An oil on canvas by Frank Weston Benson (1862–1951) has been consigned to our sale on November 14 and 15, 2026. It is the most significant American painting Sarasota Estate Auction has brought to market.
A single white egret stands in still water. Lily pads break the surface, the far bank is worked in short strokes of green and gold, and the bird’s reflection runs down through the dark of the pond. It is signed lower left and retains what appears to be its original carved frame.
This is the Benson collectors want. He painted his daughters in the sun on North Haven Island and those pictures made his name, but it is the wildfowl he returned to for forty years, and the wildfowl that carry the market. He wanted to be a bird illustrator before he ever wanted to be a portraitist, and he never really left it — more than 500 etchings of birds, and the painting for the 1935–36 Federal Duck Stamp.
Who he was
Benson was a founding member of The Ten American Painters in 1898, alongside Childe Hassam, William Merritt Chase and J. Alden Weir. He ran the painting department at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where his students called him Cher Maître. His work hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery of Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum. His oils have sold at auction for more than $3 million.
Seeing it, and bidding
Full catalogue details — title, date, dimensions, provenance and estimate — will be published with the November catalogue. If you would like to be notified the moment it goes live, or to request a condition report, get in touch.
The sale runs both days at our gallery at 522 South Pineapple Avenue in downtown Sarasota. You can bid in the room, by telephone, by absentee bid, or live online. Phone lines for a lot of this level fill early, so register in advance.