The Collection of F.R. “Bud” Lear III is an exceptional lifetime assemblage of copper-alloy candlesticks manufactured before 1700, which illustrates the history of development of socket candlesticks and the relationships between different forms across Europe. The Collection is composed of notable and rare examples. A lifelong antique collector with a fascination for early lighting, Bud Lear met kindred spirit Christopher Bangs in London in 1985. Their meeting led to a great friendship and collaboration. The culmination of their studies, The Lear Collection: A Study of Copper-Alloy Socket Candlesticks A.D. 200 – 1700, was a significant addition to the study of early lighting. A thorough investigation, it included metallurgical tests and revealed previously unpublished finds. Sadly, Christopher Bangs passed away in 2022. He will be greatly missed.

Bud Lear was fascinated by the idea that so much of human history was spent in darkness illuminated by a single flame. The Dark Ages really meant living a dark life, especially during winter in Northern Europe, where twilight falls at half past three. The lights went out for much of Europe when the fall of the Roman Empire and breakup of international and regional trade meant the olive oil widely burned in lamps could no longer be obtained. Only wealthier households would have had a candlestick. A luxury item, it would have been carried from room to room. Although common in ancient Rome, socket candle holders were not widely manufactured again until the late 13^th century, when the demand for domestic use rose, most likely an effect of the rise of the merchant class. Smaller households could make tallow candles from kitchen waste, and they were an easy byproduct for butchers and the main business of chandlers, who also offered the more expensive beeswax variety. Socket holders functioned better for small candles than prickets, which continued to be used for larger candles. For churches and monasteries, beeswax was not difficult to obtain, drawing upon their beekeepers and vassals. Throughout the Middle Ages, dependents were burdened with wax payments to ecclesiastical lords.¹ Accounts of feasting long into the night occur frequently in secular Medieval and Renaissance records of the upper classes. The poorest homes were lit only by hearth and rush light.

Mr. Lear’s focus is on copper alloy candlesticks, which are primarily brass, composed of copper and zinc, plus whatever elements existed in the local materials. Due to varying geographic components and metallurgical imperfections, the nuances of color among the candlesticks in the collection range from pinkish to yellow to silver hues. Every piece has been tested, analyzed, and researched.

Among the earliest forms in the collection is a bronze lathe-turned socket candlestick from the Roman provinces, 2^nd/3^rd c. A.D. Collected in Maine, it was tested with X-Radiography for structural and metal analysis, and corrosion profiling. A millennia saw little advancement in lighting technology. With designs derived from the coeval lion aquamaniles, Lots 733 and 734 are two lion form candlesticks from the 13^th/14^th c. Both are designated North West European, yet Lot 734 was found in England and bears distinct resemblance to period English depictions of lions and leopards. A dredging of the Thames River revealed miniature tin alloy candlesticks, possibly once used in a religious context as votives, a continuation of a Roman practice. The miniature tripod pewter candlestick inscribed “ECCE AMCVS” (“Behold, Friend”) is in an excellent state of preservation. Tripod-based candlesticks are recognized as the earliest type of North West European socket candlesticks of the mediaeval period, their design derived from Romanesque prickets.

The early English group includes several fine 15^th c. Three Kings form candlesticks, with Lot 735 one of only two known English detachable double-socket arm candlesticks in existence. Of Lot 732, another rare form, Christopher Bangs wrote, “this exquisite small candlestick exhibits a rare combination of austerity and adornment in its design,” its two castellated sockets on Gothic pierced arms. Acquired in England, elements of its form and alloy lean towards an English attribution, but it is classified as North West Europe on account of the shallow-lipped integral-drip base with conical skirt. A Safavid double-armed candlestick, is described by Bangs as a “tour-de-force.” Except for the sockets, it is a single casting. Its high cylindrical base, common in Near Eastern forms, directly influenced the circular-based European candle holders.

Arriving in the 16^th century, English Tudor candlesticks inspire prose such as Hilary Mantel’s: “in the king’s chamber a gentleman brings in more tapers; the light flutters across the ceiling like an influx of cherubim.” The Chalice and Paten shape of Lot 753 was influenced by the growth of trade with the highly developed metal casting centers on the Continent. This particular example “epitomizes the excellence of both the design and the execution of this group,” (Bangs, p.89).

Lot 748 is extremely rare. It is the only known example of a copper alloy candlestick depicting Martin Luther, probably Nuremberg, 17th c. Luther symbolically holds the candle socket aloft, the light symbolizing his faith. In “Against the Antinomians,” 1539, in which Luther chronicled his struggles, he compared faith to the light of a candle, which the devil was continually trying to blow out, “I feared he would carry light and wax and wick away. But God again helped his poor candle and kept it from being snuffed out.” Lot 749 is a counterpoint, a bronze High Renaissance candlestick in the form of a standing satyr, from the workshop of Severo Calzetta da Ravenna (active ca. 1496 – ca. 1538). Severo specialized in small bronzes of mainly pagan subjects, which today can be found in the collections of major museums.

The English Trumpet candlesticks of the late 16^th and early 17^th century include rarities: Lot 737, a rare early English trumpet form, is one of only two surviving examples known, its elegant shaft with central knop resting on a graceful domed base. Lot 729 is an extraordinarily large, unique form with a highly unusual 5” removable bobeche, most likely used as a hand held pan light, perhaps for pacing, as Shakespeare might have done when devising a metaphor to reveal to Macbeth the brevity of life.

One of the jewels of the Collection is not a candlestick, but a Flemish brass lavabo of the 15^th c., with zoomorphic spouts and female mask handle brackets. The form is straight out of the Merode Altarpiece (Robert Campin, ca. 1427-32, Metropolitan Museum of Art), in which a similar lavabo  hangs in the background above the Angel Gabriel’s head.

Bud Lear and Christopher Bangs have assembled one of the finest candlestick collections in the world, representing a level of effort, erudition, and commitment that must be seen to be appreciated. To see the march of time and technology is to better understand humanity’s struggle against the dark. To hold an early candlestick in your hand is to touch the past. One can then well imagine being that early householder carrying a candle at night, its illumination throwing shadows against the walls, corners of the room deeply dark, the path lit by a single flame.

¹ Heinrich Fichtenau, Living in the Tenth Century, 1991, University of Chicago Press, pp. 74-75, 270.

Bangs, Christopher, The Lear Collection: A Study of Copper-Alloy Socket Candlesticks A.D. 200 – 1700, King’s Hill, 1995.

Kusama Affandi (1907-1990), the father of Indonesian modern painting, was the first Southeast Asian artist to gain worldwide recognition. From his sponsorship of organizations for young artists to the inspiration of his self-taught expressionism, he helped raise future generations of Indonesian artists. Attracting international attention, he traveled the globe, in his earlier years studying in India, participating in the Sao Paolo and Venice Biennales, and in the US on a 1957 State Department scholarship. His career spanned the eras of Dutch colonial rule, Japanese occupation, early independence under Sukarno, and the dictatorship of Suharto. A resident of Java, he was involved in the struggle for Indonesian independence and acquainted with the major political and social actors of his time. His art was influenced early on by participation in artists’ guilds dominated by Lekra, the cultural arm of the Indonesian communist party, and its preference for Social Realism. In 1990 he was honored with a posthumous exhibit at the Smithsonian. Today his work is held mainly in private collections throughout the world, the Singapore Art Museum, the Neka Museum, and the Affandi Museum.

Affandi’s subjects were drawn from ordinary life, especially ones that carried emotional freight, and were painted from reality. His method of painting was all his own, squeezing pigment directly from the tube to create bold lines of impasto, and spreading with his fingers and hands. He believed that blending and swirling, possessed by the moment, would imbue the canvas with his own human spirit and convey more depth of humanity. His spontaneous and dynamic working style captured energy and emotion. Above his signature, he placed his “life symbol” summarizing his style: consisting of the sun, source of energy, life, and creativity; feet for connection to the ground; and hands, powered by his own life force, connecting him to the paint and canvas.

First visiting Bali to paint in 1939, Affandi returned often. The Balinese pastime of cockfighting was a frequent subject of his interest. The Indonesian government opposed the fighting, Islamic tradition being that roosters have the gift of being able to see angels, but allowed its continuation on Bali for religious ceremonies. Blood spilled onto temple grounds is an offering to evil spirits, a sacred purification ritual. Temples in Bali are the meeting place of humans and the gods, where cosmic harmony between humans and the gods above, and demons below, is maintained. Bali-Hinduism is animistic, everything is inhabited by spirits. The unseen spirit world coexists with the human, intertwining in everyday life (Eiseman). The earliest reference to cockerel fighting in the Hindu rituals of Bali is found in the 10^th century. After a millennia, cockfighting has taken on a wider social context, to include village friendships, rivalries, notions of masculinity, and gambling. It is deeply rooted as a tradition and pastime. Men raise cockerels like athletes. Training, breeding, diet, and care are endlessly perfected. The cockerels become “symbolic expressions and magnifications of their owner’s self,” and also “of what the Balinese regard as the direct inversion, aesthetically, morally, and metaphysically, of human status: animality,” (Geertz). The blood spilled at cockfights is an offering to pacify the demons of human nature as well. “In the cockfight, man and beast, good and evil, ego and id, the creative power of aroused masculinity and the destructive power of loosened animality fuse in a bloody drama of hatred, cruelty, violence, and death.” The deep religious and social aspects of cockfighting were fertile ground for the artist Affandi.

This canvas, Balinese Cock Fighter, isolates one participant and his treasured cockerel as they wait for their turn to participate, all hopes and fears, in the excitement of the gathering. A shaft of light falls on the pair, the owner’s sinuous muscularity interlacing with curves of the cockerel’s plumage, the bodies appearing as one; as are their spirits, fates intertwined. The negative space in the painting is not empty. Affandi’s swirling fingers and smoky colors evoke the world unseen, the coexisting world of the spirits, the pulsating emotions, and the whirling of natural forces. Ghosts and ancestor gods would have indeed been very present in this unseen world Affandi painted in 1966.

In the summer of 1964, the young nation of Indonesia barely held together as communist, military, and Muslim factions vied for power. In his Independence Day speech, President Sukarno proclaimed the following year would be “the year of living dangerously.” And it was. A failed coup attempt on October 1^st of 1965 gave rival Suharto his opening to ascend to power. State-sponsored purges of suspected communists, by both the army and civilian vigilante groups followed. The massacres were brutal, particularly in Java and Bali, with death squads moving from village to village hunting communists. Over the following 18 months, an estimated 500,000 Indonesians were killed and many more were dispossessed or incarcerated. Officially, the period has never been examined. Books about it were banned by the dictatorship. “Its shadow falls across islands where millions live side-by-side with former tormentors or victims.”(The Economist) Indonesians likewise live side by side with the ghosts of the hundreds of thousands slaughtered.

Affandi’s Balinese Cock Fighter, painted in “the year of living dangerously,” provokes a visceral reaction. There is fear, there is the suggestion of pain; it is dark and uncertain. The atmosphere teems with unseen spirits and ancestor gods. Those whirling natural forces that drive the emotions of the cockfight also drive the events of the world. Yet, standing there, their souls bared, they are calm, looking inward.  The shaft of light illuminates the key to enduring it all. Amongst the dark clouds and uncertainties, burns the human spirit.

By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence

Sources:

Fred B. Eiseman, National Geographic, 1980.

The Economist, Open Wounds, Banyan, April 23, 1016.

Clifford Geertz, Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight, Daedalus, 2005.

Affandi Museum

Auctioneer and appraiser Jamie Shearer highlights a Philadelphia silk on silk pictorial embroidery by Ann Marsh, ca. 1730, with a vibrant urn of flowers with insect and bird, all resting on a rolling lawn with sheep and a running dog, retaining the original tombstone arched walnut frame. “Where do you find an almost three-hundred-year-old needlework in vibrant colors, still in its original frame?” he asks, “The skill level needed to create this remarkable work of art is very inspiring. I can envision a young girl spending hours with great care and thought expressing herself through needle and thread. Just as skilled as the best painter on canvas or the furniture maker with a chisel, an everlasting gift to the antique collectors in all of us.” At the Marsh School, the daughters of elite Philadelphia Quaker families were taught by Ann, alongside her mother Elizabeth, from 1723-1795. A core subject in female education, the art of ornamental embroidery taught skills necessary for domestic life. Marsh works are rare, and according to Betty Ring, are the earliest identifiable group of Philadelphia needleworks. Two other Marsh school works include a 1737 silk on linen sampler wrought by Hannah Trotter.

Another needlework school researched and collected by Patricia Herr is the Lampeter School of Chester County. A very rare silk on linen sampler, dated 1799, wrought by Phebe Harvey of Pennsbury Township, Chester County, is possibly the only known sampler naming the school.

Chief amongst the seven works from the Lititz Moravian School is a silk on silk memorial embroidered sampler, attributed to Mary Ann or Rebecca Catherine Peterson, ca. 1833, in memory of their father, John Peterson, with a large willow and urn of flowers, a floral spray, and two children flanking a grave. In the words of Patricia Herr, it is “an outstanding example of the needlework done at the Lititz Moravian Boarding School. The silk needlework is 3 dimensional, the flowers & leaves standing out over the finely drawn girls on each side of the tomb,” (theherrsantiques.com). Other works from the Lititz Moravian School include a silk on silk embroidery, dated 1817, inscribed Ellen B. Hawkins, with Moses in the Bulrushes; and the earliest known Lititz silk mourning embroidery, ca. 1805, attributed to Sara Pim, Columbia mourns for Washington.

From the school of Mrs. Catharine Welshans Buchanan, in Marietta, Lancaster County, a scarce silk on linen memorial needlework, dated 1827, is inscribed Eliz Groshs work made in Marietta in Mrs. Buchnans School in the year of our Lord 1811, with women flanking a memorial under a willow tree, all under a wide floral arch. Also featured is a sampler, ca. 1845, wrought by Fanny Stauffer. Mrs Buchanan kept a school for young ladies beginning ca.1823. Very few samplers are known to name the school.

An important Colerain Township School, Lancaster County silk on linen sampler is rich in detail. A floral border surrounds floral urns, over two houses with green lawns, white picket fences, birds, and sheep.

The distinctive style of another Philadelphia group, Mary Zeller’s School (active 1789-1808), exhibits grand homes surrounded by park-like grounds and gardens that teem with people and animals. Attributed to Mary Zeller’s School, a silk on linen needlework inscribed Abigal Jones her work 1793, is the family record of Samuel and Elizabeth Jones and their eight children, born 1732-1771. Adam and Eve appear above a Georgian vision of Eden with a manor house set in gardens, and figures (including a man with a gun) and animals, surrounded by strawberry plants.

Dresden work was widely taught, but became peculiar to Philadelphia in the mid to late 18^th c. One of two featured works is a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Dresden work sampler, dated 1787, wrought by Susanna Meyer, an excellent example of this form, with decorative ribbon border and original Philadelphia frame.

In addition to collecting members of schools, Patricia Herr linked members of family trees, with multiple works by members of the Trout, Minnich, and Lefever families.

By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence

When the Spartan army took home the horses of Xerxes as spoils of war in 479 BCE, after the battle of Plataea, it began a movement of eastern horses to Europe that was to last throughout the period of classical antiquity. Horses were a specialty in Persia. Darius the Great (551-486 BCE) had vastly expanded the Achaemenid Empire and set up imperial stud farms to supply his army. Herodotus immortalized the Nisaean name, celebrating their magnificence and swiftness. Centuries later, the Romans imported horses for chariot racing to outposts of Empire as remote as Britannia, favoring the Nisaean horse of Persia, the Spanish horse, and the North African barb.

Fast-forward over a millennia, and the eastern horse is still a symbol of royalty and empire. Henry VIII (1491-1547) is recorded setting up a royal stud farm to acquire and breed essentially the same horses: Spanish, North African barb, Egyptian and Arabian, and “all other Eastern horses.” In 1605 King James I established Newmarket as a center for racing and imported the Markham Arabian in 1616. The Markham was greatly admired and inspired widespread desire for eastern horses, but it was the Restoration and the rule of racing-obsessed Charles II in 1660 (see lot #784) during which the import of eastern horses for the improvement of racing and riding stock dramatically increased. Beyond the diplomatic gift or battles of the Ottoman wars, the main conduit for the horses was through the Levant Company, which held the trade charter for Britain in the Ottoman Empire. Beginning in 1582, its trade was mainly cloth and spices. With the rise in popularity of horse racing and wagering in Britain it was not long before horses were requested. Obtaining horses was no easy task for the Turkey merchants. The Ottoman Empire dwarfed Britain in all aspects of size, wealth, sophistication, and splendor. Their horses were appropriately magnificent. Pampered and pedigreed, they were treasured and not easily parted with.

According to Donna Landry (Noble Brutes, How Eastern Horses Transformed English Culture, Johns Hopkins, 2009), over the period 1650-1750, British merchants managed to acquire roughly 200 horses. Exported from the main Levant Company trading centers in Constantinople, Aleppo, Alexandria, and Smyrna, the British called the horses either after their port, or the catch-all appellation, “Arabian”. A number of these horses earned fame in Britain, with three of them credited as foundation stallions for the English Thoroughbred breed. The eastern emphasis on the importance of pedigree made perfect sense to the English aristocracy, all of whom claimed descent from King Alfred (848-899). A mania for breeding and racing purebred “Arabians” gripped the country. Of the three foundation stallions, the Byerley Turk reached England in 1689, the Darley Arabian in 1704, and the Godolphin Arabian in 1724. The British crossed Turkic, Barbary, and Arabian bloodlines, sometimes with domestic horses, selectively breeding for speed, and, adding richer fodder than obtainable in the desert, a superhorse emerged. As the British Empire began to take shape, beginning a maritime expansion, establishing colonies, and becoming a greater trading power, so the Thoroughbred took shape, adopted as a British creation and symbol of Empire. In 1791, the Jockey Club required registry for all racehorses, and the Thoroughbred studbook effectively closed to outside additions.

Explorations in DNA analysis have confirmed 95% of all Thoroughbreds can be traced through their paternal sire line to the Darley Arabian [Bower, M.A. et al. The genetic origin and history of speed in the Thoroughbred racehorse. Nat. Commun. 3:643 doi: 10.1038/ncomms1644 (2012)].

Analysis of male-specific Y chromosomes has further indicated that the Darley Arabian was actually of Turkoman origin, not Arabian [Cunningham, E. P., Dooley, J. J., Splan, R. K. & Bradley, D. G. Microsatellite diversity, pedigree relatedness and the contributions of founder lineages to thoroughbred horses. Anim. Genet. 32, 360–364 (2001)].

Which brings us to our paintings.

Lot 71, School of Thomas Spencer (1700-1763) oil on canvas of an Arabian horse and groom, is an early example of a British horse portrait. Horse portraits did not exist in Britain before the arrival of eastern horses. The equivalent of modern-day Porsches and Lamborghinis, the imported horses were status symbols and huge investments. Every owner of an import or their offspring would have wanted a portrait to hang in pride of place in their stately homes. Horse portraits differed from previous paintings of horses with humans. The horse takes center stage. The horse is noble. He stands taller than the human. His beauty is exalted. His eye is intelligent. Our horse is the image of an elite athlete, with four strong legs under him, fast, and graceful. He wears a racing saddle of the early 18^th century. His dramatic mountainous backdrop appears to be the Brecon Beacons. The horse stands out, as monumental as the landscape, heroic.

Lot 764, Manner of John Ferneley (1782-1860) oil on canvas of steeplechase race with three horses and riders taking a fence, identified as Mr. Ben on Dux, Mr. Lowther on Blatchington, and Mr. H. Preston on Clarissa, occurs nearly a century later. In this painting, the development of the English Thoroughbred is discernable. The three elegant horses are built for speed and agility. The dominance of the Turkoman blood is evident, the horses are taller, longer, and leaner, with lower-set tails and straight profiles. The finely colored painting shows the horses’ sculptural physique and the high gloss of their coats. Their long legs flash as they race over the obstacle. They are horses bred to run, enjoying what they do best. An early 19^th century painting, all three subjects would be registered Thoroughbreds, and every one a descendant of the eastern imports, and specifically of one or more of the foundation stallions. It is possible that the horses are not the only pedigreed lot in this painting, however, as Ferneley frequently painted the Lowther family. William Lowther, 1^st Earl of Lonsdale (1757-1844) was a famous huntsman who owned the Cottesmore pack of foxhounds, one of the oldest in Britain. The Mr. Lowther who looks out at us from this painting just might posess a King Alfred pedigree.

by: Cynthia Beech Lawrence

Manner of John Ferneley (British 1782-1860)

Follower of Sir Peter Lely (Dutch, English 1618-1680),
oil on canvas portrait of King Charles II

Charles Peale Polk, Portrait of David Brickell Kerr, 1791      THREE MEN AND A BOOK

David Kerr (1749-1814) was a patriot in the Revolutionary War, commissioned as 1^st Lieutenant in Captain George Watts’ company of Militia in Anne Arundel County. Kerr had only been in America for about six years, having emigrated from Scotland in 1769. In 1777 he married Rachel Leeds Bozman and settled in Easton, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, on an estate called Cook’s Hope Manor. From his early days in Talbot County, Kerr was active in politics. He was a supporter of President George Washington and Vice President John Adams, appearing in the Hamilton Papers as a “Federalist member of the House of Delegates 1790 to 1794… and 1797” (Volume 22, p. 302). In 1789 and 1790 he was also commissioned a Justice of the Peace for Talbot County, and in 1801 associate judge. In 1802 he was appointed a judge of the Orphan’s Court. A prominent citizen, Kerr is painted at ease, seated in front of a green curtain giving a glimpse of his legal library. Among the books are The Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer by Richard Burns, London, 1755, reflecting his status as a Justice of the Peace. Intriguingly, at his elbow is a copy of Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man. Lying face-down, half-read, it is to be wondered how this highly controversial pamphlet came to be placed so prominently his portrait.

Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man was published in 1791, in London, on March 16^th, to immediate furore. The Rights of Man was a response to Edmund Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” and was a defense of the early days of the French Revolution. Attempting to bring the political awakening of America to Great Britain, Paine proposed a written constitution and the abolishment of hereditary government. Originally intended to be published on February 22^nd, Paine dedicated the book to George Washington. In the uproar, Paine fled to France for his safety, and for good reason. He was tried in London in absentia and convicted of seditious libel against the Crown.

It took about four weeks for the first copies of The Rights of Man to arrive in Philadelphia, where a debate was growing over the role of government.  One early copy was obtained by John Beckley, an ardent supporter of Jeffersonian causes, which included a “frugal and simple” central government. Beckley lent his copy, which had to have been an exceedingly hot commodity, to James Madison to quickly view before Beckley published it, but Madison in turn lent it to Thomas Jefferson to hastily read “and return within the day”. Jefferson took longer with it than expected, and Beckley asked that he send it directly to the printer in Philadelphia, care of Jonathan Bayard Smith, with all speed. Jefferson penned a note to Smith to forward with the pamphlet, a few informal lines that were later recast by Smith into the spark that ignited what James Monroe called “the contest of Burke and Paine, as reviv’d in America.”

The Rights of Man was printed in Philadelphia on May 3, 1791, probably by Smith’s friend and political ally Benjamin Franklin Bache. Thomas Jefferson ordered four copies, which he opened only one week after having returned the pamphlet to Smith, and was “thunderstruck” that the publisher had included his private note in his preface. As excerpted, it was damning: “a direct quotation from the Secretary of State expressing extreme pleasure that with the republication of Rights of Man something at last would be said publicly against the “political heresies” that had sprung up in the United States.” (Rights of Man: the Contest of Burke and Paine… in America,” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 20, 1 April- 4 August 1791, ed. Julian P. Boyd, Princeton, 1982.) At the very least, Smith was implying that Jefferson was attacking John Adams, and at the very worst, that Jefferson had sponsored the publication directly. Thus began a very hot summer for Jefferson and Adams. On May 8^th, Jefferson wrote a full account of explanation to President Washington, who apparently left him hanging for a response. On June 8^th, the first Publicola essay appeared in newspapers, bringing the gossip to the national stage. On June 19^th, George Washington wrote his secretary to forward a copy of the pamphlet, that he might read it. On July 21, Thomas Paine himself sent Washington fifty copies of the Rights of Man, to distribute to Jefferson and others. Navigating the waters of political scandal with characteristic restraint, Washington avoided involving himself in the controversy by waiting a full year to thank Paine for the gift. When the Second Congress convened in Philadelphia in October, the emerging party factions continued the contentious debate.

Thomas Paine was a Founding Father. As author of Common Sense, which put the thoughts of the colonies into words, and of The American Crisis, which was read to the troops for inspiration before the crossing of the Delaware, Paine commanded a wide audience in 1791 America. The Rights of Man was distributed by Jeffersonian societies, which championed republican and agrarian ideals. Although the preface was a source of embarrassment for Jefferson, the political fallout of the national debate was massive popular support for the republicans. America’s first political opposition party, the Democratic-Republican, coalesced into being in opposition to the centralizing policies of Hamilton, Adams… and Federalists like David Kerr of Talbot County, Maryland.

Charles Peale Polk (1767-1822) was the orphaned nephew of American portrait painter and Philadelphia museum founder Charles Willson Peale. Polk grew up in the Peale household and, being older than the Peale children, became the first of the next generation of Peale family art students. Beginning his professional career at the age of eighteen, Polk advertised his training with his celebrated uncle. Drawing inspiration from Peale’s portrait work, he borrowed techniques and poses from his uncle, and also painted copies of Peale’s portrait of George Washington. In the late spring of 1791, Polk relocated to Baltimore, where he initially seems to have prospered, carrying out a great number of commissions, and purchasing a fine brick house. This began what Linda Crocker Simmons (Charles Peale Polk: A Limner and His Likenesses, Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1981) calls Polk’s middle period, when, as he worked through his many sittings, his personal style diverged from his uncle’s and gained a directness influenced by more primitive American painters. Polk’s figures and shapes were cleanly outlined and brilliantly colored. Curtained backdrops brought the viewer in closer proximity to the subject. Objects symbolic of the sitter were detailed with precise realism.

An introduction to the elite of Talbot County came via his uncle. Peale had been commissioned to paint Rachel Kerr at her home in Easton, and Polk was brought in to later paint the companion portrait of David Kerr, who had been absent during Peale’s visit. Charles Coleman Sellers wrote, with excerpts from Peale’s own diary, “August 27, 1790, ‘We then go to East Town and leave the picture of Mrs. Barkley at Major Ker’s. Mrs. Ker intends to have her portrait painted, but the Major is from home.’ Early in December, he went to Easton, Maryland ‘and began Mrs. Ker’s picture…’ On Jan. 5, 1791, he wrote to ‘Mrs. Car’ (the Eastern Shore name is so pronounced) asking payment for the picture. Its companion piece of David Kerr is in the style of Charles Peale Polk, who must have been brought in to finish the commission after Peale’s departure and the Major’s return to his home.’ (Portraits and Miniatures by Charles Willson Peale, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1952.)

In Linda Crocker Simmons’ catalogue of Charles Peale Polk’s works, entry 48, David Brickell Kerr I, is without an image, owner unknown. Its provenance, descending in the family to Mark Brickell Kerr, of Staten Island, New York, until 1948 when it was sold, provides its link to the Chares Willson Peale portrait of Mrs. Kerr, which was also owned by Mark Brickell Kerr, and sold sometime on or after 1952 (now in the collection of the Dallas Museum of Art). “Although this portrait is unsigned, it has been accepted as the work of Polk by Charles Coleman Sellers, Jacob Hall Pleasants, and the staff of the Frick Art Reference Library. It appears to have been commissioned as the companion to a portrait of Mrs. Kerr painted by Charles W. Peale in December, 1790… The portrait of David Kerr was probably painted by Polk shortly after the Peale painting was completed.”(Simmons, p. 39)

After a series of failed business ventures, Polk relocated to Frederick County, Maryland, and in 1798 advertised once more as a painter. Over the next several years, he travelled through Maryland and Virginia painting portraits. His famous “Belle Grove” series for Isaac Hite and James Madison were painted in 1799 and are representative of Polk’s final period of painting, when he expressed a new vigor of form and color. Painted eight years after the Kerr portrait, James Madison, Sr., is shown in his library, which includes the now-symbolic Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man, indicating his political beliefs. It was this commission that gave Polk his introduction to Thomas Jefferson, and resulted in one of his finest portraits, his 1799 Jefferson. It is thought that contact with Hite, Madison, and Jefferson began Polk’s involvement in politics, supporting the Republicans and Jefferson for President. It certainly gave him a resource to fall back on in 1801 when he wrote to then-Secretary of State James Madison for a government position: “It is known to you, Sir, the languid State of the fine Arts in this Country, particularly that of Painting; and it has been my misfortune to meet but with little encouragement for several Years past, owing to a variety of Causes. In the County where I reside, Tho vastly wealthy, that wealth lies in the hands of a Class of Citizens, whose political principles seem to have forbidden not only the encouragement of those who dared to differ in Opinion from them…”(the James Madison Papers, April 2, 1801). With most of his potential portrait customers on the opposite side of the political divide, his art suffered, and Polk remained a federal employee until at least 1815. In 1822 he departed life not as a painter, but as a bureaucrat.

The artistic reputation of Charles Peale Polk was largely eclipsed by other members of the Peale family. Other than in the diary of Charles Willson Peale and family papers, little information about him has been published. Linda Crocker Simmons, who held the first Polk exhibition in 180 years at the Corcoran, observes, “The strong, primitive, non-academic aspects of Polk’s work, which are most appreciated by the modern eye, were the very qualities that earlier critics sometimes compared unfavorably with the paintings of academy-trained painters. Numbers of his paintings have thus languished in storage or in attics, the facts of his life forgotten,” (Simmons, p.1). This proved an ideal situation for the talent of collector Peter Tillou, who, years later, purchased a dusty old unsigned American folk art portrait in the style of Charles Peale Polk.

Peter Tillou was widely recognized as an authority and arbiter of taste in early American portraiture. The true element of genius in Tillou’s collecting was that, learned as he was, he operated based “purely on personal judgments about the visual merits of each work standing alone,” (Paul Rovetti, Nineteenth-Century Folk Painting: Our Spirited National Heritage, 1973) and, with an eye for the importance and relevance of each item, was able to uncover masterpieces that have been recognized over time. He was in an academic field of one, his principles forming his own canon. In a March 11, 2002 essay for Antiques & Fine Art magazine, he revealed “It was perhaps in the development of my folk art collection that I began to understand what I feel should be at the core of every collection: a response to pure beauty.” Purchased from descendants and dusty attics, many of his acquisitions were undocumented works by unknown artists, and existed outside of academia and traditions. In an interview with Laura Beach, Tillou said, “I developed strong feelings at an early age– which I still hold- that in an ideal environment, no works of art would be signed and each work would be judged solely on its own quality and merit.”(Antiques and the Arts Weekly, August 6, 2019) Over the course of his long career, the folk art discoveries of Peter Tillou substantiated the success of his philosophy and judgement.

The portrait was no exception. Tillou saw quality, and Polk’s individualistic style. He saw beauty, and he held onto the painting. Finally, an expert cleaning by Tom Yost removed the years of grime and revealed confirmation, a signature along the lower edge, on the side of Kerr’s table, “Ch Polk pinx / 1791.”

The mystery of the presence of The Rights of Man remains. Why was it included in the portrait? Was Kerr avidly reading the first British edition, which did not contain the controversial preface? Or was it the May 3^rd American edition, still hot off the press? Was Kerr, born in Scotland, signaling his support for reforming British government? The symbol’s interpretation could have had a very different meaning for Kerr in 1791 than it did eight years later for Madison. The Talbot County Maryland Historical Society is the authority on David Kerr, owning his former house and personal items. Historian Mathijs Goyens-Harvey summarizes, “It was clear to see that he (David Kerr) was part of the elite and an avid Federalist, so it does make it interesting that he has Paine’s Rights of Man in the painting that he wanted to be memorialized with. While Paine’s work of the Rights of Man was more of a Democratic-Republican view, Paine was considered more radical as time went on and he wouldn’t always fully agree with any side. So, unless more information about Kerr comes to light, there can really only be educated guesses as to why he might have included that in his painting.” The symbolic book is representative of the kind of detail in artwork collected by Peter Tillou that engrosses the viewer, whether that viewer is a historian, a student of art, or collector of Americana. The painting conjures up echoes of history and of shared experience, it leaves one wondering, and with a sense of having had a brush with greatness.

On April 21^st and 22^nd, Pook & Pook will present at auction the Estate of Peter Tillou, featuring the portrait of David Kerr and many other items from his private collection of art and furniture. Please contact Pook & Pook for any additional information, and visit our website, at www.pookandpook.com.