Tag Archives: Auctions

January 25, 2015

White Report

By daseger

Oh the indignity! All day long yesterday (and still) the Skinner’s site reported that Frank Weston Benson’s Figure in White, recently deaccessioned by the Salem Public Library so that funds could be raised to fix a fountain, went unsold, but now the Salem News is reporting that BENTON’s painting went for $300,000, far below its estimate. And in other news, we had our first snow storm, which cast everything in white–more, much more apparently, to come on Tuesday. Winter has arrived rather later here in eastern New England, but it appears to be making an entrance!

Frank Weston BENSON’s Figure in White, and more white outside.

8 Comments | tags: Art, Auctions, Garden, Local Events, weather, Winter | posted in Current Events, Home, Salem

January 15, 2015

Deaccessioning Salem

By daseger

The vast wealth accumulated by Salem entrepreneurs in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries created a cultural landscape that still characterizes the city to some extent, encompassing institutions that inherited this wealth in the form of both currency and treasures. When the former runs out, the latter are tapped, and priorities shift over time: such is the pattern of deaccessioning. The First Church of Salem sold 14 pieces of colonial silver nearly a decade ago, and built an addition with the profits. The Trustees of the Salem Athenaeum have considered the sale of their 1629 Massachusetts Bay Charter, sealed with the signature of King Charles I, from time to time, with the earnest approval of some and the deep disdain of others. Sometimes a deaccessioning will enhance Salem’s heritage rather than take it away: such was the case of the Richard Derby House, which was donated to the City by the Society of the Preservation of New England Antiquities (now Historic New England) in 1937 to serve as a cornerstone of the new Salem Maritime National Historic Site. When it comes to smaller treasures, I think more things have left Salem than remained, and apparently another prize is about to depart: this week the Salem Public Library announced that it had consigned a painting by Salem’s most notable modern artist, Frank Weston Benson (1862-1951), to Skinner Auctions for its January 23 auction of European and American Works of Art. The painting, entitled Figure in White, apparently depicts Benson’s older sister, Georgiana, and was completed about 1890: he retained it throughout his life, and after his death his children bequeathed it to the Library, for which Benson had served as a Trustee from 1912 until his death.

Figure in White (1890), by Frank Weston Benson, and frame plaque, Skinner Auctions; Benson c. 1907-1908, Benson Family Papers, Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum.

I am very torn on this one: obviously this man demonstrated a life-long commitment to the Library and his heirs wanted to honor that commitment in both a personal and generous way. When you approach the sale from that perspective it looks rather cold and cavalier. On the other hand, I’ve never seen this painting: its value (it has an estimate of $350,000-$550,000) has necessitated its securement behind closed doors. The Trustees of the Library, the successors of Benson, have a duty to the public as well as to the institution, and there must a long list of wants and needs that could be funded by the proceeds from the sale: one project that has been mentioned is the restoration of the Victorian cast-iron garden fountain adjacent to the Library building. The painting is one bequest, the entire library complex (building and fountain) another: it was donated to the City by the family of Salem’s most eminent philanthropist, Captain John Bertram, in 1887. Should one be “sacrificed” for the other? I’m just glad that I didn’t have to make this decision!

Captain John Bertram’s House (and a bit of his fountain), built in 1855 and donated to the City of Salem by his heirs in 1887–now the Salem Public Library, Detroit Publishing Company, 1910; Let’s bring some Salem back! Beautiful heraldry paintings for the Vincent and Cogswell Families by Salem artist John Coles, c. 1794, from another upcoming Americana auction @ Christie’s.

20 Comments | tags: Architecture, Art, Auctions, ephemera, Historic Preservation, Local Events, Peabody Essex Museum, Photography, Shopping | posted in Culture, Current Events, History, Salem

December 16, 2014

A Very Gorey Christmas

By daseger

The juxtaposition of crowded academic and social calendars at this time of year always makes me a bit grumpy. I try to contain (or hide) my scrooge-like sentiments, but I’m generally too tired to make that much of an effort, and consequently they pop out periodically. This year I am taking comfort in a book that I received from a thoughtful friend last year: The Twelve Terrors of Christmas, a 1993 collaboration between iconic illustrator Edward Gorey and John Updike. These terrors (a too heavily-laden Christmas tree, the threat of electrocution from all the electronic games under said tree, fears of not giving enough, not receiving enough, and returning all the stuff you did receive) are not quite my terrors (fatigue, rampant commercialism, over-consumption of food, drink, and stuff) but I like the overall sentiment, or lack thereof. And then there are the illustrations. “Christmas” and “Gorey” are not words that naturally go together, but he had tread that terrain previously–with a series of not-too-macabre Christmas cards for the Albondaconi Press and other publishers from the 1970s on–and the success of Terrors inspired a second holiday book: The Haunted Tea-Cosy. A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas Dispirited (1997), a parody of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. All very merry images, in that distinctly Gorey style.

First editions of Edward Gorey’s Twelve Terrors and The Haunted Tea-Cosy & Albondacani Press Christmas cards, Swann Auction Galleries; Gorey Christmas Cards, The Gorey Store/ Charitable Trust.

2 Comments | tags: Art, Auctions, books, Christmas, holidays, illustration, Shopping | posted in Current Events, Design

August 27, 2014

Salem needs a (real) Tavern

By daseger

There are three bar-restaurants in Salem with the name “Tavern”: the Tavern at the Hawthorne Hotel, the Village Tavern, and the Tavern in the Square. None of these places are really taverns. The Hawthorne Hotel’s Tavern probably comes closest, but it is a tavern-esque room in a 1920s hotel, the Village Tavern and the Tavern in the Square are charmless modern sports bars which are located in neither village or square: they are certainly not taverns (see Matt’s comment below–it’s not in the square, it’s on the square, surely?). We have other places that come close to being taverns in some ways (In a Pig’s Eye, Naumkeag Ordinary) but I want the real thing. What I want is the long-lost Black Horse Tavern, or something very much like it.

The Black Horse Tavern/ Trask Homestead, built c. 1680

I think every town in the greater Boston area had a Black House Tavern in the eighteenth century: Salem’s was located on Boston Street, a main entrance corridor then and now, and operated from about 1680 to 1740 by all accounts. The house survived until the later nineteenth century, I believe–certainly long enough to be photographed—but by that time it was primarily known as the old Trask house, after one of the seventeenth-century “Old Planter” settlers of Salem. I walked over to Boston Street to photograph its location and became quite excited when I found a near lookalike (disguised by 1970s siding and replacement windows)–but alas, its surviving neighbor is indeed the Samuel Bell House, built in 1721.

The Black Horse was hardly Salem’s only colonial tavern: these essential institutions are inextricably interwoven with the Witch Trials and every other public event in the past. Those two grande dames of Colonial Revivalism, Alice Morse Earle (1851-1911) and Salem-born Mary Harrod Northend (1850-1926) both loved taverns and revealed the names of Salem’s finest in Stage-coach and Tavern Days (1900), Memories of Old Salem (1917) and We Visit Old Inns (1925): the Ship Tavern, Thomas Beadle’s Tavern, the Kings Arms (which acquired the more politically correct name the Sun Tavern with the Revolution, and where John Adams frequented when he visited Salem), the Bunch of Grapes. In the words of Northend, in imagination you can enter one of these old Ordinaries, seat yourself by the side of the broad fireplace, warmed by the lively wood blaze that crackled in the hearth, and meet distinguished strangers. You can easily discern her fascination with taverns!

My tavern would look like an urban version of the Black Horse, because the post roads that Boston Street used to be ceased to exist in the age of the automobile. The hard and soft furnishings would be relatively easy to assemble, I think, so I’m fixated on the all important sign. If I were going to stick with the name Black Horse, a slightly more colorful version of the sign below (from a 2010 Skinner auction) would do nicely–but I think I might go for something more eccentric. I love the twentieth-century “Raven & Ring” sign, but this seems more appropriate for Baltimore than Salem. Whenever I do come up with a name (and a tavern) I have my signmaker all picked out: Heidi Howard, Maker & Painter, who produced the White’s Tavern (with black horse) sign below.

22 Comments | tags: Antiques, Architecture, Auctions, books, Food and drink | posted in Culture, History, Salem, Uncategorized

July 24, 2014

Secret Weapons

By daseger

Today I have another Victorian fad: sword canes or “sword sticks”: harmless-looking walking sticks with blades concealed inside, one of several variations of “novelty canes” produced in the nineteenth century. Yesterday I drove up to York to celebrate my father’s birthday accompanied by my stepson, who has long had a singular obsession on the sword cane (or cane sword) that has leaned in the mud room alongside more mundane umbrellas and tennis rackets since I was a little girl. It’s the first thing he went for when we got there–what? why? and most importantly, who will inherit it? I don’t know much–all I could think of was the recent Sherlock Holmes film, in which Jude Law’s Dr. Watson wields a sword stick, and John Steed in The Avengers, who utilizes the umbrella variation. I checked out some auction archives, and they don’t seem to be particularly valuable. I can imagine that it ceased to be respectable in genteel society to walk around with a sidearm in the nineteenth century and so sword sticks emerged, but they seem to have been more fashionable than utilitarian. Ours looks like a simple cane made with a curved handle, but the steel blade inside has interesting markings: I think I might take it to an appraisal event at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Our family’s sword stick (alternatively called swordstick, sword cane & cane sword) and 19th century examples from the American Textile History Museum and Skinner Auctioneers.

There are a few cultural references to sword canes and I’d be grateful for more! Besides Watson and Steed, there is Bob Dylan (Your grandpa’s cane, it turns into a sword, “On the Road Again”, 1965, thanks to Cheryl Beatty at the American Textile History Museum, which is also the source of the image above) and Lord Byron, who apparently used his sword stick for more than prop. The recent Byron exhibition at King’s College, London features several references to and images of swordsticks: no doubt they amplified his dashing demeanor.

Jude Law as Dr. Watson with cane; drawing of Lord Byron, by Alfred Guillaume Gabriel d‘Orsay, 1823, Victoria & Albert Museum; Lord Byron’s sword stick, from the online exhibition Byron & Politics: ‘Born for Opposition’, King’s College, London

7 Comments | tags: Antiques, Art, Auctions, films, Literature, Maine | posted in Culture, History

May 1, 2014

Looking for the House on the Corner

By daseger

I was searching for springtime in Salem on canvas yesterday, as the real season has failed to arrive (not unusual for New England). Clicking around artnet, avoiding all the other things that I have to do during this busy time in the academic year, I found a new-to-me “Salem” artist: Sidney Raynes (1907-1968). I’m using the quotation marks because it is quite apparent that Raynes did not live in Salem, but she painted several very interesting Salem scenes in the 1930s or 1940s. A Massachusetts native who was trained at the Art Students’ League in New York, Raynes was part of the Rockport artists community on Cape Ann and a lifelong member of the Rockport and North Shore Art Associations. I looked for as many paintings of hers as I could find on the web, and from this small sample of her work it looks to me like she was more inspired by the streets and buildings of Gloucester and Rockport than the shore: this might explain the appeal of Salem. Both of the paintings below, Salem in Springtime and Salem Street Corner, are appealing to me, but I’ve become quite fixated on the latter simply because I don‘t know where it is.

Sidney Raynes, Salem in Springtime and Salem Street Corner, oil on board and oil on masonite.

This house might be long gone–it looks like it is on its way out here. But I took a walk to see if I could find it, armed with the two major clues the painting provides: the pediment-topped doorway and the corner quoins (as well its corner location). Lots of houses in Salem have doorways like this, and many have quoins, but very few houses have BOTH and are located on a corner.The boarded-up first story with additional entries indicates that this house served some sort of commercial purpose in its past, eliminating houses in residential areas, although shops and residences were more closely connected in the past than they are now. I narrowed it down to two houses: the Captain John Hodges House (1788) and the Timothy Orne House (1761), both on Essex Street. I’ve featured both of these important houses several times on the blog and I know their general histories: I’m pretty sure the Hodges house never had a storefront. So that leaves us with the Orne house, which has gone through quite a few transformations in its long history. It has the corner quoins (hidden under siding in the 1970s Bowman’s Bakery photograph below) but the last photograph by Frank Cousins (c. 1900) shows a doorway that is decidedly not pedimental.

Captain John Hodges House and Timothy Orne house today, mid- and early 20th century.

So I’m stuck. If Sidney Raynes’ relic house on the corner still exists, I’m not sure where it is. Awaiting suggestions!

9 Comments | tags: Architecture, Art, Auctions, Historic Preservation, North Shore, Photography | posted in Culture, History, Houses, Salem

April 7, 2014

History for Sale

By daseger

Today Bonhams Auctions in New York is selling off over 300 items from one of the largest private collections of historical emphemera in the world: “Treasures from the Caren Collection. How History Unfolds” includes printed and manuscript items dating from the sixteenth century to the near-present, and every single one represents its moment in an intimate way. That’s the power of paper, and Bonham’s digital catalog–with zoomable images–really brings you into the picture. Even though I had tons of stuff to do yesterday (and it was a sunny spring day), I couldn’t resist perusing the items, including beautiful contemporary prints of the Spanish Armada and Sir Francis Drake, broadsides covering everything from Charles I’s trial to the Great London Fire to the Salem Witch Trials and all the big events of the American Revolution, Civil War daguerreotypes, baseball ephemera, and assorted letters, maps, photographs, tickets and posters from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are beautiful, touching photographs of Native American chiefs from the later nineteenth century, as well as not-so-beautiful –but equally haunting–images of victims of war and lynching. Lots of little slips of paper that you wouldn’t think would be “historical”, but most definitely are. Below is a sampling of items that appealed to me, but really, I could have put every single lot into this post!

3. 4.

1. The Spanish Armada, 1588/ 2. The “Deplorable” Fire of London, after 1666/ 3. The first British edition of Cotton Mather’s Wonders of the Invisible World, 1693/4. Garnerin’s balloon and parachute, 1802/5. Drawing of Generals Washington and Lee by Arathusa Graves, 1802/ 6. Photograph of Corinth, Mississippi in 1862/7. A UFO appearance in 1897/8. What Congress has Done, 1900/9. March on Washington, 1969.

6 Comments | tags: Art, Auctions, ephemera, Photography, Shopping | posted in Culture, Current Events, History, Paper

March 12, 2014

Decorative Directions

By daseger

Samuel Emery (1787-1882) made compasses and other nautical and mathematical instruments here in Salem for more than half a century–both during and after the city’s great age of sail. His work can still be seen today, at auctions and in museums, but most often in museum shops. Recently I stumbled across one, and then another and another, reproduced and transformed into pendants and pins. What made Emery’s compasses so decorative? It’s not the fleur-de-lis marking north–that is traditional from the fourteenth century when French makers used a fancy “T”, resembling a flower, to mark the north wind or Tramontana. The two surveyors’ compasses below are nearly identical and were both made by Salem craftsman: the one on the left by John Jayne and the smaller one on the right by Emery, both sold at Skinner auctions.

Samuel Emery Box Label, Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, Harvard University.

I’m sure Emery’s instruments were well-made or he wouldn’t have been in business for as long as he was, but his designs look pretty conventional for their time. I suspect that the reason Emery’s compasses are still for sale is the original copper plate in the possession of the Peabody Essex Museum, enabling fresh and adapted impressions and models to be made, as well as the traditional appeal of the compass rose (first in maritime communities, then more broadly), which has emblazoned textiles, pottery, and other decorative accessories for centuries, so why not jewelry–among other things–now?

Compass Rose brooches from the PEM and Morgan shops (just click on the picture and you’ll get there); Early Connecticut pieced quilt with Mariner’s Compass, Northeast Auctions; Sunderland Pink Lustre bowl, c. 1820-1830, Victoria & Albert Museum; Better than Jam fabric.

6 Comments | tags: Antiques and Collectibles, Auctions, Pottery, Shopping, Textiles | posted in Design, History, Salem

December 3, 2013

Minding the Farm

By daseger

There is a lot to admire about eighteenth-century women in general; two that I admire in particular are Abigail Russell Curwen (1725-1793) and Mary Toppan Pickman (1744-1817), the wives of two of Salem’s most prominent Loyalists. In 1775 their husbands Samuel Curwen and Benjamin Pickman decamped for London, leaving both ladies behind to mind their considerable estates. Whether Mrs. Curwen and Mrs. Pickman were passionate Patriots we do not know, but one smoothed the way for her husband’s return after the Revolution, while the other did not. We are fortunate to have portraits of these two Salem ladies, painted by two of the best portrait painters on either side of the Atlantic.

Abigail Russell Curwen, 1755: Joseph Blackburn (Northeast Auction’s March 2010 Americana Auction); Mary Toppan Pickman, 1763: John Singleton Copley (Yale University Art Gallery).

These portraits were painted very shortly after their respective marriages; consequently they look a bit more carefree than I expect they would have appeared later in life–especially the parasol-bearing Mrs. Pickman! The Pickmans appear to have had a happy marriage even while he was away, but by all accounts the Curwens disliked each other intensely and were happiest on opposing sides of the Atlantic Ocean. After the Revolution was over, Pickman came right back to Salem and picked up (professionally–perhaps personally???) where he left off, but Curwen reluctantly returned and then fled right back to London, writing about his wife in his later-published Journal that “the Marriage shackle that unhappily linkt her to me is now to all intents and purposes broken”. It was not just his wife of which Curwen spoke ill: he was clearly a “miserable lout” (to use the words of one of my Americanist colleagues) and angry at the world; consequently he could not be reconciled to either his wife or Salem. By all accounts, Pickman was clearly a much more affable sort who was even referred to as “the agreeable Mr. Pickman” by John Adams, the ultimate Patriot.

But this post is not about the men, it’s about the women, who assumed (or did not assume) ultimate responsibilities for their family’s fortunes and well-being during a time of apprehension and agitation. The Curwens had no children (unsurprisingly) and one of the reasons Samuel fled back to London was because he faced “ruin” at home, while the Pickmans had four children, a town house and a farm in South Salem, which Mary managed with her mother-in-law, Love Rawlins Pickman. Because of her “sacred” character, Mary was “admitted to all circles in Salem” during the war and after, and thus facilitated her husband’s return. After Abigail’s death in 1793, Samuel Curwen returned to Salem for a second time, and remained until his death in 1802. Benjamin Pickman’s letters to Mary (in the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum) continually testify to his “unfeigned love and esteem” for her and the pain of their separation (as well as that of America and Great Britain): upon his return they lived together for over thirty years, until her death in 1817.

The Pickman Farm off the present-day Loring Avenue in South Salem: A VIEW OF THE HOUSE AND PART OF THE FARM OF THE HON’BLE BENJAMIN PICKMAN, ESQ., SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS, MID-LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, Northeast Auctions.

3 Comments | tags: American Revolution, Art, Auctions, Women's History | posted in History, Salem, Women's History

August 9, 2013

Ginger Men

By daseger

Back to Salem and the material world. August is the traditional Americana month in the world of Antiques auctions and shows, and one particular lot from this weekend’s upcoming Skinner Americana auction has me transfixed: Ammi Phillips’ Portrait of a Ginger–haired Young Man, which has an estimate of $15,000-$25,000. What a portrait! Riveting blue eyes, patrician profile, the 19th century hand-in-waistcoat pose, and very notable ginger hair.

Ginger is the preferred term for red hair in the nineteenth century, and before. The relative rarity of this hair color created a folkloric characterization (shiftless, hot-tempered) that endured for centuries. The weakness of William the Conqueror’s heir, William Rufus, was attributed to his hair color, as was the voracious personality of Henry VIII. Much later, the prejudices subsided, but the titles of nineteenth-century portraits of redheaded men, women and children always reference hair color, still the conspicuous characteristic of the sitter.

The assassination of William Rufus, British Library MS Royal 20 A II; the ginger-haired Henry VIII, anonymous artist after Hans Holbein, c. 1600, New College, Oxford University; Portrait miniature of an unknown ginger-haired man (previously thought to be Sr. Francis Drake), bu Isaac Oliver, c. 1590, Victoria & Albert Museum; Two nineteenth-century miniature portraits of ginger-haird men, Skinner Auction Archives; Irish Author J.P. Donleavy’s 1955 picaresque novel The Ginger Man, which (apparently) JOHNNY DEPP is considering bringing to the screen.