Estimated $400/600, an early portrait miniature of a sitter identified as Sir Francis Drake changed hands for $12,500 to a phone bidder winning over another phone bidder and the internet. It was dated Anno Domini 1588, at age 49, painted on copper or tin and presented in a later cove molded frame.
Review by W.A. Demers, Photos Courtesy Schwenke Auctioneers
WOODBURY, CONN. – Schwenke Auctioneers returned to its original location at 50 Main Street North for an estates auction on October 18. The sale of 448 lots was a live-streamed online sale offering live bidding along with absentee and phone bidding in-house. The broad selection of antiques and decorative arts was consigned from 42 separate estates and consignors. And attesting to the wide range of categories presented, the title of “top lot” was shared by three diverse items, each attaining a final price of $12,500.
An online buyer in China in competition from several other internet bidders was the winner of a Chinese silk embroidered landscape scroll that had been entered with a low $100/200 estimate. Property of a Connecticut estate, the scroll was 70 by 27½ inches. With a similarly low $400/600 estimate, an early portrait miniature of a sitter identified as Sir Francis Drake changed hands from a New York City collector to a New England phone bidder winning over another phone bidder and the Internet. It was dated Anno Domini 1588, at age 49, painted on copper or tin and presented in a later cove molded frame. Furniture also found favor as a Greenwich, Conn., estate contributed an elaborately carved mahogany china table attributed to Gillows, and after a design by Thomas Chippendale, mid-Eighteenth Century with carved icicle form stretchers and pierced gallery. It sold to an internet bidder.
Attributed to Gillows, one later cabinet made to match the earlier Eighteenth/Nineteenth Century cabinet, a near pair of Chippendale carved mahogany cabinets from the same Greenwich estate sold for $3,800. They were extensively carved with elaborate pierced and carved crests, as well as intricately carved legs. Each stood 81½ inches high, 47¼ inches wide and 15¼ inches deep.
A Gillows Georgian inlaid mahogany lady’s escritoire, late Eighteenth Century, surpassed its $1/1,500 estimate, selling for $3,250. In richly striped mahogany, it came in two parts with removable top section with three small drawers and carrying handle and was decorated overall with ebony and light wood string inlays. Also fitted with bone drawer knobs, it featured a fold-down writing board with pull-out slide supports. It was stamped “Gillows – Lancaster” on the top edge of the base drawer.
Attributed to Gillows, a near pair of Chippendale carved mahogany cabinets sold for $3,800.
A pair of Chinese porcelain baluster vases with carved lids opened up to an $8,900 final price versus the lot’s $800-$1,200 estimate. Property of the Greenwich estate, the vases bore the Kangxi mark and stood 13¼ inches high, overall 19½ with stands.
Matthijs Maris (1839-1917) was a Dutch painter, etcher and lithographer. He was represented in this sale with an oil on board Impressionist scene of a couple with their cat resting on the banks of a river. Estimated $200/400, the framed painting, 7¾ by 9¼ inches, and property of a New Jersey collector, did much better, finishing at $7,100.
An American furniture highlight – a New England Sheraton inlaid mahogany worktable – made short work of its $200/300 estimate and left the gallery at $3,300. That despite the fact that the 28-by-18-by-16-1/8-inch table was lacking its fabric basket.
Prices given included the buyer’s premium as stated by the auction house. The next auction is being scheduled for mid-January. For information, 203-266-0323 or www.woodburyauction.com.
