Under The Hammer – Antique Auction News (Jan. 2010)

~ Bonhams & Butterfields’ Native American Art Department’s Winter Sale on December 14 yielded $2.3 million from property offered from estates, museums and private collections from across the U.S. and Europe. Grease bowls in use circa 1800 by the Tinglit or Haida from the Berthusen Collection were the top items. A 12-inch bowl carved with the head and tail of an eagle sold for $230,000. A ten-inch-long Northwest Coast bowl carved in the likeness of a seal effigy with head, tail and flippers projecting at the ends, sold for $206,000. Both bowls were estimated at $75-$125,000. Selling within estimate was another Northwest Coast seal effigy grease bowl with a human and bird figure sold for $67,100, and an eight-inch bowl with a dark oily patina exceeded its estimate to bring $79,300.

Also from the museum collection was a Haida frontlet, seven-inches high and six-inches wide depicting a seated figure with raised hands and abalone insets representing eyes and teeth. It sold for $146,000, doubling the estimate. A collector paid five times the estimate, $30,500, for a Northwest Coast crest ornament carved to depict a crouching humanoid figure. It measured a little more than five inches.

From an old New Mexico family estate came a thick-walled 22-inch Kiua storage jar with a red-painted rim and a series of dark blossoms adorning the sides. The jar more than doubled its estimate to bring $115,900. A Zuni polychrome drum jar standing 18 inches high and featuring two varied depictions of a puma in pursuit of a deer sold for twice the estimate, bringing $30,500.

With baskets offered, Navajo and Yokut examples brought top prices. A set of four Navajo polychrome baskets, woven in bold patterns of Spider Woman crosses, more than doubled the estimate to bring $5,185. A Yokut polychrome cooking basket, extremely finely woven with butterfly bands, sold for $7,320, and a six-inch tall Yokut polychrome bottleneck basket with a diamond rattlesnake band on the sides and a dance row of humanoid figures on the shoulder brought $9,760.

A Hopi twill weave “bachelor’s blanket” sold for $7,930, and $36,600 was paid for a vibrant Crow beaded cradle, 40-inches long, with classic Crow styling.

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~ A 1913 Liberty Nickel, PR 64 NGC, rocketed to $3,737,500, the third highest amount paid for a U.S. coin. The auction took place at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, on January 7. Two other coins also topped the $1 million mark.

The 1913 Liberty Nickel, known as the Olsen specimen has been dubbed “the most famous American coin in existence” Five nickels somehow avoided the Buffalo nickel design which should have appeared on every coin dated 1913. Of these five with the Liberty design, two are in museum collections. The Olsen specimen was once owned by King Farouk of Egypt and Jerry Buss, one-time owner of the LA Lakers. The coin sold for $3 million in 2004.

The other million-dollar coins were: a 1927-D Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle MS66 PCGS, one of only nine publicly available of 13 known, $1,495,000; and one of only two known 1874 Dana Bickford $10 Gold coins, this one Judd-1373, Pollock-1518, R.8, PR65 Deep Cameo PCGS, $1,265,000.

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~ Christie’s sale of the Collection of Benjamin F. Edwards III in New York on January 26th realized $7 million is sales. Highlights included: a pair of Verte-Imari candelabra, circa 1725, $242,500; a George II silver cake basket with the mark of Paul de Lamerie, London, 1739, $218,500; a George II silver cake basket with the mark of John Edwards, London, 1731, $188,500; and an English Delft dated portrait charger of Charles II, dated 1662, $170,500. All prices include buyer’s premium.

Also at Christie’s New York, its Old Master & 19th Century Paintings, Drawings & Watercolors on January 27 achieved $39.5 million. The top works were: “The Entrance to the Turkish Garden Café” by Louis Léopold Boilly (1761-1845), 1812, oil on canvas, $4,562,500, a world auction record for the artist and purchased for the J. Paul Getty Museum; “Diana and Callisto” by Gaetano Gandolfi (1734-1802), oil on canvas, $4,114,500, also a world auction record; “The Entry of Animals into Noah’s Ark” by Jan Brueghel II (1601-1678), oil on panel, $2,882,500; and “Elements: Fire, Water, Earth and Air” by Jan Breughel II and Frans Francken II (1581-1642), oil on panel, $2,210,500. All prices include buyer’s premium.

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~ Sotheby’s January 27 Old Masters’ Drawings was highlighted by drawings by Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto. Both were pen and brown ink and gray and brown wash over black chalk. “Study of a Merchant Vessel,” Venice 1697-1768, made $542,500, and “An Architectural Capriccio with a Pavilion and a Ruined Arcade on the Water’s Edge” brought $302,000.