James Edward Buttersworth (1817-1894)

Captain Michael Ryan, the original owner of the present work, commissioned James Buttersworth to paint his sloop Phillip R. Paulding. Ryan used the sloop to transport materials for his sand and gravel business to construction sites along the Hudson River. Anecdotally, he paid more for the painting – $500 – than he did for the ship itself, which was built in 1840 for the Paulding family of the Lyndhurst estate in Tarrytown, New York.

In the late 1960s, famed folk singer Pete Seeger spurred the idea of renewing public interest in cleaning the polluted Hudson River by building a replica of a nineteenth-century Hudson River sloop. As part of the project’s research efforts, they referenced depictions of the Phillip R. Paulding, and declared the present painting “the most exciting and handsome we had ever seen of a Hudson River Sloop.” (unpublished letter, October 29, 1968) Color postcards of the work were also reproduced as part of the fundraising efforts. The newly-built sloop Clearwater successfully launched in 1969 and continues to sail the Hudson River to this day to call attention to environmental causes.