Liberty Weathervane Indicates Favorable Wind For New Hampshire Antiques Week Northeast Auction

MANCHESTER, N.H.

:Editor's Note: For additional coverage and images of the top lots at the August 5-7 sale at Northeast Auctions, see related article published in the August 12 issue by searching the articles archive with keyword - Northeast Auctions.

Which way was the wind blowing for Antiques Week in New Hampshire? The question was decisively answered 1,330 lots into Northeast Auction's August 5-7 sale at the Center of New Hampshire.

Her left arm outstretched as if to point to the coming flurry of shows and sales, a Goddess of Liberty weathervane reached a dizzying $424,000 before selling in the room to Illinois dealer Mike Whittemore on behalf of Connecticut dealer Fred Giampietro. More than ten bidders were active at $150,000 or higher, Northeast Auctions confirmed.

Reached in New Haven after the sale, Giampietro said the 193/4-inch-high Liberty vane is one of only about a dozen known of any size and one of three smaller examples that he has owned in the past seven or eight years. Two of the smaller vanes, including the Northeast example, are painted. Giampietro sold the other small, painted Liberty the first year he exhibited at the Winter Antiques Show for about $100,000, he recalls. The dealer attributes Liberty to Cushing & White, based on a signed and dated 1865 example in his own collection.

The Liberty weathervane was one of many successes in an auction that contained few disappointments for either consignors or Northeast's chief auctioneer, Ron Bourgeault.

"We tied our record at just over $9 million in total sales," Bourgeault said after the sale, as the dust was just beginning to settle. "What pleases me is that property came from many sources." So did the buyers. There were more than 500 paddles in the room and a dozen Northeast staffers executed hundreds of phone and left bids.

Midwest Collection

Thirty lots of painted country furniture and folk art from a Midwestern private collection demonstrated the long experience and fine eye of dealer Bill Samaha, who advised the consignor. Several of the offered lots were previously in the celebrated Taradash and Little collections.

The top price of the group was $121,500 for a 46-inch-tall Maine Sheraton step back dressing table in white paint with red and green floral decoration. It sold to David Wheatcroft, who also acquired a New Hampshire Queen Anne red painted pine table with scrubbed top for $34,800.

Known as the Taradash tea table ever since it was illustrated in The Magazine Antiquesin 1953, a Queen Anne octagonal-top table with attractively mottled blue over red paint sold to a dealer in the room for $98,600. A second octagonal-top tea table in dark green paint, also ex-Samaha Antiques, went to Woodbury, Conn., dealer David Schorsch for $62,640.

Maine dealers Jim and Nancy Glazer acquired a Philadelphia low back Windsor with knuckle arms in ivory paint for $32,480. A Pennsylvania fanback Windsor knuckle armchair, probably by Joseph Henzey, failed to meet reserve.

A paint decorated fireboard from the Dr John Brewster House in Haddam, Conn., sold to an absentee bidder for $37,700. A circa 1825 decorated fireboard that fetched $23,000 at the Bert and Nina Little auction in 1994 resold to David Wheatcroft for $43,500. A vividly decorated Parcheesi board went to the phone for $18,560.

Horton Foote Collection

Playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote assembled the 138-lot collection of early American furniture and primitive portraiture that was auctioned as a single-owner cataloged sale on Saturday for $749,998. Foote and his late wife, Lillian, were guided by New Hampshire dealer Roger Bacon. Massachusetts dealer Pam Boynton was an important source for Foote after Bacon's death. The session started with a 24-inch Bellamy eagle with Boynton provenance, sold the phone for $60,320.

Featured were more than 60 portraits, including miniatures. Massachusetts dealer Joan Brownstein, a specialist in American folk portraiture, acquired seven of the small works, including a pair of miniature portraits of a seated couple, $5,336, attributed to Justus Dalee, an attribution she plans to research further.

A full-size oil on canvas portrait of an unidentified New England man that fetched only $9,200 in the Little sale resold to an absentee bidder for $25,520. Formerly in the Hemphill Collection, a Sheldon Peck portrait of a blue-eyed man in a yellow vest crossed the block at $40,600.

Painted furniture from the Foote collection included a Maine paint decorated high chest of drawers, sold to Rockport, Maine, dealer Scott Fraser for $25,520 and a blue painted pine step back apothecary cupboard that went to Michael Whittemore for $23,200.

Kilcup Collection Of Americana

The 315-lot collection of Mary Lou and Richard Kilcup, also Bacon disciples, realized $767,601 in a single-owner cataloged sale on Saturday. The collection emphasized lighting. A rare pair of wall sconces with reflectors housed in shadowbox cases achieved $17,400, while a pair of foliate-top tin sconces from a set that Charles Montgomery and H.F. du Pont divided between themselves sold for $7,540. In the furniture category, Massachusetts dealer Peter Eaton claimed a Rhode Island Queen Anne maple drop-leaf dining table for $33,640.

Jef And Terri Steingrebe

New Hampshire dealers Jef and Terri Steingrebe consigned 81 lots of folk art and painted furniture. The selection realized $284,954. Heading sales was a New Hampshire Queen Anne carved and olive green painted linen press, $25,520, that sold to New Hampshire dealers Richard and Susie Burman. A Victorian "gentleman's amusement," a ribald carving of a nude man seated on a smoke-producing serpent, fetched $11,600.

The conclusion of the three-part single-owner cataloged sale of the Pamela and Donald Levine Collection of American Glass and Lighting produced a pair of jade green over white "Dolphin" candlesticks by Mount Washington Glass Company. They fetched $13,920.

From the Carol and Joseph Taveroni Collection of Mocha Ware came a seven-inch-tall pitcher with distinctive white slip that one expert called "Q-tip" decoration. The vessel sold to Dorset, Vt., dealer Bill King for $19,140.

Various Owners

Sunday's Various Owners sale delivered notable prices across a variety of specialties. The morning began with six Rembrandt etchings. Northeast Auctions consultant Anne Rogers Haley had spread the word at Maastricht that the prints were coming up for sale. The prints sold at prices ranging from $12,180 to $38,280. A small David Teniers, The Younger, oil on canvas depiction of "The Temptation of Saint Anthony" went to the phone for $185,600.

In other miscellaneous sales, the 1785 Symmes-Wolcott silver teapot by Jacob Hurd of Boston sold to a phone bidder for $81,200.

Formal furniture included a circa 1710-20 Boston easy chair with vase and block turned legs and a center stretcher, $204,000. A Queen Anne walnut side chair with a carved and pierced crest went to the phone for $110,200. Northeast's biggest disappointment was a Connecticut carved oak and pine sunflower chest that was bought in at $70,000 ($90/150,000). A Connecticut River Valley bible box, however, was a go at $58,000.

Pennsylvania folk art was hot. "The Wedding of the Turtle Doves," a well-documented folk sculpture by Pennsylvania carpenter turned carver John Scholl, sold to David Wheatcroft for $193,000. A yellow and blue Pennsylvania cupboard exuberantly painted with figures, portraits and a giant tulip sold to Olde Hope Antiques of New Hope, Penn., for $204,000.

"It was love at first sight. I've never seen anything quite like it in 30 years," said Olde Hope's Pat Bell.

Northeast Auction resumes on August 20-21 with its twelfth annual Marine and China Trade sale in Portsmouth, N.H. It returns to Manchester November 4-6.

"We're on a roll with a great estate containing the finest New Hampshire grandfather's clock by James C. Cole and a Gus Wilson tiger," said Bourgeault.