East Dennis, Mass. – Eldred’s annual Summer Sale, slated for July 28-30, 2021, will feature an exceptional group of Cape Cod and Provincetown Art colony works, from historic examples to pieces by contemporary artists. The auction will take place at the firm’s headquarters in East Dennis, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod.

Notable lots include “Nina”, a portrait by Charles Webster Hawthorne (1872-1930), estimated at $15,000/20,000, “Headed Home”, a 36” x 24” oil on canvas by Anne Packard (b. 1933), estimated at $20,000/25,000, “Cape Cod Patchwork Co. Inc.”, a 1975 commissioned work by Ralph E. Cahoon Jr. (1910-1982), estimated at $15,000/20,000, and “Whoa” by Karl Knaths (1891-1971), estimated at $10,000/15,000. The 1966 large-scale work, 40” x 50”, is illustrated in the Paul Rosenberg & Co.’s 1967 exhibition catalog and the Krannert Art Museum’s “Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture”, 1968.  

The anticipated top lots are two white-line woodblock prints by Blanche Lazzell (1878-1956): “Provincetown Waterfront” and “My Wharf Studio”, both estimated at $35,000-45,000. Lazzell, born in a West Virginia farming community, traveled to Europe and eventually settled in Provincetown, where she was a founding member of the Provincetown Printers, who experimented with the white-line technique seen in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

“It’s always a privilege to handle a Lazzell woodblock,” said Joshua Eldred, president of the firm. “Because they were only done in small runs, they are incredibly rare and desirable. The two Lazzells, and the other core group of Provincetown material in the sale, came from the estate of Hilary Bamford, who actually lived in Provincetown and was active in its civic and arts communities.”  

Other highlighted paintings include two portraits, one of a Sumo wrestler and one of an African tribal chief, by Alexandre Yakovlev (Massachusetts/Russian Federation), estimated at $15,000/20,000 and $10,000/15,000, a view of Narragansett Bay, circa 1880, by Alfred Thompson Bricher, estimated at $18,000/22,000, and “Wellfleet 1942”, one of only five known pastels by Edwin Walter Dickinson (1891-1978), estimated at $12,000/15,000.

Also included is a rare and important view of the East Chamber, Peter Cushing house, Hingham, Massachusetts, 1878 by Ella Emory (19th Century), estimated at $40,000/60,000. It is the companion painting to one illustrated in Little By Little: Six Decades of Collecting American Decorative Arts by Nina Fletcher Little (E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1984). Pieces in the Little collection were purchased from Matthew Cushing in 1957 when Fletcher Little visited the Cushing homestead. Cushing kept this painting because it had the two family cats, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, in the picture.

The sale will also include American and European decorative arts, antique furniture, Americana, Oriental Rugs, large selections of Nantucket baskets, Chinese Export and sporting art, and much more.

The top furniture lot is a Newport Chippendale bonnet-top chest-on-chest, circa 1780, estimated at $10,000/15,000. An 18th Century oxbow chest, believed to have once belonged to Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, a sister of President John F. Kennedy, carries the same estimate, and a rare Chippendale tray-top lowboy, probably Pennsylvania circa 1775, is estimated at $8,000/10,000.

Other highlights include a Pablo Picasso terre de faïence platter “Hibou Mat”, estimated at $12,000/18,000, a  T. & E. Rhodes floor-standing regulator clock in a richly figured mahogany case, estimated at $10,000/12,000, a pair of Late 18th Century English pocket pistols by Durs Egg, gunmaker to King George IV, estimated at $6,000/8,000, and a life-size swan-form garden planter, carved from pine and with traces of gilding, estimated at $15,000/20,000.

The sale also features a diverse selection of property from the India House, New York, including the Chinese lacquered wood buddha that graced the entrance to the club and whose belly members would rub upon departure for good luck. It’s estimated at $2,500/3,500. Other interesting lots include a “Basic Commodities of Commerce” specimen cabinet, donated to the club by James Farrell Sr., president of U.S. Steel from 1911 to 1932, estimated at $1,500/2,500, and a monumental Liverpool pitcher celebrating Ireland, with a satyr-form spout, estimated at $600/800. Many of the pieces included in the sale were listed in A Descriptive Catalogue of the Marine Collection at India House, published in 1935.

The Summer Sale is a live auction with online, absentee and phone bidding available. The firm is tentatively planning on limited in-person bidding, in compliance with Massachusetts COVID-19 guidelines. A sale preview will be held in the days leading up to the auction.  Interested bidders are advised to visit www.eldreds.com or call 508-385-3116 to confirm sale dates and times, the exhibition schedule and bidding options.  

About Eldred’s

The Robert C. Eldred Co. is New England's oldest established antiques and fine arts auction house, now in its third generation of ownership within the Eldred family. In addition to its headquarters on Cape Cod’s historic Old King’s Highway in East Dennis, Mass., the firm also has an office at 5 Roosevelt Avenue in Mystic, Ct. Eldred’s conducts approximately 25 auctions per year encompassing Americana, paintings, Asian art, European decorative art, maritime antiques, sporting art and collectibles. Eldred’s, the nation’s leading marine art auction house, conducts approximately 25 auctions per year encompassing Americana, paintings, Asian art, European decorative art, sporting art and collectibles in addition to marine art. It was recently named one of the top worldwide auction houses by Art + Auction and holds auction records across a wide range of collecting areas.