PETERBOROUGH, N.H. — Surprising everyone, including the auctioneer, Charlie Cobb’s February 23 sale was topped by a Byzantine oil on panel Crucifixion scene at $108,000, including buyer’s premium. It was on a hardwood panel with pit-saw marks on the reverse and was conservatively cataloged as “Italio-Byzantine, probably Eighteenth Century or earlier.” Apparently the last two phone bidders believed it to be earlier than the Eighteenth Century. The scene depicted Christ on the cross with Mary and two angels. Above Christ’s head was a wooden panel with lettering in three languages: Hebrew, Greek and Latin. The panel was housed in a Nineteenth Century architectural frame with old labels on the reverse. Cobb later said that it had come from a local home.

It was strong sale, with five figure prices obtained for early American furniture, tribal objects, a Louis Vuitton trunk and a Twentieth Century Chinese painting. Included was a variety of painted Americana, folk and academic paintings and more.

A full report will follow in a future edition.