Competitive Bidding
Heritage Auctions’ July 1 auction of American art achieves more than $6 million in sales
Heritage Auctions’ July 1 auction of American art achieves more than $6 million in sales
Typically held in May, Heritage Auctions postponed its American Art Signature Auction until July 1 so it could shift from an inperson event to an online auction.with its own bidding platform through its website, Heritage was able to transition seamlessly and resulted in a sale that was highly competitive and yielded more than $6 million in sales. Noteworthy were the robust results for the auction house’s hallmark offerings of
Golden Age Illustrations and Western artwork, but other categories such as Hudson River School and Ashcan School drew strong interest with buyers.
The sale was “one of the highest totals in our company’s history for American art,” says Aviva Lehmann, director of American art at the auction house. “The sale kicked off with a single-owner collection from an important Texas collector that did very well.”this collection set the precedent for the rest of the sale, with the very first lot of the day, Frederic Remington’s Water!, selling for $300,000 against an estimate of $120,000 to $180,000.Also in the group was the auction’s top lot, Howard Terpning’s Against the Cold Maker (est. $550/750,000), which sold for $585,000.
Four works from the Dixon Ticonderoga Collection arrived at auction, with all of them finding new homes during the sale. Norman Rockwell’s Grandfather and Grandson, a painting of a grandfather teaching his grandson how to sharpen the yellow No. 2 pencil that the company is known for, was the second highest selling lot of the day at $447,000.Tom Lovell’s Revolutionary War scene The Nobel Train of Artillery sold for $109,375, while the other two works in the group, both by Harvey T. Dunn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn (est. $80/120,000) and Ethan Allen Plotting the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga (est. $15/25,000), sold for $60,000 and $11,875, respectively.
“We were very happy with the results.the Norman Rockwell was one of his early ones with the dark Old Masters feel to it. It’s not your typical Saturday Evening
Post cover, but it really did well,” says Lehmann.
“It was such a nostalgic scene, with the grandfather holding his pencil and talking to his grandson. It was commissioned by [the company] directly from Rockwell and it’s been with them ever since.”
Another illustrator who had solid results in the sale was J.C. Leyendecker with two Saturday Evening Post works. New Year’s
Baby Hitching to War
(est. $60/80,000) was an unseen cover that had 12 bidders driving the price to $275,000, and the other piece, Yule (Musical Jester), appeared on the December 26, 1931, cover and brought in $212,500 against an estimate of $150,000 to $250,000.
Several portraits performed well in the auction, including Robert Henri’s Blond Bridget Lavelle at $200,000 and George Bellows’ Jackie (Jacqueline Hudson), which sold for $106,250 against an estimate of $70,000 to $100,000. “The Bellows is a portrait of a girl named Jackie, Jacqueline Hudson, who was from a local family in Monhegan, where the artist summered with his wife and other artists,” says Lehmann. “Her father was an artist as well, and they’d often paint together.that summer [that he painted this work] Bellows painted Bridget and her sister.this work was purchased by the Monhegan Museum of Art.” Worthington Whittredge’s German painting Sunrise, View of Drachenfels from Rolandseck (est. $15/25,000) was one of the surprises of the sale, achieving a price of $81,250.“It was an absolutely beautiful work, and Anthony Janson, a scholar of Whittredge’s, said it was one of the best German works by the artist. With Hudson River School works, we don’t know how people will respond, but they did, and it sold for $81,250.There were 11 bidders,” says Lehmann. Heritage’s next American Art Signature Auction is set for November.