Bidders made their way to Carl Nordblom’s CRN Auction gallery for a reliably good selection of Continental offerings on September 10 †and there was something for nearly every area of interest.
The top lot, however, was silver †a seven-piece sterling coffee and tea service designed by Johan Rohde for Georg Jensen in 1930. In the Cosmos pattern, it went to the trade for $29,250. The service, which came from a New England collection, comprised a tray, a kettle on stand with the burner, a coffeepot, a teapot, a covered sugar, a creamer and a waste bowl.
An exceptional silver christening cup made in London in 1804 by Paul Storr was engraved with the arms of Sir James Echlin, Bt. of Clonagh, County Kildare, Ireland, and sold for $10,530 to a discerning Midwestern buyer. The cup was made with two handles and a cover and was decorated with scrolling and acanthus. A four-piece Federal, coin silver tea set was unmarked but decorated with goose head handles and spouts, acorn and oak leaf finials and strawberry vine banding †it sold for $3,218. The circa 1830 service had descended in the family of J.W. Perry of Bristol, R.I.
Reverse paintings on glass proliferated and fared well. An Eighteenth Century pair of Italian rococo reverse paintings on glass with shaped and gilded frames realized $21,060. Each depicted a mythological scene. One is of Hercules slaying the dragon, and the other is Europa being carried off by Jupiter. The reverse painting on glass titled, “The Right Honorable Henry Dundas, One of His Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State. This Plate Representing the Departure of the Sons of Tippoo from the Zenana&nscribed by His Most Grateful and Devoted Serv. Mather Brown,” sold for $11,700. The image was one of three that the Boston-born artist painted of events at the Third Mysore War in 1792, when two of Tipoo’s sons were handed over to the British as hostages.
A portrait of a Mandarin, circa 1850, attributed to China trade artist Lam Qua, realized $8,775, from a buyer who had come from Paris for the sale. Nine phones jumped on the Eighteenth Century Italian School landscape with animals and ruins that they pushed to $11,145, while an Italian Old Master still life with flowers executed in the Seventeenth Century manner went to the Internet for $7,020.
The portrait “Tato,” by Cuban artist Antonio Gattorno, was signed and dated 1937; it sold online for $8,190. Gattorno was a founder of Cuba’s Modernist movement and his first solo US exhibition at the Passedoit Gallery in New York City was sponsored by no less than Ernest Hemingway. The painting came from an area collection and is headed to Florida.
A Dutch interior with two men at a table by Anton Mauve retained a Museum of Fine Arts label and sold for $7,605. “Old Annisquam” by George Loftus Noyes came from a Florida home and went on the phone for $8,190.
Chinese Export porcelain from the estate of Beacon Hill collector Mimi Houghton caused bidders to flutter their paddles. A pair of Qianlong famille rose figures of two of the Eight Immortals, from about 1775, was a case in point. Estimated at $2/3,000, they sold for $11,700, despite some damage. A late Eighteenth Century Qianlong pair of porcelain seated spaniels with red collars with green bells came also from the Houghton estate and sold for $2,340.
A 14-inch Chinese pottery urn in blue glaze had been converted to a lamp, and given a shade made from Chinese embroidered silk, all of which was mounted on a teak base and brought $5,558.
A Midcentury Modern bronze and pewter cocktail table in the Medici pattern, with classical figures on pedestals, was signed and retained the original label. It sold for $7,105.
An unglazed pair of Picasso plates with an abstract relief abstract design fetched $3,803. The pair was marked Madura Plein Feu/Ampreinte Originale De Picasso/E 100 and retained the original shipping box.
A French champleve shelf clock made in France by Tiffany and Company, in architectural form, sold for $7,020. The clock was decorated on the top with a cloisonné urn, with brass urns on each corner, and the pendulum decorated with cloisonné and an enamel portrait of a woman.
Furniture offerings represented most European countries. A Seventeenth Century Spanish baroque walnut Vargueno-on-chest with tortoiseshell fittings and inlaid ivory hunt scenes went to an Internet bidder for $6,435. An Eighteenth Century Irish mahogany games table, each corner inlaid with playing cards, and with accordion rear legs and heavily carved knees, sold for $8,190.
A pair of Edwardian English demilune satinwood veneer cabinets with inlaid tops, center cupboard doors flanked by glazed doors and carved mullions, realized $6,435 on the phone. The pair included Carter’s Grove plantation in its provenance. An Edwardian English serpentine front satin wood chest with an overall paint decoration in the manner of Angelica Kaufman realized $4,973; and an English Regency rosewood credenza with a veined black marble top, central drawers flanked by cupboards separated by gilt bronze Egyptian female heads on columns, which ended in gilt bronze paw feet, sold on the phone for $5,850.
A Seventeenth Century Italian baroque carved walnut credenza from a Washington, D.C., house sold for $19,890. An Eighteenth Century Italian rococo walnut serpentine desk with an inlaid fall front opening to a fitted interior with an open compartment came from the same house and sold online for $4,388. A Seventeenth Century Italian walnut commode with molded edges and carved with putti and scrolls sold on the phone for $5,265, while a Seventeenth Century Italian baroque commode in walnut veneer with four drawers sold for $4,973.
Four telephones competed for a Nineteenth Century Italian octagonal walnut specimen top table, inlaid with a game board, with nicely shaped stretchers. They drove it to $3,803. An Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century Italian micromosaic plaque depicting a courting couple fetched $4,398 from a left bid.
Sweden was represented by a mid-Eighteenth Century mahogany and kingwood commode with the original rich varicolored marble top that bore the incised signature of Stockholm maker Lars Bolin. It was made in the popular French style of the era and sold on the phone for $3,708.
Germany was represented by an Eighteenth Century ox bow commode with marquetry and inlay and a shaped top that realized $3,218 from an online buyer. Denmark was represented by an Eighteenth Century rococo fruitwood serpentine commode with two inlaid drawers lined with old wallpaper that went to $2,417 to an Internet buyer.
A Nineteenth or Twentieth Century 16-inch Austrian cold painted bronze lamp, depicting two Arabs trading in a carpeted souk, was thought to have been made by Franz-Xavier Bergman. It realized $7,655. An Eighteenth Century Flemish verdure tapestry fragment with a pea fowl amid foliage sold for $3,218.
A large (38 inches) Sevres porcelain urn with a painted decoration representing Diana and Acteon on one side and a landscape on the other, all with gilt decoration on a deep blue field, sold online for $2,808; a pair of early Italian tin glazed chargers, each with a centered image of a woman, sold for $2,691; a Nineteenth Century pair of Paris porcelain urns with gilt decoration and each having landscapes with figures went to a phone bidder for $2,457.
A pair of Nineteenth Century French tole obelisk-form potpourri, decorated with playing cards and floral medallions on a red ground, went to a London dealer for $2,340; while a pair of columnar French decorated toleware lamps fetched $1,872 from another.
All prices reported include the 17 percent buyer’s premium. For information, www.crnauctions.com or 617-661-9582.
