The auction’s highest price of $34,440 was earned by this circa 1760 Massachusetts Chippendale block-front chest with original brasses, 33 inches tall by 33 inches wide with a 37½-inch top ($20/30,000).
Review by Carly Timpson
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — Though Carl Nordblom said it’s not like the old days, the owner of CRN Auctions was still happy with the results of his Annual Spring Auction, conducted on April 19. The 305-lot sale had an 88 percent sell-through rate, and almost all the bidding was done online, he reported.
Earning the auction’s highest price was a Massachusetts Chippendale block-front chest made circa 1760. The mahogany chest, raised on ball-and-claw feet, retained its original silvered brass bat-wing pulls and side carrying handles. From the estate of a Hartford, Conn., collector who purchased the chest in the mid 1990s from Albert Sack, provenance and quality helped push the piece past its $20/30,000 estimate to achieve $34,440.
Pieces from Boston clockmaker Aaron Willard, Jr, are always sought after, and this sale included an inlaid mahogany tall clock that still retained most of its original paper label from Willard, affixed to the inside of its door. Crafted circa 1810-15, the signed painted zinc face had an architectural dial with two moons and was encased in a tombstone door bordered with checkered line inlay. From top to bottom, the clock had columns inlaid with brass and its hood had pierced fretwork and three round brass finials with spires. After significant interest and excited back-and-forth bidding, it struck its final price: $20,910.
This circa 1810-15 Federal tall clock by Aaron Willard, Jr (Boston), mahogany with brass inlay, 88 inches tall by 19½ inches at its widest, chimed for $20,910 ($8/12,000).
An elaborate sterling silver tea and coffee service from Gorham earned the auction’s third-highest price of $18,450. The seven-piece service included a tilting kettle on stand, coffee pot, tea pot, sugar, creamer, waste bowl and open-handled tray, all with the scrolling foliate details of the Chantilly pattern.
A 138-piece sterling silver flatware service by International Silver in the Royal Danish pattern also did well, exceeding its $5,000 high estimate at $9,225. Not including knives and the carving set, the service weighed approximately 167 troy ounces and was housed in a chest from The John Gerber Company, Memphis, Tenn.
Sterling continued to be successful, as a footed presentation punchbowl earned $7,380. Engraved “From a few Divisional and Ex-Divisional Officers/ United States Navy” on one side and with a monogram on the other, the 10-inch-tall bowl had a 19-inch diameter and came from a private collection in Cambridge, Mass. Highly detailed, the punchbowl had a flared, scalloped rim and was chased with grape and vine decoration all over.
This wooded riverside scene of canoers at rest by John Whorf (Massachusetts, 1903-1959), watercolor, 33½ by 41 inches framed, led the art category at $12,300 ($3/5,000).
In the art category, bidders found favor with two painters in particular: John Whorf (Massachusetts, 1903-1959) and Anne Packard (Massachusetts/New Jersey, b 1933). Both with ties to Massachusetts, their works are notable in the canon of American artists, especially in New England. Whorf, one of the most notable watercolorists from the early Twentieth Century, had two scenes achieve high prices in this auction. More than doubling its high estimate to realize $12,300 was an example depicting canoers pausing on the river’s shore; the other, a marshy duck hunting scene, brought $8,610. Both watercolors were signed to the lower right and hung in complementary gilt frames.
The two works by Packard each depicted Cape Cod, Mass., landscapes and came from the home of a Framingham, Mass., gentleman. In oil on canvas, a serene, distant shoreline view of either Provincetown or Truro, signed and dated “A. Packard ‘96” to the lower right, brought $10,455. Signed but not dated, Packard’s oil on board of Provincetown dunes was bid to $8,610.
Another art highlight was Gerard Curtis Delano’s oil painting of Shiprock as viewed from Utah. Signed to the lower right, the monochrome work was also inscribed on its reverse: “Utah / painted / copyright / by Gerard… / 31 E 18th Ave / Denver / Colo.” Delano also had local connections, as he was born in Marion, Mass., and moved West at age 29. Housed in a carved gilt frame, his monadnock landscape earned $6,765.
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For information, www.crnauctions.com or 617-661-9582.
