Audubon's "Pileated
Woodpecker," $23,750.
Sotheby's
Important Americana:
By Laura Beach
NEW YORK CITY - Highstyle American furniture from the Copeland
Collection. Blue-chip folk art from the Palley and Kanter
consignments. Precious church silver. There was much to dazzle
bidders at Sotheby's Americana Week sales, but it wasn't at the
various owners sale. What the three sessions on January 17 and 18
lacked in sizzle, however, they made up for in solid sales: $3.6
million on 442 lots. The buy-in rate was about average, twenty
percent.
Porcelain
The auction opened on Thursday morning with roughly 140 lots of
porcelain, most of it Chinese Export, the first 90 lots of which
were from one collection. A garniture of five blue and white
Kangxi vases and one cover left the room at $18,000, and an Imari
"Governor Duff" charger, dating to circa 1720 and 16 ¾ inches in
diameter, sold in the room for $13,800.
From another consignment was a 16 ¾ inch figure of a Dutch lady,
her cape flying. The figure elicited a bid of $52,500. The most
expensive piece of Chinese Export porcelain was catalogued as the
property of a European lady. Consisting of a plaque painted with
a nude bather attended by her maid, along with the French 1781
engraving from which the plaque was copied, the lot sold for
$214,750 ($200/300,000.)
Prints
The morning session concluded with one hundred lots of prints.
Featured was Amos Dolittle's "Display of the United States of
America," a hand colored engraving of 1791. Probably the largest
engraving executed, printed and published in this country before
1800, it sold under estimate for $29,500.
J. Howard & Co. galloping horse weathervane, $98,500.
A circa 1800 stipple engraving of Thomas Jefferson, engraved by
Cornelius Tiebout, left the room at $27,200, well in excess of
its $8/10,000 estimate. The impression is thought to be the only
known portrait printed on silk.
Eleven hand-colored lithographs from George Catlin's North
American Indian Portfolio were also a hit, selling for
$31,800 ($10/15,000). In the Audubon category, "Pileated
Woodpecker (Plate CXL)," 38 ¼ by 25 ½, was knocked down at
$23,750; "Hooping Crane (Plate CCLXL)," 38 ¼ by 25 5/8 inches,
sold for $42,150; and "Great Northern Diver or Loon (Plate
CCCVI)" went out at $29,500.
Folk Art
The afternoon session got going with folk art. One of the first
pieces off the block was a redware bowl stamped S. Bell &
Son, Strasburg, Va. It sold in the room to New York dealers
Garrison and Diana Stradling for $5,700.
Americana Week saw some extraordinary prices for weathervanes. A
galloping horse weathervane of copper and zinc, stamped J. Howard
& Co., and measuring 21 inches long, sold to the phone for
$98,500, underbid by New York dealer Leigh Keno. A Cushing zinc
and copper sheep weathervane, 25 inches long, retailed by Marna
Anderson, brought $43,875, but a J.W. Fiske weathervane, Maud S.
And Sulky Driver, passed at $27,000.
A pair of 27- by 22-inch portraits attributed to Sturtevant
Hamblin sold on the phone for $16,800 ($6/8,000) while another
pair of portraits, William and Lucinda Mabie Cook, attributed to
Joel Parks, were hammered down at $31,800. Wayne Pratt of
Woodbury, Conn., snapped up Ralph Cahoon's "Mermaid and Sailors
Playing Violins and Cellos" for the bargain price of $16,800. A
phone bidder claimed a charming watercolor, pen and ink double
portrait by J.H. Davis of Olive and Lucy Chaney, aged seven years
and ten months, for $30,650.
Furniture
Forty-two lots consigned by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
from its collection of 60,000 objects realized nearly $400,000
including buyer's premium. Most prized was a Philadelphia
Chippendale dressing table of circa 1760. It sold in the room to
a private collector for $61,125. A New England maple tea table
with scrubbed top and red-painted legs sold to Massachusetts
dealer Elliott Snyder for $49,050. The following lot, a
Philadelphia Chippendale side chair, sold in the room for
$30,650. A cherry sideboard, probably from Connecticut, closed at
$21,450 while a child's New England chest of drawers in old red
paint fetched just under low estimate, $19,150.
Massachusetts block-front bonnet-top desk-and-bookcase,
$115,750.
Consigned by various owners, other major lots included a
Massachusetts block-front bonnet-top desk-and-bookcase, sold to
the phone for $115,750; and two Philadelphia dressing tables,
sold for $75,500 and $61,125.
The most romantic piece was the so-called "Wedding Cake" table, a
lyre-based drop-leaf table made by Duncan Phyfe and Son around
1840. Owned by the New York cabinetmaker's grandson, Duncan Phyfe
Whitlock, the table is shown in a photograph at Whitlock's
marriage in the parlor of the family home in Southbury, Conn.
Estimated at $30/50,000, the table sold in the room to Rick
Patrick for $78,375. The Michigan collector was successful in his
bid the next day for a piece of Milford Church silver.
Silver
Nineteenth Century wares dominated the small selection of silver
that concluded the auction on January 18. Legendary New York
maker Tiffany & Co., took top honors. A sumptuous, Japanesque
silver and mixed-metals compote of about 1880 went for $75,500
($32/38,000). Its hammered silver surface imitating water, a
Japanese-style mixed-metal punch bowl, 11 1/2 inches in diameter,
brought $52,500; and a pair of Japanese-style mixed-metal vases
formed as cylinders cuffed with a patterned band and resting on
robust pad feet garnered a bid of $46,750.
From earlier in the century was a cup and cover made by James
Thomson of New York. Chased with the figures of Liberty and
Justice, and engraved with the arms of New York, it was presented
to Congressman John McKeon in 1838. The weighty centerpiece,
fully 24 inches tall, commanded a bid of $32,950.
A handful of Eighteenth Century pieces included a tankard by
Samuel Vernon of Newport, circa 1720. It sold for $46,750.
