HEADS AND CUTS AT BOTTOM OF RELEASE

 

WEB

SLUG: NORTHEAST AUCTIONS SUMMER AMERICANA SALE IN MANCHESTER/WITH CUTS

OMNIBUS SALE AT NORTHEAST PRODUCES RECORD FOR AMERICAN PEWTER

 

By Laura Beach

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Northeast Auction’s omnibus Summer Americana Auction produced highs and lows over three days of selling, as unexpected bargains gave way to some spectacular prices. By the close of the sale on Sunday, August 5, more than 2,000 objects changed hands for a total of $8.8 million.

Auctioneer Ron Bourgeault began at 11 am on Friday, August 3, with mocha pottery from the collection of Jonathan Rickard.

“I’d be happy to be buried with my collection,” joked Rickard, cheerfully explaining that expenses prompted him to begin selling in 2001. Rickard, who continues to collect (he scored big at Mid*Week in Manchester on August 8) made two large consignments to Skinner and is planning a third sale at Northeast.

Of Friday’s results, he noted, “There are some new mocha collectors. That made it fun for me.” Highlights included a dipped fan-pattern pint mug. Dark brown, bright yellow, rust and cream, it came from Pennsylvania dealer Bea Cohen and sold for $25,520. A barrel-form jug with undulating blue slip trailing and blue and white cat’s-eye decoration achieved $19,720. The 100-lot selection started with a bang, with two “Empire bulge” form jugs, 8 inches and 6½ inches high, selling for $18,560 each.

Friday also saw the disposition of Part III of the Charles V. Swain collection of pewter. Swain, a Bucks County collector and uncle of Winterthur curator emeritus Donald L. Fennimore, a metals expert, was a serious student of American and English pewter for 50 years.

With dealers Don Herr, Melvyn Wolf and Wayne Hilt in the salesroom, an engraved communion flagon made for a church in Penns Township, Northumberland County, Penn., by William Will in 1795 went to a phone bidder for $248,000. The accompanying chalice is at Winterthur.

“It is undoubtedly the best Will flagon,” said Herr, who included it in his 1995 exhibit, “Pewter in Pennsylvania Churches.”

For a client, Hilt bought a William Will teapot for $47,560. “It is a Federal form of the best design, particularly nice because it retains its original wood handle,” said the Connecticut dealer, noting the survival of a letter and cancelled check putting the price of the vessel at $7.50 in the mid 1930s.

On Saturday, August 4, the cataloged, single-owner sale, reviewed separately, of folk art from the collection of Dinah and Stephen Lefkowitz generated $2.1 million.

The second session on Saturday featured items from various owners with an additional 450-plus lots offered.

Identified simply as “property of a Texas collector,” a rainbow-colored stack of 12 oval boxes gave the Shaker market a jolt when Olde Hope Antiques acquired the assembled set for $209,500 against an estimate of $70/90,000.

Northeast produced more folk art from the Isobel and Harvey Kahn collection, dispersed in Manchester over the past several years. Top lots included a much published primitive townscape of a New England seaport, sold to Suzanne and Michael Payne for $55,580. Published scholars, the Paynes invite readers to forward their thoughts on the identity of the artist.

“We believe that the 1850 date described in the various texts may be too late, as a close examination of the figures shows them to be in 1780 to 1800 costume. We have some thoughts about a possible attribution to an artist but will need to do more research,” Michael Payne wrote in recent correspondence.

Also from the Kahn collection, a voluptuous cigar store Indian maiden, 56 inches tall, left the room at $89,900.

Atlanta dealer Deanne Levison acquired an oil on panel overmantel view of Framingham, Mass., for $84,100. Formerly in the collection of Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little, the painting fetched $43,125 in October 1994, when it came at the tail end of Sotheby’s two-part auction of the Little trove.

Northeast began the Sunday session with 187 lots from the estate of Betsy Trace, who died at 91 last October. Antiquarian book dealers, Trace and her husband Timothy were well-known to the trade. The objects they chose to live with reflected their love of early furniture, brass, pottery and prints. Of note was an Eighteenth Century Hudson River Valley oval hutch table with a 40-by-50-inch scrub top. It sold to Lancaster, Penn., furniture consultant Philip Zimmerman for $104,400. G.W. Samaha claimed a William and Mary tavern table with splayed legs and a box stretcher for $40,600.

Another contested item was a watercolor on paper illustrated with vignettes depicting slavery, accompanied by long, handwritten poems. The unusual narrative folk art went to Maryland dealer Milly McGehee against strong competition for $17,400.

Rare books from the Trace library were a relative bargain. “This usually sells for $1,700,” protested backup auctioneer Peter Coccoluto, as a lavish, 1956 edition of J.A. Lloyd Hyde and Ricardo Espirito Santo Silva’s fine press volume Chinese Porcelain for the European Market was hammered down for only $464.

The auctioneer had better luck with delft pottery from the collection of Donna Simon. A circa 1675 London footed salt in unembellished white glaze with three ram’s horn ears sold to the phone for $20,880.

Leading the way among 18 lots consigned by descendants of Edward Augustus Holyoke, a Salem, Mass., doctor, was a 1771 pastel portrait of Dr Holyoke by Benjamin Blyth, $35,960, and a portrait of Boston merchant Jonathan Simpson by Joseph Blackburn, $165,500.

Furniture buyers were of divided opinion on the day’s major lot. A Boston or Salem blockfront chest of drawers went to a phone bidder for $204,000, selling below the $250/350,000 estimates.

Quakertown, Penn., conservator Alan Miller authenticated a rare, possibly unique, Philadelphia china table from the Swain collection, writing that he and his research partner, Luke Beckerdite, gave the name of “Spikey Leaf Carver” to the artisan who contributed its acanthus leaf decoration. Missing the gallery that once circled its top, the table went to Richard Lammert of Thirteen Stars, LLC, in St Louis, Mo., for $116,000.

Clark Pearce said he was pleased to get a set of six shield-back dining chairs, including four sides and two arms, for $51,040. The set had been estimated at $6/9,000. “The tacking evidence and proportions confirmed that the armchairs were right. Chairs like these were made in Salem, Newport and New York. These came out of the Ticknor house, a Federal mansion at the corner of Beacon and Park Streets in Boston, so they were a good buy with great provenance,” said the Essex, Mass., dealer.

Prices include buyer’s premium. For information, 603-433-8400 or www.northeastauctions.com.

 

 

Omnibus Sale At Northeast Produces Record For American Pewter

 

Another Summer Sizzler

For Northeast Auctions

 

Northeast’s Summer Americana Auction

 

 

 

By Laura Beach

 

 

web 

Lot 459

The three-part sale of the Charles V. Swain collection of American pewter ended with a record price at auction for American pewter when a communion flagon attributed to William Will of Philadelphia brought $248,000. The flagon and an accompanying chalice, now at Winterthur, were presented to a church in Penns Township, Northumberland County, Penn., in 1795.

 

Lot 1416

This Eighteenth Century Hudson River Valley oval hutch table from the collection of Betsy and Timothy Trace went to Philip Zimmerman, a Lancaster, Penn., furniture consultant, for $104,400. “My parents bought it from Avis and Rocky Gardiner. It was in my father’s office and he always worked on it,” Jonathan Trace recalled.

 

Lot 1649

At $165,500, Joseph Blackburn’s 1758 oil on canvas portrait of Bostonian Jonathan Simpson led a group of 18 lots consigned by descendants of Edward Augustus Holyoke of Salem, Mass. Pendant portraits of Simpson and his wife, from the same commission as this painting, are at the MFA Boston.

 

4879

The property of a Texas collector, this set of 12 colorful Shaker oval boxes, some labeled or inscribed, sold to Olde Hope Antiques for $209,500. David Schorsch and Courcier & Wilkins assembled the stacks, said Blanche Greenstein, who, with partner Tom Woodard, sold them for “about $90,000 at the Winter Antiques Show in the 1980s.”

 

4883

Illinois dealer Mike Whittemore inspects one of a pair of McIntire family fire buckets from Salem, Mass. The dated 1833 buckets once belonged to H.R. du Pont’s sister Louise Crowninshield. They went to the phone for $52,200.

 

 

 

 

 

4867

Richard Lammert of Thirteen Stars, LLC, St Louis, Mo., attends Americana sales in New York and Manchester. He underbid this New York silver tankard by Otto Philip Daniel Parisien. It sold to the phone for $23,200.

 

4870

Oliver Overlander and Harry Hartman attended their first Manchester auction. The Pennsylvania dealers are regulars at Northeast’s annual Marine and China Trade sale in Portsmouth.

 

4872

Winterthur’s Brock Jobe, seated here with tape measure in hand, took detailed notes on furniture. Wife Barbara Jobe and friend Louise Bartlett joined the scholar, who is working on the book Harbor & Home: Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710–1850 with Jack O’Brien and Gary Sullivan. The book and a traveling exhibition are scheduled for 2009.

 

4887

Architect Joel Trace, twin brother of silver dealer Jonathan Trace, attended the sale of his mother’s estate with his wife, Margie.

 

4889

Doting great-uncle Ron Bourgeault with 8-day-old Jesse Douglas. Father Matt Douglas works for Northeast Auctions.

 

4890

Jonathan Trace said he had no idea where his parents purchased this pastel on paper portrait of two girls with a cat. Possibly by Peckham, the picture, bent to fit a later frame, sold to the phone for $62,640.

 

Lot 1710

This Boston or Salem blockfront chest of drawers, which descended in the family of Benjamin Greene of Boston to the consignor, had beautiful color, nice proportions and attractive brasses. Estimated at $250/350,000, the chest sold well under estimate and without much competition to a phone bid, for $204,000. Some experts speculated that the high ball and claw feet were not original to the chest.

 

Lot 973

Suzanne and Michael Payne long admired this oil on canvas portrait of a New England seaport in the home of their friends, New Jersey collectors Isobel and Harvey Kahn. The Paynes drove to Manchester to buy the work, illustrated in The Flowering of American Folk Art, for $55,580. “We believe that the 1850 date described in the various texts may be too late, as a close examination of the figures shows them to be in 1780 to 1800 costume,” said Michael Payne, who invites readers’ opinions on the identity of the artist.

 

Lot 1676

Conservator Alan Miller evaluated this china table from the Charles V. Swain collection for Northeast, concluding that it was indeed “of Philadelphia Eighteenth Century manufacture...” but that its “exceptional joinery” was “unconventional and complicated.” Richard Lammert, a collector and dealer from St Louis, Mo., said he was pleased to buy the rare, possibly unique, example, estimated at $250/350,000, for $116,000, having expected to spend around $500,000. “The proportions are great and the carver, identified by Miller and Beckerdite, is quite well-known. The table had an accident at some point and the legs were damaged. It is missing its fretwork gallery, which Alan and I will replace,” Lammert told us.