| Press Contact: | Stephen Fletcher, Director | Catherine Riedel, Director |
| American Furniture | Marketing & Public Relations | |
| & Decorative Arts | Skinner, Inc | |
|
978-779-6241 ext. 228 |
978-779-6241 x231 |
SKINNER AUCTIONS AMERICAN FURNITURE
& DECORATIVE ARTS JUNE 5TH IN BOSTON
BOSTON, Mas. -May 16, 2004 – www.skinnerinc.com - - Skinner, one of the nation's leading auction houses, will hold an auction of American furniture and decorative arts on Sunday, June 5th, in Boston. Commencing at 11 a.m., the sale will include an extraordinary selection of American furniture from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, as well as exceptional offerings of paintings, portraiture, needlework, pottery, and other decorative arts.
Furniture
The auction features some especially rare pieces of furniture. Most important, according to department director Stephen Fletcher, is a Philadelphia Chippendale walnut dressing table, from the late 1740s-late 1750s, attributed to the cabinetmaking shop of Henry Clifton and Thomas Carteret, and the carver, Nicholas Bernard (lot 81, $15/25,000). Bernard, a distinguished Philadelphia carver, probably trained or worked in the shadow of Samuel Harding, one of the most important carvers in the first half of the 18th century in Philadelphia. Additional highlights include a set of three Boston Federal mahogany and mahogany veneer side chairs attributed to Thomas Seymour, possibly with John Seymour, 1808-12 (lot 121, $15/25,000). The chairs come to the sale through family descent from Levi Lincoln, Jr. (1782-1868), who was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, and had a distinguished political career with leadership positions at the local, state, and national level. Other early furniture includes an early red painted and crease-molded pine board chest from the Connecticut River Valley (1675-1725) (lot 123, $15/20,000), a turned maple and ash great chair, probably from Essex, Massachusetts in the 1690s, with old surface (lot 124, $4/6,000), and a diminutive 18th century New England blue-gray painted hanging pine cupboard in original paint (lot 125, $3/5,000).
Other important furniture includes a Newport Chippendale mahogany upholstered easy chair (lot 82, $75/100,000) from an old collection. An 18th century Queen Anne carved cherry high chest from Newburyport, Massachusetts, or southern New Hampshire, also will be featured (lot 70, $30/50,000), descended through the family to the consignor from Capt. Peter Coffin (b. 1722) of Newbury, Massachusetts. An ardent patriot, Coffin was a member of the Provincial Congress, held in Exeter, New Hampshire on April 21, 1775, and also served in the campaign of 1777 when General Burgoyne surrendered his troops at Saratoga. Additional highlights include a striking Portsmouth, New Hampshire Federal mahogany, rosewood, and flame birch veneer bowfront bureau, c. 1800, inlaid with shaped panels on each drawer (lot 120, $15/20,000), and a northeastern Massachusetts transitional mahogany inlaid serpentine chest of drawers, c. 1780 (lot 105, $10/15,000). Painted furniture also will be featured, highlighted by lot 164, an early 19th century Pennsylvania paint decorated pine dower chest, its original surface decorated with pinwheels and quarter-fans in green, salmon, and mustard ($4/6,000), and lot 77, a fancy painted and decorated settee, c. 1830-40 ($3/5,000).
Paintings
Most extraordinary among the auction's paintings is the Painting of the "Union Wadding Co." Fire, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, 1870, by J. P. Fisk (lot 104, $75/125,000). The Union Wadding Co. produced cotton wadding and batting, and suffered one of Pawtucket's most destructive fires on September 10, 1870. The event was depicted in meticulous detail by railroad commuter and eyewitness, J. P. Fisk, whose work records the position of the buildings, the steamers, the firemen, the passing railroad trains, the churches and dwellings in the distance, as well as the onlookers, against the backdrop of Pawtucket's skyline lit by the fire's orange glow. Existing documentation of the fire provides interesting, vivid commentary on the fire. A passage from the Providence Daily Journal's contemporary account in the September 10, 1870, issue notes: "…the watchman…found the new dye room at the south end of the building to be on fire. He gave the alarm which does not appear however to have been communicated with much alertness and by the time the engines were all on the ground, the fire had gained considerable headway and was running along inside the whole length of the building. Water was scarce and the small quantity in the cisterns in the neighborhood was soon exhausted without much effect on the devouring flames which poured a fiery rain of sparks through the windows and fed rapidly on the rafters of the roof." More can be found in the Pawtucket Gazette and Chronicle in May 1872, which reports, in part: "The Union Wadding Company was the largest and best arranged establishment of the kind in the country." The newspaper also reported in 1872 that "through the efforts of the Fairmount Steam Fire Engine Co. no. 3, this scene is being transferred to canvas by a Boston artist." The painting hung at the Union Wadding Co., whose records date to 1771, until its recent closing. Three books relating to the Union Wadding Co. will accompany the lot.
Of particular interest in the auction's selection of portraiture is a rare portrait of Abraham Lincoln, 1860 (lot 240, $6/8,000), attributed to George Frederick Wright (1828-1881). Wright spent most of his career as a portrait painter in Hartford, Connecticut, but in 1860 he traveled to Springfield, Illinois to paint a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, then the Republican nominee for the presidency. According to the New-York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America, 1564-1860 (Groce and Wallace, Yale University Press), while residing Springfield, Wright and his family became personal friends with the Lincoln family. Another rarity in the sale is the portrait Daguerreotype of the thirteenth U.S. President, Millard Fillmore (1800-1874), c. 1850 (lot 241, $8/12,000). A portrait similar to this piece, taken c. 1850 by the Boston studio of Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes, is in the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Also in the Presidential realm is a 1789 George Washington Commemorative Inaugural button (lot 243, $1/1,500), sold as a souvenir for the second inauguration of Washington in 1789, with a sunburst above a spread-winged eagle and American shield, surrounded by the inscription "MARCH THE FOURTH 1789 MEMORABLE ERA."
Additional highlights in portraiture include the Portrait of Ellen F. Clark (b. 1839) and Her Brother George Lemuel Clark (1845-1851), attributed to John Carlin, a well-known New York artist (lot 184, $12/18,000). The painting was purchased directly from descendants of the family. Family history will be provided at the time of purchase, including information about Thomas J. G. Clark of Framingham, Massachusetts, father of the children in the portrait, who later had a thriving business in New York manufacturing straw hats. A hinged silver carte de visite that belonged to Ellen Howe Clark, mother of the children, also accompanies this lot.
Marine Paintings
Highlighting the selection of marine paintings is the portrait of the schooner Walter Francis, c. 1853, by James Edward Buttersworth (lot 84, $25/35,000). This painting shows the Walter Francis, and beyond her the famous extreme clipper ship Jacob Bell. The Jacob Bell was launched in New York on November 12, 1852. Her maiden voyage was from New York to San Francisco; she was later captured, plundered, and burned by the Confederate raider Florida on February 12, 1863. Other marine paintings featured in the sale include several works by Antonio Jacobsen, one of which is a large (30 x 50 ¼ inches) portrait of the Excursion Steamer Providence, part of the Fall River line of steamships (lot 85, $15/25,000). Additional offerings include the Portrait of the Schooner "Edward H. Cole" by Samuel Finley Morse Badger (lot 34, $6/8,000), of interest because it depicts a four-masted vessel. By the 19th century Chinese painter Sunqua is the Historically Important Painting of the Paddle Steamer FORBES off Linton, c. 1830 (lot 87, $6/8,000), a work that chronicles early opium trafficking off the coast of China in the 19th century. The Forbes was the first foreign steamer to arrive in China. Foreign merchants used the waters off Linton as the base of operation for the opium trade, the area being beyond the jurisdiction of the Chinese port authorities. From there, opium was stored and sold on the famous "opium clippers." Depicted off the bow of the Forbes in the painting is a British clipper ship; the smaller secondary vessel was a "fast crab" or "scrambling dragon" used by the Tanka boatmen to transport the opium from the ships to Canton, where it had been previously purchased.
Decorative Arts
Decorative arts in the sale include a large and beautifully drawn 19th century engraved whale tooth (lot 86, $15/25,000). The carving depicts George Washington in an oval reserve, over an American flag and a spread-winged eagle grasping an anchor of Hope and an olive branch in its talons, a banner inscribed "IN GOD WE HOPE" held in its beak, and a three-masted vessel in the distance. The reverse depicts a "Sperm Whale Fishery."
The auction features a good selection of needlework, most of which comes from a fine New Hampshire collection. Highlighting the offerings is a very rare shaped rectangular canvaswork pincushion, probably from Chester County, Pennsylvania, worked in an Irish stitch with wool threads in undulating waves of graded colors centered with a geometric diamond design, and corner blocks stitched with the owner's or maker's initials "ME" and the year "1768." The obverse is centered with a large shaded red flower blossom surrounded by several smaller blossoms in graded shades of red, blue, and pink (lot 106, $6/8,000). Additional offerings include a number of weather vanes in a variety of forms, including lot 212, a molded copper and cast lead centaur weather vane, attributed to A.L. Jewell & Co. of Waltham, Massachusetts ($20/30,000). Also featured is a silver cann by Jacob Hurd (1702/3-1758), made c. 1728, and bearing Hurd's touchmark. The cann has descended in the family from the original owner, Samuel Whitney (1734-1808). A Revolutionary War patriot, Whitney lived for many years in Boston, and then in Concord, Massachusetts, where he was "Muster Master," and later, a member of the Provincial Congress (1774-75) and a member of the Committee of Correspondence. He fought at the Old North Bridge as a member of the Concord Minutemen, who met and drove back the British. Whitney moved back to Boston in 1776, when the British evacuated, and engaged in various mercantile activities until his family and he moved to Castine, Maine, in 1793.
Highlighting the pottery selection is a cobalt-decorated salt-glazed circular stoneware inkwell, made c. 1797, the top decorated with incised and cobalt-filled bell flowers, the sides with incised and line-glazed inscriptions "P.B. 1797," "N.Y.," and "R." (lot 149, $10/15,000). The decoration resembles the incised and cobalt-filled decoration found on pottery made by two early New York potteries near the end of the 18th century: the Remmey family of potters, and the Crolius Pottery, which were located in close proximity to each other on Potter's Hill on Manhattan Island. In fact, the rounded leaf tips on this inkwell are similar in decoration to that of stoneware items decorated by Henry Remmey, one of two grandsons of the original pottery owner John Remmey, working at the time this inkwell was made.
Previews and Special Event
Previews for the auction will be 12 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, June 1st and Thursday, June 2nd, 12 to 8 p.m. Friday, June 3rd, 12 to 5 p.m. Saturday, June 4th, and 8 to 10 a.m. Sunday, June 5th. On Friday, June 3rd, there will be a gallery walk featuring Stephen Fletcher, director, and Martha Hamilton, specialist, of Skinner's department of American Furniture and Decorative Arts, who will discuss highlights of the upcoming auction. Reservations are limited for the event, which will begin with a reception at 5:30 p.m., followed by the gallery walk at 6:30 p.m. All those interested in attending should R.S.V.P. to 617-350-5400.
Catalogue Information
Illustrated catalogue #2295 is available by mail for $32 ($39 for foreign requests) from the subscription department at 978-779-6241 x240. It is also available at the gallery for $29. Prices realized will be available at www.skinnerinc.com during and after the sale. For more information on the auction, auction preview times, and the gallery walk, visit Skinner's website at www.skinnerinc.com. Skinner's site also allows users to view all lots in the auctions, leave bids, and order catalogues online.
Note to Editors: Photos available upon request. Contact Catherine Riedel at 978-779-6241 x 231.
About Skinner:With galleries in Boston and Bolton, Mass., Skinner is a full-service auctioneer and appraiser of antiques and fine art. Regularly seen on the PBS series, Antiques Roadshow, Skinner is one of the nation’s leading auction houses. Skinner conducts auctions year-round and has received world-record prices for many pieces sold at auction. Departments include American Furniture & Decorative Arts, Paintings & Prints, English & Continental Furniture & Decorations, Fine Ceramics, Jewelry, Couture, 20th Century Furniture & Decorative Arts, Fine Musical Instruments, Asian Art, Fine Judaica, Toys, Dolls & Collectibles, Science & Technology, Oriental Rugs & Carpets, American Indian & Ethnographica, and Discovery. For more information on upcoming auctions, visit Skinner’s web site www.skinnerinc.com.