The remarkably handsome Sylvan Dell, with a speed more than 20 mph, built by Lawrence and Foulks in 1872 carried on her bow mast an unusual but significant flag – a racehorse with a jockey instead of the name of the boat
Overall, a truly charming example that displays well and features a particularly fine and detailed landscape background.
Sylvan Dell: The Sylvan Dell was the last and the finest and fastest of the five steamboats built for the Harlem & New York Navigation Company which was incorporated in 1856. She was a 440-ton, single stack steam and paddle boat that measured 178 feet long and 27 feet wide. On her maiden voyage in 1872, she steamed upriver from New York to Albany, without passengers or stops, in a record seven hours, 43 minutes, becoming the fastest boat on the Hudson River.
The Sylvan Dell generally carried commuters between Harlem and lower Manhattan, however, with the opening of the Third Avenue Elevated Railroad in 1883, the company discontinued the service and sold its boats. The riverboat then offered New Yorkers pleasure excursions until 1889. The Sylvan Dell was sold again and ferried commuters between Philadelphia and Salem, NJ, on the Delaware River. In 1919, she sank in Salem Creek.
Item Date: Signed "J. BARD NY 1872 / 162 Perry St" (lower right)
Measurement: Frame: 55.5" x 35.5"; view: 50" x 30"
Material: Oil on canvas mounted within a period carved, gesso detail, gilt and ebonized walnut frame.
Item Condition: The canvas has been wax-relined. Scattered In-painting mostly to the sky, as well as trivial touches to the ship only visible under UV light. Fluorescence is additionally visible from the wax lining of the canvas concentrated to the sky. Craquelure to the paint. Some frame abrasions to the edges of canvas, primarily at the top.
Literature: A watercolor painting of the Sylvan Dell is in the collection of New York Historical Society. See Anthony J. Peluso, Jr., The Bard Brothers: Painting America Under Steam and Sail (Newport News: The Mariners' Museum; New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997), p. 79. The painting that we offer is recorded on the ’list of known Bards’, page 170 in the same book. Sylvan Dell is again listed on page 121 of J. & J. Bard / Picture Painters by A.J. Peluso, Jr., Hudson River Press, 1977, The List Of Extant Bard Work. See page 78 and 79, “The Sylvan Fleet Assembled” to view another painting of the Sylvan Dell created in 1873 (Sanford and Patricia Smith Collection) where it is stated “The Sylvan Dell was the last and the finest of the Harlem River Navigation Company’s line, and Bard painted her at the height of his career. The ‘Dell’ was once described as the “Queen of the Harbor.” [See pp. 32, 33, 34, and 35.]
SKU 1305-2
For More Information, Please Contact David Hillier at 978-597-8084 or email drh@aaawt.com.
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