It’s not every day a Stickley desk like this comes along.
On a recent house call to look at some collectibles, a cannonball, a gun and similar merchandise, Kelley Auctions’ appraiser Michael Lynch spotted the circa 1904 desk with original ebonized black finish and rare Grecian urn inlay and asked the owner about consigning it.
The woman, who was selling some of her recently deceased parents’ items to finance some needed car repairs, suggested he buy it outright for a few hundred dollars.
Instead, the specially made Stickley desk was consigned to auction and after weeks of presale advertising and building interest, it crossed the block on September 5, attaining $214,500, including premium. The desk, now one of six known examples to exist, was unknown prior to the auction. Each desk is numbered; this one is marked #3.
Marg-e Kelley, company manager and sister of auctioneer Jim Kelley, credits a half-page ad in the Antiques and The Arts Weekly for building a strong audience. By the time the auction rolled around, the desk had been looked at by most of the major Arts and Crafts dealers in the business.
“We knew it was something special [when we first looked at it], but we were not sure of the magnitude of it,” stated Marg-e Kelly, who researched the desk thoroughly until they realized exactly how special it was.
Asking for an opening of $100,000 and with no takers, the desk opened for bidding at $50,000 and climbed steadily, moving in $5,000 increments. With hot action in the gallery and with seven bidders on the phones, the pace was quick until around $100,000 when everyone in the gallery dropped out save the winning bidder. With two phones and one house bidder still in competition, the desk soared until the first bidder blinked at $180,000, and the underbidder dropped out at $190,000.
Hammering down at $214,500, the desk was claimed by Beth Cathers and Robert Kaplan, owners of Cathers & Dembrosky, Arts and Crafts dealers from New Jersey. Kaplan commented after the auction that the desk had been purchased for a client. The pair purchased another example of this desk at the Philadelphia Antiques Show earlier this year at a record-setting price while representing another client. They got a relative bargain this time around.
‘The desk is one of Harvey Ellis’s most extraordinary [inlay] designs,” Kaplan said. “It’s really a tour de force of his work.”
Minor condition issues did not sway bidders and can be easily restored, Kaplan said. “It’s really a special design that Beth and I feel holds up with any of the masterpieces of Twentieth Century design.”
Thanks to this one lot, the sale achieved more than $250,000, the highest in the three-year-old auction house’s history, Kelley said.
“You could hear a pin drop [in the final moments of the bidding] and after, there was a round of applause. All our regulars here just hugged and wept,” she said.
The diverse event sold 220 items, and featured a mix of fine art, decorative arts and furniture. Many of the items came from a prominent Brookline estate.
A pair of Rose Medallion temple vases realized $6,600 and two signed Charles Partridge Adams watercolors performed solidly with “Mount Sneffels, Colorado, 1897” fetching $4,125 and “Estes Park” bringing $4,400.
Other highlights included a Rookwood vase with tulip design at $825, and a Stickley Brothers chair with some repair at $1,320.
A small collection of antique doorstops was led by a boy with fruit example that realized $495. A grouping of decoys sold from $440 to $660 each.
A 2-inch Scottie dog bronze signed by Marguerite Kirmse fetched $605, and a signed etching of hers, “Hoot Man,” realized $825. An oval daguerreotype family portrait, 6 by 8 inches, circa 1860s, sold for $385.
All prices reported include a ten percent buyer’s premium. For information, www.kelleyauctions.net or 781-767-5255.
