Maine Antique Digest March 2015

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22-D Maine Antique Digest, March 2015
- AUCTION -
Garth’s Auctioneers, Delaware, Ohio
54th Annual Thanksgiving Americana Auction
by Don Johnson
Photos courtesy Garth’s
You couldn’t make this
stuff up if you wanted to.
During the 54th annual
Thanksgiving Americana sale,
held by Garth’s Auctioneers on
November 28, 2014, at Dela-
ware, Ohio, one of the more
intriguing lots didn’t even make
it into the printed catalog.
The item was a landscape
painting attributed to Marcus
Mote (1817-1898), from Ohio
and Indiana, depicting a bird’s-
eye view of the Mather farm
near Lebanon, Ohio, with family
members in the foreground. Oil
on canvas, the unsigned work
measured 30" x 40", plus it had
its original frame.
It came to Garth’s during a
monthly appraisal day. Amelia
Jeffers, president of the auction
house, thought the piece looked
familiar from the start.
The owner said there was a
story behind the painting—the
location was known, it was a
family farm, copies were made
for the children in the family,
and it was painted by a traveling
artist. There was even a printout
about the supposed painter—
an African-American itinerant
artist.
Jeffers knew the family’s
attribution wasn’t right, so she
looked for help. “We have this
ten-minute exchange, and I’m
calling some folks from Garth’s
over to take a look at it,” she
said. “I call Jeff out; he’s in his
office.”
Jeff Jeffers, CEO of Garth’s,
didn’t need to hear the story
behind the landscape. All he had
to do was see it. “He takes one
look at it and says, ‘It’s the same
farm as the Mote a few years
ago,’” Amelia Jeffers recalled.
In May 2008, Garth’s sold
a Mote landscape of a farm in
Warren County, near Lebanon,
Ohio. It was the same farm
depicted in the painting at the
appraisal event. The two works
of art could have been twins.
What’s the chance of that
happening?
Not that there was any ques-
tion about the similarity between
the paintings, because the Mote
sold in 2008 was still hanging in
Amelia Jeffers’s office.
“As luck would have it, the
purchaser of the [first] Marcus
Mote paid for it but had it in stor-
age with us,” she recalled. “It’s
hanging in my office over the
fireplace. I look at it every day.”
No wonder that second
painting looked familiar to
her. “Again, I say my humility
speaks,” she continued. “It hangs
in my office, and I don’t recog-
nize the one that walks in.”
The Mote that sold in May
2008 for $12,925 (with buyer’s
premium) was signed “Mar-
cus Mote 7 mo. 4 1881. after a
Sketch by Lillie Mather 1871.”
The catalog description noted
that the scene showed the
Mather family homestead at
Little Miami Mills in Washing-
ton Township, Warren County,
Ohio. Richard Mather (1783-
1875) and his wife, Elizabeth
Longstreth, moved west from
Pennsylvania in 1815 and settled
on the property at Little Miami
Mills (renamed Mather Mills),
located five miles east of Leb-
anon, Ohio. After Elizabeth’s
death in 1845, Richard moved
again, leaving the farm to his
eldest son, David, who remained
there with his family until 1871,
when the property was sold.
David moved to Fountain City in
Wayne County, Indiana. By that
time, little Lillie Mather (born
June 2, 1866), the daughter of
David’s younger brother Benja-
min, was living with her family
near Waynesville, Ohio.
Garth’s noted, “Based on
Mote’s inscription, five-year-old
Lillie Mather made a sketch of
the family farm just prior to its
sale. Ten years later, nostalgia
may have prompted her father,
Benjamin, to commission Mote
to paint a view of Mather Mills,
where he was born and raised.
Mote, then living in Richmond,
Indiana, based his painting
on Lillie’s sketch, and surely
included far more detail than was
present in the child’s drawing.”
It’s hard to imagine a
five-year-old drawing a scene
accurate enough for Mote to
have used as the basis for his
landscape. Nonetheless, the cat-
alog description from the 2008
sale gave credence to much of
the provenance provided at the
appraisal event. When the two
paintings were placed side by
side, the scenes were nearly
identical.
Suddenly everyone was happy.
“This lady is thrilled because we
just connected all these dots for
her, and we’re thrilled because
she just connected the dots for
ours.”
When the second Mote was
offered at Garth’s, it didn’t
make the printed catalog, but it
was included in an addendum
and was fully described in the
on-line catalog. The painting
sold for $12,500 (with buyer’s
premium).
Jeffers said the free appraisal
days don’t generate a huge
amount of business at Garth’s,
but they do pay off, grossing
about $150,000 in sales per year
from those items consigned by
people who bring material to the
event.
The Mote wasn’t the only
unlikely story of the weekend.
How about brown furniture as
the top lot of the sale?
Of Pennsylvania origin, a
Chippendale blanket chest in
walnut, inlaid with the date
1818, as well as tulips, stars,
and fylfots, having three lower
drawers and bracket feet, sold
for $25,200.
“Nobody in the Midwest is
selling as much American fur-
niture as Garth’s,” Jeffers noted.
This time around, however,
quantity wasn’t of prime impor-
tance. There are plenty of blan-
ket chests that don’t bring any-
where near that kind of money.
This was a matter of quality, and
even then the bidding was sur-
prising. The chest was estimated
at $4000/8000.
Not that paint was over-
looked during the sale. Of all the
furniture Garth’s gets, much of
it is painted. This time around,
drawing prime attention was a
pine mule chest with two draw-
ers, all in old red paint. From
New England and dating to
the late 18th or early 19th cen-
tury, the piece sold for $16,800
against an estimate of $400/800.
“Explain that to me,” Jeffers
said after the sale. “I want to be
able to re-create it for everybody
who has a red mule chest.” Her
final assessment was this: “Two
people had to have it on the same
day. That’s all it was.”
That was certainly enough.
Even so, Garth’s continued to
do well with painted furniture
and smalls. “We can sell paint all
day long. It’s funny. Who knows
where the heck the prices are
coming from,” said Jeffers.
Smalls that did well included
a Bible box in curly maple, of
Pennsylvania origin and dating
to the mid- to late 18th century.
It sold for $9600. A paint-dec-
orated schoolgirl box in curly
maple, made in New England
during the second quarter of the
19th century, realized $3360.
Items such as these are popular
because of their size and func-
tionality. For that, collectors are
sometimes willing to hold their
bid paddles in the air a bit lon-
ger. “The larger the potential
pool, the higher the price,” said
Jeffers. “Who can’t use a good
small box, particularly some-
thing that’s tabletop?”
Stoneware and redware also
had a good showing. A salt-
glazed stoneware crock with
the freehand script “Somerfield,
Penna.” and tulips, from the mid-
19th century, 12½" high, sold
for $9900 against an estimate of
$150/300. Likewise, a redware
pie plate with green and yellow
slipware tulips, impressed “J.L.
Blaney, Cookstown, Pa.,” mid-
19th century, realized $4800
against an estimate of $300/600.
Aredware flask incised “By John
Flack” on one side, “Uniontown
July 22nd 1809” on the other,
4¼" high, split in half and glued,
brought $5500 against an esti-
mate of $1000/2000.
One potential buyer told Jef-
fers the estimates were “silly.”
Bidding seemed to prove the
point.
“Western Pennsylvania peo-
ple were out, and they had a lot
of money to spend, and they
weren’t stopping,” said Jeffers.
There was one more thing.
“A lot of that stoneware and
redware, it was Mickey Gallis,”
Jeffers said of the former owner.
A regular buyer at Garth’s,
Michael “Mick” Gallis (d. 2014)
was from southwestern Pennsyl-
vania, where he was a geneal-
ogist by hobby and a founding
member of the historical soci-
ety in Fayette County. Jeffers
described him as “phenomenal
and phenomenally passionate.”
He amassed a collection that
drew a considerable reaction
from Jeffers on her first visit to
the modest country home where
Gallis lived.
“You walk in, and you’re just
blown away. Here’s a fine inlaid
chest, and that blanket chest
that was on the cover—that
was Mickey’s. And a wonderful
clock that has not come over yet,
and all that stoneware and red-
ware. What was more phenom-
enal was the sheer volume of
historical documents and books.
He was a hard-core researcher,”
she said.
“When you have that combina-
tion of good things bought over
time, slowly and carefully, and
passionate collectors, everybody
wants a piece of that. That’s the
magical formula. Even if it’s
brown furniture.”
Other factors also affected
bidding throughout the day—a
single day, it should be noted.
Last year Garth’s changed from
a two-day format on Thanksgiv-
ing weekend to a one-day sale.
This second go-round proved the
Friday-only auction works well.
“We were jammed,” Jeffers
said of the standing-room-only
crowd the day after Thanksgiv-
ing. “You’re wedging people in.”
Also affecting the sale was the
influence of bidders on eBay,
since its return to live auctions in
November. Jeffers said Garth’s
is one of five premier auction
houses serving as the poster chil-
dren for eBay’s live sales.
“eBay has created some chal-
lenges, but it also had tremen-
dous underbidding volume,”
she noted. Underbidders drove
prices up at Garth’s. “I would
say it was a pretty significant
factor,” Jeffers added.
For more information, phone
Garth’s at (740) 362-4771 or
visit ).
Landscape of the Mather farm near Lebanon, Ohio, attributed to Mar-
cus Mote (1817-1898), oil on canvas, unsigned, 30" x 40", plus its origi-
nal frame, minor repairs, $12,500.
Inlaid Chippendale blanket chest, Pennsylvania, dated 1818, walnut
with tulip, star, and fylfot inlay, 29½" high x 49½" wide, period brasses,
old finish, small age cracks to the lid, minor repairs to the feet, $25,200.
Decorated blanket chest in pine, Schoharie County, New York, 1820-25,
original design of a vase of flowers against a blue ground, 22" high x
45¾" wide, $10,800. The chest sold at Christie’s, New York, in January
2012 for $18,750.
How about brown furniture
as the top lot of the sale?