LITCHFIELD, CONN. — While some cannot resist themselves, there is a firm rule to the end-of-year holidays that many abide by: no Christmas until after Thanksgiving. The rule was in full effect at Litchfield County Auction’s November 25 sale, which followed the day after Thanksgiving, as Thomas Nast’s “Santa Claus’s Northstar Evening Sleigh Ride” was the subject of some timely holiday cheer, bidding up to $10,625, including the premium. Surpassing the $3/5,000 estimate, the 6-by-9½-inch oil on mill board painting, dated 1866, depicted a moonlit winter’s snowy landscape with a white bearded Santa and his reindeer following the North Star home as Christmas morning dawns.
The piece had provenance back to the collection of Wynne Carson and her mother, Marian S. Carson, whose Americana collection is in the Library of Congress.
“We had retail underbidders, though it sold to the trade,” said Tom Curran, vice president. “It was a triangulation of those looking for historic American paintings, Thomas Nast collectors and Christmas collectors.”
The firm’s top lot of the day was an oil on canvas painting by Twentieth Century Polish artist Jerzy Nowosielski. The 32-by-24-inch oil on canvas painting of a nude in an interior scene attained $26,250, including the premium.
A complete review will appear in a forthcoming issue.
