36-B Maine Antique Digest, May 2015
- AUCTION -
F
resh estate material drew
the intrepid to the Carl W.
Stinson sale February 21 in
North Reading, Massachusetts.
Stinson sales are held most fre-
quently at the Hillview Country
Club, where the parking areas
were cleared but where greens
with towering mounds of snow
recalled John Greenleaf Whitti-
er’s
Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyll.
The star of the event was the
24" x 29½" oil on board
Moun-
tain Lake
, a scene in Rocky
Mountain National Park in
Colorado by Birger Sandzén
(Swedish/American, 1871-1954)
that sold for $33,825 (includes
buyer’s premium) against the
$10,000/20,000 estimate after
an Internet bidder beat out four
phone bidders. The painting was
dated 1944 and had been given
by the artist to Trygve Lie, first
secretary-general of the United
Nations, who passed it to New
Haven judge Herbert Emanuel-
son, in whose family the painting
descended to an area consignor.
It went to the trade.
Three paintings by Edouard
Legrand (French, 1882-1970)
sold.
Le
Cirque
(Circus), a
38¼" x 51½" oil on canvas,
brought $7200 against the esti-
mated $2000/3000. The picture
bore a label of the Philadelphia
Museum of Art and that of the
Lawrence Rill Schumann Art
Foundation. Legrand’s gouache
under glass
Famille d’acrobats
(32" x 39") bore the same labels
as
Le Cirque
and the same esti-
mates. It realized $5400. A third
Legrand work, an 1899 oil on
canvas given the title
Girl in
Green Dress
(39¾" x 31") and
depicting a heavily made-up
young woman, had some con-
dition problems and sold online
for $2091, still above the high
estimate.
Blossom Time
, a 20" x 28¼"
oil on canvas by Alois Heinrich
Priechenfried (Austrian, 1867-
1933), depicts a woman playing
the piano in a room with a door
open to the outdoors and sold
online for $2460. The artist is
known particularly for his por-
traits, mostly of Jewish subjects.
Thoroughbred with Owner
, an
oil on canvas (24½" x 36¾") by
John Paul (English, 1804-1887),
was signed and dated 1861. It
had come from a Westchester
County estate and sold on the
phone for $3600.
Stinson sales are nearly always
a family affair, and the most
recent event was no exception.
Doug Stinson auctions while
his father, Carl, mother, Brenda,
brother, Ned, wife, Claire, and
son, William keep it all running.
The sale was less well attended
than usual for a Stinson sale
(they are usually packed), but
the weeks and weeks of snow
that had piled up over the heads
of most citizens deterred some.
But, as Doug Stinson informed
your reporter, “Snowflakes are
the butterflies of winter.” For
some, maybe.
Several bidders in the gallery
pursued a 19th-century Maine
bird’s-eye maple three over three
chest (43½" x 45" x 19½") with
vigorously turned legs that sold
for $1680 against the $200/400
estimate. Other case pieces sold.
An 18th-century Salem Chip-
pendale maple and birch oxbow
desk (44½" x 42¼") with an
interior fitted with five drawers
over two interior drawers sold
mid-estimate at $780. It had
been purchased at Friendship
Antiques in Essex, Massachu-
setts, in the 1970s. One buyer in
the gallery made a wise purchase
when he or she took a circa 1800
Chippendale flame birch chest
with four graduated drawers
and a beautifully formed dove-
tailed base (38" x 37" x 15½")
for $300. Another in-house bid-
der paid $300 for a Hepplewhite
mahogany chest of four drawers
(38½" x 42" x 21") with sec-
ondary poplar and hard yellow
pine framing with the original
stamped oval brasses.
Style prevailed when a
19th-century New York walnut
pair of Georgian-style gaming
tables (27½" x 28" x 14") with
acanthus-carved knees, ball-and-
claw feet, and concertina actions
sold online for $1476 despite
some fading and discoloration.
A New York or Pennsylvania
Sheraton cherry drop-leaf break-
fast table, circa 1820, 29½" x
39½" x 21", with reeded legs
and a cloverleaf top sold in the
gallery for $90, leaving a num-
ber of bidders rueful that they
had not bid on it. Then there was
a cherry drop-leaf table with
block turned legs on brass cast-
ers (29" x 46" x 22") that sold in
the gallery for $54.
A six-piece sterling silver tea
set (189.32 ounces) by the San-
born brothers of Mexico was
monogrammed and sold online
for $2767.50. A similarly deco-
rated pitcher from Bigelow Ken-
nard of Boston and weighing
35.82 ounces also sold online for
$738. An English Georgian ster-
ling caster (6¼") with hallmarks
for 1717 went to the Internet for
$430.50.
Speaking after the sale, Doug
Stinson observed that several
silver pieces including Geor-
gian are headed to China. So too
is a Steinway & Sons ebonized
series S grand piano and bench
(56" x 62") that sold online for
$5535. The instrument was pur-
chased by an agent in Georgia
for a client in China.
A 56" English Enfield muzzle-
loading rifle marked with the
royal warrant for Queen Victo-
ria on the lockplate was made in
1862 at the LondonArmoury and
was so marked on the stock. The
brass buttplate was engraved “E.
Lombard Jr / Sept 16th 1865.” It
sold for $2400.
The highlight of the Stafford-
shire pieces across the block
was a lot of six historical plates
(Enoch Wood & Sons’ 10"
Cad-
mus
at Anchor, Chief Justice
Marshall Troy Line steamer
plate, the 9" Nahant Hotel,
Mitchell & Freeman’s China and
Glass Warehouse 10" plate, the
10" Bank of the United States
of Philadelphia, and the Old Sun
Tavern at Faneuil Hall) that sold
for $840. Can you guess what
drove the lot?
A 19th-century Qing vase
(14½" tall) that had been drilled
as a lamp (27" tall) was deco-
rated with scenes of a procession
on horseback and sold online
for $3382.50. It came from the
Carl W. Stinson, Inc., North Reading, Massachusetts
Mountain Lake
by Sandzén
Tops Massachusetts Auction
by Frances McQueeney-Jones Mascolo
Stinson sales
are nearly
always a
family affair.
The highlight of the sale was
Mountain Lake
by Birger Sandzén (Swed-
ish-American, 1871-1954) that sold for $33,825.
An equine lot brought impressive results. A late 19th- or early 20th-cen-
tury full-body weathervane with some sheet metal in the highly detailed
form of a horse being led by a groom or a stable boy retained some orig-
inal gilding and sold for $30,000. The 29" x 21½" vane was mounted on
a metal base. It came from a South Shore Massachusetts home, where it
had been acquired in the 1960s, and went to the trade.
Westchester County estate.
Two Chinese export vases con-
verted to lamps sold for $2700.
One, 15¼" tall on a bronze base,
was decorated with four Rose
Mandarin medallions of court
scenes, circa 1880; the other, a
16" ku-form example, was dec-
orated with flowers, foliage,
and birds. Two Rose Medallion
covered vegetable dishes sold
for $360, while a lot of 24 Rose
Medallion plates fetched $600.
Sharp-eyed bidders homed in
on a selection of mid-century
1900s walnut furniture by Dun-
bar. A pair of armchairs, circa
1960, was in need of reuphol-
stering and sold for $2700. One
phone bidder paid $1080 for a
Dunbar walnut server with four
drawers over four doors, two of
which opened to interior draw-
ers and shelves. The same buyer
took a low table with doors for
$360.
For information, check the
Web site (www.stinsonauction. com) or call (781) 944-6488 or(617) 834-3819.
Pasture, Cattle and Woman
, 17¾" x 23¾", an oil on canvas by Jean Fer-
dinand Monchablon (French, 1855-1904) was signed and dated 1890
and sold online for $17,220. The painting, estimated at $2000/3000,
went to a buyer in France whose intention it is to open a museum of
Monchablon’s work there.
A large (16" x 9¾" x 9")
bracket clock by Bigelow
Kennard & Co. of Boston
in an oak case with bronze
mounts,
Westminster
chimes, and a nest
of eight bells
and four gongs,
circa 1880, sold
for $2760.
The
19th-century
Qing vase, 14½" tall,
had been drilled as a
lamp and was deco-
rated with scenes of a
procession on horse-
back. It sold online
for $3382.50.