Date: Fri 23-Apr-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: CAROLL

Quick Words:

Alderfer

Full Text:

Alderfer Auction

with cuts

By J.M.W. Fletcher

HATFIELD, PENN. -- The Alderfer Auction Company began their spring catalogued

sale on the evening of Wednesday, March 10, continuing Thursday, March 11. The

Thursday standing-room-only crowd actively sought a large and varied selection

of decorative accessories, furniture, Oriental rugs, a grouping of ephemera

and photography, as well as almost 200 catalogued painting lots.

According to auction coordinator Brent Souder, the crowd, which included more

than 800 registered bidders, along with several hundred others who attended

the Wednesday night art sale of paintings and prints, added up to over 1,000

visitors to the gallery. Bidders came from over 20 states, and phone

participants from Holland and England were also noted.

It was a challenge for this writer to cover the more than 460 catalogued items

being sold in the main gallery while an equal number of non-catalogued,

so-called "lesser valued" lots were concurrently offered in the packed rear

gallery.

Highlighting the latter event, according to Souder, were a chest, which sold

for $3,200; a dining room suite, which reached $9,000; and a clock, which

fetched $4,800. "The total for the two days," he commented, "was over $630,000

[excluding buyers premium]."

The opening catalogued lot may have broken a record -- a superb Flow Blue R &

M, "Cashmere" double handle cellaret reached $7,750, the first of a large

single-owner collection of Flow Blue items that grossed over $23,000.

Another single-owner collection offered a great grouping of more than 20 lots

of Fulper pottery. Outstanding among these was the light blue Fulper boudoir

lamp that went off at $2,750. A large, 13 by 11 inch, bulbous, four-handled

vase sold at $1,300.

Overworn, overtrod and badly misused, a large 25'9" by 16'8" circa 1890 Heriz

was still a masterpiece of the art of weaving. The now muted dark blue border

enhanced the magnificent design of the faded brick red, light blue, yellow and

ivory field. The most persistent of five phone bidders out-bid the floor to

win this rare prize at $44,000.

Another surprise was a small 14 by 16 inch work by Fern Coppedge. Four phone

bidders and several floor participants pursued the oil on canvas, titled "The

Delaware in Winter," relentlessly. While the lot was featured on the catalogue

cover, its selling price of $38,000 represents an artist's record, and it may

be a very long time before anyone else wishes to own it for that amount.

Titled, "Gulp Mills Creek," a fine 36 by 40 inch oil on canvas by Antonio P.

Martino sold against the three phones at $24,500. A most interesting scene, an

oil on canvas of the hunt, 30 by 54 inches, by the Twentieth Century artist L.

Campbell, made $2,250.

A group of three lots of Handel lamps, 24 inches high, ranged from $4,400 to

$6,800. A 24-inch-high Tiffany Studios gilt bronze pedestal lamp was bid to

$13,000. In bronze and porcelain, a Neo-classic clock garniture made $2,700.

Twenty odd lots of Bristol, Bohemian, flint, cranberry and vaseline vases and

compotes ranged from several hundred dollars to $1,200 for a six inch Durand

art glass vase.

The work of Catherine Wynkoop, a sampler, dated 1826, sold for $3,900. Several

lots of interesting American Civil War cartes-de-visite and other photographs

ranged from the mid-hundreds to $1,600 for a carte-de-visite of Corporal

Calvin Bates in the Andersonville prison hospital.

All prices quoted do not include a ten percent buyers premium.