Date: Fri 02-Oct-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: JUDIR

Quick Words:

Patrick-Thomas-Auction-Gallery

Full Text:

Meringolo-Thomas Team Up In Merchandising Venture Set 9/8

By Rita Easton

Saugerties, N.Y. -- After a postponement of eight weeks and two preview

sessions, the Patrick Thomas Auction Gallery, together with Robert Meringolo,

held its summer sale on August 22, advertising it as the "summer/fall"

auction.

The delay was due to the gallery's involvement with the Siena College on-site

auction. Alan Gusse, who presided over both events, made up for lost time by

his double-time auctioneering, offering 340 lots in a little over three hours.

Merchandise included property from a Washington, D.C. resident, Sunrise Trust

in Coral Gables, Fla.; Gemma Langley of Westchester County in New York State;

Helmke-Carruthers of West Shokan, N.Y.; and a private family, also from West

Shokan, N.Y.

Headlining the event, a heavily carved winged griffin oak partners desk,

attributed to R.J. Horner, sold over the phone to an Illinois dealer for

$6,875.

An intricately carved Eighteenth Century Continental wood relief of men on

horseback was seriously contested, having four phone bidders, four left bids,

and two determined players on the floor. The final duel played out between two

of the phone bidders, who upped the ante 14 times before a winner prevailed at

$5,720, bringing enthusiastic congratulatory applause from the crowd.

An oil on canvas by Walt Kuhn (American, 1880-1949), "Still Life of Grapes,

Apples and Melons," signed upside down, with a relined canvas, reached $4,950;

and "The Dance," by Sheridan G. Knowles (British, 1863-1911), an oil on canvas

depicting three playful ladies in period dress walking on a city street,

garnered $3,740. Both paintings sold to the gallery.

Not one to be outbid, a prominent architect from Connecticut on the phone

erased the competition for a period French Empire sofa by jumping the asked

bid by four increments, thereby cooling further bidding and winning the prized

lot. The piece, with gilt bronze mounts, right side folded down, having carved

feet, circa 1840s, went out at $1,980.

A mahogany and bird's-eye maple American Victorian bed, circa 1880, was sold

to the gallery for $1,595, going to an upstate New York auction gallery. The

underbidder was a Massachusetts auction gallery. Forty carved chairs in the

Black Forest style went to an upstate New York dealer at $70 per chair for a

total of $3,100, successfully foiling the underbidder from New Jersey.

Prices quoted reflect a required ten percent buyer's premium.