Collection: SOLD

A Gift to his Mother

This box with floral decoration painted on its sliding lid top is made entirely of highly figured tiger maple and is lined with bright blue paper.

In 1819 Henry, then 22 or 23 years old and the ninth child of Amos and Helen Whittemore, gave this gift to his mother, and its presentation is recorded in pencil on the inside surface of the lid.

The box is finely dovetailed, as would be expected of urban work, and the family lived in the Arlington/Cambridge area outside of Boston. The blue interior was seen on drawer interiors in the Boston area at this time, and the box shape was often used there. 8 x 5 inch top and 1 1/2 inch height. The piece retains its original thin shellac surface.

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.

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.

Miss Boyton, in a blue dress and wearing strands of black beads, is from the Egan Collection, and she was exhibited and illustrated in "A Loving Likeness: American Folk Portraits of the Nineteenth Century," in the Gallery at Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1992, text by Marna Anderson.

Under "Anonymous Artists", one small group of hollow-cut silhouette and watercolor portaits is placed near similar portraits by unknown artists referred to as the Puffy Sleeve Artist and the Red Book Artist. A descriptive name such as the previos examples have not been assigned to this artist, although the work is equally distinctive stylistically. I have had examples with initials from all these artists, and any dated work I have ever seen has been done in 1831. They represent people from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maine.

Like many others, she is in a stamped brass frame and measures 4 3/8 by 5 and 1/4 inches.

Norris Richardson is shown in 1868 in a slat back chair with his dog on a table at his shoulder. New England history.

An unusual chalice from the Scheiers, probably an early interpretation of the Jonah and the Whale theme used by Edwin to decorate so many of his works. The pottery has all the grace of Mary's work: thin walls, perfect symmetry and almost indistinguishable turning marks, and a raised foot with an unarticulated lip edge.

Alternating female figures and fish form a ring around the center of the chalice. The women extend their arms so that each fish is held by two women. Both the female figures and the fish are inverted with each repeat.

The glaze varies from light blue inside to medium through a very dark blue on the exterior. The incised figues are of brown and yellow colors.

New Hampshire circa 1950. 7 inches high and 7 inches wide at the rim.

American, circa 1870, in its original pressed paper case, mounted on brown suede, and in a black-painted contemporary frame fitted with museum glass.

Framed dimensions are 6 3/8 inches by 3 5/8 inches.

Its handle ornamented and the body on a raised base. 7 1/2 inches high and 7 inches wide. Late 19th century, American.

Drama, intensity, directness, confrontation. Not terms of endearment but words of description of one of the most unusual small portraitr I have ever seen. They stand facing each other, are portrayed 1/2 length, are almost monochrome in palette but filled with small details of costume.

I want to say it is a contest: who will blink first, who will step back, speak? They arre so still, so silent. Their eyes meet and hold. She holds a book in her hand, level, facing him. He tucks his hand inside his jacket, in refusal to accept it? There is not background but the small embellishment that seem to indicate age. She is 28. He is 31, each a number painted beneath the figure.

This is one of the most unusual and memorable small portraits I have ever encountered.

Sight 7 x 4 3/4 inches, in what is probably their original frame. Probably New England or New York State. Circa 1835. Watercolor, graphite and ink on paper. Has been washed and de-acidified by Paper Conservation Studio, New York City. No damage.

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.