Mixed media footed bowl crafted by Joseph Heinrich, more than tripled its high estimate at $30,750.
Review by Z.G. Burnett, Photos Courtesy of Nye & Company
BLOOMINGTON, N.J. – Nye & Company conducted its two-day Chic and Antique Estates Treasure auction on October 19 and 20, with more than 550 lots offered. The sale included property consigned from Stanley Weiss, a Rhode Island collector who focuses on early American furniture and art with an emphasis on objects from the Queen Anne to Neoclassical periods. Fine art and furniture were the dominant categories in the auction, which also included Asian art and antiques, decorative arts and collectibles.
The top lot of the first sale was an unusual, early Twentieth Century footed and covered bowl crafted by Joseph Heinrich. The loving cup-style bowl showed a figural bison head finial, surrounded by arrowheads on its lid and three antler handles on its exterior. The bowl itself was made with hammered copper and silver and stamped “J.M.F.” Estimated at $5/10,000, the bowl closed at more than triple that high figure for $30,750.
Abstract art was a strong category in the first day’s sale. “Composition I x E” by Adam Marczynski (Polish, 1908-1985), a mixed media wood on board art object was the best selling of these, selling for $8,610 ($1/5,000). Marczynski began his career as an early Cubist and Colorist, later abandoning canvas for painting on wood and mixed media collages. Another collage, made from fabric, paper and paint by American artist and poet Anne Ryan (1889-1954) followed behind in price for $6,150 ($3/5,000). Ryan was an American Abstract Expressionist, who was part of New York City’s avant-garde movement, who adopted collage as her preferred medium at age 57 when she first saw Kurt Schwitters’ work at the Rose Fried Gallery.
“Composition I x E” by Adam Marczynski, 1964, mixed media and paint on board, bid to $8,610.
The second day’s sale mostly offered furniture and decorative arts, the latter of which included the first two top lots. The first was an Iranian Kashan wool rug with a signature central medallion, measuring 18 feet by 11 feet, 6 inches, that was bought online for $8,320 ($200/300). Second was a Chinese Chippendale giltwood overmantel mirror, dated to the Eighteenth or early Nineteenth Century. It lacked candle arms and showed other losses and repairs yet still achieved $7,995 ($5/10,000).
The highest achieving lot from the Weiss collection was a classical mahogany side chair, made circa 1815 and attributed to Duncan Phyfe (1770-1854). The chair’s back was carved with a decorated lyre and its legs terminated in unusual paw feet with “furry” legs in the more conventional sabre shape. It was included in Weiss’s self-published 2019 catalog, Fine American Antiques in the Stanley Weiss Collection, and sold past its estimate to an internet bidder for $5,440. Another top sale from the Weiss collection was a George III inlaid mahogany serpentine hunt board, circa 1810, which also bid past its $1/2,000 estimate to $5,120.
Another top lot from the American furniture category to multiply its estimate was a Nineteenth Century Federal mahogany banjo clock from Boston maker Simon Willard (1753-1848). His clocks were made in Grafton and Roxbury, Mass., and Willard is best known for inventing the Patent Timepiece, exemplified by this banjo clock, which was the first commercially successful wall clock in the United States. These were originally made to order by hand but were made in higher quantities by about 1815. Estimated at only $400/600, the banjo clock ticked to $4,920.
Prices given with buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. Nye & Company’s next sale, Property from a Private Collection; A 20th Century Machinal Delight, will take place online November 16. For information, 973-984-6900 or www.nyeandcompany.com.
