Maine Antique Digest April 2015

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30-A Maine Antique Digest, April 2015
- AUCTION -
unusual. The rococo carving on the bottom of
the baluster and on the legs and C-scrolls under
the legs is typical of Philadelphia carving of the
1750s, early in the rococo style.
What shop made the table was a question
still being discussed at the pop-up cocktail
party Keno gave on Sunday, January 25, that
celebrated the discovery of the table. A few
days later, a raking light revealed the chalk sig-
nature of Henry Cliffton. It matched the Cliff-
ton signature and date “1753” on a high chest
at Colonial Williamsburg, said to be the earliest
signed piece of American rococo furniture.
The table, fresh to market, with a maker and
carver ascribed and a family history, is an auc-
tioneer’s dream. The stars were aligned. The
bidders and underbidders materialized (three
of them, two on the phone and the underbidder,
Seth Kaller, in the salesroom) when auctioneer
John Nye took up the gavel, volunteering his
services to his friend Leigh Keno.
As previously mentioned, the Keno Auctions
winter sale was a small one. It was held in two
sessions on a Saturday afternoon. Nine lots of
Americana were in session one, scheduled for
noon, and there were four lots of modern art,
scheduled for 2 p.m. Bidding on the first lot,
the Potter-Crouch-Jordan family table, did not
get underway until 12: 22 p.m., carried live
with video on LiveAuctioneers.
It was 12:30 by the time Keno told the assem-
bled crowd and the on-line audience about
the table’s discovery and the discovery of its
maker and carver and the fact that Christie’s
John Hays was in the audience (he had sold the
Fisher-Fox tea table with carving attributed to
the Garvan carver for $6,761,000 in October
2007). John Nye read the conditions of sale
and opened the bidding at $450,000. Bidding
moved quickly, with Seth Kaller bidding for a
client from the rear of the room and Keno on
the phone with his client. A phone bidder with
Jack O’Brien bid $850,000, but from then on
it was Keno on the phone and Seth Kaller bid-
ding for his client. Nye dropped his gavel at
$1,575,000. The buyer’s premium (25% up to
$100,000, 20% in excess of $100,000 up to $2
million) brought the price to $1,895,000.
The remaining eight lots of historic doc-
uments followed. One of them did not find a
buyer. The only known copy of the Thomas
Holme “Map of the Improved Part of the Prov-
ince of Pennsilvania [sic] in America” contain-
ing the three counties of Chester, Philadelphia,
and Bucks, published in London, 1687, failed
to sell. It carried a $200,000/300,000 estimate.
Modern color makes it handsome, but antiquar-
ians may prefer it uncolored, as it was when it
was printed.
All the rest of the historic material sold.
There were two rare 1789 issues of the New
York Gazette of the United States. The one with
the printing of the Bill of Rights, October 3,
1789, misprinted “October 1” and corrected by
hand, sold for $43,750 (est. $30,000/60,000).
There has never been an October 2 copy for
sale, though one is known. The other historic
copy of the New York Gazette, dated October
7, 1789, has Washington’s first presidential
Thanksgiving Proclamation on its first page.
It sold for $36,250 (est. $15,000/30,000). A
unique 1769 Sons of Liberty document captur-
ing patriotic toasts for the fourth anniversary
of Boston’s Stamp Act Riot sold for $15,000
(est. $20,000/30,000). Other lots sold under
estimates or not much above estimates. Benja-
min Franklin’s address to the Reformed Dutch
Church in support of the abolition of slavery,
printed in the Gazette, sold for $4375 (est.
$4000/8000), and a 1682 William Penn deed
sold for $7625 (est. $10,000/20,000).
The sale then recessed until 2 p.m. When it
reconvened, four lots of contemporary art were
offered. A gouache on paper, 29½" x 41¼",
signed “Calder 56” by Alexander Calder, sold
for $78,750. A small sheet metal brass and
wire 1968 standing mobile, Pigtail, by Calder,
marked “CA,” fetched $365,000, well over its
$50,000/100,000 estimate.
The featured work by Ruth Asawa, untitled
(but numbered by the artist “S. 621”), a hang-
ing six-lobed multilayered wire sculpture from
the estate of Ruth Asawa and John Kerr, sold
in the room to New York and Michigan dealer
Jonathan Boos for $965,000 (est. $150,000/
250,000). It had been videotaped in Robert
Snyder’s 1973 documentary Ruth Asawa: Of
Forms and Growth, in which she describes her
labor-intensive process of creating her three-di-
mensional wire drawings in air.
“My approach for the winter sale was that the
rococo table produced by Henry Cliffton circa
1755 was no less avant-garde in its day than
the 1969 standing mobile by Philadelphia-born
Calder or the 1973 hanging sculpture by Cali-
fornia-born Asawa,” said Keno after the sale. “I
want to have more small sales of masterworks
from all ages.”
The sale of 12 of the 13 lots brought a total
of $3,456,500, topping its wide-ranging presale
estimates $1,045,000/2,890,000 (figured with-
out buyers’ premiums).
For more information about the sale, contact
Keno Auctions at (212) 734-2381 or see the
Web site ).
The Gazette of the United States, New York,
October 7, 1789, printed President George
Washington’s first Thanksgiving Proclama-
tion on page one (enhanced in photo). It sold
for $36,250 (est. $15,000/30,000).
A group of Sons of Liberty toasts found in the papers of William
Russell (1748-1784), a schoolteacher and early member of the Sons
of Liberty and a Boston Tea Party participant, sold for $15,000 (est.
$20,000/30,000). The toasts were written on the fourth anniversary
of Boston’s Stamp Act Riot, a defiant salute to American liberty.
Pigtail, a sheet metal brass and wire mobile by Alexander
Calder (1898-1976), incised “CA” on base, 5½" x 7¼" x 12",
sold for $365,000 (est. $50,000/100,000).
Spotted Orb and Pyramids, 1956,
gouache on paper, 29½" x 41¼",
by Alexander Calder (1898-
1976) sold for $78,750 (est.
$20,000/40,000).
Numbered “S. 621” by the artist,
a hanging six-lobed multilayered
77" x 16½" x 16½" brass and cop-
per wire sculpture by Ruth Asawa
(1926-2013) with interlocking
forms including a sphere in the
third lobe, circa 1973, sold for
$965,000 (est. $150,000/250,000).
The earliest obtainable printing of the Bill of
Rights in the Gazette of the United States, New
York, October 3, 1789, (enhanced in photo)
sold for $43,750 (est. $30,000/60,000).