Bernard Buffet still life, $48,875,

NORWALK, CONN. – Braswell Galleries held an eclectic fine art and estate auction at their Norwalk gallery April 1 hosting over 600 registered telephone, absentee and audience bidders.

Fine estate silver was a major draw for many collectors in Europe as well as the US when private collections from estates in Larchmont, New York, New Jersey and Manhattan became available. An ewer decorated with elaborate repousse scenes weighing 15 troy ounces from S. Kirk & Sons sold for $650, while a London 1876-77 lidded urn decorated with repousse, 30 troy ounces, by William Holmes went well below estimate for $850.

Drawing considerable interest from Europe was an early Eighteenth Century Continental vermeil teapot on a warming stand from Augsburg, Germany, marked E.B.H. and selling at nearly double the high estimate for $9,500. Other highlights included a tea caddy and spoon selling to the same sterling connoisseur for triple the low estimate at $5,250.

A pair of London 1746-77 sterling baluster-shaped candlesticks with engraved lion and battlements and maker’s mark sold slightly below the high estimate for $3,400. Period furnishings were highlighted by Eighteenth Century Louis XV provincial walnut sideboard that sold below its low estimate for $6,000, an antique Bailey, Banks & Biddle Co., Philadelphia, mahogany tall-case clock with bonnet top and fitted with a phase dial that sold for $3,250, and an Eighteenth Century Venetian carved and polychromed console that brought $15,000.

Tiffany lamps included a bronze floor lamp with a counter balance and bronze dome shade with glass insert (#68) that sold above the high estimate for $4,000 and a Tiffany bent arm one-light desk lamp with an elaborate pierced outer design and interior bent panels (#887) that sold for $2,500.

An exotic wood curved arch back Biedermeir sofa with a satinwood oval conch shell medallion with sage green upholstery sold for $2,750, a fruitwood armoire with black crown molding and smooth columns sold for $1,500 as did a pair of open arm chairs for $1,250.

The fine art offered was a mix of artists and styles. Oliver Rhys’ oil on canvas “Fisherman’s Daughters” exceeded its high estimate selling for $20,000. Central American artist Miguel Couvarubius’s oil on canvas of a young girl playing a guitar prompted inquiries from all over the US, and will be going home to an Arizona museum. The painting sold above estimate for $9,500.

Mexican artist Horatio’s canvas of a young boy and his toy soldier sold below estimate for $2,750 and Lila Carillo’s portrait of a young girl in a red dress brought $1,500. Twentieth Century French artist Francis Gruber was represented by two works that soared above their pre-sale estimates. A 1940s oil on canvas, “The Fall of France,” an allegorical depiction of a distraught woman in a blasted landscape more than doubled its high estimate selling at $10,000 and the oil on board still life of flowers on a river bank went for $4,500.

Englishman John Charlton’s oil on canvas “A Close Finish” of a dynamic turf race showing 14 riders and 10 horses, doubled the expected high estimate, as did American Ogden Minton Pleissner’s watercolor “The Harbor” of sailboats moored in a placid harbor, selling for $6,250 and $7,000 respectively.

American Joseph Henry Sharp’s oil on board “The Companion” of a small girl visiting in her dog’s house went at its anticipated price of $5,500 as did two pairs of John George Brown watercolor studies, each set going for $2,750.