Benjamin A. Gifford

Antique Oregon's "Indian Madonna & Child" Native American Silver Gelatin Photo

1901

A large American Western, Native American oil on canvas landscape, by Frank Paul Sauerwein (1871-1910), "The Captive", 1901. This large oil on canvas depicts a Native American brave captively tied to a tree stump and being viewed by a rival tribe, who are evidently deciding his fate. Behind the collected tribe of elders, braves and children are a pair of conical tipi dwellings, to the background are grazing horses and another group of native people in a tree lined setting. The painting is indistinctly signed lower left, condition is good, the painting is housed in the original frame with a giltwood rabbet, the painting at sight is 40" x 26". Provenance; From a lifelong collection of 19th & early 20th Century Western Art, Portland, Oregon. Frank Sauerwein was a respected painter of western landscapes, Indian portraits, Indian genre scenes, and California missions. His promising career was cut short by his death of tuberculosis at age thirty-nine. The son of European-trained artist, Charles D. Sauerwein, Frank took his first art lessons from his father before studying at the Philadelphia School of Industrial Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and, finally, the Philadephia Museum School of Art. In 1891 he moved to Denver in hope of improving his health. In 1893, Sauerwein accompanied the artist Charles Craig on a trip to the Ute reservation in southwestern Colorado. This began Sauerwein's unyielding fascination with the Southwest and its Native inhabitants. After a trip to Europe, he returned to the American West, visiting Taos in 1899 and Santa Fe in 1900. That same year, Sauerwein visited the Navajo reservation, becoming good friends with trading post entrepreneur, Lorenzo Hubbell. He also spent time at Keam's Canyon on the Hopi reservation where he sketched local inhabitants. Sauerwein moved to Los Angeles in 1901, and then to Pasadena in 1902, but he maintained his contacts in the Southwest with Summer trips to the Grand Canyon, New Mexico Indian Pueblos, Taos, Santa Fe and Albuquerque. He especially loved the Grand Canyon which is the subject of a large number of his paintings. Rendered in a tight, academic style, Sauerwein's paintings clearly show the influence of German...

A fine & large antique oil on canvas painting by Bengt Nordenberg (1822-1902), Sweden, dated 1883. Nordenberg is recognized as one of Sweden's most celebrated 19th century artists, his work epitomizes Swedish Romanticism and this painting is a wonderful representation of that style. The painting depicts an interior scene of a mother holding an infant in front of an open heath, with a fire burning in the grate, above the fire there are racks of meat hanging and above that are hams hanging. The infant has evidently just woken from a nap and his cradle sits next to his mother's chair, his brother sitting on the floor with his monkey & the carrying case he transports the animal to beg for money, the monkey humorously sits with his begging plate outstretched to the boy's mother, much to her consternation! The painting is signed and dated lower left, it is in very good condition and is housed in the original gilded composition and limewood frame, Nordenberg's record for a painting at auction is over $91,500, this is a fine example of the artist's work and is ready to hang on your wall. Bloomsbury Fine Art & Antiques ship globally, very well packed & insured to ensure safe delivery. Bengt Nordenberg (1822-1902) was a master of Swedish Romanticism. He belonged to the Düsseldorf school of painting & is best known for his genre paintings with everyday life scenes from the Dalarna, Skåne and Blekinge areas of Sweden. He moved to Düsseldorf in the 1850s. Nordenberg was born at Jämshög in Blekinge County, Sweden, he was one of nine siblings born to Per Jönsson Nord (1785-1854) and his wife Sissa Bengtsdotter (b. 1792). He grew up in poverty and became an apprentice to a painter in Sölvesborg. In 1843 he studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm, In the autumn of 1851 he went to the Düsseldorf Academy, where first Theodor Hildebrandt and then later, Adolph Tidemand...

A wonderful and very coveted original large-format photogravure by iconic American photographer Edward Curtis (1868-1952) titled "Mosa Mohave" Of this image Curtis noted “It would b...

This original, limited edition etching, was realized by the esteemed American artist John E. Costigan, circa 1930. He is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, th...