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Maine Antique Digest, December 2016 27-C
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AUCTION -
27-C
Robert L. Foster Auction Co., Newcastle, Maine
A Little Girl and Lots of Cats at Foster’s Auction
by Mark Sisco
W
hen Robert Foster runs his
traditional
end-of-summer
auction in Newcastle, Maine,
held this year on September 3 and 4, it’s
a “clean the place out down to the walls”
event. Unlike what happens at some other
large Maine auctions, virtually everything
sells. Of the approximately 1200 lots
offered, only two didn’t move. That’s a
pretty decent sell-through rate of 99.8%.
A lot of “un” words described a
primitive folk art oil on canvas portrait—
unattributed, unidentified, unrestored,
and unadvertised. It came to the auction
too late to make the print advertisements
but not too late for the website. In the
29" x 24" oil on canvas painting a young
girl dressed in a black frock with a lace
collar and beads or buttons down the
front is seated in a red chair and holds an
orange in her right hand. The background
and style of the painting are exceedingly
simple, offering no solid clues as to who
the artist or the subject might have been.
The simple giltwood frame appeared to be
original. The simplicity and primitiveness
were the big draws. Except for some
repairable tears and holes in the canvas,
the paint was in good shape, and bidders
chased it aggressively all the way to
$38,500 (including buyer’s premium).
Japanese-French painter and printmaker
Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita (1886-1968)
often applied Japanese ink techniques to
western-style painting. During his time
in Paris, he associated with Amedeo
Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, and Henri
Matisse, and he even took dancing
lessons from Isadora Duncan. His 1930
volume titled
Book of Cats
, published by
Covici Friede, can bring tens of thousands
of dollars in its intact form. Foster offered
all 20 unbound prints from the collection,
signed and dated within the prints, and
one signed in pencil by Foujita, and they
commanded $14,850.
A fresh-to-the-market 21½" x 35¼" oil
on canvas portrait of the fishing schooner
Flora L. Nickerson
by Solon Francis
Montecello Badger (1873-1919) was
signed lower left. The auction catalog
listed her as built in Boothbay, Maine, but
I found a record of the
Nickerson
being
built in 1894 in Essex, Massachusetts,
and sailing from her home port of Boston.
It was of the type known as an “Indian
header,” a design that was dominant in
the decades after the Civil War when New
England’s fishing industry was growing. I
found a record of her landing 4000 barrels
of mackerel in 1900, giving her crew a
then-rich lay of $702.25 apiece. Around
the same time, I found her sailing out of
Boothbay, Maine, and hauling fish and
passengers to Philadelphia. According
to the auctioneers, she was owned by
Stephen E. Nickerson of Boothbay and
captained by Thomas J. Carrol. The
painting was consigned by Nickerson’s
descendants, and it brought $7700.
New Jersey-born painter Louis Michel
Eilshemius (1864-1941) could be
variously described as a visionary artist,
a rude boor, an insane charlatan, and a
crabby, messy iconoclast, all of which
were quite accurate. In one of his own
advertising flyers he described himself as
“Educator, Ex-actor, Amateur All-around
Doctor, Mesmerist-Prophet and Mystic,
Reader of Hands and Faces, Linguist
of 5 languages,” in addition to a world-
class athlete, marksman, “Spirit Painter
Supreme,” and a gifted musician whose compositions
rivaled that of Frederic Chopin. All of that reinforced
his critics’ opinions that he was just plain nuts. His
early landscapes reflected the influence of Barbizon
painters and luminaries such as George Inness and
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. Around 1910, he began
introducing elements of fantasy into his work. His
style evolved (some would say “degraded”) to the
point where his figures appeared crudely rendered
and amateurish, but among his admirers were Henri
Matisse and Marcel Duchamp, who helped him
mount his first solo exhibition in New York City in
1920. Critics savaged it, driving Eilshemius to give
up painting altogether in 1921. However, he didn’t
give up self-promotion, even referring to himself
as “Mahatma.” An automobile accident in 1932
accelerated his decline, and he died in 1941. His
reputation has enjoyed something of a resurgence in
recent years, and he was represented by a collection
of about 15 paintings in this sale, led by a windblown
harbor seascape that brought $4125.
For more information, visit (www.fosterauctions.
com) or call (207) 563-8110.
A “clean the place out
down to the walls” event.
This Hepplewhite chest in light mahogany with four graduated
drawers and on splayed French feet sold for $770.
You might be asking the same question I did. How the
heck did these things ever survive intact? The answer is
that they didn’t quite make it in one piece. Both the Delft
ceramic French hunting horn and the violin had some
repaired breakage. There is a very similar horn with
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which dates it to the
late 18th or early 19th century. And the Rijksmuseum of
Amsterdam has a similar version of the violin. The two
sold in concert for $1100.
The paint on this 6½" x 11" x 6" document box is similar
to the decoration on boxes from Pennsylvania known
as Bucher boxes after Heinrich Bucher. Although some
sources credit Bucher with having decorated boxes,
other sources indicate that Bucher was the owner, not the
maker. This box has all the original hardware, including
cotter-pin hinges, and sold for $660.
This small 11" x 15" oil on canvas by Emile Albert Gruppé (1896-1978)
of a farmer loading manure onto a horse-drawn sledge in a snow-
covered field is probably not his most romantic portrayal but was still
deserving of $1210.
This unattributed primitive portrait of a young girl led the sale at $38,500.