It had been in a closet for more than 50 years, came into the gallery on a free appraisal day and had never been auctioned before. Renoir’s “Girl With Flowers” brought $78,000, the highest price of the day.
Review & Onsite Photos by Rick Russack; Additional Photos Courtesy Thomaston Place Auction Galleries
THOMASTON, MAINE — In 1996, Thatcher Freund published a book titled Objects of Desire: The Lives of Antiques and Those Who Pursue Them, in which he followed the lives of three particular antiques that had been at the Winter Antiques Show that year. We don’t often get to know the interesting stories behind things, especially with most of the things that are sold through auctions. However, at Kaja Veilleux’s Thomaston Place Auction Galleries sale on November 10, 11 and 12, he was able to provide the back story on three of the five highest priced items in the sale, telling us at least something about the prior lives of these objects. The highest price of the sale, $78,000, was earned by Pierre Auguste Renoir‘s “Girl With Flowers.” It, and the item bringing the fifth highest price, $30,000, which was earned by a George Inness painting, “Sunset over a Piney Riverbank,” came from the same consignor. That consignor had brought both in on a free appraisal day hoping that they had some value, because Veilleux had been successful with paintings by those artists in the past. Veilleux was told that the paintings had been stored in the back of a closet in a family home, unseen since 1951 — and never had been offered at auction. Needless to say, the consignor was delighted with the result.
The second highest price of the sale, $62,500, was earned by a small Eighteenth Century Newport Chippendale block-front four-drawer chest. It came to the gallery from an estate in Honolulu. What makes the story interesting is that it arrived at the gallery without anyone there knowing that it was coming. A friend of the family had recommended Thomaston Place as a good place to sell it, and so it was shipped, well-crated, and arrived in fine condition. Digging a little deeper, Veilleux learned that it had previously been owned by a family on Nantucket and shipped to Hawaii when the owner settled there in the Nineteenth Century. It, too, had never been offered at auction. So at least three objects of desire came back to the market that appreciates them.
In general, fine art did well, American furniture did well, Joe Lincoln miniature ducks did well, a good collection of nautical items did well, and some oddities also did well, contributing to a successful three-day sale that took in $1.3 million. Nearly 1,500 lots were offered. The second day of the sale provided most of the highlights, including the items mentioned above.
Selling for $38,400 was a John Frederic Kensett painting titled “View of Mount Monadnock from Hillsborough, NH.” It depicted a multiple-arch stone bridge across the Contoocook River, along with a shepherd and a flock of sheep.
In addition to the two paintings mentioned above, there were five other paintings that each earned more than $10,000. One was by John Frederic Kensett (1818-1872), titled “View of Mount Monadnock from Hillsborough, NH.” It depicted a multiple-arch stone bridge across the Contoocook River, with a shepherd and flock of sheep in the foreground. For those interested in such things, there are very few stone bridges with multiples arches left in New Hampshire, and there is a state historical marker at one, perhaps this one. The painting earned $38,400. Staying with stone arch bridges for a moment, there was another. It depicted “The Historic Starrucca Viaduct,” a stone arch bridge that spans Starrucca Creek near Lanesboro, Penn., on the Susquehanna river. That landmark was built in 1847-48 for the New York & Erie Railroad and is still in use today. It’s initialed “ADH” and sold for $2,625. “American Warship Rounding on a Headland at Sunrise” by James Buttersworth (1817-1894) earned $12,500. This painting also came in on a free appraisal day and had never been offered before. A mountain landscape by Alvin Fisher (1792-1863) earned $16,800. Selling on the third day for $18,000 was “Family Group,” 1949, a 48-by-60-inch oil on canvas, titled, signed and dated by Waldo Peirce (1884-1970). The scene depicted the artist and six members of his family on the porch of their Searsport, Maine, home.
Some of the early furniture in the sale came from the family of James Brewster, a six-time mayor of Portland and once governor of the state. A cherry Eighteenth Century Chippendale slant-front desk with a fitted interior sold for $5,000. Another slant-front desk, this one in maple from the same family, sold for $1,125. There were sets of Hitchcock chairs, with a well-decorated set of eight selling for $600 and a set of five with double cornucopia splats, which sold for $360.
The second highest price of the day, $62,500, was paid for this small Eighteenth Century Newport Chippendale block-front four-drawer chest. With an interesting story to tell, it sold far over the estimate, coming down to a battle between a phone bidder and one on the internet. The internet bidder won, and it will stay in Maine. The underbidders were collectors from New Hampshire.
There was a collection of scrimshaw and nautical items from a Bangor, Maine, estate. Bringing $12,250 was a large pair of copper anchor lights from the RMS Queen Mary, one of which was dated 1930. Both had clear glass fresnel lenses with green and red reflectors, brass fittings, and both had large tags reading “Anchor Lantern, Insert Ruby and Green when using as N.U.C. Lantern.” They were 26 inches tall. The collection included several sextants as well as a ship’s deck mounted gimbaled compass binnacle with degaussing iron spheres, one red and the other green. Although missing some parts, it was 57 inches tall and earned $2,125. There were a number of other large pieces of engine room and deck-mounted equipment. The scrimshaw from the collection included a most unusual coat or hat rack. It had an elaborately shaped scrimshaw whalebone backplate with a rare circa 1850 view of San Francisco from Yerba Buena Cove. Three whale’s teeth were attached for hats or coats. The price, $4,375, seemed quite reasonable for such an unusual item.
There were more than a dozen mostly Nineteenth Century samplers. An English example, bringing $1,250, was “Wrought by Dolly Wilder in her 12th year, 1809.” It included a landscape with Georgian manor, an oversized bird, floral designs and a poem. An unframed Eighteenth Century example worked in silk by “Sarah Mitchell, her work, 1758,” was also English and sold for $1,125. It depicted birds, animals and poems, enclosed in a floral border. The others in the collection generally sold for less than $1,000 each.
A collection of decoys and decorative carvings were sold on the first day. The very first lot of the first day, was a miniature loon carved by Joe Lincoln, which earned $10,625. Byron Bruffee, of Meadomak Gallery, an experienced decoy dealer, assisted with cataloging the 21 Lincoln carvings and noted, “Lincoln loons are the rarest of the rare. This one is slightly oversized and boasts a highly stylized and elaborate paint pattern never before seen on any Lincoln loon, and this one could be called the finest and most desirable Lincoln miniature known to exist.” At more than twice the estimate, it was a good start to the sale. Two others brought more than $5,000 each. A swimming Canada goose with finely painted feathers earned $5,100, and a gadwall hen earned $5,313. The catalog read, “Among Lincoln miniatures, hens are the most difficult to find, and gadwalls are among the rarest. It is likely that less than a handful are known.”
The first lot that was sold on the first day of the sale was a miniature loon carving by Joe Lincoln, which earned $10,625. Lincoln was a prolific Cape Cod decoy maker whose works are widely sought-after. The sale included a collection of about 20 Lincoln carvings, along with several other decoys.
A few days after the sale, Veilleux commented, “One of the things I love about this business is that you never know what you’re going to come upon next. I still get excited by things like the Rodin and Inness paintings that haven’t seen the light of day for more than 50 years. They came in on one of our free appraisal days. We’ve been doing those for more than 45 years. I think we were one of the very first to do those. And wonderful stuff keeps on turning up; sometimes stuff would have ended up in a yard sale, but we’re able to get significant amounts of money for families. There was a Southern stoneware ring flask in this sale. I pulled that off the top shelf of a closet that no one even knew was there. Some of the cars in this sale came from an old sheet metal building in the middle of a field. I had no idea why we were walking out to that building. Am I going to retire? Nope, it’s too much fun.”
Prices given include the buyer’s premium as stated by the auction house. For information, 207-354-8141 or www.thomastonauction.com.
