Maine Antique Digest, December 2016

Maine Antique Digest, December 2016 15-E

AUCTION -

15-E

This most unusual box, grain painted to

resemble a leather-bound book, perhaps the

family Bible, opened to reveal a cinnamon-

colored interior with three compartments

with concave wooden lids and knobs ($330).

Thoroughly decorated with black stencils on a near-white background, the

feet and top surfaces painted black, this overhung Empire chest brought

$2750.

This naïve portrait of a young

girl in a shimmery white dress

and holding a basket of roses

in her left hand has no artist

attribution, but clearly it was

of the Prior-Hamblen school.

The 31¼" x 23

" oil on

canvas laid down on a board

panel finished up at $3135.

The unattributed 24¼"

x 19½" oil on canvas

portrait of an unidentified

ship captain, possibly from

York, Maine, according

to Gurley family memory,

sold for $660.

It seems as if this

enormous painted

apothecary

cupboard has

enough drawers

to hold every spice

and medicine in

a pharmacist’s

encyclopedia, and

the slanting center

section holds

four glass-

door bins.

It closed at

$2915.

The two-drawer lift-top blanket chest in green paint over the

original red has a cutout bracket base and the original butt

hinges; $1540 took it.

As a bidder readily opened the bidding on this red-

painted miniature two-drawer slant-front desk at $1000,

Josh Gurley cracked, “Somebody’s not messin’ around!

That’s called power bidding.” No matter, the winner still

had to chase it to $1705.