PHILADELPHIA — The top lot at Freeman’s June 4 sale of American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists featuring the Papageorge Family Collection was “Jetty Tree (Port Clyde, Maine)” by Newell Convers Wyeth (American, 1882-1945), which bidders took to $2,450,000 from an estimate of $200/300,000. Fresh-to-the-market, the 48¼-by-40-inch oil on canvas had been on loan to the Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Penn., for the museum’s 2021-22 exhibitions, “Selections from the Collection by N.C. and Jamie Wyeth” and “Selections from the Landscape Collection.” It is featured in two published catalogue raisonnés for the artist, depicts the view Wyeth would have seen from the family’s summer residence in Port Clyde, Maine, and offers a counterpoint to his more commercial illustrations.

The result is not only the highest price achieved for a non-illustrative work by the artist but is also the second most-valuable work of art sold at Freeman’s and the highest price the house had realized for Wyeth. Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house; a more extensive sale recap will appear in an upcoming issue.