Rafael Osona – Nantucket Holiday Stroll Online Auction
December 3 at 9:30 am
21 Washington Street, Nantucket Island
www.rafaelosonaauctions.com
508-228-3942

NANTUCKET, MASS. The halls are decked for a Saturday, December 3, Osona auction loaded with 650 lots for the holidays. During 42 years of Nantucket auctioneering, Rafael Osona’s December event has earned rightful standing as a mecca for serious collectors, designers and holiday shoppers. Fine art, maritime arts, American and Continental furnishings and décor span the Eighteenth-Twenty-First Centuries with in-depth offerings from leading Nantucket artists and beyond, plus maritime artifacts, antiques and collectibles sourced from island estates and collectors.

Leading the sale among solid offerings in regionalist art are three paintings by Ralph Eugene Cahoon, each a teasingly eloquent ode to Nineteenth Century American sailors’ longings.

Emile Gruppe’s expressive brushwork shapes light with the dynamism of Realism in two commanding paintings, “Rockport Street Scene” and “Fishing Boats Docked.”

A total of nine Clark Voorhees Jr whale carvings are as impressive in the singular as they certainly are en masse, and Nantucket baskets — 34 of them — the world-recognized phenomena for which the phrase “Nantucket Mink” was coined — range from early and post Lightship-era work baskets to those by José Formoso Reyes, Bill Sevrens and others, Paul Willer’s and Georgia Axt’s late Twentieth Century miniatures to contemporary designs.

Nantucket painter Robert Stark Jr sets his iconic red sail amid a brilliant sunset with dense atmospherics. It’s one of two Robert Stark Jr lots on offer. For enthusiasts of Nantucket’s art history, painter June Coolidge’s Modernist sensibility captures Island Service Wharf on canvas during changing times, circa 1933, when the island’s fledgling artist colony was just taking shape.

Of note: a rare, early Nineteenth Century Nantucket coin silver ladle by James Easton II and six Nantucket coin silver teaspoons by William Hadwen, circa 1820-38 shine among silver offerings that include flatware services by Cartier, Steiff, Reed & Barton and ram’s-head master salts by Tiffany & Co., plus period pieces that include George III and IV and more.

Modern furnishings include Stephen Swift’s rare settee and pair of rocking chairs, both lots signed and dated, among nine bench-made lots by the Nantucket and Pomfret, Conn., designer/craftsman. Highlights among period American and English furnishings include campaign, Hayward Wakefield, vintage bamboo and Smith & Hawken outdoor teak.

Not to be missed is a rare pair of George III garden cisterns, dated 1757, of cylindrical lead form and cast in relief with cartouche-framed galleons, anchors, mermaids, scallop-shells, starfish and scrolled acanthus chutes.

Two sailor’s valentines beckon alongside maritime-related lots, including walking sticks and canes, a ship portrait by Georgina Nemethy, models and dioramas, half hulls, lantern lights and more.

There are British Regency tea caddies, Steuben, jewelry, 19 vintage patchwork quilts, Tony Sarg memorabilia, 23 doorstops, Nineteenth Century Canton, a 149-piece Spode Blue Trade Winds dinner service for 12, 13 pairs of vintage or antique andirons, fireplace fenders, hand knotted Oriental carpets and hooked rugs.

Gallery preview is December 1-2, from 10 am to 5 pm at the American Legion Hall, 21 Washington Street. The online auction on Saturday, December 3, begins at 9:30 am. Bidding will be live online, by telephone or by absentee bid. For information, www.rafaelosonaauctions.com or 508-228-3942.

LIVE PREVIEW: DEC. 1 & 2 10-5PM
3 Ralph Cahoon Oils “Ship Tavern”
2 Emile Gruppe Oils
Ralph Cahoon Oil “American Seamen’s Friend Society”
Nantucket Coin Silver Ladle and Spoons
1 of 9 Clark Voorhees Jr. Whale Sculptures
2 Robert Stark Jr. Oils
19 Quilts
Quilts
“Nantucket Service Wharf” June Coolidge
34 Nantucket Baskets