?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
(ART.) Extensive archive of New York artist Henry Grant Plumb. 11 boxes (15 linear feet), including: 18 framed original works by Plumb and others * approximately 60 of his unframed smaller watercolors and oil paintings * 4 of his sketchbooks from the 1870s * More than 200 pencil and ink sketches * 8 works by other artists in Plumb's circle * More than 100 photographs of Plumb's works * Approximately 300 letters from Plumb to his family, including many illustrated letters sent from Europe, 1874-78 * More than 300 letters received by Plumb, many regarding his work, or from fellow artists, 1858-1926 * 10 family photograph albums * 4 of his pocket diaries, 1873-1909 * Plumb's palette, portrait studio sign, paint box, and other artifacts * and much more. Vp, bulk 1858-1930
Henry Grant Plumb (1847-1930) had a long career as an artist in a diverse range of styles and media, exhibiting as a landscape artist, doing portraiture and commercial art, and employed as a lithographer and art instructor. Raised in rural Sherburne, Chenango County, NY, he studied art at Cooper Union in Manhattan, and was apprenticed to a lithography firm in 1864. He attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1874 to 1878, and returned to New York City for the remainder of his long career. He taught at Cooper Union for 35 years, and was also active in the Salmagundi Club and the Artists' Fund Society. This extensive archive of Plumb's artwork, correspondence and family papers includes original landscapes he exhibited at the Salmagundi Club, and others which were reproduced as popular chromolithographs. Children and mice were recurring themes in much of his decorative genre work, but the hundreds of original works by Plumb in this archive are difficult to summarize. The collection also features letters signed by fellow artists Louis Maurer, Charles Schreyvogel, and Conrad Freitag, and original signed artwork by Freitag, Carl Hirschberg, and Arthur Turnbull Hill. Plumb's letters from the 1860s and 1870s discuss not only his training at Cooper Union and the École des Beaux-Arts, but also the Civil War. His letter dated 17 April 1865 describes the reaction to the Lincoln assassination in New York: "A few stubborn copperheads . . . were not allowed to say every thing they would have liked to, & some who did I understand were beaten pretty well & one fellow was thrown off a ferry boat." We recommend that bidders consider transportation arrangements beforehand, as the cost of shipping may be prohibitive. An inventory is available upon request.
