South Bay Auctions – Important Two-Day Estate Auction
May 24 & 25
www.southbayauctions.com
info@southbayauctions.com
631-878-290

EAST MORICHES, N.Y. — South Bay Auctions is presenting a two-day, single-owner sale of approximately 500 lots from the collection of the late scholar, historian and appraiser Joseph “Jay” St Mark, of Newtown, Conn. The auction features important Americana, encompassing folk art, fine art, early Connecticut and New England furniture, decorative arts, collectibles, silver,and decoys from St Mark’s lifetime collection, as well as select European fine and decorative arts. The sale takes place May 24 and 25, beginning at noon each day.

Leading the folk art category is a full-bodied, molded and gilded copper setter dog weathervane attributed to E.G. Washburne and Company, offered alongside a total of more than 40 weathervanes by A.L. Jewell, Cushing & White and others. Also notable is the naive folk art sculpture of an eagle perched on a book by an anonymous carver, likely from New Hampshire. This piece comes from the collection of Patricia Guthman and is pictured in the book American Primitive: Discoveries in Folk Sculpture (Ricco, Maresca, 1988). Other highlights include folk art portraits by Joseph Whiting Stock (attributed) and Prior-Hamblin School.

Nineteenth Century American art is well represented in the sale, revealing St Mark’s collecting interest in New York and Connecticut artists and makers, and bringing to market works from important Hudson River School (and adjacent) artists, Tonalists and Connecticut Impressionists. New York highlights include a painting by William Mason Brown depicting raspberries spilling out onto the forest floor, a large canvas of Columbus Circle in winter by Johann Berthelsen and Albertus Del Orient Browere’s “Twin Lakes and Catskills Mountain House,” as well as works by James Ryder Van Brunt, David Johnson, William Merritt Post and Charles Gruppe. Rounding out the Connecticut offerings are two Tonalist landscapes by Bruce Crane and an Impressionist spring landscape by Wilson Henry Irvine, alongside paintings by other Connecticut luminaries, Aaron Draper Shattuck, Chauncey Foster Ryder and Ben Foster.

Several decoys are on offer in the sale, including a yellowlegs shorebird and its rig mate by William H. Southard of Seaford, N.Y., a willet by John Dilley of Quogue, N.Y., two scoters by Joe Lincoln of Accord, Mass., and a hollow brandt by Lloyd Parker of Parkertown, N.J. Most notable in the furniture category is a New England maple chest-on-stand attributed to the Dunlap School, as well as numerous local Connecticut pieces, including high chests and highboys, dressing tables, candlestands and Queen Anne and Windsor chairs. “Rarely do you see such an extensive collection of early Northeast Americana come up all at once,” said Jean-Paul Napoli, co-owner of South Bay Auctions.

St Mark was a scholar, historian, appraiser and collector of Americana and antiques. After receiving his PhD from Georgetown University — and an early stint on Capitol Hill working as a legislative press aide for Congressman Charles Adam Mosher of Ohio — St Mark began a teaching position at St Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkhill, N.Y. It was while earning a modest professor’s salary that he caught the antiques bug, as detailed in a November 13, 2003, article about him in The News-Times Newtown. “One Saturday, I spent some time in a junk store while my laundry was drying,” he is quoted, “… a wood spoon caught my eye. I bought it for 25 cents [and] later sold it to an antiques dealer for $5. That was a lot of money in a new teacher’s pocket. I celebrated by going out and buying a lobster for dinner.” He began pursuing antiques as a sideline and eventually gave up his teaching position to make it his sole career. St Mark was a published author of many scholarly articles, a lecturer and completed post-doctoral studies at Trinity University in Dublin, Ireland. Living in his Eighteenth Century Newtown home for nearly 50 years, he became known locally for his work as an antiques show promoter, and for his participation in numerous “Road Show” style appraisal days at area museums and historical societies.

Public preview: Wednesday, May 17 through Tuesday, May 23, 11 am to 4 pm daily, and by appointment.

South Bay Auctions is at 485 Montauk Highway, For information, www.southbayauctions.com or 631-878-2909.

The Collection of Joseph “Jay” St. Mark, Ph.D. Connecticut collector, scholar, historian and appraiser.