The highest price in the British & Continental auction was earned by an Earl of Granville Ambassadorial set of four George III gilt English silver three-light candelabras with extensive provenance. Each of the circa 1804 pieces measured 16½ inches high and 4½ inches wide and the set sold for $54,120 ($50/70,000).
Review by Carly Timpson
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Brunk Auctions had two back-to-back days of sales with their British & Continental Auction on May 8 and An American Panorama: North, South, East and West on May 9. In total, the auctions consisted of 335 lots and realized nearly $1.5 million with a sell-through rate of 87 percent.
British & Continental Auction
Achieving a total of $245,078, the first day of auctions saw a 90 percent sell-through rate. The 120 lots in the British & Continental Auction were from private and institutional collections, including objects deaccessioned from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, several Old Master drawings and fine silver.
The highest price on the first day was achieved by an Earl of Granville ambassadorial set of four George III gilt .925 English silver two-arm candelabras, each engraved with the Royal badge and the Leveson-Gower crest. Having extensive historical provenance, the set was supplied by the Jewel House to Granville Leveson-Gower, the first Earl of Granville, in 1804, and descended through the line of nobility until they were ultimately sold by Sotheby’s, London, in a 1977 auction, then donated to an East Coast institution in the 1980s. In addition to details about the candelabras, the auction catalog included extensive notes about the Earl of Granville. With egg and dart, basket weave, foliage and floral details on the arms and the tapering posts were adorned with a ring of Egyptian mask motifs at the top and another with feet near the bottom before the flared base. The base of each was marked with the Royal badge, the Levenson-Gower Crest, marks for Digby Scott and Benjamin Smith and inscribed “Rundell Bridge Et Rundell Aurgices Regis / Et Principis Walliæ Londini Fecerunt.” The set was sold to an overseas trade buyer for $54,120.
A late Nineteenth Century Francois Linke signed Louis XV-style bronze Doré mounted mahogany bedroom suite with five pieces found a buyer for $24,600 ($12/18,000).
A five-piece Francois Linke signed Louis XV-style bronze Doré-mounted mahogany bedroom suite from the late Nineteenth Century was claimed by a private collector bidding online for $24,600, exceeding its high estimate of $18,000. Included in the bedroom set were a bedstead, a mirrored three-drawer commode, a pair of bedside commodes and a semainier chest. The chest and mirrored commode were signed by the maker and featured elaborately molded rocaille bronze Doré mounts and sabots. The two bedside commodes had rouge marble tops while the semainier’s top was made of Brèche d’Alep marble. The catalog noted that this set, from the collection of Monroe A. Miller, showed varying signs of wear with minor finish loss but was structurally sound.
A late Twentieth Century Persian Kerman carpet went to a private collector for $4,613. Unlike some other Persian rugs, this large room-size Kerman had a woven signature at one end. Against a cream-colored ground, the rug had a central vase medallion with all-over floral, vine and bird motifs and a light pink border. Despite some fading, staining and minor wear, bidders were taken by the rug and it nearly doubled its high estimate.
“Portrait of a Young Gentleman Wearing a Blue Trimmed Brocaded Jacket,” attributed to Pierre Mignard (French, 1612-1695), oil on canvas, 37 by 31-7/8 inches in an Eighteenth Century carved gilt wood frame, made $11,070 ($5/7,000).
Furniture and decorative objects were strong, but so were works of art. The top of this category was a Seventeenth Century portrait of a gentleman attributed to French painter Pierre Mignard. Aptly titled “Portrait of a Young Gentleman Wearing a Blue Trimmed Brocaded Jacket,” the unsigned oil painting depicted a long-haired man in stylish dress against a dark background. Housed in an Eighteenth Century carved gilt frame, the work came from a private collection in Chapel Hill, N.C., and sold to an overseas trade buyer for $11,070.
Two red-on-paper illustrations finished behind the portrait, with the higher, “Le Tombeau de Caecilia Metella,” earning $5,535. This unsigned work in dark red crayon was attributed to Hubert Robert and fine observation showed an underlying grid on the cream-colored laid watermarked paper. A cow rests in the foreground, in front of the tomb’s ruins, while several human figures, seemingly in awe, observe the ruins, in the background. The auction catalog lists the work’s notable provenance, stating that it had once belonged to Charles Sterling, curator of paintings at the Louvre and was last owned by a private collector in Georgia. From the same collections, “Vues des Ruines du Colisee” depicted a similar subject of historical ruins in red chalk on laid paper. Also unsigned, this one was attributed to Louis Chaix and was a much darker composition than the other; it was bid to $5,228. Both works were won by overseas bidders, with the first going to the trade and the second to a private collector.
Achieving $147,600, the American art sale’s highest price, was Julian Onderdonk’s 1916 oil on canvas titled “Sunlight and Blue Bonnets.” It was housed in a carved gilt wood frame measuring 14¼ by 21½ inches ($40/60,000).
An American Panorama: North, South, East and West
The American Panorama auction included nearly 215 lots of fine art from all across the United States and, with an 85 percent sell-through rate, realized a total of $1,236,212. While many of the top lots in this session were paintings, offerings also included furniture, various forms of Native American artistry, sculpture and decorative arts.
After the sale, Brunk’s head of American paintings, Nan Zander said, “There was a lot of art on the table last week and anything that sells in these times is a plus. And when things sell within their estimate, that’s wonderful. Of course, when they go over their estimate, we’re all very happily surprised, but we can’t ever lose sight of the fact that selling an expensive painting, even if it’s under the low estimate, is what we are here to do, and if we are able to do that, we can’t lose sight of how wonderful that is.”
The auction’s highest-earning lot was “Sunlight and Blue Bonnets,” a 1916 oil painting by Julian Onderdonk, which came from a private collection in North Carolina. Zander shared, “Sometimes you get a painting you know is great, top quality, and you know it will do well but you’re not sure just how high it will go. In this sale, that was the Onderdonk painting, which really attracted attention from collectors of his work. It was exquisitely painted — the nicest Onderdonk I have ever seen — and it went through the roof.” The serene San Antonio, Texas, landscape surpassed its $60,000 high estimate to find a “happy” buyer at $147,600.
“A Cloudy Day, East Hampton” by Thomas Moran, 1903, oil on canvas, in a period carved giltwood frame measuring 35 by 44¾ inches, went out for $123,000 ($120/220,000).
Selling within estimate, “A Cloudy Day, East Hampton” by Thomas Moran was claimed by a private collector for $123,000. This oil on canvas, completed in 1903, depicted trees and a rocky field with a stream in the foreground and a few small buildings against the cloudy horizon. Originally acquired from Moran by his friend, the artist, collector and writer, Albert Eugene Gallatin (1881-1952) in 1903, the work was descended in the Gallatin family until it was sold by Stair Galleries in 2018 and it had several owners since then. The piece was shown from October 1997 to January 1998, as part of “The Moran Family Legacy” exhibition at Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, N.Y., and was featured in several publications, one by Albert Gallatin titled The Pursuit of Happiness: The Abstract and Brief Chronicles of The Time (New York: Albert Gallatin, 1950) and another being the Katherine Cameron’s 1997 supplementary catalog for the Guild Hall exhibition.
Two paintings by William Trost Richards, “Bouquet Valley in the Adirondacks” and “Sandhills, Moonrise,” claimed the next two spots in the sale. Notably, the former was from the personal collection of New York City-based American art historian Barbara Novak. On this provenance, Zander shared, “It was a very special treat for me to be selling a painting from the collection of Barbara Novak, who was one of the most iconic Hudson River school scholars and someone whose books I studied as an art history major in college. To have come full circle in my life and be selling a work from her collection was a real treat for me and it felt very, very special and the public responded to it as well.” Painted circa 1864, “Bouquet Valley in the Adirondacks” was exhibited as part of “In Search of a National Landscape: William Trost Richards in the Adirondacks” at The Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, N.Y., in 2002. A trade buyer bidding over the phone won the cloudy mountain landscape for $73,800. Making $67,650 was “Sandhills, Moonrise,” which had provenance to Alexander Gallery in New York City, was sold by Sotheby’s New York in 2008 and was most recently part of a private New Jersey estate. The dusk scene shows a small glowing moon rising behind a sandy bluff against a dark grey sky. Both paintings were housed in carved gilt frames.
“Sandhills, Moonrise” by William Trost Richards (American, 1833-1905), oil on board, 20½ by 32½ inches in a period carved gilt wood frame, made $67,650 ($42/60,000).
One of the more unexpected finishes in the American art sale that of Louis Michel Eilshemius’ 1917 oil painting, “Two Nymph Bathers,” which was won by a trade bidder for $24,600. Estimated at just $2/3,000, the warm-hued painting of outdoor figures had provenance to Sidney Janis Gallery, New York City, and was being sold to benefit the American Folk Art Museum.
American-made furniture was also a strong category in the sale, led by a circa 1775-90 Newport Chippendale figured mahogany pier table. As noted in the auction catalog, this Goddard Townsend School table from Rhode Island comprised “a solid figured mahogany single-board top with fluted edge, serpentine skirts with beaded moldings on stop fluted legs with pierced corner brackets and mahogany blocking.” This table had notable provenance with connections to the estate of American art donors Ivor and Anne Massey; Israel Sack, Inc.; and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Also related to Colonial Williamsburg was a rare Federal figured cherry chest on frame from Mason County, Ky., which went to a private collector for $22,140. The circa 1790-1815 two-over-four chest featured an arched base on cabriole legs, a rectangular top with banded edge, chamfered fluted stiles and had poplar secondary. Related chests from this region were discussed in Diane C. Wachs and Marianne P. Ramsey’s The Tuttle Muddle: An Investigation of a Kentucky Case-on-Frame Furniture Group (Headley-Whitney Musem, 2000).
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. On June 5, Brunk Auctions will present The Collection of Clare and Jared Edwards. For information, www.brunkauctions.com or 828-254-6846.
