Press Release

Amesbury, MA, USA, December 12, 2024 -- John McInnis Auctioneers will burst into 2025 with three important auctions set for January 3rd, 4th and 5th, online and live in the Amesbury gallery at 76 Main Street. “We’re kicking off New Year’s week with three exhibitions and auction sales,” said John McInnis of John McInnis Auctioneers. “Collectors and decorators should mark their calendars.”

The Friday, January 3rd Fine Art Collections auction, starting at 2pm Eastern time, features over 200 lots of collections from private estates, to include 19th and 20th century American and European artwork, with lots to discover, together with 60 original paintings by the noted mid-century artist Carl Ivar Gilbert (1882-1959).

The star lot of Day 1, and the undisputed headliner of the three days, is a large oil on canvas abstract painting by Edward Clark (American, 1926-2019), one of the early African American pioneers of abstract painting in the post-war era who placed his large canvases on the floor and painted with a push broom. The work, 72 inches by 48 inches, should bring $75,000-$150,000.

The Saturday, January 4th Important Estates Collections auction, starting at 12 o’clock noon Eastern time, is loaded with 473 lots of period furnishings, fine art, Mid-Century, maritime, clocks, Oriental carpets, folk art, Americana, bronzes and a nice selection of 60 weathervanes locally handcrafted, mostly from the original E.G. Washburne molds and patterns.

An expected Day 2 top performer is the spectacular Northern Essex County (Mass.) one-drawer oak dowry chest dated 1685, embellished with applied, chip-carved moldings, half columns, spindles and bosses. The chest, 27 inches tall by 47 inches wide, has descended by direct lineal descent through at least seven generations of one family and should sell for $30,000-$60,000.

The Sunday, January 5th Oklahoma Collection of Decorative Arts auction, also starting at 12 o’clock noon Eastern time, contains 227 lots of decorative arts, paintings, bronzes, sculptures, Asian art and objects, porcelains, clocks, furniture, lamps and chandeliers from a prominent and well-known Oklahoma collector.

Certain to attract keen bidder interest on Day 3 is an extraordinary 19th century French Rococo gilt clock garniture set of monumental proportions, with a rare double-sided porcelain dial signed “Ws. Masse” and a nine-light candelabrum supported by a nude female being uplifted by a merman. The garniture, with the gilt professionally restored, has an estimate of $10,000-$30,000.

Returning to Day 1 on January 3rd, a graphite on paper Portrait of a Girl by the American Impressionist painter Lilian Westcott Hale (1880-1963), 30 ½ inches by 25 inches (overall) and signed lower right, is expected to fetch $10,000-$25,000; while an oil on Masonite painting by the Naïve figure-market genre painter and puppet maker Hope Shipee Bunin (N.Y., 1908-1970), titled Dusk (Planes Over the Philippines), signed and dated 1941, should finish at $2,000-$4,000.

An oil on board painting by the prominent New England landscape artist John Joseph Enneking (1841-1916), titled Twilight (1887), 12 inches by 8 ¼ inches, should change hands for $2,000-$3,000. Also, lots 1-60 will be dedicated entirely to paintings by Carl Iver Gilbert, whose work depicted landscapes, still lifes, urban scenes, Indian genres and marine paintings. Lot #1 is a striking and colorful work titled Two Men in a Canoe, signed and framed (est. $1,000-$2,000).

To learn more about John McInnis Auctioneers, LLC and the three auctions scheduled for January 3rd, 4th and 5th, being held online and live in the Amesbury, Mass. gallery, visit www.mcinnisauctions.com. Updates are posted frequently.

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