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's an opportunity to own A very rare unusual object of art during a time (recession) when fine art is selling at a fraction of its true worth (about one third to one half in this case...I never saw one before in all my years of collecting art, selling antiques, and sailing ....this is a small black metal safe, painted in 1887, titled "Janus Whaling Ship Madagascar" but unsigned...and as yet the safe is unopened for many years. Consigned to the person who sold it to me for sale on ebay by an elderly person whose family had it for many years....kept in a larger safe....and always believed it was painted by Antonio Jacobsen. The reserve is low considering the artist and reflects that it is unsigned and to a degree - not fully researched.
is an interesting story the person who sold the painting to me related about a different larger unsigned Jacobsen safe:
Pre-Sale Estimate: On Request
Final Selling Price (including BP) $281,000
An old-fashioned detective story finished with a happy ending at Skinner Inc.'s Feb. 19, 2006 auction in Boston when "Fetching The Mark," an unsigned maritime painting attributed to Antonio Jacobsen shattered a previous record for the artist by selling for an astonishing $281,000.
According to Artfact, the previous record for a Jacobsen was $83,650.
The mystery started when a large-scale oil on canvas depicting the Dreadnought was brought to the Tampa, Fla., taping of PBS' Antiques Road Show. Because of the racing subject, quality and style, experts initially thought that the unsigned work was that of famed marine painter James E. Buttersworth (American 1817-1894). However, when the painting was eventually consigned to Skinner, painstaking research led to the conclusion that the painting was not by Buttersworth, but rather by the prolific Danish/American marine painter Antonio Jacobsen.
Jacobsen was known as the "Audubon of Steam Vessels" for his comprehensive depiction of ships during the great age of steam. Born in Copenhagen, following his studies at the Royal Academy of Design he emigrated to New York City at the age of 21. He first worked decorating commercial safes for the Marvin Safe Company and then began to receive commissions from both private ship owners as well as steamship lines to record their fleets on canvas. He is believed to have completed an estimated 6,000 paintings.
Artfact Analysis:
Because of the time devoted to properly research the painting and the impending auction date, Skinner did not offer an estimate before the auction. Regardless, the consignor is undoubtedly pleased with a selling price that more than tripled the previous work of Jacobsen at auction.
The dimensions of this piece currently for sale on ebay are approximately 12 inches X 8 inches X 7 inches....the condition is appropriate to expected wear...

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Biographical Information:

Antonio Nicolo G. JACOBSEN (1850-1921)
Birth place: Copenhagen, Denmark
Died : West Hoboken, NJ
Addresses: West Hoboken, NJ, 1880-on
Profession: Marine painter
Studied: Royal Acad., Copenhagen.
Work: represented in every large marine art collection in the U.S. & Europe; the largest collection (250) being at Mariner's Museum, Newport News, VA; Peabody Museum, Salem, MA; Mystic Seaport Museum; New York Hist. Soc.; Fall River Marine Museum; Louisiana State Museum; Shelburne (VT) Museum
Comments: In order to avoid being drafted into the Franco-Prussian War, he came to NYC in 1871 and found a job decorating the doors of safes. At the same time, he began painting portraits of the vessels of the Old Dominion Steamship Line, and soon became America's most prolific marine artist. He painted about 6,000 portraits of steamships that came into NYC harbor between 1876-1919 (over 3,000 listed in catalogue raisonne, Smith Gal., NYC 1984). In his later life, his daughter, Helen, helped paint the sky and water of his pictures. His son Carl even painted some of his own ship portraits. Sign...

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