"Locomotive Star"

Dateca. 1857

MediumWatercolor and pencil on wove paper

DimensionsFramed: 20" x 25 1/4" Unframed: 17 13/16" x 23 1/4" (45.2 cm. x 59.1 cm.)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1958.310.3

DescriptionWatercolor of a gaily painted train engine with the word "Star" on her side. Portions of the train are colored in blue, yellow, and a pale red. She has two large wheels. Her cab is fairly ornately decorated and a man with a beard and mustache stands in her cabin with his arm resting on the brake wheel.Label TextThe STAR was built at the New York Locomotive Works of Breese Kneeland and Company in Jersey City, New Jersey, sometime between 1852 and 1857, the latter year being the date of the company's reorganization as the Jersey City Locomotive Works. Allowing for some exaggeration by the artist, this gaily painted engine reflects the popular taste for highly ornamented and colored surfaces on locomotives and railroad cars during the third quarter of the nineteenth century. In all likelihood, this anonymous drawing is a reasonably faithful copy of a lithographed advertisement for the STAR and the company which built it.Mark(s)"STAR" is lettered on the side of the engine. "BRISTOL/BOARD" appears in an oval blind stamp with a spray of foliage at lower left.ProvenanceJ. Stuart Halladay and Herrel George Thomas, Sheffield, Mass. Halladay died in 1951, leaving his interest in their jointly-owned collection to his partner, Thomas. Thomas died in 1957, leaving his estate to his sister, Mrs. Albert N. Petterson, who was AARFAM's vendor.