: "It's not for stock," Todd Prickett said with a laugh moments
after Charles Willson Peale's 1779 oil on canvas "George
Washington at Princeton" was knocked down to his paddle for
$21,296,000, including premium, at Christie's this past Saturday,
January 21.
Bidding on behalf of an unnamed client, the Pennsylvania dealer
and his father, Clarence, whose Yardley shop is a few miles from
Washington's historic Delaware River crossing, added the
record-setting portrait to a tab that also included a Boston
Queen Anne turret-top card table, $553,600, and a New York Queen
Anne open armchair, $441,600.
From the collection of Mrs J. Insley Blair, Peale's "Washington"
contributed to several other new benchmarks, including a record
for a single-owner session of American decorative arts at $32.3
million and a new Americana week high for Christie's of $41.2
million.
The Blair cover lot, a William and Mary paint decorated chest,
signed and dated 1729 by Robert Crosman of Taunton, Mass., sold
in the room to Massachusetts dealer George W. Samaha for
$2,928,000. Two lots later, Connecticut dealer Marguerite Riordan
purchased a paint decorated William and Mary chest from coastal
Connecticut, dated 1730, for $228,000.
In Christie's various owners sale on Friday, a new record price
for a weathervane was achieved when Massachusetts dealer Stephen
Score acquired a mid-Nineteenth Century gilt-molded copper
Goddess of Liberty weathervane by William Henis of Philadelphia
for $1,080,000. The vane was underbid by Marguerite Riordan. In
the same session, a set of 40 miniature decoys by East Harwich,
Mass., carver A. Elmer Crowell went to a collector bidding by
phone for $180,000.
Along with weathervanes, portraits were bestsellers. Likenesses
of John, Maria and David Austin Sherman, the son and
grandchildren of Declaration of Independence signer Roger Sherman
of Connecticut, fetched a combined $396,000, the father selling
to private collectors seated in the room and the children going
to Georgia dealer Deanne Levison.
"I didn't think we'd get it," Maryland dealer Milly McGehee said
after narrowly winning a rare Virginia quilt of historical
interest for $96,000.
Property from the collection of Mr and Mrs E.J. Nusrala garnered
$3.2 million. A Jacob Godschalk of Philadelphia tall case clock
of circa 1765-75 led the session, going to an anonymous buyer for
$800,000. C.L. Prickett Antiques was again active, acquiring a
pair of Philadelphia Chippendale side chairs for $464,000 and a
Philadelphia mahogany easy chair for $374,400. Connecticut
dealers Stephen and Carol Huber bid a 1765 Philadelphia silk on
moire coat-of-arms by Elizabeth Flower to $144,000.
Watch for a full account in a later edition of Antiques and
The Arts Weekly.
