This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/30/2022
STUART, Charles and Alexander. Watercolor portrait of Barnum’s “Highland Mammoth Boys”. American, ca. 1846. Watercolor portrait of the Stuarts, “whose united ages are only 16 years and yet their combined/weight is over 500 pounds. American Museum … 1846”. The Stuart brothers, or Highland Mammoth Boys as they were called at Barnum’s American Museum, were Scottish, and first arrived at the museum in 1842, wearing traditional kilts, playing bagpipes, and dancing. Attributed to Charles Shoettel (according to a typed note on the verso, the watercolor was found in one of Shoettel’s albums, which descended from John D. Ottiwell, a Lieutenant Colonel in the New York State militia, and delegate to the 1868 Republican Convention). Gilt wooden frame, sight 6 ¼ x 5 ½”. Overall 9 ½ x 8 5/8”.