Old and New
Bonhams ends the year in style with another successful Native American art sale.
LOS ANGELES, CA
Bonhams’ recent sale of Modern & Historic Native of American Art, held December 8, achieved a total of $736,795. “Overall, we were pleased with the results of the December 8 auction. While the sell-through rate was lower than the other two Native American auctions (in May and August) that Bonhams has held since the start of the pandemic, I attribute that primarily to a greater preponderance of jewelry in this particular auction, as opposed to any significant slowing down of the market under the protracted lockdown,” says Bonhams’ director of Native American art, Ingmārs Lindbergs.
The modern art section, he says, performed exceptionally well, with 23 out of 25 lots sold, and making up five of the top 10 lots. These included a 1991 John Nieto painting, Taos
Pueblo Elder, that sold for $14,025 against an estimate of $12,000 to $18,000; Nieto’s 1999 painting Buffalo in the Snow more than tripled its high estimate of $5,000 when it sold for $17,813; and two Allan Houser bronzes, At the Spring for $12,750, and Hunter’s Prayer for $10,837.
“The modern jewelry [also] fared well,” Lindbergs continues, “with two Charles Loloma bracelets making the top 10 lots sold [for works by Native American artists] and with overall higher prices per lot and sellthrough rate in comparison to the historic jewelry.” One of the Loloma pieces, a silver cuff stunningly inlaid with turquoise, coral and fossilized ivory, achieved $14,025.
“The top two lots of the sale were both rare historical examples of Plains or Plateau Indian material culture with an early Plateau man’s beaded shirt, lot 190, selling for $225,313 on a pre-sale estimate of $80,000 to $100,000,” says Lindbergs. “A Great Lakes or Eastern Plains calumet pipe with figural bowl, sold for $60,312, and another calumet pipe, identified as Western Great Lakes or Eastern Plains, fetched $17,812.”
Bonhams will hold its next Native American
Estimate:
Western Art