22 Jan 2002 / 0 Comment

Sotheby's Logs an Unprecedented $27.3 Million Americana Week Total

Published: January 22, 2002

Bidding opened at 250000 on this circa 1750 Queen Anne desk and bookcase attributed to Samuel Harding of Philadelphia New York dealer Leigh Keno and Pennsylvania dealer Philip Bradley were in the hunt before the piece was knocked down on the phone to the Chipstone Foundation in MIlwaukee for 11 million Joe Kindig Jr who sold the piece to Mr and Mrs Lammot du Pont Copeland in 1943 described it as having the best interior I have ever owned

Mechanical banks included the yellow-base Trick Dog, which fetched $4,000 and the small Uncle Sam Bust, which brought $2,250.

Sotheby’s Logs an Unprecedented $27.3 Million Americana Week Total

By R. Scudder Smith and Laura Beach

Pent-up demand propelled sales to record levels at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Sotheby’s logged an unprecedented Americana Week total of $27.3 million.

Attracting the most attention was property from the Collection of Mr and Mrs Lammot du Pont Copeland, the late Wilmington, Del., couple who had been strongly influenced by their relative Henry du Pont. The two-part sale on Saturday, January 19, grossed $12.6 million, a record for a single-owner sale of American decorative arts. Ninety-eight percent sold by lot, the auction saw 24 lots bring more than $100,000.

Much talked about before the auction was a magnificent Philadelphia Queen Anne desk-and-bookcase with an elaborately ornamented interior that the Copelands purchased from the late Pennsylvania dealer Joe Kindig, Jr, in 1943. The piece sold to Chipstone Foundation in Milwaukee for $1.1 million, making it Sotheby’s highest-priced lot of the week.

Other notable property from the Copeland Collection included a circa 1765 Chippendale carved and figured mahogany bonnet-top chest-on-chest with case attributed to master carvers Nicholas Bernard and Martin Jugiez, sold on the phone to broker Alan Miller for $913,250; a Pembroke table attributed to John Townsend, knocked down to consultant Luke Beckerdite for $632,500; and a Philadelphia Queen Anne easy chair, which went to dealer Philip Bradley for $538,250.

Sotheby’s logged another $3.6 million at its various owners’ sale; $2.2 million in silver from the First Church of Christ, Congregational, of Milford, Conn., and other consignors; $3.6 million for American folk art from the collection of Sandy and Julie Palley; $1.3 million for property from the collection of Richard and Joy Kanter; $1.9 million for objects deaccessioned by Gunston Hall Plantation, a historic house in Virginia; and $2.2 million in inventory consigned by Israel Sack, Inc.

Antiques and The Arts Weekly will bring you complete coverage of Americana Week in New York in a coming issue.



   

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