During Bonhams Skinners’ recent American art sale, the artist names may have not been super familiar to Western collectors: Guy Carlton Wiggins, Jasper Francis Cropsey, William Trost Richards, Emile Gruppe and others. But dig a little deeper and the West was represented in the sale: Dave McGary, Eanger Irving Couse, Albert Bierstadt and Porfirio Salinas. The October auction realized $843,000 with an 81 percent sell-through rate.
Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973), Bluebonnet Meadowland, oil on canvas, 23 7/8 x 36 in. Estimate: $20/40,000 SOLD: $28,160
The top lot was Bierstadt’s An Alps Mountain Scene with Figures, a Cabin, and a Cow (est. $20/40,000) that sold for $48,640. Not far behind it, beneath the Wiggins painting, was the Salinas lot, Bluebonnet Meadowland (est. $20/40,000), which sold for $28,160.
“The American art market is steady and resilient, with a growing number of buyers for works of art under the $50,000 level,” says Jelena James, senior specialist and head of sale for the auction house.
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), An Alps Mountain Scene with Figures, a Cabin, and a Cow, oil on canvas, 28 7/8 x 21 ½ in. Estimate: $20/40,000 SOLD: $48,640
Several noteworthy lots in the sale did not originate from the West, but certainly intersected with Western themes. One of those pieces was Edward Henry Potthast’s The Ox Cart, showing a farmer with a load of hay as a storm looms large on the horizon. The work sold for $12,000, just over estimates. —
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