Old Boston, Historic Nantucket and 18th - 19th c. Marine Collections Top Rafael Osona’s 40th Annual August Auction

DAY 1: Sale of Old Boston & Historic Nantucket Material plus Americana, Fine Art, Continental & American Furnishings & Décor

Estate of Linda Loring, to benefit Linda Loring Nature Foundation, with additions

Saturday, August 8, 2020 at 9:30am

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American Painter, Ralph Eugene Cahoon a chanteyman, of sorts; a weaver of painterly yarns, charismatic interpreter of not-so-far-fetched tales. This scarce and intimate China Trade interior scene perfectly preambles a two-day auction that reaches to the far corners of oceans, obsessions and cultures.

Lot 329, Ralph Eugene Cahoon Jr. (1910-1982) Oil on Masonite “Sailor’s Surprise” - Estimate $50,000-$60,000

Something for everyone. Compelling historic material from Linda Loring’s residences - in Louisburg Square, a private enclave in Old Boston’s Beacon Hill and at Ray’s Court, in Nantucket’s Historic District - is offered alongside her collections focused on Americana, fine jewelry, and her acquisitions in continental, Asian and American fine art, furnishings and décor.

Many fine art offerings survey 18th and 19th c. European and American tastes. Works by father, John Joseph Enneking and son, Joseph Eliot Enneking, some genre and landscape paintings, Severdonck’s farmland animals and a pair of noble portraits depicting “Dorothea Agusta Leonora and Friederich Hermann von der Streithorst convey Old World 19th century values, in contrast to several important Nantucket paintings including three by Wendell Macy, three paintings by William Ferdinand Macy, and three scarce Nantucket scenes plus notable woodcarvings by James Walter Folger.

For those spectators who find themselves distracted by the variety and depth of auction material being presented at Osona’s Preview Gallery, the innocence among Loring’s five charmingly itinerant American Children's Portraits are both grounding and a comfort.

There’s a singular opportunity to acquire new-to-the-market Nantucket material descended in the family of Captain James Cary, Master and half-owner of the Ship Rose. 21 lots include sea chests, ship’s gear, Ewer and Godfrey maps, Nantucket-made furniture and household furnishings, including tea caddies, a yarn winder, water buckets in original paint and the family progeny’s well-worn schoolhouse slates.

Impressive early Nantucket Quaker made furniture is further represented in several offerings, including a Rush Seat Ladderback in original paint with line and star decoration and a Federal Tilt Top Candlestand circa 1805.

Meanwhile, a potent collection of mirrors nicely frame 18th and 19th century Old Boston’s material culture. Bidders will find a choice Connecticut River Valley Queen Anne Chest on Chest and a Levi Pitkin tall clock topping off several offerings of Early American Furniture in a buyer’s market.

In any market, those in the know will not overlook the groundbreaking work of America’s Gustav Stickley nor that of Tiffany Studios.

Everyone - including devotees of Americana will thoroughly appreciate a lyrically colored lion hooked rug, hungry and mounted; from the Thomas A Gray Collection, among 5 trade signs also TAG collection provenanced.

Loring’s appetite for fine jewelry does not disappoint. Least of all three Seaman Schepps designs and a 18k White Gold over 18k Yellow Gold Diamond Brooch.

Over 400+ lots offered Saturday, August 8, 2020 at 9:30am, Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.

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DAY 2:  The Marine Sale, 18th & 19th c. Scrimshaw, Artifacts, Logbooks, Portraits, Whaler Made Crafts & Paintings

Estates of Harold P. Genvert, MD., Westport, CT and Jack Magee, Quincy, MA with additions

Sunday, August 9, 2020 at 10am

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It remains to be seen, who will win it. There’s one and only one Herman Melville 1930 First Edition Lakeside Press Moby Dick or The Whale, the very first Rockwell Kent illustrated edition, with 280 pen, brush and ink drawings. Number 1 of just 1,000 sets printed.

Lot 417, 1930 First Edition Lakeside Press Moby Dick, Limited Edition 1/1,000; Estimate $5,000-$7,000

A young Melville took to sea in 1839 as a common sailor on a merchant ship and next aboard the whaler Acushnet, but he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. You could also say there was one and only one Herman Melville.

During this 40th of Osona’s globally anticipated Annual Marine Auction, 18th & 19th c. paintings headline the second day of the two-day sale including a commanding painting (among several) by Antonio Jacobsen, two by Timothy Thompson as well as original works by Benjamin Russell, Gilbert Gaul, Nicolo Fondo, C.H. Gifford, engravings by W.J. Huggins and others.

“Scrimshaw, to me, is the whaler’s sketchpad…” Osona has been known to muse. His is an apt vantage point for evaluating the off-duty handwork of whaling crews. Over 160 lots of scrimshaw and whalemens’ crafts offer the full range of 19th c. themes – representing both ingenious contrivances and naïve imagery – and the material is full of surprises: symbolic patriotic figures, Naval prowess, portraiture, fashion plates, ethnic diversity, the Napoleonic mystique, and the whale hunt itself. Collectors will seek out a new to market Britannia Engraver’s tooth, descended in the Franklin Starr family; and don’t miss this singular sperm whale tooth, “The Wiscasset of Wiscasset, circa 1836” flying the American flag.

There’s a second Ralph Cahoon painting not to be overlooked. “The Whaling Bark Ann Alexander,” She was a notable whaler out of New Bedford; having been rammed and sunk by a wounded sperm whale in the South Pacific in 1851, some 30 years after the famous incident in which the Ship Essex was stove and sunk by a whale in the same area.

Look for an important logbook for the whaling ship, Levi Starbuck as well as a fine Portrait of Captain Starbuck, himself.  There are 23 whaling harpoons, marine instruments and gear, ship’s portraits, ship models and more.

For the practical at heart, caringly elaborated and scrimshawed walking sticks, ditty boxes, busks for the lady’s dressing room, tools, and domestic implements for the workshop, sewing room or kitchen. Historians will admire impressive ‘monuments’ commemorating the Maritime’s Golden Era of great ships and Herculean events.

Alongside the Genvert Magee estate material, Osona will be offering material from Boston’s North Shore, Nantucket & Siasconset private collectors and beyond.

Over 400+ lots offered Sunday, August 9, 2020 at 10:00am Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.