Portrait of George Morrillo
Bartol, 1827, was signed Susannah Paine.
Portrait by
Itinerate American Artist Comes Home to $27,500 at Ohio
Sale
AUSTINBURG, OHIO - A work by an itinerate American artist of the
early Nineteenth Century - a woman who traveled from town to town
in New England earning a meager living as a portraitist -
achieved $27,500 at Rachel Davis Fine Arts' September 23 painting
auction, held in conjunction with DeFina Auctions Fall sale.
Assigned a pre-sale estimate of $2/4,000, the pastel on paper
portrait of "George Morrillo Bartol," 1827, by Susannah Paine,
signed and titled on the verso, was the object of contention
among five phone bidders, heating into a battle between two
collectors. The work was won by a New England buyer.
Women artists were well represented at the auction. A European
work both in style and subject, "Fete Galante by a Renaissance
Villa," an oil on panel by the early Twentieth Century Italian
Emma Ciardi, signed and dated 1915, charmed numerous proxy
bidders, ultimately succumbing to the bidding of an East cCoast
buyer at a final price of $13,200.
An early Twentieth Century American landscape, very regionalist
in flavor, "St Stephen's in Sunlight, Ashland, Maine," an oil on
masonite by Anne C. Bradley, further testified to the power of
the female paint brush, going for a strong $3,300.
Another New England scene, this one depicting "Afternoon
Rockport" by Anthony Thieme, moved beyond high estimate to
$9,900. An autumn landscape by Cullen Yates similarly fell over
estimate at $3,575. An illustrative gouache on paper of an Indian
encampment by Victor Casnelli powered past its high estimate to
$2,860.
An impressionistic mountainscape by Julian Rix soared between
high and low estimate to $3,300. A house in winter by Bertram
Bruestle warmed within estimate at $2,530, while another winter
scene by the artist nestled into low estimate at $1,320.
European paintings included an oil on canvas of a peasant herding
horses by the late Nineteenth Century Italian Andrea Marchisio,
which similarly skirted estimate at $1,650. The Englishman
William Allcott's oil of a steamship in storm reached safe harbor
just shy of estimate at $1,430.
Cleveland artists garnered the attention of both local and
national dealers and collectors. Works by the late Paul Ulen, a
Michigan native who lived and worked in Lakewood, Ohio, included
a watercolor of a train passing a hay wagon, exhibited at the
American Watercolor Society in 1950, which traveled to $1,210,
and a self-portrait which sold for $2,090, above estimate.
A Parisian market scene, an oil on canvas from 1890 by
Clevelander Charles de Klyn, sold for $990. "Provincetown," an
oil by Ora Coltman, also sold for $990, while the artist's
"Williamsburg" went for $605.
