The American School painting signed Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait made $25,200.
BEVERLY, MASS. – The April 27-28 sale at Kaminski Auctions featured a selection of Chinese porcelains from the estate of Robert Ledford of Charlotte, N.C., which attracted a sizable audience of Asian collectors. The top lot of the sale was a bottle-shaped vase with a globular body masterfully painted with a design of two peach branches growing halfway around the vessel. The gnarled branches were covered in pink peach blossoms with nine peaches in different stages of ripeness depicted. The vase measured 21 inches in height and had a six-character Qianlong mark on the base, and it sold for $22,500 to a determined internet bidder.
The highest price for a Chinese famille rose piece in the auction was $7,800 for a delicately painted bowl with the four-character Kangxi mark on the base. Another noteworthy entry was a Chinese copper-red stem cup with a strawberry red glaze and Yongzheng mark of the period that sold for $6,600. A pair of huanghuali wood armchairs and an early Twentieth Century Chinese antique embroidery panel decorated with sash birds brought $3,360 each.
The art of Arthur Fitzwilliam Tate stole the spotlight on the second day of the sale with an American School painting of deer in the forest selling for $25,200 and another smaller canvas of a goatherd in the forest fetching $6,000 to be the same determined phone bidder.
Most people associate the name Louis Comfort Tiffany with the famous jewelry store in New York City. The son of the founder, also Louis Comfort Tiffany, best-known for his glass creations of Tiffany leaded-glass lamp shades in the Art Nouveau style, was also a talented painter. A coastal scene painting of a sunset signed by the artist lit up the internet bidding and was finally sold for $21,600 to a happy online bidder.
Russian art in the auction performed well, with a beachside city scene with sailboats by Konstantin Ivanovich Gorbatov selling for $6,000 and a beach scene at sunset by Aleksei Vasilievich Von Hazen selling for $5,400.
This Louis Comfort Tiffany coastal scene at sunset was acquired for $21,600 by an online bidder.
A marine painting by Alfred Thomas Bricher from a private West Hollywood, Calif., collection sold for $5,100.
Other items of interest that performed well included a suite of 12 pencil-signed lithographs in four colors from zinc plates by Francois Gilot (b 1921), editioned 15/50 on Japon paper, titled “Sur La Pierre, Suite des Lithographies,” that sold for $7,200; and an Abraham Lincoln commission document signed by the president and Simon Cameron as his secretary of war in 1861. Bearing an embossed seal, the rare document sold for $3,600.
The successful bidder on the Ethel Shulam sewing collection flew into Boston especially to bid at the sale. A phone call from a friend in London, who saw the collection advertised on a website, informed her of the sale. Shulam, a noted New England quilt-maker from Danvers, Mass., was a collector of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century antique sewing collectibles and had amassed an array of sewing boxes and silver and bone sewing implements over the years.
An intricately carved Nineteenth Century Chinese export bone work box with detailed court scenes, figures, florals and a bridge scene was the prized piece of the collection and brought $5,040. A group of silver sewing collectibles consisting of 25 sewing implements sold for $1,152. Another group of late Nineteenth/early Twentieth Century carved mother-of-pearl sewing items sold for $900, while a collection of sterling and silver objets de vertu among them, two English vinaigrettes hallmarked Colen Hewer Cheshire, Birmingham, 1876, and Francis Clark, Birmingham, sold for $900.
A circa 1860s Anglo-Indian carved wood sewing box with flora and fauna motif sold for $720. In all, the 30 lots of this sewing collection brought more than $19,000.
The auction also offered a collection of vintage dolls with a group of four antique dolls, which included a Heubach character boy doll and an Armand Marseille 341 Dream Baby, which was the highest lot sold in the collection for $720.
Prices given include the buyer’s premium, as stated by the auction house. Kaminski Auctions is planning a full schedule of summer sales, with the next auction planned for the weekend of June 1-2. The sale will feature a selection of Asian antiques and the contents of a Manhattan estate and select items from Beverly, Ipswich and Salem, Mass., estates. For more information, www.kaminskiauctions.com.
