John P. Richardson was an ardent historian, preservationist, environmentalist and collector of objects relating to Hingham, Mass. Although he was born further down the coast, in Plymouth, and moved to Hingham as a boy †his mother was a member of the Hersey family †his affinity for the town was profound. Highly esteemed and completely immersed in Hingham history, Richardson kept a bookstore in town for many years and was the town’s unofficial historian.
So, when his gatherings, which numbered more than 8,000, came to auction at Willis Henry †in three parts, so far †the gallery was packed each time with generations of collectors with local or family connections and some dealers.
The most recent sale in Rockland on January 20 saw standing room only, with bidders in overflow seating in adjacent rooms. The phones were jammed and Internet bidding was lively. While the numbers would not be considered huge in the overall marketplace, they were exceptional for the material. The sale was so impressive that when owners Will and Karel Henry visited the New York City shows the week after the sale, dealers there were discussing the sale.
Richardson’s collection was as much about the history of Hingham as it was about his collecting talents; nearly every piece was accompanied by meticulous documentation. Descendants of such early Hingham families as Hersey, Lincoln, Wilder, Loring, Burr, Long, Cushing, Beston, Gardiner and Sprague, among others, were well represented. Hingham firkins, boxes and toys inspired bidding. The star lot of the Richardson material was unsigned but was considered to be “possibly Hersey” and comprised four Nineteenth Century oval boxes with opposing fingers. They realized $5,952 from a buyer who was active on much of the Richardson material. Two of the boxes were miniature examples, measuring 2¼ inches, and two were tiny, at 1 inch each.
An early Nineteenth Century storage box in pine with ash and measuring 4¼ by 4½ inches was made with two fingers on the bottom and a single opposing finger on the top and went to the same bidder for $3,042. The box was stamped “WOL” for William Otis Lincoln and signed inside the lid “Solomon Lincoln, William O. Lincoln 1818 and S. Randall Lincoln 1909.” Samuel Lincoln, progenitor of the Lincoln family, arrived in Hingham in 1637, and was the great-great-great-great-grandfather of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln descendants remain in the area today.
A pine canteen in the original green paint and decorated with “LL” within a red painted circle inside a red sunburst sold to the same eager buyer for $2,233. It had hung by Richardson’s fireplace. The same buyer paid $1,755 for the Nineteenth Century work box that had belonged to Hingham-born ornithological, botanical and landscape artist Isaac Sprague, who traveled and worked with John James Audubon. It contained paint and other artist’s supplies.
Other Hingham vessels included a pine pail marked “AH 1824,” for Abijah Hersey, that retained the original blue paint, which had oxidized to gray, and went to the same buyer for $1,714. Like most of the objects from Richardson’s collection, it was tagged with a brief history. A small (6 inches) pine firkin with traces of the original green paint was stamped “C.S. Hersey” and sold for $1,166. A Hingham pine firkin in the original light blue paint oxidized to gray-green and stamped “Humphrey & Co., Hingham” realized $1,256, while a small (3 inches round) pantry box in original green paint sold on the phone for $1,053. Another firkin, in blue paint, bore the stenciled legend “Flour” on the side and was marked on the lid “C & A Wilder, So. Hingham, Mass.” It fetched $1,714.
An Eighteenth Century pine tray or charger in a red stain and an old split through the middle with a neat tin repair brought $1,287. The 22-inch tray had been found in the attic of the 1760 Anchor Tavern in Hingham where General Lafayette stayed in 1778 and was accompanied by a detailed typed Hingham history. An early Nineteenth Century maple mortar and pestle came from a Hingham house and brought $2,574.
Of interest was a Nineteenth Century political paper lantern decorated with crossed 36-star American flags used in the celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s 1865 inauguration that had come from the George Lincoln collection to Richardson. It realized $2,633. A part of the Eighteenth Century Liberty Pole, an iron rod on a round pine stand with red, white and blue bunting that marked the site where the Liberty Tree had stood, sold for $819. A tag attached to the piece indicated that Richardson acquired it from Randall Lincoln, a descendant of Paul Revere, who had acquired it through the Revere family.
Objects from the Hingham shop of decoy artist Joseph Lincoln included a canoe paddle and a box of tools that brought $644.
Writer and naturalist Henry Beston, born in neighboring Quincy, lived in Hingham for some years and Richardson collected his books and papers and other objects. A group of found objects from Beston’s Outermost House on Cape Cod included a ginger ale bottle from Grattan & Co., Ltd, of Belfast, Ireland, that appeared to have washed up on the beach, a taxidermy dovekie, a fragment of shale with an embedded fossil and a photograph and negative of the Marconi Station on the Cape. The group fetched $4,563. A group of Beston’s books from Outermost House sold for $2,674.
Interspersed among the Hingham lots were several other collections, including that of James Baird of Petersham, Mass., former president of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. A Nineteenth Century New England watercolor theorem with a basket fruit was signed “M.J. Howe” and sold for $2,808. An Eighteenth Century cherry serpentine front four-drawer chest from the Baird collection brought $2,574. A Nineteenth Century portrait attributed to Noah North depicts a pretty woman wearing an exceptional bonnet with white lace and pink lace ribbons and ties. It seemed like a good value when it sold in the gallery for $1,872.
Selling for $2,048 was a half-round country pine table in original blue paint that was found in the attic of the Lexington, Mass., house that held the McCue Shaker collection sold by Willis Henry in September 2012.
An especially attractive early Nineteenth Century cherry and pine heart-shaped covered box was made with great care and fit in the palm of a hand. It was pegged and measured 1¼ by 3¼ inches and sold on the phone for $1,170.
The highlight of the sale was a Pennsylvania piece †probably Berks County †an Eighteenth Century blanket chest in poplar and pine, decorated with hearts, baluster-form pillars supporting arches with vines of pinwheel flowers on a carved and molded bracket base †that sold for $30,420 to one Pennsylvania dealer on the phone who beat out a second dealer. The chest, which came from a Seattle collection, retained a partial signature, “Bolich.”
An Eighteenth Century pair of brace back continuous arm Windsor chairs with nicely turned legs brought $5,616. Their original paint was red, with a later green. A New England, probably Massachusetts, Chippendale maple and pine tall chest with six graduated drawers with comb grained fronts and with dark stained sides was dated 1802 and realized $2,340
A group of Grueby pots was offered from the estate of Frederick Atwood Hagar of nearby Marshfield, grandson of Eugene Atwood, who with William Grueby in 1890 established Atwood & Grueby, which in 1894 became Grueby Art Pottery. The ceramic star was a 10½-inch vase with a cucumber green matte glaze with ribbed leaves that brought $7,722.
A Grueby jardiniere, also in cucumber green matte glaze, was stamped “Grueby Pottery, Boston, U.S.A.” and initialed “S.W.” and sold for $6,112, while a shorter example in dark cucumber matte glaze brought $4,914. A 9½-inch Grueby vase in dark cucumber green matte glaze was marked “Grueby Faience Co. Boston U.S.A.” and “WL 164” and realized $4,680. Most of the pots had been given to the Atwood family by the Grueby family and most went to the trade.
Other ceramics of interest comprised a lot of two early redware pitchers, each with green glaze and incised at the shoulder, one with orange spots and the other with brown spots, that sold for $1,256.
Five Louis Vuitton trunks and a Vuitton suitcase from the family of theologian Edward Caldwell Moore were offered and brought a total of $16,615. Most were made in the late Nineteenth Century or early Twentieth Century.
A standout among paintings was a large (36 by 44 inches) boatyard scene with a fishing boat at low tide by Emile Gruppe that brought $14,630. Two seascapes by Charles Henry Gifford came up. A view of a schooner in a line squall, perhaps off Fairhaven, Mass., in the original ornate gold frame sold for $9,945. Gifford’s oil on canvas of fishermen along the shore with sailing vessels offshore made $2,633, while Massachusetts artist Edward Wilbur Dean Hamilton’s Impressionistic spring landscape realized $6,436. It came from the same collection as the Grueby pots.
Richardson’s collections will continue to be sold at future Willis Henry sales.
All prices reported include the buyer’s premium. For more information, 781-834-7774 or www.willishenryauctions.com .
