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14-B Maine Antique Digest, April 2015
- AUCTION -
Rare carved and figured
mahogany dish-top tilt-
top tea table, possibly by
John Goddard, Newport,
Rhode Island, circa 1770,
25" x 27 3/8" x 27",
$40,625. This round
“snap” table is one of
four known. One
is at the Newport
Restoration Foun-
dation,
another
at the Henry Ford
Museum, and one at
Winterthur. Accord-
ing to Erik Gronning
of Sotheby’s, it is a unique
American form.
Johann Adam Eyer (1755-1837), Pennsyl-
vania German vorschrift copy book for
Thomas Heller, Hamilton, Northampton
County, Pennsylvania, March 24, 1811,
watercolor and pen and ink on paper, 7¾"
x 6½" (est. $10,000/15,000). The six-page
booklet with original string binding and
with inscriptions on the right-hand pages
and on the back sold for $23,750 to a phone
bidder, underbid in the room by Downing-
town, Pennsylvania, dealer Philip Bradley.
The Hoyt-Hitchcock family carved cherry scalloped-top chest of
drawers with an old surface and original brasses, probably by
Benjamin Munn III (1738-1824), Deerfield, Massachusetts, circa
1775, 31½" x 43½" x 22", case width 36", sold for $46,875 (est.
$40,000/60,000) to Philip Zea, director of Historic Deerfield, bid-
ding in the room.
This is the second of three chests possibly commissioned from
Deerfield cabinetmaker Benjamin Munn III. It was made for
David Hoyt as a wedding gift to his daughter, Mercy, on her mar-
riage to Justin Hitchcock in 1779. The two other chests made for
the Hoyt family still reside in Deerfield; one is at Historic Deer-
field (see Dean A. Fales, Jr.,
The Furniture of Historic Deerfield
,
1976), and the other is at the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Asso-
ciation’s Memorial Hall Museum. The reverse ogee feet on this
chest relate directly to a chest-on-chest recently acquired by His-
toric Deerfield.
Pieced and appliquéd patriotic compass
medallion quilt, signed “Martha Hewitt, Age
56, Michigan, 1855” in embroidery in the
upper border, $50,000 (est. $40,000/60,000)
to a collector on the phone. Composed of
pieced and appliquéd cotton patches, it has
a radiating sunburst/star compass medallion
at center, a lower border with pots of flow-
ers, Masonic devices, and four men holding
American flags. The design is brilliant, but
it has some fading and minor fabric loss. In
January 1986 at Sotheby’s, when the col-
ors were bright, it had sold for $29,700 (est.
$8000/10,000).
Jacob
Eichholtz
(1776-1842), por-
trait of Mrs. John
Gibson, circa 1820,
oil on canvas, 29"
x 24½", $13,750
(est. $6000/8000) to
a phone bidder. It
has a partial signa-
ture and a date on
the back.
The Joseph Osborn VI Federal cherry
tall-case clock, 86" x 14¼" x 8½",
with what appears to be the orig-
inal surface, the works and case
by Nathaniel Dominy IV, East
Hampton, New York, 1809, sold for
$46,875 (est. $30,000/50,000) to col-
lectors from East Hampton bidding
in the room, underbid on the phone.
The dial is inscribed “N DOMINY E
HAMPTON 1809.” The clock has a
one-stroke type of movement made
by Dominy only three years before
his death in 1812, and it was included
in Charles Hummel’s
With Hammer in
Hand: The Dominy Craftsmen of East
Hampton, New York
(1968).
Carved mahogany side chair, pos-
sibly by Thomas Tuft (1740-1788),
Philadelphia, carving possibly by
Richard Butts, Philadelphia, circa
1770, slip seat marked IIII, 39¾"
high, $25,000 (est. $12,000/18,000)
to Quakertown, Pennsylvania,
advisor Alan Miller. When it was
illustrated in William Macpherson
Hornor, Jr.’s
Blue Book: Philadel-
phia Furniture
(1935), plate 346, it
was owned by Mrs. Charles Pem-
berton Fox of Philadelphia
.
Amate
to this chair is at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art (see Morrison
H. Heckscher,
American Furni-
ture in the Metropolitan Museum
of Art. II. Late Colonial Period:
The Queen Anne and Chippendale
Styles
, 1985), and the carving on
the legs and front seat rail matches
the labeled Thomas Tuft chair at
Winterthur (see Joseph Downs,
American Furniture: Queen Anne
and Chippendale Periods in the
Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur
Museum
, 1952).
Joseph H. Davis (1811-1865), portrait of
David P. Glidden, “Aged 16 Years December
23, 1837,” watercolor and pen and ink on
paper, 10" x 8", $12,500 (est. $5000/8000) to
a dealer on the phone, bidding for a collector.
Circa 1830 American school oil on canvas portrait of Dr. John
Lambert Richmond and his family, 32" x 56¼", the sitters’ ages
inscribed on the scroll at upper right, $20,000 (est. $7000/10,000).
Richmond was a well-known obstetrician and author in the medical
field, and he is said to have performed the first Cesarean section in
the U.S. The family moved from Massachusetts to Herkimer, New
York, in 1795. In January 2012 Christie’s sold a pair of portraits
by the same artist in similar yellow-painted frames, ex-collection
of Bernard Barenholtz, for $15,000 (est. $10,000/15,000).
A View of the Conflagration of Part of the U.S. Armory. Springfield, Mass.
March 2. D. 1824 by Roswell Park was dated 1824 and inscribed along the
bottom: “Inscribed and Presented to Col. Roswell Lee Esqr. by Roswell
Park.” The 20" x 28" watercolor and pen and ink on wove paper, mounted on
canvas, sold on line for $22,500 (est. $15,000/25,000). At Christie’s two days
earlier, a similar but unsigned picture sold for $11,875. Both had minor con-
dition problems. The one at Christie’s had previously sold at Sotheby Parke
Bernet in April 1981 for $17,000. Collectors in the room said there are seven
examples by Park extant.
According to Colonel Lee’s papers, there is a link between the artist Ros-
well Park and Colonel Lee. Park had asked Lee for a recommendation to
West Point.
According to George Washington Cullum’s
Biographical Reg-
ister of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at
West Point, New York
, Roswell Park was born in Lebanon, Con-
necticut, on October 1, 1807, graduated from the U.S. Military
Academy in 1831, and was commissioned in the Army Corps of
Engineers. He later became a professor of chemistry and natural
philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania from 1836 to 1842.
In 1843 he became an ordained deacon of the Protestant Episco-
pal Church of Pomfret, Connecticut, and was the headmaster of
Christ Church Hall in Pomfret from 1845 to 1852. From 1852 to
1859 he was a founder and the first president of Racine College in
Racine, Wisconsin. Among his other books, Park wrote
A Sketch
of the History and Topography of West Point and of the United
States Military Academy
(1840).