Americana Auctions at Bonhams Skinner Take Home $1.4 Million

Marlborough, MA — Bonhams Skinner hosted an online sale of Americana from August 6 to 16 and a live sale on August 13 in Bonhams Skinner’s Marlborough galleries. Featuring excellent items from the collections of Warren N. Little and Cogswell Grant, the auctions commanded great interest from bidders, and both auctions saw impressive results across the board. Possessing a collector’s eye, much like his parents, Warren N. Little amassed a rich collection with numerous items of unique origin. With many of the top lots coming from his collection, bidders left no doubt of their trust in his taste and discernment.

Leading both sales was the original manuscript journal of “Cleopatra's Barge On A Voyage Of Pleasure,” which brought $100,000. The hand-written journal contains twelve original paintings of ports and other sights along the journey, including the Rock of Gibraltar, and is an eyewitness account of the maiden voyage of America’s first pleasure yacht. The impressive price achieved for the journal was followed closely by an Andrew Clemens Patriotic Sand Bottle with Eagle, Locomotive and Tender and a two-sided relief-carved portrait of Gen. George Washington by architect and craftsman Samuel McIntire, both selling for $75,000. Featured in Samuel McIntire: Carving an American Style, the carved profiles of Washington were a well-known and exciting sight to many. Another Andrew Clemens sand bottle (Patriotic Sand Picture in a Bottle) also commanded great interest, selling for $23,750 on an $8-12,000 estimate, once again attesting to the hot interest in Clemens sand bottles at auction.