“The Dyer,†a Venetian etching by James Abbot McNeill Whistler, brought $115,000 on the phone.

Grogan & Company’s December 7 sale was short (164 lots of paintings, prints and rugs) and sweet. The sweetness came when the etching “The Dyer,” a Venetian scene by James Abbot McNeill Whistler, brought $115,000. The print, which bore the lion rampant watermark and was signed with a butterfly, came from a North Shore, Mass., collection. It drew phone bids from London and Sweden, among other places, but went to a New York dealer on the phone.

The Whistler lithograph “Little Nude Model Reading” on cream laid Japan paper and bearing a butterfly signature in stone came from the same North Shore collection. The circa 1890 image brought $9,200. A lot of three more Whistler lithographs came from the same collection †all had been stored in the barn. They were the circa 1893 “Vitre Canal” with a De Erven de Blauw countermark, “Gabled Roofs,” also a circa 1893 image on laid paper bearing the “Maid of Dart Pro Patria” watermark and “St Anne’s” from a circa 1896 edition of 23 and inscribed “F. Goulding from R. Bernie Philip.” The three fetched $4,313.

The lithograph “Ascending and Descending” by Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher was numbered 21/50 and sold to a West Coast dealer, one of seven on the phone, for $23,000. The “Never Ending Staircase” image refers to the geometric model “The Penrose Illustration” by L.S. Penrose.

“Nurse and Baby Bill (No. 2),” a soft ground etching by Mary Cassatt, elicited $14,950 from the same bidder who took “The Dyer.” The print was inscribed “A Monsieur Andre Mellerio, Mary Cassatt.” Mellerio was an author and art critic who wrote the introduction for the catalog for Cassatt’s 1893 exhibit at Durand-Ruel et Cie gallery. The print came from a New Hampshire collection.

The choicest oil on canvas in the sale was “Spring Flowers†by Modernist artist Max Weber that sold on the phone for $46,000.

The ink drawing by Paul Klee, “Nasty Music” or “Boese Musik,” sold for $23,000 to one of five bidders vying for it on the phone, and a charcoal drawing by Paul Cadmus, “Fred III,” brought $8,625.

Of a selection of oil on canvas paintings by Edward Mitchell Bannister from a Rhode Island collection, the signed “Seaconnet [sic] River, Tiverton, Rhode Island,” sold for $37,375, and his signed and dated 1892 “Fishing Folk, King Philip Rock, Mount Hope” brought $34,500.

Bannister’s signed and dated 1894 tonalist landscape retained two label fragments, including one from the Providence Art Club Bannister Memorial Exhibition of 101 of the artist’s work after his 1901 death. The painting sold for $25,875. His 1891 oil on canvas “Sunset Over the Marsh” brought $13,800 from the same Rhode Island collector who garnered the three other pictures.

A Bannister “Landscape with Stream” from the same Rhode Island collection brought $8,050 from the a Southern collector, who paid $2,588 for “Man Plowing,”

Bannister, a black artist born in New Brunswick, Canada, immigrated to Boston where he worked as a barber and continued to paint. He settled in Rhode Island, where he was a founder of the Providence Art Club and a mover in the establishment of the Rhode Island School of Design.

The most desirable painting in the sale turned out to be the oil on canvas “Spring Flowers” by Modernist artist Max Weber that came from a Massachusetts collection and sold on the phone for $46,000.

“Seaconnet [sic] River, Tiverton, Rhode Island†by Edward Mitchell Bannister sold for $37,375.

Seven phone bidders pursued “Portrait of a Young Woman,” an oil on canvas of a coquettish woman by the Florence-born artist Federico Andreotti, until it went to one of them for $17,250. The painting retained the label of the Associazione Italiana degli Artisti.

Two Nineteenth Century French school watercolor and gouache views of a military campaign sold for $12,650. One bore a label inscribed “Moses Taylor.” “Portrait of Claudine” by French artist Marcel Dyf fetched $11,500. “Dories in Deep Sea,” a dramatic oil on canvas scene by James E. Fitzgerald, realized $11,500. Fitzgerald’s watercolor “Julia” realized $3,163. The Jane Peterson oil on canvas “Floral Still Life” was $9,200.

An important Seventeenth Century Andalusian school biblical oil on canvas scene of Abigail pleading with David to spare her worthless husband sold for a reasonable $7,250. The picture was well painted and historic. The late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century “Portrait of Mrs Mercer” by English portraitist John Hoppner retained a label identifying the artist and the sitter and fetched $4,888.

A group of marine paintings attracted interest. “Portrait of the bark Neptune ” by Samuel F.B. Badger sold for $8,913. The painting was accompanied by a 1986 bill of sale from the Samuel L. Lowe Jr antiques shop on Beacon Hill in Boston identifying the painting as having been purchased from a descendant of Captain Alonzo Small of Northeast Harbor, Maine, and Boston, a ship captain and pilot. The Antonio Jacobsen portrait of the Guion Line steamer Alaska was signed and dated 1882. It realized $7,475. “The Four Master Schooner Marguerite ” by William Pierce Stubbs brought $7,475. It, too, had passed through the hands of Samuel L. Lowe Jr.

An oil on canvas view of a fisherman beneath the cliffs along the Maine coast with ships in the distance was painted in 1861 by Samuel W. Griggs. It went for $5,750. “Ship Run Aground at Sunset” by Thomas Moran realized $4,888. Ralph Cahoon’s 1971 oil on Masonite “Nantucket Fish Company,” painted to replace an earlier one damaged in a fire, failed to sell.

“Moonlight Night †Ojai Valley, California,” an imposing 1929 oil on canvas by Russian American artist Alexis Matthew Podchernikoff, brought $6,325. The picture hung in a carved giltwood frame from Carrig Rohane and was signed “R.C. Vose.”

“Pennsylvania Landscape, Pocono Mountains,” a snowy village view by Bucks County artist Walter Emerson Baum, fetched $6,900. A note affixed to the back of the painting revealed that it had been purchased from the artist by his great aunt for $100 on New Year’s Day 1947. It had also been shown in the 1945 Philadelphia exhibit of Spring Valley painters.

The lithograph “Ascending and Descending,†or “The Never Ending Staircase,†by Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher sold on the phone for $23,000.

“The Last Gleam,” a sunset scene in a marsh by New Jersey artist Charles P. Appel, was dated 1925 and sold online for $4,888. The 1949 industrial landscape “Firewood” by Ohio artist Carl Gaertner, bearing several exhibit labels, sold on the phone for $4,313.

The 1879 bronze “Return of the Bear Hunter” by Russian sculptor Evgeny Ivanovich Naps had a golden brown patina and sold for $7,475. The group was stamped “Sculp. Naps” and “Fabri C. F. Woerffel, St Petersbourg.” Two bronze figures by Emil Fuchs, “The Dancer” and “Joy of Life,” realized $4,600, while “Dawn” and “Lazy” went for $2,070.

A large bronze rabbit, 18 by 21 by 13 inches, with strawberries by American artist Igor Galanin also went to the phones for $4,313.

As reliably as a clockwork shift change, rug dealers replaced paintings buyers when the rugs were offered. Six bidders remained consistently on the phone for all the rugs. They called from Germany, Turkey and Dubai. The star was a late Nineteenth Century Persian Sarouk Fereghan carpet that fetched $31,625 from an area dealer. Eight phone bidders pursued a Persian Mohtashem Kashan carpet from about 1880 to $24,150 †to a Turkish buyer. A turn of the last century Persian Bidjar elicited $12,650, and a circa 1900 Persian Tabriz drew $16,100.

All prices reported include the 15 percent buyer’s premium. For information, www.groganco.com or 781-461-9500.