STURBRIDGE, MASS. — Bidders lined up for an online-only sale conducted by D.L. Straight Auctioneers on October 22 to vie for estate-fresh antiques from local Connecticut artist and conservator Richard McElroy (b 1928). The sale offered many of McElroy’s original works of art, including local Connecticut landscapes as well as portrait paintings by Horace Bundy, Jeremiah Theus and others. Leading the lots at $12,500, including buyer’s premium, was a large oil on canvas portrait of a sea captain with telescope in his hand and the ocean in the background. The artist was listed as Christian Gilligan, Newburyport, Mass., and the 31-by-36-inch painting had been purchased from a Newburyport estate during the 1950s.

The sale also offered New England Pilgrim, Queen Anne and Chippendale period furniture, plus more folk art and many Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century smalls and accessories in old and original surface. More will be highlighted in a later review.