A Rare John James Audubon Oil Painting to lead Bonhams Skinner Americana Sale

Estimated at $250,000 – 350,000, Trophy of American Game Birds was painted at a pivotal moment in Audubon's career – while promoting his now-iconic The Birds of America in England and refining his distinctive blend of scientific precision and expressive design. Diverging from Audubon's celebrated engravings, the present work depicts a dramatic cluster of intertwined game birds hanging from a sole branch. As one of his few known oil paintings, the present lot reflects his rare experimentation beyond watercolour and boldly merges European trophy still-life traditions with a distinctly American subject, offering a rare glimpse into Audubon's evolving style.

Another fresh-to-market standout in the sale is a copy of Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze's (1816–1868), iconic Washington Crossing the Delaware, estimated at $100,000 – 150,000. Believed to be a period copy painted by an American artist working in Düsseldorf in the mid-nineteenth century, the present work reflects the enduring influence of Leutze's monumental composition, which immortalised Washington's heroic 1776 crossing. With the original destroyed during World War II and another version housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the present lot represents a rare opportunity to acquire an image that helped define the nation's visual identity.

Also notable in the sale is Becalmed, Long Island Sound – an exceptional and rare seascape by Martin Johnson Heade (1819–1904), one of the most influential American painters of the nineteenth century. Estimated at $120,000 – 150,000, Becalmed exemplifies Heade's luminist mastery, capturing the hypnotic interplay of clouds and sunlight in a deeply personal vision of the New England coast. A triumph of Heade's mature period, the present lot was painted after his most transformative decade and stands among the most rhythmic and poignant of his Thimble Island series.