EAST DENNIS, Mass. – Almost 350 lots will be offered in Eldred’s Marine Sale, scheduled for Thursday, February 24 at the firm’s headquarters on Cape Cod. Absentee and Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers.

“It’s a really good variety,” said Bill Bourne, vice president and head of Eldred’s Maritime Art & Scrimshaw department. “We have a very select group of scrimshaw, whaling irons, prisoner-of-war material, paintings, instruments – something for every marine art collector.”

Highlights include scrimshaw whale’s teeth attributed to the Banknote Engraver as well as the Ceres Artisan William A. Gilpin; paintings by Antonio Jacobsen and Joseph B. Smith; and early navigational instruments. Bourne said the vast majority of the lots on offer are sourced from private collections and are new to the market.

About 60 lots of scrimshaw appear in the auction lineup, led by a pair of polychrome whale’s teeth depicting portraits of George and Martha Washington after paintings of the couple by John Wollaston and Charles Wilson Peale, which is estimated at $40,000-$60,000, and also a girthy tooth abundantly engraved with whaling motifs that is estimated at $25,000-$35,000.

The aforementioned Gilpin tooth, which is estimated at $50,000-$100,000, bears the inscription “Elizabeth”, the name of Gilpin’s wife. This is in identical fashion to a tooth signed “W A Gilpin” that connected a name to the formerly anonymous scrimshander “Ceres Artisan A”. The tooth also depicts a full-length figure of Hope, patriotic emblems and ship portraits.

The Banknote Engraver tooth, which depicts a whaling scene on the obverse and a full-rigged ship and a schooner on the reverse, descended in the family of whaleman Willard Brown and is accompanied by an old typewritten note reading, in part, “Debby’s great, great grandfather sailed on a three year whaling expedition as ships carpenter and did this work to pass the time”. This note and genealogical research could provide the identity of the hitherto anonymous “Banknote Engraver”. It carries a $50,000-$70,000 pre-sale estimate.

“The Gilpin and Banknote Engraver teeth are rarities and potentially historically significant,” Bourne said, also mentioning that Dr. Stuart M. Frank, curator emeritus of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, had vetted the Banknote Engraver tooth.

Nine paintings by Antonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen (American and Danish, 1850-1921) are included in the sale, ranging in estimate from $1,500-$2,500 for a portrait of the clipper Rainbow to $15,000-$20,000 for a view of the auxiliary steamship Somerset. Other notable paintings include an expansive view of an American ship in the Harbor of Naples by Giovanni Serritelli (Italian, 1810-c. 1880), estimated at $7,000-$10,000.

Adding to the sale’s variety are items from two private collections: The collection of Dr. Donald W. Sample of Annapolis, Maryland and the Kelton collection of Marine art and artifacts. This last includes paintings by Thomas Whitcombe and William Gay Yorke and also a group of fresh-to-market instruments. Highlights include a circa-1820 British reflecting circle by Thomas Jones, estimated at $2,000-$3,000, and a circa-1885 hydrographic survey quintant by Henry Porter with the same estimate.

For more information please call 508-385-3116 or email info@eldreds.com.

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