Fitz Hugh Lane View of West Beach Sells for Record $3.8 Million at Skinner
Boston, MA -- A sunset view by 19th century luminist painter Fitz Hugh Lane (American, 1804-1865) set a new auction record for the artist on May 9th at Skinner/Boston. Bidding for View of West Beach, Beverly, Massachusetts, Sunset opened at $500,000, and steadily rose until one of two telephone bidders made the final offer of $3.85 million. Colleene Fesko, director of Skinner's American and European Paintings Department said of the results, "It's a spectacular painting. We're thrilled with the tremendous interest the piece attracted and the price it realized."
Skinner also had set the previous record for a Fitz Hugh Lane painting, when Sunset at Gloucester Harbor sold at the Boston gallery for $3.3 million in September of 1995. At the time, it was a record for the artist and the largest amount paid in America to date for a painting at auction outside of New York. The May 9th price set a new record high in both categories. "That two of his paintings sold for over $3 million in less than two years," said Fesko, "unquestionably establishes Lane among the finest of American painters."
"View of West Beach... was what every auctioneer hopes to find," remarked Fesko. The owners of the Lane had contacted Skinner for a routine appraisal, and made reference to a painting by the artist 'Hugh' as an afterthought. Further inspection and research by Skinner specialists revealed a previously unknown work by the Gloucester artist Fitz Hugh Lane, further verified by a sketch of the same subject by Lane in the collection of the Cape Ann Historical Museum in Gloucester.
Established in 1971 and currently the nation's fourth largest auction gallery, Skinner, auctioneers and appraisers of antiques and fine art, conducts over sixty auctions annually. Operating out of locations in Boston and Bolton, Massachusetts, Skinner is the foremost auction gallery in New England.