William Bradford (1823-1892) "Morning's Silver Light (Coast of Labrador)," 1877 Oil on canvas laid to board Signed and dated lower right: W Bradford; titled on the frame plaque
WILLIAM BRADFORD American, 1823-1892 "Labrador Fishing Boats, Near Cape Charles" oil on canvas signed lower right "Wm. Bradford NY", titled in pencil on the reverse
'Rainbow Over the Arctic'. Oil on board. Signed lower right. Provenance: Sotheby's Parke Bernet, New York, November 1978; Private Collection; Shannon's Fine Art Auctioneers, Milford, CT, April 28, 2011. Verso: Alexander Gallery, NYC label. Property from the Estate of Bertha Saunders, Briarcliff Manor, NY. Dimensions: 13.5" h x 20.5" w. Frame: 20" h x 27" w.
William Bradford (American 1823-1892) Chromolithograph "Crushed by Icebergs", depicting the ship Mary, with original Bradford Studio printed label on reverse, chromo by Storch & Kramer, Berlin; in fine carved walnut frame with bas relief anchors, harpoons, yardarm, all within a rope trim 20 in. x 33 in. Framed 27.25 in. x 40.5 in.
American, 1823-1892 Sunset on the Coast of Labrador Unsigned, inscribed "Sunset on the Coast of Labrador/Wm. Bradford" Oil on canvas 12 x 20 inches (30.5 x 50.8 cm) Provenance: Mills Estate, San Francisco. Exhibited: California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park, San Francisco, California. (Frame 21 x 29 inches) Recently relined and cleaned, reportedly by Simon Parkes Art Conservation; very minor retouch - two small lines at lower right corner, small spot in clouds at right, and to losses from frame abrasion along edges; stable craquelure
William Bradford (1823-1892) Fresh Breeze off Sandy Hook signed and dated 'Wm Bradford. / 1860' (lower right) oil on canvas laid down on cradled Masonite 32 1/4 x 48 in. (81.9 x 121.9 cm.) Painted in 1860.
The Hudson River School in Focus: Property from the Friedman Collection William Bradford 1823 - 1892 Labrador Fishing Settlement signed Wm Bradford / NY (lower right) oil on canvas 9 by 14 in. 22.9 by 35.6 cm. Executed circa 1885.
William Bradford (American 1823-1892) Chromolithograph "Crushed by Icebergs", depicting the ship Mary, with original Bradford Studio printed label on reverse, chromo by Storch & Kramer, Berlin; in fine carved walnut frame with bas relief anchors, harpoons, yardarm, all within a rope trim 20 in. x 33 in. Framed 27.25 in. x 40.5 in.
William Bradford (American, 1823-1892) Queen of the Seas oil on canvas unsigned, artist identified on a presentation plaque ship identified, flag and starboard bow 30 x 47 inches. Queen of the Seas was built in East Boston by Paul Curtis and was owned by Glidden & Williams of Boston, Massachusetts. Captained by Elias D. Knight for her maiden voyage, she joined the "Deep Sea Derby" in the fall of 1852, a race of the finest clipper ships of the day from Boston and New York around Cape Horn to San Francisco. Queen of the Seas set sail from Boston on November 3, 1852, and arrived in San Francisco on March 11, 1853.
Graphite sketch of "The Stranded Whaler", depicting a ship caught in the ice. Ca. 1866, graphite on paper, signed lower right, William Bradford. Back has title and name "Mrs. Bradford" with old framing instructions. In gilt flyspeck watergilt frame, french ruled mat, UV plexiglass. OS: 13" x 16 3/4", SS: 5 1/2" x 8 3/4", in fine condition. In 1863 forty Newfoundland ships were trapped by the ice and abandoned. Bradford painted a large version of this scene, which is now in the Whaling Museum in New Bedford, MA. Ex-coll. Ellis family, Fairhaven, MA.
William Bradford (American, 1823-1892), c. 1880. Study of a Sailboat. Depicting silhouetted two-masted boat at sea, paperboard support mounted on stretched canvas and framed, (flaking). l.r. 'W Bradford'. Oil on board. Canvas, ht. 11, wd. 19 in.
WILLIAM BRADFORD Massachusetts/California, 1823-1892 Ships at sail. Unsigned. Reverse with Christie's label and inscription for Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York.
William Bradford (American 1823-1892) Watercolor on Paper "Harbor Scene", signed lower left Wm Bradford, in molded wood frame with linen mat and gilt liner 4.25 in. x 9 in. Framed 12 in. x 17 in.
William Bradford (American, 1823-1892) Inspiration Point, Yosemite circa 1879 signed 'Wm Bradford' (lower right) oil and charcoal on paperboard 18 3/8 x 25 1/8 in. framed 22 x 28 3/4 x 1 1/2 in.
William Bradford American, 1823-1892 The Return of the Labrador Fisherman, 1877 Signed Wm. Bradford and dated 77 (lr); inscribed The Return of the Labrador Fishermen / Wm. Bradford / 1877 on the stretcher and as titled again on the backing board Oil on canvas 18 1/8 x 30 1/4 inches C
WILLIAM BRADFORD Massachusetts/California, 1823-1892 "Crushed by Icebergs". Printed by Storch & Kramer, Berlin. Titled on label verso. Housed in a wonderful nautical-theme carved frame.
George P. Critcherson, John L. Dunmore with William Bradford 1823 - 1892 The Front of the Glacier (as seen on the land, being forced over the rocks, presenting a wall about seventy-five feet high) plate 40 from The Arctic Regions (London: The Chiswick Press for Sampson Low, Marston, Low and Searle, 1873), albumen print, mounted to an album leaf with printed decorative border, 1869, printed in 1873 image: 15¼ by 12¼ in. (38.7 by 31.1 cm.) Bid on Sotheby's
WILLIAM BRADFORD Sand Dunes, Bradley Beach, New Jersey. Oil on canvas, 1886. 408x506 mm; 16 1/4x20 inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower right recto. Provenance: Mr. and Mrs. John Powell, Los Angeles; Brand Library, Glendale, California; private collection, Chicago. Bradford (1823-1892) was an American romanticist painter, photographer and explorer, originally from Fairhaven, Massachusetts, near New Bedford. He was a notable marine painter and was, along with his contemporaries Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900) and Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), among the first American painters to portray the frozen regions of the Arctic. From 1861 to 1866 Bradford made excursions north to Labrador with Dr. Isaac Israel Hayes. With funds provided by LeGrand Lockwood, Bradford traveled to Greenland in 1869, his farthest northern excursion, reaching eventually as far as 75° north latitude aboard the steamship Panther, accompanied by photographers John L. Dunmore and George Critcherson. Thereafter, Bradford spent two years in London, promoting his explorations, and later in the 1870s established a studio in San Francisco and traveled extensively in the western United States where he painted Yosemite, Mariposa Valley and the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. Despite his far-reaching travels, focus on marine paintings and association with the American west, he was like his friend and fellow New Bedford transplant Albert Bierstadt, consistently associated with the Hudson River School, adopting their techniques and becoming highly interested in the way light touches water and how it affects the appearance of water surfaces and the general atmospherics of a painting. In 1874, he was elected to join the National Academy of Design, New York. Bradley Beach, the subject of the current work, is now a borough in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and became a seaside destination during the 1870s when several investors started its development. It was the first location in the United States to charge sea bathers for beach access when it began minting its own tin badges starting in 1929.
William Bradford (1823-1892) Land of the Midnight Sun oil on panel 12 x 19 5/16 in. (30.5 x 49.1 cm.) For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
(1823-1892) oil on canvas, depicting the whaleship passing the lighthouse at Dumpling Rock at the western entrance of New Bedford Harbor, signed l.r. Relined Overall: 28"h x 38"w Sight: 19-1/2"h x 29-1/2"w Provenance: Skinner, Inc., Sale 2128, Lot 118, February 24th, 2002 (sold for $94000)
Bradford (William, 1823-1892). Front view of the glacier near to the rocks over which it is moving Bradford (William, 1823-1892). Front view of the glacier near to the rocks over which it is moving [No. 38, from The Arctic Regions, Sampson Low, 1873], albumen print on original card mount with printed letterpress at foot, image 29 x 39 cm, modern aperture mount Qty: (1)
William Bradford American, 1823-1892 Whaling Ship and Iceberg, 1880 Signed W Bradford and inscribed NY (lr) Oil on canvas 20 x 30 1/4 inches C Property from a Prominent Corporate Collection
WILLIAM BRADFORD American, (1823-1892) Icebergs, 1883 oil on canvas backed by panel signed, dated and inscribed lower right "W. Bradford / 1883 N.Y." signed and dated on the reverse
Attributed to William Bradford (American, 1823-1892) oil on canvas depicting the USS John Adams, a civil war period gun ship, signed on stretcher "Wm. Bradford" includes documentation and restoration history, housed in a fine period frame, 18" x 36" canvas, 23" x 41" framed.
"The Coast of Labrador", oil on canvas stretched over (but not glued to) panel, signed lower right, depicting a receding rank of severe cliff faces in a gathering storm, housed in a monumental molded red walnut and ebonized frame, having a broad etched gilt ogee liner, OS: 40" x 57", SS: 27 1/4" x 44 1/4". Good condition. A member of the Hudson River School, Bradford was a painter and an explorer, publishing an account of his own trips to the Arctic regions via Labrador in 1873, illustrated by his own photographs. He was known for the accuracy and beauty of his river and seascapes.
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 ...".
Arctic Explorers Cutting a Channel Etching Signed and dated 1890 within the plate, lower right, with remarque in lower left border; with a label from The Old Print Shop, Lexington Ave, New York on verso h. 16-1/2 w. 27 in. (sight) overall: 19 x 29-3/4 in. (frame) Limited Preview: Please note that this auction has a limited in-person preview. Not all items may be on display in the saleroom, if you wish to view a particular item in-person we strongly suggest contacting the gallery in advance of your visit.
William Bradford,Massachusetts, California,1823-1892 Depicts three large sailing vessels between icebergs and frozen waters with three smaller boats approaching the central ship. Gouache on paper,Sight 7 1/2" x 10 3/8",Frame 14" x 18" Signed "Wm. Bradford" lower right. From the collection of a Cumberland, Rhode Island gentleman.
William Bradford (American, 1823-1892) Off the Coast of Labrador Oil on canvas 20 x 30 inches (50.8 x 76.2 cm) Signed lower right: Wm Bradford NY PROVENANCE: Private collection, Connecticut; By descent, circa 1930; Private collection, Wolcott, Connecticut, acquired from the above; Heritage Auctions, Dallas, November 1, 2019, lot 68173; Private collection, Louisville, Kentucky, acquired from the above. William Bradford's arresting Off the Coast of Labrador emerged out of a mid-nineteenth-century fascination with scientific documentation, theories of the sublime, and shaping a national identity. Artists of the time, often accompanying government-sponsored scouting expeditions, eagerly explored virgin territories in North America and beyond, rendering awesome landscapes that validated "the rightness of the American character and the freshness of American ideals" (J. Wilmerding, Essays on American Art, Princeton, 1991, p. 108): Thomas Cole, for example, captured the majestic Hudson River Valley wilderness; Albert Bierstadt, the ancient canyons of Yellowstone and Yosemite; Frederic Edwin Church, the roaring spectacle of Niagara Falls; and Martin Johnson Heade, the exoticism of the Brazilian rain forest. For his part, New Englander William Bradford claimed the Arctic Seas as his unchartered subject, from the 1850s until his death in 1892, enlivening for international audiences the otherworldly icebergs, fjords, and color-streaked skies of Labrador. The Arctic as rendered by Bradford was, in fact, a heavenly subject, reiterated by his friend and fellow traveler the Reverend Louis L. Noble: "All the sea in that quarter, under the last sunlight, shone like a pavement of amethyst. . . . Wonderful to behold! It was only a fair field from the steepled icebergs, a vast metropolis in ice, pearly white and red as roses, glittering in the sunset. Solemn, still, and half-celestial scene! In its presence, cities, tented fields, and fleets dwindled into toys. I said aloud, but low: 'The City of God! The sea of glass! The plains of heaven!'" (Ibid., 110). Bradford's roots in New Bedford, Massachusetts, explain his trajectory to become the "Painter of the Polar World" (Ibid., 58). The international whaling capital, New Bedford provided teenaged William with copious opportunities to sketch the merchants, seamen, and vessels thronging the harbor. Bradford trained with the Dutch painter Albert Van Beest, who had emigrated from Rotterdam in 1845, and learned to balance the details of ship rigging with the atmospheric elements of water and sky. Bradford's first works, essentially ship portraiture for wealthy merchants, recalled those of the noted New England marine painter Fitz Hugh Lane, whose canvases he studied. Eager to establish his own signature subjects, Bradford traveled to Boston's north shore and Canada's Bay of Fundy in the early 1850s; these adventures, together with recent literature about the Arctic and Frederic Edwin Church's paintings of the region, prompted him to venture to remote Labrador, the easternmost province of Canada. On trips to Labrador between 1854-57, Bradford formulated the landscape elements that would sustain the rest of his career: glacial fjords, architectural icebergs, frigid waters, Inuit fishermen, and sun-streaked or starry skies. During the 1860s, Bradford made eight expeditions to Labrador, his most ambitious one in 1869 aboard the whaling steamer Panther in the company of sailors, scientist-explorers, photographers, and art patrons. Here, Bradford documented in sketches, paintings, photographs, and writings "aspects of Eskimo life, such as their manufacture of kayaks, . . . the geology of glaciers, and the habitats, feeding grounds, and hunting of bears, seals, and auk" (Ibid., 107). It was the natural wonder of the iceberg that most commanded his attention, prompting him to devise a
William Bradford (1823-1892) Looking Down the Yosemite Valley Near Sentinel Rock signed and dated 'WBradford / 83' (lower right) oil on canvas 52 x 34in framed 58 x 40in Painted in 1883. For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
WILLIAM BRADFORD Massachusetts/California, 1823-1892 Clipper Golden West of Boston, outward bound, circa 1852. Signed and indistinctly dated lower right "Wm. Bradford Fairhaven Mass 1st Month 1853". Label verso marked "Golden Wave, So. Fla. A.G. Estate, GPH-12/27". Another older label, designating a loan to an exhibition, indicated the lender was Albert Goodhue, obviously the "A.G." of the estate, and Carl Crossman's client. Provenance: Child's Gallery, Boston, Carl Crossman, director. Albert Goodhue, Jr., purchased from the above circa 1965. Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1996. Hyland Granby Antiques, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. Purchased from the above by the Kelton Foundation. Literature: See William Bradford--Sailing Ships & Arctic Seas by Richard Kugler (New Bedford Whaling Museum and the University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 2003), p. 6 for a discussion of the painting and p. 95 for a full-page color illustration. Exhibited: De Cordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts, November 2-December 28, 1968. New Bedford Whaling Museum, "William Bradford--Sailing Ships and Arctic Seas", May 24-October 26, 2003, Richard C. Kugler, curator. The American clipper ship Golden West is shown outward bound, departing on her maiden voyage to San Francisco on December 12, 1852, depicted with the lighthouse on Little Brewster Island, the customary point of departure for Boston-owned vessels. The Golden West is shown in a starboard profile from the leeward, sailing into the wind with her sails braced hard on the port tack. The American ensign flies from the mizzen-gaff hoist and the prominent house flag of Glidden & Williams is worn at the truck of the main mast. The ship's gilded eagle figurehead is a prominent detail identifying the ship. The schooner off the clipper's bow is likely her departing pilot boat. The 1,441-ton Golden West, as her name suggests, was active in the Pacific and California trades. Built for the Boston firm of Glidden & Williams, she was an extreme clipper, making several trips around Cape Horn trading between China, Australia and the American West Coast. She still holds the record for the fastest sailing passage between Japan and San Francisco-- 4,876 miles in just over 20 days -- under Captain Putnam, from May 13 to June 2, 1856. In the early 1860s, between voyages from the West Coast or the Orient to New York and London, she traded in harbors throughout the Far East. After being sold by Glidden & Williams, she was owned for some time by the New York firm of J.A. & T.A. Patterson. In 1863, as a result of the heavy toll taken against U.S. clippers by Confederate Commerce Raiders, Golden West was sold to a British owner, J.G. Ross. In 1866, under Ross' ownership, she was engaged in transporting Chinese laborers between China and Peru. Her ultimate fate is unknown. A closely related painting of the clipper Dashing Wave is in the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Another painting of Golden West by J.B. Smith of Brooklyn, done in 1857 for her captain, is illustrated in The American Neptune Pictorial Supplement #1 (1959) as plate XXVI. It is also in the Peabody Essex collection. According to Artists of New Bedford A Biographical Dictionary by Mary Jean Blasdale (The New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Mass., 1990), p. 46-47, William Bradford was born in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Despite his parents' efforts to guide him into a family business career, his childhood interests in art prevailed, and in the 1850s Bradford was selling ship portraits in New Bedford for $25 apiece. Bradford's artistic endeavors were spent working in Swampscott and Nahant and he then established a studio in Boston, where he worked for several winters. In 1869, Bradford made a notable expedition to the Arctic onboard the steamer Panther. Following this trip, he produced a book titled The Arctic Regions, a folio volume published in 1873 in England under the patronage of the British Royalty, including Queen Victoria. Bradford went to Boston to produce 10 known paintings of large merchant clipper ships, mostly between 1852 and 1853. By his own recollection, "Captain Glidden of Boston gave me an order to paint a vessel", presumably for his shipping firm of Glidden and Williams, and probably of Queen of the Sea or Golden West, both of which he painted in 1853. Golden West did not return to the East Coast until January 1854, supporting the theory of the painting being a depiction of Golden West's departure from Boston on her maiden voyage. The inscription has been miscopied as "11th month (November) 1853" on the title plaque mounted to the frame. Bradford most likely would have observed and recorded the ship's initial December 1852 departure, completing the painting a month later in January 1853. An overlooked detail of this painting is the unintended "ghosts" of two ships seen on the horizon line between the pilot schooner, likely part of Bradford's original composition but that appear to have been painted over and replaced with smaller versions to create the perspective of greater distance as the work progressed. Richard C. Kugler, director emeritus of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, wrote in June, 2000, regarding the loan of Golden Westfor an upcoming exhibit, 'More than any of the eight other (Bradford) clipper portraits I am acquainted with, I would like your example, thinking it the most classic of its kind'. Kugler further mentions, in a follow-up letter from June 2002, of coming across an interview with Bradford where the artist recalls, "Captain Glidden (senior partner Glidden & Williams) gave me one hundred dollars for a picture about four feet long", quite likely a reference to this 48" wide image. Compared with his whaleship portraits, those of the clippers are larger in size, perhaps to accommodate their greater length and taller masts, or to match the prevailing standards for painting of this kind in Boston. The largest of them was this painting. The clipper ships have a more formal air about them, with their depiction intent on showing the search for speed under sail. Bradford's paintings of whalers are smaller, with small whaleboats and a different structure and composition from the clipper ships. The clipper ship paintings were made before Bradford's association with the Dutch-trained marine artist Albert Van Beest, who arrived in Boston in 1855. From the Kelton Collection of Marine Art & Artifacts. Oil on canvas, 32" x 48". Framed 38.5" x 54.5".
William Bradford (Massachusetts/California, 1823-1892) oil on board seascape painting depicting a coastline at sunrise or sunset, with partly cloudy sky overhead. Signed "W. Bradford" lower right. Housed in a wooden frame. Sight - 6 3/4" H x 10 1/2" W. Framed - 11" H x 14 1/2" W. Third quarter/late 19th century. Biography: William Bradford worked in the clothing business before becoming a full-time artist. His first studio was in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, where he created detailed paintings of the ships that came through the local harbor. He later traveled to the Atlantic coast of Labrador, Canada, and became famous for his paintings of ships in open arctic waters. One of these, commissioned by Queen Victoria, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1875. (source: The Smithsonian American Art Museum).
