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Wiederseim Associates, Inc., Glenmoore, Pennsylvania

Biddle Family Objects Draw Attention and High Bids

by Lita Solis-Cohen

Philadelphia is the mother lode for 18th- and early 19th-century antiques. When word gets out that the contents of a house lived in by descendants of a Colonial family is up for auction, and the name is Biddle, collectors, the trade, descendants, and the curious make their way to the sale.

News that a tilt-top tea table, some Sully portraits, porcelain, and ephemera from a house in Chestnut Hill near Philadelphia was to be sold to settle the estates of Jane Biddle Lewis and her father, Henry Carvill Lewis, brought a group of eager buyers to Griffith Hall at the Ludwig's Corner Firehouse in Glenmoore, Pennsylvania, on September 15 and 16 for Wiederseim Associates' early fall auction. In addition to the Lewis estates, there were some additions and some repeats.

The results were good, earning $839,500 (including buyers' premiums), which is the highest total to date for auctioneer Theodore Wiederseim. Only 30 of the 777 lots failed to sell.

The big drawing card was some furnishings from Andalusia, the historic Greek Revival house on the Delaware River about 13 miles from Philadelphia. It was the vision of financier Nicholas Biddle and his wife, Jane Craig. After the Biddles acquired the Craig estate in 1814, a full five years before Biddle was appointed director of the Second Bank of the United States, they set about modernizing the estate and employed Thomas U. Walter to add the monumental, columned portico to the 1806 house designed by Benjamin Latrobe. They furnished it in the American Empire style. Now managed by the Andalusia Foundation, the house and its gardens are open to the public by appointment (call (215) 245-5479).

Over the years, the contents of the house were divided among various members of the Biddle family. "That is why some Andalusia furnishings remained in the Lewis house," explained James C. "Jamie" Biddle, president of the board of the Andalusia Foundation. He came to the sale to buy.

"Connie Houchins, the curator of Andalusia, documented much of the furnishings in old photographs, so we borrowed from the endowment to acquire what we could, and now we must raise the money to reimburse the endowment," said Richard Snowdon, a member of the Andalusia board, who bought a number of lots at the sale, bidding for his own account and for the foundation.

Jamie Biddle's father, the late James Biddle, who in the 1960's was curator of the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was later director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, oversaw the Andalusia property until his death in 2005. Jamie Biddle's grandfather, Charles Biddle, had saved the house in the 1950's and began its conservation.

On Friday night, Jamie Biddle bought the portrait of his ancestor, the handsome Captain James Biddle USN (1783-1848) by Thomas Sully for $126,500. He had lots of competition in the room and on the phones. It's not a record for Sully; Sully's full-length portrait of Thomas Jefferson sold for a record $209,100 at Christie's in May 2003. It is, however, among the top prices paid for a Sully bust portrait. It was good quality and an early portrait of a distinguished American.

Captain James Biddle attended the U.S. Naval Academy and had a long career in the U.S. Navy. He was captured and held for 19 months during the war with the Barbary pirates, served on the U.S.S. Wasp during the War of 1812, and was given the command of the U.S.S. Hornet. Under his command, the Hornet defeated the H.M.S. Penguin, and he won a gold medal from Congress for his actions. In 1846 he arrived in China, where he successfully negotiated a treaty to open China to the Western trade.

This portrait appears to be the earliest of two known Sully portraits of James Biddle. It is dated 1826. Jamie Biddle said he was glad it will remain in Philadelphia.

Biddle bought the painting for his own account and may lend it to Andalusia, but did much of his bidding for the Andalusia Foundation. He won numerous lots of photographs, prints, books, silhouettes, ephemera, porcelain, candlesticks, a box of mother-of-pearl gaming pieces, and a Gothic hall chair, all for modest prices.

A pair of Paris porcelain urns went to the foundation at $1265; a set of gilt metal tiebacks at $747.50; and another group of metal tiebacks at $230. A snuffbox said to have been painted by Thomas Sully for Nicolas Biddle sold for $977.50. Family stories were believed.

Among the more expensive lots Jamie Biddle bought on Friday night were two miniature portraits in gold frames. He paid $14,950 (est. $2000/2500) for an unsigned oval miniature portrait of Margaret W. Craig, attributed to James Peale, and $16,100 (est. $2000/2500) for an unsigned oval miniature portrait of a gentleman identified as John Craig, Jane Craig's brother, also attributed to James Peale. Then he paid $16,100 (est. $5000/7500) for a set of six bird's-eye maple Classical carved side chairs, circa 1830, part of an original set of 12 from Andalusia. The other six are in the house.

Andalusia did not compete for the Philadelphia Chippendale mahogany dish-top tea table, circa 1770, with acanthus leaf carving on its knees and ball-and-claw feet, which sold on Friday night. According to the catalog, it appears to be by the same hand as the Howell tea table on plate 214 from Hornor's Blue Book: Philadelphia Furniture. Fresh to market and clean, it sold for $74,750 (est. $50,000/75,000) to a phone bidder, underbid in the salesroom by dealer Stephen Hench of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

On Saturday, Richard Snowdon did the bidding for the Andalusia Foundation. Early on Saturday morning he got a set of six Federal mahogany saber leg chairs with leaf-carved slats for $7475. A pair of Classical gilt candelabra with Oriental figures on their bases that match an Andalusia chandelier was his for $4312.50. He bought a mahogany breakfast table with carved pedestal and claw feet, possibly by Anthony Quervelle, for $3162.50. Six coin silver tablespoons by Daniel Dupuy cost him $1380. It was a real old-fashioned estate sale-a little of everything.

Three phone bidders competed for a watercolor portrait attributed to Thomas Sully of Eliza Falconette Middleton, the wife of Izard Middleton of Charleston, South Carolina, and the granddaughter-in-law of Arthur Middleton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. It is documented in a later copy of an 1816 letter that accompanied the lot. Estimated at $10,000/15,000, it sold for a strong $34,500 to a phone bidder.

Two portraits of George Washington provoked competitive bidding. An oil on canvas attributed to Rembrandt Peale, one of several copies he made of his so-called porthole portrait, in a 19th-century fancy carved frame, sold on the phone to a collector for $46,000 (est. $15,000/ 20,000), underbid in the salesroom by an Egyptian collector from New Brunswick, New Jersey, who said he has been in the U.S. for 28 years. He also underbid a miniature portrait of George Washington as a general in the Continental Army that had a paper label identifying it as the work of William Grimaldi (1751-1830), an English painter. Estimated at $8000/10,000, it sold for $12,650 to the buyer of the Peale portrait of Washington. A Staffordshire bust of George Washington sold for $977.50 (est. $300/400).

A fierce bidding battle ensued when the catalog cover lot crossed the block. The portrait of the beautiful Adele Sigoigne was attributed to Bass Otis and estimated at $10,000/25,000. It was accompanied by a letter dated June 9, 1816, from Nicholas Biddle on his stationery as president of the Second Bank of the United States to Otis at his studio in Philadelphia about the delivery of the painting and Biddle's satisfaction with the work. Bidding opened at $5000 and went all the way to $46,000, selling to Craig Bruns, curator of the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia. The Andalusia Foundation was the underbidder. It must be a record for a Bass Otis, and it is considered his masterpiece. A large Bass Otis painting of the artist and his family sold for $23,000 at Northeast Auctions in 2002.

Bruns said the Independence Seaport Museum wanted the portrait because when Sigoigne arrived penniless from Santo Domingo after the insurrection, she was found on the docks by Nicholas Biddle. In a short time, she was the toast of the town, teaching French and music to the Biddle children and becoming the mistress of Joseph Bonaparte, Nicholas Biddle's close friend, who also had a house on the Delaware River. By tradition, Biddle girls for several generations were named Adele after Adele Sigoigne. Another portrait of her with her harp by Thomas Sully, painted 13 years later and considered Sully's masterpiece, is at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California.

"She will be part of our upcoming exhibition Women & the Sea," said Bruns after the sale. "She made her way to Philadelphia by ship, and she made a difference. She lived a long life; she died at eighty-one."

The Andalusia Foundation settled for a color sketch, most probably of Adele Sigoigne, possibly by Thomas Sully. Offered toward the end of the sale with a $3000/5000 estimate, it sold for a bargain price at $1610.

The pictures tell the rest of the story.

For more information, contact Wiederseim Associates, Inc. at (610) 827-1910; Web site (www.wiederseim.com).