An Alfred Thompson Bricher luminous seascape provided the excrdf_Descriptionent at Shannon’s auction of Fine American and European Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture this past Thursday, October 23, as it was actively bid to more than double the presale estimates selling at $159,625.

The painting, “Morning at Narragansett,” dated 1872, was cataloged as a “major rediscovery in A.T. Bricher’s oeuvre. The painting, which had been exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, and at the Chicago Interstate Industrial Exposition in 1976, was termed a “classic” in American Luminism.

Bidding on the lot opened at $40,000 with a quick burst of bids coming from a host of absentee bids and the telephones, yet the painting ultimately sold in the room to Connecticut art dealer Jeffery Cooley.

Another lot that attracted a great deal of interest was a Grandma Moses painting entitled “Come On Old Topsy” that depicted a man and young boy leading a horse in the foreground with a rural home setting in the background. Just in time to coincide with the opening of the Moses Exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum, the painting did well selling at $44,650.

A complete review will appear in a future issue.