Collection: Paintings

The dog stares at the viewer, a thoughtful and affection inspiring pose. Probably late nineteenth century. In an oval reproduction frame. Unsigned. Excellent condition.

The place is elusive but the date is painted on the barn, "1904", in this unsigned work by an artist known by one signed work as "T. Bonneau, drawer". Bonneau worked in upper New York State and northern New England and in Canada.
His works are distinctive. They are architecture drawings, usually farm building "portraits", painted in watercolor and gouache, always bold in drawing and interesting in coloration. The artist details linear elements like siding, window frames, foundation stones, chimney and ventilation stacks, and fences and gates.
Particularly distinctive is his spatial treatment that layers buildings vertically to represent recession in space and the continuation of base lines on a horizontal, even when the segments of connected parts of a building indicate that it turns in space, ignoring, or more probably not knowing, the rules of perspective drawing.
Works by this artist are included in "Folk Painters of America" by Robert Bishop, cover and p. 115; "The Marcus Collection", Sotheby's, Ocober 1989, lots 30 and 31; and "Seasonal Selections", The Magazine Antiques", at Giampietro, New York.
27 x 21 1/2 inches sight, 31 3/4 x 25 3/4 framed.

The Reverend Wm. Green, originally from Centerville, New York, abandoned his wife there and went to Cornwall, CT. He was an itinerant Methodist minister, and there he met and married a young widow with property. He also worked for P.T. Barnum when he ran for Congress and in a general store for his second wife's brother. His second wife died under suspicious circumstances, and after three trials Green was convicted of her murder and sentenced to the state prison for life and died there.

While there, Mr. Green went into an ornamental painting and illuminating business, and his work is beautifully decorative- highly colorful and quite charming. In addition to this piece, there is a similar example in the collection of the Litchfield Historical Society.

Drawn in red, blue and black ink (now brown) and showing one female figure, a large compass star, and decorative elements seen in other known examples of his work.
Sight size is 12 inches high and 8 inches wide. Conservation framed in a period frame measuring 16 by 11 inches.

This portrait, early in date for an American portrait, gets its charm from the very characteristics that make it different from those which follow more English traditions of the period. The child's gaze is at the viewer (or the artist) and has a casual affect, not the more formal impression of English portraiture. She is posed in a three-quarter length standing pose, and her hands on the basket match the sensitivity seen in her gaze. Her red dress is trimmed in white lace, a costume seen in other works of children attributed to Delanoy.

The attribution of this painting to Abraham Delanoy, Jr. is made through stylistic comparisons with known Delanoy portraits of the family of John Sherman of Connecticut. The artist was previously referred to as the Sherman Limner, and the girl in the red dress is very similar stylistically to the portrait of David Austin Sherman. Two portraits of Sherman children are considered lost, and this may be one of them. There is no question that our young girl and the Sherman family portraits are by the same hand.

In the portrait of Mrs. Sherman there is a very similar basket that contains the same fruits: a bunch of white and blue grapes, and two peaches. Delanoy is considered to have been one of the most gifted painters practicing in the Colonies in the 1780's.

Please see DOCUMENTATION for complete condition report and publication references. Oil on canvas, 30 x 22 inches.

Painted and signed by Edmund Henry Garrett (1853-1929), a Boston artist, and inscribed by him as "From the original by N. C. Wyeth".

Probably painted around 1900-1920 during the Colonial Revival period.

Marvelously intense, serious yet sensitive, this young woman is a masterpiece of adult folk portraiture in the Prior tradition of producing inexpensive portraits quickly, yet capable, as was Prior, of perceptive observation and skillful design.

The details of translucent lace, a mosaic brooch, and a dreamy landscape that frames her upper body, surrounded otherwise by evening light and holding a red book that could not in the darkness be read.

The painting is wonderfully preserved and signed and dated on the backboard and frame. Later notation, pencil inscribed, relates, "French family her aunt Solt in Bristol/Aunt of Mrs. Lorenzo Sherman/ Kingston Rhode Island."

The work is 20 x 14 1/2 inches, on artists' board with a traditional wooden backboard behind it and framed in a mahogany veneered frame from which the liner has been removed to expose more of the painting's edges.

Decorated with a compote framed by pink drapes, a very rare decorative motif for a fireboard, A similar example, already sold bore a simple landscape scene, presumably of the family homestead.  Both are painted by the same unidentified artist.

Mary Jarvis's memorial celebration to honor her mother led to the custom of honoring all mothers with the observation of Mother's Day.

Webster, West Virginia.  Circa 1825-1830.

38 1/2 by 42 inches.

This portrait, executed primarily in red, white and black, has a dramatic flare that defines the strongest of the artist's works. Here the sitter has a well defined face, his strong features well-modulated and handsome, its flesh tones set-off by a black jacket and tie, his white shirt front, and the red book he holds. No shadows merge his body to its neutral gray background, before which it floats in a shallow spatial plane. In contrast to this spatial treatment is the red drape to his right, which is heavily shadowed and highlighted, its contours defined and exaggerated.
Probably MA circa 1840. Sight size 22 x 27 1/2 inches and in a period gilded frame 28 3/4 x 34 1/4 inches. Please see condition report.

Some portraits show likeness, some achieve character portrayal. There is setting to give information or one to set a stage for something more. English portraiture covers a spectrum from vacuous to intense, the society portrait to the inner soul revealed. Our gentleman is at the end of a scale tipped toward drama and insight, mood creation and thought provocation.
This is English folk portraiture rich in detail and stylish in execution: swagged drapery, fluted column, rich costume. But it is the man who commands our attention.
Circa 1810-1820.

Pictured with a vase of flowers beside her on a table, seated in a paint decorated chair, and holding a beaded purse with floral decoration on it.

Painted inscription on the back reads:

Painted By J. Parks
Nov 1837

For Catherine J (?) Rogers
Born Dec 3rd 1819

Parks' work in the 1830's is said to be from Mohawk Valley, New York.

Reference: "The Folk Tradition: Early Arts and Crafts of the Susquehanna Valley," compilrd by Richard I. Barons, pp. 6-8.

Small repairs and minor scattered inpaint. Period frame.

"Written by William Harrison Green in, Litchfield jail, State of Connecticut"

The Reverend Wm. Green, originally from Centerville, New York, abandoned his wife there and went to Cornwall, CT. He was an itinerant Methodist minister, and there he met and married a young widow with property. He also worked for P.T. Barnum when he ran for Congress and in a general store for his second wife's brother. His second wife died under suspicious circumstances, and after three trials Green was convicted of her murder and sentenced to the state prison for life and died there.

While there, Mr. Green went into an ornamental painting and illuminating business, and his work is beautifully decorative- highly colorful and quite charming. In addition to this piece, there is a similar example in the collection of the Litchfield Historical Society.
This work is drawn in red, blue and black ink (now brown) and shows two women placed between over-sized flowered branches. Their costumes are made up of banks of lines, dots and zig-zags, a totally abstract view of fabric pattern and cloth folds.
Sight size is 12 1/2 high and 7 3/4 inches wide. Conservation framed in a period frame measuring 16 by 11 inches.

Labelled in large painted script on the back , "The House that Jack Built", this oil on paperboard landscape/fancy piece, is also signed and dated in painted block letters
"W M Prior 1851"
on its original upper strainer bar.

The scene portrayed, although probably painted in Boston, appears to be on the Hudson River and shows a Greek revival house with six white columns suppporting a mansard-like roof and a tower on or behind it. Six large potted shrubs line the walkway to the house. In the distance sale boats float on the river and a road to one side leads to a couple walking towards an arched opening to the river and probably an unseen landing. The sun sets on this scene, and pink-hued white clouds rise over the water and far shore.

Rarity here is incredible. Although hundreds of Prior portaits exist and his landscapes are mentioned in his advertisements of the period, the actual works fall into the"heard of but never seen" category, until the recent exhibition of his work at the Fenimore Museum in Cooperstown, New York, "Artist and Visioary: William Mattew Prior Revealed" and its accompaning catalogue by by Jacquelyn Oak and Gwendolyn Dubois Shaw. Here an unsigned but attributed example from the museum's collection was illustrated on p. 28. A second example was also shown, was also from their collection.

19 1/2 x 23 inches unframed and 23 x 27 inches in period gilded frame. Condition report available.

First purshased by Edith Gregor Halpert for her trend setting New York City gallery which sold American folk art to the first generation of collectors in the field early in the 20th century. 
A wonderful painting of a brown-eyed young woman posed in a full frontal pose, the symettry of the composition only varied by the inclusion of a leaf decorated branch painted on the crest rail of her chair.Her lace is expertly done, and in one hand she hold a small book. The picture is described by Halpert on her gallery label which still is attached to the back of the picture, as being an oval, an unusual format for these artists. The missing area beyond the bounds of an oval appears here to have been found and replaced, along with the addition of a rectangular gold leafed frame. Possibly this addition something that was originaally part of the painting and which was removed to accomodate an easily added oval frame to complete the ensemble.Or it may be a later re-construction, obviously making the image have an appearance more true to the artists' works than with out this addition.

23x28 inches framed. circa 1825, New York State.