Auction News Network

Maritime Art At Bonhams

In the mid-19^th century, when sailing vessels ruled the seas, stormy voyages were a favorite theme of maritime artists. One of the most accomplished was James Edward Buttersworth, whose masterpiece may be his depiction, circa 1855, of the famous Clipper ship Flying Cloud emerging from a hurricane. When the painting comes up for auction later this week at Bonhams’ Maritime Paintings & Decorative Arts sale in New York, it’s expected to realize $200,000-$300,000.

Model Ship May Take $250,000 Cruise To New Port

For $250,000 you could choose between quite a variety of powerboats and sailing vessels. Or you could apply the sum toward a model paddle wheeler that Bertoia Auctions is offering at a New Jersey sale next month. The toy ship “Chicago,” which Marklin constructed between 1900-1902, is the highlight at an auction of the vast Dick Claus collection of model boats. To captain this particular ship, Bertoia expects you’ll have to pay $200,000-$250,000.

Spectacular Maritime Art Auction

By today’s auction standards big money won’t cross the block, but beauty will, when some of the most enchanting paintings of ships at sea come to Annapolis, Md., where Heritage is selling what it terms“ perhaps the finest collection of maritime art ever assembled.”

Wyeths Lead New Hampshire Auction

Three generations of Wyeth’s have stood at the forefront of American art and illustration for much of the past century, and two of them are represented in a sale next month at Bonhams in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The auction house will offer some 500 lots of Americana and art, but collector attention is likely to focus on Jamie Wyeth’s “Julia on the Swing” from 1999 (est. $150,000-$250,000), and his grandfather, N.C. Wyeth’s “Seascape, Maine” ($60,000-$80,000).

Malcolm Forbes’ Art & Queen Victoria’s Bloomers

What didn’t interest Malcolm Forbes? The late publisher collected art, hot air balloons, historical documents, yachts, real estate, motorcycles, maritime artifacts and toys—thousands of them. Now, yet another of his remarkable collections will be sold. That would be the contents—500 lots strong– of Old Battersea House, the 17^th century London home, which he restored in 1970. Among the featured lots at the Lyon & Turnbull sale is “For the Squire,” an oil by Sir John Everett Millais, estimated at $800,000-$1.28m.

Update: The Millais painting sold above its low estimate for $886,412, and the Queen’s bloomers swelled to $15,000, more than three times the high estimate.

Nautical Collection Of Malcolm Forbes To Sell

Last month Sotheby’s sold Malcolm Forbes remarkable collection of toys, which included a number of boat models. But it was only a scintilla of the irrepressible publisher’s vest maritime collection—the largest ever assembled of ship models, marine painting and nautical memorabilia, which  Red Baron Auctions will sell on January 29-30.

Titanic Sales Soar

Almost 100 years after she sank, the Titanic continues to exert a powerful pull on the public imagination, witness this week’s sale of memorabilia from the doomed ship at Wiltshire’s Henry Aldrich & Sons. Top seller, at almost $85,000, was a letter from a first-class passenger named Adolphe Saafeld to his “Wifey,” in which he described life on the Titanic in vivid detail. Five days later the ship went down, and Saafeld with it.

Bonhams Floats Record

In its New York sale of martime art and ship models last Friday, Bonhams set a new world record when a “cut-away” model of the R.M.S. Ascania (circa 1925) sold for $122,000, well above its pre-sale estimate of $50-$70,000. In all, the 100 lot offering netted over $1.385 million

Madoff’s “Bull” Brings In $700,000

Victims of Bernie Madoff are more than $1 million closer to restitution after yesterday’s Ft. Lauderdale sale of his three boats. “Bull,” Madoff’s classic Rybovitch sport fisherman, garnered $700,000, his 38-footer, “Sitting Bull,” sold $320,000, while his smallest, a 23-footer named “Little Bull,” fetched $21,000. A larger yacht, a 61-foot Viking owned by his disgraced CFO Frank DiPascali was top seller at $950,000.

Hindenburg Beer Sells for $16,000

It is charred and its contents are undrinkable, but its rarity is extreme: a single bottle of Lowenbrau rescued from the wreck of the Hindenburg has sold at auction for $16,000. Fire chief Leroy Smith found the bottle.

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