Lot 1035: Charles J. Bridgman (American 1841-1895

Charles J. Bridgman (American 1841-1895, active New Orleans, late 19th c.), "Interior by the Fire Place", oil on canvas affixed to board, signed lower left, 10 1/4 in. x 14 1/4 in., framed.
The following group of five contemporaneous Victorian portraits is perhaps altogether unprecedented, as multiple likenesses of the same prominent New Orleans family, all portrayed at a single moment-1877/1878-by an important painter of the late nineteenth century. This concentrated 'group-image' represents the talented and successful family of Adolph Pollatsek (Lot 1036), his wife (Lot 1037) and eldest daughter (Lot 1040), as well as Adolph's brother (Lot 1038) and sister (Lot 1039): its uniqueness derives largely from the skill of its painter, Bernard Moses, in simultaneously capturing five such highly disparate personalities.
Adolph, the head of the family, was a consummately talented and experienced pianist, who in addition to his concert career was also editor and critic for the prestigious New York Musical Courier; among his eminent friends, for example, were Anton Rubenstein and Jan Paderewski, among many others. His wife was a native Louisianian, though born of German parents. Adolph, his elder sister Nina, and their younger brother Isidore, were all born in Hungary, where Adolph taught piano at the court in Budapest. The two brothers emigrated to America-perhaps together-immediately after the Civil War; their sister landed in New York in 1871, and all three may have stayed there for a brief period.
In 1872 Adolph and Isabella were married in New Orleans. Their first offspring is almost certainly the subject of the captivating image of A Child, Olga. The family home was at 1907 Canal Street (near Prieur), and was occupied until after the death of Isabella Hahn Pollatsek in 1927. Thereafter the grown children transferred to Bayou St. John, living first at 1370 Moss Street in the James Pitot House of c. 1799-1800, disassembled and rebuilt after 1964 in the Desmare Playground. The two spinster sisters Sydonia and Nina Pollatsek commissioned their nephew, Dr. J. Adolph Reynolds, to draw up plans in 1938 for an almost exact replica of the Pitot House, on the corner of Moss and St. Ann Streets, in which they installed these paintings as well as a multitude of other heirlooms. When those sisters died in 1965-1968, that last house at 800 Moss Street was inherited by their niece, Constance Reynolds, who had a long and brilliant career with the ballet corps of the New Orleans Opera. It was her own death last year at 95 that brought these very remarkable paintings onto the market, in the utterly unusual character of a single unified group.
References: New York and New Orleans public records, directories, censuses, and cemetery inscriptions; Dixie Magazine, The Times-Picayune Newspaper, 6 April 1952, 30 May 1965; New Orleans Magazine, April 2010.