The star of the auction was the Frank Benson Impressionistic oil on canvas of two fishermen in a canoe. It sold at $747,500 to a telephone bidder.

Testing the waters in the antique decoy auction game recently was longtime sporting antiques dealer Stephen O’Brien Jr, and what better place to do it than in his own hometown. O’Brien’s new company, Copley Fine Art Auctions, formed in December of 2005, conducted its inaugural sale on July 26 and 27.

The first of the auction houses to get the ball rolling for the annual series of decoy/waterfowl auctions, Copley jump-started the schedule of three major two-day auctions to take place in the Northeast within a week. While some can be leery of being first up to bat, O’Brien strode in with confidence and things went very well for the fledgling company.

The sale posted strong prices for many of the items and good participation seems to have put the auction house on the map.

O’Brien founded Stephen O’Brien Jr Fine Art in 1996 and quickly established himself as a leader in the sporting art field. Participating in such prestigious shows as The American Antiques Show – the American Folk Art Museum’s show conducted during Americana Week in Manhattan – as well as the Nantucket Antiques Show and The Philadelphia Antiques Show, the dealer quickly gained a reputation for the quality artwork and decoys that he and his wife Cinnie offer.

The auction business was the next natural step for the company, according to O’Brien. “We sensed that some of our clients were looking for different sales avenues,” he said, noting that there really was not another auction house that specialized in sporting art.

Setting himself apart from the others, O’Brien offered a good selection of materials that he knows best and markets under his antiques business name. “We have about a 50/50 mix of sporting art materials and decoys,” said O’Brien, “and the reaction to it has been very good, especially the attention that is being paid to the higher visibility artists.”

The Charles Sumner Bunn greater yellowlegs was the top lot among the shorebirds as it sold for $97,750. The Bunn/Bowman dowitcher failed to meet reserves and was bought in at $46,000.

While sharing the Northeastern waterfowl auction marketplace with Guyette and Schmidt and Ted Harmon’s Decoys Unlimited, O’Brien has gone one step further with his offering of a superior selection of American sporting art. Benson, Pope, Pleissner and Ripley adorned the walls of the preview room, as well as contemporary artists such as Chet Rennison. Copley is also the only one of the three to actively solicit high end shotguns and fishing collectibles.

O’Brien commented after the auction that he felt things went “very well for our first action. We got the Benson launched and showed that we can move major paintings and most of the big decoys and other paintings sold as well,” he said. While the upper end items fared well, “the middle market items were a little bit of a roller coaster,” he commented after the sale.

The auction saw a final sales tally of just under $2.3 million. “We had hoped for $2.5,” stated O’Brien, “so on a scale of one to ten, I guess I would rate it as an eight. We were really encouraged by the response and we are excited about our next auction that is scheduled for February.”

Fittingly, the auction took place in Copley Square at the elegant Park Plaza Hotel. The grand ballroom serving as a preview area and auction room, the surroundings set the tone for the two-day, midweek event. The festivities began, as has become the norm at decoy auctions, with a “tailgate” show taking place in the rooms surrounding the auction preview area. Approximately 20 dealers participated and some saw this as a prime opportunity to get their merchandise out in front of a high end crowd, some of whom might not regularly attend decoy auctions.

The opening lot of the auction was the rare glasseye Mason wood duck that sold for $31,050.

The auction began with a Discovery sale on Wednesday evening that featured some 300 moderately priced decoys. O’Brien stood at the podium and introduced the auction company and staff to the crowd and commented that since this was their inaugural sale, there were bound to be some glitches and he hoped everyone would bear with them. If there were any glitches, they went unnoticed. The first session proved, however, to be an important testing period before the big money items would cross the block the following day.

A large assortment of Wildfowler decoys from the collection of Jim McGovern were the first to cross the auction block on Friday evening and they proved popular with the crowd with several rare examples bringing good money. Prices for the Discovery portion of the auction ranged from several bargains in the $100 range to some sought-after examples selling for as much as $1,000.

Things got serious as the second session began. The first lot, a rare Mason glasseye wood duck drake, circa 1905, carried a presale estimate of $15/20,000. The rare bird had descended in the family of the original owner, Nelson Peck, and was cataloged as retaining the “exquisite swirl paint and nice worm patina.” The decoy was in excellent condition with a “nice dry original paint with even gunning wear.”

Bidding on the lot opened at $7,000, with two bidders in the rear of the room pushing the price to $31,050.

The following lot, a Mason premier grade pintail drake, circa 1900, was also cataloged as being in original paint with minor gunning wear. “Mason premier pintails in any condition are hard to find,” commented O’Brien in regard to the bird, and “this example displays Mason’s finest thick swirl paint.” Estimated at $10/15,000, bidding on this lot opened at $4,000 with it finally selling to a buyer in the room for $13,800.

Other Masons offered in the opening moments of the sale included a challenge grade brant, circa 1910, in original paint that had the brand from the Barron Gun Club. Estimated at $5/7,000, the decoy was hammered down at $5,750. A rare pair of Mason premier grade mallards had been discovered in their original shipping crate and both birds still retain remnants of the newspaper that was used to pack them when they left the factory. Consigned from a private Maryland collector, the decoys sold below estimates at $16,100

The first nonwaterfowling lot to cross the block was an exceptional 20 gauge shotgun with elaborate engraving by James Purdey and Sons. Engraved by Purdey’s master engraver Ken Hunt, the decoration consisted of scrolls, two pheasants and the head of a springer spaniel. Estimated at $35/45,000, the rare Purdey sold to a phone bidder for $42,700.

The Joseph Lincoln white wing scoter sold at $29,900.

Artwork in the sale set a strong tone right from the start with an offering of a mallard drake landing in a marsh that had been executed by Alexander Pope Jr. The rare oil on canvas, estimated at $15/20,000, sold for $24,150.

The top lot of the sale came from the selection of sporting art with the offering of an exceptional Frank W. Benson oil on canvas. Executed in an Impressionistic manner, the painting, titled “Salmon Fishing,” had impeccable provenance having been presented as a wedding gift by Benson in 1927. It had descended in the original family and had been consigned from a private Boston collection. Illustrated in The Sporting Art of Frank Benson, the painting was well known and had captured the attention of sporting collectors nationwide.

The lot, estimated at $600/900,000, opened with an absentee bid at $500,000 and advanced in $25,000 increments. The lot was hit by a phone bidder at $525,000, and then went back to the absentee bidder at $550,000. The telephone bidder hit the lot again, only to be countered by a second phone bidder at $600,000. A third phone bidder jumped into the fray and advanced the lot to $625,000, and then it went back to the first phone bidder and was once again countered by the third phone bidder who claimed the lot with a final bid of $747,500, including premium.

Aiden Lassell Ripley was well represented with several upland hunting watercolors and also some nature scenes. A large oil on canvas by Ripley depicting five grouse in a pine tree did well selling at $51,750. A watercolor depicting a flock of canvasback ducks taking off from a marsh brought $13,800, while a watercolor depicting titled “Grouse in Pine Woods” sold for $7,475.

A wonderful Ripley watercolor titled “Canada Goose Shooting” sold reasonably at $24,150, while the watercolor “Broom Lodge,” depicting a Southern upland hunting scene with guides on horseback and pointers, went out at $42,050.

Stephen O’Brien Jr and Stephen O’Brien Sr with the Nathan Rowley Horner Canada goose that sold for $25,875.

Other artwork sold included an Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait oil on canvas depicting an alert stag and doe by a river that sold for $55,200.

Ogden Pleissner was represented with two watercolors including a wonderful duck hunting scene titled “Setting Out Decoys” that depicting one hunter in a blind while another poled about in a flat boat. Estimated at $50/70,000, bidding opened at $30,000 with it selling to a phone bidder at $52,900.

A more typical work for Pleissner, “Golden Hour” depicted a fly-fisherman working his catch in the graduating pools of a stream in a remote mountainous region. The work was executed for the Hercules Powder company as calendar art in 1953. Estimated at $65/85,000, the watercolor sold for $71,870.

Massachusetts decoys did well with a rare Joseph Lincoln “small bodied” white wing scoter selling at the high end of the $20/30,000 presale estimates. Lincoln made several different styles of scoter, including oversize, canvas and self-bailing examples. The small bodied decoy was cataloged as being one of four known examples with it selling at $29,900.

A self-bailing scoter by Lincoln was sold a short while later. In original paint, the rare decoy sold at $4,350, while a wonderful folk art goose silhouette stick-up decoy with a three-dimensional head and breast and a sheet metal body realized $5,175.

Joseph Lincoln miniatures did well with the pair of black ducks selling for $3,795, while the Labrador duck brought $3,306.

Shorebirds in the auction were of high quality and they attracted a great deal of attention. The first of the shorebirds to be offered was a Hudsonian curlew by John Dilley, circa 1880, that was cataloged as being “one of only two or three Dilley curlews known to exist.” O’Brien described the bird as “Dilley’s very best, with deep and precise ‘heart-shaped’ raised wing carving,” and further stated, “This ‘Whimbrel’ represents the rarest of the rare” for shorebird collectors. Retaining the original paint that was worn to bare wood in many places, the bird had the original German glass eyes. A professional bill replacement kept bidders at bay with the lot selling below estimates at $9,775.

The top lot of the decoys came late in the auction as a greater yellowlegs by either Charles Summer Bunn or Bill Bowman was offered. The bird was cataloged as retaining “a nice dry original paint with beautiful mottling along the back.” O’Brien further stated that this was, “One of the finest Bunn/Bowman shorebirds known to exist. The fact that this bird is in such pristine condition is remarkable, due to the fact that it was hunted.” Having descended through the Milton Weiler family it is thought to be “one of the only Bunn/Bowman greater yellowlegs that retains its original bill and wingtips.”

Bidding on the lot opened at $50,000 with action coming from a single bidder in the room against two telephones. In the end, a telephone bidder claimed the lot at $97,750.

A Bunn/Bowman dowitcher from the same rig with restoration was the next lot offered; however, it failed to meet reserves and was bought in at $40,000 against a $60/80,000 estimate.

Canadian decoys were well represented in the auction with a George Warin blue wing teal leading the way. The decoy, in a lightly worn original gunning paint was estimated at $6/8,000 and it attracted a great deal of interest. Bidding on the lot opened at $2,000 and several in the crowd began hitting it with rapid bids. Before long, competition narrowed to a buyer in the room and a telephone bidder that eventually claimed the lot at $27,600.

Stephen O’Brien and his wife Cinnie work the telephones during the auction.

The decoy that was expected to be the top lot of the Warin’s, a low-head mallard, surprisingly fell short of expectations. The rare decoy had been discovered in a Rice Lake boathouse and according to O’Brien it represented Warin “at the very height of his carving and painting abilities.” Bidding on the Warin in original paint was sparse with it failing to break into the $30/40,000 estimates as it brought $14,950.

Miniatures were popular with an A.J. King carving of a pair of quail with chicks more than doubling estimates as it realized $9,775, a half-carved flying green wing teal by Elmer Crowell brought $3,565, a James Lapham preening red breasted merganser $1,150, and a George Boyd miniature Labrador duck with crackled paint sold at $2,875.

Prices throughout the auction were spotty, some items easily exceeded estimates, often doubling expectations, while numerous items fell short the estimates, sometimes hammering down at a third of what was hoped for. Some in the crowd attributed the inconsistent results to overzealous estimates, others to the growing pains experienced by a brand new auction company. A few minor adjustments by O’Brien will surely see this operation earn its place as a leader in the sporting art/decoy auction business.

The next auction for Copley will take place in September. For further information contact Copley Fine Art Auctions at 617-536-0030, or www.copleyart.com.