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John Toole (Irish-American, 1815-1860) A Pair of Sibling Portraits: Thomas and Nellie Cosby, Albemarle County, Virginia, c. 1850 image 1
John Toole (Irish-American, 1815-1860) A Pair of Sibling Portraits: Thomas and Nellie Cosby, Albemarle County, Virginia, c. 1850 image 2
John Toole (Irish-American, 1815-1860) A Pair of Sibling Portraits: Thomas and Nellie Cosby, Albemarle County, Virginia, c. 1850 image 3
John Toole (Irish-American, 1815-1860) A Pair of Sibling Portraits: Thomas and Nellie Cosby, Albemarle County, Virginia, c. 1850 image 4
Lot 17

John Toole
(Irish-American, 1815-1860)
A Pair of Sibling Portraits: Thomas and Nellie Cosby, Albemarle County, Virginia, c. 1850

19 August 2025, 12:00 EDT
Skinner Marlborough, Massachusetts

US$10,000 - US$15,000

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John Toole (Irish-American, 1815-1860)

A Pair of Sibling Portraits: Thomas and Nellie Cosby, Albemarle County, Virginia, c. 1850
unsigned
oil on canvas, trimmed and adhered to cardboard, in later frames
each panel 29 1/2 x 23 1/2 in.
Thomas framed 33 3/8 x 27 3/8 in.
Nellie framed 34 x 28 in.

Footnotes

Provenance
Acquired April 2025 by consignor from a descendant of Nell Bramham Oder (1900-96), of Clarksburg, West Virginia and Jefferson City, Tennessee.

Provenance Note
Labels affixed to reverse attribute paintings to Toole, c. 1850, and identify sitters as the siblings Thomas Marshall Cosby (1841-1902) and Ellen "Nellie" Moore Cosby Temple (1843-1924), great uncle and grandmother of Nell Bramham Oder.

Note
This lot includes an appraisal report by Carol Foster, ASA, dated 28 April 2011. Foster consulted Dr. Christopher C. Oliver, curator of the 2008 exhibition John Toole: Itinerant Painter at University of Virginia Art Museum, keeper of the largest single collection on the artist, and publisher of his first monograph, Primitive into Painter, in 1960. Paintings attributed to John Toole (or O'Toole), who rarely signed his work, are also in the collections of the National Gallery of Art (Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, acc. no. 1958.9.6) and Colonial Williamsburg Art Museums (acc. no. 2021.100.1,A&B).

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