New York Collectors Passion Auction Total Reaches Nearly $1 Million

 

A Chinese green glazed oval footed porcelain bowl with an estimate of $1,000-$2,000 soars to $200,000 as the top item in a highly successful Nye & Company Auctioneers’ Collectors’ Passion Auction that grossed just under $1 million.

Held January 31st, online and in the firm’s showroom at 20 Beach Street IN Bloomfield, New Jersey after Americana Week in New York City, the auction had a lot of enthusiastic bidders. John Nye said, “The sale was a huge success and the bidding in the gallery and online was both palpable and exhilarating.”

Phone and Internet bidding were especially high and active. Both LiveAuctioneers.com and Invaluable.com, the Internet bidding platforms, saw heavy participation. There were over 5,000 approved online bidders and a little more than 700 registered bidders from around the world.

Classical American furniture did quite well on the heels of Americana Week and was buoyed by a recamier or fainting couch that sold for $25,000. Made in New York City between 1815 and 1825, this seven-foot-long, Neoclassical mahogany recamier featured partly ebonized and gilted wood.

The auction featured several important highlights, including a superb collection of American and English furniture from a prominent estate in Mount Kisco, New York, a fine collection of fresh-to-the-market American furniture from a collection in Princeton, New Jersey, a highly curated collection of Neoclassical American furniture, and American paintings out of a New York City estate. All prices quoted include the buyer’s premium.

Though original artwork dominated the auction’s list of top lots, it also included some interesting decorative arts pieces. The Asian category included not only the Chineseporcelain bowl, but also a Chinese ceramic pillow, 7½ inches long by 5 inches wide, in good condition, that realized $15,000, and a pair of Chinese blue and white porcelain covered jars, each 20 inches in height, that brought $11,563.

A figured Cherrywood bedstead, signed and dated 1994 by Mira Nakashima (New Hope, Pa.), daughter of the legendary craftsman George Nakashima, made for a king-size mattress and signed by her, led the American furniture grouping with a hammer down price of $11,250. A Federal figured mahogany desk-and-bookcase, made in Massachusetts between 1800 and 1820 brought $10,000.

A pair of Philadelphia Chippendale mahogany side chairs attributed to Thomas Tufft and made around 1770, finished at $18,750. From France, an 18th century Regence marble-top parquetry inlaid commode rose to $10,000.

A French 20th century Goudji sterling silver two-handled center bowl mounted with hardstone panels, stamped to the underside “Goudji sterling 925” and with a total weight of 137 troy oz., fetched $17,500. Also, a bronze sculpture deaccessioned by the Newark Museum of Art, after the antique titled Faun with Infant and marked “Chiurazzi-Napoli”, six feet tall, gifted to a museum in 1928, brought $10,000.

Nye & Company Auctioneers will conduct an Estate Treasures Auction, online and live at the Bloomfield gallery, on Wednesday, March 14th. The catalog will be up and online February 28th. “The sale is already shaping up to be an exciting and eclectic group of works that will be sure to capture the interest of the collector, trade, interior designers and even institutions,” Mr. Nye said.

John Nye had a long and fruitful career at Sotheby’s before he and his wife, Kathleen, acquired Dawson’s in 2003 and started Dawson & Nye. With the move to Bloomfield seven years later, they renamed the business to Nye & Company (Auctioneers, Appraisers, Antiques). The firm is nationwide, but the vast bulk of the business comes from trusts and estates in the tri-state area.

< Back to Antiques News