Engraving on paper
Ca 1929
Picture size 15 3/4″ L x 13 1/2″ H Framed
size 24 1/4″ x 21 3/4″
Signed LR Numbered
62/100
Presented is a recently framed engraving
of an unnamed Clipper Ship running near dead down wind. She is heeling
gently to leeward with all her studding sails flying. There are gulls are soaring
off her port bow. The engraving is signed in pencil in the
lower right, and marked and numbered
in the upper left. The photograph of the framed engraving above
is taken though glass, and what may look like a stain, is really only the photographer’s shadow.
THE ARTIST: Burnell Poole,
(1884-1933), spent years at sea in the North Atlantic with the U.S.
Navy during WW One . Thirty years before our navy had
combat artists, Poole recorded the
warships in action. The U.S. Navy has less than two dozen works
of art recording this period, and Poole’s contributions number five. They were commissioned by E.I. Du Pont de Nemours
and
Company, and donated to the Naval Historical Foundation between
1928 and 1929 to
commemorate the Navy’s participation in the war. These
paintings, owned by the Navy Historical
Foundation, are on exhibit in Washington, DC. Later, he
turned to portraying the sea, by mastering the technique of engraving and
dry-point. He earned a reputation as being the greatest American marine artists in
those techniques. In 1922, he was being compared favorably to Englishman, Arthur
Briscoe, 1873-1943. Poole also did engravings of many famous sailing yachts and ships, and a portfolio of twenty of these works was recently for sale for $12,500.00 for the lot.
