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Record-setting Bonhams & Butterfields
Native American art auction
brings more than $2.8-million
mailto:pr.us@bonhams.com?subject=Ethno Post Sale
 Specialty Department’s December Sale is Best-Ever
Native American, pre-Columbian, and tribal art was offered and sold by Bonhams & Butterfields on December 5, 2005 in San Francisco setting world-record auction prices for multiple lots from a noted private collection. The specialty department’s most successful offering totaled more than $2.8-million, the bidding generating applause and even tearful emotions as hammers fell on strong prices.
The standing-room-only San Francisco salesroom was crowded with bidders from across the country and overseas and two full banks of auction house staff manned telephones for bidders in Europe, the US East Coast and Canada. A television crew taped the auction action for a Fine Living Network show to be broadcast in 2006.
The top lot of the day set a new world record price for a Native America basket sold at auction, eclipsing that set in these salesrooms in 2004. The unidentified successful bidder paid $336,250, three times the pre-sale estimate, for a 1929 Paiute polychrome basket of degikup form by Tina Charlie, offered from the collection of Mrs. Ella Cain (see Cain bio in Notes section to follow this text). The basket, just over 20-inches in diameter, is one of perhaps only ten of its size ever produced in the Yosemite-Mono Lake region and a superlative artistic statement by one of the most highly respected California weavers.
Another basket selling for an auction record was also woven by Tina Charlie. This earlier example – created in 1926, sold for $248,250 and is likewise considered one of the maker’s finest. The basket had won Second Prize at Yosemite’s Indian Field Days -- these annual multi-day events, popular in the 1920s, were created as a marketplace for trading Native American wares and for celebrating Indian culture.
Strong prices were achieved throughout the sale as bidders vied for pieces from the Cain Collection as well as those of other owners. A Paiute polychrome basket by Lucy Telles, yet another prizewinner from the Indian Field Days competitions, tripled its estimate to bring $138,250. A basket by Nellie Jameson had been awarded Second Prize at June Lake’s California Field Days events. This 11-inch high basket sold for more than four times its estimate, bringing $93,250, and a third Tina Charlie example estimated at $25,000 to $35,000 brought $87,500 after competitive bidding pushed its price.
An Apache basketry olla from a different consignor attracted serious collector interest. This barrel-shaped two-foot tall container sold within estimate for $47,000. The same price was paid for a Cheyenne beaded cradleboard from the Collection of Dr. Robert Ruby of Moses Lake, Washington. The cradleboard had been acquired in the late 1890s by an officer stationed at Fort Keough in Montana and had descended through the enlisted man’s family.
A rare Tinglit shaman’s rattle, acquired in the 1870s by a Captain of the Seventh Regiment of the US Army, was offered by a descendant who attended the auction. The nine-inch long rattle, finely carved in two sections and featuring a pair of animal heads in profile, sold for four times its estimate, bringing $149,250. Delighted and moved to tears, the great-granddaughter of the collector shared that the rattle had hung in her grandmother’s living room until after her death – at 106-years of age. Both American and European bidders had vied for this lot, its iconography and design seen as unique.
Prior to the auction, the grandson of one of the most famous basket makers requested to bless the baskets and conducted a brief ceremony during which he prayed for the makers as well as the baskets’ owners – both old and new. This gentleman also acquired several baskets woven by his ancestors. After one lot hammered to his bidder number, he rose from his seat and pumped his fist in the air -- his enthusiasm was not to be contained, followed by another round of applause in the room.
Native American pottery included Zia and Zuni jars and a pair of Hopi works attributed to the potter Nampeyo attracted interest. A polychrome jar 14-inches in diameter featuring depictions of flying insects sold for $29,375 (est. $5/10,000) while another, painted with wing and feather motifs, brought $15,275 (est. $6/9,000).
Southwest weaving sold well, as did Plains and Woodlands material. The auction closed with African, Southeast Asian, Oceanic and Latin American lots including a number of rarities from private collections and the Palm Springs Art Museum - these lots sold to benefit future acquisitions.
A pair of Zairian objects, a Kuba Janus-face wood cup and a Luba ivory finial carved as the torso of a female figure, stemmed from the collection of Admiral and Mrs. French Moore and sold for $22,325, while $32,313 was paid for a Yombe maternity group, this lot featuring a carved wood seated mother gently cradling a child in her lap. From another collection came a Lega Bwame Society ivory maskette (offered with a ritual bone spoon) collected in 1962 in the former Belgian Congo by an entomologist. Estimated at $6,000 to $9,000, unrelenting bidding on phones from Europe pushed the maskette price to $64,500.
Among the lots from the Palm Springs Art Museum was a collection of Aboriginal bark paintings on eucalyptus, originally assembled by a Christian missionary living in Sydney in the 1920s and ‘30s, most selling at or above their estimates to Australian and stateside competition. In that same South Seas section, a Solomon Islands figural canoe prow deaccessioned by the Museum featured a depiction of a guardian figurehead with mother-of-pearl insets for eyes. The prow brought $25,850. From the pre-Columbian section, a Nazca feather panel, circa 200-600 AD, of cotton, fully covered in tied multi-colored feathers, sold above estimate for $15,275, this piece having been in a noted private collection.
The auctioneers announced that the next Native American, Pre-Columbian and Tribal art auction, scheduled for June of 2006 in San Francisco, would feature Part Two of baskets from the Cain Collection. As well, copies of the collector reference book The Ella M. Cain Collection of Mono Lake Paiute Baskets, a fitting tribute to the wealth and depth of this historic collection, co-published by Bonhams & Butterfields’ VP and Dept. Director Jim Haas and noted basketry expert Bruce Bernstein, Assistant Director for Cultural Resources at the National Museum of the American Indian, will be available for sale by mid-December.
Notes to Editors
Mrs. Ella Cain
Mrs. Ella Cain began collecting Native American baskets as early as 1920, she passed away in 1966 at the age of 83 after having assembled a premier collection. Mrs. Cain was a retailer and business-owner in dusty Bodie,
California, south of the Yosemite area, for much of her life. She was a published author having written a history of California’s Mono Lake County. The nearby Bridgeport Museum maintains a collection of property from the Ella Cain Collection. She was said to have been on the “front line” during the "golden age of Native American basketry," acquiring a sizable number of the best baskets available.
-End-
Press Contact: Levi Morgan, 415-503-3348, levi.morgan@bonhams.com
Bonhams, founded in 1793, is one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. The present company was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son and Neale UK. In August 2002, the company acquired Butterfields, the principal firm of auctioneers on the West Coast of America and in August 2003, Goodmans, a leading Australian fine art and antiques auctioneer with salerooms in Sydney, joined the Bonhams Group of Companies. Today, Bonhams is the third largest and fastest growing auction house in the world with a global network of offices and regional representatives providing sales advice and valuation services in 20 countries. It offers more sales than any of its rivals, through two major salerooms in London: New Bond Street, and Knightsbridge, and a further 10 throughout the UK. Sales are also held in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Boston in the USA; and Switzerland, Monaco, and Australia. For a full listing of upcoming sales, plus details of more than 40 Bonhams specialist departments, go to http://www.bonhams.com/. For other press releases, go to www.bonhams.com/press.
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