Fine Art at Shannon’s

October 24th, 2019

Shannon’s Fine Art Auctioneers, Milford, Connecticut

Photos courtesy Shannon’s

Twice-yearly art auctions at Shannon’s Fine Art Auctioneers, Milford, Connecticut, bring out fine artworks that result in a full house for each sale. The October 24, 2019, sale was no exception.

The 271-lot event drew 500 bids on 20-some phones, on site, and online. Around 100 consignors participated, and the gallery attracted 50 or so bidders. Ninety-one percent of the buyers were collectors, and much of the artwork that crossed the block came from collections. The sale totaled $2.4 million, with 77% of the lots sold.

The cover lot, The Flower Girl, 30" x 22", oil on canvas, by British-born New York artist John George Brown (1831-1913) is signed and dated 1878. It is remarkable for its richness of detail in the flowers, the subject, and her clothing. Catalog notes suggest that the sitter was possibly the daughter of a wealthy family dressed as a flower seller. It sold for $87,500 (est. $70,000/100,000). The picture entered a New York collection around 1910, passed to another collection around 1980, and sold at Sotheby’s into another collection in 2001.

The top-selling lot was Pointers on the Hunt by Louisiana-born artist Percival Leonard Rosseau, signed and dated 1927. The 23" x 32¼" oil on canvas sold with buyer’s premium for $100,000 (est. $80,000/120,000). The second-highest-selling lot was the catalog cover lot, The Flower Girl, a 30" x 22" oil on canvas by John George Brown (1831-1913), signed and dated 1878. It sold for $87,500 (est. $70,000/100,000). Shannon’s next live auction is April 23 in the Milford gallery.

For more information, call (203) 877-1711 or go to (www.shannons.com).

Pointers on the Hunt by Louisiana-born artist Percival Leonard Rosseau (1859-1937), signed and dated 1927, sold for $100,000 (est. $80,000/120,000). The 23" x 32¼" oil on canvas features four pointers in the field. Catalog notes indicate that the painting is rare for the number of pointers depicted and that its size and complexity suggest that it was intended for an exhibition or for an important commission. It had been in a private Portville, New York, collection since 1930, and it went to another collection.

Rosseau, born on a plantation that was destroyed by the Union army, was rescued with his sister by a slave and raised in Kentucky. He entered business and was sufficiently successful at it to retire at 35 to study painting in Paris. At the outbreak of World War I he returned to America and settled in Lyme, Connecticut. An avid sportsman, Rosseau hunted in Denton, North Carolina. Percy Rockefeller became his most important patron and built him a house, studio, and kennels at his Overhills Club in North Carolina. It is thought that Rosseau painted Pointers on the Hunt at Overhills.

This oil on masonite scene, Over the Bridge, by Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses (1860-1961) was signed “Moses” and dated October 1960. It sold for $80,000 (est. $90,000/120,000). The painting, which depicts a horse-drawn sledge filled with children in a wintry country setting, descended in the Moses family to the artist’s grandson Carl Moses and bears an old label indicating that Mr. and Mrs. Carl Moses had lent the picture at some point to an unidentified entity. It then passed to Hammer Galleries, and then it sold at Sotheby’s, New York, twice, in 1993 and again in 2015. It came most recently from a Palm Beach, Florida, collection.

Iowa-born artist Abastenia St. Léger Eberle (1878-1942) arrived in New York in 1899 to study at the Art Students League, where she created small bronzes based on the lives of immigrants on the Lower East Side. The 1910 bronze Windy Doorstep (right) encapsulates women’s work and issues of the day. It brought $68,750 (est. $50,000/75,000). The 14" high figure is signed “A.S.L. Eberle” and retains the foundry mark “S. Klaber and Co., Founders, NY.” There were about 20 editions cast, and the work has had an extensive exhibition history. This piece came from the same collection as the next lot (above), Portrait of a Young Lady, 36" x 22", by Russian-born American artist Ivan Gregorewitch Olinsky (1878-1962). The portrait includes the figure Windy Doorstep. The painting sold for $21,250 (est. $10,000/15,000). The consignor had hoped the two lots would remain together, and they did. They both went to another collector.

Winter in Bucks County, this 25" x 30" oil on canvas by Pennsylvania and Cape Ann plein-air artist Fern Isabel Coppedge (1883-1951), brought $81,250 (est. $40,000/60,000). The Illinois-born artist was invited in 1917 to exhibit at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and she exhibited with The Philadelphia Ten, a.k.a. The Ten, from 1922 to 1935.

Two paintings by Manila-born Philippine artist Fernando Cueto Amorsolo (1892-1972) sold. Bathing (left), a 1957 oil on canvas, 28" x 22¼", is signed and dated and brought $50,000 (est. $40,000/60,000). The related 20" x 16" oil on canvas Bathing in the River is signed and dated 1951, and it sold for $57,500 (est. $30,000/50,000). Both had been sold at Bonhams, San Francisco, on May 22, 2007, into the same Virginia collection. This time both went to the same collection and are likely headed to the Philippines.

This view of Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, off the coast of Maine, by Alfred Thompson Bricher (1837-1908) brought $68,750 (est. $30,000/50,000). The 15" x 32" oil on canvas came from a New Jersey collection. In the mid-1870s Bricher began to concentrate on marine paintings. Grand Manan was a favorite subject.

The Well at the End of the World by Richard Anuszkiewicz (b. 1930), 50" x 45", acrylic on canvas, is dated 1961, and it sold for $45,000 (est. $40,000/60,000). The painting illustrates the artist’s focus on the effects of various high-intensity colors on the same geometric configurations. It came from the collection of art historian, curator, and author Theodore E. Stebbins Jr., and it was exhibited at the DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts; the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut; and the Francis Frost Gallery, Newport, Rhode Island.

I’ll Write Whenever I Can, Lake Rudolf by American photographer Peter Beard (b. 1938), who spent many years in Africa, brought $35,000 (est. $30,000/50,000). The toned gelatin silver print with applied snakeskin is inscribed upper left, “Greetings from Koobu Fora (opposite North Island) / Lake Rudolf 1965 Kenya N.F.D. / Population dynamics survey for the Kenya Game Dept. / For Eyelids of Morning / The mingled destinies of crocodylus and men.” The bottom is inscribed “Salaams from P.B.” and “I’ll write whenever I can! Sincerely, Peter Beard, Box 4191 Nairobi.” The photograph sold into a Los Angeles collection from The Time is Always Now Gallery, New York City, in December 1999 and was accompanied by a copy of the bill of sale.

By Frederick John Mulhaupt (1871-1938), this 25" x 30" oil on canvas, Evening Glow, Gloucester Harbor, realized $42,500 (est. $30,000/50,000). Born in Rock Port, Missouri, the artist trained in Chicago and New York and established himself in New York City. He also worked in Paris, and then began visiting Gloucester, Massachusetts, the subject of this painting. He settled permanently in Gloucester in 1922. The painting was exhibited in 1925 at the Allied Artists of America 13th annual exhibit. It retains a Vose Galleries, Boston, label, and it had been sold into Boston collection at Skinner in February 2013.

This 20" x 25" oil on canvas, Valley Stream in Winter, by Chicago-born artist George Gardner Symons (1863-1930) sold for $32,500 (est. $15,000/25,000). The picture descended in the family to the artist’s granddaughter and then from James Snidle Fine Arts, California, to a private collection. Symons was one of the earliest American artists to visit California and spent much time there, and he also made trips to the St. Ives art colony in Cornwall, England.

This Cubist oil on canvas, 25½" x 32¼", by the Polish-born French artist Henri Hayden (1883-1970), Village Scene, is signed “Hayden.” From a New York collection, the deeply colorful work sold for $52,500 (est. $10,000/15,000).

By Jane Peterson (1876-1965), this watercolor and gouache view, Venice, with interesting flat blocks of color, is 17½" x 17½", and it sold for $42,500 (est. $20,000/30,000). Peterson made a number of grand tours, spending much time in Paris. She also studied with British artist Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956) in Venice and London. This picture had sold previously at Shannon’s in 2005 to the Illinois collector who consigned it.

This watercolor, View over Soho, Lower Manhattan, 1977-1978, by Philip Pearlstein (b. 1924), 29½" x 41", is signed and dated 1977. The painting spiked energetic bidding from about a dozen bidders and sold for $32,500 (est. $3000/5000). It retains labels from the Brooklyn Museum and the Allan Frumkin Gallery.

The picture was of interest for several reasons. After a 1974 visit to the Canyon de Chelly in Arizona, Pearlstein began to work on large landscapes of ruins in his oeuvre and included this contemporary view of Manhattan with the twin World Trade Center towers and the Statue of Liberty in the mist. Shannon’s catalog includes this quote from the cataloging of a print of this view by the Eskenazi Museum of Art in Indiana: “Although best known for his nudes in studio interiors, Pearlstein began a series of large-scale landscapes in 1974 during a visit to the Canyon de Chelly. While he envisioned this body of work as a meditation on ruins, it included this contemporary view of Manhattan. Pearlstein explained that it was inspired by Joseph Pennell’s sepia-colored WWI poster showing an apocalyptic bombing of New York City. To produce his image, Pearlstein taped a grid on the window of his friends’ Soho apartment and spent every Sunday for several months painstakingly recording the vista. The scene—which he described as a ‘pre-ruin’—is eerily prophetic with the shadowy World Trade Center towers visible in the background.”

February Morning in New Hampshire, this 25" x 30" oil on canvas by Frederick John Mulhaupt (1871-1938), sold for $32,500 (est. $20,000/30,000). The painting came from a Gloucester, Massachusetts, estate to Kaminski Auctions in 2013 and then through Vose Galleries to a Boston collection.

Originally published in the January 2020 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2020 Maine Antique Digest