News-Antique.com - Feb 15,2011 - (Boston, MA) – Artfact Live! is off to another strong start in 2011. With high-quality sales in almost every category, January’s results marked a 39% increase in online sales volume and a 46% increase in online demand when compared to 2010. Highlights include Braswell Galleries' Annual New Year’s Auction with more the 600 online bidders and over $100,000 in online sales; I.M. Chait's January 16th Asian and International Fine Arts Auction with online bidders from 24 countries driving almost a million dollars in online demand; and National Book Auctions' January 9th Books and Ephemera sale which marked the Ithaca-based auction house’s most successful Artfact Live! sale -- with more than 76% of the lots offered selling online. J Levine Auction & Appraisal LLC, “New Year’s Day Premier Antique Auction” – January 1, 2011 Alma Woodsey Thomas (1891 – 1978), Untitled Price Realized: $17,000 Born in 1891 in Georgia, Alma Woodsey Thomas (1891 - 1978) was a successful Washington avant-garde painter whose 1972 exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Art marked the first solo exhibition of an African-American woman in the museum’s history. Dated 1971, Woodsey’s untitled acrylic on canvas represents the artist’s later style when she turned away from more representational modes in favor of the abstract expressionism embodied in the work of Washington Color School Painters – a dominant force in the visual arts community of Washington DC throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Estimated at $10,000 to $15,000, the work sold online for an impressive $17,000. Stair Galleries, “Asian, Ethnographic Including Oceanic, Tribal, African” – January 15, 2011 Southeast Asian Gilt-Bronze Covered Bowl on Stand with Seated Figure of Buddha Price Realized: $22,000 This Southeast Asian gilt-bronze bowl was the surprise sale of Stair Galleries January 15th auction. Shaped in the form of a lotus, the bowl was topped by a seated Buddha figure whose hand touches the earth – a gesture meant to represent a renunciation of worldly desires. Estimated at $300 to $600, bidding quickly shot up to $12,000 and rose to an astounding $22,000 before finally selling online for more than 36 times its high estimate. Keno Auctions, “American & European Paintings & Furniture” – January 18, 2011 Régis François Gignoux (1816-1882), The Artist at Work in the Mountainscape Price Realized: $11,250 Following the success of their May 2010 Inaugural Sale, Keno Auctions was poised to set records once again with their January 2011 auction. Among the top selling lots were Winslow Homer’s Five Boys at the Shore, which sold for $414,800, and a rare and previously undocumented William and Mary Veneered High Chest of Drawers c. 1705-1725, which set a world record when it sold for $317,200. Online sales were also brisk with more than 350 bidders from over 18 countries. Among the top online sales was an 1848 oil on canvas by French artist Régis François Gignoux (1816-1882). Entitled The Artist at Work in the Mountainscape, the painting sold online for $11,250 (all prices include buyers premium). Antique Helper, “Superhero Museum Auction” – January 22, 2011 Batmobile Model Price Realized: $12,000 When the collection of the American Superhero Museum
