At some point, for serious institutions and collectors the reimagining of the past becomes essential to understanding and explaining it. Today’s assumptions are often, if not always, very different from what was reality in those now receding decades.
Re-imaging is also fraught with issues. The quality of the research and the balanced evaluation of underlying resources becomes essential to separating what we think from what reality really was. In every case such efforts are interpretative.
This issue is being directly addressed in a series of paintings by the gifted artist, L. F. Tantillo, who is reimaging the mid-Hudson Valley in the 19th century.
The first painting in this 8 painting series was issued in 2018, a reconstruction of what was the most significant fire in the history of New Paltz at the school that would in time become the State University at New Paltz. The 1906 fire destroyed one institution from whose ashes a new one, less than a mile away, on a larger campus emerged in 1909, to become a gem in the New York State university system today. An image of that painting is attached.
The second painting, now complete, reimagines Rondout, New York circa 1883. This once separate community, now incorporated into Kingston, Ulster’s county seat, portrays its waterfront at the confluence of the Rondout Creek, Wallkill and Hudson Rivers. The Delaware & Hudson Canal, then in decline, empties its cargo barges arriving from the coal fields in Pennsylvania onto larger ships at Rondout to be towed south to New York City. In the distance, carried across on a bridge running north and south, railroads, successors to the declining canal system, spring into precarious life, their glory to be brief for the car and truck within 20 years would begin to move passengers and cargo into cars and trucks.
Meanwhile, preparing to depart, the Mary Powell, then Queen of the Hudson River steamboats, prepares to carry passengers and cargo to New York City in a desperate, but ultimately losing battle with the railroads that would carry the cargos and passengers there and far beyond to distant places faster and at lower cost.
The evolution of transportation would play out in Ulster County as it would across the country, battles fought to advance progress, prestige and money literally in real time as fortunes were made and lost. These things happened elsewhere but, in Ulster, they were determinative for as their fortunes rose and fell, so too did the prosperity of the region.
Ulster County, was at that moment in 1883, for a brief second in the clock of cosmic time, very close to the center of the New England economic revolution. It wouldn’t last, but, in its moment, it was grand. This painting reminds us that success is fleeting, even pyrrhic.
The third painting, of 8 in this series now under consideration, may capture the fading glory of Poughkeepsie as seen from the then wonder of the world, the immense Hudson River Railroad Bridge around the turn of the 20th century when trollies from New Paltz could reach the bridge to carry passengers across to Poughkeepsie. Alternatively, a scene capturing the epic grandeur of Lake Awosting on the Shawangunk Mountain ridge line or a moment-in-time perspective of the region’s historically most important surviving enterprise, Lake Mohonk Mountain House, are being considered. In time it is hoped that all these and three other perspectives will be painted, to in time become The Ulster County Cycle.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.
DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800
Freeman’s | Hindman Western Manuscripts and Miniatures July 8, 2025
Freeman’s | Hindman Western Manuscripts and Miniatures July 8, 2025
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.