Maine Antique Digest May 2015

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28-CS Maine Antique Digest, May 2015
- AUCTION -
Thomaston Place Auction Galleries’ three-day
auction in Thomaston, Maine, February 6-8,
began with 345 items taken from the collec-
tion of well-known dealer, collector, author, artist,
and educator Nancy Prince. Over a 45-year career,
Prince was one of the best-known and best-liked
specialists in Native American art and culture.
Along with her husband, Roger, a well-known
Maine sculptor, she gathered and sold artifacts
ranging from the woodlands of the Northeast to
the frozen Arctic and the deserts and mountains of
Mesoamerica. She is now retiring from the business
and heading (most sensibly, following a second bru-
tal Maine winter in a row) for Florida. I wish her
the best. I’ll miss the warm greetings and friendship
we shared at auctions and shows. The auction in its
entirety covered most eras from early Roman times
to the 21st century and every continent except Aus-
tralia and Antarctica.
There was a lot more to a little brown jug than
just a pretty face. According to the catalog listing, it
may have been by Stine Pottery of White Cottage,
Ohio. If the attribution is correct, it could be one of
the most significant pieces of Stine Pottery to come
to market in years. Also know as a “grotesque,” the
redware folk art jug, in a shiny Albany glaze, with
a grinning row of kaolin teeth and eyes, large ears,
and prominent chin, appeared to be inscribed with a
date of October 5, 1844. It took some imagination to
recognize the inscription as a date, and therein lay
the problem. The heyday of the Stine Pottery oper-
ation appears to have been in the early 1900s. Stine
Pottery founder Charles W. Stine died in 1914 at the
age of 60. His occupation is listed on the 1900 cen-
sus as “Superintendent Pottery.” That places the date
of the jug well before his birth, if the inscription is
interpreted correctly. The provenance tied the jug to
the family of Hannah Amelia Brookfield (d. 1897)
of Morristown, New Jersey. But at least two knowl-
edgeable bidders were confident enough to chase it
well past the $1200/1800 estimate, all the way to a
commanding $21,275 (with buyer’s premium).
One of the sale’s headliners was an 1877 oil on
canvas landscape by Willard Leroy Metcalf (1858-
1925). Metcalf painted extensively in New England
and also in Europe. The 9½" x 14" (sight size) oil was
titled Grazing Sheep on the Coast of Maine. It had a
contemporary Spanierman Gallery label. Signed and
dated lower left “W. L. METCALF ’77,” it would
have been done when Metcalf was about 19 years
old, prior to his education at the Lowell Institute of
Massachusetts and the Boston Museum School and
prior to his travels in Europe and his adoption of
the Impressionist style for which he became most
noted. It sold within the $50,000/75,000 estimate for
$57,500. The painting will be featured in Ira Span-
ierman’s upcoming Metcalf catalogue raisonné.
With some key bidding birds in hand, the auc-
tion house knew ahead of time that a serigraph by
Andy Warhol (1928-1987) would fly well past the
$6000/8000 estimate. The 34 3/8" square print on
paper, titled Sunset, 1972, was from an edition of
632 prints. This one was numbered “116/470,”
indicating one of the 472 (the number according to
many sources on the works) individual prints used
by architects Johnson and Burgee for the renovated
Hotel Marquette in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After
the prints were taken from the hotel, they were
signed, stamped, and numbered by Warhol. This
print was glazed and in the original aluminum box
frame. Someone took it home for $34,500.
The only six-figure hit came on a Northwest Coast
Native American mask (not from the Prince col-
lection), probably Tlingit or Kwakiutl, that closed
at $109,250 to an Internet bidder, well above the
$50,000/70,000 estimate. It had an untouched, albeit
well-faded polychrome surface over a rich spruce
patina and was marred only by four applied teeth that
were missing. The catalog noted that it was acquired
in 1908 and had remained with the consignor’s fam-
ily ever since. It came from a home just a mile or
two from the auction gallery. “I’ve been chasing that
thing for ten years,” auctioneer Kaja Veilleux said
before the sale, and he finally locked it up when he
agreed to put it on the catalog cover.
Thomaston Place Auction Galleries, Thomaston, Maine
Tlingit Mask Hits the Big Time at Thomaston
by Mark Sisco
There was a lot more to
a little brown jug than
just a pretty face.
Northwest Coast Tlingit mask, $109,250.
This early 18th-century chinoiserie
tall clock by Alexander Watson of
London, 1735-45, was in a Chip-
pendale case with detailed ren-
derings of human figures in an
Oriental tower, floral and geomet-
ric highlights, painted and sten-
ciled case sides, and a carved and
polychrome bonnet. The engraved
brass face was signed “Alex. Watson/ London,” and the final price
was $5175.
This early 18th-century powder horn was engraved with
a depiction of the Schuylkill River (spelled on the horn
“SCOOL KELL”) of Pennsylvania, sailing vessels, an
empty cartouche, running stag, rampant lion, unicorn,
and more. A coat of arms of Great Britain under a crown
was ringed with the inscription “HONI SOIT QUI MAL
Y PENSE,” an Anglo-Norman phrase loosely translated
as “Evil unto him who thinks evil of it.” The horn was
illustrated in Stephen V. Grancsay’s American Engraved
Powder Horns, and it sold under estimate for $8050.
This possible Stine Pottery face
jug, with an incised date
appearing to read “Oct. 5,
1844,” cruised all the way
to $21,275. Thomaston
Place photo.
This orange Chinese Fitzhugh platter, made for the Amer-
ican market in the early 19th century, is decorated with
a patriotic spreadwing eagle clutching a banner reading
“E PLURIBUS UNUM,” olive branches, and a cluster
of arrows. Balanced on three feet, with juice drains and
a well, it closed just under the $6000/9000 estimate for
$5750.
Johan Laurentz Jensen (1800-1856) was a Danish artist who
painted almost exclusively floral still lifes, such as this 7" x 9½"
depiction of pansies, apple blossoms, phlox, and auricula arranged
on a brown marble ledge. The painting was identified by a Span-
ierman Gallery label. Signed and dated along the lower edge of
the marble slab, the painting finished within the estimate at $7475.