The top lot of the January 23 Important Americana auction was this Symon and Rebeckah Horne Pilgrim Century valuables cabinet, which achieved $1,636,000.
Review by Andrea Valluzzo
NEW YORK CITY — Sotheby’s billed a grouping of its Antiques Week sales as Visions of America, bringing together sublime examples evincing American craftsmanship and ingenuity, ranging from furniture to important historical documents dating back 250 years when the United States was establishing itself as a nation.
As its first auctions of 2026 in the Marcel Breuer-designed building where Sotheby’s moved its global headquarters to in November, Visions of America realized a total of $17 million. Each of the five sales saw totals between $2 million and $4 million, and overall 93 percent of all lots sold with more than half going above their high estimate. The auction series saw institutional bidding and buying across multiple sales, including from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
“Overall, we were very pleased with the results and I thought the overall group of sales was quite successful,” said Erik Gronning, senior consultant at Sotheby’s, who heads up the Americana department. “It shows that conservative estimates generate the strongest prices.”
After renovations, the Breuer building was ready for prime time and Gronning was thrilled to be holding auctions in the new space. “It’s a vital space and it brought in new collectors and new eyeballs,” he added. Registration numbers were quite large for the size of the sales and the “number of new potential bidders was spectacular.”
The top lot of the January 24 Great American Whiskey Collection auction was this bottle of Old Rip Van Winkle, 20-year-old single barrel, “Sam’s,” 133.4-proof, distilled in 1982. It attained $162,500, a new record for American whiskey.
The whiskey collection brought record prices, Gronning shared, and the selection of historic documents also did quite well. “The American art sales, both the traditional Nineteenth Century art and the Western art, also did very well.”
The weeklong event kicked off on January 23 with Important Americana including Early American Silver from the Roy J. Zuckerberg Collection, which attained a sales total of $2.97 million and set the tone for the week.
Leading the Important Americana auction was a Symon and Rebeckah Horne Pilgrim Century valuables cabinet, which achieved $1.6 million, cementing its standing as one of the most consequential works of early American material culture to be offered at auction. Dated 1677 and one of only five known examples attributed to the Symonds shop of Salem, Mass. — and the sole one still in private collection — the cabinet enchanted collectors with its craftsmanship, rarity, historical import and state of preservation.
Having a background as a furniture scholar, Gronning was especially gratified to see the success of the Symonds cabinet, calling it a spectacular piece. It brought the highest price for a piece of American furniture in 13 years and is the second highest price ever for Pilgrim Century furniture. That record price was also for a valuables cabinet attributed to Symonds, which sold for $2.4 million at Christie’s in 2010. “It’s the same form and same degree of rarity, it’s just a different market from 16 years ago, but it shows the market is still very hot for important objects,” noted Gronning. As part of its marketing efforts, Sotheby’s produced a video on this cabinet. Between YouTube and Instagram, the video got more than one million views.
An Important Americana sale standout was this American silver and mixed-metal tray, Tiffany & Company, New York, circa 1880, that sold handily over estimate at $88,900.
The Zuckerberg collection, not surprisingly, performed quite well. Renowned as one of the most ambitious silver collections in modern times, the collection was amassed by the philanthropist who worked many years at the Goldman Sachs Group. He had a keen eye for silver and curated his collection to accentuate fine examples, particularly highlighting those from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries from New York silversmiths.
A standout in the grouping was a circa 1860 American silver and mixed-metal tray by Tiffany & Company, New York, that went well over estimate at $88,900. The oval tray, measuring 19 inches long, had a hammered surface and lap-over rim on four feet; it was inlaid with a copper and Japanese gold lily and applied with a copper beetle with gold spots.
Chinese export porcelain also made its mark in this sale, led by a rare and extensive Chinese export Imari part dinner service in the La Dame au Parasol pattern, comprising 38 pieces.
Made circa 1740, this Qing dynasty, Qianlong period, service came out of the Cindy and Jay Pritzker collection. Painted after Cornelia Pronk, the set achieved $69,850. The pattern featured a lady walking along a riverbank shaded by an open parasol held by an attendant. Amid the reds were various waterbirds.
This Charles Peale Polk portrait of George Washington at Princeton sold for $609,600 on January 24 in the Art of the Americas sale.
The next day, January 24, was an auction devoted to Art of the Americas, which totalled $4.94 million in sales. Paintings by well-known artists dominated the action, and crossover appeal to historical and colonial Americana themes were especially apropos. Exemplifying this was an oil on canvas portrait of George Washington at Princeton by Charles Peale Polk that went out at $609,600. Paying homage to a critical victory for Washington’s forces in January 1777, this portrait was painted circa 1780-93, when the American Republic was very new, and this painting’s role in helping the country establish a national identity cannot be overstated. The composition here is one that Polk repeated time and again.
The parade of fine paintings from fine artists, the best of the best selling for over a half-million dollars each, included a choice oil on canvas from Martin Johnson Heade’s series on Brazilian hummingbirds. The painting, titled “Sun Gems,” depicted a male and female horned sungem and was painted during Heade’s first trip to Brazil in the 1860s. Estimated at $120/180,000, the painting, which came out of the Rhode Island collection of Ambassador J. William Middendorf II, brought $698,500.
Other artwork that sold well in this session included Winslow Homer’s “Fodder,” an 1887 watercolor and pencil on paper that went for $533,400; a signed Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma) Moses oil on Masonite, “Over the River to Grandma’s House,” 1944, at $624,400; and Joshua Johnson’s “Lady on a Red Sofa” that beat its $80/ 120,000 estimate to realize $508,000. Johnson’s painting, done circa 1820-25, will be included in Stiles Tuttle Colwill’s forthcoming catalog raisonné of the artist’s work.
Headlining the American West auction on January 24 was Albert Bierstadt’s “An Indian Encampment,” which sold for $825,500.
Moving westward, Sotheby’s also offered its American West auction on January 24, which totaled $3.5 million, led by two choice paintings by Albert Bierstadt. Coming out of the Sam & Marilyn Fox collection was a small but important painting, “An Indian Encampment,” measuring 13⅝ by 19⅜ inches, which earned $825,500. The signed 1861 oil painting will be included in the forthcoming Albert Bierstadt catalog raisonné database. A later oil on canvas by the artist, the 1890-91 “Mount Baker,” 30 ¼ by 44 inches, which took $508,000, will also be added to the database.
A special highlight of the Antiques Week auction lineup was The Great American Whiskey Collection sale on January 24 that achieved a record-setting $2.5 million to become the most valuable single-owner American whiskey collection offered at auction. The white-glove sale, which was Sotheby’s first single-owner American whiskey auction, doubled its low estimate of $1.17 million and 89 percent of the 360 bottles offered outperformed their high estimates. The top lot, likely the most desirable and highest proof bottle of Kentucky bourbon, was a single bottle from a limited run of Old Rip Van Winkle, distilled in 1982 from a single barrel. This bottle, numbered 54 of 60, sold for $162,500, making it the most valuable American whiskey to sell at auction. It was exclusively bottled in May 2003 for Sam’s Wines & Spirits and signed by Julian Van Winkle III specially for the collection. It had not appeared on the auction market for more than ten years.
Another standout on this session was an Old Fitzgerald 18-year old “Blackhawk” 121-proof bottle, distilled/barreled in 1950 and bottled in 1969 at a private event at Stitzel-Weller. It fetched $112,500. The front label read: “This celebrated old whiskey was bottled at its original barrel proof of 121 proof for chief Blackhawk and his associates, Arthur M. Wirtz, William W. Wirtz, Arthur M. Wirtz, Jr.”
The star lot of the January 27 Fine Manuscript and Printed Americana auction was this autograph letter from George Washington that brought together three notable figures from the era: Washington, Benjamin Franklin and the Marquis de Lafayette. It sold for $1,016,000.
A small but select grouping of 15 lots crossed the block on January 27 in the Fine Manuscript and Printed Americana auction, which achieved a total of $2.85 million with global bidding from seven countries. A letter written by George Washington to Benjamin Franklin, introducing the Marquis de Lafayette — three of the most notable historical figures of this era — sold for $1,016,000 to lead the sale.
An excerpt of the letter stated: “The commander of the Continental Army introduces Lafayette to the fledgling nation’s Minister to France: ‘It is with pleasure that I embrace the oppertunity of introducing to your personal acquaintance a Gentn whose merit cannot have left him unknown to you by reputation.’”
Another standout in this sale was another letter by Washington ordering that redcoat soldiers be “treated with humanity,” which more than doubled its estimate to achieve $215,900 after being chased by three bidders. Also dating to the country’s formative years was a first edition of the Ordinances of the fifth Virginia Revolutionary Convention, containing the Virginia Declaration of Rights, that brought $406,400.
Prices quoted include buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For information, www.sothebys.com or 212-606-7000.
