PHILADELPHIA – Selling for $37,500 in Freeman’s November 10 American Furniture, Folk & Decorative Arts sale was a lot of two timely oil on canvas paintings by William Walcutt (1819-1882). “Toppling the Statue of King George III” and “Thanksgiving Turkey Shoot” were created by the American artist in 1854 and 1855, respectively.

The auction house wrote, “The first, romantically rendered historical work is based on the July 9, 1776, New York City event when upon hearing a reading of the Declaration of Independence, citizens and a group of George Washington’s troops pulled the two-ton gilded lead statue of King George III from its pedestal. The statue, depicting the regent as a Roman Emperor, had only stood in Bowling Green for six years. Another version of this event by Walcutt, ‘Pulling down the Statue of George III at Bowling Green,’ painted in 1857, is in the Lafayette College Art Collection.

“The second work, ‘Thanksgiving Turkey Shoot, Albany, New York,’ is based on a scene from the popular novel, The Pioneers; Or, The Sources of the Susquehanna (1823), by James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), showing protagonist Nathaniel ‘Natty’ Bumppo as the Deerslayer. Another version of this work by Walcutt, titled, ‘Scenes from the Pioneer by Cooper, The Deerslayer at the Shooting Match,’ is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Museum of Art.”

The paintings were once in the collection of Rev. Dr. Gilbert Darlington (1892-1980).

For more information, www.freemansauction.com.

Ed note: this story earlier featured the sale of a Blackfoot beaded and painted hide war shirt owned by Chief Bear Ghost. Following the auction, the firm said the war shirt proved inauthentic and it was returned to its consignor.