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THBArthur Burdett Frost (1851-1928)
About Seller
65 Sharp Street
Hingham, MA 02043
United States
Copley Fine Art Auctions is the world's leading American sporting art auction company. Located in Hingham, MA, Copley specializes in antique decoys and 19th- and 20th-century American, sporting, and wildlife paintings. Principal Stephen O'Brien Jr., a fourth-generation sportsman with a refined colle...Read more
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About Auction
LiveFeb 12, 2015 - Feb 13, 2015
Copley Fine Art Auctions cinnie@copleyart.com
View Full Catalog (564)
- Lot Description
Quail - A Covey Rise, 1895
signed "A.B. Frost" lower right
watercolor, 14 by 22 in.
The original owner of this painting, Clarence Otis Bigelow, was born in 1851 in Rhode Island, the youngest son of soap manufacturer William Marlin Bigelow. Bigelow was a member of the Sons of the Revolution as a descendent of John Bigelow, whose marriage was the first recorded in Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1633.C.O. Bigelow had a long and successful career as the owner of an eponymous apothecary in Greenwich Village, New York, which still operates from its landmark building today. He served as the president and founder of the West Side Savings Bank, as Treasurer of the College of the Pharmacy of Columbia University, and participated in many professional pharmacy organizations in New York.
Bigelow was prominent socially, as a member of the Olde Settlers' Association of ye West Side in New York, a Member of the New England Society, and was on The Dewey Reception Committee of the City of New York alongside William Cullen Bryant, Daniel Chester French, William Randolph Hearst, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John LaFarge, and others. This was a largely symbolic role welcoming Admiral George Dewey to New York after the Spanish-American War and demonstrating the social importance of its members, which it called "A Notable Body of Representative Citizens." Bigelow was also a member of the Salmagundi Club, St. Andrew's Golf Club, and the Union League Club, among others.
A 1910 biography of Bigelow that appeared in "The Druggists Circular" reports, “It has been said of C.O. Bigelow that he has the largest one-man, one-store drug business in this city...While Mr. Bigelow is a hard worker, he has his large force of assistants so well organized that he finds time for rest and recreation.”
A. B. Frost was born in Philadelphia in 1851, but spent his most prolific years in New Jersey. Considered one of the great illustrators of the “Golden Age of American Illustration,” he illustrated more than ninety books and produced thousands of illustrations for “Harper’s Weekly,” “Scribner’s,” and “Life” magazines. Frost’s illustrative work chronicles the mood and details of the daily life of farmers, hunters, and fishermen, as well as barnyards and pastoral motifs.
By 1876, he was on Harper’s staff working on many books including “Tom Sawyer,” “Uncle Remus,” and “Mr. Dooley.” He also illustrated Theodore Roosevelt’s sporting book, "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman."
Frost was an ardent sportsman who spent his summers and autumns fishing, rowing, and hunting ducks and snipe. He completed hundreds of watercolors and oils of the New Jersey seaside and is best known for his hunting and shooting prints which capture the drama of sport in realistic, detailed settings. Frost and Bigelow were both Masons, and they spent significant time in New Jersey, as Bigelow’s summer home was located in Allenhurst and Frost lived at his estate, Moneysunk, in Convent Station.
This work, “Quail - A Covey Rise,” is the original watercolor reproduced by Charles Scribner’s Sons in Frost’s "Shooting Pictures," a portfolio of twelve chromolithograph prints. It is considered one of the artist's most iconic and recognized works.
Of the thousands of works that Frost is known to have produced, "Quail - A Covey Rise," with its excellent composition and superb condition, ranks right at the top. The work reveals Frost as one of the greatest illustrators of his generation. The hunter is perfectly positioned and the pointers are staunch as the covey flushes, a Frost masterwork in every sense.
Provenance: Estate of Clarence Otis Bigelow, 1938Abercrombie & Fitch, New York City
Eben Beer Knowlton, acquired from above at auction
Private Collection, by descent in the family
Literature: Henry W. Lanier, “A.B. Frost: the American Sportsman’s Artist,” New York, NY, 1933."The Druggists Circular," Vol. LIV. Number 11, November 1910, p. 594.
A.B. Frost, "Shooting Pictures," New York, NY, 1895.
Henry M. Reed, "The A.B. Frost Book," Rutland, VT, 1967, p. 88, illustrated.
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