A Landscape Painted Fireboard, attributed to "The York Artist," York, Pennsylvania, circa 1840

Judy Lenett, Ridgefield, Connecticut;

Sotheby's, New York, Important American Folk Art, Furniture and Silver, May 19, 2005, sale 8097, lot 17;

Judith and James Milne, New Hampshire ADA Show, Manchester, 2006.

Advertisement for Judy Lenett Antiques, The Magazine ANTIQUES, April, 1979, p. 710;

Leslie and Peter Warwick, Love At First Sight: Discovering Stories About Folk Art & Antiques Collected by Two Generations & Three Families, (New Jersey: 2022), p. 286-7, fig. 475.

Peter and Leslie Warwick note that there are nine related paint-decorated fireboards and panels that depict landscapes with exotic architectural elements within stylized landscape, several of which are attributed to an anonymous artist from York, Pennsylvania in the mid-19th century and several of which have been discovered or removed from homes in the region in Pennsylvania. Three fireboards, including another owned by the Warwicks, see lot XXX, were owned by Elizabeth T. Babcock of Woodbury, Long Island and all three may have possibly been removed from the same house. Another three panels came from the same house in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. In their hunt for fireboards of this type, the Warwicks came across a related one in an advertisement posted by David Hillier in the December 1991 issue of Architectural Digest. He had purchased the fireboard from Courcier and Wilkins, who purchased it from Hillary and Paulette Nolan. The Nolans relayed to the Warwicks that they bought two fireboards from an owner who removed them from a house in York Pennsylvania. Two years later, the Warwicks found this fireboard in an advertisement posted by Judy Lenette of Ridgefield, Connecticut in The Magazine Antiques, April 1979, p. 710. Compositionally, both of these fireboards contain cropping of the main house, placing emphasis on the follies. All nine examples that the Warwicks have discovered contain thick black borders.