Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

Keno Sells $912,500 Revolutionary Era Document

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Leigh Keno sold the most expensive lot of Americana week with Robert Livingston letter that made $912,500:

On January 26th, Keno Auctions of New York City sold a highly important and historically significant document entitled Letter fromthe Twelve United States Colonies, by their delegates in Congress to the Inhabitants of GreatBritain.  After heated competition between several phone bidders in a packed salesroom, the gavel dropped at $912,500 (including Buyer’s Premium), well above its pre-sale auction estimate of $100,000 to $400,000.

The winning bid of $912,500 was by private collector Brian Hendelson who, shortly after the auction, said “I am very excited about adding this amazing piece of history to my collection.  To be able to buy any original manuscript relating to our independence is an extremely rare opportunity. To have the opportunity to own the original draft of the final plea to Great Britain is even more extraordinary. The only thing I can compare this to would be to own the original draft of the Declaration of Independence”.

This document was long thought to be lost, but in July 2013 archivist Emilie Gruchow discovered it in the attic of the Morris-Jumel Mansion inside a folder of colonial doctor’s bills tucked away in a drawer.

Esmerian Sale sets Record at $12.95m

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Sotheby’s is celebrating the success of its $12.95m folk art sale from the Ralph Esmerian bankruptcy which slightly eclipsed the previous record set in 1994 of $12.29m:

Top prices were achieved by superb examples across a remarkable range of disciplines represented in the collection, including carvings, portraits, weathervanes, painted furniture and more. The top lot of the auction was Samuel Robb’s carved figure of Santa Claus, which sold for $875,000 – multiples of its $250,000 high estimate (image attached). Robb created the work as a Christmas present for his daughter, Elizabeth, in 1923.

Other notable prices included: Ruth Whittier Shute and Samuel Addison Shute’s Portrait of Jeremiah H. Emerson, which fetched $665,000 (est. $150/200,000); a Rare Carved Pine Pheasant Hen Weathervane, probably Connecticut circa 1875, that brought $449,000 (est. $200/3000,000); and The Carver Limner, painted by an unknown artist in Freeport, Maine circa 1835 and depicting three members of the local Carver family, which sold for $521,000 (est. $100/150,000).

Keno Auctions Americana = $3.3m

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Keno Auctions had a good sale on Park Avenue last week beating their own estimate range and selling some great finds for serious money, including the Drake Chest discovered in Upstate New York by Leigh Keno and his father Ron:

The combined morning and afternoon sessions of Keno Auctions’ Important Americana, Paintings, Furniture and Decorative Arts Sale and The PeterBrams Collection of Important Woodlands Indian Art with a combined pre-sale estimate of $1.9 million/$3.3 million exceeded its high estimate by $300,000, achieving more than $3.6 million. It became the most successful one-day sale in the young auction house’s history and set the tone for the upcoming May 15 and fall 2012 sales at Keno Auctions. The Important Americana sale fetched remarkable prices for star lots with 80% sold by lot and totaling $2,626,000; two new world auction records were established for a 17th century joined chest and a Federal painted table, which led the sale. The afternoon session was dedicated to the landmark auction of property from the iconic collection of Peter Brams. The single owner sale was a tribute to the discerning eye of this celebrated inveterate collector, with 81% sold by lot totaling $889,900 and saw a world record set for a Native American effigy ladle.

Keno Auctions Important Americana & Peter Brams Post-Sale Press Release (Final)

The Fabled & Forgotten Furniture Makers of Rhode Island

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Eve Kahn has a fascinating look in The New York Times at scholar Patricia Kane’s website tracking the fabled and forgotten furniture makers of Rhode Island, many of whose work is now worth millions of dollars.

A decade ago she started collecting data for Yale’s online Rhode Island Furniture Archive, intending to cover all the state’s cabinetmakers and their surviving products in private and museum collections. But the site,rifa.art.yale.edu, soon ballooned past her expectations.

Scheduled for completion in a few years, the site already lists 1,800 artisans and 2,000 objects, searchable by the names of workshops, hometowns and owners, among other terms. […] Auction descriptions mention Yale’s Web site. Ms. Kane’s team has scoured Rhode Island government archives, recording references to anyone who built furniture, houses, ships and coffins. Such dry paperwork has yielded vivid moments: when artisans went bankrupt, their tools were meticulously inventoried. “It all felt very real,” Ms. Kane said.

New details have emerged about obscure makers like Goddard’s nephew Thomas Spencer. His workshop in East Greenwich, R.I., is known to have made only one object, a 1770s mahogany desk and bookcase. The piece belonged to the Revolutionary War hero Nathanael Greene and is now at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Spencer briefly dabbled in woodworking, Yale reports, and then became a storekeeper and real-estate developer around Albany.

Yale tries to note the most up-to-date locations for each piece. But longtime high-profile owners, including the Chipstone Foundation near Milwaukee and heirs of the Rhode Island historian Joseph K. Ott, have consigned works to the January sales.

“I hadn’t anticipated all the little steps involved in keeping it current,” Ms. Kane said.

18-Century Artisans, Tracked the Modern Way (New York Times)

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