What better setting for a summer auction replete with good American pieces than this quintessentially New England town, the setting for Thornton Wilder’s Our Town ? Antiques dealers and collectors mixed with local characters straight out of the Pulitzer-prize winning play to fill the gallery at the old mill along the Contoocook River for The Cobbs’ July 11 auction.
The highlight was not early American, however, but early Egyptian †a Fayum sarcophagus portrait of a woman provoked a competition among nine phone bidders and only ended when it went to one for $143,750. The Egyptian painting dates to the Roman First Century AD and depicts a woman with earrings and two necklaces. It came from a Peterborough collector whose husband purchased it in New York City in the 1960s. It was accompanied by a letter verifying the purchase because the original receipt had not been located at the time of the auction. The portrait went to a London dealer buying for a client.
The setting and a perfect summer day may have had no effect on the outcome of the sale, but they contributed significantly to the pleasant occasion. Furniture and paintings with New Hampshire provenance proved particularly strong. A New England Queen Anne mahogany tray top tea table, circa 1750‱760, with an applied scalloped edge had old refinish and sold on the phone for $18,975.
An Eighteenth Century set of four Philadelphia Chippendale mahogany side chairs with a cupid’s bow crest and parrot’s beak splats was $18,975. They retained a label from Ginsberg and Levy and went to a Pennsylvania collector.
A sinuous Eighteenth Century New Hampshire octagonal top candlestand by Major John Dunlap with folky Nineteenth Century paint decoration over the original red paint came from a Peterborough collection and sold to a collector on the phone for $17,250. A similar table is pictured in The Dunlaps and Their Furniture by Charles S. Parsons.
A mahogany candlestand, circa 1800, with flower inlay to the top and checkerboard inlay around the reeded shaft, went to a dealer on the phone representing a client for $16,100. Collector Steve Langer pointed out the strong resemblance to an idiosyncratic candlestand thought to be the work of Heman Ellis of Nantucket and currently on view in “Harbor and Home: Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts,” an exhibition at the Nantucket Historical Association. It came from a Peterborough and New Jersey collection that was the source of much fine material in this sale and several other The Cobbs auctions.
A Connecticut Queen Anne cherry lowboy, circa 1750, with a shell carved center drawer, a shaped apron with delicate acorn drops and cabriole legs had some refinish and went to the Connecticut trade on the phone for $8,625. The same dealer took a late Eighteenth Century Connecticut River Valley Chippendale cherry linen press for $3,450.
An Eighteenth Century Pennsylvania Chippendale walnut tall chest from a New Hampshire collection was $3,450 from a bidder in the gallery. A late Eighteenth Century Pennsylvania Chippendale walnut four-drawer chest with cock beading brought $2,875. It came from a Hancock, N.H., collection from a Pennsylvania estate and went to another bidder in the room. A Chippendale curly maple lady’s slant front desk that had a nicely fitted interior made $1,295.
An English mahogany breakfront that measured 90 inches tall by 92 inches wide, with dentil molding and a three-part glazed door bookcase, sold for $6,325.
A previously unknown sporting oil on canvas by Phillip Russell Goodwin depicting two hunters in a canoe with moose antlers returning to camp and greeting two other hunters sold for $80,500. The painting came from a Decatur, Ill., estate. A scene of a hunter with his sled and a pair of huskies around a campfire by Oliver Kemp realized $14,950. The painting came from the same Illinois estate as the Goodwin and went to the same phone bidder.
A White Mountains scene, perhaps of the Saco River, by Benjamin Champney was signed and dated 1860 and realized $12,950; “Presidential Range,” a New Hampshire mountains scene by Boston artist Samuel W. Griggs realized $6,900 from the same buyer on the phone. A Griggs signed and dated 1870 oil on board New Hampshire landscape was $3,738 to an absentee bidder.
A watercolor view of grouse in flight by a stream by David Hagerbaumer was $2,875, and a fall hunting scene with a pointer and woodcock by Churchill Ettinger went for $2,300. Both pictures came from a Midwestern estate.
“Beyond any expectation” is how auctioneer Charlie Cobb described the record-breaking sale of James Jeffrey Grant’s oil on canvas “Eviction.” The subject is a Depression-era scene of furniture piled on a truck in the snow, and Cobb thought the subject might work against the picture. He estimated it at $2/3,000 and said he was surprised when the picture attracted the most interest of any lot in the auction. The picture opened at $2,250 and went swiftly to $8,050 from a collector on the phone.
A western Canadian landscape by Alexander Young Jackson, an artist of the Group of Seven, went to a New Hampshire dealer for $3,163, and a pretty landscape, “Summer Clouds,” by Margaret Jordan Patterson came from an area collection and sold for $4,025.
An oval pair of China Trade paintings, “View of Hong Kong” and “View of Pearl River,” realized $13,800 from a London dealer. Each picture bore a plaque ascribing it to English artist George Chinnery, but the purchaser, a well respected dealer in such paintings, said they were not. They came from the Peterborough and New Jersey collection.
An abstract Franz Kline ink on paper was signed “Kline” and bore the label of the Grace Borgenicht Gallery in New York that dated the piece as 1954. It realized $44,850 from a Florida collector.
The Alexander Calder bronze “Ellie” was a posthumous piece made for the American Society of Magazine Editors by Segre’s Iron Works and it realized $6,900 from a phone buyer. The piece was authenticated by the Calder Foundation.
A northern New England paint decorated dome top box in yellow and brown realized $4,025 in the gallery. A pair of English Queen Anne chinoiserie mirrors in cushion-form frames was $2,875.
An 1855 $5 gold coin bearing the “C” mint mark came from a Massachusetts estate and its rarity drove it to $4,600.
A Nineteenth Century New Hampshire sheet copper weathervane in the form of a railroad steam engine with zinc cladding on the smoke stack to maintain balance sold for $21,850. The vane had come from a New Hampshire barn where it had always been mounted. It went to a dealer on the phone buying for a client.
An early Eighteenth Century English pewter communion flagon signed XR Bush was the draw in a communion group comprising two deep American pewter plates and two tall American pewter chalices. The lot came from an area church and realized $2,850.
A Nineteenth Century French wrought iron garden bench with scrolled arms and legs was appealing and sold for $2,300.
Textiles from several sources were well received. An English stump work picture on silk depicting a king and queen and their castle, perhaps from the Seventeenth Century, sold for $5,635.
A sampler by Mary Hall dated 1819 was wrought with the alphabet and numbers with a family record, a house, trees with birds and animals. Going out at $2,875, it was thought to have been wrought in Massachusetts. The same phone buyer got a Nineteenth Century needlework basket of flowers and a bird for $1,380. A 1798 sampler by Elizabeth Cochran thought to be a New Hampshire work went for $1,955.
A pair of oval needlework portraits of a nobleman and his wife in octagonal frames that the catalog identified as Seventeenth or Eighteenth Century English or French works brought $1,840 from the same bidder.
Bidders were not overly interested in a selection of tribal material except for a New Zealand Maori bugle flute that went to a phone bidder for $1,610 and a New Guinea betel mortar that went to the same phone bidder for the same money. A Tanzanian carved wood figure of a woman realized $920.
All prices reported include the 15 percent buyer’s premium. For information, 603-924-6361 or www.thecobbs.com .
