James Bard schooner painting
“King Bird”
James Bard (1815-1897), New York
dated "1855"
oil on canvas laid down to Masonite
29 ½” x 52”
Signed, dated and inscribed lower right “Picture Drawn & Painted by James Bard, 1855./ 162 Perry St. New York/ August… 12”
Provenance: John Lee Pratt; Mr. and Mrs. William E. Wiltshire, III; Estate of Joan Harmon Van Metre
Exhibition: Richmond, Virginia, Virginia Museum, and traveling, “American Folk Painting: Selections from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. William E. Wiltshire III,” 29 November 1977 – June 1979 (cat. no. 46).
New York, Museum of American Folk Art, “Celebrate the Hudson,” 28 October – 2 November 1980.
Literature: Woodward, “American Folk Painting: The Wiltshire Collection,” The Magazine Antiques (September 1978), pp. 565-566, illus. Pl. IX; Peluso, Jr., The Bard Brothers: Painting America Under Steam and Sail (1997), p. 168.
King Bird was a schooner built in 1855 by Moses B. Hartt of Northport, Long Island, and was used for hauling freight on Long Island Sound. It was registered to a Mr. Van Brunt from 1855 to 1862.