Saleroom
JANE GREENWOOD
McCROSTIE'S antique and art sale of November 25 last included eighty-six paintings in a special evening session.
It made a refreshing change to attend a sale with a catalogue made up for the most part of pictures selling on behalf of estates and consequently offered without reserves. Genuine auction sales, where lots are knocked down to the highest bidder are rare these days most recent offerings around the country being too heavily comprised of dealers' lots with reserves around market value.
Had the McCrostie catalogue included more good quality paintings it would have been a memorable sale. Two of the works that had caught my eye in the catalogue proved most disappointing. The watercolour described as being by Rita Cook (Rita Angus) was not by that artist. The signature 'Cook' may have been that of her brother-in-law James - but that is only a possibility. Secondly, the small watercolour by Alfred Wilson Walsh was taken out of an autograph book and was a very slight work.
On the other hand there were a few pleasant surprises. The three Margaret Stoddarts in the catalogue were all good works; and the last works offered were of a quality that would grace any museum collection. Chrysanthemums and Rose-Hips, a watercolour 13 x 19.5 inches, initialled and dated 1893, fetched $1,700 - the second highest price of the sale. The Tumbling Stream, the largest of the Stoddarts, 22 x 15.5 inches and signed, realised $650. It was a fine watercolour but it lacked the appeal of the flower-piece.
After an inspection of the pictures it was clear that the large watercolour The Gold Escort on the Rock and Pillar by William Mathew Hodgkins was going to be the painting to attract the interest of those buyers who had come along looking for a good investment.
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WILLIAM MATHEW HODGKINS The Gold Escort on the Rock and Pillar, 1864 watercolour |
This was definitely an investor's picture. It had some historical importance, it was large and well executed, and it was by a very notable colonial painter. Painted in 1864, it depicted a mounted guard escorting a gold coach through misty terrain. It was probably no better than any good illustration in a Boys Own Paper adventure story (if you've been around long enough to remember them): but with a few exceptions like von Tempsky, there were very few narrative painters among our colonial forbears, and it made me wonder if Hodgkins produced other similar paintings at this period.
Any tentative idea I entertained of doing a little dealing myself (I had only recognised two dealers present when the sale began) and buying the picture to take back to Wellington for resale were quickly dispelled when, before I could catch the auctioneer's eye, it had passed my limit of $2,000. Lively competition took it up to around $3,500, when it appeared that there were only two bidders left competing. It was finally knocked down to a Christchurch businessman for $5,000 a record price for this artist and a very good price considering that the picture needed quite a bit of restoration.
Two other prices of interest at this sale were: C.D. Barraud, North Island landscape with river, watercolour, signed with initials, $850; John Gibb, The Ship Merope passing an iceberg near Cape Horn. The Gibb was an oil measuring only8.25 x 11.5 inches: and for a very indifferent picture the $400 it fetched seemed more than enough.
Contemporary paintings always seem very uncomfortable in a New Zealand auction-room amongst the prevailing sombre tonalities nicely framed in mock-antique. Without a dash of colour from a late Hodgkins, or a Nairn or a Friström to bridge the gap, modern paintings can have the same shock effect on buyers as a practical joker at a funeral. Perhaps to avoid such irreverence, DUNBAR SLOANE, the Wellington auctioneer, presented a small catalogue of more or less modern pictures a week or two after his big picture sale of November.
Once again the auctioneers in their over-eagerness to find a Rita Angus for the catalogue had let us down. A small watercolour landscape, signed with the initials R.A. and dated 1948, had been catalogued as a Rita Angus. like the mis-described watercolour in Christchurch a few days earlier, this work bore no resemblance to the dinkum oil. The price it fetched however suggested that the catalogue entry had influenced the bidding, because instead of fetching the $30 or $40 it was surely worth, it realised $150.
Auctioneers are not expected to be art experts. But when they advertise themselves in bold type as 'Fine Art Auctioneers' it is not asking too much of them that they take the trouble to find a local expert to vet their collections before going to the printer.
For interest, this sale depended on the attention that one or two genuinely modern works might attract. After the announcement that one of a pair of miniature watercolours by W.G. Baker had been stolen during the afternoon viewing (its surviving mate fetching $130) we marked time until the Hanleys (sic) and McCahons were offered towards the end of the sale (without however failing to notice in passing the National Gallery's purchase of an early Raymond Mcintyre portrait of Doris Mcintyre, the artist's sister, for $2,000; and payment of top price of the sale for a Frances Hodgkins of only middling quality a gouache, 16 x 21 inches, knocked down to them for $4,000.)
The first Hanly offered, lot 82a, was a work that had interested me in the catalogue a watercolour from his In the Garden series, signed and dated 1968. I had intended to bid for it but I found it disappointing and I wasn't surprised when it only fetched $225. This price, the auctioneer said, was slightly below reserve and would be subject to the owner giving consent to the sale.
The next lot, 82b, was an earlier painting and a good example of the artist's work after his European sojourn. It was titled Woman and Cat, signed and dated 1959, and realised $350.
The principal contemporary offering was a large semi-abstract oil by Colin McCahon on unstretched canvas, titled Dedication in the catalogue (it was inscribed by the artist and had probably been a gift). It measured 64 x 37 inches and was initialled and dated 1963.
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COLIN McCAHON, Dedication 1963, oil on canvas (collection of the National Gallery, Wellington) |
Although contemporary paintings don't normally sell well at auctions (the two Hanlys for example would be priced at nearly double their auction prices at a dealer gallery), I had a hunch that this McCahon was not going to go cheaply because I had spotted three big collectors of modern works sitting through the sale without showing much interest up until now. The bidding was quite competitive and seemed to come from about four genuine bidders. The knock-down price of $2,000 seemed satisfactory because I had seen a good many of the artist's works of around this period and I didn't find this one especially interesting.
What surprised me afterwards, though, was learning that the McCahon had been bought for the National Gallery. I was surprised because, a few months earlier, two far better paintings by McCahon were sold in the same sale-rooms for $1,000 and $1,500 respectively - one of them from the Elias series. On that occasion they fetched only about a third of their value, in my opinion.
I know that the National Gallery doesn't buy pictures simply because they can be had cheaply: but unless they have a surfeit of Elias paintings, I can't help commenting that the work they bought seemed only half as important as that which they didn't buy.
Originally published in Art New Zealand 4 Febraury/March 1977