Bidders sat forward tensely as Ron Bourgeault of Northeast Auctions opened bidding on the previously unknown Fitz Henry Lane painting “Moonlight, Owl’s Head, Northeast View, 1851” at $110,000. In a flash, it ended, and the painting brought $913,500 from a dealer in the back of the room who was bidding for a client. In a break from auctioneering at his February 24-26 sale, Bourgeault allowed that the picture will remain in New England.

Owl’s Head, a rocky promontory at the southern end of Penobscot Bay, was a favorite spot of Lane’s along the Maine coast. Lane began visiting Maine in the summer of 1848 with one of his oldest and closest friends, Joseph L. Stevens, Jr, whose family had a home in Castine. The combination of Maine’s craggy coastline and the qualities of its light were irresistible to Lane, who continued to make regular trips there, often as a guest of the Stevens family.

The oil on board, 12 by 18 1/4 inches, was inscribed in pencil on the reverse “Mrs J.L. Stevens.”

Another spellbinder was an oil on linen depiction of the Liberty Tree in Boston that brought $182,000 after an intense phone bidding war.

A complete report of the sale will appear in a future edition.

– Frances McQueeney-Jones Mascolo.