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Nadeau's Auction Gallery, Inc., Windsor, Connecticut

Fine Art Leads New Year's Day Sale

by Ed Pfeiffer

For 19 years, Nadeau's Auction Gallery has staged major sales on January 1, and for antiquers who live in the Connecticut River Valley around Hartford, they are a favorite way to welcome in the new year. Nadeau's 8500-square-foot salesroom in Windsor, Connecticut, is a spacious, well-lighted, high-ceilinged place with comfortable theater-style seating. The 2007 event attracted about 350 people who bid aggressively throughout the sale, challenged by active competition from prospective buyers on the phones and on the Internet.

Some 470 lots crossed the block, and only 16 of them (3.4%) were passed. Although custom furniture from the Margolis shop of Hartford, Connecticut, in operation through the first half of the 20th century, accounted for 31 lots, fine art took center stage. Seven of the sale's dozen highest-priced lots came from the latter category, and six of those buyers were phone bidders.

Looking Up 5th Avenue, a 16" x 20" signed oil on canvas by Guy Carleton Wiggins (1883-1962), led the art results at $46,000 (including buyer's premium). The second-highest price for a work of art, $23,000, was achieved by an 11" x 19¾" signed oil on canvas autumn scene by Worthington Whittredge (1820-1910). A second signed Wiggins oil on canvas, Snow Storm at Plaza, 20" x 16", made $18,400.

Two paintings by unidentified artists soared far over their estimates. A 13¾" x 11½" oil on canvas of a girl holding a cup, unsigned but dated 1885, sold for $15,525 (est. $600/900), and a 14" x 9½" oil on canvas still life of a pitcher with flowers, bearing an illegible signature, went at $14,375 (est. $400/600).

Colored Disks, a 21¼" x 29½" gouache on paper by Alexander Calder (1898-1976), signed and dated 65, made $11,500 (est. $20,000/30,000), and Le Bain, a drypoint etching by Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973), signed and dated 1905 in the plate, sold for $8050. Monhegan Island, a 24" x 36" signed oil on canvas by Nelson Augustus Moore (1824-1902), brought $7187.50 , and The Players, a 10 3/8" x 7 7/8" pencil, pen, ink, and wash on paper by David Bomberg (British, 1890-1957), signed and dated '19, sold for $6325 (est. $3000/5000).

Adding interest to the art offerings were 15 lots of oil on canvas landscapes by Helen Savier DuMond (1872-1968), plus four others by her husband, Frank Vincent DuMond (1865-1951), and one by her brother-in-law, Frederick Melville DuMond (1867-1927). Helen and Frank met at the Art Students League in Manhattan where he taught for some 60 years. They married and lived in Old Lyme, Connecticut, and were involved in the art colony there. At the Nadeau auction, one of Frank's works sold for $10,350 (est. $1500/2500), while the three highest results for Helen's paintings were $1265 (est. $250/450), $1035, and $920 (est. $200/300).

Generating the most impressive price results among the furniture offerings was a 1930's Federal-style dining room set with three pieces signed Margolis, including a table with two leaves that opened to 9'6", eight upholstered chairs, and a 71½" long x 41½" high x 28" deep mahogany sideboard. Sold as a single lot, it made $12,650. There were four other Margolis sets, two bedroom groups and two dining room groups, and Ed Nadeau used a two-step process to sell these. First, the individual pieces from each group were put up for bids. The resulting figures were then totaled and used as a minimum when bidding was reopened for the full set.

A Margolis bedroom set made up of a blockfront four-drawer Chippendale-style mahogany chest, an inlaid mahogany night table with drawer, a pair of twin-size bedsteads, a Queen Anne-style flat-top highboy, and a Chippendale-style mirror made $5750. The other bedroom set that came to the block included a mahogany Chippendale-style four-drawer chest, two night tables, a flat-top highboy, a four-post double-size bed, and a Chippendale-style mirror; it went at $10,350.

Next, a dining room set that comprised a Federal-style sideboard, eight Federal-style dining chairs, and a round mahogany dining table sold for $4025. Another six-piece dining room group was offered, but the bidding for it as a set foundered, so that lot was passed and the pieces sold individually.

Nadeau's Auction Gallery holds biweekly Tuesday evening sales and about six auctions a year of custom furniture, decorative arts, fine arts, jewelry, and other collectibles. For more information, call (860) 246-2444; Web site (www.nadeausauction.com).