GENESEO, NEW YORK – Cottone’s March 27th sale featured slightly more than 200 lots and brought in $1.6 million. The fresh to the market collections from the estates of Dr. Seymour Ira Schwartz of Rochester, New York; and Dr. Eugene L. Gaier of Buffalo, New York, soared past their high estimates, with women artists stealing the spotlight. LiveAuctioneers facilitated absentee and Internet live bidding for the sale.
Standouts included Elisabeth Frink’s bronze sculpture Birdman I, which sold for $53,750 and set an auction record, as well as Bridget Riley’s screenprint on plexiglass Untitled [Fragment 4/6], which sold over the phone for $32,400 to a collector in the United Kingdom. Other notable works from the Gaier collection included a collage titled Fire Engine by Grace Hartigan, which brought $24,800; an oil on paper by Michael Goldberg that fetched $23,700; and a lithograph titled Composition #3 by Pierre Soulages, which sold for $22,800. Additional prints by postwar and contemporary artists Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, Wayne Thiebaud, John Baldessari, Antoni Tapies, Alberto Giacometti, Frank Stella, Richard Diebenkorn, Sam Francis and Nathan Oliveira brought top prices.
British artist Elisabeth Frink’s bronze sculpture ‘Birdman I,’ which sold for $53,750 and an auction record.
Modern prints by Joan Miro and several works by surrealist artist Rene Magritte met with intense competition from bidders. Both were highlights of a collection from the estate of Dr. Seymour Ira Schwartz, a distinguished alumni professor for the Department of Surgery at the University of Rochester and a renowned author and cartographic historian. Schwartz’s large folio etching L’Adorateur du soleil (Sun Worshipper) by Miro sold for $11,100, and an etching by Rene Magritte titled Paysage de Baucis sold for $25,500.
Other standouts in the 20th century category included a Peacock chair by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, which he made for the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and was once owned by his pupil, Edgar Tafel. A private institution acquired it for $21,600 and will likely return it to public view. An oil on canvas painting by Edmondo Bacci, Avvenimento 7R, sold to an Italian bidder for $37,200. Lastly, a watercolor and gouache by Charles Ephraim Burchfield, titled Oat Field, sold for $42,000.
The strong offering of lamps in this sale was led by a Tiffany Studios Pond Lily lamp from a Winter Park, Florida, collection. It was the sale’s top lot, commanding $143,750 via absentee bid. Other notable lamps offered were a Daffodil table lamp that brought $66,000; a Tiffany Tulip table lamp that fetched $42,000, and a Tiffany Daffodil table lamp with an oil lamp base, and a 14in-diameter shade that sold to a Midwest buyer for $26,400. In addition, a Handel Parrot lamp on an Oriental base sold for $18,600.
The estate jewelry and decorative arts category featured a 6.69-carat Lightning Ridge Australian Black Opal, which sold for $23,000; a three-piece garniture gilt bronze Japonisme clock that commanded $13,200; and a Russian Imperial hand-painted porcelain plate, made during the reign of Nicolai II, which sold for $13,200. A monumental bronze by Mathurin Moreau, titled Les Armes D’Achille, made $24,000.
Finishing up the sale in Americana, a rare 18th-century Queen Anne mahogany highboy made in Boston, circa 1735-1750 with double fan carvings and shell knees, earned $24,600. Selling from the same private collection was a Chippendale cherry chest on chest, attributed to Eliphalet Chapin, $28,000; and a Pennsylvania Hepplewhite cherry scroll-top corner cupboard that brought $9,120.
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