Folk Art Auction in Manchester

August 2nd, 2015


This 19th-century miniature portrait of a young lady in a black dress and tartan shawl was signed near the left shoulder “G.L. Saunders 1845.” It sold for $20,000 (est. $1000/2000) on the Internet, underbid by a phone bidder. The portrait was found in the church rectory in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The subject was identified as Susan Coombs Dana, born July 16, 1817. The 4¼" x 3¼" portrait is housed in a 5½" x 4½" closed wooden frame. Artist George Lethbridge Saunders (1807-1863) was a professional miniaturist who arrived in America from Bristol, England in 1840 and worked in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond, Savannah, Columbia, and Charleston, according to Carrie Rebora Barratt and Lori Zabar, who wrote the catalog American Portrait Miniatures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2010). He worked in a large format and used direct colors mixed with gum arabic, which gives the surface of his paintings a varnished appearance. Saunders returned to England about 1851.


This 19th-century pierced copper banneret weathervane with a crown, a wheel, and a comet, with four flowers on the shaft, a copper ball on top, and traces of gilding, covered with green verdigris, 25½" x 30¼", sold on the phone for $1140 (est. $300/500).


This 19th-century oil on canvas landscape by Charles Henry Gifford (1839-1904) of an early fall Maine coastal landscape was signed “C.H. Gifford, 1869.” It sold for $2040. In a heavy carved gilt frame with some plaster loss, it measures 17" x 26½" and sold for $2040. It sold on November 16, 2003, at CRN Auctions in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for $8050. The next lot (not shown), a watercolor of sailboats and a grassy hill, 10" x 14", signed “C.H. Gifford ’88,” sold on the Internet for $1620.


This 19th-century oil on canvas International Order of Odd Fellows, with symbols of the secret organization, was signed “M.C. Lilley & Co. Columbus, O. M. Sievers.” It has been re-stretched and has some water staining at the bottom center. It sold to an absentee bidder for $1560 (est. $600/900).

Willis Henry Auctions, Manchester, New Hampshire

Photos courtesy Willis Henry Auctions

Willis Henry, the Marshfield, Massachusetts, auctioneer, said his wife, Karel, had the idea to rent the Radisson Hotel in Manchester for the August 1 and 2 sale that kicked off Antiques Week in New Hampshire. The space became available when Ron Bourgeault elected to hold his Northeast Auctions combined summer sales in Portsmouth the weekend after Antiques Week in New Hampshire instead of his usual auction weekend before the shows begin.

Henry had material from five estates, enough for a two-day sale, beginning at noon each day. Of the 317 lots offered on Saturday, all but 16 sold, and of the 237 lots offered on Sunday, all but ten sold. The totals—$183,258 for Saturday and $270,240 on Sunday—produced $453,498 (including the buyers’ premiums). About a third of each session sold online on the Invaluable platform. A number of bids were left with the auctioneer and executed by a Willis Henry staffer, using number 7, sitting on the front row, and plenty of phone bidders were handled by half-a-dozen staffers. Several dozen determined collectors came to the sale to bid and waited patiently for what they wanted. A band of eight show dealers sat at the back of the salesroom and were selective bidders.

Willis Henry introduces his consignors in a chatty introduction in the front of his catalogs, and he talks about them during the sale, telling stories in the way that the Hillsborough, New Hampshire, auctioneer Dick Withington used to do. He made the hotel setting seem like a leisurely country sale.

Bidders with catalogs learned that Ed Clerk, a top Shaker dealer in the 1980s and ’90s who exhibited at Russell Carrell’s New York Winter Antiques Show, passed away in March 2014 and stipulated in his will that Willis Henry was to auction what remained in his estate. Henry has been selling Clerk’s Shaker material over the last two years, and more will be coming up in his Shaker sale on October 12. In July 2006, Henry sold a Shaker workstand made by Orren Haskins, owned by Clerk, for $491,400, a Shaker record that still stands.

Earl Curry’s estate provided some stoneware and redware. Other material came from folk art collector Tony Geiss, the script and songwriter who put words in the mouths of Big Bird and Kermit the Frog; Bill Moore, a beloved teacher at Milton Academy, who liked furniture in original condition and paint; Robert Wheaton, an expert antiques picker and dealer in Cumberland Foreside, Maine, known for building collections in southern Maine and who had a good eye; and New Jersey collector Howard Fertig, who collected and researched folk painters. He and his wife, Flo, liked portrait miniatures on ivory and paper, silhouettes, and full-size folk portraits. Willis Henry sold the Fertigs’ Shaker collection a year ago.

Willis Henry and his sidekick, Charles David Glynn, who made jokes and who came to New Hampshire from his Turkey Creek Auctions in Citra, Florida, took turns selling during the two afternoon sales. There were a lot of laughs and some groans when Glynn said, “I gave some money to a homeless man yesterday. I think he was a furniture dealer years ago; he dealt in brown furniture.”

There wasn’t a lot of brown furniture in the sale. Most of the furniture was painted, and there were still bargains. A feather- and sponge-painted blanket chest with a walnut interior till sold for $840 (est. $500/700). A blue chest from the Tony Geiss estate sold for a bargain $360 (est. $300/500). An 18th-century Windsor armchair with an early brown surface from Robert Wheaton’s estate sold for $480 (est. $400/800), and an 18th-century child’s potty chair in dark brown sold for $875 (est. $300/500). Five hogscraper candlesticks in old paint from the Clerk estate brought $810.

There were some surprises on Saturday, including a 19th-century miniature portrait of a young lady in black dress and a tartan shawl by George Lethbridge Saunders (1807-1863), a professional miniaturist who arrived in America from Bristol, England in 1840 and worked in many U.S. cities. It sold on the Internet for $20,000 (est. $1000/2000). The buyer battled a phone bidder.

There were bargains. A large round sieve, 34" in diameter, from the Clerk estate, sold for only $150 (est. $400/600); a Connecticut keyhole cupboard, a distinctive graphic form, sold for $840 (est. $1000/2000), and a set of six 19th-century New England dining chairs in black over red paint, from Clerk’s collection, sold online for only $593.75 (est. $800/1200).

Prices were stronger on Sunday. A green-painted blanket chest from the Moore estate sold for $1380 (est. $400/600). A mid-19th-century grain-painted chest of drawers sold to an absentee bidder for $1440 (est. $700/900), but a late Sheraton grain-painted chest of drawers with painted bird’s-eye maple drawers, probably made in Vermont, sold for only $780 (est. $1000/2000), and a slant-lid desk of birch and pine with original red finish sold for the same price, $780 (est. $1500/2500). It is a good time to buy furniture.

Two collectors went home with special portrait miniatures. A portrait on ivory in a gold frame of Rev. Washington Thatcher, a Congregational minister in New York, by Edwin Weyburn Goodwin (1800-1845), went to a New York buyer for $6720. A Chicago collector in the salesroom bought two abstract folky watercolor on paper hollow-cut and watercolor profile portraits. The collector paid $3600 (est. $1000/1500) for a girl in a pink dress and $3480 (est. $1000/ $1500) for a girl in blue.

During the exhibition and sale, a Shaker table made of golden figured maple stood on top of a table behind the registration desk. A consignor had delivered it for Henry’s next Shaker sale at the Hancock Shaker Village on October 12. Henry left it out for everyone to see. It was a good advertisement and special treat and made every other piece of furniture in this sale pale in comparison. “It’s not furniture,” said Henry. “It’s art.”

For more information, call (781) 834-7774 or check the website (www.willishenryauctions.com).

This early hooked rug depicts a man and wife in a chicken coop with chickens and red stars overhead and the words“We are roosting on a perch / Dont envy us our lot / Inlaws have taken over again / Its the only spot we got.” The 31½" x 52" rug sold on the phone for $3840 (est. $200/400).

This 19th-century portrait by William W. Kennedy (1817-1871), oil on academy board, was signed and dated 1854 in pencil on the back of the frame. She wears a green-gray dress with a white fringe neckline, a gold chain necklace, and a rectangular onyx and gold brooch. It’s in a mahogany veneered frame, 16½" x 13½", and sold in the salesroom for $6300 (est. $2000/3000) to Tom Jewett and Butch Berdan of Newcastle, Maine.

This early 19th-century leather fire bucket in original green and red paint reads “No. 1. Calvin Bruce” in a swag and tassel curtain with gold chain, “1818,” and “Energetic Fire Society” in a red oval. It is missing the handle. The 12" high x 8½" diameter bucket sold online for $2812.50 (est. $500/700).

This mid-19th-century pine chest of drawers in grained black and red stripes, with original brasses, has three small drawers inset on top with a carved backsplash, over four large drawers and rope-turned side columns with heavy, bulbous turned legs. It is 38¼" high (case), 47" high (overall) x 41" wide x 18¼" deep and signed “Charles.” It sold for $1440 (est. $700/900) to an absentee bidder.

These 19th-century miniature double portraits by James S. Ellsworth (1802-1874), “Deacon & Mrs. Beers in Williamstown, Mass…” and “Painted by Josiah Brown King…,” which is a misrepresentation, are in what appears to be the original frame (a small veneer piece is missing). Ex-Samuel Herrup, the portraits sold to a collector in the salesroom for $9360 (est. $2000/4000). The pair had sold at Sotheby Parke Bernet in April 1978 for $2100.

This rare historical late 18th-/early 19th-century handkerchief with a map of the city of Washington is printed in red on cotton muslin. The “Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia…after the year MDCCC.” shows Georgetown and the “Potomak River,” labels “part of Virginia” and “part of Maryland in the Territory of Columbia,” and shows named streets and the layout of pathways, rivers, and creeks, and the “Presidents House.” There’s a ½" rope border with fruit decoration, and allegorical vignette corners are embellished with an Indian smoking a tobacco pipe, wheat, fruit, and foliage, men loading a three-masted schooner, a seated Liberty, and an 18th-century patriot blowing a horn and carrying flags. It was printed in Boston after a design by Andrew Ellicott and published by Samuel Hill circa 1796. With some staining, minor holes, and overall toning, the 24½" x 25½" handkerchief sold online for $8750.

This miniature portrait of Captain Jeremiah O’Brien with his ship in the background and a lock of his hair on the back, 2½" x 2", sold to Connecticut collectors in the salesroom for $7800 (est. $1500/3000). Captain O’Brien commanded the sloop Unity, which captured the H.M.S. Margaretta in the Battle of Machias, the first naval battle of the American Revolution.

The cover lot of the sale was this 19th-century 12" x 16" landscape oil on canvas, Independence Hall, with “Independence” on the sign and a carved eagle and shield over the front door. It is finely painted and in untouched condition and without a frame. It sold on the phone for $2520 (est. $300/500), underbid in the salesroom.

This 19th-century portrait of a young gentleman, oil on canvas, 25¾" x 18½", dated “March 1857,” signed on the side of frame in yellow “L. K. Rowe” flanked by scrolls, is inscribed on the reverse “For himself and his affectionate Dog.” L.K. Rowe is listed as a painter in Salem, Massachusetts, in American Primitive Painting (1942) by Jean Lipman. It sold on the phone for $5280 (est. $1000/1500).

Two phone bidders competed for this miniature oval portrait of a middle-aged gentleman with blue eyes, in an engraved gold frame, attributed to John Brewster Jr. (1766-1854), a deaf-mute who charged $5 for his miniatures and $15 for regular-size portraits. Howard Fertig found it in the Syracuse area and purchased it in 1988. It’s 2 5/8" x 2" and sold for $7500 (est. $1000/1500).

This 2¼" x 1 7/8" portrait miniature of Rev. Washington Thatcher, a Congregational pastor in New York, by Edwin Weyburn Goodwin (1800-1845), relined, in an engraved gold frame, sold for $6720 (est. $600/900) to New York collectors in the salesroom.


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

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