Great Impressions
Freeman’s June 14 sale achieves 100 percent sell-through rate for its Pennsylvania Impressionism category
Freeman’s June 14 sale achieves 100 percent sell-through rate for its Pennsylvania Impressionism category
The market for Pennsylvania Impressionism continued to show its strength during Freeman’s June 14 American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists sale, as all artwork available in the category found new buyers. The section also accounted for nearly 80 percent of the sale total, achieving $2.2 million in just 36 lots.the sale as a whole had 74 pieces available with a 95 percent sell-through rate and a grand total of more than $2.8 million.the highlight of the auction was the 11 painting collection of Heidi Bingham Stott, which kicked off the Pennsylvania Impressionist portion of the sale.
“There was one lot that was the last lot of the
American section, a piece by Stephen Scottyoung, and then Pennsylvania Impressionism started off with lots 39 through 49—all 11 pieces from the Stott collection,” says Alasdair Nichol, chairman of Freeman’s. He adds,“the collection generated a lot of interest and had really strong prices, so we were pleased.” The major highlight from the Stott collection was the top lot of the day: Edward Willis Redfield’s Spring at Point Pleasant on the Delaware (est. $300/500,000), which sold for $483,000 to a brand-new buyer to Freeman’s.three paintings by Daniel Garber from the grouping all landed in the top 10 lots, including Rodgers Meadow (est.
$200/300,000) at $312,000 and Autumn Solebury (est. $30/50,000) at $100,000. A rare Italian scene by Fern Isabel Coppedge achieved $62,500 against an estimate of $25,000 to $40,000.The first of the Pennsylvania Impressionist items to come available in the sale was William Langson Lathrop’s painting The Bonfire. The work had a flurry of bids before landing at $112,500 and setting an artist world auction record.
Outside the collection, four other works by Redfield found buyers, as did other works by Coppedge, and pieces from George Sotter and Antonio Pietro Martino, to name a few.“it’s all encouraging from our perspective because back in the 2000s it tended to be a smaller group of people [interested in Pennsylvania Impressionism], and now we are seeing a much wider spread, still mostly in the tri-state area, but we do get interest from across the country,” says Nichol. “That’s always very exciting. It suggests new longevity in the market for Pennsylvania Impressionism, with new people coming up and taking interest. It’s a pretty passionate group.”
In the American art section of the sale, highlights continued with N.c.wyeth’s The Converted Barn (est. $50/80,000) at $75,000 and William Mcgregor Paxton’s Interior with Two Nudes (est. $60/80,000) at $68,750— both pieces cracking the top 10 lots of the day. “The big surprise was the Jackson Lee Nesbitt, lot 24, which made $52,000. It is a new record for the artist.there were 12 or 14 phone bidders,” Nichol explains.the work, titled November Evening, sold more than six times its high estimate of $8,000.