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30-CS Maine Antique Digest, May 2015
- AUCTION -
An enormous 16" diameter famille
rose punch bowl with
Rose Mandarin panels of birds, butterflies, roses, and court
scenes, with black-rimmed upper border panels, exported to
the Massachusetts market circa 1850, brought $2530.
St. Peter got a return engagement at Thom-
aston, in the form of a carved Romanesque
stone icon, holding a symbolic key to heaven
in his right hand. The 8" x 5½" sandstone
sculpture first appeared on the block in August
2014, when it sold for $13,800. But here it
came again, with the same fleur-de-lis hanging
bracket and the same $8000/10,000 estimate.
This time around it found its way to $17,250.
This 1851 .36-cal-
iber Navy Colt
revolver,
serial
number 147651,
was decorated by Colt factory engraver Gustave
Young. His signature hound’s-head design is on the
side of the hammer. With the original ivory grips, it
sold for $10,350.
This mid-19th-century Native American pow-
der horn, listed as possibly Tsimshian, is in the
form of a relief-carved and incised fish swal-
lowing a smaller fish, with the tail of the victim
forming the cap. With one small tail section
missing, it sold for $1380.
This 19½" x 23½" oil on canvas by New Jersey and New York
artist Charles Warren Eaton (1857-1937), showing a typi-
cal Eaton arrangement of uniformly vertical trees, shadowed
against a lighter panoramic background, closed at $6900.
This early 20th-century
Lakota Sioux woman’s buck-
skin dress with long fringes
and beaded and cowrie shell
decorative strips barely
topped the high estimate at
$805.
New Jersey and New York artist Susan Catherine Moore Waters
(1823-1900) loved her farm animals and loved to paint them, especially
the sheep that she kept in her farmyard. As her career progressed, her
style and subject matter evolved from primitive portraits to animal
portrayals and highly accomplished still lifes. This 15½" x 19½" still
life on canvas of chicks enjoying a basket of currants had provenance
through one of her students in Bordentown, New Jersey, and it came
up a strong winner at $9487.50, well over the $3000/4000 estimate.
This 72" tall William and Mary
two-part chest in mahogany
veneer came with a thorough
family history dating back to the
time of its creation. It came from
the family of Captain Horatio
Patten (1818-1884). Patten’s
family was among the original
settlers of Topsham, Maine.
The chest has exotic wood her-
ringbone inlays around some of
the drawer fronts, a molded cor-
nice containing a hidden drawer,
and apparently original brasses, and it stands on long trumpet-turned ball-
and-pad feet. A modest $2530 won it, along with an old photograph show-
ing the chest in the Patten home several years after the captain’s death. But
a life-size waist-length portrait of the captain himself fared better. It was
by an unknown primitive artist, and the subject was indicated by a partial
paper label on the back that reads “Captain Hor…/ great uncl[e]/ Harold’s
mot[her]”; family history completed the identification. The painting bore an
Edward Dechaux label on the back of the canvas, and it showed the captain
seated with a merchant vessel outside the window in the background. Profes-
sionally restored, the portrait sold squarely within the $3000/5000 estimate
for $4025, along with a copy of the captain’s last will and testament.
The auction opened with
a series of eight Penobscot
Indian war clubs from Nancy
Prince’s collection. The top
price of the clubs was for this
figural birch root club with a
chip-carved handle and three
spirit heads in the form of a
goat, bull, and wolf, each with
brass-tack eyes. It sold for
$3737.50. Thomaston Place
photo.
This carved 47" x
24" Mayan stone
panel scored a sur-
prise hit when it
sold in February
2014 at Thomaston
Place for $24,150,
more than three
times the estimate.
The pink stone
was carved within
its
own
raised
frame, and it had
been reassembled
and reconstructed
with plaster from
six
fragments.
Research suggests
that the snake rep-
resents a “vision serpent,” thought by the Mayans to be a
link between the physical world of men and the spiritual
realm of the gods. There was no translation available for
glyphs in the lower right corner. This time through the esti-
mate was boosted to $18,000/22,000, and the panel cleared
the bar at $19,550.