Howard Pyle 1853-1911

Private Collection, Boston, Massachusetts, circa 1907 (probably acquired from the artist)
By descent to the present owners

Howard Pyle, "The Ruby of Kishmoor," Harper's Monthly Magazine, August 1907, illustrated opposite p. 334
Howard Pyle, The Ruby of Kishmoor, New York, 1908, illustrated as frontispiece
Merle Johnson, ed., Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates, New York, 1921, illustrated in color on the cover and opposite p. 212

Howard Pyle, the “father of American illustration,” devoted his career to painting engaging and intriguing story illustrations, a legacy that has been carried on in the work of his students and their successors, most notably through the three generations of artists in the Wyeth family.  Stephen T. Bruni writes, “Pyle was obviously fascinated by the romance and adventure of historic events, which he painstakingly researched for fact and accuracy.  But his most passionate preoccupation was with the lore of the pirate, inspired, no doubt, by his many family excursions to the Delaware shore, which he ardently documented in photographs.  The scoundrels of the open seas were inexhaustible fodder for an imagination run wild, and it is here that Pyle created his most lasting images” (Wonderous Strange: The Wyeth Tradition, Boston, Massachusetts, 1998, pp. 22-23).

The present painting is an illustration for Pyle’s 1907 story The Ruby of Kishmoor, which begins: “A very famous pirate of his day was Capt. Robertson Keitt.

“Before embarking on his later career of infamy, he was, in the beginning, very well known as a reputable merchant in the island of Jamaica.  Thence entering, first of all, upon the business of the African trade, he presently, by regular degrees, became a pirate, and finally ended his career as one of the most renowned freebooters of history.

“The remarkable adventure through which he at once reached the pinnacle of success, and became in his profession the most famous figure of his day, was the capture of the Rajah of Kishmoor’s great ship, The Sun of the East” (Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates, New York, 1921, p. 212).

A copy of Merle Johnson's Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates, illustrating the present painting on the cover, will accompany this lot.

This painting retains its original frame by Foster Brothers Makers, Boston, Massachusetts.