THOMASTON, ME — Thomaston Place‘s annual Summer Grandeur three-day sale returns for 2024 with more than 1,500 lots from a wide range of collecting categories. Featured are a 60-piece Moxie soda advertising collection, a Florentine relief in the style of Donatello, and a Jamie Wyeth oil painted at age 12 while summering in Maine with his family. The Friday, August 23, Saturday, August 24 and Sunday, August 25 catalogs are now open for review and bidding at LiveAuctioneers.
Day 1 is headlined by a top-quality Moxie collection. Proclaimed as the official soft drink of the state of Maine, Moxie originated in 1876 as a patent medicine drink created by Augustin Thompson. It tastes a bit like root beer but has a slightly bitter aftertaste. Its flavor is derived from the gentian root, a substance commonly found in herbal medicine. The phrase ‘got moxie’ originated from the drink, inferring a state of healthfulness, which was the original Moxie’s main advertising angle. The drink today is a regional brand owned by the Coca-Cola empire.
The sale’s highest-estimated Moxie lot is an undated but probably circa-1933 embossed lithographed tin sign described as ‘extra rare.’ The 54 by 19in sign depicts a group of individuals on the steps of a Moxie ‘temple’ adoring their idol, a gigantic bottle of Moxie. Marked Eclipses Everything with bearing the Distinctively Different slogan, the sign is estimated at $5,000-$7,500.
Another Moxie highlight is a bottle topper in new original stock condition. Retailers would use die-cut, often figural design toppers on the product bottles to draw the attention of shoppers. Most were soon discarded, but this circa-1940 ‘bombshell blond’ tennis player example survived intact. Channeling 1930s Coca-Cola artwork, the topper is estimated at $500-$750.
Day 2’s highlight is a 15th-century Florentine relief stucco. Museum of Berlin director Dr. Ursula Schlegel has described the piece as being created from a prototype attributed to Donatello (1386-1466). Dubbed Tabernacle of the Virgin and Child with Two Cherubs, Christ of Sorrow, the piece measures 46 by 28 by 4.75in and is estimated at $60,000-$70,000.
Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) followed his father’s artistic path and became one of America’s leading Realist painters and a chief member of the Brandywine School in his native Pennsylvania. Wyeth summered each year in Maine and would take his artistically inclined son Jamie (b. 1946-) with him on ‘painting rambles’ along the Maine coastline. When Jamie was 12, he and his father happened on a derelict schooner, the Eva S. Cullison, laid up in Camden, Maine in 1958. He chose the bow view while Andrew worked the side angle. The result is this painting, an amazingly accomplished work for a 12-year old. Thomaston has seven Jamie Wyeth originals in Day 3 of the sale, with Eva S. Cullison estimated at $12,000-$15,000.
