Top-lot status was awarded to this Tiffany Studios Lemon Leaf table lamp, 22 inches high with an 18-inch diameter shade, which landed within its $15/25,000 estimate at $19,065.
Review by Kiersten Busch
POTSDAM, N.Y. — August 15 was a day for celebrating all things Adirondack, with Blanchard’s Auction Service’s Premier Adirondack Auction. The sale featured 465 lots of furniture, fine art, Black Forest carvings, wooden canoes, lighting, fishing items, decoys, taxidermy and various camping- and Adirondack-related collectibles. Slipping on white gloves, the sale sold 100 percent of its lots for a total of $341,325.
A Tiffany Studios Swirling Lemon Leaf table lamp led the day. Signed “Tiffany Studios” on both its shade and base, the lamp measured 22 inches high, with an 18-inch in diameter shade. It landed near the middle of its $15/25,000 estimate at $19,065. Another lamp, this one in the Tiffany style and in the Lotus Leaf pattern, earned $1,538. A Tiffany Studios bronze candelabra also did well, lighting up for $6,765. Cataloged as rare, the candelabra’s six shade holders were blown glass and shaped like pineapples; it also included a removeable bronze candle snuffer.
Lamps that were not Tiffany ranged in price from $37 for a lot of two rustic table lamps, to $8,303 for a Handel cattail overlay table lamp. The latter was made circa 1910, was signed and stood 23½ inches tall on a bronze three-socket base. One additional leaded glass lamp sold for $1,138; it was contemporary and had a 16-inch diameter shade with a fish on it.
Crafted by Randy Holden for a client in northwestern Wisconsin, this rustic twisted cabinet, 88 inches wide by 27 inches deep by 88 inches tall, was one of about 40 case pieces of furniture by the artisan. Its rarity may have helped push it to its $15,990 finish ($15/30,000).
Furniture was led by a rustic cabinet “custom-built over 20 years ago for a client in Northwestern Wisconsin” by Randy Holden, “one of the premier artisans in rustic contemporary furniture,” according to catalog notes. Circa 2001, the piece was photographed in Ralph Kylloe’s book Cabins & Camps, and it is one of approximately 40 case pieces of furniture that Holden has ever made. With an original purchase price of $26,000, a lucky bidder snagged the cabinet for a reduced price of $15,990. An Adirondack rustic pedestal, also by Holden, just surpassed its $400/800 estimate for $861.
Another rustic furniture maker, Lee Fountain, was represented by three lots of furniture, led by an Adirondack center table with a tree root base. Made circa 1915-30 in Wells, N.Y., the table had a flaming birchwood octagonal top and a yellow birchwood root base. According to catalog notes, the table “has been in the same camp on Peck Lake for over half a century.” Now, it will head to a new owner for $5,535. A pair of Fountain Adirondack rocking chairs with yellow birchwood frames and woven ash splint backs ($1,107) and a low back style arm rocker of the same composition ($1,046) were also consigned from the camp on Peck Lake and found new homes.
Eleven lots of Black Forest items captured bidder attention in the decorative arts category, with prices ranging from $154 for a cuckoo clock with an eagle crest to $4,551 for a red stag deer mount with a Black Forest plaque. The latter’s plaque was carved and painted, and the taxidermed deer’s antlers were not removeable. Another piece with a high price attached to it — $4,182 — was a 34-inch-tall clock with a game carving perched on its top.
Sold to benefit the museum acquisition fund of the Adirondack Experience in Blue Mountain Lake, N.Y., this J.H. Rushton Vesper model sailing canoe, 16 feet long, was built between 1895 and 1900 and had a complete set of interlocking cockpit covers; it sailed to $10,763 ($5/10,000).
Some carved offerings were not so small. This was true of the 15 lots of canoes that paddled home to new owners. Ten of these manmade boats were being sold on behalf of the Adirondack Experience in Blue Mountain Lake; all proceeds for the sale of these 10 canoes went towards the museum’s acquisition fund. The highest selling of that selection was a 16-foot-long Vesper model decked cruising canoe built by J.H. Ruston, Canton, between 1895 and 1900. Cataloged as a “rare and desirable boat” with fewer than 10 known to exist, this example was notable because of its complete set of interlocking cockpit covers. Its rarity caused it to be pushed past its $5/10,000 estimate, cruising to $10,763.
A few other notable canoe prices included a 12-foot-9-inch-long Lakefield Canoe Company open tandem paddling canoe ($5,412) and a B.N. Morris 18-foot-long wood canvas rowing canoe ($5,289).
Oil on canvas paintings also made a splash, with 18 lots selling for prices as affordable as $62 for an unsigned painting of an elk in its original frame, and as high as $7,688 for Charles S. Chapman’s “Snow Girl.” The latter, done circa 1915 by the Morristown, N.Y., native, was re-lined at some point and measured 30½ by 38½ inches in-frame.
Prices quoted include buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For more information, 315-265-5070 or www.blanchardsauctionservice.com.
