Willis Henry Auctions presents 2009 Shaker Auction on Artfact Live! Bid live online on over 800 lots of Shaker furniture, smalls, and textiles exclusively through Artfact Live! in the Willis Henry Auctions Shaker auction on October 3, 2009.
News-Antique.com - Sep 23,2009 - (Boston, MA) Artfact is pleased to announce that the Willis Henry Auctions, Inc. Shaker 2009 auction on October 3, 2009 is available for online bidding exclusively through Artfact Live!. The auction offers over 800 lots of Shaker furniture, smalls, textiles and reference material. If you can’t join the live auction action at Fruitlands in Harvard, MA, visit Artfact.com, or its sister site in the UK, Invaluable.com, to login or register free to bid live online at this exceptional auction. If you’re not ready to bid, simply watch the activity live from the auction floor using the Artfact Live! console.
Willis Henry Auctions, Inc. has been selling Shaker antiques for over 25 years and has become renowned in this field. Three years ago the auction company set the world record price of $491,400 for Shaker furniture selling at auction, which still stands today.
Highlights of the sale include:
Lot 55, a rare New Lebanon Ministry trestle table, small in size and in the original red finish, opens for bidding at $40,000. It’s from the collection of the late Charles and Helen Upton, whose Shaker pieces were exhibited along with the Faith and Edward Deming Andrews collection at the Old Chatham Shaker Museum in Chatham, NY. They collected pieces that were found mostly in Eastern New York and Western Massachusetts primarily from the communities of Mt. Lebanon, Watervliet, and Hancock. Much of their collection was purchased directly from the Shakers or a handful of other people who had close ties to the Shakers.
From another family collection formed pre-1940 are some wonderful “smalls.” Items such as a miniature blanket chest (Lot 3) in original red painted finish, which opens to a surprising chrome yellow color begins bidding at $500, and very small oval box in original “Ministry” blue paint (Lot 2), opens at $1,000.
A group of particularly nice Shaker antiques in their original finishes was consigned from a family whose mother also collected early in the 1950’s buying directly from the Shakers at New Lebanon and Canterbury, NH. A two-drawer blanket chest (Lot 30) in its original bittersweet red finish is one of the more important pieces to be offered from this collection with a minimum bid of $10,000. From the Mt. Lebanon, NY community, circa 1830-40, it has white bone escutcheons lending a bit of decoration to its classic Shaker style.
Another rare and important desk was made for the Seed Shop (Lot 50) of butternut, pine and cherry and in the original varnished finish. The desk is signed twice “Orren Haskins Maker Dec 18, 1838,” and “Made by Orren Haskins December 18th 1838 for John Allen & used at the seed shop upwards of two years. It was then put upon legs & taken into the house on the first Monday in January 1841.” Bidding begins at $20,000 for this lot.
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