Seven-light Lily lamp, with five shades intact, from Tiffany Studios grew to the top of the auction at $9,375.
Review by Z.G. Burnett; Images Courtesy of Hudson Valley Auctioneers
BEACON, N.Y. — Hudson Valley Auctioneers’ presented more than 550 lots during its Spectacular Unreserved Fall Auction on September 18. Fresh from local estates, 99 percent of these lots sold and totaled $230,000. Many bid on the phone and some left absentee bids, but most of the auction’s customers participated through LiveAuctioneers, AuctionZip and Hudson Valley’s live platform.
Decorative arts were prominent in the upper lots, and in the auction overall, with lamps being most popular with high bidders. First was a Tiffany Studios, New York, seven-light Lily lamp that was won by a local dealer against three other telephone and online participants for $9,375. Retaining five of its signed Favrile glass shades, of which one was damaged, the lamp showed a patinaed doré finish and was stamped on its shades and base. Another stamped bronze lamp with a darker patina from Tiffany Studios achieved $4,160 despite some scratches and wobbling from an uneven base.
Second in the auction was an Art Deco lamp, probably by Donald Deskey (American, 1894-1989), that was bid to $5,120. Made with a curved metal arm and shade mounted on wooden base with distressed white paint, the lamp is similar to an example in the Brooklyn Museum with a black-painted wooden base. Deskey was an industrial designer, perhaps best known for his interiors seen in Radio City Music Hall. His graphic design firm, founded in the 1940s, produced packaging for Crest toothpaste and the Tide bull’s-eye.
Art deco table lamp, likely by American industrial designer Donald Deskey, achieved $5,120.
One work of fine art made it to the top lots, an oil on canvas painting by Robert Brackman titled “The Three Graces” that achieved $4,480. The painting shows three women in the attitudes of Euphrosyne, Aglea and Thalia, and although they are bare breasted, their semi-nudity suggests that these are mere mortal women rather than daughters of Zeus. Brackman was born in Odessa in 1898, then part of the Russian Empire and now Ukraine, and immigrated to the United States in 1908 or 1910. He studied and taught at multiple prominent institutions, including the National Academy of Design, and earned portrait commissions from Rockefellers, Charles Lindberg and John Foster Dulles. The “Graces” was painted in 1965, signed and titled on verso, and inscribed “Noank, Conn.,” where Brackman passed away in 1980.
Following the Brackman in price was a unique and rare photography collection taken in China and Japan by Clarence Wilson of Middletown, N.Y., in the early Twentieth Century. Giving a firsthand look at urban and suburban citizens, the photographs mainly emphasize artisans demonstrating their craftsmanship in rapidly industrializing landscapes. The lot consisted of two large albums and a separate collection of picture postcards, and sold for $4,160.
This unique collection of photographs and picture postcards was taken and assembled by Clarence Wilson, Middletown, N.Y., showing turn-of-the-century images of everyday people and specialized craftworkers, sold for $4,160.
Louis Vuitton trunks are not unusual listings in estate auctions of this kind, but an unusual example in this sale brought $4,160. The trunk was covered with yellow canvas and trimmed in brown leather and monogrammed with white lettering on a wide blue band. The interior was lined with quilted ivory fabric and showed a stamp with the famous atelier’s Paris and London locations.
Prices quoted with buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For more information, www.hudsonvalleyauctioneers.com or 845-831-6800.
