Maine Antique Digest, December 2016

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12-E Maine Antique Digest, December 2016
- AUCTION -
12-E
Gurley Auction Co., Parsonsfield, Maine
The Collection of Nan Gurley
by Mark Sisco
Nan Gurley (1943-2016) was a
powerful force in the New
England antiques business and
was well known and highly respected as
a show promoter and dealer. She didn’t
turn to show management until the 1980s,
when she ran venues in Deerfield and
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Portland,
Maine, and a handful of other locations,
but decades before that, she began
establishing herself as a dealer and
collector of Americana and other folk art
forms. From her last home in Parsonsfield,
Maine, her son, Joshua Gurley, auctioned
her collection on September 17.
The event drew scores of dealers from
across New England, eager to capture part
of the Nan Gurley provenance panache. It
was all Nan Gurley—in merchandise and
in style—heavy on painted furniture and
rich in colorful utilitarian items, such as
painted kitchenwares, children’s toys, and
wall decorations.
As the opening time approached, Josh
Gurley cautioned the crowd, “It’s been
over a year since I’ve done this. It’s going
to take me a while to get good again.”
He needn’t have worried. He got good
quickly.
Tiger maple can add value to just about
any piece of antique furniture, but it
seemed to work particular magic on the
very first lot, a Shaker trestle table. The
design was classically simple Shaker, with
slightly raised shoe-foot ends, wedged
mortise and tenon joints holding the wide
stretcher, and a smoothly worn two-board
top with pegged breadboard ends. Gurley
related, “We sat at this for forty years, and
how we talked!”
It was the auction opener and the
auction topper. It quickly cruised to
$14,850 (including buyer’s premium)
with a round of applause.
It took $4400 to win a marble game with
a painted panel of a blackface balloon
man. On the back was an inscription
reading “Made by C. E. Cahill / Cornish,
Maine / 1926.” According to auctioneer
Josh Gurley, Cahill was an itinerant circus
worker who passed through the area
around that time.
The “-style” disclaimer was the key
word in describing a stepback cupboard
with open center as “Peter Hunt style.”
There is a lot more Peter Hunt “wannabe”
painted furniture in this world than
there is the real deal. Hunt (1896-1967)
established himself in Provincetown,
Massachusetts, as a folk art painter and
decorator beginning with his arrival there
in the early 1920s, and his work has
spawned a host of imitators. If it turns
out that the paint on the cupboard is by
Hunt, then the buyer can consider himself
extremely lucky to have gotten it for
$330. “You wouldn’t believe what Mom
paid for that cupboard,” Gurley lamented.
In conversation later, Gurley summed
up: “The truth is, Mom’s collection was
modest because she was an antiques
dealer, and she sold the stuff…. It was
a great appreciation of her collection of
small things that she had assembled over
the years.”
For more information, call Gurley
Auction Co. at (207) 229-0403 or visit
).
It was all Nan Gurley—in
merchandise and in style.
This tiger maple Shaker trestle table led the sale at $14,850.
Possibly painted by Peter Hunt, the stepback cupboard sold
for $330.
The painted blackface
marble game by itinerant
carnival worker C.E. Cahill
sold for $4400.
Despite missing an ear and a
mane, the finely carved and
accurately proportioned folk art
horse pull toy in well-crackled
black paint on a green platform
pulled in $2750.
A large silk
memorial, complete
but still waiting for
the dear departed’s
name to be filled in
on the monument
under the weeping
willow, sold for
$2860. “The
family’s name was
never filled in, so
you can save it for
later,” Josh Gurley
suggested.
Nan loved painted firkins. The tiger
maple Shaker table was lined with
five of them in blue, green, yellow, and
red—all with matching lids. Left to
right: bidders liked the dark robin’s-
egg-blue one on the left the best; it sold
for $605. They all fell asleep, and the
green one was passed at $100. They
awoke in time for the yellow one in the
center ($330), and the red one was a hit
at $385. I missed the price on the two-
tone brown and green one on the right.