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28-E Maine Antique Digest, April 2017
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AUCTION -
28-E
Sotheby’s, New York City
The Iris Schwartz Collection of Silver
by Lita Solis-Cohen
Photos courtesy Sotheby’s
I
ris Schwartz got hooked on silver after
she saw the work of Hester Bateman
(1708-1794) and realized that a
woman ran a London silver workshop in
the middle of the 18th century. Schwartz
soon decided to specialize in American
silver. Over a period of 30 years,
encouraged by her husband, Seymour,
she amassed a collection that told the
whole story of American silver with
examples from Montreal to Alabama,
from New Jersey (where she lived) to
California, from the beginnings in Boston
(1660s) until the end of the 20th century.
The heirs of Iris Schwartz (1921-2011)
finally gave Sotheby’s permission to sell
her collection, which had been boxed up
since she moved to Atlanta to be with her
daughter at the end of her life.
There was something for every taste
at the auction on January 20. Schwartz
had bought silver by famous makers and
those less well known and collected an
enormous number of forms, including
apple corers, nutmeg graters, a bosun’s
whistle, an egg coddler, as well as
candlesticks, teapots, and bowls ranging in
size from a mammoth Martelé punch bowl
(it did not sell) to dollhouse-size Onslow
pattern flatware by William B. Meyers,
which brought $3750 (includes buyer’s
premium), well over its $1000/1500
estimate. A tankard made in Boston circa
1665 by Hull and Sanderson, America’s
first silversmiths, sold for $27,500. It was
estimated at $10,000/15,000 because its
top was made by J. H. Gebelein in the
20th century. A pitcher that Ubaldo Vitali
made in Maplewood, New Jersey, in 1988
sold for $11,250 (est. $3000/5000).
Schwartz bought at flea markets and
antiques shows but most often at auction.
Kevin Tierney, head of Sotheby’s silver
department during the entire time she was
collecting, was her advisor; Ubaldo Vitali
was her conservator. She loved the hunt
and bought so much that she could not
display it all. Her daughter, Barbara, who
came to the sale, said she has memories of
her mother and father drinking sparkling
water from their American silver beakers
made by Jacob Hurd in Boston circa
1733—and given to the Congregational
Church in South Byfield, Massachusetts.
Schwartz had bought the pair of beakers at
Christie’s in June 1982 for $39,600
(est.
$12,000/18,000).
Dealer
Jonathan Trace of Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, bought them at this sale
for $32,500 (est. $30,000/50,000).
Museums did some buying.
Bradley Brooks, curator of the
Bayou Bend Collection (a satellite of
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston),
bought a Baldwin Gardiner silver
tureen on its stand, made for John
G. Coster, who was one of only
five millionaires in New York City
in 1830. The tureen is similar to an
example by the Royal Goldsmiths
Rundell, Bridge, and Rundell, which
demonstrates the sophistication of
American silversmiths in the 1830s.
David Barquist, curator of
American decorative arts at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art,
bought a very rare early mug made
by John Allen and John Edwards
of Boston, circa 1695, based on a
baluster ceramic form found in English
earthenware and delft, in turn from a
Chinese ceramic form. It sold for $25,000.
In June 1994 it had sold at Sotheby’s for
$63,000 (est. $10,000/15,000).
Colonial Williamsburg asked Tim Mar-
tin of S. J. Shrubsole, New York City, to
bid for a circa 1795 silver teapot by Asa
Blansett, who worked in Dumfries, Vir-
ginia, and he got it for the museum for
$43,750 (est. $5000/7000). In January
1994 it had sold at Christie’s for $16,100
(est. $4000/6000). This demonstrates how
silver made in the South is in great demand.
Stiles T. Colwill of Halcyon House
Antiques, Lutherville, Maryland (near
Baltimore), is a designer and collector
and has served as chair of the board of
trustees at the Baltimore Museum of
Art. He bought most of the Baltimore
silver offered. He paid $16,250 (est.
$5000/8000) for an 1830 silver pitcher
by Andrew Ellicott Warner of Baltimore,
which had sold at Christie’s in October
1989 for $8800 (est. $2000/2500). A large
circa 1805 coffeepot by Charles Louis
Boehme was his for $15,000. He said he
owns the rest of the tea set. At Sotheby’s
in 1993 the coffeepot sold for $23,000
(est. $7000/9000). Colwill spent $32,500
(est. $15,000/20,000) for a centerpiece
bowl by William Ball of Baltimore made
circa 1805 for Governor Charles Ridgely
of Hampton. (At Sotheby’s in June 1998,
Schwartz had bought it for $36,800.)
Colwill said it will go to the Baltimore
Museum of Art. Colwill paid slightly
more at $35,000 (almost three times its
high estimate) for a four-piece circa 1800
tea set by Charles Louis Boehme. Colwill
said he has been looking for a complete
Baltimore tea set with a tea caddy for 40
years.
Baltimore is below the Mason-Dixon
line. Present-day Delaware is just east of
the line. Three phone bidders competed
“I am happy to get a few
of my favorites back.”
This Viking-style vase in silver, enamel,
and set gems was designed by Paulding
Farnham for Tiffany & Co., New York,
in 1901 for the Pan-American Exposition
in Buffalo, New York. The body is
embossed and chased with Celtic knots
and stylized fox masks on a colored
enamel ground, set with faceted citrines,
cabochon tourmalines, and peridots;
the pierced rim has applied toothy
dragon heads; and it is marked on the
base and numbered
14681-3674
inside
the base rim with the beaver mark for
the Buffalo Exposition. It is 12½" tall
and 30 oz. 14 dwt. gross and sold on the
phone for $175,000 (est. $20,000/30,000)
to a descendant of Paulding Farnham.
Paulding Farnham won gold medals at
the great fairs of 1893, 1900, and 1901.
The last proved to be his swan song, as
Louis Comfort Tiffany took control of
Tiffany & Co. the following year and
Farnham’s influence gradually declined.
This impressive tureen and cover on stand was made by Baldwin Gardiner
of New York, circa 1830. The diameter of the stand is 14½". The tureen is
circular with a lobed lower body spaced with flowers below a chased band of
scrolling foliage. The reeded loop handles centered by acanthus spring from
bearded masks. The stepped, domed cover has chased radiating palmettes
and a leaf-and-bud finial. It is engraved near the rim with a stag head crest.
Well engraved, the set sold for $87,500 (est. $80,000/120,000) to Bradley
Brooks, curator at Bayou Bend Collection, in the salesroom.
According to the catalog: “The arms are those of John G. Coster, one
of only five millionaires in New York in 1830. He joined with John Jacob
Astor, Robert Lenox, Stephen Whitney, and Nathaniel Prime at a time when
Cornelius Vanderbilt was a struggling ferryboat operator.”
“Baldwin Gardiner (1791-1869) was the younger brother of silversmith
Sidney Gardiner, of the firm Fletcher and Gardiner. Baldwin worked for
this partnership in their new Philadelphia retail shop until 1815, when he
established his own fancy hardware store. He partnered with his brother-
in-law Lewis Vernon from 1817 to 1826, then moved to New York to open
a household furnishings warehouse. Located at 149 Broadway, it carried
imported and more substantial goods than the Philadelphia shop. In addition
to home furnishings, Baldwin retailed special-order silver wares, the orders
often filled by Fletcher and Gardiner. Baldwin Gardiner’s career as a silver
manufacturer and retailer ended in 1848 when he moved again, to California.
“This tureen shows the ambition of wealthy Americans to live as well as
their English counterparts. The overall design is very similar to an example
by the Royal Goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge, and Rundell, with lobed body and
acanthus band, and the whole raised on a plateau
.”
This pair of silver candlesticks is by Myer Myers of New York, 1750-65. Each of
the 8¼" tall sticks has stepped shaped square bases with shells at the corners, with
circular wells rising from knopped baluster stems with shells at the shoulders, and the
banded campana-form sconces are fitted with removable conforming shaped square
bobèches. Each is marked four times on its base. The pair sold for $150,000 (est.
$150,000/250,000). Iris Schwartz had bought the pair of sticks at auction in Baltimore
in 1997. They form a set of four with a pair in a private collection. David Barquist
suggests that the original owners of the four were Jacob LeRoy and his second
wife, Catherine Rutgers, who married in 1766. The sticks are first recorded in the
possession of their granddaughter Catherine Augusta McEvers. Sets of four American
candlesticks are rare. According to the catalog, only one other set of four candlesticks
by Myers is known, made for Catherine Livingston Lawrence and now divided
between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Art Gallery.