Thimble Islands, Near New Haven

Provenance

Spanierman Gallery, New York
Albany Center Gallery, Albany, New York
Private collection, Connecticut
Sale, Shannon’s Fine Art Auctioneers, Milford, Connecticut, April 28, 2018, lot 46
Private collection, acquired from above
Sale, Christie’s, The Max N. Berry Collection, New York, New York, January 22, 2026

Related Work 

Long Island Sound, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches, signed lower left: A Cary Smith; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

Untitled (Seascape view from rocky shore), oil on canvas, 9½ x 12 ⅞ inches, signed lower right: A Cary Smith; Mead Art Museum, Amherst, Massachusetts

Note

Born in 1837, Archibald Carey Smith worked primarily in New York where he became associated with the yachting community during the golden age of American yacht racing. He began his career as a shipbuilder, though later he followed in the footsteps of his father, the ship-portrait painter Joseph B. Smith and studied painting under the Dutch-American artist Mauritz Frederik Hendrik de Haas. Smith’s experience designing yachts and other boats gives us a glimpse of the diverse vessels dotting the horizon in this radiant view of the Thimble Islands off Connecticut’s coast.