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24-A Maine Antique Digest, April 2017
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AUCTION -
34-D
Sotheby’s, New York City
Various
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Owners Americana
by Lita Solis-Cohen
Photos courtesy Sotheby’s
I
n addition to five single-owner sales
presented in five catalogs, Sotheby’s
offered 415 lots of property from
various owners in one fat catalog. On
Friday afternoon, January 20, after the
single-owner sale of silver from the
collection of the late Iris Schwartz,
Sotheby’s put the first 180 lots from the catalog on the
block, including silver, China trade porcelain, prints, and
Oriental carpets. The rest crossed the block on Saturday
afternoon, January 21, at the conclusion of the sale of the
E. Newbold and Margaret du Pont Smith collection.
At the Saturday afternoon sale 192 of the 234 lots of
American furniture, folk art, and decorations sold, an 82%
sell-through rate by lot, for a total of $3,493,688. The sale
included the estates of Joan Ostreich Kend and Kenneth
and Joyce Volk, and 12 lots of furniture in pristine
condition from the estate of Dr. George Straehle. There
were fresh-to-the-market consignments from other estates
and collectors, including some major pieces of American
furniture and some better folk art, which satisfied those
who have been complaining about the lack of quality
material in the marketplace. The success of these sales at
all levels should make those who have been reluctant to
sell in the falling market change their minds. There was
good competition for the best throughout the week, and
buyers were active at all price levels.
Sotheby’s long sale on January 21 began after 3 p.m.
and lasted until after 7 p.m., but bidders stuck with it,
bidding on phones and online, and a few dozen stayed
in the salesroom until the very end. The sell-through rate
was better than in recent seasons. The poor performance
of silver, prints, China trade, and carpets in the front part
of the catalog—nearly half the lots failed to sell—brought
the sold-by-lot total for the entire catalog to 73%. The
afternoon sale is covered here.
The very first lot of the afternoon sale, a portrait of a
Young Woman in Paneled Room
by Sheldon Peck (1797-
1868), oil on wood panel, 27" x 24", circa 1830, painted
at the time Peck lived in Jordan, New York, from 1828
to 1836, is a rare picture. It sold for $187,500 (includes
buyer’s premium), well above the $30,000/50,000
estimate, to a NewYork collector in the salesroom despite
the fact that it needed expert conservation. After it sold
for $79,500 at Northeast Auctions in August 1996, it was
poorly conserved. The only other Peck on the market
duringAmericana Week was a first-rate portrait of a Miss
Dodge, painted about 1845, on Stephen Score’s stand at
the Winter Antiques Show. It had a $425,000 price tag.
A double portrait of two children with their dog by
WilliamMatthewPrior seemed like a good buy. The oil on
canvas of a blonde-haired boy seated in a rocker holding
a whip, a girl in a red dress with eyelet pantaloons and
red shoes, and a black dachshund, circa 1845, sold for
$68,750 (est. $70,000/100,000) on the phone to dealer
David Wheatcroft of Westborough,
Massachusetts, bidding for a client.
Large double portraits by Prior are
rare.
A pair of very appealing portraits
by Rufus Hathaway (1770-1822)
of Captain and Mrs. Pollycarpus
Edson, oils on canvas mounted
on panels, sold for $200,000 (est.
$100,000/150,000) to collectors on
the phone, underbid by collectors in
the salesroom. The portrait of the cap-
tain is signed and dated 1791, and his
wife’s is inscribed “Aetatis 31.” They
seemed like a good buy even though
both paintings had been cut down;
the captain’s portrait is smaller than
the woman’s, and half her fan was
lost in the trimming. Hathaway por-
traits are not easy to find. It has been
a decade since a pair of Hathaway
portraits appeared at auction. Hatha-
way’s portraits of Josiah Dean III
and his wife, Sarah Dean, of Rayn-
ham, Massachusetts, painted circa
1791, sold for $441,600 at Sotheby’s
in January 2006 in a sale where an
Edward Hicks
Peaceable Kingdom
sold for $3,152,000 to C.L. Prickett at the peak of the
market.
There was some significantAmerican furniture offered.
The much-discussed Nicholas Brown Chippendale
mahogany scalloped-top tea table with open-talon ball-
and-claw feet was made in Providence, Rhode Island,
to match the circa 1765 Newport table of the same form
made by John Goddard for Nicholas Brown. It sold for
$912,500 (est. $800,000/1,200,000) to a bidder on the
phone with Erik Gronning. The price is just a bit more
than a tenth of the price of Nicholas Brown’s Newport
tea table that was consigned by descendants of the
Brown, Ives, and Goddard families in January 2005 to
Sotheby’s, where it made $8,416,000 (est. $2/5 million),
selling to Albert Sack and underbid by Leigh Keno.
It is believed that the table consigned this January
by the same consignors was made in the 18th century
to match the Newport table, probably by a Providence
cabinetmaker familiar with the Goddard shop practices.
It is clearly by another hand. It is hard to figure out why
a drawer was added to the table between 1795 and 1815;
it hurt its value today.
According to Sotheby’s catalog, three tea tables are
listed in Nicholas Brown’s 1791 estate inventory, one
set with china valued at £4-10-0; another in the parlor
valued at £2; and another in the northwest chamber
valued at £3-15-0. Nicholas Brown left his estate to his
three children, and two of the tea tables descended to
Hope Brown, who married Thomas Poynton Ives (1769-
1835), a partner in the Brown family firm. Hope died
in 1855. Both tea tables descended to their daughter
Charlotte Rhoda Ives (1792-1881), who married William
Giles Goddard (1794-1846). He graduated from Brown
University and was a professor of philosophy there. After
Charlotte Ives Goddard’s death in 1881, the tables were
separated; each son inherited one. Col. William Goddard
The Nicholas Brown, Rhode Island, carved mahogany scalloped-top tea
table, with open-talon ball-and-claw feet, circa 1765, descended in the
Brown, Ives, and Goddard families. It sold on the phone for $912,500 (est.
$800,000/1,200,000). Its mate is the Nicholas Brown tea table made by John
Goddard that sold for $8,416,000 at Sotheby’s in January 2005 to Albert Sack,
underbid by Leigh Keno. The table at this sale was made in the 18th century
by another hand to match the Goddard table. The maker was familiar with the
Goddard shop practices. A drawer was added between 1795 and 1815.
There were some high prices and
some bargains along with a new
energy in the Americana market.
There was something for every taste in this sale.
This brown-painted Windsor bamboo-turned settee,
Massachusetts, circa 1810, 32½" high x 38" wide, with
traces of old paint, sold online for $6250 (est. $1500/2000).
At Christie’s in October 1989, it sold for $8800.
Joseph Steward (1753-1822), portraits of Col. John Chester and Elizabeth Huntington Chester.
The colonel holds a receipt and sits in front of his law library. Mrs. Chester’s elbow rests on a
copy of
Elegant Extracts
, one of two similarly titled anthologies (one of poetry and one of prose)
published in London in 1794 and 1796. Behind her, visible through the window, is likely the
Connecticut River and the city of Hartford. The 43½" x 37¾"oils on canvas, painted circa 1795,
sold for $62,500 (est. $25,000/35,000). The buyer in the salesroom said he is the great-great-
great-great-grandson of the sitters and had photos of the portraits hanging in his house.