December 10-13, 2024 Firearms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/10/2024
Oil on canvas, 24 1/2 x 29 1/4 inches, within carved and gilded frame. In 1800, James Pringle exhibited his first work at the Royal Academy: 'View of a seventy four on the stocks, and the launch of a frigate. Little is known about his life or artistic output over the next ten years, although Pringle traveled to the United States sometime prior to the War of 1812 in the capacity of a sailor, possibly settling there. In 1811, the American merchant ship in which he was serving was stopped at sea by a Royal Navy frigate and Pringle, being English-born, was pressed into service. Pringle subsequently exhibited four additional marine works at the Royal Academy between 1812 and 1818, with Syndenham (his place of birth) listed as his address, although it is likely that he was still in Royal Navy service during part of this period. He seems to have been a wandering spirit and traveled extensively until 1828 (probably as a working mariner for at least part of this time span), when he arrived in New York and resumed active work as a marine painter, exhibiting frequently at the National Academy of Design between 1832 and 1844, as well as the Apollo Association and the Brooklyn Institute. Possibly self-taught, Pringle specialized in marine paintings, landscapes, and occasionally, portraiture. Pringle's well-populated views of the early New York waterfront are an admixture of landscape and genre works, carefully delineated, yet charming in their naivety. In his day, Pringle was well-known and considered one of the best of the marine painters then working in the United States. This fine view of the Revenue Cutter 'Alert' was painted in 1834, when the 73-foot vessel (built 1829) was on the New York station. PROVENANCE: Donated to the Independence Maritime Museum in 1962 as a work by Philadelphia marine artist Thomas Birch (with fake signature applied over the original Pringle one on the flotsam in the foreground) and deaccessioned in 2015; acquired in April 2016 from Diana Bittel. CONDITION: some scattered inpainting in sky and on one sail, with spurious Birch signature on lower left on log.