Earle Vandekar of Knightsbridge-Antiques

A Rare English Woolwork of a Great Eastern Railway Steam Train #165,
Circa 1885.

Dimensions: 18 inches x 25 inches

The 0-4-4T was a popular wheel arrangement with GER, they bought them from the 1870’s into the 1890’s.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forney_locomotive)

The Forney is a type of tank locomotive patented by Matthias N. Forney between 1861 and 1864. Forney locomotives include the following characteristics:
An 0-4-4T wheel arrangement, that is four driving wheels followed by a truck with four wheels.
No flange on the second pair of driving wheels.
The fuel bunker and water tank placed over the four-wheel truck.

The locomotives were set up to run cab (or bunker) first, effectively as a 4-4-0. The 4-4-0 wheel arrangement, with its three-point suspension, was noted for its good tracking ability, while the flangeless middle wheels allowed the locomotive to round tight curves. Placing the fuel and water over the truck rather than the driving wheels meant the locos had a constant adhesive weight, something other forms of tank locomotive did not.

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Eastern_Railway

The GER was formed in 1862 by amalgamation of the Eastern Counties Railway with smaller railways: the Norfolk Railway, the Eastern Union Railway, the Newmarket and Chesterford Railway, the East Norfolk Railway, the Harwich Railway, the East Anglian Railway and the East Suffolk Railway among others. In 1902 the Northern and Eastern Railway was absorbed by the GER, although it had been worked by the Eastern Counties Railway under a 999-year lease taken on January 1, 1844 whereby the Eastern Counties would work the Northern and Eastern in return for an annual rent and division of the profits.

Among towns served were Cambridge, Chelmsford, Colchester, Great Yarmouth, Ipswich, King’s Lynn, Lowestoft, Norwich, Southend-on-Sea, and East Anglian seaside resorts such as Hunstanton (whose prosperity was a result of the GER’s line being built) and Cromer. It also served a suburban area, including Enfield, Chingford, Loughton and Ilford. This suburban network was, in the early 20th century, the most heavily used steam-hauled commuter system in the world.

The original London terminus was opened at Shoreditch in east London by the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) on 1 July 1840 when the railway was extended westwards from an earlier temporary terminus in Devonshire Street, near Mile End. The station was renamed Bishopsgate on 27 July 1847.

The Great Eastern attempted to obtain a West End terminus, alongside the one in east London, via the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway, formed by an Act of Parliament of 28 July 1862. Plans to extend the western end of this line via a proposed ‘London Main Trunk Railway’, underneath Hampstead Road, the Metropolitan Railway (modern Circle line) and Tottenham Court Road, to Charing Cross, were rejected by Parliament in 1864.

A new London terminus, Liverpool Street Station was opened to traffic on 2 February 1874, and was completely operational from 1 November 1875. From this date the original terminus at Bishopsgate closed to passengers, although it reopened as a goods station in 1881.
The majority of the Great Eastern’s locomotives were manufactured in Stratford works, on the site of today’s Stratford International station. The GER owned 1,200 miles of line and had a near-monopoly in East Anglia until the opening of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway in 1893.

The Great Eastern name has survived, being used both for the Great Eastern Main Line route between London and Norwich, and also for the First Great Eastern train operating company which served much of the old GER route between 1997 and 2004.

Mermaid Circus,
Ralph Eugene Cahoon, Jr.,
American, 1910-1982
Signed right R. Cahoon.

Oil on masonite.

Mermaid Circus shows a man and mermaid standing on the back of a horse which is jumping over a large ball placed on a podium. They are flanked by two mermaids, both with a ball balanced, one on her finger tip and the other on her head while she plays a small harp. The ringmaster stands towards the back in front of rows of theatre boxes with well dressed men in top hats and women and children watching the performance.

Dimensions: 22 1/4 x 28 inches (sight: 17 1/4 inches x 23 inches)

Reference: Peter Falk: Who Was Who in American Art
Michael David Zellman: Three Hundred Years of American Art
Early life

Cahoon was born in Chatham, Massachusetts in 1910 to a family directly descended from the first Dutch Settlers of Cape Cod. Growing up close to the Atlantic Ocean, young Ralph spent many of his days sailing, fishing, digging clams, and sketching the coast. As he grew older, clamming and fishing slowly became secondary to his burgeoning interest in art. By the time he attended high school, he had started to apply his artistic interest and talent by taking a correspondence course in cartoon drawing and even submitted works to his school paper.

Upon graduation Ralph attended Boston’s School of Practical Art where he focused primarily on commercial art, rather than his preference of decorative art. Frustrated with the ideological differences he encountered in art school, he returned to his native Cape Cod after his graduation.

Cahoon’s young career took a dramatic turn in 1930 when he met and subsequently married (in 1932) a young Harwich woman named Martha Farham. The daughter of a well-respected and successful furniture decorator, Axel Farham, Martha introduced Ralph to the art of furniture decoration. Under her father’s tutelage Martha had become adept at free-hand decoration and introduced Ralph to the technique. After their marriage, the Cahoons moved to Osterville, and later to Cotuit where they would start a successful business decorating and selling antique furniture.

In 1953 their careers took another twist when one of their customers, the wealthy New York socialite, art dealer, and future co-owner of the New York Mets, Joan Whitney Payson convinced them to frame some of their designs. Furthermore, Payson offered to show their works in her Long Island Gallery. Their foray from furniture decoration into “wall art” proved successful and both Cahoons went onto to produce numerous works over the ensuing decades.

While much of their earlier furniture decoration shared the same Pennsylvania Dutch inspired motifs, their easel paintings marked the first significant diversion in Ralph and Martha’s palettes and styles. While Martha continued to work in muted tones, Ralph experimented with brighter and more contrasting colors. More importantly, Ralph developed the subject matter and style that made his paintings must haves for any distinguished family that summered on the Cape.

Although he did not entirely abandon his Pennsylvania folk art roots, Ralph started painting whimsical scenes of sailors and mermaids frolicking on the backs of whales, in hot air balloons, on majestic ships, and countless other fantastic settings. As his commissions grew, Ralph would often incorporate his patron’s businesses, homes, or professions into the finished work along with the standard mermaids and sailors.
In the end, Ralph Cahoon’’s paintings were successful because they attracted a client base of wealthy, old money families that frequented vacationed or owned estates on the Cape or the Islands. The carefree, lighthearted antics portrayed in Ralph’s paintings appealed to patrons’ romantic associations with the Cape and were neither pretentious nor controversial.

Ralph continued painting up until his death in 1982. Martha continued painting after Ralph’s death and even in her waning years continued to produce small crayon drawings up until her death in 1999.

Today Ralph Cahoon’s paintings are highly sought after by collectors with his more important paintings exceeding $100,000 at public auction. The Cahoon Museum of American Art in Cotuit, Massachusetts features many of Cahoon’s works.

A stirrup cup was originally a drink offered to a horseman at the Meet of a hunt but became the description of the drinking vessel itself. Often made of silver they were also made of pottery and porcelain. Here are particularly nice examples of a fox and a hound.

Some suggest the drink was a mulled wine or ale others that it contained brandy (which makes more sense to me).

paulettetraverso:

“I do not believe in eras or times. I do not. I refuse to establish the value of things based on time.” -Piero Fornasetti

The marvelous, timeless Fornasetti. Italian interior decorator, painter, sculptor created more than 500 designs based on one woman’s face: operatic soprano Lina Cavalieri.