Maine Antique Digest March 2015

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32-B Maine Antique Digest, March 2015
- FEATURE -
Highlights from Americana Week in New York City
by Lita Solis-Cohen
The blizzard that was supposed
to shut down New York City
on January 27 wasn’t as
crippling as predicted. The Winter
Antiques Show closed at six instead
of eight on Monday evening as the
first snowflakes were falling, but
when the overnight snow measured
just 8", the Park Avenue Armory
doors opened on schedule on Tues-
day at noon and shoppers arrived.
The show went on through Super
Bowl Sunday with good sales and
high praise. Longtime showgoers
said the show reached its high-
est level of excellence in design,
presentation, and quality of
antiques for sale. The nine dealers
new to the show, several from Lon-
don, were well received and said
they were glad to be part of the best
antiques show in America.
Americana sold well on opening
night and throughout the weekend.
The Americana sales at Christie’s
and Sotheby’s, held January 23
through 26, were not the feared
disasters, though the totals were
among the lowest in the last five
years. Prices were generally more
affordable than in years past, but
there was keen competition for
top-quality works, and most of the
Americana that failed to find buy-
ers at auction had flaws in design
or condition or carried unreason-
able expectations.
Even though the Winter Antiques
Show has not been a predominantly
Americana show for some years—
counting dealers in American
paintings and dealers in 20th-cen-
tury design, about a quarter of the
73 dealers sell Americana—dealers
who offered 18th- and 19th-cen-
tury American furniture and folk
art said they had their strongest
shows in some time.
Peter Eaton of Newbury, Mas-
sachusetts, sold 11 pieces of fur-
niture, all early ones—including a
rare butterfly table—all bought by
collectors before the first snow-
flake fell. When the snow stopped,
Arthur Liverant sent to Colchester,
Connecticut, for another truckload
to replenish his stand. Grace and
Elliott Snyder of South Egremont,
Massachusetts, sold a circa 1720
New York gate-leg table, iron pipe
tongs, miniature portraits, needle-
work, a miniature chest, and more.
First-time exhibitor Frank Levy
not only sold from his stand, but a
young couple in need of a dining
room table was sent to his 84th
Street shop and bought a table,
chairs, and two looking glasses.
Early in the show Woodbridge,
Connecticut, dealer Allan Katz sold
a prison-made monkey bar diorama
and the Bingham family Civil War
memorial secretary, dated 1876,
a homemade remembrance for a
brother killed at Antietam on Sep-
tember 17, 1862.
Katz also sold a German Noah’s
ark with 173 pairs of animals
and eight carved figures. He sold
a carved presentation cane and
William “Willie” Howard’s “plan-
tation desk,” which was carved
with dozens of objects used in plan-
tation life in Mississippi; it’s one of
three known. A small painting of
a cat by Bill Traylor, once a street
artist, measured up to picky collec-
tors’ high standards and entered a
major collection.
Woodbury, Connecticut, dealers
DavidSchorschandEileenSmiles’s
sales ranged from a Philadelphia
comb-back Windsor branded by
Thomas Gilpin to a small painted
paper box. Barbara Pollack of
Highland Park, Illinois, sold a
Windsor bench and a two-sided
sign for a raw wool merchant that
once hung in Manchester, New
Hampshire. Olde Hope Antiques,
New Hope, Pennsylvania, sold
half a dozen fraktur, some painted
boxes, redware, and a red quilt with
a herd of black elephants on a red
ground. “It will go to a museum,”
said Patrick Bell.
On opening night Kelly Kinzle
of New Oxford, Pennsylvania, who
showed at the Winter Antiques
Show for the first time, sold a
boldly painted blanket chest deco-
rated by Johannes Spitler, a Men-
nonite farmer in the Shenandoah
Valley with a talent for timeless
graphic design. The price was
$675,000.
The following morning at Chris-
tie’s $665,000 was paid for a cher-
rywood desk-and-bookcase made
in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,
circa 1775, with rococo carving
and Pennsylvania German hearts.
The Capen family mahogany
bombé slant-front desk, made in
Boston in 1785, sold for $635,000
at Sotheby’s on Friday afternoon
at the sale of the collection of Roy
and Ruth Nutt.
There was no million-dollar
furniture to add to the list until
Saturday, January 31, when Keno
Auctions got $1,895,000 for the
Potter-Crouch-Jordan scalloped
tilt-top tea table, 1755-60, with the
name “Henry” and the barely legi-
ble “Cliffton” in chalk on the top.
The carving on its shaft and legs is
attributed to the carver known as
“Spike.” Three bidders competed
for it, and it sold on the phone to a
bidder on the line with Leigh Keno
when auctioneer John Nye ham-
mered it down.
Americana Week 2015 will be
remembered as the time when
more fine American silver was
offered for sale than ever before.
Ruth Nutt’s collection of American
silver sold at Sotheby’s in 422 lots.
“It was the best collection of
American silver ever offered,”
said Kevin Tierney, who has been
cataloging silver collections at
Sotheby’s for more than 40 years.
John Ward, now head of silver at
Sotheby’s, presented it well and
gave it reasonable estimates, and
there was spirited bidding in the
salesroom, on line, and on the
phones. The sale brought a total of
$4,738,789 and was 90.3% sold by
lot. There was heated competition
for some treasures, and there were
some bargains. Museums bought,
old-time collectors added master-
pieces to their collections, and new
collectors entered the field. Deal-
ers bought back some of what they
had sold to Ruth Nutt for a lot less
than she had paid though well over
estimates. Everyone left the sale
happy.
Winterthur bought the gold-
mounted War of 1812 eagle pom-
mel presentation sword by Fletcher
and Gardiner, dated 1828. Ruth
Nutt had lent it to the landmark
Fletcher and Gardiner exhibi-
tion Silversmiths to the Nation:
Thomas Fletcher and Sidney
Gardiner, 1808-1842, curated by
Winterthur curators Donald Fen-
nimore and Ann K. Wagner. Wag-
ner did the bidding in the sales-
room, paying $257,000 for it (est.
$150,000/250,000). Winterthur
also bought an octagonal covered
sugar bowl made in Philadelphia by
Joseph Richardson Sr., circa 1740,
for $81,250 (est. $70,000/100,000).
It is closely related to two other
sugar bowls by Joseph Richardson
Sr., one made for Oswald and Lydia
Peel in 1736 with their initials that
sold at Christie’s in January 2000
for $310,500 and another that sold
at the Jeffords sale at Sotheby’s in
October 2004 for $265,600.
The Metropolitan Museum of
Art bought a rare large sugar box
and matching tea caddy made by
Simeon Soumaine in New York,
circa 1720, for $221,000 (est.
$200,000/300,000). Tim Martin of
S.J. Shrubsole, New York City, did
the bidding. A rare pair of silver
bottle stands made by Myer Myers
in New York, circa 1765, sold for
$389,000 (est. $250,000/350,000)
to Atlanta dealer Deanne Levison
bidding in the salesroom. At Chris-
tie’s in January 1996, they sold for
$299,500 to Jonathan Trace for
Ruth Nutt.
The Nutt sale ranged from an
1849 New York policeman’s badge
that sold on line for $1375 to a
two-handled silver covered cup
made in New York, circa 1720,
by Charles Le Roux that sold to
a collector in the salesroom for
$389,000 (est. $300,000/500,000).
The sale total of $4,738,789 was
on the low side of presale esti-
mates—$3.8/5.8 million—but it
was 90.3% sold by lot.
Christie’s also offered some spe-
cial Colonial silver. A teapot made
by Boston patriot silversmith Paul
Revere Jr. for his fellow Free-
mason and very good customer
Moses Michael Hays in 1783 sold
to a collector for $233,000 (est.
$200,000/300,000). Hays served as
deputy grand master of the grand
lodge in Massachusetts in 1791
when Paul Revere was grand mas-
ter. Hays placed 25 orders for silver
with Revere.
Tim Martin bought a lot of sil-
ver during the week, some for cli-
ents and a lot for stock. He paid
$149,000 (est. $150,000/250,000)
for a large silver wine cup with the
mark of Jeremiah Dummer, circa
1676, that had been given to the Old
South Church by William Davis, an
apothecary and wealthy citizen of
Boston who was a founder of Old
South Church in 1669.
The great disappointment at
Christie’s was that a recently dis-
covered engraved silver serving
plate with the mark of Jeremiah
Dummer, 1680-90, estimated at
$250,000/350,000, failed to find a
buyer. With lyrical engraving on
its rim, it is related to two other
plates: one by Dummer’s con-
temporary Timothy Dwight and
another by John Coney, each with
elaborate baroque engraving. It is
also related to another by Dummer
that was exhibited at the Philadel-
phia Museum of Art in the Worldly
Goods exhibition in 1999 when
it was on loan from Saint Paul’s
Church in Philadelphia. It is said
to have been presented by Edward
Shippen, sometime after his arrival
in Philadelphia from Boston in
1693.
The plate at Christie’s had a
Prices were
generally more
affordable than
in years past, but
there was keen
competition for
top-quality works.
This pieced and appliquéd patriotic compass medallion quilt,
signed “Martha Hewitt, Age 56, Michigan, 1855,” with a cen-
ter starburst, Masonic devices, and four men holding Amer-
ican flags, is a brilliant design but has fading and some fab-
ric loss. It sold to a collector on the phone for $50,000 (est.
$40,000/60,000). In January 1986 at Sotheby’s, it sold for
$29,700 (est. $8000/10,000). Sotheby’s, January 25.
Sixteen-star American national flag, Tennessee, circa 1817,
with hand-sewn double-appliquéd cotton muslin stars on a
two-piece wool bunting canton, the upper section aged to a
light blue color, the lower section navy in tone, with hand-
sewn canton, stripes, and linen sleeve, and sleeve marked
“8 ft/ American Ensign/ N.Y.B./ 1817” or 1857 (N.Y.B. stands
for the Navy Yard near Boston), with period hemp rope that
has a wooden toggle at its top, likely used during the Civil
War, approximately 3'10" x 5'11", sold for $100,000 (est.
$30,000/40,000) with competition from an absentee bidder, a
phone bidder, and a bidder on line. At Sotheby’s on May 23,
2002, at the sale of the American flag collection of Thomas
S. Connelly, this flag sold for $21,510. Sotheby’s, January 25.
The New York Ceramics & Glass Fair offered what could not
be found at auction or at other shows. GarryAtkins of London
asked $32,500 for the large London delft charger, and it sold
during opening night.