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19Th Century American Genre, Marine, Adn Still Life Paintings

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19Th Century American Genre, Marine, Adn Still Life Paintings Inside and Out 1 9 t h c e n t u r y a m e r i c a n g e n r e , m a r i n e , a n d s t i l l l i f e p a i n t i n g s January 15–February 23, 2018 Debra Force F I N E A RT , I N C . James Henry Beard (1811–1893) The Illustrious Guest (A Distinguished Stranger), 1847 signed JH Beard and dated painted 1847 , center right, oil on canvas, 25 × 30½ in. A M E S H E N RY B E A R D , a renowned rigorously for his Whig Party’s Presidential his fellow man as well as gaming, fddling, J genre painter and portraitist, was born candidacy in 1840. The artist painted a and imbibing. His carpet bag in the in Buffalo, New York, and as a teenager, cabinet portrait of Harrison (Charleston foreground implies that he has been moved with his family to Painesville, Ohio. City Hall, South Carolina) that served briefy traveling. While residing there, he took lessons from as the source for an engraving used The tavern was the center for commu- an itinerant artist and gained experience by extensively in his campaign. nication in frontier America. In addition executing likenesses of friends and family. The Illustrious Guest (A Distinguished to a bar, it was often a stagecoach stop, In 1834, he settled in Cincinnati, which Stranger), depicting Henry Clay, the a repository for news and messages, an remained his principal home for nearly prominent Kentucky statesman, Senator, inn for lodging, and a central location for forty years. His breakthrough as an artist Speaker of the House, Secretary of State, business, often accompanied by a stable came when his future father-in-law, and three-time Presidential candidate, or blacksmith. Here, the stagecoach driver Colonel Elijah Carter, commissioned was painted in New York City in 1847, relaxes at the bar, while a broadside him to paint portraits of himself and his during the course of Beard’s approximately announces an event and a message has been family. Soon, he secured other commis- one-and-a-half year sojourn there. Beard left above the register, and a curry comb sions and the friendship of many of apparently had met Clay during William and brush on the wall are indicative of the wealthiest families of the city. Beard Henry Harrison’s administration in 1841, stable activities. Other prominent genre traveled extensively in Ohio, Kentucky, when the artist was tapped to be the bearer artists of the early 19th Century, including Mississippi, and New Orleans in quest of of dispatches from the United States to John Krimmel, William Sidney Mount, orders for portraits. He became renowned the Court of St. James in London. As he Charles Deas, Richard Caton Woodville, and over the course of his career, had was preparing to depart for Europe with and George Caleb Bingham, also depicted sittings with several Presidents, including Clay, who had just served as Secretary of tavern scenes, often with politics and John Quincy Adams (location unknown) State, the President died of pneumonia current events such as the Missouri and Zachary Taylor (National Portrait after only a month in offce. Compromise as underlying themes. Clay Gallery, Washington, DC). In the 1840s During the 1840s, Beard painted a was instrumental in the development and and 1850s, he emerged as one of America’s series of genre paintings that focused upon passage of the latter in 1850. leading genre painters. national affairs and party politics, includ- The Illustrious Guest was originally Beard was a prominent fgure in ing The Long Bill, 1840, and North Carolina exhibited at the Western Art Union in Cincinnati’s art and literary circles and Emigrants, 1845, both in the collection of Cincinnati in 1847, and was extolled also took an active role in national the Cincinnati Art Museum. The Illustrious both in a local newspaper, Liberty Hall and politics. A loyal and enthusiastic member Guest features Clay reading a newspaper in Cincinnati Gazette, and in the diary of a of the Whig Party, he supported a a tavern setting, most likely in Kentucky. young Pennsylvania woman, Anna Maria strong National Bank, the supremacy The room is flled with onlookers won- Coleman, in May of 1848. The painting of the United States Congress over the dering if this is indeed the famous man; was awarded that year in a lottery that was Presidency, immigration restrictions, and some examine his cane, another checks typical for the time to a St. Louis patron, a program of economic protectionism the register to fnd his name, and a small John Machir, and has descended in his to stimulate manufacturing. He was child stands afore him mesmerized by his family to the present day. It is rare in its particularly close to General William presence. Clay was a frequent habitué contemporary depiction of an historic Henry Harrison of Ohio and campaigned of taverns, enjoying the camaraderie of fgure within a genre context. 3 John Samuel Blunt (1798–1835) US Frigate, New Castle, New Hampshire, 1828 signed J. S. Blunt and dated 1828, lower right 5 oil on canvas, 23 ⁄8 × 27½ in. and house portraits. He returned to Portsmouth in 1821, and six years later, exhibited at the Portsmouth Athenaeum as well as at the Boston Athenaeum in 1829. He headed West through Louisiana to Texas in 1835, and died on board the ship Ohio, when returning to Boston that year. In US Frigate, New Castle, New Hampshire, Blunt’s vantage point is from Fort McClary on Kittery Point, Maine, looking over the mouth of the Piscataqua Estuary between New Hampshire and Maine. On the far right is the shore of New Castle, New Hampshire, marked by a lighthouse and the Walbach Tower built in 1814. The artist created depictions of the Piscataqua region throughout his career, akin to that of Fitz Henry Lane in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The frst owner of the painting was Levi Woodbury (1789–1851) of Fran- cestown, New Hampshire, who served as Governor of the state, US Senator, Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the Treasury, and Supreme Court Justice of the United States from 1823 to 1851. H E WO R K O F T H E E A R LY Born in the port city of Portsmouth, Woodbury may have purchased the T 19th-century artist John Samuel New Hampshire, Blunt came from a painting directly from Blunt or possibly Blunt was forgotten in the years following family of prominent seafarers. In 1816, commissioned it. The painting descended his death in 1835. It was not until 1948 he began an apprenticeship in the Boston in the family to his daughter Mary, who that Blunt’s art was rediscovered by workshop of John Ritto Penniman, who married Montgomery Blair whose the art historian Nina Fletcher Little. also trained painter Alvan Fisher. While family’s name was given to Blair House Further knowledge of Blunt surfaced seeking to make a living from portraiture, in Washington, DC. It remained in the with the emergence of two of the artist’s Blunt was naturally drawn to depicting the family’s hands until 1972, when it was sketchbooks found in the hands of his harbors and ships with which he had acquired by a Maryland collector. descendants in 2001–2005. The sketch- become thoroughly acquainted from his books reveal the artist’s practice of immediate surroundings, and by 1819, drawing from Nature. he was also painting landscapes and ship James Bard (1815–1897) James A. Stevens, 1873 signed J. Bard and dated 1873, lower right watercolor and gouache on board, 18½ × 40 in. M O N G A M E R I C A N M A R I N E artists, He came to paint almost every steamship (1749–1838), lawyer, engineer, and inventor, A James Bard was the pre-eminent that traveled the Hudson River and created who constructed the frst steam locomo- painter of the steamboat, which, following documents of those that were the fastest, tive, frst steam-powered ferry, and frst US its invention by Robert Fulton in 1807, sleekest, and most celebrated modern commercial ferry service. revolutionized passenger and freight travel vessels of his era. As in the present example, Bard across the rivers of America. From his This watercolor depicts the steamship created images of ships drawn to scale youth until 1849, Bard collaborated with James A. Stevens, built for Palmer Crary, one with meticulously observed details. His his twin brother John to create portraits of the owners of the Blackball Line of typical style included portraying ships of marine craft operating on the Hudson packet boats. This ship was named for broadside and parallel to the picture plane, River and Long Island Sound. By 1850, James Alexander Stevens (1790–1873), capturing movement by depicting spray James gained further respectability and who established the Union Steamboat emitting from their sidewheels. Each ship’s prominence as an American marine painter Company, which ran boats from Albany identity is clearly indicated on bright fags on his own. Through the 1880s, he devel- to New York and who led the famous suit at bow and stern and painted inscriptions. oped patrons amongst the distinguished of Ogden vs. Gibbons that resulted in Federal Bard also painted an oil and a watercolor steamboat gentry in New York, receiving control, rather than state monopolies, of of this ship, dated 1857, in the Mariner’s commissions from boat builders, ship navigable streams and rivers. Stevens was Museum (Newport News, Virginia).
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