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Maine Antique Digest, May 2015 29-CS
- AUCTION -
There was no artist attribution on this
unsigned full-length folk art portrait of a
young blonde girl holding a floral wreath.
The canvas was stenciled on the back “S. N.
DODGE’S/ ARTIST & PAINTER’S/ SUP-
PLY STORE/ 189 Chatham cor/ of Oliver St/
n. York,” a mark used 1829-51. Some fam-
ily genealogical information suggested that
the subject might be Sophia Augusta Foye
Sortwell, who was born circa 1823 in Wis-
casset, Maine. She was the mother of Alvin
Foy Sortwell, who was the mayor of Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, 1897-99. With two
small punctures in the background near the
wreath, it was passed at $10,000, but later
the auction house reported that it had sold
for $17,250, so it appears that a post-auction
deal was worked out.
Andy Warhol serigraph titled
Sunset, 1972
,
numbered “116/470,” made $34,500.
This Luminist oil on
canvas view of an
upstate New York
farm, unsigned, circa
1840, 29¼" x 42½",
showing a family
tending
hayfields,
was strong enough
to sell on its artistic
merits for an esti-
mate-topping $6900.
Three
examples
of
southwestern
terra-
cotta ollas each sold
within or above their esti-
mates. Left, an Acoma
olla decorated with black
blossoms and eye-and-
cross patterns on a cream
and ocher ground sold for
$3162.50. Below, a Zia
olla with spreadwinged
bird décor, circa 1940, by
Juanita Pino, who worked as
early as 1922 and often signed
her name as Juanita, Juanito,
or Juana, according to Adobe
Gallery in Sante Fe, New Mex-
ico, brought $2530. Bottom,
the earliest of the three, a circa
1880 Zia olla decorated with
birds and large berries made
$3737.50.
This unsigned 25½" x 33½" oil on canvas was stylistically and his-
torically attributed to the NewYork City ship portraitist Joseph B.
Smith (1798-1876). It showed the sloop
Julia
, winner of the New
York Yacht Squadron race in New Bedford on August 16, 1860,
as chronicled by a
New York Times
headline of August 18, 1860.
Despite the lack of a signature, the solidly attributed relined ren-
dering, with several small repairs in the sky area, easily sold within
the $20,000/30,000 estimate for $24,150.
This oil on canvas by Wil-
lard Leroy Metcalf (1858-
1925),
Grazing Sheep on
the Coast of Maine
, 1877,
sold for $57,500.
The quickest and simplest way to get a head in the antiques
business is to buy one, and this one came cheap. It was listed
as an “Amida Nyorai Daibutsu,” roughly translated as “a
large statue head of the historical Buddha who rules over
paradise, enjoying endless bliss.” It originally perched atop a
full statue of commensurate size. The weathered polychrome
wooden sculpture headed out for $230.
Here’s a beauti-
ful old brass and
silver-faced Geor-
gian Chippendale
tall clock by Rich-
ard Duck of Lon-
don and Ipswich,
in a figural mahogany case with a thoroughly
carved split-column three-finial bonnet top,
with eight-day time-and-strike works (miss-
ing the bell), a date window, and an engraved
cartouche reading “Richard/ Duck/ London.”
It sold near the top estimate for $4600.
This four-drawer mahogany Chippendale blockfront chest,
probably Newport, Rhode Island, with four graduated
drawers and probably the original batwing brasses, stands
on ball-and-claw feet. It sold for $11,500, well under the
$20,000/30,000 estimate.
This highly graphic red catlin-
ite Pawnee pipe, with full-di-
mensional figures of a spread-
wing eagle atop
a turtle, a small
bear, a buffalo,
and a mounted tribal chief, incised “VV” on the
underside, sold within the estimate for $1380.
☞