Date: Fri 29-Jan-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: SHIRLE

Quick Words:

Dawson-Fletcher

Full Text:

Dawson Auction

(with cuts)

By J.M.W. Fletcher

MORRIS PLAINS, N.J. -- Like the title of the well-known book The Last of the

Waldrons, sisters Janet and Elizabeth Waldron became the final caretakers of

their family's Highland Park Federal manor, an historic building which has

been the Waldron's family residence since before the Civil War.

At their Morris Plains location, the Dawson gallery conducted an auction on

January 15 and 16 which featured -- except for a smattering of items sold at

Sotheby's New York gallery -- the entire cellar to attic contents from this

great family's home.

The two spinster Waldron sisters were avid and informed collectors. Each room

of the four-story manor was crammed with their diverse acquisitions -- as well

as those objects inherited from the many previous Waldron generations. Every

nook and cranny of each of the 20 rooms was filled with period American and

English furniture, early lighting, porcelain, glass and pottery, primitive

portraits, textiles, and silver.

Linda Dawson recalled how her firm came to handle the collection. "We knew

[the Waldron sisters] when we were doing house sales in the late seventies and

early eighties. The variety of property is just incredible. Everything from

early New Jersey coverlets to early American pewter, eclectic porcelain and

Sandwich doorknobs, Chinese Export, collections of Battersea and enamel boxes

and early American furniture."

"This is very exciting for us," she continued, "because it is a single-owner

collection, which we are known for. We sold the silver and jewelry portion on

December 5, and it went through the roof."

Each offering was displayed to the bidding audience via television monitors;

the more than 900 lots could only have been seen and handled during the

week-long preview. A fully illustrated catalogue, which included many lots

without formal estimates, was available -- and needed. The four-station phone

bank was inordinately active throughout the sale, perhaps due to a two-day ice

storm in the area.

Friday's noon auction began with more than 50 hand-woven rugs. Many were small

and worn, bringing less than $1,000.

A few others, like a Shirva runner with blue ground and geometric field, 13 by

five feet, sold to one of two phone bidders for $4,000. A fine Bihjar rug,

blue ground, 19 by 12 went against the phones to a persistent floor bidder at

$11,000.

At the beginning of Saturday morning's event, Linda Dawson related another

fascinating item about the Waldron family. "One of the interesting things

about the sale is that the Waldrons were not only caretakers, they were

record-keepers. We found index cards for just about every item in the house.

Some of the cards go back to the 1920s."

"[The sisters] wrote down not only where they purchased something, but from

whom they purchased it; how much they spent; who the sitter of the painting

was; who owned the family coverlet. We have all [the three by five cards] on

zerox copies." No small feat -- the cards numbered from three to four

thousand.

"There was also a barn," Dawson continued. "And in it were crates and things

that had been wheeled in, when other family members had died. Never a bit

touched. Unbelievable."

Eight lots, comprising multiple groups of handbags, ranged from $150 to $550.

A large number of minor framed lithographs, prints, etchings, mezzotints and

watercolors were grouped in a dozen or so lots and brought modest bids ranging

from $75 to $450.

An interesting sectional map, laid on canvas, of Middlesex County, N.J. sold

well to a floor bidder for $600. A fine needlework sampler, depicting a

Georgian manor house with the family tree of the Van Meter family, made $2,000

(est $600/800). A good grouping of coverlets ranged from $200 to $1,700.

Primitive items included a fine mahogany hanging candle box that sold for

$850. Many, many individual items were -- due to sheer volume -- grouped

together in lots containing miscellaneous silver, pens, dresser items,

Valentines, and Battersea enamel and porcelain boxes, and fetched prices

ranging from the low to the ridiculous.

For example, a group of antique hardware that included glass pulls and brass

tie backs, which carried a modest estimate of $400, was fiercely fought to a

winning bid of $3,750 by a buyer on the phone.

Needless to say, it was a fantastically interesting sale.

All prices quoted do not include a 15 percent buyers premium.