: Buyers from Italy, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands
and nine other countries helped generate top prices for the
strong European section of Freeman's Sunday, June 22, sale of
fine American and European paintings. Combined totals of
paintings sales on Friday and Sunday exceeded $1.2 million
against an $800,000 low estimate with a sell-through rate of 84
percent.
Sunday's top lot was a Futurist work by the Twentieth Century
Italian painter Enrico Prampolini (1896-1956) that had been
estimated to sell for $8/10,000. Extensive promotion of the sale
in trade publications and on the Internet - with exposure to the
more than 65 million users of eBay especially influential - led
to more than a dozen bidders from Italy engaging in heated
competition for the lot. After a brief stall at $35,000, a new
bidder in the room entered the fray to drive the price to
$55,812.
"An Esteemed Visitor" by Clemente Pujol de Gustavino (French,
1850-1905) came to Freeman's as part of a consignment from the
Schwenkfelder Library & Museum. International competition was
again heated for this lot, which eventually sold to a trade buyer
in Paris for $41,125. Other notable European results include a
world record price for the work of Charles Joseph Grips (Belgian,
1825-1920) - $35,250 for "Woman in Interior Preparing a Meal"-
and $25,850 for a painting from the circle of Orazio de Ferrari
(Italian 1605-1657). Both paintings sold to private buyers in the
greater Philadelphia region.
"Autumn Gold, Lumberville," Fern Isabel Coppedge, $52,875.
Several works by modern painters performed well, including
two by Colin W. Middleton (Irish, 1910-1983). Middleton's "Dutch
Seaman," detailed on the front cover of the catalog, sold for
$24,675 and the more abstract "Figures" sold for $9,400. The
Middletons came to Freeman's from a consignor who sold another
painting from the artist at Freeman's last year for $23,500.
Other notable results from the European segment of the sale
included Edmund Adler, "The Big Brother," $18,800, and "Feeding
the Young," $14,100; Bernard Pothast, "Mother and Children,"
$16,450; and Cornelius Christiaan Dommelshuizen, "Evening at
Maassluis, Holland," $14,100.
Bidders from eBay were active throughout both sales, with more
than 300 registered bidders participating in the sale through
eBay's Live Auction technology. The top online purchase was for
an untitled Franz Kline painting, estimated to sell for
$12/18,000. An eBay user from Alaska purchased the lot for
$23,500.
In the American section of the sale, much presale attention had
been directed toward five paintings by the Nineteenth Century
Pennsylvania artist Mary Russell Smith (1842-1878), who produced
some 300 paintings despite the shortness of her years. All five
paintings, which came to Freeman's from a Bucks County estate,
sold for well above high estimate led by "Hen and Her Chicks" at
$15,275. The total for the paintings, which sold to two private
buyers and two from the trade, was $58,750 against a combined
estimate of $20/32,000.
Another phone bidder in Italy was the successful bidder on "Rocky
Neck, East Gloucester" by the American painter Emile Albert
Gruppe (1896-1978). The harbor scene, a small example of Gruppe's
work at 12 by 6 inches, came to Freeman's from a private Bucks
County collection and sold for $30,550 against an estimate of
$15/25,000. A portrait of Sir Walter Scott by Thomas Sully,
painted after the portrait originally executed by Sir Thomas
Lawrence, was one of the surprise results of the day. The
portrait sold to a private buyer in Texas for $19,975, well above
the presale estimate of $2/3,000.
Roy C. Nuse's "McComas' Farm, Rushland, PA" brought a world
record for the artist at $31,725.
A new world record was set for the work of Pennsylvania
Impressionist Roy C. Nuse, as "McComas' Farm, Rushland, PA" sold to
a private local buyer for $31,725. The previous record for Nuse's
work had been set at Freeman's in June 2001.
Other Pennsylvania Impressionists that did well at Freeman's are
Fern Isabel Coppedge's "Autumn Gold, Lumberville," sold for
$52,875; Edward Willis Redfield's "Flock in a Snowy Field,"
$41,125 (this painting last appeared at auction at Freeman's in
1991, when it sold for $9,500); and Walter Emerson Baum's "April
Spring Day," $14,100.
All listed prices include Freeman's buyer's premium of 17.5
percent up to $50,000 and ten percent thereafter.
