Achieving primacy at $17,920 was Mary Lizzie Macomber’s “The Listener,” an oil on panel composition in an exceptional gilt frame. Previously in a Rhode Island collection, it will be hung in a Marion-area home with its new owner ($3/4,000).
Review by Madelia Hickman Ring
MARION, MASS. — For the second year in a row, Marion Antique Auctions conducted its last sale of the calendar year in early December, a shift from the Thanksgiving weekend sales it hosted through 2022. On December 7, nearly 550 lots crossed the block in the firm’s Holiday Classic Sale, achieving about $516,000 with a sell-through rate of more than 96 percent.
A profile portrait of a girl titled “The Listener” rose to the highest price: $17,920. It had been painted by Fall River School artist Mary Lizzie Macomber (1861-1916) and exhibited at the Providence Art Club in a 2005 exhibition titled, “The Best of Yesteryear.” Nick Taradash, the firm’s assistant manager, said it came to auction from a Rhode Island collection and sold to a long-time local buyer. “We sold another very similar one of her works a couple of years ago that hammered at $3,600, but this one was signed and titled and that helped it bring more.”
The same Rhode Island collection was the source of the auction’s second-highest result: $12,000, which was realized by an oil on canvas painting by Ross E. Brought (1898-1983) titled “Fields.” According to the catalog notes, the artist had studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Design, the Society of Independent Artists and Salons of America, later teaching at Cornell University and painting in Provincetown, Mass., in the 1920s. “That was the best Ross Brought painting I’d ever seen,” Taradash said. “Supposedly he carved the frame, but we weren’t sure if that was accurate; it had a very modernist look to it. It’s going to a private collector in Texas, who is new to us.”
The “best” Ross Brought painting that Nick Taradash had ever seen was his oil on canvas composition “Fields,” which measured 17½ by 18 inches in a gilt frame and sold for $12,000 to a collector in Texas making their debut purchase at Marion ($2/4,000).
Another new client — a private collector in Philadelphia who is a descendant of Lilla Cabot Perry (1848-1933) — paid $9,900 for an oil on canvas landscape painting by Perry that was sold by Taradash’s parents, Rhode Island collectors Bernie and Martha Taradash. Titled “New England Evening” and painted in 1926, the back of the painting bore a label from the Boston Athenaeum Library that noted its inclusion in a 1982 exhibition of Perry’s works.
The varied contents of the sale attracted an unusually large number of new bidders, which Taradash quantified by saying “at least 60 percent of our online bidders were new clients.”
New to the house as well was the New York State buyer of a group of four Bill Graham concert posters that were collected in London by a former staff member of the Rainbow Theatre. According to the catalog notes, the Rainbow Theatre had a reciprocal poster exchange program with Bill Graham and the Fillmore East and Fillmore West venues. Estimated at $200/400, the lot included three colorful examples from 1966-1968 and a black and white poster for Big Brother and the Holding Company, Tim Buckley and Albert King that featured a photo by Linda Eastman, photographer and the wife of Paul McCartney. It was this last poster that Taradash thought drove interest, to $10,500.
New bidders were not just US-based. A circa 1910 Louis Vuitton trunk with two trays that came to Marion from the Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., estate of George Morgan found a new home with a buyer in Milan, Italy, who prevailed at $10,500.
Louis Vuitton trunks are perennial favorites at auctions around the world and this circa 1910 trunk, measuring 23 inches high and 31½ inches wide, sold to a new buyer in Milan, for $10,500 ($2/4,000).
A strong selection of silver began the sale and saw two lots among the highest prices realized. Earning $10,200 was an Art Nouveau enameled sterling silver vase by Gorham that sold to a new buyer from upstate New York. The same buyer also won, for $9,600, a Tiffany sterling silver and enamel vase.
Mathias Joseph Alten’s (1871-1938) “Valencia” sailed to a new home with a Michigan buyer and another new client, for $7,500.
The provenance of a dynamic 1993 white earthenware pitcher by Peter Schlesinger was identified as the collection of Doris Lockhart Saatchi; the first wife of art collector and gallerist, Charles Saatchi. According to Taradash, the pitcher was at the couple’s apartment when it was featured in Architectural Digest. It is going to a new buyer in California for $5,760, nearly six times its high estimate.
“We had a diverse and interesting auction with strength in every category that attracted new people from around the country, both for things we’re known for but also for things that are not usual for us, like the Bill Graham posters. The sale had an extended viewing and we had a lot of people who came and sat through the sale, including 15-20 dealers, including some new ones, who were here. The smart money comes and sits here so they can buy for a lower buyer’s premium and save on shipping. There was a lot of competition on the day of the sale with other auctions going on so I am pleased at how well we did,” said Marion’s co-owner, Frank McNamee.
McNamee was pleased to say the firm has been selected to sell the personal estate collection of longtime Newport, R.I., dealer, Alan Gaines, which will take place in late March or early April.
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For information, 508-498-7136, 508-748-3606, info@marionantiques.com or www.marionantiqueauctions.com.
