“A.M. Lawrence and Campania” by Antonio Jacobsen, 1900, oil on canvas, 26 by 40 inches, framed, had provenance to the Smith Gallery (NYC) and achieved top-lot status and a new home with a new Nye bidder, for $11,250 ($5/10,000).

Review by Madelia Hickman Ring

BLOOMFIELD, N.J. — A few days before the Father’s Day weekend, on June 11, Anchored in Tradition: The Maritime & English Oak Collection of Richard Welch sailed into focus at Nye & Company. Welch had been a New Jersey collector and sportsman who lived along the Jersey shore and who had worked for Griffin & Howe, a sporting goods and gun shop in Bernardsville. The anglophile and sailor had amassed a collection that had a particularly large selection of Chelsea clocks (15 lots) and half-hull and boat models (51 lots). His estate collection was a 270-lot event that president Andrew Holter reported was 89 percent sold by lot and tallied about $192,000, within a pre-sale estimate spread of about $136/225,000.

“We had a good turnout to our preview and the half-hulls and Chelsea clocks that have a dedicated following received a lot of interest from those serious collectors,” Holter told Antiques and The Arts Weekly. “My own interests lie in coastal and English antiques, so this sale spoke to me personally, and I was happy to see the market felt the same way I did. We had several new buyers and I feel very good about the entire sale overall.”

One of those new buyers, who Holter said appeared to be a nautical enthusiast from New Jersey, purchased the sale’s top lot, a painting of the A.M. Lawrence and Campania that had been painted by Antonio Jacobsen (New Jersey, 1850-1921) and published in Harold S. Sniffen’s Antonio Jacobsen — The Checklist: Paintings and Sketches by Antonio Jacobsen (1850-1921) (The Mariner’s Museum, 1984). Painted in 1900, the composition finished at $11,250, just above estimate.

“British Hermaphrodite Frig Sarah Crowell ” by Antonio Jacobsen, 1882, oil on canvas, 22 by 36 inches, framed, had provenance to the Quester Gallery and earned a third-place finish overall, at $8,125. A Virginia collector was the buyer ($5/10,000).

The other ship painting by Jacobsen depicted the British hermaphrodite frig Sarah Crowell, which had been painted in 1882 and handled, at one time, by Quester Gallery in Stonington, Conn. It found a new home with a Virginia collector, who prevailed over competition with an $8,125 winning bid.

From the selection of animal bronzes in the sale — 16 lots in total — one could safely conclude that they were a favorite of Welch. Leading the pack at $9,375 was a 7½-inch-high bronze of an elk after Antoine-Louis Barye (French, 1795-1875), that had a Graham Gallery sticker on its underside and sold to a private collector in France. An Arizona buyer paid the next highest price — $2,813 — for a group comprised of a bronze tortoise, owl and stork, all after Barye.

What of all those Chelsea clocks? The selection realized prices peaking at $5,938 from a Maryland buyer for a US Life Saving Service Boston clock and went down to $406, for a 1915-18 example on a mahogany stand. A Chelsea Clock Company model with dial marked “US L.H. [lighthouse] Est Boston USA” brought $5,625.

Given the expense of moving furniture, it is not surprising that some of it stayed local, including the category’s leader, a Welsh oak dresser base that sold to a New Jersey buyer for $3,438. Other lots in the category included a set of six Twentieth Century English Windsor bowback dining chairs that nearly doubled their high estimate ($2,250), an English William & Mary Seventeenth or Eighteenth Century oak and pine chest of drawers ($1,500), a Welsh painted oak cricket table ($1,063) and an Eighteenth Century George II oak dressing table that had provenance to a Cotswold collection that was sold at Christie’s, South Kensington London, in 2007 ($1,000).

The smallest of these half hull models measured 4 by 22½ inches while the largest was 5 by 27½ inches; all had been made by Percy M. See in England. A trade buyer from Massachusetts won the lot for $1,875 ($1,2/1,800).

A Massachusetts dealer paid $1,875 for a set of four half hull models built in the early Twentieth Century by Percy M. See of Fareham Creek, Hampshire County (UK). All four had been exhibited at the National Motorboat Museum in Basildon, UK and previously auctioned by D.M. Nesbit & Company, Portsmouth, Hampshire on December 7, 2011.

A small selection of silver got the sale off to a good start, with the first lot of the day leading the category. A sterling silver flatware set by Lunt, in the Alexandra pattern, traded hands for $3,750, to a trade buyer in New Jersey. A silver-plated oak loving cup, sold with four Colonial Williamsburg pewter mugs and four other Twentieth Century pewter mugs, was passed.

The top lot of the ceramics offerings was a pair of Nineteenth Century English Staffordshire polychrome glazed lions that a private collector in California liked enough to win for $2,250, just ahead of the $1,250 paid for a pair of Staffordshire white-glazed lions of similar vintage. A circa 1800 Dutch Delft blue and white five-piece chimney garniture that had been sold at a Christie’s sale in 2007, topped off at $1,375.

Another lot that also had provenance to a Christie’s, New York, sale (December 2004) was a pair of polychrome decorated carved flag swags that a New Jersey dealer raised to $1,875, more than double the high estimate.

The next sale at Nye & Company is a Chic & Antique Auction, July 30-31.

Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For information, 973-984-6900 or www.nyeandcompany.com.