One lucky bidder will now sleep in style in this Empire-style ormolu-mounted mahogany and acajou moucheté bed, 67 inches high by 91 inches wide by 82 inches deep, which earned the highest price of the day at $23,750 ($5/10,000).
Review by Kiersten Busch
BEVERLY, MASS. — On November 15, Kaminski Auctions offered 565 lots from the collection of American businesswoman and entrepreneur Lucille Roberts, who founded the Lucille Roberts chain of health clubs. Sourced directly from Roberts’ 20,000-square-foot Woolworth Mansion in New York City, the selections included various works of fine art, period antiques, furniture and other items. While owner Frank Kaminski chose not to disclose a total, he was happy to share that the sale was “extremely successful.”
The day was led by an Empire-style ormolu-mounted mahogany and acajou moucheté wood bed, which comfortably surpassed its $5/10,000 estimate to earn $23,750. The bed’s headboard was surmounted by a spread-winged eagle set above a palmette- and anthemia-cast frieze, flanked by Egyptian bust-headed uprights. An Empire-style ormolu-mounted mahogany extending table ($7,500) and a pair Empire-style ormolu and portoro marble torchieres ($6,875) also found new homes.
An Italian neoclassical white-painted and parcel-gilt center table made in the early Nineteenth Century finished for $9,375. Its 40-inch circular top was made from mottled liver-colored marble, and it rested on a frieze applied with gold-painted leaves and lion’s masks.
Earning $9,375 was this Italian neoclassical white-painted and parcel-gilt center table with a mottled liver-colored marble top, 30½ inches high, 40 inches in diameter ($4/8,000).
If you needed something decorative to place on top of your dining room table, a French Napoleonic sur-tout mirror tray or centerpiece did just the trick. Cataloged as “elaborate,” the 64-inch-long gilt mirror had acanthus and Napoleonic decorations and was possibly made in the early Nineteenth Century. It bested its $5/8,000 estimate at $10,625.
Three lots of Wallace sterling silver flatware sets, all in the Grand Baroque pattern, turned heads, selling in succession for $8,750 (two sets) and $8,125. Additional sets of flatware that crossed the block ranged in price from $250 for a lot of 78 pieces of assorted silverplate hollowware and flatware, to $5,313 for an Austrian/Hungarian gilt silver flatware set in a fitted case marked with a “J.C.K.” maker’s mark for J.C. Klinkosch.
Paintings were the most dominant interest of the sale, with 80 percent of the top 10 highest-selling lots belonging to the category. The selection was led at $22,500 by a Seventeenth Century Italian School oil on canvas titled “Venus and Cupid at the Forge of Vulcan,” which measured 89 by 67 inches in its frame. One other Italian School oil on canvas was offered, titled “Triumph of Galatea.” Painted after Raffaello Sanzio, otherwise known as Raphael, the late Seventeenth Century work was hung in the living room of Woolworth Mansion and landed within its $10/20,000 estimate at $12,500.
“Venus and Cupid at the Forge of Vulcan,” Seventeenth Century, oil on canvas, 89 by 67 inches framed, was done by a member of the Italian School and made $22,500 to lead a vast selection of oil paintings ($500/700).
French and Spanish School paintings crossed the block as well. An example of the former, done in the Nineteenth Century, depicted Napoleon on horseback and was previously hung in Roberts’ master bedroom sitting room. Appraised at Christie’s in 2005 for $25,000, the painting sold for almost as much, at $21,250. The Spanish School work was a circa 1630 oil on canvas portrait of Cardinal Bernardo Luis Cotoner that hung in the Woolworth library; it was raised to $10,625.
Additional oil on canvas paintings that earned high prices included “Saint Peter and Saint John healing the Paralytic” by Francisco Javier Ramos Alberto ($20,000), “The King at a Feast” by H. D’Obyofehosky (1847) ($18,750), “Bacchus attending Venus” attributed to Giovanni Ghisolfi ($16,250) and “Pantheon L’Obelisque, le Colisee,” a work signed “H. Robert” and attributed to the circle of Hubert Robert ($13,750).
Three-dimensional artworks were led by two alabaster busts depicting the Venus de Milo and Antinous. Both were modeled after the antique originals and were made in the second half of the Nineteenth Century. Originally sold in an October 1999 Christie’s, South Kensington sale for $3,000, they more than doubled that total with Kaminski, carving out a $6,250 finish.
Prices quoted include buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For information, 978-927-2223 or www.kaminskiauctions.com.
