An Eighteenth Century Kentucky Federal cherry secretary, circa 1795, that descended in the family of Judge Davis Edwards of Louisville attracted much admiration and interest at CRN Auctions’ May 1 sale that played to a packed house. Bidding opened at $7,500 online and ended when the piece sold for $40,250 to Lexington, Ky., dealer Clifton Anderson.
A copy of the catalog from the 1974 exhibition “Kentucky Furniture” at the Speed Art Museum includes furniture with related styles and construction techniques. It accompanied the pristine bonnet top secretary that was made with inlaid and paneled blind doors, a fitted interior and a shaped skirt and on which the museum may have been an underbidder. Anderson specializes in the furniture of Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley and has done extensive research on the subject. The secretary came from a South Shore Massachusetts family.
An Eighteenth Century Newport mahogany demilune Goddard Townsend school card table with a conforming compartment, a ball and claw foot front leg and two back legs on pad feet realized $46,000 from a dealer in the gallery. It came from a New England family.
Clean, honest and highly desirable, a pair of Philadelphia Chippendale walnut side chairs on ball and claw feet came from a Pennsylvania family and sold for $8,050.
Interest in New England material extended through the sale. A Boston Hepplewhite mahogany bowfront sideboard with bowed side drawers and tiger maple panels in the legs realized $4,313, and a small Massachusetts Federal flame mahogany sideboard with satinwood capitols above reeded columns that came from a Granby house finished at $3,450.
An Eighteenth Century Boston Chippendale mahogany card table on ball and claw feet drew $6,900 on an absentee bid, while a Boston classical mahogany mechanical banquet table that when extended by its five leaves stretched to 13 feet sold on the phone for $4,888.
Fetching $4,888, a Portsmouth Hepplewhite mahogany bowfront chest with four graduated drawers featured tiger maple fronts, ivory escutcheons and flared feet.
Good needlework was also a draw: a 1774 Essex County, Mass., alphabet sampler with geometric borders enclosing flowers and a scene with trees, flowers and animals came from an area home and sold for $18,400. A Massachusetts needlework Warren family tree spanning the years 1777‱837 was wrought by 10-year-old Abigail S. Warren and dated August 1836. Estimated $2/3,000, it fetched $7,475. A silk needlework mourning picture worked by 9-year-old Abigail Chase and memorializing Major Christopher Chase with a young woman beneath a weeping willow tree brought $3,163. It had descended in the Snow-Chase family and came from a Madison, N.J., collection.
A pair of Philadelphia Federal urn top andirons from about 1800 was engraved with hounds on the front of the plinths and with medallions of flowers on the sides. Selling on the phone for $6,900, the same pair sold in May 2007 for $17,600.
A New Jersey collector with an exceptional eye and who is downsizing was the source of some carefully gathered and highly regarded Chinese Export armorial porcelain. A large (6 inches) armorial mug with Trevor impaling Weldon coat of arms, circa 1775, sold in the gallery for $9,200 to Atlanta dealer Henry Moog, who was seated with Boston dealer Polly Latham. The two arrived together and shared the material, chatting even as they bid against each other on several lots.
A small, circa 1725, teapot with the Raymond arms went to a phone bidder for $4,313, while a larger teapot and stand, circa 1760, with Browne, Viscount Montague quartering D’Abany Monthermes and Montocute was also $4,313 to Latham. When auctioneer Carl Nordblom hammered down a Chinese Export Rose Medallion garden barrel for $920, he reminded Latham, “Remember when we used to fight over these?” Latham did not buy any garden barrels, but she did pay $6,900 for a Ch’ien Lung plate, circa 1730, with lozenges for Lady of Izon of Gloucestershire and County Kilkenny, Ireland.
Moog took a Ch’ien Lung porcelain plate, circa 1740, with Lennard with Chadwick in pretence coat of arms made for Lennard of Chevening and Knole in Kent for $4,888.
A set of six graduated armorial mugs with Larker impaling Nesbett coat of arms, circa 1760, drew $6,325, and a single large armorial with the Harries coat of arms and a gilt berry and vine border was $5,463. A rare circa 1760 armorial mug with Nassau, Earl of Rochefort, quartering Dietz, Vianden and Catznellogan, with Zuylestein in pretence coat of arms with the motto “Sapes Durat Amorum” fetched $3,450 on the phone.
Pictured in D.H. Howard’s Chinese Armorial Porcelain , a Ch’ien Lung armorial octagonal plate, circa 1750, with the coat of arms of Sir Richard Chase of Hertfordshire, sold for $4,600. The same bidder paid $3,450 for a circa 1730 plate with Gibson impaling Green coat of arms.
A pair of armorial plates, circa 1720, with Heathcoate impaling Parker quartering Venables and Carrier coat of arms went for $5,463. Another pair of porcelain plates, circa 1765, with the Lee asymmetrical coat of arms sold for $5,175. The pair retained labels from Elinor Gordon, indicating an original purchase price of $2,500 each.
A hexagonal deep plate, circa 1730, with Jephson impaling Chase brought $4,888, and a small platter with Boynton quartering Ering-Topham coat of arms, circa 1770‱790, brought $3,738.
Each decorated with two dragons amid flowers on a yellow ground, a Nineteenth Century pair of large (24 inches) porcelain vases commanded $4,600.
The unidentified New Jersey collector inherited some fine examples and bought others, many from Israel Sack, most of which are published in various Sack books.
The Eighteenth Century New Hampshire Dunlap School Queen Anne maple highboy with six graduated drawers and scrolling and pinwheel carving to the apron brought $6,900. It had descended in the Chase family to the collector.
A pair of Boston or North Shore Federal mahogany card tables with satinwood panels, serpentine sides and inlaid legs brought $6,325 from a buyer in the gallery.
Seating commanded attention as an Eighteenth Century Boston Queen Anne mahogany side chair with a molded crest, a vasiform splat and a balloon seat sold for $5,463. A Pennsylvania Chippendale walnut side chair with a crest carved with a scallop shell, a slip seat and trifid feet fetched $4,313 online. An Eighteenth Century New England Queen Anne walnut side chair with a raised crest, a vasiform splat and a blocked and turned flat scalloped stretcher brought $4,025. The original seat frame, along with the original leather and horse hair, accompanied the chair in a separate glass case. A Rhode Island Federal mahogany lolling chair, circa 1810, with satinwood inlay to a panel above the reeded and turned legs sold for $5,463.
Pictured in Albert Sack’s The New Fine Points of Furniture, an Eighteenth Century New England Queen Anne cherry candlestand with square cut-in corners, a diamond inlay to the top and on incurving legs came from the New Jersey collection and sold for $4,600. A pretty Connecticut Federal cherry candlestand with a shaped and cut corner top, in-curving legs with fan inlay to the knees and snake feet brought $3,450.
A North Shore Massachusetts Federal mahogany secretary with two gothic and diamond pane glazed doors with interior shelves above fitted drawers and compartments sold for $4,600. The piece was purchased by the New Jersey collector from Israel Sack and is pictured in American Antiques from the Israel Sack Collection.
English and Continental material included a most desirable Nineteenth Century English mahogany medicine cabinet with an ivory plaque identifying the owner as S.F. Gray, “chymist” to the king, 97 New Bond Street, London. It opened at $1,600 and sold for $5,750 to the same phone bidder who took an English Regency bird’s-eye maple credenza attributed to Gillows and having mirrors and a white marble top for $2,300. The same buyer paid $1,295 for an English carved wood trade sign in the form of a well carved parrot holding a sign reading “Condotti & Co. Hand Made&”
An English George III mahogany breakfront with a flat top and glazed doors flanked by set back side cabinets sold on the phone for $5,750, and an English Queen Anne mahogany console with a replaced marble top went to a phone bidder for $4,888.
A series of four Eighteenth Century engravings with North American views after Captain Thomas Howdell, three of which featured New York and one Louisburg, Nova Scotia, brought $4,025. The prints came from the New Jersey collection and retained a label of the Old Print Shop.
American paintings of interest drew strong bidding. “Purple and Gold,” a fiery landscape by California painter Hanson Duvall Puthuff hung in an Arts and Crafts frame, sold in the room for $17,250. A view of a rocky New England coastline by Alfred Thompson Bricher had some condition problems and opened at $1,500. A phone bidder persevered and beat some competition at $14,950.
Primitive portraits included an image of a dark-haired girl holding a red book, signed and dated William Kennedy, 1844, that fetched $11,500. A Prior Hamblin portrait of a child in a blue dress holding a riding crop in a grain painted ogee frame brought $9,775.
An Eighteenth Century colonial Latin American painting of the Angel Gabriel was unstretched and unframed and ascended past the estimated $600/900 to $9,775 from an Internet buyer.
A group of Irish pictures attracted interest, with the oil on canvas “Rain at Kilkee” by Letitia Marion Hamilton generating the most activity. It brought $8,625 on the phone.
An early Nineteenth Century Chinese kesi and ink scroll depicting immortals and acolytes ascending a mountain toward a celestial being in the sky brought $32,200. The scroll came from a Cambridge estate. An Eighteenth Century pair of Chinese kesi panels depicting dragons and auspicious symbols from the same estate drew $4,600.
All prices quoted reflect the 15 percent buyer’s premium. For information, 617-661-9582 or www.crnauctions.com .
