Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin (American 1850-1930) Oil on Canvas Laid on Masonite “Hanging the Nets”, circa 1891, signed lower left Elizabeth R. Coffin, Oct. 1891, housed in a fantastically unique gilt sea-life frame. In as-found condition.

23 in. x 46 in. Framed 42 in. x 59 in.

Hanging the Nets won the Norman W. Dodge Prize at the National Academy of Design in 1892 for the best picture painted in the United States by a woman and a $300 prize was awarded to Coffin. In 1893, Hanging the Nets was chosen for the Exhibit of American Art at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and was displayed at the Palace of Fine Arts in the upper gallery, along with American painters including Thomas Eakin, Winslow Homer, Eastman Johnson, and others.  Coffin was one of only 104 women chosen to participate in the exhibition, alongside other woman artists such as Mary Cassatt, Cecilia Beaux, Elizabeth Gardner.  In 1900 Elizabeth Coffin gifted the painting to Vassar College, which deaccessioned the work in 1946.  The painting was purchased by Victor D. Spark, a New York City art dealer and hung in a New Jersey home for numerous decades and has descended to the current owner.

Reference: Margaret Moore Booker’s  Nantucket Spirit The Art and Life of Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin, Published Mill Hill Press, Egan Institute of Maritime Studies, 2001