Keno Auctions Launches with Preview in New York City

by Lita Solis-Cohen

On Friday evening, January 22, Leigh Keno invited friends old and new to the Regency Hotel, five blocks down Park Avenue from the Winter Antiques Show, for a glass of champagne and a sneak preview of some of the items he will offer at Keno Auctions' first sale at the Marriott Hotel & Spa in Stamford, Connecticut, on May 1 and 2. The preview continued on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

"I'm very excited about it," said Keno, trying to show off his diminutive Rhode Island drop-leaf table that descended in the John Brown family of Providence. It was placed next to a bed that was consigned by the great-grandson of Duncan Phyfe.

Keno told prospective buyers that the nest of Nantucket baskets was "the best in the world," and that they once sold privately for over $150,000. He said the Paul Revere butter boats "are a new discovery from a house in Warwick, Rhode Island."

Collectors examined scrim-shaw carefully and asked Stuart Frank, curator at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, his opinion. Keno said he will send the scrimshaw to Massachusetts as soon as possible so Frank can study and catalog it.

There were more than a dozen paintings by William Matthew Prior and his contemporaries, including a self-portrait Prior painted in Portland, Maine, in 1825. "People think it should go to a museum," said Keno. He pointed out other paintings by Childe Hassam, Charles Hawthorne, and Dwight William Tryon. The Pennsylvania fraktur and redware came from the collection of H. Robert Leese, a longtime Pennsylvania collector.

Many lots will be offered unreserved, including the Revere butter boats (est. $40,000/ 80,000); Morning Chocolate by Charles Webster Hawthorne (est. $30,000/50,000); and the nest of eight Nantucket baskets by R. Folger (est. $40,000/ 80,000).

On a wall near the bar, a slide show of other items in the sale ran continuously. The catalog will be on line and in print three weeks before the sale. Everything will be available for presale inspection at the Marriott two days before the sale. "Consignments are still coming in," said Keno.

For more information, log on to (www.kenoauctions.com).

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