This spectacular yacht racing scene captures the moment of victory for the Schooner IDLER, winner of the Brenton’s Reef Challenge Cup on July 27, 1876, crossing the finish at New York’s Buoy #15 in front of the Schooner WANDERER. Titled verso by the artist Edward Moran, whose popularity was high with his showing in the 1876 American Centennial in Philadelphia, where “A Winning Yacht” was the title of one of three Moran paintings exhibited. We believe this painting is inspired and conceived during that show, painted directly for IDLER’s then-owner, Samuel Colgate. Under glass since, it is in excellent condition with fresh, crisp colors.

IDLER, built by Samuel Pook of Fairhaven, Connecticut for William C. Colgate in 1865, was a sleek and fast racing yacht, with an excellent record of victories for more than 12 years. As mentioned, his heir to famous soap-toothpaste company and yacht was his son Samuel Colgate. The family has also closely involved in the Baptist ministry, and higher education.

IDLER won several races this season, and just missed being the America’s Cup defender, bested by MADELINE to face COUNTESS OF DUFFERIN in August. In the July race, IDLER won against not only WANDERER but the Schooners TIDAL WAVE, and AMERICA. She’d sell in 1877 to A.J. Fisher of Chicago, and serve as his flagship magnificently until her tragic loss in 1900 on a storm-driven Lake Erie. This painting is at the height of her New York Yacht Club acclaim, a brilliant and vibrant period portrait by Moran.

A fascinating marine narrative by Robert Salmon has an American Merchant Ship arriving off northwest Scotland in the Port of Lamlash in 1836. This work is a true gem, excellently composed. The historic subject matter and detail presented through the artistic work ranks it very highly. The ancient isle and the river port of Lamlash have been a fishing and trade port since the 18th Century, and today is home to one of the first marine conservancies in all of Scotland.

The port itself is the central subject, but the sheer diversity of the ships within is of note. In the fore waters, a three masted lugger with what appears to be a French flag is working the tide with rather well dressed voyagers onboard, undoubtably an early private yacht. Likewise, before the American ship is a British naval cutter illustrating the strong Dutch influence to the northern shipbuilders of Britain. More vessels await beyond, and would have been essential to pick up a local pilot to guide the ship.

Salmon’s superb details and human activity on each ship builds the appreciation, with each line and sail in working trim. The rising majesty of the Scotland heights, some distant homes along the shore and even a few adventurous fishing folk on the breakwater serve to complete the scene.

Highlighted by a glowing sunset, this epic panoramic view of San Francisco Bay is a premier work of marine art by William A. Coulter. One of his favorite perspectives, he revisited this setting over the decades, capturing the arrival of different important sailing ships while making a pictorial time line of the changes to the surrounding headlands. In this fine work, Coulter has centrally placed one of the great sailing ships still carrying on into the early 20th Century, the Clipper GLORY OF THE SEAS. The scene is further dressed with tug boats shown up close in good detail, a European-style fishing smack, schooners, and a liner at the Fort Mason dock.

Coulter, once a sailor, was a San Francisco artist with a significant number of works for publication to his credit. Paintings of this magnitude however, were commissioned by specific patrons. This work was undoubtably painted for the family of Walter Gibson, the president of the Matson Line and son-in-law to shipping baron John D. Spreckels. It passed down through this important San Francisco family ever since. It is strikingly similar to one of Coulter’s famous Seamans Bank mural panels, “Coming Home”, as were a significant number of other paintings. GLORY OF THE SEAS was built in 1869 by the renown Donald McKay of East Boston, and she’d prove to be his last - many would claim also the greatest - of the clippers he built, serving her final days in the waters of Alaska in the 1920s.

A yacht once owned by Theodore Meyers of New York, EMILY, is portrayed in a working narrative portrait by New York’s best, James Edward Buttersworth. The element overhead of a partially heavy and dark sky with cloud-breaks of blue is as much a signature of J.E. Buttersworth’s as is his name, present in the lower right on this fine canvas of the steam driven schooner yacht.

According the published record in the book J.E. Buttersworth, 19th Century Marine Painter by Rudolph Schaefer, EMILY was built in 1869 by J. Lennox of Brooklyn. The sleek cruising vessel with a single screw propulsion and a complement of Baltimore Clipper inspired sails measured 82'LWL x 16'B x 4'6”D. It is known that at least two versions of this painting exist, with another smaller version in oil on board exists in the collection of the Washington County Museum of Fine Art in Haggerstown, Maryland. It is believed more than coincidence that several ship captains with the Meyers surnames sailed out of New York on Baltimore registered ships, including the Gold Rush Era Clipper FLORA TEMPLE in 1855.

The headland is distant, and four pure sailing schooner draw the eye before the steamship, with a striking clarity and vivid contrast of white against the atmosphere, with miniature strikes of radiant color of details. Buttersworth’s yacht portraiture is among the best ever painted, and his attention to the exacting detail of the steam-sail yacht shows his mastery well. The vessel and artwork would both be prized possessions.

On a fittingly beautiful day, the previous America’s Cup victor, VIGILANT is matched up against the forenamed DEFENDER, a Herreshoff yacht of renown. Set upon the East River just south of the tip of Manhattan, the action is focused on determining who would be chosen to defend the America’s Cup against the second challenge from the Royal Yacht Squadron on behalf of Lord Dunraven. VIGILANT’s successful battle against Dunraven’s VALKYRIE II in 1893 had been the closest match yet, and the Americans wished to improve their odds against George L. Watson’s latest design, VALKYRIE III.

Couch masterfully puts a present feeling on yesterday’s greatest yacht races. He excels is his dynamic realism of the structure and function of the racing yachts, with everything in strict accordance to the actual yachts. Painstakingly researched, the scene comes back to life on his canvases. Full of architectural detail, the buildings of Broadway, including the Washington Building, Trinity Church and The Havermeyer Building are in view.

DEFENDER was built for one purpose, to win and hold the Cup. The racing yacht had aluminum top plating over steel, with Manganese bronze plates, rare and expensive, for her hull. Her growing dominance in the 1895 season is captured here, and she’d perform masterfully under Captain Hank Haff and the syndicate of Ieslin, Vanderbilt and Morgan, and the New York Yacht Club.

An evening more than a century in the making, the British Admiralty, with Dutch allies and in concert with the sailing nations of the Western world, begin the bombardment of Algiers on August 27th, 1816. Twenty-five warships under the command of Lord Exmouth assembled to pound the North African city into submission with a devastation 10-hour naval siege of the Mediterranean base of the Barbary Corsairs.

The end of the Napoleonic Campaigns in 1815 made it possible for the British Naval command to focus on the Dey’s piratical forces, here visible in this fine painting by the artist Thomas Buttersworth, one of his masterpieces. A deep and dark evening of severe weather in illuminated with the glow of the cannons and fires, the fleet of the corsairs caught in complete annilation. Both Dutch and British ships are visible, including a naval cutter running communications to the larger warships. More than 1000 Christian slaves were freed as a result, many once mariners of several countries. Although midshipman Thomas Buttersworth was out of the Royal Navy well before the engagement, he remained close to several in the Admiralty and his paintings remain as important records of the naval might of the period.