read more - Grogan and Company

- A UC TI O N Grogan & Company, Boston, Massachusetts
The September Auction
Two suits of armor came
from an area collection.
This 16th-century European
composite example with later
additions, 70" tall, brought
$9150 from an online bidder.
by Frances McQueeney-Jones Mascolo
S
hort and sweet—that was the 222-lot Grogan &
Company auction on September 27, 2015, in its
Boston gallery. Just before Christmas 2014, after 20
years in suburban Dedham, Massachusetts, the auction
house arrived on Beacon Hill with a new direction. Large
American and Continental case pieces are no longer the
norm; instead, it’s a bijoux gallery tailored to meet the
needs of its new neighbors. Although furniture is still on
offer, and the gallery can accommodate plenty of large
pieces, paintings and jewelry prevail, along with smaller
furniture and decorative accessories. The new formula
seems to be working.
Plenty of seats were available when Michael B. Grogan
took the podium at noon, but it took no time at all for
them to fill. Passersby peered in the windows at the back
of the gallery, and a few even ventured in, but the real
action was on the phones and the Internet. Some 30 of
the lots failed to sell, but
The new formula even so, the day’s total
was over $1 million.
seems to
The highlight of the
be working.
day was a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin
(1840-1917), Torse Morhardt. Cast in 1956, it sold on
the phone for $73,200 (including buyer’s premium).
The 14½" high torso of a seated woman was signed “A.
Rodin” and numbered “No. 5” on the right leg, bore the
1956 copyright of the Rodin Museum in Paris under
the right leg, and was signed “Georges Rudier, Fondeur
Paris” on the left leg. The catalog notes indicate that
Rodin created the form around 1895 and this particular
version in 1899. It came from the collection of Russianborn British industrialist Sir Leon Bagrit, had descended
in his family to a Vermont consignor, and sold to a
collector in the Washington, D.C., area.
A 15½" x 12¼" (sight size) framed charcoal on paper
drawing of a woman’s head by German artist Wilhelm
Heinrich Otto Dix (1891-1969), signed and dated 1919,
sold on the phone for $45,750. On the reverse was a label
from Selected Artists Galleries, New York City, where
it was priced at $1100, and a more recent label from
the 1988 exhibition 1900 to Now: Modern Art from R.I.
Collections at the Rhode Island School of Design.
The Challenge, an 18" x 36" oil on canvas by Montague
Dawson (British, 1895-1973), depicts a scene with the
1934 British America’s Cup contender Endeavour, then
owned by aviation industrialist Sir Thomas Octave
Murdoch Sopwith. The J boat did not win the challenge,
as its last-minute volunteer crew was very inexperienced.
The painting had been purchased at Vose Galleries,
Boston, in 1935 and retains that label. It descended in
the family of the original Cape Ann, Massachusetts,
purchaser and sold on the phone for $39,650. Dawson’s
A Summer Day, a 16" x 25½" (sight size) watercolor on
paper depiction of a full-rigged ship with the shoreline
on the horizon, was signed and inscribed “I certify this
this [sic] to be my original work.” From the same Cape
Ann collection, it went at $5185 to a different phone
bidder.
A View of Syra from the Sea was an 11½" x 19¼"
(sight size) watercolor and ink on paper view of the
Greek island Syros by the English poet, artist, illustrator,
musician, author, and peripatetic traveler Edward Lear
(1812-1888) , who is also known for his limericks. Dated
October 4, 1856, the painting sold online for $10,370
(est. $2000/3000).
The Long Lagoon, a 6" x 8⅞" etching and drypoint
view of Venice by James Abbott McNeil Whistler (18341903), came from the Cape Ann collection and sold
for $7015 to a phone bidder who also paid $2074 for
Whistler’s 1896 lithograph of Charing Cross Railway
Bridge, 5⅛" x 8½" (sight size), which came from the
same collection. However, Whistler’s 5⅞" x 9" etching of
Billingsgate, likely the ninth state, failed to find a buyer
(est. $500/1000). The buyer of the Whistler prints also
paid $15,860 for the Le Village by Maurice de Vlaminck
(1876-1958), a 15½" x 20½" (sight size) watercolor on
paper, also from the same collection.
Mountain Landscape, a 14½" x 21½" oil on board
by Norwegian artist Johan Christian Dahl (1788-1857),
signed and dated 1847, sold on the phone for $10,980. It
had come from the Bagrit collection.
Catlin’s North American Indian Portfolio. Hunting
Scenes and Amusements of the Rocky Mountains and
Prairies of America., the 1844 publication of George
Catlin (1794-1872), sold on the phone for $33,550.
From the Cape Ann collection, it included 20 of 25 handcolored lithographs (missing plates 6, 8, 12, 20 and 22),
and each 17¾" x 12" sheet was mounted on board.
Morning, Gloucester Harbor, a 20" x 24" oil on canvas
by Emile Albert Gruppé (1896-1978), a complex scene
of fisherman setting to work, sold for $5490, and his
10¼" x 12" oil on canvas of Mount Monadnock sold for
$5185 to an online bidder. Several bidders really wanted
Interior, a 20¼" x 18¼" oil on cretonne (a heavy cotton
or linen cloth) by Darrel Austin (1907-1994); estimated
at $500/1000, the circa 1937 painting sold for $3660.
Two lots by Spanish artist Angel Botello (19131986), who also worked in Puerto Rico, came from a
Massachusetts collection. Coquette, a 14" high bronze
with silver patina, #8/10, went to a phone bidder for
$12,200, and two lithographs, Violinista (#28/50) and
Mother and Child (labeled “A/P”), sold as one lot to
another phone bidder for $2440 (est. $500/1000).
All seven lots of sculptures by Emil Fuchs (1866-1929)
found buyers. His 1922 Arabesque, a 22" x 14¼" x 41/16"
bronze, brought $3050 from a phone bidder. Offered
as one lot, The Dancer, a 127/16" x 8" x 37/8" bronze and
marble of circa 1912, Dawn, a 13¼" x 4" x 4¼" bronze
and stone, and Lazy, a 12¾" x 4" x 4¼" bronze and stone,
fetched $3050 from the same phone bidder.
Jewelry sales were impressive overall. A 15" necklace
of 53 graduated natural pearls with a platinum and
diamond clasp (est. $4000/6000) sold for $67,100 to one
of nine phone bidders; accompanied by a GIA report,
it went to the trade. A Tiffany & Company 14k yellow
gold, platinum, sapphire, and diamond ring in an Art
Deco setting (est. $3000/5000) drew 11 phone bidders
who pushed the ring to $67,100 from a New York
collector. Other shining lots included a 175-piece Tiffany
& Company sterling silver flatware service for 12 in the
Chrysanthemum pattern, 268 ounces total weight, and
the original fitted oak storage box; the lot sold to a phone
bidder for $15,860.
Although a late 18th-century Chippendale walnut
four-drawer chest had some condition problems (est.
$1000/1500), it nevertheless sold for $610.
For more information, contact Grogan & Company at
(617) 720-2020; website (www.groganco.com).
The 17th-century Japanese
tatami-do-no-gusoku (suit of
armor), the mempo signed
Munetsuna, sold on the
phone for $12,200. In 1985
it had sold at Christie’s for
$3840.
Le Sapin, La Maison de Nuremburg, a 7" x 10" (sight size)
colored pencil drawing by Belgian artist James Ensor
(1860-1949), came from the Bagrit collection and sold for
$9760 (est. $10,000/20,000) to an overseas buyer on the
phone. The framed work bears a label from World House
Galleries, New York City, which dated it to around 1911-12.
Le Village, a 15½" x 20½" (sight size) watercolor by Maurice
de Vlaminck (1876-1958), sold for $15,860.
This 18" x 36" oil on canvas by Montague Dawson (British, 1895-1973), The
Challenge, a scene with the 1934 America’s Cup British contender Endeavour,
which was owned by aviation industrialist Sir Thomas Sopwith, sold on the
phone for $39,650. The other yacht is unidentified.
The 10½" high Sauterelles (“Grasshoppers”)
vase, designed by René Lalique about 1912
and executed in deep green glass, sold online
for $15,860 (est. $3000/5000).
☞
Maine Antique Digest, January 2016 11-B
11-B
- A UC TI O N -
Stanley, the auction house dog, has seen it all and
keeps it close.
Michael Grogan might be the president and chief auctioneer of Grogan
& Company, but he performs tasks as directed by the gallery’s director
and vice president, daughter Lucy Grogan.
Lucy Grogan represents the second generation
of Grogans at the Beacon Hill auction gallery.
The 46" high iron and brass music
stand of 1971 by Albert Paley (b.
1944), said to be the first piece of furniture designed and made by the artist, sold for $30,500 (est. $3000/5000)
to a local collector on the phone.
The 5" long Italian micromosaic casket by
Cesare Roccheggiani, which depicts various
views of Rome, sold on the phone for $5795.
The 18th-century Continental carved fruitwood chest, 34" x
47" x 21½", sold for $3550 to a buyer in the gallery. The pair
of Chinese porcelain blue-and-white ginger jars, 11" high,
sold in the gallery for $1342.
The pair of 16½" high Louis
XV-style carved marble vases with
ormolu mounts (one shown), drilled
as lamps, came from a Gloucester,
Massachusetts, collection and sold
online for $2745.
The 1919 charcoal on paper drawing of a woman’s
head by German artist Otto Dix (1891-1969), 15½" x
12¼" (sight size), went at $45,750 to a phone bidder.
A phone bidder paid $6100 for the
18" x 28" oil on canvas portrait of
the horse Delaware by Canadian
American artist Henry Stull (18511913) , signed and dated 1890, and
$5490 for Stull’s 17" x 27" signed
oil on canvas portrait of the horse
Bushranger (not shown).
12-B Maine Antique Digest, January 2016
12-B
An imposing pair of carved and
painted Neoclassical style carved,
painted, and gilt marble-top console tables (one shown), 33" x 32"
x 15", and mirrors, 81" x 30", that
came from a local historical house
sold online for $3660.
Arabian Chiefs, a 63½"
x 26⅝" oil on canvas
by George Baer (1895-1971), sold for $2745. The painting dated from
around 1926 and had been given to the Brooklyn Museum of Art by Ellen
Hopkins. The African-themed artworks of Chicago-born George Baer
and his brother Martin (1895-1961) were the subject of a 1926 exhibition
in Paris by the Durand-Ruel gallery.
- A UC TI O N -
Wading by Edward Henry Potthast (1857-1927), an 11¼"
x 15½" oil on board sunlit scene of children playing at the
seashore, went to the New York trade at $48,800. The painting
bears the labels of Traxel Art Galleries, Cincinnati, Ohio,
and Anderson Art Co., Fine Arts, Chicago, and came from
a private collection. It will be included in the forthcoming
Potthast catalogue raisonné by Mary Leonard Ran.
Emile Albert Gruppé’s Morning, Gloucester Harbor, a 20" x 24"
oil on canvas, sold for $5490.
Torse Feminin Assis dit “Torse Morhardt”
Grand Model, a 14½" high bronze torso of
a seated woman by Auguste Rodin (18401917), cast in 1956, sold for $73,200 to a
bidder on the phone. Signed “A. Rodin”
and numbered “No. 5” on the right leg,
the bronze also bears the 1956 copyright
of the Rodin Museum in Paris under
the right leg, and the left leg is signed
“Georges Rudier, Fondeur Paris.”
This 5½" x 7½" gouache still life by Georges
Valmier (1885-1937) had been exhibited at
the Rhode Island School of Design Museum
of Art in Providence, Rhode Island, and the
Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From a Boston estate, it sold on the
phone for $23,180 (est. $5000/10,000).
Winter Hills, a 19¼" x 24¼" (sight size) watercolor by Frank Weston
Benson (1862-1951), signed and dated 1927, brought $13,420. It came
from a Gloucester, Massachusetts, collection.
This 15¾" x 20" oil on canvasboard by Eric Sloane (1905-1985)
sold for $3355. Night Flight depicts a twin-prop aircraft above a
cloud bank with city lights below.
Italian Fiesta Day, a 28" x 46" oil on canvas by Boston artist George Hawley Hallowell (1871-1926), sold in the room for
$6100.
A late 18th- or early 19th-century pair of 12" diameter English
table terrestrial (shown) and celestial (not shown) globes by
London makers J. & W. Cary drew $7320 from a phone bidder.
The cover lot, Girl with the Ring, an 11¼" x 12½" (sight
size) watercolor by John La Farge (1835-1910), signed and
dated July 1890, came from the Cape Ann, Massachusetts,
collection. Estimated at $20,000/40,000, it was a very good
buy when it sold to an area collector for $12,200.
The George III mahogany tall-case clock
by Thomas Wagstaffe of London brought
$976 from an online buyer.
Maine Antique Digest, January 2016 13-B
13-B