Antiques & Collectibles
Property of the George Washington Foundation and the Rick and Terry Ciccotelli
Folk Art Collection are among the offerings at Northeast Auctions Annual Summer Americana Auction Friday at 3 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday at 10 a.m. at Center of New Hampshire in Manchester.
The 32 lots of property consigned by the foundation are highlighted by a circa 1760 Philadelphia Chippendale high chest of drawers, expected to bring $90,000-$150,000.
The foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Fredericksburg, Va., maintains Ferry Farm, Washington’s boyhood home, and Kenmore, the 1775 Georgian-style home of his sister, Betty Washington Lewis, and her husband, Colonel Fielding Lewis
Massachusetts furniture from the collection includes an 18th-century Queen Anne walnut dressing table ($8,000-$10,000) and a pair of Chippendale mahogany side chairs ($5,000-$8,000).
The 74-lot collecton formed by Rick and Terry Ciccotelli of Philadelphia features fraktur and painted furniture, boxes, baskets, pottery, and tinware with a selection of other folk art.
Their collecting started with fraktur, the decorated manuscripts produced by Pennsylvania German immigrants and whose scriptural texts had special appeal for Rick, a former professor of religious studies. After his death last year, Terry decided the treasures they collected should find “their own new and happy homes.’’
Highlighting the fraktur are a 1779 baptismal wish or record, and a presentation drawing, each with a $10,000-$15,000 estimate.
The Ciccotellis’ interest in fraktur led to other areas of folk art, mainly objects with painted surfaces such as the Mahantongo Valley lift-top chest ($35,000-$50,0000) decorated with praying children.
The 33 other paint-decorated offerings are as varied as a tin coffeepot ($20,000-$30,000), a circa 1831 oval storage box ($30,000-$50,000), and a signboard for “D. Thurber 2nd Shoe-Maker’’ ($8,000-$12,000), probably made for Daniel Thurber II of Mendon, and found in a Milford shed.
The auction also features property from the estate of the late John Brace Latham, a former Boston resident, whose interest in antique clocks led him to Lancaster, Pa., where he studied clock repair and construction at the Bowman Technical School.
The 17 clocks and watches in his nearly 150-lot collection of furniture, decorative arts, lighting, pottery, and porcelain includes a Federal-style clock which he made and is expected to bring $1,000-$2,000.
Highlights from other consignors include a Shaker two-part bonnet cupboard and chest of drawers ($40,000-$60,000), and an 1820s portrait ($30,000-$50,000) by John Brewster Jr. (1760-1854) of young Sarah Little Bryant, whose father was a two-term mayor of Bangor.
A painting of local interest is “View of the Mystic Lakes, Winchester, Massachusetts’’ ($10,000-$15,000), painted in 1879 by the Boston artist Benjamin Champney (1817-1907).
. . .
“Sail Boat,’’ a white-line color woodcut by Blanche Lazzell (1878-1956), the West Virginia-born Provincetown artist and printmaker, headlines Eldred’s Americana, Paintings & Sporting Art Auction Wednesday at noon, and Thursday and Friday at 10 a.m. at its East Dennis gallery.
The 13-by-11-inch wood cut, which was featured in the Museum of Fine Arts 2002 exhibition “From Paris to Provincetown: Blanche Lazzell and the Color Woodcut,’’ has a $100,000- $150,000 estimate.
Lazzell became the leading figure of the technique invented in 1915 that uses a single block with white lines separating the different colors;
traditional Japanese woodblock uses separate blocks for each color.
Another highlight is the whimsical painting “Shocking Incident on Route 28 Cape Cod’’ ($40,000-$60,000) by the Cape Cod artist Ralph Cahoon Jr. (1910-82), depicting a fender-bender between two antique cars, one with mermaids, the other with sailors.
Cahoon also decorated furniture; an example is the Victorian secretary with Swedish decoration being auctioned with a $15,000-$25,000 estimate.
Another offering of decorated furniture, featuring pieces painted in the 1930s and ’40s by the Cape Cod folk artist Peter Hunt (1898-1964), is highlighted by a ladies fall-front desk and a drop-leaf table, each with a $400-$700 estimate.
Of historic significance is an 18th-century British document trunk with the initials “GR’’ for King George III. It was acquired by General Artemas Ward, the Shrewsbury native in command of the 1775 siege of Boston, when the trunk was left behind during the British evacuation.
The trunk with its contents — about 70 papers, linens, and uniform items — has descended in his family and is being offered with a $2,000- $3,000 estimate. A Sheraton secretary ($5,000-$7,000), a tall-case clock ($6,000-$9,000), 18th-century currency ($400-$600), a slave bill of sale ($500-$1,000), and assorted bills for home furnishings ($200-$300) also have been consigned by the descendants.
. . .
The top 10 lots at Skinner’s European Furniture & Decorative Arts Auction featuring fine ceramics all sold above their estimates, with two 1880 Meissen ewers bringing the auction’s top price of $44,438. The estimate was $10,000-$15,000.
The auction also saw Wedgwood Fairyland Lustre bringing top prices, with two circa 1920 vases selling for $23,700 and $20,825, each well above its $5,000-$7,000 estimate.
A large 19th-century Russian church icon depicting the Dormition of the Virgin brought $24,885 (estimate: $4,000-$6,000),while a 19th-century French bronze and marble mantel clock sold for $17,775 (estimate: $1,500-$2,000).
The sale had two sleepers, a Chamberlain’s Worcester 10-inch heart-shaped dish which went for $15,405 against a $400-$600 estimate and a 19th-century unsigned Italian School painting for $18,960 against a $300- $500 estimate.
The 850-lot auction grossed $1.2 million against an $882,000-$1.3 million estimate.
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