The Lodge Estate Sale

October 23rd, 2014


One of the “Twin Greeks” on Main Street, Nantucket, the former residence of Katherine and John Lodge, and one of two of the last houses built on the island by a whaleman.


A 15" x 9" sampler wrought in 1766 by Elisabeth Hadwen (1755-1842) in her 12th year sold for $8260. Elizabeth Hadwen, born in Newport, Rhode Island, was the aunt of William Hadwen, who built the Lodge home.


A 19th-century pair of octagonal tables, 23" high x 15" diameter, each with glass tops over a sailor’s valentine, brought $8850. They are headed to the Los Angeles-area home of a “friend of Nantucket,” said Osona.


Lai Fong’s oil on canvas Portrait of an American Ship Entering Hong Kong Harbor, 24¼" x 33¾", in a maple frame, sold for $8850.


The delight of the day was this 1776 map of Nantucket, published in London by Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres, that sold in the gallery for $64,900.


A 19th-century carved and gilt convex mirror, 54" high, with a black eagle with a gilt head and partially open wings and a leafy drop pediment realized $4130.


The high lot of the Lodges’ ship portraits was Lai Fong’s 1898 Portrait of the Bank Line Barque “Beechbank” in Full Sail that sold for $16,520.


John Hall’s 24" x 42" oil on canvas The Canadian Ship “Alexander Yeats” Signaling for a Pilot was signed “Hall ’76” and sold for $10,620. The green-hulled vessel was built in 1876 at St. John, New Brunswick, and wrecked off St. Ives, England in 1896. Its provenance includes London dealer N.R. Omell.

A 19th-century Irish Georgian mahogany tall-case clock, 96½" high, by Charles Morgan of Dublin, the top of which was fitted with two brass rosettes and a lion’s face, with quarter columns, a molded door, and a bracket base, realized $4130 from a phone bidder.

Rafael Osona Auctions, Nantucket, Massachusetts

Photos courtesy Rafael Osona Auctions

As the only antiques auctioneer on Nantucket Island, Rafael Osona is positioned uniquely as the seller of collections and estates of islanders. On August 23 he held a single-owner sale for the estate of longtime island resident Katherine “Tatina” Sherman Lodge (d. 2014).

Lodge and her husband, John Allen Lodge (d. 2006), a lawyer practicing in Boston and Washington, D.C., collected for over half a century. The sale, which comprised the contents of their elegant 1847 Greek Revival house on Main Street, drew a full house to the American Legion Hall on Washington Street. The house built by William Hadwen is one of two side-by-side “Twin Greeks” he built, one for himself and his wife, Eunice Starbuck, and the other for her niece. The houses were the last ones erected on the island by a whale oil merchant. Two hand-colored photographs of the houses by photographer H. Marshall Gardiner (1884-1942), Colonial Dames, Main Street Nantucket, were each signed in pencil; one brought $236 (includes buyer’s premium), and the other went for $118.

 The Lodges were preservationists, conservationists, historians, and discerning collectors, and their home was chockablock with toothsome objects. Both descended from historical figures: him, U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge; her, three signers of the Declaration of Independence, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, and U.S. Senator John Sherman. The proceeds of the auction and of the sale of their house, which had just sold at the time of the auction, will be donated to the Nantucket Cottage Hospital, the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, and St. Mary’s Church. The new owners of the house were present in the salesroom buying objects to return to the house.

The Lodge estate drew some 1500 previewers, Osona said, and he added that most of them remained in the gallery throughout the nearly seven hours he sold. Everything went to island collectors, and only about ten percent was shipped off island—and all of that to Nantucket summer residents.

The object that attracted the most interest during the previews was a 29½" x 42" detailed map of Nantucket and the eastern part of Martha’s Vineyard, published in London June 1, 1776, by eminent cartographer Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres (1721-1824). Bidding opened at $15,000 and danced from phone to phone but ended at $64,900. The successful bidder was a beaming New York City collector who summers on the island.

Other maps from the Lodges’ collection provoked somewhat less excitement, although they were very good. A 1676 map of New England and New York, 15" x 20", by London cartographer John Speed and published by Thomas Basset and Richard Chiswell sold for $8260. The map is of interest as it demonstrates the shift from Dutch to English control in the late 17th century as place names changed to English. An 18th-century map of Nantucket, 8" x 11", by French cartographer and engraver Pierre François Tadrieu (1752-1798) went to a phone bidder for $1534.

A colorful 1635 map of Bermuda, 16" x 21", published in Amsterdam by Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638) sold for $141. The map delineates the divisions of land by shareholders of the island.

Katherine Lodge was particularly interested in China trade paintings, and she owned impressive examples, most of which hung in the dining room and the library; a total of 22 were sold. China trade pierhead artist Lai Fong (active 1870-1910), who actually worked in Calcutta, was represented by the 1898 signed oil on canvas Portrait of the Bank Line Barque “Beechbank” in Full Sail. The 34" x 54" painting depicted the four-masted ship, was inscribed “Calcutta,” and was in a Chinese Chippendale frame. It realized $16,520.

The oil on canvas British Ship “Arrow” in Hong Kong Harbor, 17½" x 23½", by Pun Woo (active 1860-1890) sold for $3540. The ship’s hull is painted gray-green, and the vessel flies the flags of several countries.

A 17½" x 23" oil on canvas Portrait of a French Ship Entering Hong Kong Harbor was inscribed “Notre Dame de Bon Port, Annee 1871” and sold for $7670. An oil on canvas portrait of the American ship Olustee,17½" x 22¾", in a period-carved China trade frame brought $9440.

The portraits weren’t all maritime art. The 19th-century oil on canvas Portrait of a Fashionable Young Lady in a Green Dress, 53" x 40", fetched $5310 from a phone bidder. The 19th-century oil on canvas portrait Elegant Gentleman Merchant Holding a Spy Glass, 49" x 39", with ships in the background, also brought $5310 from the same phone bidder. Neither the artist nor the sitter of the pictures was identified. A 19th-century oil on canvas portrait of a horse and dog, 12¾" x 19¾", was signed and dated indistinctly and sold for $2242.

A 27' long homeward bound pennant, with white stars on a blue field at the hoist and red and white at the fly, sold for $10,620 to a Nantucket resident who is considering donating it to the Nantucket Whaling Museum. Homeward bound flags are flown by ships returning home from a voyage outside the U.S. for longer than 270 days and have one star that represents the ship’s first nine months outside the country and another for each additional six months. The length is one foot for each member of the crew who has been outside the U.S. for nine months or more. They rarely remain intact, as after arrival home the pennant is divided; the captain takes the blue portion, and the crew divides the rest.

Ship models were scattered throughout the house—including one wreck found under a bed. The highlight of the 14 examples sold was a cased model of the lightship Nantucket that sold for $3245. A 28" x 41" x 13" cased model of the New Bedford whaler Coral with dories sold for $1180.

A 19th-century sailor’s valentine, 10" diameter, sold for $4130, while a 19th-century double sailor’s valentine, 8¾" diameter, with the message “Love the Giver,” went to the same buyer for $3835. The same bidder paid $2950 for a 12" example with the message “A Present from Barbados.”

A 19th-century Sheraton mahogany bowfront sideboard, 36¾" x 74" x 27", with cookie cutter corners, decanter drawer, another drawer, a single cupboard door, and ivory escutcheons, made $5310. A 19th-century English mahogany secretary bookcase with a butler’s desk and dentil molding had been reduced in height to 92½" (width 46", depth 20½") and sold for $2950, while a 19th-century English mahogany two-part breakfront, 92" x 77½" x 14½", with glazed doors sold for $2478. A Hepplewhite mahogany side table with one drawer and on tapered legs was re-cataloged after its missing drop leaf was discovered in the basement of the Lodge home. The reunification resulted in a $1416 selling price. A Regency mahogany bowfront server with crossbanded inlay, ebonized rings on the turned legs, and a single drawer sold for $1534, while a Federal mahogany secretary bookcase, 80" x 39" x 17", from about 1820 fetched $1180. A pair of Federal twin tester beds, with canopies and other bed coverings made by Katherine Lodge, sold for $1180. Lodge was a skilled needlewoman who made the canopies for her tester beds in her attic sewing room. Several buyers liked a Queen Anne wing chair in chinoiserie upholstery that fetched $2124.

Books from the Lodges’ library included a complete set of Dickens, a Thoreau first edition, first state of Walden, and other esoteric volumes that brought a total of $47,000. Letters of Cicero, published in 1685 as part of the Delphin Classics, with a fore-edge painted old city scene, had been rebound in red leather and sold for $2360, while a relatively recent group of books about Nantucket sold for $2478.

A chased Chelsea ship’s clock on a mahogany pedestal stand was retailed by Albert Dyke of New York. Presented to John Lodge by his parents on June 22, 1950, the clock sold for $472.

As he hammered down a 19th-century English mahogany barometer (43" long) by L. Caminada of Manchester for $1888, Osona took time to demonstrate the correct way to store the device. Never ever lay it flat.

For information, call (508) 228-3942 or check the Web site (www.rafaelosonaauction.com).


Originally published in the November 2014 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2014 Maine Antique Digest

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