As a general rule, bidders pack the gallery and fill up the phone lines when CRN Auctions runs a sale. Known for reliably good American and Continental pieces, the gallery operated by Carl R. Nordblom and Karin J. Phillips is a major draw for collectors, old and new, and the trade. The October 17 sale was no exception.
“Courtship,” an oil on canvas scene of a courting couple with a chaperone reading in the background by Spanish artist Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta, was the highlight of the event when it sold on the phone for $97,750 to a dealer in Paris. The Nineteenth Century painting came out of an attic in a South Shore home where it had been in the family for some time.
The signed “From Rockport Headland” by Harriet Randall Lumis, a color-filled scene with a bright sky came from a Springfield, Mass., collection and brought $21,850 from a Boston collector on the phone, while Lumis’s signed 1907 landscape with hills and a lake brought $1,265 in the room. Between 1920 and 1922, when she was 50, Lumis studied at the Hugh Henry Breckenridge’s summer art school on Rocky Neck, Gloucester. It certainly made an impact †her Cape Ann paintings are coveted.
The same collector who bought the Rockport picture also took the Hungarian picture “Springtime Orchard Frolic” by Ignac Ujvary for $1,610. It bore a label from the Kertesz Fine Art Gallery where its price at some undetermined time was $4,800.
A Southwestern scene †a burro laden with harvest with a foal at its side and a man aboard another burro †by Peter Moran, brother to artists Edward Moran and Thomas Moran, sold for $19,550 to a woman on her phone in the room. She was buying for her father, a noted Southwestern dealer. It came from a South Shore house. A phone bidder paid $6,900 for a signed Barbizon landscape with figures by French artist Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Pena.
Another phone bidder paid $5,975 each for two sun-filled Orientalist paintings by Addison Thomas Millar, “The Palace after Basha” and “The Messenger.”
An Aldro Thompson Hibbard winter scene went on the phone for $5,975.
Despite the fine American furniture across the block, the highlight was English: a set of six George II mahogany stool-back chairs with Fortuny embossed leather seat covers, cabriole legs and ball and claw feet that realized $35,650 from a Midwestern dealer on the phone who vanquished stiff international competition. It came from a Providence area collection. The same buyer paid $14,375 for a handsome pair of English Regency mahogany brass bound octagonal cellarettes with zinc lined interior compartments. She also bought a pair of very large Georgian silver meat platters with crests made by London maker Timothy Renou in 1803 for $9,200. The platters came from a Providence estate.
A set of six English George II carved mahogany side chairs with serpentine crests and scrolled ears sold for $3,450. An English George III decorated satinwood Carlton desk with a painted floral decoration was also $3,450, and an English George III mahogany revolving bookcase stirred up the phone bidders, who drove it to $9,775.
A desirable pair of English George III celestial and terrestrial floor globes on carved mahogany bases elicited $13,800. They were marked “C. Smith and Son, 172 Strand, London.” A Nineteenth Century 9-inch terrestrial table globe by Merriam and Moore of Troy, N.Y., sold for $2,070, while a 12-inch example marked “H. Schedler’s Globe, Jersey City, N.J., and New York, N.Y.,” was $1,495.
A Nineteenth Century French armillary sphere on a wood-turned base attracted $3,565 from a phone bidder. An English George I burl walnut tall clock signed “Hen Cooley London” realized $4,888, while an English mahogany tall clock with inlay signed “David Fleming Shadwell London” went for $2,415. Fleming worked at 36 Shadwell High Street in 1817.
The Eighteenth Century Italian ivory ecclesiastical vessel was carved elaborately with religious imagery and bore a partial label stating that it had been used in a sacristy in Milan on the occasion of the coronation of an emperor. It realized $4,255. Speaking after the sale, auctioneer Nordblom said he believed the vessel to be an Eighteenth Century copy of a Twelfth or Thirteenth Century piece †perhaps that is when the coronation occurred. A Nineteenth Century Italian marble and bronze fountain that was 55 inches tall with a 17½-inch bronze cherub holding a dolphin and standing in a white marble basin fetched $4,025. An Eighteenth Century rococo Italian walnut veneered commode with two side-by-side drawers over two longer drawers brought $3,738.
Two Nineteenth Century Italian marble objects, a carved fountain-form garniture with a classical head, and a multicolored marble watch hutch commanded $4,888.
The American star was a New England miniature painted blanket chest, circa 1800, with great form and in red paint with yellow and black swirl decoration that brought $13,800. The inside lid was signed Clark Brown Bolton and the piece had been found in New Hampshire.
One of the most interesting objects in the auction was a Salem classical mahogany box with eglomise panels with floral decoration and a spread-winged eagle on the front panel. The top center panel bore the name of the owner, Margaret Peabody of Salem. The box, which came from the collection of Harriet Ropes Cabot, a Salem descendant and former curator of the Old State House Museum in Boston, drew $8,625 from a phone bidder.
A Portsmouth Hepplewhite mahogany bowfront chest with bird’s-eye maple panels went to a New York dealer for $11,500. An Eighteenth Century Boston Queen Anne walnut two-part highboy with a flat molded top, tiger maple sides and what appeared to be the original brasses sold on the phone for $10,350. It was determined to be an early Boston example because of the hidden cornice drawer and waist molding.
An eastern Massachusetts Federal mahogany lolling chair, circa 1800, with inlay and a shaped crest, molded arms and supports, sold on the phone for $9,775. Nordblom said it had been found in a basement. A 92-inch New England pine sawbuck table from about 1840 attracted $4,485.
The Rhode Island tiger maple tall chest with six graduated drawers and original brasses was in untouched condition and realized $9,200. It descended in the family of Thomas Dudley of Roxbury, colonial governor of the Massachusetts colony for several terms, and went to an absentee bidder.
An Eighteenth Century New England Chippendale tiger maple chest on frame with two over six drawers sold for $9,200 to the same phone bidder who paid $3,335 for an Eighteenth Century Rhode Island Chippendale tiger maple chest with four graduated drawers and original brasses.
An Eighteenth Century Salem Hepplewhite mahogany card table with satinwood panels and inlay attracted $5,975. An Eighteenth Century Massachusetts Federal mahogany card table with satinwood panels retained the paper label that read, “House furniture of the most approved fashion, and best kind, made sold and exchanged, by Archelaus Flint Cabinetmaker in his shop on Main Street near the Square in Charlestown.”
An absentee buyer took an Eighteenth Century Salem Queen Anne mahogany drop leaf dining table with a chamfered knee and chamfered pad foot for $4,370 and a striking New York Federal tiger maple server with a gallery, a concave drawer and a lower shelf for $3,220.
A Nineteenth Century gueridon with a malachite top set on a cast iron base with dolphin feet had come from the 1804 house of the London-born US Navy Capt. Thomas Tingey house in Washington, D.C. It realized $3,910.
A French Canadian maple and tiger maple commode, circa 1770-90, was made in the Montreal area in the manner of Louis XV and realized $8,050 from a Florida dealer in the room. A similar example is on view at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
An historic Eighteenth Century Boston silver footed sauce boat by Nathaniel Hurd, the subject of a portrait by John Singleton Copley, sold to a collector for a modest $6,325. The piece was clean, with no repairs, but Hurd’s mark was scuffed slightly, Nordblom said. Hurd was a contemporary of Paul Revere but his output was less. He died at 48, while Revere lived to be 84.
An English silver tankard with Boston history that was presented to Brigadier General Arnold Welles, who served in the War of 1812 and was later president of the Boston branch of the First Bank of the United States, brought $6,038.
The Bennington flint enamel octagonal bowl and pitcher set, with both pieces stamped “Bennington 1849,” sold for $3,105, and a Russian silver tea tray with a delicate pierced gallery bearing the 1792 marks for Moscow assayer Alekseì Ivanov Vikhliaev sold for $4,025.
An American Aesthetic Movement painted plant stand that was considered possibly a Hunzinger piece but was highly reminiscent of Sputnik sold to a folk art dealer for $2,875.
All prices reported include the 15 percent buyer’s premium. For information, www.crnauctions.com or 617-661-9582.
