October Americana Auction

by Lita Solis-Cohen

With money in the bank from its $2,972,000 sale of the Hollingsworth Philadelphia high chest, dressing table, and chair at Christie's in January 1998 and aided by its endowment fund, the Chipstone Foundation made some impressive acquisitions at the October Americana sales in New York City. Seizing opportunity, the Milwaukee foundation acquired two icons, spending $1,432,500 (including buyer's premium) for John Cadwalader's hairy paw side chair at Christie's and $1,597,500 for the Cranch family Boston japanned high chest of drawers at Sotheby's on October 15 in New York City.

"With all its cross-cultural themes, the possibilities for interpretation are endless," said Jonathan Prown, executive director and chief curator at Chipstone, speaking of the japanned high chest. Alan Miller, who did the bidding on the phone for Chipstone, said he has never seen an 18th-century japanned piece in such remarkable condition. "A simple cleaning of the varnish will bring out the vermilion in the background and make the raised gold paint brighter," he said. The underbidder was in the salesroom, Massachusetts and Ohio dealer Bill Samaha, often a formidable competitor.

According to an essay in the catalog, the high chest was given by John Adams to his sister-in-law Mary Smith Cranch in 1788 when it was already old; it was probably made between 1712 and 1725. It was passed down in the Cranch family, from mother to daughter, to its present owners. The backs of several drawers have the chalk inscription "Park," but the maker has not yet been identified. The japanning may be by Nehemiah Partridge, who advertised "all sorts of Japan work" from his shop in Tremont Street in Boston as early as 1712 and moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in the 1720's.

Generally, dealers in the salesroom competed with bidders on the phones, but one New York collector, Peter Terian, who bid from the back of the salesroom, spent $156,000 on a well-documented and handsome set of six rosewood nesting tables made in New York City by Duncan Phyfe & Sons, 1840-41, and shipped to South Carolina for plantation owner and later governor John Manning. It was a record price for American nesting tables.

A Philadelphia side chair consigned by a direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin, with a carved device on its yoke-shaped crest rail, leafy carving on its strapwork splat, a shell on its square seat, and acanthus carving on its knees, sold on the phone for $79,500, underbid by Leigh Keno. It had been expected to bring $30,000/ 50,000.

The furniture from the collection of the late Lois and Henry McNeil offered at Sotheby's was consigned by heirs and was not as distinguished as the lots consigned to Christie's from the McNeils' Claneil Foundation and the estate. A walnut open armchair failed to meet its reserve, as did a pair of mahogany side chairs with splats carved with swags, the openwork resembling a laughing face; the latter lot had a too hefty $300,000/500,000 estimate. A tilt-top candlestand brought $34,500; a walnut fire screen, $20,700; a walnut side chair with strapwork splat, made in Philadelphia circa 1750, $23,000; and a circa 1770 Philadelphia easy chair with straight legs with plinths and ogival wings, $20,700.

The so-called Bourne-Sturtevant-Randall Pilgrim century oak four-drawer blanket chest, probably made in Barnstable, Massachusetts, 1660-1700, has a replaced lid and some replacements to the applied decoration, which is not surprising for a chest that old. It sold on the phone for $34,500.

The biggest disappointment was the failure of a well-documented Duncan Phyfe parcel gilt part ebonized ormolu-mounted bedstead that had two ormolu Egyptian term figures derived from Pierre de La Mésang<138>re's pattern book, Collection de Meubles et Objets de Go<150>t (Paris, 1802), and original black paint on its carved paw feet (est. $150,000/200,000). Made for James Brinkerhoff, who purchased it on May 3, 1816, for the significant sum of $200, it failed to sell. The wardrobe by Phyfe, with the same estimate and from the same source, was withdrawn because the consignor stipulated that it could be sold only if the bed were sold. Duncan Phyfe's bill to Brinkerhoff for 14 pieces of furniture made between September 1815 and July 1816 for the sum of $2125.50 survives, and eight of the pieces are known today. The bill of sale and the Brinkerhoff furniture are the focus of Jeanne Vibert Sloane's May 1987 article in The Magazine Antiques, "A Duncan Phyfe bill and the furniture it documents."

A group of rare frakturs brought strong prices. "The market took a giant leap at the Koch sale in June," said David Wheatcroft, who, bidding for a client, paid $28,750 (probably its reserve) for Susanna Eyer's writing specimen book decorated with flowers by Johann Adam Eyer, the Pennsylvania schoolmaster who probably made it for his niece at the Hamilton School in Northampton County. Before the lot was sold, it was announced that the estimate had been raised to $25,000/35,000 from $20,000/30,000.

Wheatcroft also bought the bookmark decorated with five birds on a stem, paying $8050. He let the next lot, a reward of merit decorated with a cross-legged angel, go to a phone bidder for $10,925 because he said he was saving up for the masterpiece of the group and had to stay within his client's budget. He had to go to $23,000 for the reward of merit depicting a student in a petaled headdress with an open book and three flowers, surrounded by floral designs and branches and a ruled floral border.

The writing book, bookmark, and two rewards of merit had been bought at a small sale not far from the Hamilton School by an agent for Breinigsville, Pennsylvania, dealer Thurston Nichols. While driving across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco with his wife, Nichols's cellular phone rang, and a neighbor described the frakturs coming up for sale. "I told him to buy them," said Nichols, who later consigned them to Sotheby's and said he was pleased with the result.

Later in the sale another Johann Adam Eyer fraktur vorschrift with musical notation sold for $5750 to a Pennsylvania collector in the salesroom, who was frustrated when he had to wait an hour and a half to pick it up after he paid for it.

Sotheby's total was an impressive $4,381,830 for 152 of the 177 lots offered, which came to 86sold by lot. Christie's auction the day before achieved a total of $6,577,028 for 240 of the 257 lots offered, giving 93sold by lot; Christie's sale included a 119-lot morning session of Chinese export porcelain that brought $1,426,668.

For more information, contact Sotheby's at (212) 606-7130; Web site (www.sothebys.com).