Brazelton Lots Spice Up Northeast Auctions Sale

March 22nd, 2015


This oval “lover’s eye” miniature watercolor on ivory, set within a seed pearl and enamel border and mounted on a ring, went to a persistent phone bidder for $7680 (est. $500/800). Northeast Auctions photo.


This 19th-century eight-panel screen, in two parts, is covered in French scenic wallpaper depicting “The Passage of Telemachus on the Island of Calypso” by Joseph Dufour et Cie, Paris. It sold for $13,200. Northeast Auctions photo.


This Regence satinwood bureau plat, 30¾" x 67½" x 34½", with pewter inlay and silvered metal mounts, circa 1725, sold for $24,000. Northeast Auctions photo.


This 36" x 25½" oil on canvas portrait of Boston apothecary Dr. John Greenleaf by Boston artist Joseph Badger (1708-1765) descended in the Greenleaf family to the West Coast member who consigned it. It brought $26,400 from a phone bidder. Greenleaf commissioned family portraits from several leading artists, and after his three children were murdered by their nurse in 1750 he commissioned their posthumous portraits by John Singleton Copley; those pictures are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Northeast Auctions photo.


This Chinese cloisonné enamel censer with cover is decorated with hardstone and painted gilt metal. It realized $1920 (est. $400/600).

Bidders really liked this Ithaca walnut double-dial bank wall calendar, 56½" high, patented in 1866. It was estimated at $1000/1500, and bidders pushed it to $6000. Northeast Auctions photo.

Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, New Hampshire

An 18th-century Chinese porcelain yuhu-form vase, 12¼" high, in an underglaze red decoration of nine sinuous dragons and foliage, went to the phones for $60,000 (including buyer’s premium) at Northeast Auctions in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on March 22. It came from the Brazelton family collection as did a large 17th-century Japanese Arita blue and white porcelain apothecary jar, 21½" high, with “sporting lions and peony” decoration. It sold on the phone for $10,200. A Chinese patinated and gilt-bronze figure of a Daoist holding a tablet, 17¼" high, from the Brazelton family collection, sold for $7680.

The collection of collector and dealer Churchill Jones Brazelton, dispersed in 1981 at Sotheby’s in New York, was the source of other favored lots, such as a Regence satinwood bureau plat, 30¾" x 67½" x 34½", with pewter inlay and silvered metal mounts, circa 1725, that sold for $24,000. It has a black leather writing surface over three aligned drawers with pewter banding within ebonized wood borders, silvered metal satyr-head mounts on the legs, and foliage on the hoof feet, and is stamped “B. Simoneaux” and “JME.” An old master oil on canvas portrait of an artist, seated and holding a brush, 36" x 29", was attributed to Cornelis Bisschop (1630-1674) and fetched $20,400 on the phone. The painting was featured on the cover of the catalog from the 1981 sale.

In the course of his military service Brazelton served as a U.S. Army press censor in Europe, and like the press, was often housed splendidly in castles and chateaux, despite the privations of war. He honed his eye for stylish antiques and accessories during this period and acquired many “souvenirs” and purchases that he sent home to his mother in Texas. When he returned to the U.S. after the war, he opened an antiques shop in New Orleans and several years later relocated to New York where he dealt in antiques and art from his Madison Avenue shop.

An Internet buyer paid $13,200 for Brazelton’s 19th-century eight-panel screen in two parts, 70¾" x 21" each, covered in a French scenic wallpaper depicting “The Passage of Telemachus on the Island of Calypso” by Joseph Dufour et Cie, Paris. A 59" x 32¾" Regency painted and parcel-gilt octagonal mirror, circa 1810, also with Brazelton provenance, brought $10,200 (est. $3000/5000). It is carved with reeding and mounted with a pair of dolphins beneath an eagle on a foliate plinth and scallop-shell support, a pendant with a star, and thistle stems. Brazelton’s 19th-century French Empire tôle peinte and gilt-brass six-light chandelier, 37" tall, sold online for $7440, while a set of five Louis XV appliques, elaborately carved with floral and musical elements, brought $4560. They were accompanied by a book illustrating them in place in his New York apartment. Brazelton’s Continental Neoclassical painted and gilt terra-cotta architectural panel, 18¾" x 37¾", is stylish and sold for $1320 (est. $300/500).

Between lots early in the sale, auctioneer Ron Bourgeault informed his audience that Northeast Auctions’ annual Memorial Day sale will be a one-day affair this year. The extraordinary reason is that he was off on a well-deserved vacation in Sicily. Speaking on the phone several days before his departure to Italy, Bourgeault expressed pleasure at the strength of the sale results. Seats in the gallery were hard to come by throughout much of the sale. Lots of things did very well; bidders made it clear that they are willing to pay whatever it takes to obtain their object of desire, which is reflected in many results.

A 36" x 25½" oil on canvas portrait of Boston apothecary Dr. John Greenleaf by Boston artist Joseph Badger (1708-1765) descended in the Greenleaf family to the West Coast member who consigned it. It brought $26,400 from a phone bidder.

John James Audubon’s The Birds of America: from Drawings Made in the United States and Their Territories, a seven-volume royal octavo edition, was published by E.G. Dorsey for J.J. Audubon and J.B. Chevalier, 1840-44, New York and Philadelphia. Each volume of the set at this sale was affixed with a bookplate of Robert Treat Paine (1731-1814), a Massachusetts lawyer and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The set sold for $31,200. Audubon and the Reverend John Bachman’s three-volume first edition of The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America,the royal octavo edition, published in New York by John J. Audubon and Victor G. Audubon, 1846-54, sold for $1920. Both Audubon lots came from a Massachusetts book collection.

Modest Color Feast, an abstract oil and sand painting, 49" x 23", by Hungarian-American artist György Kepes (1906-2001), titled, dated (Rome, 1961), and signed on the back, brought $8100.

Twelve reproduction clocks by Weymouth, Massachusetts, makers Elmer O. Stennes and Foster S. Campos had been purchased directly from the makers. Some were made by Stennes, others by Campos, and still others by the two; most sold above the estimates. The highlight was a 44¾" high “Aurora” girandole banjo clock that was signed on the dial by Stennes and stamped “31” and “73” on the interior. It sold on the phone for $6000 (est. $1500/2500). Stennes was notorious; he served time in prison for the 1968 murder of his second wife, but he was a master craftsman who produced meticulous replica cases fitted with purchased works. (See M.A.D. colleague Jeanne Schinto’s story “Murder on Tick Tock Lane,” which appeared in the September 1997 Yankee magazine.) Campos, a considerably less flamboyant character, was an equally fine woodworker. A mahogany and églomisé “Diamond Head” timepiece, 39" high, brought $3120, as did a 60½" high mahogany grandmother clock by Stennes.

A lacquer and gilt-metal Art Deco cigarette case, 5 5/8" long, by the Swiss-born French jeweler Paul-Emile Brandt, circa 1929, with its original pouch, was marked “Paul Brandt” on the cover and the interior. It sold on the phone for $6600.

Egyptian art objects from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, were gobbled up by the Internet. One bidder opened several lots at prices that were higher than the estimates. The highlight was a group of 27 stone and faience amulets, the longest of which is 2½", depicting deities of the New Kingdom, Late, and Greco-Roman periods. They were estimated at $650/900, and the bidding opened at $7000 and went to $8400.

 The same online buyer also paid $7200 for a group of approximately 58 scarab beads and amulets from the same period and $6000 (est. $450/600) for 20 amulets in the form of animals, deities, and more from the New Kingdom, Greco-Roman, and Hellenistic periods. The persistent buyer paid $6000 for three Late period faience mummiform figures (shawabtis), one 5 1/8" high and two 3½" high, that were estimated at $600/900.

For information, check the website (www.northeastauctions.com) or call (603) 433-8400.

This 18th-century Chinese porcelain vase with an underglaze red decoration with dragons and foliage brought $60,000.

The Patty and Serge Gagarin collection included three paintings on paperboard by Bahamian artist Amos Ferguson (1920-2009). Each is signed “Paint. By. Mr. Amos Ferguson.” They all sold. Shown, The Swimming Pool, 30" x 36", estimated at $500/800, realized $4800; Red House and Trees with Lambs on a Hill, 22¾" x 29", drew $3840; and Shepherdess with Lambs, 20" x 25¾", fetched $2280.

This New England red-painted stacking bookcase, 70¼" x 35¾" x 15", set on a base with a single drawer, made $6000 (est. $1500/2500). It came from the Gagarin collection. Northeast Auctions photo.

The old master oil on canvas portrait of an artist with a brush, 36" x 29", is attributed to Cornelis Bisschop (1630-1674) and fetched $20,400 on the phone. The painting was featured on the cover of the catalog from the 1981 sale at Sotheby’s of Churchill Jones Brazelton’s collection. Northeast Auctions photo.

This 1893 ship’s portrait of the British steamship Manitoba, 30" x 50", by Antonio Jacobsen (1850-1921), is signed and dated and sold for $15,600.

Commemorative jewelry and medals from the collection of the late Martha Gandy Fales attracted high interest because of Fales’s eye and experience and because of the history of several pieces. She was the author of several books on early jewelry and silver, among them Jewelry in America: 1600-1900 (1995). The highlight was this rare George Washington mourning ring with a miniature engraved oval portrait of the president by Charles Févret de Saint-Mémin (1770-1852), circa 1800, that sold on the phone for $15,600. Saint-Mémin had been a French nobleman and military officer. He and his family were forced to flee to New York in 1793, and he became a self-taught engraver. He returned to France in 1814.

Two engraved miniature English globes, a terrestrial and a celestial, each on an urn-turned standard on tripod legs (16" high overall), with brass meridian and printed horizon rings, sold together for $9300 (est. $1800/2400). The terrestrial example is marked “H.G. Collins” and the celestial, “Wrench’s.” Northeast Auctions photo.

This Ruth Henshaw Bascom (1772-1848) framed pastel and pencil portrait, 15¼" x 11¾", of a young woman with her braided hair held by a comb, was estimated at $3000/5000 and sold for $25,200. It was one of 66 lots that had come from the collection of Patty and Serge Gagarin. Northeast Auctions photo.

This 17th-century Japanese Arita porcelain apothecary jar sold to a phone bidder for $10,200. Northeast Auctions photo.

This Staffordshire agate pecten shell teapot, circa 1750, 5¾" high, with a $1000/1500 estimate, realized $6000. Northeast Auctions photo.


Originally published in the June 2015 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2015 Maine Antique Digest

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