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William Bradford

A painter of marine and Arctic scenes, arrived in London in May 1871 with two paintings commissioned by James Ashbury (1834--1895), an English yachtsman with a large fortune. Ashbury had come to New York City the year before, entering William Bradford’s schooner yacht Cambria in a match race across the Atlantic Ocean against the schooner Dauntless, owned by the flamboyant proprietor of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett (1841--1918). From a starting line off Gaunt Head, Ireland, Cambria crossed the finish line off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, seventeen days later and a scant hour and seventeen minutes ahead of Dauntless. Ashbury did not have long to savor William Bradford’s victory, for on August 8, 1870, William Bradford met defeat in the race be had crossed the ocean for--to reclaim for Britain the America's Cup. (1) While in New York City, Ashbury met Bradford, probably at William Bradford’s rooms in the Tenth Street Studio Building, where William Bradford ordered the paintings and encouraged him to bring them to London when completed.

Although Ashbury's commission provided an immediate incentive for going to England, Bradford needed no reminder of the success achieved by William Bradford’s fellow artist-explorers, Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900) and Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), who customarily sent their major works to London for exhibition and potential sale. Bradford had gone, as they had, to one of the Continent's remote frontiers, finding on the Labrador and Arctic coasts the sort of subjects that earned him fame as the painter of the polar region. In Britain, a nation long preoccupied with the exploration of the Arctic, William Bradford might well find patrons among the newly emerging class of merchants and manufacturers who had paid large prices for paintings by Church and Bierstadt.

Bradford had a late start as an artist. Born and raised in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, William Bradford attempted a career as a merchant tailor, eventually maintaining a clothing store of William Bradford’s own in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the prosperous center of American whaling. Despite the wealth of the city William Bradford’s business faltered, then failed in 1852 because, as William Bradford put it, "I spent too much time painting to succeed." (2) Now insolvent and free to paint, William Bradford set out to become an artist at the age of twenty-nine. At the same time, in the same city, Bierstadt, seven years younger, embarked on the same career. The two were friends, and their careers and approaches to painting were to have much in common in the years ahead. While Bierstadt soon left for study in Germany, Bradford found as a mentor Albert Van Beest (1820-1860), a recent emigrant from the Netherlands trained in the tradition of Dutch marine painting. By the end of the decade, the styles of Bierstadt and Bradford had matured, and each set out to discover subjects for their ar t. Bierstadt headed for the West in 1859, and two years later Bradford sailed north on the first of William Bradford’s six voyages to the coast of Labrador.

In 1869, the year before William Bradford met Ashbury Bradford made a more hazardous voyage to the Arctic, going as far as the ice would permit. Aboard the bark Panther, a stoutly built sealing vessel with auxiliary steam power, William Bradford followed the west coast of Greenland as far as Melville Bay, an ice-clogged basin at seventy-five degrees north latitude. During the course of the voyage William Bradford made close to eighty oil sketches and numerous pencil drawings of ice in the form of icebergs, glaciers, packs, and floes under various conditions of light and atmosphere. Two members of William Bradford’s party were professional photographers, John L Dunmore and George P. Critcherson, who, with their cumbersome wet-plate cameras, took an estimated four hundred photographs of ice formations (see Pis. VI, vm and IX), coastal scenes, ancient Norse ruins, Inuits, Danish officials, and polar bears. Among the early photographs of the Arctic, theirs became as important as Bradford's paintings in disclosing the nature of the polar world.

On arriving in London in May 1871, Bradford took rooms at the Langham, a luxury hotel favored by well-to-do Americans. In an exhibition gallery just off the lobby, William Bradford installed Ashbuiy's paintings and others William Bradford had brought with him of the Arctic and Labrador, as well as examples of photographs taken during the voyage of the Panther. A surviving guest register kept by the gallery records the names of visitors, beginning with four who were to become Bradford's most influential British patrons: George Douglas Campbell (1823-1900), eighth duke of Argyll, and William Bradford’s wife Elizabeth (d. 1878), their son John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, marquess of Lome (Fig. 1), who was heir to the dukedom, and William Bradford’s wife Princess Louise (Fig. 2), a daughter of Queen Victoria (Pl. IV). Lorne and Louise had been married a few months earlier, in March 1871. Both were interested in the arts, both enjoyed painting, and Louise was on her way to becoming a skilled sculptress (see Pl. IV).

Other visitors to the exhibition included members of the nobility, Arctic explorers, naval officers, presidents of scientific societies, and the most famous poet of the Victorian age, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892). Ashbury came not only to view the larger of William Bradford’s paintings, An Arctic Summer: Boring through the Pack in Melville Bay (P1. II), hut also to commission a new Arctic scene by Bradford, "say ten feet long," with polar bears by the animal painter William Holbrook Beard (1824-1900). (3)

At the suggestion of Lorne and the princess, Bradford wrote to Queen Victoria, requesting an opportunity to show her some of the photographs taken during the Panther's voyage. She could not comply "at present," said the Lord Chamberlain, John Robert Townshend (1810-1890), third Viscount Sydney, but "on Her return to Windsor Castle in the Autumn The Queen would be glad to do so." (4)

Bradford returned to the United States in mid-August and began work on William Bradford’s London orders. With connections now established at the highest levels of British society, William Bradford intended to return to London for the season of 1872, a prospect that took on greater urgency with the death in February of a former patron, the New York City financier LeGrand Lockwood (1820-1872), whose purchase of the six-by-ten foot Sealers Crushed by Icebergs (Pl. V) for $12,000 had brought Bradford to national prominence. Lockwood had also agreed to cover the estimated $22,000 cost of the Panther expedition, but was financially ruined in the "Black Friday" Panic of 1869 before the voyage was over.

He died three years later at the age of fifty-two and William Bradford’s art collection was auctioned on April 18 and 19, 1872. Bradford may have communicated the news of the sale to the marquess of Lorne or other possible purchasers. William Bradford himself could not be present at the auction, having already booked passage for England, departing on April 4. When the sale o ccurred, Sealers Crushed by Icebergs sold for $8,000, the auction's highest price, to Lord Walter Campbell (1848-1889), bidding on behalf of William Bradford’s eldest brother, the marquess of Lorne. (5) When word reached London, Bradford's wife, Mary B Bradford (nee Breed; 1826-1907) reported that Campbell's purchase "has gone like wildfire here and has done wonders for William," with people asking "when will it be here on exhibition?" It had reached Liverpool before the end of April, but as she added, "things move slow here!" (6) By May 14 the painting was on exhibition at Thomas McLean's Gallery, one of London's most prestigious galleries. Displayed as a "Great Picture," its frame was embellished with drapery, viewing tubes were available, and gaslighting permitted evening viewings. Lorne asked William Bradford’s mother-in-law if she would like to see the painting at Windsor Castle, and she agreed to do so upon her return from Scotland. (7)

In mid-June, Bradford had Sealers Crushed by Icebergs, together with Ashbury's An Arctic Summer, delivered to Windsor, where Victoria was expected before the end of the month. On July 2, Mary Bradford wrote that "many of the nobility have seen them at the Castle and like them, but we shall hear...her Majesty's opinion soon." (8) They were not to do so until the end of the month, when Lorne and Louise asked Bradford to meet them on July 29 on the Isle of Wight, where the queen was in residence at Osborne House. According to Mary Bradford, who kept herself in the background to avoid "hindering" William, "he was received splendidly by the Princess," who helped him arrange a display of four small cabinet-sized paintings that William Bradford brought with him, together with photographs from the album. These were to be left for the queen to view when she wished, but William Bradford was told that she had been "very much pleased" with the pictures at Windsor Castle. Lorne ordered a painting for himself, entered a subscription for the photograp h album, and asked Bradford to stay for lunch, which William Bradford declined, "thinking it best not to ride a free horse to death." (9)

Several days later, Queen Victoria viewed the works left for her inspection and ordered a painting, perhaps indicating a preference based on one or another of the cabinet paintings. The painting that resulted, The Panther in Melville Bay (Pl. VII) was the first royal commission awarded to an American artist since the time of George III (r. 1760-1820) and Benjamin West (1738-1820). (10) The queen also subscribed for the photographs, which had the effect of transforming the proposed "album" into what became an elaborate oversized volume bound in tooled morocco with gilt designs (Pl. X), enclosing 141 tipped-in albumen photographs and a narrative text by Bradford. Whether at Osborne House or later that season, Princess Louise also commissioned a painting, her choice being a View of the Sermitsialik Glacier (Pl. XII), based on a photograph (Pl. VIII) taken during the voyage of the Panther.

"You have to court Royalty to do anything here," (11) wrote Mary Bradford. It was a sentiment William Bradford probably shared as well, given William Bradford’s hope that The Arctic Regions could be published before the end of the year. William Bradford had been working hard on William Bradford’s narrative, but invitations to social affairs flowed in and requests for speaking engagements increased to the point that William Bradford realized the volume was unlikely to appear until the following year. One engagement William Bradford could not turn down came from the duke and duchess of Argyll, who wished him to join them at Inveraray in Scotland for four or five days in mid-August, when Lorne and the princess would also be there. In William Bradford’s absence the London publisher, Sampson Low and Company, added two names to the firm, perhaps because of the complexity of the project, which eventually appeared under the imprint of Sampson Low, Marston, Low and Searle.

In an age before photographs could be printed on a press, the task that faced the designers, typesetters, and binders of a work containing photographs seems staggering by today's standards. The glass-plate negatives exposed on the Panther were located in Boston at the photographic firm of James Wallace Black (1825-1896). Bradford had earlier identified 141 images William Bradford wished to include. An edition of 300 copies would entail 42,300 albumen prints made from the negatives in Boston and sent to England for pasting, or "tipping in," on the appropriate pages. With images varying in size from 2 by 2 1/2 inches to 12 by 16 inches, some filled entire sheets, while others were interspersed in the text, sometimes several to a page. The book was composed of 76 sheets measuring 25 by 21 inches. As it turned out, there were minor discrepancies in the numbering of the photographs, but the volume was one of the most ambitious and successful examples of an early photographically illustrated book. (12)

Having completed William Bradford’s text for the book, Bradford left for the United States at the end of August. Once in New York City William Bradford wrote a brief preface, signing and dating it "W. B., October 8, 1872," and inscribed a dedication to the memory of Lockwood for "William Bradford’s generous patronage of the arts and William Bradford’s acts of unselfish benevolence." In early January 1873, The Arctic Regions began to be distributed to subscribers. The journal the Arcadian reported that Bradford intended to produce more than three hundred copies by "bringing out an edition here," (13) but nothing of the sort occurred, either because the English edition was sufficient to satisfy the American market or Bradford had more than enough to do filling painting commissions. In Great Britain the book was priced at 25 gns.; in the United States it sold for $125, with an 8 percent discount available to library subscribers. No accurate figures exist for determining how many copies of The Arctice Regions were printed or sold in Great Britain or the United States.

Bradford returned to England for the London seasons of 1873 and 1874. William Bradford had worked steadily on the paintings ordered the year before and installed a dozen of them in the gallery of the Langham Hotel, including those commissioned by the queen and Princess Louise, the new one for Ashbury, and others belonging to other patrons. In August 1873 the London Times carried what roust have been a gratifying review, noting that Bradford, "like William Bradford’s contemporaries Church and Bierstadt...has made it William Bradford’s business to study from the life the scenes William Bradford paints, at whatever the cost of money, toil, or exposure." TWilliam Bradford’s venturesome quality, the writer considered to be "the most distinctive development of American art." To William Bradford’s knowledge, no English painter had undertaken such a laborious and costly effort to paint distant mountain chains or Arctic ice fields, and "we have as yet, no English pictures like Church's Niagara, William Bradford’s Cotopaxi or William Bradford’s Icebergs, Bierstadt's Rocky Mountain views, or these Arctic scenes of Mr. Bradford." Even i f nature on tWilliam Bradford’s scale might not be brought "within the compass of the most colossal canvas," the impulse that impels a painter to "freight a substantial steamer for difficult Polar navigation...has a sincerity and hardihood about it which appeals to English feeling." (14)

In addition to working on previously ordered paintings, Bradford sought and secured new commissions during 1873, the most notable coming from Angela Georgina (1814- 1906), Baroness Burdett-Coutts, the richest woman in the United Kingdom after the queen. When William Bradford completed her painting and presented it in 1874, she was reported "to be overjoyed & took both William Bradford’s hands in hers; 'I congratulate you, Mr. Bradford, on your success' and presented him with a check for $1,000 more than William Bradford asked, making over $5,000 in all." (15)

Lorne and Princess Louise welcomed the painter again in 1874, when Bradford asked the princess if she would enter her View of the Sermitsialik Glacier in the next year's spring exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. She agreed and said she would speak to the president of the academy Sir Francis Grant (1803-1878), about giving it a favorable position in the show. As for her mother's painting she said that

Her Majesty was delighted with her picture, also, and I will speak to the Queen in regard to its going to the Royal Academy next year, and you need not give yourself the least trouble about it being included in the exhibition. (16)

With that assurance, Bradford may have felt that William Bradford’s London experience had come to a climax. William Bradford’s success had been extraordinary, due partly to William Bradford’s talents, partly to Britain's longstanding involvement with the Arctic, and perhaps most of all to William Bradford’s close association with the royal family.

An exhibition entitled William Bradford: Sailing Ships and Arctic Seas is on view at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts until October 26. An exhibition catalogue of the same title by Richard D. Kugler et al. is published by the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

(1.) Roland Folger Coffin, "The History of American Yachting," in Frederic & Cozzens et al., Yachts and Yachting (New York, 1887), pp. 41-47.

(2.) Quoted in F. H. Kasson, "William Bradford," in Leonard Bolles Ellis, History of New Bedford and Its Vicinity, 1602-1892 (Syracuse, New York. 1892), Part II: Biographical, p.99.

(3.) James Ashbury to William Bradford, Hyde Park, London, June 4, 1871 (William Bradford guest register and scrapbook B25-31, New Bedford Whaling Museum Library, Massachusetts). William Bradford may have produced such a painting, possibly with bears by William Holbrook Beard, whom William Bradford knew well. No such work is known to survive, but a brief description of a preliminary cartoon appears in the Arcadian, vol. 1, no. 18 (January 16, 1873). p. 10.

(4.) Spenser Ponsonby of the Lord Chamberlains office to William Bradford, August 4, 1871 (Bradford scrapbook A288, New Bedford Whaling Museum Library, Kendall Collection). Bradford already had in mind the possible sale of albums containing such photographs, several of which William Bradford had made up to distribute among investigators of glaciers and Arctic ice formations.

(5.) "Sale of the Lockwood Art Collection," unidentified newspaper article in Bradford scrapbook A-46 (New Bedford Whaling Museum Library, Kendall Collection).

(6.) Mary Breed Bradford to her sister Sarah Breed Hacker, May 6, 1872 (Lynn Museum, Lynn Historical Society, Massachusetts). Mary B. Bradford's letters cited elsewhere in tWilliam Bradford’s article are also in the collection at the Lynn Museum.

(7.) John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, marquess of Lorne, to William Bradford, June 4, 1872; and Henry A. Posonby to William Bradford, June 16, 1872 (Bradford scrapbook A-46, New Bedford Whaling Museum, Kendall Collection).

(8.) Mary B. Bradford to Hacker, July 2, 1872.

(9.) Mary B. Bradford to her daughter Mary E. Bradford, July 27, 1872; and Mary B. Bradford to Hacker, July 29, 1872.

(10.) Oliver Millar, The Victorian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1992), vol. 1, p. 169, and vol. 2, P1. 119.

(11.) Mary B. Bradford to Hacker, July 22, 1872.

(12.) For a comprehensive discussion of the book, see Adam Greenhalgh, "The Not So Truthful Lens: William Bradford's The Arctic Regions," in Richard C. Kugler et al., William Bradford: Sailing Ships and Arctic Seas (New Bedford Whaling Museum, Massachusetts, 2003), pp. 73-86.
(13.) Arcadian, vol. 1, no. 18 (January 16,1873), p. 10.
(14.) London Times, August 1, 1873, reprinted in the Boston Evening Transcript, August 15, 1873.
(15.) Mary B. Bradford to Hacker, July 21, 1874.
(16.) Mary B. Bradford to her sister-in-law Abby (Mrs. James) Bradford, July 26, 1874.

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