Auction Highlights

A 1905 oil-on-canvas painting by Joseph H. Sharp (American, 1859-1953) titled Indian Encampment (In Winter’s Embrace) sold to a LiveAuctioneers bidder for $209,500 in Santa Fe Art Auctions’ Nov. 10 sale. Measuring 18¼ inches by 24 inches and signed and dated at lower right, the atmospheric picture is of an Indian tipi in a mountainous, snow-covered setting.

Slotin’s Nov. 10 sale featured folk art from the collection of Hollywood film director Jonathan Demme. More than 200 lots sold online, including a Clementine Hunter (American,1886-1988) paint-on-panel depiction of an African-American family seated at picnic tables beneath tall trees. The 30 inch by 23 inch (framed) circa-1971 naïve painting surpassed its $3,000-$5,000 estimate to reach $7,320.

Among the 586 lots to sell via the Internet in Bertoia’s Nov. 9-11 Happy Holidays auction was this early 20th-century Bing Savoya tin clockwork oceanliner. With provenance through the Arnold Rolak collection, the rare, 25-inch first-series toy craft has retained its many desirable accent accessories, including four removable lifeboats and a crow’s nest. After 13 bids, it dropped anchor at $14,030.

Green Valley’s Nov. 9-11 Fall Americana & Decorative Arts auction included a handsome late-18th-century Rockingham County, Va., mantelpiece. Of carved and molded yellow pine and poplar, with fluted rosette panels and cone and bladed moldings, the mantelpiece will now be warming a LiveAuctioneers bidder’s fireplace hearth after selling for $5,900 – more than seven times its high estimate.

In Cincinnati Art Galleries’ Holiday Sale 2007 held Nov. 3 and 4, online bidders secured 249 lots, including a Russian enameled gilt-silver kovsh with pierced windows and floral/scroll design. The lot attracted 69 bids and sold via the Internet for $17,150.

At Brunk’s Nov. 3 auction of exquisite 18th and 19th-century antiques and decorative art, 75 bids were lodged on a Chinese pictorial rug measuring 5 feet 6 inches wide by 8 feet long, with a motif featuring three Imperial dragons in a cloud-filled sky. Collectors of Chinese antiques pushed the stakes well beyond the rug’s $300-$600 estimate, with an online participant claiming the prize at an amazing $24,000.