: A winter scene by Edward Willis Redfield (American, 1869-1965),
consigned to Freeman's by a local private collector, was the top
lot of the day at the auction company's December 7 sale of fine
paintings and sculpture.
The sale was one of the most successful ever at Freeman's,
reaching a total of $3,168,680. A total of 221 of the day's 229
lots (96.5 percent) sold successfully, with nearly 60 percent
exceeding high estimate.
Bidding for Redfield's "The Old Mill, Washington's Crossing"
began at just under the low estimate of $300,000, but competition
in the room quickly surpassed the previous record ($519,500, set
at Freeman's in December 2001).
Many phone bidders, primarily private Pennsylvania collectors,
battled it out until one took the painting home for a new world
record of $691,250. Signed "E.W. Redfield" bottom left, inscribed
and dated "The Old Mill below Washington's Crossing 1937" on
stretcher verso, the oil on canvas measures 32 by 40 inches.
More than 150 bidders braved the weather to attend the auction,
and many more bidders elected to stay in the comfort of home,
with more than 625 phone bids executed over the course of the
sale and another 280 bidders participating through eBay Live
Auctions.
Shortly after the Redfield, in the Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts section of the sale, was a run of five paintings by
another of the leading lights from the Pennsylvania Impressionist
movement, Walter Elmer Schofield. The consignor, Margaret
Phillips of Langhorne, Penn., is the grandniece of the artist,
and the paintings had descended to her through the family. The
previous auction record for Schofield was $60,000, which was
quickly eclipsed by the first of the Schofields in the sale.
"Montmartre," a 37- by 47-inch depiction of a corner café scene
from his 1896 trip to Europe, sold to the trade for $80,750.
The record did not last for very long - perhaps four or five
minutes - as the next lot sold for three times the previous
record. "River in Winter," a 40- by 48-inch landscape, sold to
the Redfield underbidder at $201,750.
Another auction highlight was a 16- by 20-inch oil by Harry
Leith-Ross depicting "The Bridge at New Hope," which achieved a
final price of $102,750 by a local buyer, shattering all previous
records.
All told, the sale featured more than 20 world record prices and
only eight unsold lots, a ratio that bodes well both for the
continuing upward trends at Freeman's and for the Pennsylvania
Impressionist market as a whole.
A complete review of the auction will appear in a future issue.
