“Mary Caroline Haines,” a Prior-Hamblin School folk art portrait, led the sale, selling for $30,000.
Review by W.A. Demers, Photos Courtesy Devin Moisan Auctioneers
EPPING, N.H. – Attributed to Sturtevant Hamblin (active 1825-1856), “Portrait of Miss Mary Caroline Haines,” an oil on board within a period grain-painted frame, sold for $30,000 to lead Devin Moisan’s June 19 auction of Americana and decorative arts.
In the waist-length depiction, the subject is depicted wearing a blue puffy sleeve dress with coral necklace, the ends tied in a bow, and in her hand she holds an apple.
Inscribed on reverse is the name “Mary Caroline Haines Jackson” with a genealogical family record. Mary Caroline Haines was born to William Haines and Caroline Eaton on December 2, 1839, in Cabot, Vt.
She was one of two children born to William and his second wife Caroline, who were married in 1836. Their son Ezra was born in 1843.
Among a strong showing of tablewares, this partial set of Chinese famille verte dinnerware toted up $6,563.
William’s occupation is listed as that of a farmer in the 1850 Caledonia County, Vermont, census. In the census of 1860, added to the household was Almon Jackson, whom Mary Caroline would later marry on May 31, 1861. Mary Caroline and Almon would later have six children.
It was a family affair at auction. Parental Prior-Hamblin School portraits depicting William Haines and Caroline Eaton Haines were also offered as a subsequent lot, and they brought $3,900.
The online and absentee-only sale featured not only these choice examples of folk art, but included furnishings and decorative arts for the home and garden. Property from estates in Sutton and Dover, N.H., Salisbury, Conn., and West Newbury, Mass., was on offer, and items ranged from Eighteenth through Twentieth Century American and continental furnishings, ceramics and glass, Victorian lighting, advertising, American Indian and ethnographic arts, Oriental rugs and other decorative accessories. The sale totaled a little over $250,000 with a 97 percent sell-through rate, the result attained via the online platforms as well as absentee left bids.
A Nineteenth Century Greco-Roman carved marble garden sculpture of a headless, partially clothed male figure went out at $4,800.
An ethnographic highlight was an Austral Islands carved spear from Rurutu Island that struck $8,750. It featured a flat diamond-form blade with finely carved raised midline above a crosshatch and ring-decorated double collar comprised of two concave diamond- form bands with protuberances. It was 102½ inches long.
Tablewares performed well. A partial art set of Chinese famille verte dinnerware, including two pairs of covered vegetable dishes, 67 pieces in total, realized $6,563, while an extensive Cantagalli & Ginori faience dinner service finished at $3,000, far above its high $600 estimate. Totaling 125 pieces, the service was decorated with orange and blue blossoms with greenery on a cream ground and bore the cockerel mark on reverse. Dinner plates, luncheon plates and soup bowls were marked “Societa Ceramica Richard (Richard-Ginori).” The iconic Italian dinnerware manufacturer has been producing porcelain dinnerware in the outskirts of Florence, Italy, since 1735 and is renowned for both simple white patterns as well as luxurious and richly colored dinnerware.
Fetching $2,625 – also blowing through an expected $200/400 estimate – was a group of Chinese export Rose Medallion tablewares, a total of 89 assorted and highly colorful pieces.
Among garden items, a Nineteenth Century Greco-Roman carved marble garden sculpture depicted a partially clothed, headless standing male figure on plinth base. Standing 57 inches high, it went out at $4,800.
Fetching $4,375 was a Gustav Stickley Mission oak bookcase #717.
The highest selling piece of furniture in the sale was a Gustav Stickley Mission oak bookcase #717 that brought $4,375. The 56-by-48-by-13½-inch piece featured a rectangular top with through tenons and arched backsplash, above two eight-pane doors with interior beveled mullions, opening to three fixed shelves above a bottom with through tenons. Raised on arched cut-out feet, it was signed in the upper left-hand side interior.
Somebody hankered for a sand-painted, double-sided flange sign that promoted “Adriance Farm Machinery,” for the 13-by-37-by-2-inch sign with stylized graphic of either a saw blade or machine gear ripped through its $150/250 estimate to take $3,250. According to a website appropriately called “Farm Collector,” John P. Adriance (1825-1891) received his first patent for farm machines – binders, mowers and reapers – in 1852. He immediately went into the wholesale hardware trade with his brother-in-law, Samuel R. Platt, and Samuel W. Sears under the name of Sears, Adriance & Platt. In 1854, that concern purchased the Manny mower patent for the New England states and began building the machine in Worcester, Mass., in 1857 under the name of John P. Adriance.
The sale also featured Oriental rugs, with the top seller being a Bidjar lion rug at $2,375. With pale blue heraldic lions interlaced on lattice, the salmon border surrounded an indigo field with acanthus leaves and lotus palmettes on the 4-foot-9-inch-by-7-foot-9-inch textile.
Prices given include the buyer’s premium as stated by the auction house. For more information, www.moisanauctions.com or 603-953-0022.
