526

WILLIAM BRADFORD

Massachusetts/California, 1823-1892

Starboard view portrait of the ship Harry Bluff,

hove-to, awaiting a pilot. She's flying her house flag from the mainmast and an American flag from her gaff, and the ship's name appears at the stern, below the lifeboat hanging from davits, and at the bow, below where three sailors are handling lines. Beautifully and realistically rendered sails shown at rest, the folds and creases visible where they are pressed against rigging lines. To her right is a two-masted topsail schooner with a rig and hull shape similar to the yacht America's. To the right of the schooner is three-masted steam/sail vessel rounding a point of land. Signed and dated lower left "Wm. Bradford Fair Haven, Maass [sic] 1856". Accompanied by the essay "William Bradford, Portrait of the ship Harry Bluff" by Erik A.R. Ronnberg, Jr. and an extensive condition report from Yost Conservation, LLC, Oxford, Connecticut, which states the painting is in "very good condition," and that the restoration included removing "the previous restorer's discolored varnish layer and excessive and unnecessary retouches ...".
Oil on canvas, 28" x 42.25". Framed 36.5" x 50.5".
Condition: Accompanied by a condition report from Yost Conservation, as noted in description. 19th Century-style frame with 23kt gold surface.

  • Provenance:
    Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, August 20, 2014.
  • Literature:
    William Bradford Sailing Ships & Arctic Seas by Richard C. Kugler (New Bedford, Mass: New Bedford Whaling Museum, 2003), p. 89-97, for several illustrations of William Bradford ship portraits.
    American Clipper Ships 1833-1858 by Octavius T. Howe and Frederick C. Matthews (Salem, Mass.: Marine Research Society, 1926), p. 260, for history of the Harry Bluff.
    Essay "William Bradford, Portrait of the ship Harry Bluff" by Erik A.R. Ronnberg, Jr. (November 2014).

    Note:
    William Bradford and Fitz Henry Lane's portraits of 1850s sailing ships are at the highest level of ship portraiture painted in the 19th Century. Here, Bradford exhibits a wonderful luminous quality in the brilliant coloring of the sky and the subtle tones of the soft cloud banks. It is one of his later ship portraits, and the controlled execution of the color, structure and highlighting of the water and the fine rendering of the sails rank it as one of his best.

    According to Ronnberg's essay, the Harry Bluff was built at Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1855 by Jotham Stetson, registered at 1,244 tons, 184 feet in length, 37 feet in beam and 24 feet in depth. She was owned by Charles Reynolds Green and St. Croix Redman, who was also her master. Her name, "Harry Bluff", selected by the builder, was the nom de plume of naval officer and hydrographer Matthew Fontaine Maury, who wrote a series of articles about U.S. Naval policy for the "Richmond Whig". In publications at the time of her launch, her figurehead was described as a tar lifting his hat and her color scheme as a black hull and buff inboard.

    She was intended for the packet trades between New Orleans and European ports, but the background here is possibly the entrance to New York Harbor, her port of registry. While the Harry Bluff isn't flying a pilot signal flag, this probably indicates the lack of uniformity in signal flags at the time, rather than Bradford's ignorance.

    The Harry Bluff was lost on Nantucket's South Shoal in March 1869 while bound for Boston from Cadiz.

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August 20, 2021 9:30 AM EDT
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