Massachusetts great chair,
$26,000.
By Laura Beach
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - May is the month that Northeast Auction hosts
its annual "Home and Garden" sale. The fare is eclectic, often
with a strong continental emphasis, and the audience is diverse.
It was all the more so this May 18-20 when Northeast joined
several highly specialized collections together to create an
auction that started with Sandwich glass, ended with Georgian
silver, and grossed $2.9 million.
From Ceramics to Prints
Under a tent at Treadwell House, Northeast's Portsmouth
headquarters, the auction began at noon on Friday, May 18.
Featured were American historical prints from the collection of
Robert Wieland, who dealt from his home in Ormond Beach, Fla.
"Bob was one of the most beloved Currier & Ives specialists.
This was the residue of his inventory and personal collection.
Over the years he had sold much of what he had, but his was a
great name to be associated with the material," noted auctioneer
Ron Bourgeault.
Three very good winter scenes, one of Currier & Ives' most
desirable subjects, were the group's bestsellers. All were
large-folio lithographs after G.H. Durrie. "Winter In The
Country. A Cold Morning" made $6,600; "The Farmer's Home -
Winter," also after Durrie, $6,400; and "Winter Morning. Feeding
The Chickens," $5,000.
From another source, one lot containing four fire subjects after
L. Maurer - "Always Ready," "Facing The Enemy," "Prompt to the
Rescue," and "Rushing to the Conflict" - in grain-painted frames
went for $5,000. (Prices do not include buyer's premium.)
Phillips Exeter Academy consigned its Martha F. and Franklyn
Stanley Morse Collection of Early American Glass, which had been
on loan to the Exeter Inn. Northeast offered overlay and other
lamps from D. Quinn Mills.
"The overlay lamps did not do well," said Bourgeault. He
attributed results in part to changing fashions, recalling a time
of much greater interest almost a half century ago. He also
noted, "Selling them without estimate would have sparked more
interest."
Sandwich glass candlesticks and vases in a range of colors
included a pair of Boston and Sandwich Glass Company tulip vases
in pressed amethyst, $3,400. A Sandwich twisted loop vase in
amethyst went out at $2,700. Later, an opaque, pale blue Oak Leaf
and Acorn cup plate, possibly by New England Glass, 3 1/2 inches
in diameter, drew a bid of $2,200. A clear blown glass bank with
applied threaded and berried elements sold for its low estimate,
$3,000.
In a group of 12 Sandwich lamps, the tallest was also the most
expensive. The rare cut-cranberry glass banquet lamp with overlay
Moorish panel, 23 inches high, was knocked down at $12,000, its
high estimate. Cape Cod auctioneer Richard Bourne sold the lamp
in 1989 as part of the Thuro Collection, reportedly for several
thousand dollars more. A 25 1/2-inch tall Sandwich cut cobalt and
white double overlay lamp brought $5,000.
Glass paperweights were among the handful of lots passed in three
days of sales. Two weights that did sell were Baccarat faceted
sulfide examples, showing Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D.
Eisenhower, and bringing only $225. In the blown-glass category,
honors went to an olive-green pitcher, 5-1/2 inches tall,
ex-McKearin collection, $3,900.
The top piece of Dedham pottery was not one of the more
recognizable blue-and-white wares, but a baluster-form vase, 11
1/2 inches tall, in "Volcanic" glaze. Fashioned by Hugh Cornwall
Robertson, it sold for $2,500, its low estimate.
Leading historical blue Staffordshire was a soup tureen from the
Quadruped series with a camel cartouche, $4,250. An 18 1/2-inch
platter printed with elephants, from the Zoological series,
achieved $3,600. Prices for Bennington pottery topped out at
$2,200, the amount paid for a "Bennington Battle" flint-enamel
book flask, 11 inches tall, $2,200.
A 1754 edition of the Gentleman's and Cabinetmaker's
Director by Thomas Chippendale was a good buy at $2,000.
Percy Macquoid's 1905 A History of English Furniture made
$450, while a bid of $325 took R.T.H. Halsey's 1899 study on
Staffordshire.
Inventory of Fred Johnston
The inventory of the late Fred J. Johnston, an antiques dealer
from the 1940s, was auctioned on Saturday, May 19. In the
catalogue, Bourgeault included some personal recollections of the
dealer, who he met at the Kent Antiques Show in the late 1960s.
"...From that time on he always made a purchase in my booth,"
wrote the auctioneer. "His shop in historic Kingston, N.Y., was a
treasure trove visited by curators, collectors and dealers. Fred
sold to major museums and collectors, and had a close association
with Henry Francis du Pont...". Following Johnston's death, his
Federal home was turned into a museum of American furnishings and
accessories.
The Johnston trove, almost 400 lots in all, was consigned by the
dealer's former business partner, Robert A. Slater of Kingston.
The consignment included some of the best, and worst, fare
offered this sale. Some specialists who inspected the furniture
said that many pieces were restored. Slater and Bourgeault agreed
that the entire consignment should be sold without estimates or
reserves. "I think some things went a little lower as a result,
but we had very few buy-ins," noted the auctioneer.
Bourgeault said, "Johnston was one of the old-time dealers who
wasn't as concerned with original finish and condition. But he
had some great things. He never discounted his prices, so he had
inventory, some of it very good, for a long time."
Early New England furniture is clearly enjoying a revival. A year
ago, Northeast auctioned a Pilgrim Century great chair for
$140,000. It had been on loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
In the Johnston session, two early chairs and blanket box lead. A
Massachusetts great chair with a slatted back, rather than a
spindled back like the MFA chair, advanced to $26,000 in heated
competition between two bidders.
Hepplewhite mahogany demilune card tables, $25,000.
Identified as a Boston work, a Pilgrim Century blanket chest with
molded top and stiles, paneled front and one drawer, fetched
$20,000. "Its color has been enhanced but it's structurally
pure," said the delighted buyer.
"It had wonderful shape and some restoration. Its feet were
pieced," Bourgeault said of a Piscatagua River, N.H., crown
armchair with a carved crest and block-and-ring turnings. Sold
for $19,000, the chair is associated with local gentry, Sir
William and Lady Pepperell.
Given the Hudson River Valley setting of his business, Johnston's
taste naturally ran to New York furniture and the kind of brass,
delft, and sophisticated portraiture that one associates with the
manor houses of the area's wealthy Anglo-Dutch ruling class.
An avid bidder for this and other material was New York dealer
Jonathan Trace, whose many purchases included a delft posset pot
for $5,750; a New York mahogany chest of drawers with molded top
and ball-and-claw feet, $7,250; a New York Chippendale mahogany
card table, $6,000; and a 14-inch Hudson River Valley Queen Anne
yoke-back armchair, $8,000. Also added to Trace's account was a
veneered walnut Massachusetts lowboy, $15,000; and a New London
County chest-on-chest, $20,000.
Maine dealer Don Heller took three New York chairs with pierced
Gothic backs for $5,500; a Massachusetts mahogany chest of
drawers, $17,000; and a Massachusetts walnut inlaid flattop
highboy, $9,000.
"Southern furniture is very saleable," the auctioneer observed of
a Baltimore Hepplewhite side chair with fan, urn and bellflower
inlays. It sold to a bidder in the room for $21,000.
A New England Queen Anne cherry bonnet-top highboy also garnered
$21,000. Five Rhode Island Chippendale mahogany chairs with
Greene family provenance crossed the block at $22,000. Some
experts who looked at a walnut chest-on-chest thought it was a
married piece. Commensurate with that assessment, the casepiece
brought $19,000.
Of the many mirrors in the Johnston session, a mahogany and
giltwood looking glass with Portsmouth, N.H. provenance fetched
$12,000. The highest bid for a flagpole eagle, of which there
were several, was $2,200.
English Taste and a Midwest Museum
On May 20, Northeast featured property from two well-known
antiques firms plus material deaccessioned by the Minneapolis
Museum of Art.
First up were household furnishings from Joseph M. and A. Carol
Williams, North Shore dealers who did business under the name
English Manor Antiques. In 1960, Joe Williams purchased the
contents of Mint House, an antiques shop in Pevensey, Sussex, and
had the contents shipped to his home in Prides Crossing, Mass. He
operated English Manor Antiques, which exhibited at the Winter
Antiques Show in New York and the Ellis Memorial Antiques Show in
Boston, out of the third floor of his home. Williams died in
1978; his wife died last year.
Competition was fierce when a rosewood cabinet bookcase with a
marble top and ormolu mounts in the form of a lion's head, ribbed
ovals, and caryatids with Egyptian busts sold for $29,000 against
an estimate of $6/9,000 to an anonymous bidder in the room.
An oak gate-leg table from the group fetched $4,750; an assembled
set of yew wood Windsor armchairs, $6,500; a Queen Anne walnut
veneered high chest on stand, $3,500; and a William and Mary
marquetry cabinet, $3,500. As it had the day before, miniature
furniture exerted its charm when two tiny Windsors sold to an
absentee bidder for $5,250.
The best selling lot of the day came from The Virginians. Dealers
Walter Angel and Bill Dennis began their partnership in St Louis
but later moved to Fredericksberg, Va. When they retired, they
sold their beautiful, historic home to John and Barbara Suval.
Walter has since passed on, but Bill is living in Fort
Lauderdale. Several years ago, Northeast auctioned The
Virginians' inventory. This was their personal collection.
"This was The Virginians' pride and joy," said the auctioneer,
presenting an Irish George II mahogany console table with white
marble top, shell and Greek key carving, and paw feet. Five phone
bidders battled it out before the table sold for $28,000 (est
$9/15,000).
Irish George II console table, $28,000.
An open armchair with rich carvings on its arms and knees and
"all the bells and whistles," sold for $11,000 to Clinton Howell,
a prominent English furniture specialist with showrooms in
Manhattan and Bedford, N.Y. Apparently, Northeast had
miscatalogued the piece, which was described as "Georgian-style"
and not illustrated in the catalogue.
Bourgeault's first auction was in 1977, when he liquidated the
contents of a barn given to the Boston-based Society for the
Preservation of New England Antiquities. Since then, he has
handled many other museum deaccessions, usually at zero
commission.
The Minneapolis Museum of Art consigned 50 lots, the most
expensive of which was a pair of English Hepplewhite mahogany
demilune card tables. Extensively inlaid with fans, swags and
bellflowers, they sold to an absentee bidder for $25,000. One of
the prettiest pieces was a baroque walnut sofa covered with
antique tapestry in soft greens and blues. At $11,500, it was a
good buy for Boston dealer Stephen Score.
The May sale also included property from the estate of J. Watson
Webb, Jr., son of Electra Havemeyer Webb, and from the estate of
Margaret Wilkins, mother of Massachusetts dealer Robert Wilkins.
The latter was sold in her memory to benefit a favorite charity,
the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in her hometown of Newburyport.
