CRN Auctions kicked off the new year on January 6 with a fine blend of Continental and Asian furniture and decorations and a solid selection of paintings. While the gallery was barely half full as the sale began, it flowed and ebbed throughout the sale. Bidders in the gallery, online and on the phones demonstrated a high disregard of estimates, which made for an interesting sale.
The highlight was a Nineteenth Century Chinese scholar’s table screen in a rosewood frame and stand that brought $28,080. It was decorated with a blue cloisonné vase filled with ivory, rose quartz, jade and hardstone flowers and foliage, a mutton jade animal and a smaller oxblood vase with a coral sprig. The screen came from a Rhode Island collector who inherited it from his grandmother and is headed back to China.
Other Chinese delights included the Nineteenth Century Chinese hardwood center table with beading around the oval top inset with rouge marble that was carved finely and sold for $25,740. It came from a Vermont estate. A Nineteenth Century Chinese spinach jade square seal carved with double dragons and a carved calligraphy seal on the bottom in a custom wood box came from a collector and brought $4,095.
A Chinese dragon robe embroidered with dragons in clouds on blue silk with a multicolored wave border brought $8,775. The robe was pristine, having been purchased in the 1920s and placed in storage until it came to auction. It is headed back to China.
A Chinese Export rose mandarin oval porcelain soup tureen and undertray sold in the gallery for $4,388, despite a professional repair of a minor chip on a finial and a chip to one handle.
Continental furniture and decorations, particularly Italian examples, also showed strength. One highlight was an impressive Eighteenth Century Venetian two-part secretary retaining the original yellow paint and with raised carved and painted decoration. The upper part was made with a pair of cupboard doors; the bottom had a fall front lid concealing two banks of interior drawers above a pair of cupboard doors made to look like drawers. The piece realized $22,230 from a California buyer on the phone.
Other Italian furniture included an Eighteenth Century Italian rococo bombe-form commode with allover parquetry and rosewood banding, a shaped rouge marble top and a conforming narrow frieze drawer with ormolu handles. From a North Shore estate, it brought $17,550 from collectors in the gallery who were active throughout the sale.
An Italian Renaissance walnut commode with a carved lion’s head center drawer and carved head pulls sold online for $7,020. An Eighteenth Century Venetian painted commode from a Boston home had some restoration but sold above estimate at $4,388.
There was an Italian Renaissance-style carved octagonal walnut center table that went to an online buyer for $5,558. An Italian Renaissance carved walnut credenza with a pair of raised panel doors and an interior center cupboard sold for $4,095, while a Nineteenth Century Venetian walnut grotto chair carved with a scallop shell-form back and seat with stylized dolphin arms sold online for $2,574.
A Seventeenth or Eighteenth Century Italian wax relief of “The Pieta” by Anna Fortino sold in the gallery for $4,680. The work was deaccessioned by the Montclair Art Museum in Montclair, N.J. An Eighteenth Century Italian pair of carved and polychrome urns retained the original gilded gesso and paint decoration of three pomegranates and sold on the phone, also for $4,680. Another Italian object of interest was an Italian wood book cover that was painted and gold-leafed with images of a saint in Renaissance dress on the front and a lion coat of arms on the back. It sold for $3,218.
Two Eighteenth Century Italian carved pedestals with gilt gesso and Corinthian capitals and posts entwined with vines and clusters of grapes were offered. The pair sold online for $3,803. An Eighteenth Century Italian rococo carved and gilded mirror fetched $2,340, and an Eighteenth Century paper fan decorated with a scene of Roman gods with the mother-of-pearl sticks etched with figural, dolphin, musical and scrolling leaf decoration sold online for $1,989.
They came from Cambridge but were from Nineteenth Century Italy. A set of white marble Bacchanalian garden herms, one a satyr and the other a maiden adorned with grapes, each stood 75 inches tall, and each on a rectangular, 11-foot-5-inch tapering pillar. They brought an impressive $19,890 from a phone buyer. Auctioneer Carl Nordblom said he remembers running through the garden of a local house where they stood but did not remember seeing them. One of his playmates does, however.
The auction house’s own angels, a large pair of carved and gilded angels, each holding a torch with an oil lamp fitting, have hung above the gallery for a while. It was time for them to find a new home and they sold on the phone for $4,588. As he offered them, Nordblom mused, “I will miss them when they’re gone.”
French furniture met with favor as an Eighteenth Century Louis XV kingwood parquetry commode by Paris ébéniste Jean-Francois Leleu that was incised “JFL” and what appears to be “LUC” sold online for $8,190. The piece was made with a mottled rouge marble top with two drawers, each centered with an ormolu bordered leather medallion depicting a Chinese foo dog with a vase on its head. A Nineteenth Century Louis XV-style bureau plat with a tooled green leather top and figural ormolu mounts opened at $3,000 and sold online for $4,973. A French Art Nouveau side chair by Louis Majorelle with an embossed and stained leather seat and back and lotus finials on the supports seemed like a good value when it went to a phone buyer for $3,218.
A pair of Eighteenth Century French Regence armchairs with carved arms and cabriole legs and upholstered in Seventeenth or Eighteenth Century tapestry had minor differences in the frames but were made by the same hand. The pair sold to an absentee bidder for $5,558.
A French Empire gilded Paris porcelain tea set with classical decoration set an Internet competition that ended at $3,803 against the estimated $600/900 and despite some documented wear.
One lot that attracted significant interest was a handsome Continental box with mother-of-pearl inlay in red tortoiseshell that brought lively bidding and sold online for $10,530 against the estimated $700/900.
From England, a pair of Edwardian Adams-style satinwood credenzas decorated in the manner of Angelica Kauffman with floral medallions, ribbons and garlands and an Aladdin’s lamp sold to a phone bidder for $6,435. An imposing pair of Nineteenth Century George III-style mahogany knife boxes in urn form with string inlay and silver shields sold online for $3,803.
A Spanish baroque walnut vargueno with tortoiseshell and ivory inlay dated from the Seventeenth Century and brought $9,360 from collectors in the gallery. A Seventeenth Century Spanish walnut vargueno inlaid with ivory and a fall front that opened to reveal 13 drawers and a pair of decorated compartments sold to the Internet for $4,095.
A Seventeenth Century Hispano-Moresque tin glazed charger went to a phone bidder for $2,340, and a large (18 inches) pair of toleware octagonal tea canisters mounted as lamps and each decorated with the image of a Chinese man sold online for $1,872, double the high estimate.
Art up for auction was dominated by a good cache of Spanish Colonial art. One picture, a 66-by-33-inch Seventeenth or Eighteenth Century Latin American portrait of the Angel Gabriel that was unstretched and unframed, sold for $16,380. It is thought to be Peruvian and was acquired there. A Seventeenth or Eighteenth Century Peruvian oil on canvas scene of the ascension of Mary that was unframed brought $5,450 from a new Spanish church organized in Florida. An Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century Spanish Colonial portrait of the Madonna in a black robe with a crown of thorns and red vases of flowers at her feet drew $5,285. The paintings, along with some enviable Spanish Colonial furnishings, came from the collection of a woman who lived in Peru for many years.
Italian pictures included a scene of an Arab scholar reading by Nineteenth Century artist Antonio Scognamiglio that sold on the phone for $8,190.
Masked Venetians are the subject of an Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century painting that sold for $5,850. The picture depicts the custom of wearing masks that prevailed in Venice, which allowed wearers to engage in all manner of licentious behavior without detection.
American pictures ran to Emile Gruppe’s particularly vibrant oil on canvas “Gloucester Harbor” that sold for $9,945 and Paul Cornoyer’s Rockport street scene with figures that was $5,265.
French artist Bernard Cathelin’s 1966 “Scène de Marché” was signed and dated and retained a label from David Findlay Gallery. It realized $7,605 on the phone. “Plage l’Ete (Cote d’Azure),” an oil on canvas by Adolphe-Louis Gaussen, also realized $7,605 from another phone bidder.
A Seventeenth Century needlework tapestry depicting a boy and a goat beneath a fruit tree sold online for $5,265.
Silver lots of note included a six-piece Kirk sterling tea and coffee set with overall floral repoussé that drew $9,360. An Eighteenth Century pair of English silver candlesticks by London maker Ebenezer Coker was dated 1764 and hallmarked and sold for $3,510. A Spanish Colonial silver and gold tureen in melon form with a chased design sold for $3,803.
All prices reported reflect the buyer’s premium. For information, www.crnauctions.com or 617-661-9582.
