A private collector fended off online and phone bidders to win the sale’s top lot, this Tiffany Studios Banded Dogwood bronze table lamp, for $22,500 ($25/50,000).
Review by Madelia Hickman Ring
BLOOMFIELD, N.J. — Nye & Company’s April 24-26 auction tipped the scales at 1005 lots, a substantial portion of which came from an unidentified single-owner collection, with collections in New York City, Far Hills and Maplewood, N.J., contributing to the mix. The sale achieved $356,268 and counting, with an 80 percent sell-through rate. Andrew Holter, the firm’s new president, was in high spirits when Antiques and The Arts Weekly got him on the phone after the sale.
“The sale performed pretty well considering it had a lot of varied things. In terms of registered bidders, this sale had one of the largest online audiences we’ve ever had on LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable and Nye’s online platform, and about 20 percent of bidders were new to us, which is great.”
Two Tiffany Studios lamps were among the lots with the highest expectations, and both caught the top bids of the sale. Blooming to $22,500 was a Banded Dogwood bronze table lamp marked on both the underside and rim; It was followed at $11,875 by an Acorn table lamp marked on the underside of the base. “The competition for the Tiffany lamps was a combination of both the trade and private collectors bidding both by phone and online, with some as far away as Hawaii. Ultimately, they were bought by private collectors with the Acorn lamp going to an East Coast collector who is relatively new to Nye & Company,” Holter reported.
An online private collector from the East Coast who has recently begun bidding at Nye & Company, paid $11,875 for this Tiffany Studios Acorn stained glass and bronze table lamp ($10/15,000).
Modern art is a category the New Jersey firm has a high success rate of selling and this sale was no exception. An offset lithograph in colors by Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997) titled “Shipboard Girl” that had provenance to the Leo Castelli Gallery realized its low estimate of $10,000 and found what may be a temporary new home with a trade buyer from the Northeast. Another dealer from the Northeast was the prevailing bidder at $5,000 for a panel of printed wallpaper by Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987).
Both John Nye and Andrew Holter have deep expertise in American furniture, having headed those departments at both Christie’s and Sotheby’s earlier in their careers. Some pieces in that category — including some from Providence, R.I., collector/dealer, Stanley Weiss — did well, led at $5,000 by a Queen Anne carved maple chest on frame attributed to the Dunlap School, New Hampshire, circa 1780. Cataloged with provenance to Concord, N.H., dealer Gary F. Yeaton, the piece will be returning to New England, at least for a time.
A lot of two African masks with a broad estimate of $50-25,000 realized $8,750 and sold to a private collector in New York City. One with cowry shells and beads was described as “probably Kuba,” while one with a fiber beard was attributed to either the Holo or Suku cultures.
“That was a surprise,” commented Andrew Holter, about the $8,750 result for this lot of two African masks that had losses, wear and some distressing to the surface. The two sold to a private collector in New York City.
The second day of the sale offered about two dozen rugs and carpets. Unrolling to $4,688 was a late Nineteenth Century North Persian Sarouk Fereghan that measured about 14 by 10 feet and had provenance from a private Westchester, N.Y., collector who had acquired it from Doris Leslie Blau in 1984. It found a new home with a Midwest private collector.
One of Holter’s favorite lots in the sale was a Chinese gilt brown lacquer screen in five panels once owned by billionaire businessman, Univision chief executive officer and philanthropist, A. Jerrold Perenchio, whose Bel-Air mansion, Chartwell, was the location for filming the opening sequence of The Beverly Hillbillies. A private collector in Maryland won the lot for $4,688.
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house.
Nye & Company will conduct a photograph sale on May 15, a sale titled The Gentleman Collector: From Dressing Room to Drawing Room and Beyond on June 5 and an Estate Treasures sale July 24-25. For information, www.nyeandcompany.com or 973-984-6900.
