Fall Americana Sale

Christie's, New York City

by Lita Solis-Cohen

Photos courtesy Christie's Images Ltd. 2009

Americana collectors, dealers, and market watchers hoped that Christie's auction on September 30 might serve as a barometer of the market, but there was not enough material for a test. Christie's meager offering did not attract the usual number of out-of-town collectors and dealers to New York City, and the slim catalog with minimal descriptions did not create much enthusiasm. Sotheby's did not schedule a fall sale, apparently not having enough material, hoping that by January more consignments would materialize.

"Christie's has always had a fall sale, so we decided to go ahead," said John Hays, auctioneer and Christie's deputy director of the American furniture, folk art, and decorative arts department. "We were sorry our competition decided not to compete."

It is hard to get a true reading of the market during the economic downturn. Dealers said they have been doing some business, and auctions have had little to offer. "It may take a major estate sale to give us a true reading of this market," said Alan Miller of Quakertown, Pennsylvania, an advisor to collectors of American furniture. Miller bought a well-proportioned 18th-century Boston turret-top card table with carving on the knees, possibly by John Welch, for $40,000 (includes buyer's premium).

Only a few lots (including the card table) soared over conservative estimates. But the two much-touted top lots failed to sell because their estimates were too high for the current market. A Canada goose decoy, said to be from a legendary Susquehanna River rig (est. $200,000/400,000), and a Boston bombé chest of drawers, consigned by Historic New England (est. $500,000/800,000), received no bids at all.

At Sotheby's in January a similar bombé chest (est. $300,000/600,000) sold for $302,500. In January 2001 at Sotheby's that bombé chest from the Perkins family, never offered before at auction, had sold to dealer Guy Bush for $401,750. This indicates a downward trend. A fine bombé chest from the Quincy family, offered at Christie's in January, failed to sell and later was sold privately to a foundation. Historic New England would like to have it for the Quincy House, where it would take the place of the chest consigned for this sale.

As for the Canada goose, the last one like it sold at Christie's in January 2007 for $553,600 to New York City collector Jerry Lauren. That goose's provenance included Adele Earnest, a founder of the American Folk Art Museum, and the Alvin E. Friedman-Kien Foundation. Another goose, said to be from the same rig, a gliding abstract form without carving at the neck, sold for $233,500 at the James McCleery sale at Sotheby's in January 2000.

"In the present brutal market some of the major players for decoys in the quarter-million- to million-dollar level have vanished," said Stephen O'Brien Jr. of Boston, a specialist decoy dealer and auctioneer. "When four or five out of eight or ten collectors are no longer participating at a high level, it has a drastic effect. Of the known examples in a rig, they have to look at each piece to see where it ranks and ask, is it one, two, three, or four? In this case, the market spoke on that day."

A dwarf clock by Quaker clockmaker Joshua Wilder of Hingham, Massachusetts, performed better and sold for $80,500 (est. $40,000/80,000). It was made a generation later than the Calvin Bailey dwarf clock that sold at Sotheby's in January for $158,500 to Gary Sullivan. Sullivan wrote the chapter on dwarf clocks in the 2009 book Harbor & Home: Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710-1850.

Sullivan thinks the price of the Wilder clock was reasonable, but he said he never got to New York to take a look at it and now he's wishing he had. "There just wasn't enough to see to make a trip to New York worthwhile," he said. "If there had been two sales, I would have gone."

Of the three full-size tall-case clocks in the sale, two sold. A mahogany tall-case clock with a brass dial signed by Nathaniel Mulliken of Lexington, Massachusetts, circa 1765, was cataloged as with associated works and had a reasonable $2000/ 4000 estimate. Mulliken is a relatively scarce maker, and it sold for $8750, suggesting that the works may have belonged or that the market for decorative brass dial clocks is solid.

A tall-case clock in a Newport case with two carved shells, one on the door and one on the base, cataloged as "with associated works signed by David Williams (1769-1823)," had a $40,000/ 60,000 estimate and got no bids. Auctioneer Hays passed it at $38,000. At the sale of the legendary collection of Mrs. J. Insley Blair at Christie's in January 2006, where it was cataloged as "feet pieced and works and case probably associated," it sold for $84,000. This market apparently will not embrace furniture with flaws, unless the price is deeply discounted.

There was some other furniture of note. A stunning late Federal New York card table, probably made in the shop of Charles-Honoré Lannuier (est. $15,000/30,000), sold for $27,500 with four bidders competing, two on phones and dealer Carswell Rush Berlin and a private collector in the salesroom. The catalog picture did not do it justice; its sculptural lyre support incorporates the space around it.

Two pieces of southern pottery failed to spark much interest. A stoneware crock signed in cobalt by maker Henry Lowndes of Petersburg, Virginia (est. $10,000/15,000), did not find a buyer. A glazed stoneware jug signed by Collin Rhodes (1811-1881), who worked in the Edgefield district of South Carolina (est. $20,000/30,000), was about to be passed at $14,000 when an Internet bidder bid $15,000, and auctioneer John Hays said, "Sold." The buyer paid $18,750 for it.

The sale opened with 48 lots of John James Audubon elephant folio prints printed by Robert Havell on Whatman paper watermarked 1836 and 1838, of which ten were left behind. "The condition is deplorable," said W. Graham Arader before the sale, but he bought 17 of them and underbid others.

Arader said the Audubons had belonged to Wendell Cherry (1935-1991), who hung them in his Humana, Inc. offices where they were bleached by the sun. "I can have staining restored," said Arader, "but the fugitive yellows are gone, making the greens look blue or sometimes brown. But I need inventory; Audubons are selling."

Of the 114 lots of prints, furniture, paintings, and decoration offered in the slim catalog, 86 lots, or 75%, sold for a total of $801,875, which is 50% sold by dollar and well under the presale estimate of $1.5/$2.5 million.

No one was saying what will come along for sale in January 2010 when both Sotheby's and Christie's will hold major Americana sales, which are always bigger and better than offseason offerings.

For more information, contact Christie's at (212) 636-2000 or on line at (www.christies.com).

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