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The sale’s premier lot was an oil on canvas painting by Julie Hart Beers, “River Landscape With Cows,” which sold far past its estimate of $1,5/3,000, finishing at $23,750 and going to an East Coast gallery. Russ Carlson said the painting was in pristine condition, untouched with no relining or inpainting.
Review by W.A. Demers
FREEHOLD, N.Y. — An oil on canvas painting by Julie Hart Beers (1835-1913), “River Landscape With Cows,” measuring 6½ by 20 inches, sold far past its estimate of $1,5/3,000 at Carlsen Gallery on September 22, finishing at $23,750 and going to an East Coast gallery. According to American Art Gallery’s website, Beers is regarded as among the best and perhaps the only woman artist of Nineteenth Century America to specialize in landscapes. It’s a biography undergirded by the observation made by William Gerdts in his exhibition catalog, Women Artists of America, 1707-1964, in which he wrote of her rarity: “It is perhaps not surprising to find so few women landscapists, since the rigors of painting outdoors and the unseemliness of women engaging in this activity during the Victorian era acted as a deterrent.” A year after her first husband’s death in 1876, Beers married Peter Kempson and moved to Metuchen, N.J., however, she continued to use the last name “Beers” and sign her works as in this one, “Julie H. Beers.”
The auction included fine art from the Swyer family art collection, the lifelong collection of Theo Lovell and the Albany, N.Y., home of conservative newspaper and radio personality, Fred Dicker. Lew and Ann Swyer were major players in the Albany community; Lew was former president of the Lewis A. Swyer Construction Company, and a well-known philanthropist and community leader. “They loved period art and amassed quite a collection,” said Russ Carlsen, gallery co-owner. These art collections contributed works by Julie Hart Beers, Jervis McEntee, Walter Launt Palmer, Emile Gruppé, Francis Silva, W.R. Tyler and others.
A Nineteenth Century Japanese silver rooster and hen pair from the Meiji period sold for $12,000. Weighing approximately 204 troy ounces, the naturalistically cast and carved pair measured 14¾ inches tall.
The paintings, many presenting winter scenes, seemed to dominate the notable lots on offer, although the other big-ticket items in this 361-lot sale were a carved pine statue of Apollo from a doctor’s collection that was bid to $19,200 and a Nineteenth Century Japanese silver rooster and hen pair from the Meiji period, which sold for $12,000. Weighing approximately 204 troy ounces, the naturalistically cast and carved pair measured 14¾ inches tall.
Overall, the sale grossed about $400,000 with a 98 percent sell-through rate. There were 41 potential buyers in the room, 92 bidders on HiBid, 63 on the phones, 874 on LiveAuctioneers and a large but unquantifiable number on Invaluable. It was the firm’s 33rd anniversary of conducting auctions at the Freehold Art Gallery, although the Carlsens have been auctioneering since 1984.
A run of paintings by American Impressionist Walter Launt Palmer (1854-1932) brought cloudy and snowy landscapes to the fore. Leading them were “Cloud Shadows,” a watercolor measuring 19 by 23½ inches, and “Winter Landscape” also a watercolor, measuring 24 by 18 inches; both paintings sold for $9,600. Another watercolor, “Evergreens In Winter,” measuring 20 by 14½ inches, brought $6,875, and an oil on canvas signed “W.L. Palmer” in the lower left and measuring 24 by 18 inches, left the gallery at $5,100. According to the Caldwell Gallery which represented the artist, Palmer studied art under Charles Elliott and Frederick E. Church and was a member of the Hudson River School. He was the son of sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer and is best known for his winter landscapes and Venetian scenes.
Fetching $9,600 was Walter Launt Palmer’s “Winter Landscape,” a watercolor from the Fred Dicker collection.
A different kind of view was afforded by Francis Silva’s (1825-1886) “Atlantic City, Sept. 16, ‘82,” a mixed-media on paper, which realized $9,000. Silva’s beach scene placed the New Jersey casino gaming capital in the artwork’s distant skyline. The work had provenance to a 1998 sale at Sotheby’s.
Jervis McEntee (1828-1891), a Hudson River School painter, is another artist whose works performed well in the auction. “Spruce Mountain,” an oil on canvas mounted on board and measuring 6 by 11½ inches, depicted the solemn Vermont peak rising above farming fields; this New England painting took $9,000. His oil on canvas, “Along The Esopus,” a tributary of the Hudson River in Ulster County, N.Y., measured 8½ by 14¾ inches and went out at $6,900. McEntee is relatively unknown among the Hudson River School artists, according to Artvee, an art and literary website, but he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the school’s luminaries — such as Frederick Church, Sanford Robinson Gifford, Worthington Whittredge, John Ferguson Weir and Eastman Johnson. In addition to his paintings, McEntee is known for his journals which are rich in detail about the life of a typical New York painter during and after the Gilded Age. Rising up like a pyramid amid a wooded landscape is Berlin Mountain in William Richardson Tyler’s (1825-1896) “Berlin, N.Y.,” an oil on canvas landscape measuring 22 by 38 inches that earned $6,300. In addition to this view, which was essentially in Tyler’s back yard and a day trip for him, the ArtPrice website reported that he painted in the Adirondacks and the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
As nostalgic as a Currier and Ives print, W.G. Van Zandt’s 1907 “Sleigh Ride” oil on canvas painting featured a well-to-do gentleman gliding by a snowy scene in a horse-drawn sleigh. It was bid to $7,800.
Another winter scene featured William Garrett Van Zandt’s (1857-1942) “Sleigh Ride,” a 1907 oil on canvas depicting a well-to-do looking gent at the reins of a country sleigh shooshing through a snowy landscape. Van Zandt lived in Albany, N.Y., and was the son of Thomas Kirby Van Zandt, a well-known painter of horses for wealthy New Yorkers. This painting measured 21 by 34 inches and captured $7,800.
Two additional paintings were notable in the sale. Emile Gruppe’s (1896-1978) “A New England Cottage” — an oil on canvas measuring 24 by 36 inches — depicted a stately country home with gambrel roof, gated fence and gardener at work; the painting found a buyer at $5,700. With Vose Gallery provenance, an oil on panel measuring 10 by 13¼ inches and cataloged simply as, Woodbury “Tidal River with Figures,” came in at $5,625, more than four times its high estimate.
This oil on panel, Woodbury “Tidal River With Figures,” came with Vose Gallery provenance and finished at $5,625.
A bronze “Pan Of Rohallion” sculpture after Frederick MacMonnies, measured 29½ inches tall and piped to $5,400. MacMonnies was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and became one of the preeminent American sculptors of the late Nineteenth Century, according to the Art Institute of Chicago. Enlisting the assistance of architect Stanford White, MacMonnies got the assignment for “Pan of Rohallion,” which took the form of a fountain figure for a garden pool located on a private estate in New Jersey, which was named Rohallion after a place of same name in the patron’s native Scotland.
Furniture highlights included a circa 1790 Portsmouth mahogany bow front chest of drawers with 13 satinwood panels, which crossed the block $5,625, and a paint-decorated American tall case clock thought to have been made in Shaftsbury, Vt. At 84 inches tall, it realized $6,000.
Prices given include the buyer’s premium as stated by the auction house. The Carlsens’ next sale doesn’t have a specific date yet but will occur around the week after Thanksgiving. For information, www.carlsengallery.com or 518-634-2466.
