Can you tell me anything about this oil painting?
Q. Any information you might have about a painting signed by S.F.M. Badger and dated 1893 would be greatly appreciated. The painting is an oil on canvas and 26 by 42 inches.
A. Can you imagine naming your son “Solon Francis Montecello”?
“Solon” was the name of an ancient Greek statesman, lawmaker and poet who is credited with laying the foundation for Athenian democracy; and “Montecello” might be an understandable misspelling of the name of Thomas Jefferson’s home in Virginia, Monticello.
To make matters worse, this artist was known for years by a misnomer, “Samuel Finley Morse Badger,” but “Solon Francis Montecello Badger” is now thought to be the correct name. He was born in Boston in 1873 and died in 1919.
His father was a painter, and the younger Badger continued to live with his father in their Charlestown, Mass., home even after he became an adult. Early on, the younger Badger studied with ship-portrait painter, William P. Stubbs, but Badger was eventually apprenticed to a maker of trunks.
Luckily for the world of painting, the trunk manufacturer moved its business westward to another city, and S.F.M. Badger decided to return to ship-portrait painting. It is said that Badger sailed around Boston Harbor in a small yacht taking measurements of the ships he found there or he would paint his ship portraits using blueprints.
Today, his work can be found in the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine; the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich (London), England; the Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport, Mystic, Conn.; and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass. Prices seem to be going up on his work, with an example in 2002 bringing a record $52,500 at Northeast Auction in Portsmouth, N.H.
Before you get too excited, let me say that 2012 prices have been much more modest and have run in the $4,000 to $5,000 range for the most part, with one rather minor work selling for a tad less than $600. The reason for this may be twofold: one, the market on S.F.M. Badger’s work may have softened; and/or two, the works offered for sale this year have not been of the same high quality as the $52,500 example in 2002.
On the other hand, we think this is an extraordinary Badger painting of a four-masted schooner sailing under stormy skies and through rough seas. But there are potentially two small problems. First, the identity of the ship needs to be known to maximize value; and second, collectors like to see the American flag flying in the breeze.
The large “M” emblazoned on the sails is a clue to the identity of this ship and it may indicate that it belonged to the Metropolitan Steamship Co., which formed one of the important transportation links between New York City and Boston for more than 75 years. This seems to be a good possibility to us, but we cannot be sure without more information and more research.
Until more is known about the ship in this painting, a value cannot be established.
Ÿ Contact Helaine Fendelman and Joe Rosson at Treasures in Your Attic, P.O. Box 18350, Knoxville, TN 37928.