“It’s not for stock,” Todd Prickett said with a laugh moments after Charles Willson Peale’s 1779 oil on canvas “George Washington at Princeton” was knocked down to his paddle for $21,296,000, including premium, at Christie’s this past Saturday, January 21.

Bidding on behalf of an unnamed client, the Pennsylvania dealer and his father, Clarence, whose Yardley shop is a few miles from Washington’s historic Delaware River crossing, added the record-setting portrait to a tab that also included a Boston Queen Anne turret-top card table, $553,600, and a New York Queen Anne open armchair, $441,600.

From the collection of Mrs J. Insley Blair, Peale’s “Washington” contributed to several other new benchmarks, including a record for a single-owner session of American decorative arts at $32.3 million and a new Americana week high for Christie’s of $41.2 million.

The Blair cover lot, a William and Mary paint decorated chest, signed and dated 1729 by Robert Crosman of Taunton, Mass., sold in the room to Massachusetts dealer George W. Samaha for $2,928,000. Two lots later, Connecticut dealer Marguerite Riordan purchased a paint decorated William and Mary chest from coastal Connecticut, dated 1730, for $228,000.

In Christie’s various owners sale on Friday, a new record price for a weathervane was achieved when Massachusetts dealer Stephen Score acquired a mid-Nineteenth Century gilt-molded copper Goddess of Liberty weathervane by William Henis of Philadelphia for $1,080,000. The vane was underbid by Marguerite Riordan. In the same session, a set of 40 miniature decoys by East Harwich, Mass., carver A. Elmer Crowell went to a collector bidding by phone for $180,000.

Along with weathervanes, portraits were bestsellers. Likenesses of John, Maria and David Austin Sherman, the son and grandchildren of Declaration of Independence signer Roger Sherman of Connecticut, fetched a combined $396,000, the father selling to private collectors seated in the room and the children going to Georgia dealer Deanne Levison.

“I didn’t think we’d get it,” Maryland dealer Milly McGehee said after narrowly winning a rare Virginia quilt of historical interest for $96,000.

Property from the collection of Mr and Mrs E.J. Nusrala garnered $3.2 million. A Jacob Godschalk of Philadelphia tall case clock of circa 1765-75 led the session, going to an anonymous buyer for $800,000. C.L. Prickett Antiques was again active, acquiring a pair of Philadelphia Chippendale side chairs for $464,000 and a Philadelphia mahogany easy chair for $374,400. Connecticut dealers Stephen and Carol Huber bid a 1765 Philadelphia silk on moire coat-of-arms by Elizabeth Flower to $144,000.

Watch for a full account in a later edition of Antiques and The Arts Weekly.