“It’s an auction we always look forward to, kicking off a busy Antiques Week in New Hampshire,” Ron Bourgeault, president of Northeast Auctions, said as he was about to begin auctioning off 1,694 lots on Friday, August 5, at 2 pm, the start of his three-day sale. Four hundred, forty-four lots were sold that afternoon, with the one-owner sales, the Helen and Steven Kellogg Collection of American Folk Art in the morning and the Claire Cooke Collection in the afternoon on Saturday (both reviewed separately). The balance of the sale is in this review, and the sale grossed $4,544,000, including the buyer’s premium.
All prices quoted include the 18 percent buyer’s premium.
The Friday sale started with a gold and diamond spray brooch, set with 53 diamonds of various sizes, that went just over the high estimate at $2,830. A set of seven American silver luncheon plates and 25 bread and butter dessert plates, Twentieth Century, maker unknown, marked “sterling,” went over the $3,800 high estimate, bringing $5,182. Selling for just under four times the high estimate was a Staffordshire creamware tortoiseshell-glazed fruit basket and stand, possibly Thomas Whieldon, 1760‱765, 10½ inches high and 11 inches in length, molded around the sides and cavetto with sprigs of fruit pendent. A rare William Henry Harrison “Union, for the sake of the Union,” Staffordshire black transfer-printed copper luster mud, circa 1840, 3½ inches high, went over the $900 high estimate, bringing $3,068.
A pair of English delft plates, probably Bristol, circa 1720, with peacock and rooster decoration, 7 inches in diameter, had a high estimate of $1,000, and sold for $6,372. A New England blue painted child’s blanket box with squiggle decoration and sawtooth ends, 20 inches high and 33¼ inches long, went well over the $2,000 high estimate, selling for $6,490.
Among the lots of pewter sold was a rare sugar bowl, attributed to Park(e)s Boyd, Philadelphia, 1795‱819, 45/8 inches high, provenance listing the Donald Shelley Collection, that brought $4,425, and the next lot, a quart mug, Samuel Hamlin, Hartford and Middletown, Conn., and Providence, R.I., 1767‱801, 6 inches high, also from the Shelley collection, brought $3,400. Both had high estimates of $1,500.
The Sunday portion of the auction started with the Mark Reinfurt Shaker Collection, 73 lots, including a Shaker black ash splint storage basket from Canterbury, N.H., 22 inches high and 23 inches in diameter. Estimated at $500/800, it brought $2,832, and a stereopticon card and carte de visite of a New Hampshire sitter in a studio setting, Canterbury Village, together with a box of Shaker silk samples and stockings, went well over the high $300 estimate, selling for $2,596. Two other items from the collection are pictured, including the top lot, a tall pine chest with red stain, New Lebanon, N.Y., that sold for $94,400.
A Joseph H. Davis portrait of Sewell and Sally Marden of Deerfield, N.H., 1837, was estimated at $20/30,000, and sold for $21,240. It measured 9½ by 13½ inches and was in a grain painted frame. Among a selection of weathervanes, a ranger dog, full-bodied copper, 17 inches high and 34 inches long, brought $7,670, while a large running horse attributed to Harris & Co., Massachusetts, 29 inches high and 46½ inches long, sold for $4,956.
A Canadian carved pine buffet, Quebec, mid-Eighteenth Century, two short drawers over two carved diamond panel doors on a molded base with peg feet, went for $7,080; an Exeter and South Kingston, R.I., silver cup by Samuel Casey, 1750‱779, engraved “John Foster,” 2½ inches high, with a high estimate of $2,000, reached $13,570; and a tavern table with splayed base, rectangular top above a frieze with drawer at each end, shaped skirt, went for $11,800, well above the $1,500 high estimate.
A Massachusetts Chippendale mahogany bonnet top, chest on chest, two parts, upper section with three turned finials, short fan carved drawer, the lower section with four long drawers, reverse serpentine front, cabriole legs and ball and claw feet, went for $22,420, just over the high estimate. Two lots later, a Massachusetts Chippendale mahogany blockfront chest of drawers, Boston or Salem, went over the high $15,000 estimate, selling for $28,320.
Selling for just under the high estimate at $11,800 was a pair of Philadelphia Chippendale carved walnut side chairs, serpentine crests with central carved shell, cabriole legs ending in ball and claw feet, and selling at the high estimate was a Massachusetts Queen Anne walnut wing chair, canted back and serpentine crest rail, shaped wings and upholstered in green leather, $15,340. A Philadelphia Chippendale mahogany tilt top, dish top tea table, birdcage support, suppressed ball standard, cabriole legs and ball and claw feet, had a high estimate of $10,000 and sold for $15,340. The provenance listed John Walton.
A New York classical mahogany marble top pier table, Nineteenth Century, 36 inches high with a 44-by-19½-inch top, sold for $10,915; a pair of Philadelphia Chippendale carved mahogany side chairs, serpentine crests with rolled ears, shell carving and cabriole legs with shell carved knees and ball and claw feet sold within estimate at $15,340; and a New York Federal inlaid mahogany serpentine front sideboard, bowed and in-curved front, case with central drawer above a pair of cupboard doors, square legs with bellflower inlay, sold for $9,676.
Rugs, lamps and andirons filled, for the most part, the last part of the sale, with the final lot, 1694, a George III mahogany rectangular tea caddy, English, selling for $649.
For more information, www.northeastauctions.com or 603-433-8400.
