Bonhams Skinner, Marlborough, Massachusetts
Bonhams Skinner’s online Americana auction held February 19-29 presented bidders with an eclectic array of antiques, most with deep historical interest.
Glass was offered from the collection of scholar and collector Dorothy-Lee Jones Ward (1927-2022), founder of the Jones Gallery of Glass and Ceramics at Douglas Hill in Sebago, Maine (later known as the Jones Museum of Glass and Ceramics). She began collecting glass at eight years old and became a well-respected author and dealer.
The top lot of the sale was this sand bottle by Andrew Clemens (1857-1894) of McGregor, Iowa. It is decorated in grains of Saint Peter sandstone, with one side inscribed “Annie and Laura” and “1888” below an urn of colorful flowers and the other side with an American ship under full sail above a panel marbled to resemble the Saint Peter sandstone deposits at Pictured Rocks, Pikes Peak, Iowa. Estimated at $6000/8000, the 6¾" tall x 2 3/8" diameter bottle realized $33,280. It came from the collection of Dorothy-Lee Jones Ward.
The top lot of the sale was a sand bottle by Andrew Clemens that brought $33,280 (including buyer’s premium).
In its catalogs, Bonhams Skinner is now reporting the objects offered without a reserve, which spices up the bidding. For more information, see the website (http://skinner.bonhams.com) or call (508) 970-3000.
This 18th-century needlework love token in plain-woven gold silk worked in silk thread with a bleeding heart pierced by arrows amid flowers and next to a ghostly cupid figure holding flowers brought $3072. It had sold previously for $1046 (est. $300/350) at Skinner’s August 2019 sale of the 60-year early Americana collection of Marilyn and Don Forke. The heart motif was seen on many items in the Forkes’ collection. The 3¼" x 4½" needlework had been acquired at Hobart House in Haddam, Connecticut.
The small looking glass on a backboard is in a 14¾" x 12 3/8" frame with bead molding and twill fabric with tapestry-stitched wool embroidered with a bird and a squirrel in a landscape with floral elements. It sold for $2560 (est. $1000/1500). It retains an old label, “From G. Davis, given / by Will to M & M Brady / June 14, 1887.” A more recent label states “Needlework Mirror / Van Riper family / N.J.” The first Van Ripers arrived in New York from Holland in 1753.
The 19th-century painted leather fire bucket, 12¾" tall, is decorated with the name “King” above a nude female holding a firefighter’s parade horn and wearing wings on her head and feet as she swims or flies through the air. A red banner surrounds the figure; below it are the words “Active / 1825.” The fire bucket brought $5888 (est. $800/1200).
This Massachusetts Federal mahogany easy chair, 46½" x 34" x 33½", circa 1795, with a raked back with a serpentine crest and shaped ogee wings, tapered reeded front legs, and outswept rear legs with plain stretchers brought $8320 (est. $800/1200).
The 19th-century brass wirework fireplace fender, 20¾" x 39" x 14 1/8", likely made in England, is a bit of an eye-dazzler, and it realized $2816 (est. $400/600).
This 21¼" x 43" lid from a mid-19th-century New England blanket chest is decorated with a brush- and sponge-painted scene of a body of water with a sailboat and rowboats, houses along the shore, trees, flowers, and animals. It is framed by a reserve with ovolo corners and sold for $4864 (est. $800/1200). It retains an auction tag from New Hampshire auction house William A. Smith, Inc.
This mid-19th-century relief-carved bowl made from a gourd shell, 5" high x 10" diameter, is inscribed in black paint “Mrs. Lucy L Jhompson [sic]” and decorated on the exterior with an eagle bearing the U.S. shield with 29 stars, flowers, foliage, and wheat. It realized $2560 (est. $400/600).
This late 19th- or early 20th-century owl weathervane, 21" x 45½" x 3½", made of sheet copper and zinc sold for $3584 (est. $1000/1500). Two sheets of copper were shaped on a mold and soldered at the edge to form a flat-bodied roosting horned owl. It has cast-zinc talons.
Western View of the Center of North Adams, Massachusetts by Connecticut artist John Warner Barber (1798-1885) sold for $10,240 (est. $1000/1500). The unframed oil on canvas, 11" x 16", is signed “J. W. Barber” and inscribed with the title of the work. Over the course of his life, Barber wore a lot of hats: engraver, historian, author, and publisher. Based in New Haven, he traveled throughout Connecticut and beyond recording and documenting state and local history.
This surveyor’s compass, 7 3/8" x 14¼" x 6¼", made by Goldsmith Chandlee (1751-1821) of Winchester, Virginia, for J. Kingree retains the brass case and friction lid, the original glazing, a blued steel needle, and an outkeeper dial. Estimated at $7000/8000, it realized $7680. Catalog notes indicate that only 22 Chandlee surveyor’s compasses survive. Among them is one at Mount Vernon made for surveyor Lawrence Washington, nephew of George Washington, who was also a surveyor; and another is at Colonial Williamsburg.
Lydia Gifford of Westport, Massachusetts, worked this needlepoint sampler in cross-stitch with 12 rows of letters and numbers, a hipped-roof house and an adjacent building with minimal windows, and fences and trees. The sampler includes the inscription “Lydia Giffords Sampler Wrought / in the 8th year of her age in Westport / 1822.” The 16¾" x 8" sampler came from a North Smithfield, Rhode Island, estate, and it sold for $7040 (est. $200/250).
This historical fragment of a second-class lottery ticket issued November 18, 1776, by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, printed by John Dunlap (1747-1812) and signed in iron gall by lottery director George Campbell, is number 65,680 of 100,000 tickets issued. The ticket, 1 7/8" x 5 5/8", is inscribed on the back with the names Capt. John Brooks, John Murdock, and Presley Blakiston. The ticket sold for $2048 (est. $400/600). Congress sponsored four classes of lotteries to raise funds for the war.
Described in the catalog as extraordinary, this early 19th-century glazed and painted pine cupboard, 83" x 64" x 16 5/8", possibly made in Middlebury, Vermont, is just that. In light gray paint, it has a molded cornice, two 15-light doors, and cutout bracket feet conforming with the serpentine edge of the skirt. Estimated at $6000/8000, it realized $15,360. The cupboard came from the estate of Jessica Stewart Swift (1871-1982), who died at 110 and is considered the longest-lived Vermonter. The cupboard had sold previously at Skinner in November 2018 for $9225, and before that it sold in a 1982 on-site sale at the Swift residence on Stewart Lane in Middlebury by Lapham & Dibble Gallery, Shoreham, Vermont.
This emerald pressed glass footed fruit basket, 8½" tall, by Boston & Sandwich Glass Company, circa 1845, is designed with 16 staves forming vented walls. Estimated at $300/500, it sold for $10,240. It came from the collection of Dorothy-Lee Jones Ward (1927-2022) of Wellesley, Massachusetts, and Sebago, Maine, a well-known collector, dealer, and glass authority. It was published in The Glass Industry in Sandwich, volume 1, by Raymond E. Barlow and Joan E. Kaiser.
Portrait of Rebecca Howe Fiske, Concord, Massachusetts is attributed to Boston artist James Frothingham (1786-1864), whose artistic career began when he taught himself to paint coaches. By age 20 he was a full-time portraitist and made a visit to Gilbert Stuart. Frothingham and his family relocated to New York City in 1826, and he continued making portraits and exhibiting in Boston and New York. The portrait of Rebecca Fiske (1749-1845) was made around 1832 and sold for $10,880 (est. $1000/2000). In the upper right corner of the painting, the artist included an image of the Fiske home on Fiske Hill in Lexington, Massachusetts, one of the sites of the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord. A biographical note signed by Rebecca Fiske’s great-grandson William Bridge Fiske and dated September 23, 1908, accompanied the lot.
This Pennsylvania sgraffito redware plate, 8¾" diameter, with slab molding, coggle edging, and lively decoration in mottled green and cream-colored slip depicting a basket of tulips brought $3840 (est. $300/500). It was sold to benefit the Historic Deerfield Museum Collections Fund.
A lot with three mid-19th-century blown and pressed glass lamps, estimated at $200/400, brought $5888. From left to right: an opaque white blown glass font joined to a press-molded lion and basket of flowers pedestal, made in Massachusetts, circa 1840, overall height 7½"; a flint glass lamp, 10" tall, from the Boston & Sandwich Glass company, circa 1830; and a pressed soda glass base joined to a free-blown cobalt glass font, circa 1835, overall height 5 7/8". They came from the collection of Dorothy-Lee Jones Ward and were published in volume 2 of The Glass Industry in Sandwich by Raymond E. Barlow and Joan E. Kaiser.
This Massachusetts Chippendale mahogany blockfront desk-and-bookcase, 98½" x 41" x 21½", made between 1760 and 1780, brought $30,720, well over the $3000/5000 estimate. A silver oval plaque engraved “GARLAND” is attached to the desk’s lid.
This pretty Queen Anne cherry and sycamore dressing table, 29½" x 33¾" x 21", made in Glastonbury, Connecticut, circa 1760, has a thumb-molded two-board top with four pegs on each side, supported by Wethersfield-type cabriole legs with angular knees on platformed bowl-form pad feet. Estimated at $3000/5000, it brought $3328. A similar example in the Bayou Bend collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, was published in 2005 in Connecticut Valley Furniture: Eliphalet Chapin and His Contemporaries, 1750-1800 by Thomas P. Kugelman and Alice K. Kugelman with Robert Lionetti.
Originally published in the May 2024 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2024 Maine Antique Digest
