Sledding into first place at $22,680 was this wintry rural town scene by Aldro Thompson Hibbard, oil on canvas, 27½ by 31½ inches, signed lower right. A New England buyer had the winning bid ($8/12,000).
Review by Madelia Hickman Ring; Photos Courtesy Eldred’s
EAST DENNIS, MASS. — Eldred’s first sale of spring was, appropriately, its two-day Spring Sale April 4-5. Nearly 550 lots were gaveled down with a success rate of 86 percent; more than $710,000 were tallied across both days of the sale. Antiques and The Arts Weekly reached out to Josh Eldred after the sale.
“I was very pleased with the results overall. Like any auction there were surprises, but thankfully we had more positive surprises than negative ones. I was encouraged by the amount of bidding activity and the prices realized.”
Spring may have arrived on the calendar but a wintry rural scene by Aldro Thompson Hibbard (New England, 1886-1972) did not disappoint, earning $22,680 against an estimate of $8/12,000. The oil on canvas was housed in a giltwood frame and came to auction from a local seller; After competition, the scene, which was believed to depict a Vermont town, found a new home with a New England buyer bidding on the phone.
The trade buyer of this Eighteenth Century Massachusetts Chippendale kneehole desk from a longtime Cape Cod collection paid $20,160 ($8/12,000).
Happily, American furniture had a notably strong showing, though, for the most part, reproduction pieces achieved higher results than period pieces. An exception to that – and achieving a second-place finish at $20,160 and well above its $12,000 high estimate – was an Eighteenth Century Massachusetts Chippendale blockfront kneehole desk. A statuesque Dunlap-style tiger maple chest on chest, made by Anderson & Stauffer in Lititz, Penn., in the late Twentieth Century, achieved $11,970, more than doubling its high estimate and will be staying in New England. Two pieces by Eldred Wheeler, made in the fourth quarter of the Twentieth Century, also met or exceeded expectations: for $5,355, a Queen Anne-style tiger maple lowboy with inset slate panel in the top, and rising to $4,725 was a Chippendale-style bonnet top secretary.
The sale’s third-place finisher was accompanied by an interesting story. A bowie knife made by the Hassam Brothers and accompanied by a sketchbook made short work of its $12/15,000 estimate and sold for $18,900. The auction catalog noted both the knife and book, which were both marked “A.I. Sands,” were “believed to have been owned by Albert Sands of Cambridge, Mass., who served in the Massachusetts’ 38th Regiment, Company F, during the Civil War.” The unit saw action at the Battle of Point Hudson and other skirmishes between 1862 and 1863. Included in the book were military views as well as landscapes, farming scenes, figural portraits and images of animals, both primitively and skillfully rendered. The buyer phoned in their bids from Texas.
Other American forms attracted heavy bidding. Flags, perennially popular with bidders, were on hand in four lots, including a Nineteenth Century wool 13-star example ($9,450), a framed circa 1865 36-star parade flag ($4,095) and a circa 1980 46-star flag ($252). The flag that flew the highest was a Centennial flag with the dates “1776/1876” formed by stars in the canton; estimated at $4/7,000, bidders ran it up the proverbial flagpole to $15,120 with a trade buyer prevailing.
Topping a small selection of flags in the sale was this circa 1876 example from an old Cape Cod house that measured 28¼ by 42¼ inches and earned $15,120 despite some condition issues ($4/7,000).
A life-sized hand-painted zinc statue of a Native American that was made in the late Nineteenth Century by William Demuth of the JL Mott Iron Works — after an original wood carving by Samuel Anderson Robb (now at the Smithsonian Institution) — led sculptural works with a strong $10,080 finish, a result that quintupled the high estimate. The catalog noted that the paint had been restored by Harry Dowler of Sandwich, Mass. A British collector bidding online won it.
Just four lots of Chinese export porcelain were in the sale. Heading the category was a Rose Medallion oversize punchbowl lavishly decorated on both the interior and exterior with figures in a landscape, all within fruit, floral and butterfly borders. A 1/2-inch rim chip warranted a conservative estimate for the late Nineteenth Century piece but bidders liked it enough to top it off at $16,380, from an overseas buyer bidding online.
Eldred’s has several upcoming sales, from its Hanover, Mass., office (Twentieth/Twenty-First Century Art + Design, April 24; a single-owner sale, May 8, snuff bottles, May 9; and East Dennis, Americana & Marine Art, April 25 and Spring Fever auction on May 16).
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For information, www.eldreds.com or 508-385-3116.
