George Baker D'Arcy Collection Leads In Two Days of Sales

MANCHESTER, N.H.

:Northeast Auction's November 5-6 New Hampshire Weekend Auction at the Center of New Hampshire contained a little bit of everything: a single-owner selection of American decorative arts, a slew of American and European paintings, English furniture and pottery, and Chinese Export porcelain.

"We're very pleased with the total," said auctioneer Ron Bourgeault, who generated $2.98 million including premium on roughly 1,100 lots. "I loved it that so much of the auction was unreserved. We really found out what the market was for paintings and ceramics."

The sale's centerpiece was 150 lots from the estate of George Baker D'Arcy. More D'Arcy property was slated for Northeast's November 19-20 auction at the Frank Jones Center in Portsmouth, N.H.

"My father started and ended with glass," said Diane D'Arcy of McLean, Va. She attended the auction with her daughter, Francesca Bair of Old Saybrook, Conn. The event was full of memories for the collector's family, who recalled how happily George D'Arcy lived with his antiques.

As Bourgeault and Diane D'Arcy wrote in their affectionate tribute, George D'Arcy dug for bottles as a boy in Dover, N.H. Historical flasks were his first love. Later he became interested in New England furniture and accessories.

D'Arcy liked buying at auction. He was a regular at Richard Withington's sales in Hillsboro, N.H., and also frequented F.O. Bailey in Portland, Maine. In later years he wintered in South Carolina and summered in Maine, where he picked up paintings by William Aiken Walker, Stephen Etnier and other sought-after regional talents. He stepped up when he bought his best pieces, a Gus Wilson carving of a tiger and a New Hampshire tall case clock by James Charles Cole of Rochester.

Though smaller than some Gus Wilson tigers at only 32 inches long, the circa 1920 carved and painted figure by the South Portland, Maine, folk artist shot past estimate to bring $160,000 including premium from an absentee bidder. By happy coincidence, Bourgeault's anonymous buyer had underbid the tiger when F.O. Bailey sold it to D'Arcy 20 years ago.

Collected by the early modernist sculptor Robert Laurent, Wilson tigers are folk art icons. They have been illustrated in a variety of books and catalogues, from Adele Earnest's Folk Art in America to the Brooklyn Museum's Folk Sculpture USAand Spiritually Moving, the catalog of the David Teiger collection.

Now 87 and as lively as ever, Richard Withington came to see Bourgeault resell the New Hampshire tall case clock by James Charles Cole of Rochester that Withington sold D'Arcy years ago. The stately clock is classically Federal with a flat bonnet top, open fretwork crest and a mahogany case richly inlaid with cherry and tiger maple. The clock had the added distinction of being illustrated and discussed in Brock Jobe's Portsmouth Furnitureof 1992.

"It's just a wonderful thing in great condition," said Maryland dealer Milly McGehee, who bid the timepiece to $127,000. The lot was underbid by Massachusetts clock specialist John Delaney, who took home a Simon Willard tall case clock in a Dorchester, Mass., case, possibly by Stephen Badlam, $52,200, and a William Cummens bonnet-top tall case clock, $20,880.

"To me, it was the most pristine New Hampshire tall clock. It had everything going for it: provenance, surface, inlays, a rocking-ship movement and the most glorious James Cole signature I've ever seen," said Bourgeault.

Other notable pieces from the D'Arcy collection included a Dunlop School New Hampshire Queen Anne maple highboy, $55,100, and a New England William and Mary tiger maple gate leg table, $23,200. Formerly owned by Boston silversmith George C. Gebelein, a Jacob Hurd silver tankard fetched $19,720.

A graceful Queen Anne walnut wing chair with beaded and carved knees and white oak secondary wood came in under estimate at $52,200, perhaps because experts could not decide whether it was English or American. The chair descended in the prominent Shippen family of Philadelphia.

On Sunday, a selection of English and Continental furniture included a handful of pieces consigned by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Virginia. Leading the group was a George III mahogany bureau bookcase, formerly in the Governor's Palace, $25,520; a pair of George III upholstered mahogany armchairs, $22,040; and a George II parcel gilt mahogany mirror, $12,760.

From various owners came a Queen Anne walnut camelback sofa with needlepoint upholstery, $29,000; a George III looking glass in a simple molded frame, $18,560; and two assembled sets of English yew and elm Windsor armchairs, $10,440 and $16,240.

On Saturday evening, Northeast sold nearly 200 lots of American and English paintings. Some were ex-collection of Kennedy Galleries in New York. President Martha J. Fleischman is scaling back the company's extensive inventories to focus on masterpiece paintings and pursuing her private interest in the Archives of American Art.

From another consignor, the most expensive painting and the top lot of the weekend was by Edward Seago (1910-74), a sought-after English artist who is not well known among American collectors. "The Royal Guard on Parade on Pall Mall," $165,500, a 26 by 36 inch oil on canvas, was acquired by Winthrop Williams Aldrich, brother of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, when he was US Ambassador to the Court of St James. An evocative portrayal of the Thames on a bright but foggy day by Norman Wilkinson was a great buy at $6,750. It carried with it a desirable Fine Art Society of London provenance.

Eighteenth Century American portraits and Nineteenth Century American landscapes were well received by Northeast bidders. An Eighteenth Century South Carolina portrait of a gentleman by Jeremiah Theus (1719-1774) sold to the phone for $27,840. Moments earlier, a 1759 oil on canvas portrait of John Bolton by John Hesselius (1728-1778) crossed the block at $25,520. Of Swedish descent, Hesselius was one of the Mid-Atlantic's foremost portrait painters of the Colonial era and a teacher of Charles Willson Peale.

American, English or Irish? Even the experts were not sure about this graceful Queen Anne wing chair, $52,200 ($50/80,000), walnut with white oak secondary wood. The chair descended in the Shippen family of Philadelphia. Born to a Boston Quaker family, Edward Shippen (1703-1781) became a prominent Philadelphian and the partner of James Logan and Thomas Lawrence.

"Everyone wanted that painting," Bourgeault said of Susan C. Waters' "Thieves Observed," $35,960, a charming depiction of a cat observing two squirrels raid berry baskets. Waters, who worked in southern New York State and Pennsylvania, is best known for portraiture.

Other eagerly contested animal pictures included "Harness Ride" by Scott Leighton (1849-1898), a Maine-born painter best known for his portraits of prominent horsemen and their galloping steeds, $23,200, and "Beagle and Pup With Ball in A Landscape," by Alexander Pope, Jr, $11,020.

Stephen Etnier (1903-1984), a York, Penn., born landscape, marine and figure painter who kept studios in New York and Harpswell, Maine., is steadily developing a following. Three Etniers were knocked down to the same paddle. "Drying Sails," an 11-by-24-inch Maine harbor view of 1965 was the most costly at $31,900. Another regional work of interest was Bert Phillips' fresh oil on canvas view of Taos, N.M., $24,360.

An octavo edition of John James Audubon's Birds of America,bound in gilt-tooled Morocco leather in seven volumes, exceeded low estimate to sell for $63,800.

Nicest of the Chinese Export wares offered was an extensive set of rare Brown Fitzhugh. Once in the collection of Connecticut dealers Thomas and Constance Williams, the set garnered $20,880.

Northeast Auctions returns to the Center of New Hampshire February 24-26.