This season, that legacy is exemplified by a rare and extraordinary highlight: Morgan Colt’s The Canal Boat (c. 1915–25). The largest known oil by the artist and among his most ambitious compositions ever to reach the market, the painting captures a now-vanished moment along the Delaware River with remarkable immediacy—its shimmering brushwork, sunlit palette, and tender attention to everyday river life marking it as a singular achievement within Colt’s limited surviving oeuvre.

With the results of our December 9 auction, The Canal Boat stands as a major rediscovery and an important testament to Colt’s place among the first generation of New Hope painters, alongside Redfield, Garber, Rosen, Bredin, and Spencer. Its appearance at Freeman’s underscores why collectors consistently turn to us for the finest Pennsylvania Impressionist works, and why we remain the premier destination for this storied American school.