Instructor (1834-1846) and subsequently Professor (1846-1876) of Art at West Point (a position in which he conspicuously influenced the development of the Hudson River School). A pupil of John Wesley Jarvis, Weir had spent the years 1824-1827 studying in Florence, Siena, Rome, and Naples; almost at once after his return to New York he was elected to the National Academy of Design (1829), where he exhibited regularly until 1882. Weir’s most prominent work is his vast “Embarkation of the Pilgrims” for the Rotunda of the U. S. Capitol in Washington (1837-1843), one of eight enormous canvases commissioned to illustrate the history of the nation. Among his sixteen children, his sons John Ferguson Weir (1841-1926) and Julian Alden Weir (1852-1919) both became influential and respected artists.

362. William Louis Sonntag, N.A. (American, 1822-1900), “Clement’s Falls, Shelburne, New Hampshire”, 1886, oil on canvas, signed “W. L. Sonntag” lower right, and (twice) boldly inscribed “Shelburne, N.H.” in black paint on the stretcher, 9 3/4 in. x 12 in., in a finely carved giltwood period frame. [$8000/12000]
Note: This enchanting and highly colored sunset scene, combining the best of American Luminism with characteristic reminiscences of the French school of Barbizon painters (as are typical in Sonntag’s mature work), represents a considerable discovery. It seems certainly identifiable as the lost “Clement’s Falls, New Hampshire”, recorded as a painting of “10 in. x 12 in.”, but without notation of medium, that was exhibited by Sonntag at the National Academy of Design in 1886, as no. 264 (Nancy D. W. Moure, W. L. Sonntag, Los Angeles, 1980, p. 101, no. 55). The small falls on Clement Brook are a very short distance from the center of Shelburne, NH, just above the point at which that tributary joins the Androscoggin River; it would thus have been natural for Sonntag to inscribe this picture’s reverse with the name of the town in which he was painting, but to label it with the more particularized name of the specific subject, for public exhibition.
Born in western Pennsylvania and raised in Cincinnati, Sonntag in his late teens made a life-changing expedition into the northwest frontier, up the Mississippi valley into the Wisconsin Territory; his experiences of that wild country inspired his lifelong interest in painting romanticized views of the American landscape, evocative of a pristine wilderness barely affected by humankind. As a result of continuing explorations throughout the Alleghenies, he painted to considerable acclaim in Cincinnati from 1841 to about 1856, with interruptions for two trips abroad in 1853 and 1855; by 1857 he was resident in New York, where he had become an Associate in 1860 and a member of the National Academy in 1861. As the Civil War closed his native states to artistic travel, he turned to the less populous parts of New England, especially northern Vermont and New Hampshire; from a corresponding loyalty to the early Hudson River School painters of unspoiled nature, his later work (as in the heightened palette of this painting)—often painted en plein-air—approaches the brilliance of Frederic Church, as well as the calmer concentration of the Barbizon school. He is recognized as one of the most successful American painters of his generation.

363. Joshua Shaw (English/American, 1776-1861, worked in England to 1817), “An American Romantic Landscape with Bridges and Waterfall”, c. 1820s, oil on canvas, signed “SHAW” lower left, 14 1/8 in. x 20 in., in a period giltwood frame. [$12000/18000]
Provenance: Freeman’s, Philadelphia; Alexander Gallery, New York (label en verso)
Note: A professional English artist trained in Bath and London (and a long-standing exhibitor at the Royal Academy), Shaw immigrated to America in 1817 through his friendship with Benjamin West, the American-born president of the R. A., whose “Christ Healing the Sick” Shaw accompanied to its commissioned destination in Philadelphia, which became his home for a full quarter of a century. In 1818-1819 he undertook extensive travels through the South and East, drawing views to be engraved by his fellow-Englishman John Hill (1770-1850), for Shaw’s serial publication of Picturesque Views of American Scenery, issued at Philadelphia in 1819-1821. This was the first professional celebration of the American landscape through fine printmaking, and it had a revolutionary effect (as did Shaw’s continuing career as a painter) on the development of American art. Its engravings introduced artists and collectors to Shaw’s persuasive interpretation of landscape in the style of “Romantic Classicism,” as practiced (through their admiration of the 17th-c. models of Claude Lorrain) by such English masters as Thomas Gainsborough, Philip de Loutherbourg, and—above all—Richard Wilson.
This spectacular sunrise or sunset view in lot 363, is a most characteristic early work of Shaw in America. It combines the framing, feathery trees and luminous recessions of those Romantic progenitors into an idyllic masterpiece that may well reflect his early North American preoccupation with specific topographic subjects. Although strongly idealized, as an image closely reflecting Edmund Burke’s seminal essay on the “Sublime and [the] Beautiful” (London, 1757), this distant view of a ten-lighted structure in a gentle curve above a sheet of water quite exactly recalls the gently curving, ten-windowed span of Robert Mills’s Upper Ferry Bridge (1809-1812, burned 1838) over the Schuylkill River, near Philadelphia’s Fairmont Park—whose bosky glades are similarly evoked on these banks (albeit with the inclusion of an improbably high waterfall, recalling such a favorite of English Romantic landscape painters as the cascades at Tivoli, above the Roman Campagna). Shaw’s typically understated signature, on this jewel-like canvas, is subtly painted in dark green capitals on a green ground, exactly as the comparable signature, on his “Pioneers” of c. 1838 in the Indianapolis Museum of Art, is inscribed with equal understatement in peach on rose, those being the identical tones employed in the distant forms and foreground reflections of this hauntingly beautiful masterwork.

375. Stephen Elmer, A.R.A. British, 1717-1796), “The Politician: Dr. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)”, oil on canvas, signed and dated “1780” lower right, 30 in. x 25 in. [$50000/100000]
Provenance: The artist; by inheritance to his nephew, William Elmer, 1796; offered by him for sale at “Elmer’s Sportsman’s Exhibition”, Haymarket, London, 1799 (as “The Politician--an old man reading news, kit-cat size, thirty guineas”). William H. Huntington, New York; donated by him to Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1885 (with Huntington Collection to storage, 1906), deaccessioned 1956; purchased by Prosper Guerry; by inheritance by George P. Guerry; purchased from him by Edward Eberstadt & Sons, New York, before 1962. Kennedy Galleries, New York, later 1960s; Private collection.
Published: This painting engraved by Thomas Ryder (British, 1746-1810), as “The Politician/Published as the Act directs May 1, 1782, by T. Ryder and Sold by A. Torre and J. Thane, No. 28 Hay Market [London].”
Second version of that 1782 engraving of this painting published as frontispiece to The Life and Works of Benjamin Franklin, Bungay Brightley and Childs, London, 1815.
Original plate of that 1782 engraving of this painting republished by Z. Sweet, London, July 1, 1824, with augmented title, as “The Politician/[Dr. Benj: Franklin]”
Note: The septuagenarian sitter in this fascinating image holds in his right hand a copy of the standard London newspaper, the Evening Post; on the evidence of Ryder’s careful engraving of this picture just two years after its creation, the paper must once have borne a faint but legible date of “Jan. 1, 1776” (Sellers, pp. 278-279). The subject’s left fist is clenched (as if in an approving gesture, almost of table-thumping agreement), over a 1776 pro-American pamphlet—a copy of which Joseph Priestley had sent to Franklin on February 13th of that year—by Richard Price, Observations / on the Nature of / Civil Liberty, / the Principles of / Government, / and the / Justice and Policy / of the War with America (T. Cadell, London, February 8, 1776). “Old Elmer”, as this presumably Tory painter of still life and hunting trophies, a member of the Society of Artists, and an A. R. A. (a resident of both London and Farnham, in Surrey) was called by his contemporaries, had shown an apparently related (but untraced) painting of “A Politician” in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1777. That unknown likeness, as Sellers suggests, probably set out to satirize Franklin, as a Loyalist response to the widespread adulation engendered by a laudatory bronze medal of the patriot, which had been anonymously issued earlier that year.
This three-year-later “Politician” by Elmer, by incorporating the same newspaper and pamphlet of January and February 1776, that had been topical when that late 1776 or early 1777 predecessor to this picture had been painted, implies that interest in his perhaps hastily-painted first canvas (which, possibly for that reason, had not been engraved) caused Elmer to create this more serious picture, probably with a predetermined intent to engrave it, and as a result very probably taking more time and care over its artistic character and composition. As Sellers has remarked, this image seems likely to be a revision of a famous 1766 painting of “Franklin Seated at a Desk, Reading Documents and Books”, by David Martin, that had become so popular as to be frequently replicated (versions now in the White House, American Philosophical Society, and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, as well as in the collections of Lord Stanhope and the Earl of Yarborough). Elmer’s immediate model for this head is likely to have been either the engraved profile frontispiece in Franklin’s own Political, Miscellaneous and Philosophical Pieces (Benjamin Vaughan ed., J. Johnson, London, 1779), or even more plausibly the similarly-posed engraving which accompanied a sharply critical article on the “Life and Character of Dr. Franklin” in the Political Magazine and Parliamentary, Naval and Literary Journal of October 1780.
Without quite overstepping the bounds of decorum, this somewhat daring picture clearly seeks to represent the transatlantically popular Franklin (as the Political Magazine’s essayist accused) as the “mischie[vous] … author and encourager of the American rebellion,” especially after he “came to be noticed as a politician.” Its likeness seems to hover on the threshold of satire, and (because of the risk of seeming, however tangentially, to celebrate an “incendiary” patriot) was not even explicitly acknowledged as depicting Franklin at all, until almost two decades after Elmer’s death—when its engraving was unambiguously included as the frontispiece to the major Franklin monograph of 1815 (and was eventually re-engraved, with Franklin’s name, in 1824). As Charles Coleman Sellers commented in his essential study of this image, however (pp. 278, 280), “No denial of this acceptance of the likeness as Franklin’s, within the lifetime of many who had known him, was ever made. … That [its] intention was to satirize seems certain, and that a picture so conceived could be reissued posthumously in its subject’s honor throws a new light on the invulnerability of Franklin’s fame.”
Reference: Charles Coleman Sellers, Benjamin Franklin in Portraiture, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1962; this painting reproduced on plate 13, with text on pp. 227-281; this book will accompany the lot.

379. American School, late 19th/early 20th c., “Profile Bust of Benjamin Franklin, (1706-1790)”, reverse painting on glass, the 7 in. high image decoratively bordered with gold leaf (design 16 in. diameter), in a modern deep frame (23 in. diameter overall). [$1000/2000]
Note: Attractively composed and expressed as a “medallic” image, this painted bust apparently follows no known medal of Franklin, nor other sculptural source. It may be based, instead, on the philatelic prototypes of late 19th or early 20th c. U.S. postage stamps (among which it bears a resemblance to issues of 1887, or to others of 1912-1914). It may thus perhaps have been produced for one of the occasions (or soon after one of the anniversaries) of the centenary of Franklin’s death, in 1890, or the bicentenary of his birth, in 1906.

417. Attributed to Aaron Dean Fletcher (American, 1817-1902), “Jonathan Whipple (born July 7, 1795)” and his wife “Melinda Grout Whipple (married September 10/15, 1820)”, a pair of portraits, c. 1840, oil on canvas, unsigned, each 27 in. x 22 in., in matching naive-style frames. [$7000/10000]
Provenance: Acquired directly from the descendants of John Adams Whipple (1822-1891) of Grafton, MA, the celebrated pioneer of American photography, son of the sitters. Frames from Heydenryck Gallery, New York, by whom acquired from the collection of Edgar and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch.
Note: These fine itinerant-artist portraits are evidently the work of Aaron Dean Fletcher, a Vermont painter whose career began around 1837, who worked also in New York and Massachusetts (where these canvases would have been painted in the town of Grafton, in which the Whipple family were residents for generations). Such an attribution to Fletcher was suggested for these impressive likenesses some years ago, by the staff of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center at Colonial Williamsburg, on the basis of their strong resemblance to certain of the twenty signed or securely attributed works assembled in a monograph article by Virginia M. Burdick and Nancy C. Muller, “Aaron Dean Fletcher, Portrait Painter,” in The Magazine Antiques, 115:1 (January 1979), pp. 184-193. That attribution is indeed eminently plausible, especially on the grounds of “Jonathan Whipple’s” relationship in pose and physiognomy to Fletcher’s portrait of “Samuel Cook” of 1843, and “Melinda Whipple’s” correspondences of silhouette and costume with the artist’s “Lady with a Cameo Brooch,” of 1858. That latter painting, in fact (at 30 in. x 25 in.), shares precisely the same proportions as these canvases, with its addition of three inches in both dimensions; other pairs of Fletcher portraits with sizes (and apparent dates) even closer to these, measure respectively 27 in. x 24 in. (his “Moses and Mary Chase” portraits of c. 1837), or 26 in. x 24 in., or—on a single canvas, again of c. 1837, of the Chase’s son—24 in. x 21 in. Thus in terms of the artist’s preferred ratios of canvas sizes, in addition to consistently shared elements of formal composition and painterly handling, as well as the use of ornament and color, these highly expressive and appealing portraits may be recognized as fully characteristic and exceptionally noteworthy additions to Fletcher’s considerable oeuvre.

418. James Sharples [or Sharpless] (English/American, 1751/52-1811), or a member of his family, “Francis Dana (1743-1811), Chief Justice of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1791-1806)”, c. 1794-1796, pastel on very thin laid paper, unsigned, 9 1/4 in. x 7 1/4 in., in an early 19th c. giltwood frame (c. 1814-1824) inscribed with names of artist and sitter, the latter’s title and dates of incumbency; titled again on original backing board en verso. [$2500/3500]
Note: The eminent jurist Francis Dana had been a Revolutionary patriot, serving with John Adams and John Quincy Adams on a diplomatic commission in Paris (1779-1780), from which he traveled to St. Petersburg as the first American minister to Russia (1780-1783). He then served in the Continental Congress, as well as on Massachusetts’ Constitutional Convention, before being appointed Chief Justice of the Commonwealth in 1791. This pastel portrait, highly characteristic of the American works of James Sharples, would have been made early in Dana’s judicial incumbency, when the Sharples family were traveling as itinerant artists in New England (see the related portraits of “Sumner” and “Parker” in this catalogue). Like the “Sumner”, this strikingly lifelike image is executed on a sheet so thin as to resemble tissue-paper, whereas James Sharples Sr. usually preferred the heavier support of a more textured paper. This competent pair of pastels (the “Dana” and “Sumner”, both contemporaneously labeled as by “Sharpless”) may therefore be replications by another member of the family, whose standard practice was to offer several portraits to each sitter—for distributions as gifts, or even as promotions for the talents of the Sharples family. Both were eventually framed en suite with the gouache portrait of a younger Massachusetts jurist (the “Parker” in this catalogue, probably by James’s son Felix Sharples), during the latter’s term in office, after 1814.

419. James Sharples [or Sharpless] (English/American, 1751/52-1811), or a member of his family, “Increase Sumner, Justice of Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (1782-1797)”, c. 1794-1796., pastel on very thin laid paper, unsigned, 9 1/2 in. x 7 3/8 in., in an early 19th c. giltwood frame (c. 1814-1824) inscribed with names of artist and sitter, the latter’s title and dates of incumbency. [$1200/1800]
Note: Sharples (who was also contemporaneously called “Sharpless”, as in the period inscription on this frame) was an English portrait artist educated in France, who began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1779. In 1793-1794 he emigrated to America with his artist wife—Ellen Wallace Sharples (1769-1849), who had been one of his pupils at Bath—and his artist sons, Felix Thomas (c. 1786-after 1824) and James Jr. (c.1788-before 1849); between 1794 and 1796 they formed a team of itinerant portraitists, traveling “through the New England states and into the South” (Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 17, New York, 1935, p.27). Since those years coincide with the later term in office of this sitter, together with one of the other related Justices of Massachusetts whose portraits are framed en suite with this one (see the Sharples family portraits of “Dana” and “Parker” in this catalogue), it may thus be assumed that the two pastel portraits of 1790s sitters (“Dana” and “Sumner”) are—or are based on—James Sharples originals made in that period, while the later “Parker” may have been executed, in its differing oil medium, by Felix, who might have returned to Massachusetts during the last decade of his life. In any event, the identical frames of these three judicial portraits (which seem likely to have constituted an official commission for a matched set) could only have been made during the incumbency of Parker, who came to the bench after the deaths of his colleagues Sumner and Dana.

420. Attributed to Felix Thomas Sharples (English/American, c. 1786-after 1824), “Isaac Parker (1768-1830), Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (1814-1830)”, c. 1814-1824, gouache and oil on pasteboard, unsigned, 8 1/2 in. x 7 in., inscribed on a period giltwood frame with sitter’s name, title and dates of incumbency [$1000/1500]
Note: The three Massachusetts jurists’s portraits attributed to the Sharples family in this catalogue (a matching pair of pastels of “Dana” and “Sumner”, by James Sharples or a collaborating member of his family, and this differently-executed “Parker”, presumably by Felix, the family’s sole representative in America after 1811) are all framed and inscribed identically—a situation that would have been logistically possible, of course, only somewhat after Isaac Parker assumed office, in 1814. The fact that the year of Parker’s death seems to have been entered on the frame of this portrait in a slightly different style of carving, from the rest of the inscription, might support the hypothesis that Felix Sharples could indeed have executed this portrait in the last recorded decade of his own life, 1814-1824; and that within that span these three matching frames would have been made, possibly to include older, as yet unframed Sharples portraits of “Dana” and “Sumner”, or possibly incorporating reprises of such images, that Felix might have replicated in the style of his father James.

421. Attributed to Thomas Doughty (American, 1793-1856), “Lake George from Saratoga Side”, c. 1820, oil on canvas, formerly signed (signature effaced), titled and indistinctly dated in ink on reverse of stretcher, 11 3/8 in. x 15 7/8 in., in a fine period giltwood frame. [$2500/3500]
Note: Thomas Doughty is one of the progenitors of American landscape painting, and indeed it was an 1826 exhibition of his paintings at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts that provided an early inspiration for Thomas Cole, one of the founders of the Hudson River School. The enamel-like delicacy of this charming canvas, lot 421, is remarkably close to Doughty’s “Girls Crossing the Brook” of 1829 (private collection: Edward J. Nygren, Views and Visions, Washington, 1986, pp. 69, 253-254), which features the same girls in virtually identical costumes, and a similar landscape interpreted in the same idyllic, atmospheric style. This highly appealing picture is contemporaneously labeled as a view of Lake George, NY from its southern end (near the modern town of Lake George, formerly Caldwell); but its landscape is more imaginative than topographical, as was Doughty’s consistent practice. The artist is documented to have traveled frequently in 1836-1837 from his then residence in Boston to the mountains of New York State; at the same time the first pictorial survey of the Adirondacks was being compiled by a group of artists whose views were issued as lithographs by John Henry Bufford in New York (1838). This painting’s exaggeratedly close shorelines and steeply conical hills strikingly recall several of those lithographic prints, which are significant in having first drawn many artists’ attention to these more northerly environs of the Hudson River Valley. A more naturalistically rendered version of almost this same scene, however, was painted by J. W. Casilear in 1857 as a “View on Lake George” (National Gallery of Art, Washington).

422. William Holbrook Beard, N.A. (American, 1824-1900), “An American Bear Feasting on Grapes”, c. early 1860s, oil on artist’s board, signed with initials lower left, sight 7 3/4 in. x 10 in., approximate sheet 8 in. x 10 1/4 in., attractively matted (with upper corners curved) and framed. [$5000/7000]
Provenance: Kennedy Galleries, New York, label en verso.
Note: Born of a Connecticut family pioneering in Ohio, Beard briefly painted portraits on the western frontier, before moving to New York in 1845, and opening a studio in Buffalo around 1850. He traveled through Europe in 1856-1858, spending a summer studying with the realist and genre masters at Düsseldorf; after two more years in Buffalo he transferred his studio to New York, on the eve of the Civil War, and worked there for the next forty years. Beard specialized in anthropomorphic paintings of animals—especially bears and monkeys—as satires on human behavior; he produced his first “monkey picture” on his arrival in New York, just two years after Charles Darwin’s 1859 publication of the Descent of Man (and the notoriety of their popular themes, by 1862, had earned him a membership in the National Academy). His charmingly intimate images of bears (on whom he seems not to have inflicted human clothes, with which he routinely clad his other animals) are certainly his most appealing, and he concentrated on them increasingly in the 1870s and 1880s. This captivating parody of human gluttony, with an already over-plump bear gorging himself on grapes—in the classic position associated with the reclining couches of ancient Roman banqueting-rooms—is evidently one of the earliest of Beard’s paintings on these themes, since (in addition to the same subject) it shares the identical figure, tree, vine, glade, and sunlit perspective with the artist’s large “March of Silenus” (45 in. x 35 in.) of c. 1862 in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, that was already acquired by the museum in 1874 (and engraved in G. W. Sheldon, American Painters, New York, 1878, opp. p. 59).

423. Edmund C. Coates (American, 1816-1871/2), “View of the Hudson Highlands from Fort Putnam, above West Point, NY”, shortly after 1840, oil on canvas, 20 1/8 in. x 24 in., in a period giltwood frame. [$8000/12000]
Provenance: Christie’s, New York, December 3, 1996, Lot 41; corporate collection of Iroquois Brands, Greenwich, CT.
Note: This exceptionally fine and characteristic painting represents Coates at his best, working with the full chromatic and expressive repertory of his ablest contemporaries in the Hudson River School of early American landscape painters. His brilliantly sun-drenched view embraces Crow’s Nest and Storm King Mountain in sharply overlapping perspective on the left, rising above Washington Valley in the foreground; in the left distance, the northern reach of the Hudson passes the narrows below Breakneck Ridge, while at center Mount Taurus (Bull Hill) rises dramatically over Constitution Island, and the east-bank village of Cold Spring. In the right foreground, towering over the promontory of “West Point” itself, are the massive walls of Fort Putnam, constructed in 1778-1779 to a plan of Thaddeus Kosciusko, by Col. Rufus Putnam and the 5th Massachusetts Militia Regiment, atop the steep rocky outcrop of Crown Hill, commanding the entire plain of the West Point fortifications. Coates’s vantage point is a famous one, repeating (as is typical of his work) that of a shortly-preceding engraving by G. K. Richardson, after a drawing of c. 1836 by William Henry Bartlett (1809-1854), published by Nathaniel Parker Willis in American Scenery; or, Land, Lake, and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature (2 vols., London and New York, 1840; see also Coates’s “Kosciusko Monument” in this same catalogue). Currier and Ives later published a closely similar view, and Coates’s exact contemporary J. F. Kensett (1816-1872) essentially repeated it in his 1857 “Hudson River Scene” in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Natalie Spassky, American Paintings, New York, 1985, vol. 2, pp. 33-34). In its dramatic contrasts of light and shade, its alternately dense and luminous colors, and especially in its solitary figure, Coates’s considerably earlier canvas is more intimately related to the pioneer painters of the Hudson River School, such as Thomas Cole (1801-1848), whose “View of Fort Putnam” (1826, Philadelphia Museum of Art) helped to establish the beginnings of this essentially American landscape tradition (Elise Effmann, The Magazine Antiques, 166:5, November 2004, pp. 154-159).

424. Charles Winfield Tice (1810-1870), or a follower, “General Washington’s Headquarters at Newburgh, New York”, 1858, oil on artist’s board, inscribed and dated in pencil en verso, “Washington’s Headqu...[loss]/ 1858/ Tice...[loss]”, 10 1/8 in. x 12 1/4 in., in a period giltwood frame with ornamented oval gilt mat. [$1500/2500]
Note: The Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site preserves an almost exact replica of this painting (at the considerably smaller size of 4 ½ in. x 7 in.), that was executed by Cicero A. Gardner (born Newburgh, NY-died there 1875), an amateur painter who was an occasional student of Charles Winfield Tice. Tice was a well-known Newburgh artist, who exhibited at the National Academy between 1837 and 1849; his studio and classroom was barely a block away from the vantage-point of the view depicted here. This work, though it bears Tice’s name in an inscription that is certainly contemporaneous, may therefore be a parallel painting by another local student of his, who inscribed his teacher’s name rather than his or her own; or it may possibly be a simply-composed prototype by the master himself, intended for emulation by his students.
General George Washington rented the farmhouse depicted, from Tryntje Hasbrouck (widow of Jonathan Hasbrouck, who built it in 1750 and extended it in 1770), from April 1782 to August 1783. It was dedicated as a public monument on July 4, 1850, and is recognized as America’s first “historic house museum.”
Reference: Dorothy Barck, “Washington’s Newburgh Headquarters,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 14:2 (May 1955), pp. 30-32. We are grateful to Melvin Johnson, Historic Site Assistant, New York State, for his kind assistance in the cataloguing of this lot.

427. American or Continental School, c. 1800-1803, “Portrait of an Auburn-Haired Gentleman Wearing the Spanish Order of Santiago, and Holding an Issue of the Philadelphia Gazette, oil on canvas, 29 in. x 23 1/2 in., in a period gessoed and gilded cove frame. [$6000/8000]
Note: The well-known and influential “Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser”, the early newspaper of record of the American Congress, was published under this name from June 18, 1800 to December 31, 1802, which are evidently the years within (or very soon after) which this impressive portrait was painted. Because of the sitter’s reddish hair and prominent display of the paper, the portrait might possibly represent Andrew Brown, Jr., son of the Irish-born founder and publisher of the paper, Andrew Brown, Sr. (c. 1744-1797); the junior Brown was himself the paper’s editor from 1797 to September 29, 1801. The Order of Santiago (St. James), which this sitter prominently wears twice, both in an embroidery and on an enameled badge and the gold-braided uniform coat appear Spanish, and it is thus plausible that the portrait may represent an ambassador or diplomat of Spain, accredited to the United States government in Philadelphia, before its transfer to Washington in the fall of 1800.

W 428. Arnoud Wyderveld (Dutch-American/New York, d. 1862), “Still Life of Fishes on a Beach”, mid-19th c., oil on canvas, signed and noted “N.Y.” lower right, 22 1/4 in. x 36 1/4 in., in a period gilt frame. [$700/900]

429. After Victor de Grailly (French, 1804-1889), possibly by or for Uriah Allen (American, d. 1876), “General George Washington’s Headquarters at Newburgh, New York”, c. 1855, oil on canvas, indistinctly inscribed on right wall of house, and at lower right (see below), 14 in. x 20 in., framed. [$1200/1800]
Note: The West Point Museum Art Collection, at the United States Military Academy, preserves an exact replica by Victor de Grailly of this remarkably attractive view (at identical size), which is important in being one of the most accurately detailed amongst all the existing versions of its famous subject (these are the only two images, for example, to show the privy, or “necessary house,” between the main building and the grandstand on the Hudson River); thus proving—together with other similar views of the area—that De Grailly did in fact travel to the U.S. in the early 1850s. There would be no reason not to assign this painting firmly to the hand of De Grailly, were it not for a mysterious inscription that appears twice on this canvas: both on the right (or north) wall of the Hasbrouck House, and again in the extreme lower right corner, occur traces of a word apparently beginning “Alle…”.
We are grateful to Melvin Johnson, Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site Assistant, for his help in the cataloguing (and most especially the dating) of this lot.

430. John William Casilear, N.A. (American, 1811-1893), “A Romantic View of Kauterskill Clove, with Haines Falls”, mid-19th c., oil on pasteboard, possibly signed indistinctly with initials lower left, 9 1/8 in. x 6 3/8 in., in a fine period giltwood frame. [$2500/3500]
Note: Casilear began exhibiting paintings at the National Academy in 1836, and on their merit was elected an Academician in 1851. In 1854 he opened a painting studio in New York, and achieved an enormous success with his landscapes (mostly of small size) in the style of his teacher Asher B. Durand (1796-1886), and of their close mutual friend John Frederick Kensett (1816-1872). This dramatic view of “the heart of the Catskills” centers on the famous landscape features that had been icons of Hudson River School painting, since Thomas Cole (1801-1848) first rendered them in the mid-1820s; but, like Durand in the most celebrated treatment of these related themes (“Kindred Spirits”, 1849), Casilear here recombines landscape elements from the vale, the falls, and the distant mountains, in an imaginatively creative way (he in fact visited this very site, with Kensett and the young David Johnson, in the same year of 1849). Cole and Durand had both painted the Clove’s eastward view, toward the Hudson. Casilear here accentuates touches of vibrant color, and diaphanous veils of atmospheric perspective, with a painterly skill that makes this small masterwork a highly personalized vision of his own.

W 431. John William Casilear, N.A.(American, 1811-1893), “The Artist’s Sister”, graphite on paper, signed with initials and dated “1829” lower right, 5 7/8 in. x 4 3/8 in., unframed. [$500/800]
Note: When Casilear drew this incisive portrait (presumably of one of his older sisters—Elizabeth, then aged 27, or more probably Abilgail, then 22), the precocious graphic artist (and later painter) himself was only 18, and was just two years into his engraving apprenticeship with Peter Maverick (1780-1831) in New York. After Maverick’s death, Casilear (whose earliest speciality was banknote engraving) worked with his former master’s partner, Asher B. Durand (1796-1886), who encouraged him toward art engraving; Casilear began exhibiting such works at the National Academy of Design in 1833. His skill at currency engraving, however (already suggested by the graphic precision of this fine sketch), made him an eventual partner of the American Banknote Company, which dominated the field for a century and a half, and earned Casilear a conspicuous fortune. He turned full-time to painting only in 1854.

432. William M. Hart, N.A. (Scottish/American, 1823-1894), “Crossroad by a Village”, 1840s/1850s, oil on wood panel, signed “W.M. Hart” lower left, inscribed “Painted for [name trimmed away]” lower right, 9 in. x 14 1/4 in., in a fine period giltwood frame, with ornamented oval giltwood liner. [$3000/5000]
Note: A native of Paisley, Hart immigrated with his family to Albany, where he began painting portraits at seventeen. After working (c. 1841-1845) as an itinerant painter in New York State, in Virginia and especially in Michigan, certain of his Albany patrons—for whom he had converted his artistic production to landscape painting—enabled him to spend three years in Scotland (1849-1852); by 1854 he was established in New York City, where he was immediately elected an Associate, and then a member of the National Academy of Design in 1858. This characteristic pastoral view (whose trees and buildings prove it to have been painted in upstate New York, rather than in Scotland) is fragmentarily inscribed as a commissioned work, and thus almost certainly dates either from Hart’s first period of landscape painting in c. 1845-1849, or from 1852-1854, the period of his return to Albany. This small portable panel, with its scene of rural tranquility “warmed by [the] tone of sunny repose” for which Hart was consistently praised, by his contemporaries as well as by posterity (Henry Tuckerman, American Artist Life, New York, 1867, p. 547), was probably painted “en plein air”.

W 433. Frederick Polley (American/Indiana, 1875-1957), “Grace Church in New York City”, drawing, pencil-signed and titled, sight 16 1/2 in. x 13 1/2 in., attractively framed. [$200/400]

434. David Johnson, N. A. (American, 1827-1908), “The Side Yard of the Wynkoop House, Marbletown, New York”, oil on canvas, signed with initials and dated “[18]58” lower left, inscribed (evidently by the artist) on original stretcher, “Occupied as a prison during the / sacking of Kingston by the British [in 1777]”, 11 in. x 16 in., in a fine period giltwood frame. [$15000/25000]
Provenance: Sotheby’s, New York, September 26, 1990, Lot 5 (as “The Pink House, Kingston” [sic]).
Note: Johnson’s convincingly detailed and veristic handling of this intimately observed rear view of a standard site endows its unremarkable subject with an artistic importance far beyond its scale. In choosing the ordinary, everyday aspect of an historic monument—that is, laundry day behind the Wynkoop House, southwest of Kingston—the artist concentrates not on a famous Dutch Colonial structure, but rather on the incisive character of early-morning light, as it reveals the imperfections as well as the beauties of the scene: its amiably incidental aspect of a little girl standing quietly amid suspended flour-sacks, bottles, baskets, and flower-pots, with makeshift steps, crooked water-barrel, a homely stile, and laundry drying in the sun. The beautifully painted trees tossed by a gentle breeze, and especially the spectacular expanse of sky and broken cloud, tie this spontaneously observed yet precisely rendered vision to “A significant [new] chapter [in] the history of landscape painting, … the phenomenon of painting in oils from nature in the open air” (Philip Conisbee and Franklin Kelly, National Gallery of Art Bulletin, 34, Spring 2006, pp. 2-17). That international movement, pioneered in late 18th c. studies of everyday Neapolitan scenes by the Welshman Thomas Jones, and brought into standard artistic currency through precisely observed plein-air paintings by J.-B.-C. Corot in France and Italy, John Constable in England, as well as Cole, Kensett and Church in America, provides the true frame of reference for this exceptional image. Its closest stylistic parallels are with one of the most interesting of those European revolutionaries, the Danish artist Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783-1853), whose seemingly accidental views of cluttered Roman courtyards, festooned with laundry on sun-drenched mornings, are direct antecedents of this almost shockingly avant-garde American canvas.
A more typically genre treatment of this same back porch, painted two years later (possibly in emulation of Johnson’s magisterial prototype?) in 1860, by the Scottish-American artist John Mackie Falconer (1820-1903)—now in a private collection near the site—provides not only a secure identification, through its reverse inscription as the 1767-1772 “Wynkoop Homestead, Ulster Co., N.Y.”, but also very clearly defines, through its naively narrative mode, just how exceptional Johnson’s almost geometrically precisionist style really is. Having studied in his late teens at the National Academy’s “antique school” in 1845-1847, Johnson dated his first landscape in 1848, and began exhibiting in the following year; this painting is thus an early work, from the end of his first decade of independent activity (and was evidently his major production in 1858, a year in which no other work of his is known: John I. H. Bauer, “The Exact Brushwork of Mr. David Johnson,” American Art Journal 12:4, Autumn 1980, pp. 32-65). Johnson is documented to have traveled abroad only in 1862 (Natalie Spassky, American Paintings, vol. 2, New York, 1985, p. 290); so that this picture’s almost preternatural resemblance to the most advanced European art, of his own and the preceding generation, seems truly to illustrate an instance of native-born intellectual and artistic achievement.
We are grateful to Stanford Levy, New Paltz, NY, for his help in identifying this subject.

435. John Williamson, A.N.A. (Scottish/American, 1826-1885), “A Valley in Autumn”, oil on canvas, mid-19th c., signed on reverse of top stretcher bar “John Williamson A N A”, 10 in. x 17 in., in a period coved giltwood frame. [$1500/2500]
Williamson exhibited at the National Academy of Design from 1850, and was elected an Associate member in 1861. He also showed paintings in Washington as well as Boston, and his subjects are principally landscapes in Pennsylvania, New York, and New England. This early autumnal scene of a peaceful farmhouse and distant village, in its evocative tonal qualities and accomplished diagonal recession, strongly recalls the contemporary views of Worthington Whittredge (1820-1910), such as that painter’s similarly composed “Autumn Landscape” of 1874-1876 (Anthony F. Janson, Whittredge, Cambridge, 1989, pl. 11). It may be that this untitled view will eventually be identifiable.

436. James Hope, A.N.A (Scottish/American, 1818-1892), “A Forest Pool”, oil on canvas, signed and dated “1869” lower right, 15 1/8 in. x 20 1/4 in., in a fine period giltwood frame. [$2000/3000]
Note: Having journeyed with his parents from the Highlands of Scotland to Canada in the 1820s, Hope immigrated to Vermont for a mechanical apprenticeship in 1833-1838, and a year at the seminary in Castleton; he married in West Rutland in 1841, and became a professional artist there in 1843. After painting in Montreal from 1844 to 1846, he returned to teach and paint in Castleton, on the Vermont-New York border near Lake George. There in 1849 he met Frederic E. Church (1826-1900), who exercised a strong influence on his painterly technique, and encouraged him toward New York. Hope had his work accepted at the National Academy of Design in 1854 (of which he was elected an Associate in 1871), and from the early 1850s occupied a studio in New York each winter. He served in the Union army during the Civil War, after which he moved to central New York State, where he settled at Watkins Glen, on Seneca Lake (1872).

W 437. E.M. Tucker (American, active mid-19th c.), “General Washington’s Headquarters at Newburgh, New York”, after 1834, grisaille, in mixed media (graphite, chalk, watercolor, gouache and stippled ink) on paper, 16 in. x 21 in., sight, in a black-painted period frame. [$800/1200]
Provenance: Former collections of H.H. Moore, Middletown, NY (late 19th c. painted inscription on backing boards); and Ralph Brill, Cold Spring, NY.
Note: This classic view of the Hudson River farmhouse occupied by George Washington in 1782-1783 is precisely based on a well-known engraving by James Smillie (1807-1880), after a painting by Robert Walter Weir (1803-1889), that was published in the New-York Mirror on December 27, 1834. In this wonderfully conscientious and detailed enlargement, the framing trees, the silhouette of the Hasbrouck House against the southerly mountains of the Hudson Highlands, the remains of the rock wall and cannon in the foreground, and even the human figure and farm animals, are all repeated from the engraving, including as well this fascinating and highly personalized reprise of its black-and-white medium.
Reference: Dorothy Barck, “Washington’s Newburgh Headquarters,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 14:2 (May 1955), pp. 30-32, for an illustration of the 1834 engraving, as well as a plan and history of the Hasbrouck House.

W 438. E.A.H. (American, active c. 1920), “Display Building at Washington’s Headquarters, Newburgh, NY”, c. 1920-1925, oil on artist’s board, signed with initials lower right and titled lower left, with manufacturer’s label of F.W. Devoe Co., New York en verso, 18 1/2 in. x 24 1/2 in. [$500/700]
Note: This exact view of the secondary building erected in 1856 (and expanded to this form in 1870), for the display of large artifacts at the Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site, was photographed in the late 19th c. from atop the “Tower of Victory,” built in 1887-1888 by architect John Duncan; that photograph was reproduced by the Ruben Publishing Co. in a colored post-card of c. 1920, from which the image of this charmingly naïve canvas was derived.
Washington’s Headquarters at Newburgh is important as the spot from which the General and future first President issued his “Cessation of Hostilities” order of April 19, 1783, ending the Revolutionary War; as well as for his creation here of the Badge of Military Merit, the prototype for the “Purple Heart,” presented to three enlisted soldiers at this site in the same year of 1783.
We are grateful to Melvin Johnson, New York State Historic Site Assistant, for his generous help in cataloguing this lot.
W 439. Benjamin Bello

W 439. Benjamin Bellows Grant Stone (American, 1829-1906), “Ruins of a Mountain Fort Eroded by a Waterfall”, c. 1860s/1870s, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 12 1/2 in. x 9 in., in a period giltwood frame. [$700/1000]
Note: Stone studied with the eminent Hudson River School painter Jasper F. Cropsey (1823-1900) in New York between 1849 and 1855, and after 1861 exhibited regularly at the National Academy of Design, as well as at the Boston Athenaeum. He served as an officer in the Union army, and after the Civil War settled at Catskill-on-Hudson, NY, near the northern edge of the Catskill Mountains. This nostalgic view of an abandoned fort thus may well reflect his wartime experience, or his explorations of Revolutionary War emplacements above the Hudson Valley.

440. Attributed to Jacob C. Ward (American, 1809-1891), “View of Northwest Bay, Lake George”, c. 1830, oil on wood panel, unsigned, 9 7/8 in. x 14 in., framed. [$1200/1800]
Note: Jacob Caleb Ward was a highly regarded Romantic painter exhibiting at the major New York academies and associations between 1829 and 1852; he made painting tours to Virginia in 1835 and to the Minnesota Territory in 1836. He was also a pioneer daguerreotypist, spending the years 1845-1848 introducing that art (with his brother Charles Ward) in Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Panama, Jamaica, and Cuba. He returned—mainly to practice photography—in 1852 to his native Bloomfield, in northeastern New Jersey, an area made famous in American painting by the many pictures made around nearby Montclair by George Inness (1825-1894).

441. Reynolds Beal (American, 1867-1951), “The Hudson, South from Newburgh, NY”, c. 1905, oil on artist’s board, signed indistinctly lower left, titled “Newburgh” in pencil en verso, flanked by two estate stamps, the longer reading “No. 1369 from the estate of Reynolds Beal--1968/ Purchased by Royal Galleries [signed] Sidney Bressler, Dir.”, 6 1/4 in. x 9 1/4 in., framed. [$1500/2500]
Provenance: Beacon Hill Fine Art, New York, label en verso, suggesting a probable date of c. 1905.
Note: This unusual perspective from river level (which Beal, an accomplished yachtsman, doubtless painted from on the water itself) shows a lower variant of the well-known view downriver from the west bank of the Hudson, just north of Newburgh: Breakneck Ridge and Bull Hill frame the channel to the left, with Crow’s Nest and Storm King to the right; on the axis between those highlands, small boats or barges obscure Pollepel Island, while a sailboat tacks past the town of Newburgh on the right. The prospect from a virtually identical (but much higher) vantage point was published as the “View from Ruggle’s House, Newburgh” by Nathaniel Parker Willis, in American Scenery (New York, 1840), as an engraving by G. K. Richardson after a drawing of c. 1836 by William Henry Bartlett; a closer prototype for the water-level vantage of this view was published as a dockside engraving of “The Hudson, South from Newburgh” in William Cullen Bryant’s Picturesque America (New York, 1874). Reynolds Beal had attended Cornell (1885-1889), and his consequent attraction to New York State frequently brought him back there, from his home in Rockport, MA.

447. John Bunyon Bristol, N.A. (American, 1826-1909), “A Ruin near St. Augustine, Florida”, c. 1859, oil on canvas, inscribed twice with artist’s name on remnants of 19th c. exhibition labels en verso, 18 in. x 30 1/4 in., in a period giltwood frame. [$7000/10000]
Provenance: “[Name missing]..., Galleries, Chestnut Street, Philadelphia” (19th c. supplier’s or dealer’s label, on stretcher); “Owner, J. Hosea” (19th c. exhibition label); Alexander Gallery, New York, all en verso.
Note: Born at Hillsdale, NY, and briefly trained under the local painter Henry Ary in the nearby river town of Hudson, Bristol—an artist sufficiently brilliant in the study of nature to be essentially self-trained—began to attract both admiring notice and supportive patrons with his first submissions to the National Academy of Design in 1858. A Brooklyn client, Jacob B. Murray, acquired one of his first New Jersey landscapes; and at least three New York collectors (Cyrus Butler, William E. Dodge Jr., and J. Hosea) purchased major paintings resulting from Bristol’s highly unusual trip as far south as the St. John’s River area in eastern Florida, on the eve of the Civil War (in 1859), of which this expansive view near St. Augustine is the canvas acquired by Hosea. Both Henry Tuckerman in 1867 and G. W. Sheldon in 1878 called these “semi-tropical pictures” (a character emphasized here by the palmetto plants, the almost palpable heat and stillness, and the evocative remains of Spanish architecture). Besides noteworthy public acclaim, the paintings from this adventurous expedition brought Bristol full professional recognition: he was elected an Associate of the National Academy in 1860 (full Academician status was to follow in 1875), and he married and moved permanently to New York in 1862. Sheldon’s admiring assessment of Bristol’s style might well have been written with this impressive early “trademark work” predominantly in mind:
“Mr. Bristol’s sense of atmosphere and of perspective is highly stimulated, or perhaps we should say quickened. His pictures are strongest in the rendition of spaciousness, of sunshine, and of cool, transparent shadow. Placid in spirit, faithful in record, unconventional in composition, and serious in purpose, they always are.” (American Painters, New York, 1878/1881, p. 22.)
This small ruined farmhouse with a low tower, tiny courtyard, and more recent lean-to has long since disappeared from the once-expansive savannah around St. Augustine.
Though once labeled as Fort Matanzas (en verso), built by the Spanish in 1740 to guard the southern approach to St. Augustine along the Matanzas River estuary, and inlet, a nearly contemporaneous mid-19th c. print (published in 1872) proves that the much heavier and taller waterside structure of Fort Matanzas was as well-preserved then as now, in its present careful restoration as the Fort Matanzas National Monument (The History of Castillo de San Marcos and Fort Matanzas, Source Book Series No. 3, National Park Service, Washington, 1955, fig. 3).
The small ruin seen here in Bristol’s composition, lot 447, is typical of Bristol’s perspective within his inimitable style.

448. Edward Chalmers Leavitt (American, 1842-1904), “White and Red Grapes Cascading from a Basket”, oil on canvas, signed and dated “1894” lower right, and with original supplier’s label of “Charles G. Calder, Providence, R.I.” on stretcher, 30 in. x 40 in., in a period frame. [$4000/6000]
Provenance: Found in Rhode Island.
Note: After serving in the Union navy during the Civil War, Leavitt returned to his native Providence, eventually to become one of the most celebrated painters of the “Fall River School” of Realist still-life artists, among whose members Leavitt particularly specialized in flowers, fruits and game. This unusually large and impressive canvas is one of the masterworks not only of that handsome New England genre, but of late 19th-c. still-life painting as a whole.

W 449. William Craig (American, 1829-1875), “The Highlands of the Hudson River”, c. 1866, watercolor (with gouache or oil) on paper, signed “W. Craig” lower left, sight 5 1/4 in. x 8 7/8 in., framed. [$800/1200]
Note: This highly accomplished landscape by the Dublin-born Craig is hard to place: it seems perhaps to show a generalized view of West Point in the left middle distance, with the Crow’s Nest and Storm King Mountain beyond. A reverse label from the Florence Lewison Gallery, New York, cites a possible date of c. 1866, presumably referring to the prints published at New York in that year by Benson J. Lossing in The Hudson, From the Wilderness to the Sea (note especially the similarities of this view with its plates of the “Northern View from Storm King”, and “Newburgh Bay”). Craig immigrated to New York in 1863, and began exhibiting at the National Academy of Design from 1864; he made a tour of upstate New York, Ohio, and Kentucky immediately after the end of the Civil War in 1865, and this sheet may perhaps more correctly be associated with that journey. His career was cut short by his drowning at Lake George in 1875.

450. American School, 19th c., “Tromp-l’Oeil of a Dead Flicker”, oil on canvas laid down on oval wood panel, unsigned, 17 in. x 13 7/8 in., in a period frame. [$2500/3500]
Note: Notwithstanding its resemblance to earlier British and Continental trompe-l’oeils of game birds hung up to age, this is certainly an American painting, for its unusual subject is clearly a Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), the North American species which John James Audubon called a “Gold-winged Woodpecker” (Birds of America, Havell plate no. 37, 1828); it has the added interest of being represented at about life size. Though it now seems an odd target to have shot, a perusal of the anecdotes about this bird in Audubon’s Ornithological Biography (the text intended to accompany his famous plates) may possibly reveal a 19th-c. American willingness to bag Flickers for the table.

451. Attributed to Thomas Worthington Whittredge, N.A. (American, 1820-1910), “Sunset on a Marsh”, mid-19th c., oil on academy board, possibly signed indistinctly lower right, printed F.W. Devoe & Co., New York, label (twice inscribed in pencil “Mrs. Nash”) en verso, 6 in. x 12 1/4 in., in a finely carved period giltwood frame. [$3000/5000]
Provenance: Mrs. Nash, New York (probably late 19th/early 20th c.)
Note: This confident and swiftly executed study (perhaps painted en plein-air) of luminous sky, shadowed landscape, and reflective water displays a remarkable subtlety and sensitivity of tonal balance. In all those qualities it is exceptionally close to a parallel, dated work, Whittredge’s “Scene on the Marsh” of 1851 (Anthony F. Janson, Whittredge, Cambridge, 1989, p. 39; see also Whittredge’s “Fields Near Newport” in this catalogue).

477. Walter Launt Palmer, N.A. (American, 1854-1932), “Late Spring Thaw”, watercolor on imprinted paper, signed, dated “April. 23rd 1887”, and with presentation inscription below lower right corner of image, sheet 9 in. x 6 3/8 in., approximate image 3 1/2 in. x 5 in., floated in a modern mat and frame. [$1200/2000]
Provenance: Mrs. A. B. Stone, 1887 (dedicatory inscription).
Note: The presentation of this highly accomplished and remarkably compelling image appears to suggest an ad-hoc origin. Palmer, evidently faced with an unexpected but dazzling scene of low morning light with strong chiaroscuro and luminous reflections (perhaps while visiting, away from his studio), seems to have cast about for a suitable sheet of watercolor paper, and to have found this daily calendar page, imprinted with (the previous?) date of “August 1”. Possibly traveling with his watercolor pigments, or perhaps even more plausibly improvising with red, brown and blue inks (since the ink of his inscription matches exactly the more concentrated purplish-blue in the immediately adjacent grasses), he seems to have executed this breathtaking record of an immediate effect of sunlight on snow, using only the ordinary materials readily at hand. The skill of such a tour-de-force may have especially impressed “Mrs. Stone” to whom he dedicated this brilliant record of late-April morning.
Son of the famous American sculptor E. D. Palmer, W. L. Palmer studied with Frederic Church in New York in 1870, and exhibited at the National Academy of Design from 1872; he was elected an Associate, and won a prize there, in 1887, the year of this drawing; many other international honors followed, including medals at Chicago (1893), Philadelphia (1894), and Paris (1900), as well as full N. A. membership in 1897.

478. Diego Rivera (Mexican, 1886-1957), “The Hacienda in Summer”, oil and gouache on paper, signed lower right and inscribed above signature “To Gladys --love/ 1922”, 13 3/4 in. x 19 5/8 in. [$10000/15000]
Provenance: Gladys March (friend of the artist from 1944 to 1957, and co-author [from transcriptions of interviews] of Diego Rivera: My Life, My Art: An Autobiography, Citadel Press, New York, 1960); Estate of Gladys March.
Note: Said by its recipient from the artist to represent the house in which Gladys March lived during her annual visits to conduct extensive interviews with Diego Rivera, this unusually large and brilliantly colored sheet is affectionately inscribed by the great Mexican artist to his devoted “ghostwriter.” In a relationship spanning more than thirteen years, Gladys March (who began interviewing Rivera for a series of newspaper articles) recorded some thousands of pages of his reminiscences, anecdotes, and opinions; after his death, she edited them into a fascinating “Autobiography,” reflecting the artist’s own highly subjective view of his personal and artistic career.
Best known as one of the most important mural artists of the 20th c. (through such masterworks as his 1932-1933 frescoes of “Detroit Industry” for the Detroit Institute of Arts)—and as the husband of Frida Kahlo—Rivera was also a very significant artist of easel paintings, drawings and prints. The bold and confident forms of this masterly painting may possibly date from somewhat earlier than Diego’s presentation of the sheet to Gladys March.

479. Benjamin Benno [born Benjamin Greenstein] (American, 1901-1980), “A Bunkmate Climbing into an Upper Berth”, c. 1916-1926, graphite on paper, signed “Benj. Greenstein” lower right, 8 1/2 in. x 11 in., unframed. [$800/1200]
Provenance: Kennedy Galleries, New York, label on mat.
Note: This drawing is redolent with the decisively Realist style of the “Ashcan School,” with whose preeminent members, Robert Henri and George Bellows, the highly precocious Benno (then still Benjamin Greenstein, who apparently changed his name only in the mid-1920s) began to study in 1912, immediately after his return to New York from a sojourn with his grandparents in Russia (to whom he had been sent after the death of his mother, in 1905).

480. Blanche Nettie Lazzell (American/West Virginia, 1878-1956), “Abstraction”, watercolor, signed and dated “1936” lower right, sight 10 in. x 8 in. [$2500/4500]

481. Ellis Wilson (American/Kentucky, 1899-1977), “Turpentine Farm”, oil on masonite, c. 1940, signed lower right, handwritten artist label with title en verso, 19 1/2 in. x 23 1/2 in. [$18000/24000]
Provenance: Private collection, Philadelphia.
Note: In the 1940s, the talented African American artist Ellis Wilson focused on images of Black laborers. This daily work fascinated Wilson and he created a powerful series of paintings that documented workers, including New Jersey airplane factory mechanics, street vendors in Harlem and lumber and turpentine workers in the South. A painting from the same series as “Turpentine Farm” entitled “Lumberjacks” is in the collection of the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky.
Reference: Albert F. Sperath, The Art of Ellis Wilson, exhibition catalogue, The University Press of Kentucky, 2000.

482. Ellis Wilson (American/Kentucky, 1899-1977), “Grinding, Workers: New Jersey Defense Plant”, oil on plywood, signed lower left, 16 in. x 20 in. [$25000/35000]
Provenance: Gift of the artist, to his close friend James Ligon, New York City, to the consignor. Painting listed in Albert Sperath catalogue raisonné The Art of Ellis Wilson, University of Kentucky Press, 2000, “Unlocated Works”, p. 75.
Note: Born into a working class family, Ellis Wilson was raised in the Bottom, a close knit African American community in Mayfield, Kentucky. In 1918, Wilson left Mayfield to study applied arts at the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the few schools that accepted African-American students at the time. After working part time as a commercial artist and janitor, Wilson left Chicago and moved to Harlem, a thriving cultural enclave for African Americans at the time. As an artist, Wilson earned critical acclaim and his paintings were exhibited with the prestigious Harmon Foundation, as part of “Negro in Art” week organized by The Chicago Art League, and he was selected to work for the Federal Arts Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
On the basis of the strength of the New Jersey Defense Plant series of paintings, Ellis Wilson earned the esteemed Guggenheim Fellowship in 1944, and a subsequent renewal.

486. Stanton MacDonald Wright (American/California, 1890-1973), “Untitled”, oil on canvas, signed and dated “1960” en verso, “Pacific Gallery, Pacific Palisades, California” written and “Aux Beaux Arts Perrier” stamp en verso 13 3/4 in. x 10 3/4 in., in a period frame. [$3000/5000]

487. Carl R. Dietz (American, apparently active 1884-1913), “A Contented Flock”, oil on canvas, signed and dated “1913” lower right, 25 in. x 30 in., in a period walnut frame. [$2000/3000]
Provenance: Found in Lancaster, PA.
Note: The painter of this appealing and professionally executed image of productive husbandry clearly records his name as “C. R. Dietz”, and the date of this picture as 1913; while the stretcher is contemporaneously labeled as having been supplied by “F. Weber & Co., Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.” These facts make it virtually certain that this artist is identical with the “Carl S.[sic?] Dietz” who is recorded as having exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1884 and 1885, but whose middle initial might have been mistaken in the Academy lists, or mistranscribed in their publication. Such an assumption would give the artist more correctly identified (on the basis of this signature) as Carl R. Dietz a working life of some 30 years, from c. 1883 to at least 1913—and a resulting life span of (very roughly) c. 1860 or earlier to perhaps c. 1915 or later, that is an approximate 55 or more years. Given the triple conjunction of (1) Dietz’s documented record of exhibition in Philadelphia, with (2) the presence of an original Philadelphia label on this stretcher, and (3) the provenance of this painting from the heartland of the “Pennsylvania Dutch” (that is, German-derived) population, in Lancaster, the Dietz authorship is ascertained.

488. Clementine Hunter (American/Louisiana, 1886-1988), “Cotton Ginnin’”, oil on canvasboard, monogrammed lower right, Dixie Art Supplies Inc., New Orleans label en verso, sight 17 1/2 in. x 23 1/2 in. [$3000/5000]
Provenance: Naomi Marshall, Dixie Art Supplies Inc., New Orleans.

489. Anna Colquitt Hunter (American/Georgia, 1892-1985), “Umbrellas in the Rain”, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 16 in. x 20 in. [$1500/2500]
Note: Born into an old Savannah family, Anna Hunter left college to marry and raise a family. Sadly, her husband died early, leaving Hunter to support her three young children. She found work as a newspaper reporter and became the art critic for the local paper. To qualify as an art critic she taught herself to paint. She received critical acclaim for her work and a New York City reviewer called her the “Grandma Moses of the South.”

490. John J. Zang (American, b. 1859), “Three Robins Amid Snowy Branches”, oil on canvas, signed “John J. Zang” lower right, 20 in. x 30 in., in a period decorated gold leaf cove frame. [$2000/3000]
Note: Best known for his more narrative winter landscapes of farm scenes in the upper Hudson Valley, Zang is documented with only one dated work, painted in the Yosemite Valley in 1883. He evidently also worked in Europe or under European influence (“Alpine Woodsmen”, “Stag Hunt”, “River Landscape”), to which the abstract patterning of this interestingly unusual painting may refer, with its evocation of the Aesthetic movement and even of Art Nouveau.
Reference: The Magazine Antiques, vol. 104, September 3, 1973, p. 391; see Edan M. Hughes, @Artists in California, 1786-1940@, 2002, p. 1249.

491. Frederick Dickinson Williams (American, 1829-1915), “Two Women by a Pond at Sunset”, oil on pasteboard, signed with initials and dated “1862” lower left, 3 7/8 in. x 5 in., framed. [$1500/2000]
As a small striking example in American art of the pervasive influence exerted by the French painters of the Barbizon school, this glowing sunset idyll by Williams—a fashionable Boston painter who later lived for years in Paris—is redolent of the evocative landscape styles of Daubigny, of Diaz de la Peña, and most clearly of Théodore Rousseau. At the same time it displays an unmistakably American handling, especially in the subtly elegiac mood that is so close to the works of Williams’s contemporary George Inness (1825-1894), and above all in the heightened chromatic intensity of the sky, in blazing pigments closely akin to the palette of another influential American painter of this same generation, Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900).

507. American School/Boston, early 19th c., “Harriet Beecher (1811-1896; after 1836, Harriet Beecher Stowe)”, c. 1826-27 or after, watercolor and gouache on ivory, apparently uninscribed, but with 19th c. handwritten identification on printed card-label en verso (“Mrs. [repeated]/ Harriet Beecher - Stowe/ - Boston- “), sight 3 7/8 in. x 2 7/8 in., (support approximately 4 3/4 in. x 3 3/4 in.), in an elaborately carved mid-19th c. giltwood frame. [$4000/6000]
Provenance: Private collection, England.
Note: The young Harriet Elizabeth Beecher, on the eve of her fifteenth birthday and after completing school in her native Connecticut, traveled to Boston, to take up residence with her clergyman father Lyman Beecher and his second wife (her own mother, Roxana Foote Beecher, having died when Harriet was only five). She remained in Boston from approximately the late spring of 1826 to about the same season in 1827, as the only residence she ever made in that city; she then returned to Connecticut to teach in her sister Catherine’s Hartford Female Seminary—mainly the subjects of the standard curriculum (including those normally reserved for young men), but also drawing and painting, which she herself had pursued as a student there, and in which she continued to develop appropriate skills as a teacher. Harriet’s mother Roxana Beecher had studied art with an accomplished master from New York, and had become a capable painter of miniatures on ivory: in the transition from student to teacher that was occupying Harriet during her sojourn in Boston, and in a succeeding stay with her maternal grandmother, she valued Roxana’s “little works of ingenuity, and taste, and skill, which had been wrought by her hand”, as tangible reminders of her mother’s talent. As Harriet wrote in this period to her Grandmother Foote, “I admire to cultivate a taste for painting, and I wish to improve it; it was what my dear mother admired and loved, and I cherish it for her sake” (Joan D. Hedrick, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life, Oxford, 1994, pp. 15, 52, 53).
The discovery of this surprising miniature seems to bear out every element of Harriet Beecher’s emerging self-awareness during her residence of 1826-1827 in Boston. A later 19th-c. label (plausibly written by a member of her family, who recognized that this image would have shown the sitter under her maiden name of Harriet Beecher, but who added the then familiar “Stowe” after a small dash, as well as her later married title “Mrs.” not once but twice), unquestioningly asserts that this painting pertains to “Boston”—a city rich in professional miniaturists, and one in which Harriet never lived except over the course of her sixteenth year, an age that manifestly agrees with the depiction of this subject. Not only that privileged information of a Boston sojourn (which probably no one outside the family would have known, before the publication of Hedrick’s authoritative biography), but also the crucial accoutrements of a magnifying glass being held for the study of a nearby miniature, and the look of devotion on the daughter’s face, all combine to make this a remarkably accurate representation of a young woman at the transition from adolescence to maturity, who is somewhat poignantly finding her own way in the world, in serious part through the attentive study of her late mother’s miniatures. Harriet Beecher had moreover recently made a major commitment to pro-active Christianity, and the discreet gold cross of that “calling” is conspicuously seen in the circlet around her neck. This painting’s inclusion of her jewelry, together with her modish Empire-style gown and disarmingly direct gaze, might perhaps be said to hint at a worldliness at odds with the earnest daughter of a New England parson; but her Grandmother Foote—for whom this captivating image may well have been painted—was the matriarch of a conspicuously more liberal Episcopalian family, in which for example modern Romantic novels and poetry were much prized. This unexpectedly revelatory image, therefore, presents a striking image of self-discovery in a similarly idealized (or Romanticized) vein, while also paying filial homage to the artistic legacy of a departed mother.
This painting’s proposed identification as a portrait of the sitter at age fifteen, in 1826, would make it by a margin of almost a quarter of a century the earliest known professional likeness of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Heretofore her first portrait (apart from a provincial profile silhouette, made by a family amateur) has been thought to be a beautiful daguerreotype in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Southworth and Hawes, probably made in 1850 during the Stowes’ brief stopover in Boston to acquire furnishings, while en route to Brunswick, Maine. That early photograph, interestingly, shows Stowe in an almost identical pose, with the same features and coiffure, in the same relationship to a colorfully draped table at her left elbow—almost as if it were a conscious reprise of this youthful image.

731. American School, mid-19th c., “Portrait of a Young Gentleman Wearing a Great Coat and Holding a Cane”, oil on canvas, 36 in. x 28 in., framed. [$1200/2000]

732. F.S. Hull (American, 19th/20th c.), “Steamboat in the Harbor”, oil on wood panel, signed “Hull F.S.” lower left, 16 in. x 20 in. [$1000/1500]

733. After Henry Mosler (American, 1841-1920), “The Lost Cause”, oil on canvas, unsigned, 18 in. x 26 in., in a period frame. [$1800/2400]
Note: Born in New York City into a family of Jewish immigrants, Henry Mosler gained early recognition for his work as a Civil War illustrator for Harper’s Weekly newspaper. After the war, Mosler furthered his art training in Europe. In 1866 he returned to America and painted “The Lost Cause” which earned him national acclaim as an artist. The Confederate soldiers found defeat on the battlefield as well as on a personal level, when they returned home to find their houses, farms and livelihood damaged or even destroyed. Mosler’s painting of “The Lost Cause” conveyed the sadness and despair in the aftermath of the war for the South. This painting is one of many nineteenth century copies of the popular and sentimental Mosler masterpiece.

761. Thomas Bailey Griffin (American, 1858-1918), “Waiting by the Gate”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 23 1/2 in. x 12 1/ 2 in., in a period wood frame with a geometric motif. [$1500/2500]

762. Thure de Thulstrup (American, 1848-1930), “The Carriage Ride”, watercolor, signed and dated “’91” lower right, sight 17 1/4 in. x 25 1/2 in., in an antique frame. [$1500/2500]
Note: Thure de Thulstrup enjoyed a successful career as an illustrator for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Harper’s Weekly, and New York Daily Graphic. Thulstrup came to New Orleans upon receiving a commission to create a large painting commemorating the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase, to be exhibited at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Since the fair, the painting, “Hoisting the American Colors”, has been on continuous display in New Orleans at the Cabildo, with the Louisiana Museum.

W 763. F.G. Hammer (American, early 20th c.), “Black Servant in Livery Holding a Tea Tray”, gouache and pastel on oval pasteboard, signed and dated 1919 at bottom left, sight 18 3/4 in. x 14 1/2 in. [$500/700]

799. Louisiana School, 19th c., “Portrait of a New Orleans Gentleman”, pastel, unsigned, sight 18 12/ in. x 15 in., in a period wood veneer frame. [$700/900]
Provenance: A New Orleans Estate.

800. George Louis Viavant (American/New Orleans), “Two Crabs: Shedding Shell”, watercolor, signed lower left, sight 18 in. x 21 in. [$3000/5000]

801. Alexander John Drysdale (American/Louisiana, 1870-1934), “Louisiana Bayou Country”, oil wash on board, signed and dated “1932”, sight 8 1/4 in. x 18 in. [$2000/3000]
Provenance: Private collection, Shreveport, Louisiana.

802. Alexander John Drysdale (American/Louisiana, 1870-1934), “Louisiana Bayou Country”, oil wash on board, signed lower left, sight 8 in. x 18 in. [$2000/3000]
Provenance: Private collection, Shreveport, Louisiana.

802A.  [Louisiana History], a complete run of Louisiana Historical Society Quarterly, published in New Orleans, 1918-1972, some volumes bound, others loose, featuring in-depth articles on various subjects, great reference. [$400/600]
Note: Sold to benefit the Louisiana Historical Society.

803. Florida School, 19th c., “Palm Grove, Lake Martin, Florida”, oil on canvas, unsigned, 19 in. x 28 in., in a period gilt frame. [$1000/1500]

804. Adele Rogers (American/Florida, b. 1861), “The Dunes at East Palatka, Sunset”, oil on canvasboard, signed and dated “1920” or “1926”, sight 13 1/4 in. x 13 1/4 in. [$1000/1500]
Note: Rogers studied under American Impressionist and founder of the Cape Cod School, Charles Webster Hawthorne, famous for his method of teaching en plein aire. As a result of Hawthorne’s work and reputation, the native fishing village was transformed into an international artist’s colony, attracting such luminaries as George Ault, Henry Demuth, Childe Hassam, and Ben Shahn. Rogers later painted in Florida and was a member of the St. Augustine Art Club.

W 805. James Ralph Wilcox (American/Florida, 1866-1915), “Landscape with Old Stone Fence”, watercolor, signed lower left, sight 19 1/4 in. x 11 1/2 in. [$1000/1500]

806. Julius R. Hoening (German/Louisiana, 1835-1904, active New Orleans 1860-1904)., “A. Bon Marne Grocerys”, watercolor and gouache, signed and dated “1890” lower right, 15 in. x 21 1/2 in. [$1200/1800]

W 807. Alice Bunch (American/Missouri, 1904-1992), “Marguerite”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, signed, titled and inscribed en verso, 24 in. x 19 in. [$500/700]

W 808. James Vance Miller (American/West Virginia, 1912-2002), “Boulder in a Creekbed”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, Avery Gallery, Marietta, Georgia label en verso, brass artist’s plaque on frame, 16 in. x 20 1/2 in. [$700/900]

809. Emile J. Dantonet (American/New Orleans, d. 1933, active New Orleans 1882-92), “Louisiana Landscape”, oil on board, signed lower right, sight 10 1/4 in. x 13 in. [$1200/1800]

W 810. Colette Pope Heldner (American/New Orleans, 1902-1990), “Swamp Idyll (Louisiana Bayou Country)”, oil on canvasboard, signed lower left, signed and titled en verso, 20 in. x 16 in. [$800/1200] 809. Emile J. Dantonet (American/New Orleans, d. 1933, active New Orleans 1882-92), “Louisiana Landscape”, oil on board, signed lower right, sight 10 1/4 in. x 13 in. [$1200/1800]

811. Robert M. Rucker (American/Louisiana, 1932-2001), “The Homestead”, oil on canvasboard, signed lower left, 5 in. x 7 in., attractively framed. [$1200/1800]
Provenance: Purchased from Acadian Frame and Art, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

W 812. Robert M. Rucker (American/Louisiana, 1932-2001), “The Porch”, oil on canvasboard, signed lower left, 5 in. x 7 in., attractively framed. [$1200/1800]
Provenance: Purchased from Acadian Frame and Art, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

813. Colette Pope Heldner (American/New Orleans, 1902-1990), “Swamp Idyll (Louisiana Bayou Country), oil on canvas, signed lower left, signed and titled en verso, 20 in. x 36 in. [$1000/1500]

814. William Norman Arnold (Missouri/Louisiana, 1902-2006), “Bayou Dock”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, inscribed and dated “8-2000” en verso, 16 in. x 20 in., unframed. [$800/1200]
Provenance: Acquired from the artist.
Note: After a brief career in minor league baseball, William Arnold moved to Louisiana to work in the oil and gas industry. Always interested in painting, Arnold would travel to New Orleans to visit with the many talented artists that congregated in the French Quarter including Clarence Millet and Knute Heldner. Upon retiring, Arnold enrolled in the John McCrady School of Art on Bourbon Street and began painting full time. Still lifes and views of cabins in the bayous of Southern Louisiana were among his favorite subjects.

W 815. William Norman Arnold (Missouri/Louisiana, 1902-2006), “Still Life of Apples”, oil on ceiling tile, signed lower right, 16 in. 20 in., in a period frame. [$1000/1500]
Provenance: Acquired from the artist.

816. Julia Titsworth (American/California, 1878-1941), “El Paso, Texas" oil on canvas, signed, titled and dated “2/26” lower right, sight 7 1/2 in. x 9 3/4 in., in a period frame. [$1000/1500]

817. W.G. Addison (American/Florida, 19th c.), “Egrets and Palms Trees in the Florida Swamp”, oil on board, signed lower right 21 1/2 in. x 17 3/4 in., in a period gilt wood frame. [$1200/1800]

W 818. Colette Pope Heldner (American/New Orleans, 1902-1990), “Swamp Idyll, Louisiana (Barataria)”, oil on canvas, signed lower left, signed and titled en verso, 24 in. x 30 in. [$1200/1800]

W 819. Charles Summey (American/Missouri, 20th c.), “Road to the Ranch”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 24 in. x 36 in. [$1000/1500]

W 820. Will Ousley (American/Louisiana, 1866-1953), “The Falls”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 30 1/2 in. x 19 3/4 in., in a period frame. [$1000/1500]
Provenance: Purchased from the artist between 1928 and 1933, descended in the family.

W 821. Will Ousley (American/Louisiana, 1866-1953), “West Fork”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, titled lower center, 17 in. x 32 in., in a period frame. [$1000/1500]
Provenance: Purchased from the artist between 1928 and 1933, descended in the family.

W 822. Colette Pope Heldner (American/New Orleans, 1902-1990), “Swamp Idyll, Louisiana Bayou Country”, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 36 in. x 20 in. [$1200/1800]

823. Alexander John Drysdale (American/New Orleans, 1870-1934), “In Autumn: Louisiana Bayou”, oil on board, signed lower left, 6 in. x 20 in., in a per-iod frame. [$2000/4000]

824. Caroline Garland Lewis (American/Alabama, 1865-1950), “Big Shoals Landing”, oil on canvas board, signed lower left, Birmingham Art Club label and handwritten artist label en verso, 11 in. x 15 1/4 in., in a period frame. [$1000/1500]

W 825. August Weiss (American, 20th c.), “Fishing”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 18 in. x 24 in. [$1000/1500]

841. Robert M. Rucker (American/Louisiana, 1932-2001), “The Shadows on the Teche”, watercolor, signed lower right, McCaughen & Burr, Fine Arts, St. Louis, Missouri label en verso, 14 in. x 18 in. [$1500/2000]

W 842. Rolland Harve Golden (American/Louisiana, b. 1931), “French Quarter Street”, watercolor, signed and dated “65” lower right, sight 21 1/2 in. x 28 1/4 in. [$1000/1500]

843. Charles Richards (American/New Orleans, 1906-1992), “Louisiana Swamp at Dusk”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 18 in. x 22 in. [$1500/2500]
Provenance: Gift of the artist, descended through the family.

844. Charles Henry Reinike (American/Louisiana, 1906-1983), “Working the Fields”, watercolor, signed and dated “27” lower right, sight 14 in. x 19 3/4 in. [$1500/2500]

845. Achille Peretti (Italian/New Orleans, 1857/1862-1923), “Portrait of an Elderly Lady”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, “From W.E. Seebold, Stationer, Engraver & Art Dealer, 139 Carondelet St., New Orleans, LA” label en verso, 16 in. x 13 in., in a period giltwood frame. [$2000/2500]

W 846. Southern School, late 19th c. “Cattails and Swamp Lilies in the Swamp”, oil on artist’s board, unsigned, c. 1890, F.W. DeVoe & Co. label en verso, sight 15 in. x 8 in., in a period gilt wood frame. [$700/900]

W 847. Southern School, late 19th/early 20th c., “On the Path to the Cabin”, oil on board, unsigned, P.H. Hanes Knitting Co., Winston-Salem, North Carolina stencil en verso, 15 in. x 9 1/2 in., in a period frame. [$700/900]

848. Knute Heldner (Swedish/New Orleans, 1877-1952), “Portrait of Old Man with a Beard”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 28 in. x 35 in. [$1200/1800]

W 849. Jean Rathborne (American/Georgia, 20th c.), “Magnolias”, watercolor, signed lower right, sight 23 1/2 in. x 18 1/4 in. [$500/700]

W 850. Raiford J. Wood (Savannah, Georgia, 1895-1974), “Portrait of Woman in Lilac Dress”, oil on canvas, signed upper right, 30 in. x 23 in., unframed. [$600/900]
Note: The Savannah painter Raidford Wood was a long time director of the Telfair Academy of Arts and Science and taught at the Savannah Art College and Design. This portrait of a stylishly dressed woman is said to be wife of the president of the Georgia Rail Road Company.

851. Clementine Hunter (American/New Orleans, 1886-1988), “Baptismal”, oil on board, monogrammed lower right, 15 1/2 in. x 24 in. [$2500/3500]

W 852. Rolland Harve Golden (American/Louisiana, b. 1931), “New Orleans Jazz Trumpeter: Possibly Henry James Allen, Jr.”, watercolor, signed and dated “’57” lower right, 14 in. x 10 in. [$500/700]

W 853. Rolland Harve Golden (American/Louisiana, b. 1931), “New Orleans Jazz Trumpeter: Possibly Henry James Allen, Jr.”, watercolor, signed and dated “’57” lower right, 14 in. x 10 in. [$500/700]

W 854. Hope Herberger (American/New Orleans, 20th c.), “Cabin Scene”, oil on canvasboard, signed lower left, 22 in. x 29 1/2 in. [$1000/1500]

855. Hope Herberger (American/New Orleans, 20th c), “The Dock”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 20 in. x 24 in. [$1000/1500]

856. Robert M. Rucker (American/Louisiana, 1932-2001), “Cabin in the Bayou”, watercolor, signed lower right, sight 6 1/2 in. x 9 in. [$700/900]
Provenance: Purchased from the artist.

857. Robert M. Rucker (American/Louisiana, 1932-2000), “French Quarter Courtyard”, watercolor, signed lower left, 15 in. x 6 in. [$800/1200]

858. Rolland Harve Golden (American/Louisiana, b. 1931), “French Quarter Jazz Musician or Character”, watercolor, unsigned 14 3/4 in. x 10 3/4 in. [$200/400]

W 859. Rolland Harve Golden (American/Louisiana, b. 1931), “New Orleans Jazz Drummer: Possibly Earl Palmer”, watercolor, signed and dated “’57” lower right, 14 3/4 in. x 10 3/4 in. [$500/700]

W 860. Laurence Christie Edwardson (American/Louisiana, 1904-1995), “Pirate’s Alley, French Quarter”, a pair of oil paintings on canvas, both signed lower left, signed, dated “1960” and titled en verso, 24 in. x 10 in., in matching frames. [$800/1200]

W 861. Paul Blaine Henrie (American, 1932-1999), “Pirate’s Alley”, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 36 in. x 24 in. [$500/700]

W 862. Alice Leigh Moise (American/New Orleans, 1905-1997, active Newcomb College 1924-28), “Still Life of Flowers”, oil on board, signed lower right, sight 15 1/2 in. x 19 1/2 in. [$300/500]

863. Selena Elizabeth Bres Gregory (American/New Orleans, 1870-1953, active Newcomb College 1896-1935), “Still Life of a Red Geranium”, watercolor, unsigned, sight 13 1/2 in. x 9 in. [$1200/1800]
Provenance: Estate of Angela Gregory, New Orleans.

W 864. George Lzvolsky Blattny (American/Louisiana, 20th c.), “Grand Isle, Louisiana”, watercolor, pencil signed and titled on mat board, sight, sight 8 in. x 10 3/4 in. [$800/1200]

W 865. Chief Phillip LeRoy Willey (American/New Orleans, 1887-1980), “Girls in Swins (sic)”, oil on board, 1975, signed lower right, 5 in. x 7 in. [$400/600]

W 865A. Richard Burrell Brough (American/Alabama, 1920-1996), “Plantation House”, watercolor, signed and dated “1949”, 15 in. x 22 in. [$600/900]

W 866. David Sinclair Nixon (American/New Orleans, 1904-1967), “Lion Tamer”, oil on board, unsigned, unfinished pencil drawing en verso, c. 1930s, 11 1/2 in. x 9 1/4 in. [$300/500]
Provenance: From the estate of noted New Orleans antiquarian Juanita Elfert.

867. Frances M. Folse (American/Louisiana, 1906-1985), “Abstraction”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 19 in. x 28 in. [$1000/1500]
Note: Born in Bayou Lafourche, folk art painter Frances M. Folse found inspiration in the plantation life, oil and gas industry and fishermen of the local Southern Louisiana community for her paintings. A debilitating illness as a youth left her with limited mobility. In 1938 at the age of thirty-two she enrolled in an educational correspondence program in art and began to pursue her career as an artist. William Groves, an early and important collector of Louisiana art recognized Folse’s ability and encouraged her as an artist. This colorful and lively painting is one of Folse’s rare endeavors into the modernist movement.
Reference: France M. Folse: Bayou Lafourche Folk Painter Rediscovered, Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Baton Rouge and Southdown Museum, Houma, 1997.

868. Reed E. Chappell (Tennessee/New Orleans), b.1972, after Gil Elvgren (American, 1914-1980), “Pin-up Girl and Her Dog”, oil on board, signed “R. Chappel after Elvgreen” and dated “01” lower right, 59 in. x 48 in, unframed. [$1500/2500]
Note: Born in Memphis, Reed Chappell was awarded a scholarship to the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 1990. Eight years later, Chappell moved to New Orleans where he established himself as a commercial and fine artists. This painting is Chappell’s tribute to the famed Coca-Cola, and Brown and Bigelow calendar artist Gil Elvgreen.

W 869. Dwight Clay Holmes (American, 1900-1988), “Weeping Juniper in the Chisos”, oil on canvas board, signed lower right, titled en verso, c. 1940s, 12 in. x 15 3/4 in., attractively framed. [$800/1200]

870. C. Ivar Gilbert (Swedish/American, 1882-1959), “Schooners at Rest”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, titled en verso, 25 in. x 30 in., brass artist’s plaque on frame. [$700/900]

W 871. Otto Munstedt (American, early 20th c.), “Sailing Boats”, oil on canvas, signed and dated “’30” lower left, 15 in. x 20 in. [$800/1200]

872. Verlin Blackwell (American/California, 20th c.), a collection of paintings including two of “Lookout Mountain, Tennessee”, oils on canvasboard, signed lower right and signed and dated “45” lower left, titled and dated “1945” en verso, sight 8 in. x 5 1/2 in., framed together; two of “Golf Course and Fertilizer Plant, Hattiesburg, Mississippi”, oils on canvasboard, signed lower right and signed and dated “43” lower right, titled and inscribed en verso, sight 8 in. x 5 1/2 in., framed together. [$700/900]
Note: According to the inscription en verso “Painted by Verlin Backwell, Sgt. stationed by Camp Shelby. He was an artist at Walt Disney Studios, Hollywood, before WW II.”

W 873. Harry T. Fisk (American, 1887-1976), “European Street Scene”, oil on board, signed lower left, 11 3/4 in. x 8 in., in light-stained period frame. [$800/1200]

874. Elizabeth Colwell (American, 1881-1954), a pair of still lifes of “Bananas, Apples and Paintbrushes” and “Grapes, Apples and Bananas”, oils on canvas, signed lower right and left respectively, 22 in. x 30 in., in matching frames. [$800/1200]

W 875. Nelson Cahill (American, early 20th c.), “The Bridge”, watercolor, signed lower right, 11 1/2 in. x 22 1/4 in., in a period frame. [$500/700]

876. J.T. Skegie (American, 20th c.), “Skittish Kitties”, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 15 7/8 in. x 19 7/8 in., in an Arts and Crafts carved frame. [$800/1200]

W 884. Natalie Hays Hammond (America, 1904-1985), “St. Louis II Cemetery, New Orleans”, watercolor, signed and titled lower right, signed, titled and dated “1950” on mat board, 8 1/2 in. x 6 1/2 in., unframed. [$800/1200]
Provenance: Estate of the artist, 1993.

W 885. Colette Pope Heldner (American/New Orleans, 1902-1990), “Swamp Idyl, (Louisiana Bayou country)”, oil on canvasboard, signed lower left, signed and titled en verso, 16 in. x 20 in., in a period frame. [$1000/1500]

1053. Astley David M. Cooper (St. Louis 1856 - California 1924), “Sultan’s Choice”, oil on canvas, signed and dated “1881”, “Sacramento, California”, 31 3/4 in. x 60 in., in a modern cove molded gilded frame. [$2500/4000]
Note: “Sultan’s Choice”, represents an example from Cooper’s oeuvre that bespeaks his flirtation with Orientalism and the exoticism of the Middle East, an area of similar fascination to European audiences probably unacquainted with Cooper’s own archetypical American “Wild West”. Today, Cooper is primarily known for his celebrated canvases depicting the life, customs, and rituals of the American Plains Indians and the vanishing frontier, although he is known to have worked outside the genre to include history painting with religious and mythological subject matter as well.

W 1146. American School, early 20th c., “Homesteader”, watercolor, signed “Max Rateau” and dated “1907” lower left, sight 9 in. x 11 in. [$600/900]

W 1185. Nestor Hippoyle Fruge (American/Louisiana, b. 1916), a collection of three watercolors of “Pirates Alley”, signed lower right, sight 14 in. x 10 in.; “French Quarter Patio”, signed lower left, sight 14 in. x 10 in., framed alike, and “French Quarter Street”, signed lower right, 11 in. x 8 3/4 in., unframed. [$400/600]

1185A. Jean Seidenberg (American/New Orleans, b. 1930), “Portrait of Mignon Faget”, watercolor, signed, titled and dated “1979” lower right, sight 14 in. x 9 3/4 in. [$700/900]

1186. Robert M. Rucker (American/Louisiana, 1932-2001), “Pirates Alley” and “French Quarter Corner”, a pair of watercolors, signed lower right and left respectively, one stamped “Harmanson’s Book & Art Store, 333 Royal Street”, 5 1/8 in. x 14 1/8 in., unframed. [$1500/2500]

W 1187. Southern School, 19th c., “Bayou Scene”, oil on canvas, unsigned, 7 in. x 13 in., in a period frame. [$1000/1500]