The Life and Art of

 
 

Catalogue of Oil Paintings . . . by S. L. Gerry and J. Burt, to be sold at auction
Broadside printed by Henry P. Lewis, Boston
1838
Courtesy of the Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University
TS 239.221.40

Gerry began selling his work at auction in the late 1830s, while still associated with James Burt. Handbills or broadsides such as this one were circulated or posted to advertise upcoming art sales. As Gerry later reminisced in his 1891 essay “Old Boston Masters,” “The Boston Crier was then an indispensable agent, in connection with posted bills, in telling the public where and when the artist’s sale took place.”