A pair of English Regency floor globes published by J&W Cary in the Strand, London, 1817, highlighted the September 9 sale at CRN Auctions when they brought $43,290 from Sharon, Mass., dealer and author Gary R. Sullivan. The terrestrial and celestial globes, which came from a Florida estate, had brass hour discs and hand colored paper rings mounted on mahogany tripod stands. They had been in the same family for some years.
Aiden Lassell Ripley’s 1947 watercolor “Quail Shooting in the Carolinas” was the highlight of the paintings that sold at the sale. It brought $23,400 from a Southern sporting dealer on the phone. From a Brookline collection, it retained a label from The Sporting Gallery and Bookshop in New York.
An oil on panel scene of a field of Texas bluebonnets by Porfirio Salinas, a Mexican American artist who frequently painted the Texas hill country, sold to a phone bidder in Texas for $11,145. The gilt frame bore the stamp of Americo Namiccoli and was dated 1931. Other paintings included a Nineteenth Century Orientalist oil on canvas scene of a desert encampment by French artist Paul Jean Baptiste Lazerges, which was dated 1896 and sold on the phone for $11,145, and a landscape with figures and distant mountains by New York artist William Richardson Tyler that went to the trade for $9,945.
Tall clocks were well received. A 91½-inch Eighteenth Century mahogany tall clock with an arched bonnet top and brass eagle finials, one of which retained part of a floral sprig in its beak, was thought to have been made in Massachusetts, and it sold on the phone for $17,550. It came from an area home. Speaking several days after the sale, auctioneer Carl Nordblom said he thought it was made in Boston or the immediate area. A Federal mahogany tall clock, circa 1810, by David Wood of Newburyport attracted no small attention with its original fret and brass finials; a phone bidder won it at $14,040.
Bidding on an elegant New York Federal mahogany window bench attributed to Duncan Phyfe opened at the high estimate of $3,500, and high interest drove it easily to $9,945 from a Massachusetts dealer in the room.
It was only an attribution, but bidders believed in it: a Massachusetts Federal inlaid cherry candlestand that was attributed to Nathan Lombard of Sutton had a square top with deeply cut corners and compass inlay, and it went to a New Hampshire dealer for $7,605.
A very good Chippendale cherry slant lid bowfront desk with distinctive floral sprig inlay to the lid and the drop was also attributed to Lombard and went to Sharon, Mass., dealer and author Gary R. Sullivan for $2,123.
An Eighteenth Century Connecticut Chippendale cherry highboy with a bonnet top went to Portsmouth, N.H., dealer Jonathan Trace for $9,945. He also took an Eighteenth Century Boston Chippendale mahogany wing chair with a balloon seat for $9,360.
Another Connecticut highboy, a Connecticut River Valley Queen Anne cherry example with a flat molded top, carved with a pinwheel on the upper center drawer and a fan on the lower center drawer, and a shaped front and sides was cataloged as “probably Windsor area.” It brought $4,973.
A Rhode Island Chippendale maple tall chest in the original Spanish brown paint with seven graduated drawers was dated 1810 on the backboard and fetched $5,265 from a left bid. An Eighteenth Century Newport Chippendale mahogany highboy base with shell carving sold on the phone for $3,510.
Bidding on a New Hampshire Federal mahogany server with bold tiger maple drawer and cupboard fronts opened at $1,000 and went to $4,095 from a phone buyer. A Federal mahogany and satinwood bowfront chest attracted $3,803; a New York classical mahogany brass bound cellaret in octagonal form on an acanthus carved pedestal and brass hairy paw feet sold in the gallery for $2,106; and a Herter Brothers inlaid and ebonized cabinet with a mirrored back and painted glass panels realized $7,020.
Silver was consistently strong. A five-piece sterling coffee and tea service by Arthur Stone drew $5,850 and a Georgian silver tea tray by Solomon Royes of London was dated 1831 and elicited $4,095. A partial flatware service by S. Kirk comprised 100 pieces decorated with a feather edge and realized $2,808.
A Tiffany bronze and enamel desk clock marked on the bottom “Louis V. Tiffany Furnaces, Inc,” and on the dial “Tiffany & Co. New York” fetched $4,388.
English and Continental furniture included an English George III mahogany drum table with a tooled leather revolving top and four working and four false drawers, which sold for $5,559. A set of ten Nineteenth Century Irish Chippendale-style ornately carved mahogany dining chairs sold for $5,559, while a Nineteenth Century pair of Irish tables with rouge marble slab tops realized $5,265. A George III serpentine inlaid mahogany chest that brought $3,800 was incised on a drawer edge with the label of London decorators and upholsterers Jenks & Wood. A small-sized English Sheraton mahogany sideboard fetched $1,700, and a pair of English George III mahogany card tables fetched $2,457.
Folk lots were of high interest as a dandy double-sided games board with vibrant green and yellow squares within a red and black lattice border on one side, and a red and yellow squares in a yellow border with green diamonds on the other, sold on the phone for $8,775.
An interesting Nineteenth Century physician’s apothecary cabinet with a hinged top that opens to compartments for four large bottles with brass lids, trays of instruments, a door on the front that opens to a compartment with more bottles and small drawers, one of which houses a glass mortar and pestle, realized $1,755. A large Nineteenth Century sailor’s valentine in a mahogany case and with an anchor on one side and a heart on the other sold to the trade for $5,558. A large Nineteenth Century pair of American copper cupolas in octagonal shape stood 49 inches tall and fetched $4,680.
An exceptional pair of Eighteenth Century English carved giltwood mirrors with scrolling and flowers brought $9,945. A Federal convex mirror in a carved giltwood frame with an eagle crest, circa 1810, sold on the phone for $3,627, while an Anglo Indian Vizagapatam ivory sewing box with a grapevine border engraved in black and a fitted interior went for $2,925.
Chinese trade, American and other international trade and collectors chased the myriad Chinese and China trade lots across the block. The star was the Seventeenth or Eighteenth Century rhinoceros horn libation cup that was carved in the form of a lotus. From a Connecticut collection, it sold for $17,550.
A Chinese carved wood center table with a scalloped top and a conforming rouge marble insert realized $8,190; a pair of Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century huanghuali folding armchairs with horseshoe backs and woven twine seats brought $3,218. The accompanying folding footstools, also with woven twine, had been fitted with wood tops to create tables (and subsequently removed) and sold for $1,170.
One phone bidder took the lion’s share of the Chinese Export porcelain that crossed the block. An Eighteenth Century Chinese Export oval tureen with a vibrant famille rose decoration and a coronet finial turned heads and went for $2,925; a mid-Eighteenth Century Chinese Export tureen with a domed cover with steam release vents was $2,574; and a pair of Chinese Export Nanking platters from about 1700 with underglaze blue decoration in the willow pattern was $1,114. The same phone took a pair of mid-Nineteenth Century Chinese Export porcelain vases in monochrome orange with applied gilt foo dog handles for $2,370.
The same buyer also took a pair of small Chinese Export porcelain in the green Fitzhugh pattern with orange peel surfaces for $1,404 and a group of eight, 8-inch plates and two 6-inch examples for $1,404. The latter two lots had been purchased from Elinor Gordon and retained her labels.
A pair of small rectangular Chinese Export famille rose platters realized $1,989 from an Internet buyer, a large Rose Mandarin punchbowl, circa 1835, realized $2,574, a China trade chinoiserie canterbury with elaborate decoration sold online for $3,803, and a large octagonal China trade chinoiserie tea caddy with two etched pewter tea tins finished at $1,521.
A China trade portrait of the schooner Luzon at Hong Kong brought $5,850. The Luzon sailed under Captain Jeremiah G. Park of West Harwich, Mass., arriving in Hong Kong in 1889. A Nineteenth Century China trade reverse painting on glass view of the harbor at Canton with the flags of western factories sold for $4,048, while a China trade portrait of a woman with a fan seated by a window went to an absentee bidder for $3,042.
Bidders really appreciated a pair of Hepplewhite mahogany knife boxes, circa 1795‱810, with silver escutcheons and banded and conch shell inlay on a green ground, which they pushed to $9,945. A large and handsome Georgian toleware tray painted with a scene of a country inn with figures of gentry went to a Maine dealer for $4,388.
All prices reported include the buyer’s premium.
For more information, www.crnauctions.com or 617-661-9582.
