Antiques and The Arts Weekly

January 18, 2022 

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BRANFORD, CONN. – Over the course of two days of extended bidding, Fred Giampietro and New Haven Auctions dispatched 652 lots from the Americana collection of retiring Ohio furniture dealer, David Good. Painted furniture, smalls, boxes and redware were highlights of the January 8 session, with Good’s collection of early American glass leading the offerings sold on January 9. Bidding in the room was allowed by appointment, with phone and absentee bidding and internet bidding on three platforms rounding out ways interested bidders could participate in the sale. The auction was the inaugural sale for New Haven Auctions’ dedicated bidding platform.

Only one lot was withdrawn because it had been damaged during the preview and one lot – a potty chair – was passed with no bids. After the sale, Giampietro said he had received some offers so he was confident it would sell. More than 3,000 bidders were registered online, with in-house, absentee and phone bidders adding another 300; overall, the house welcomed about 400 new bidders. While New Haven Auctions typically receives more than twice that number of bidders for one of its mixed category sales, Giampietro said the participation exceeded what he typically sees in a dedicated Americana auction. No reserves led to a sell-through rate of more than 99 percent, with a sale total of nearly $2.2 million . . . 

Antiques and The Arts Weekly

October 26, 2021 

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BRANFORD, CONN. – Americana from estates and collections, including folk art, outsider art, period furniture, paintings and accessories, were the main attractions at Fred Giampietro’s New Haven Auctions on October 16 and 17, which hit $1 million, with only two minor lots of the 750 offered passing. Just a little more than 8,000 bidders lined up to vie material over the two days, with three online platforms, phone and left bids and in-person gallery bidding. The first day’s surprise was an important Southern slave journal that was taken from its $500-$1,000 estimate to finish at $32,400. The journal, which is going to a Georgia institution, was titled “Tracking 264 Negroes between Swift Creek, Bibb County, Georgia, Sumter County, Georgia, Spring Creek, Georgia and Cowarts, Georgia,” and dated 1859.

Ashleigh Oatts, education coordinator for the T.R.R. Cobb House in Athens, Ga., said the historic home was notified by someone at the Georgia Museum of Art that the journal was coming to auction. “They know the family connections,” said Oatts. “The journal belonged to John B. Lamar, who was the brother-in-law of the older brother of Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb, who owned the T.R.R. Cobb House and managed all of the plantation . . . 

Antiques and The Arts Weekly

April 20, 2021 

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BRANFORD, CONN.- New Haven Auctions has moved. It didn’t take long for auctioneer Fred Giampietro’s firm, which ran its first sale in November, 2018, to outgrow its space on Peck Street. When an opportunity for more square feet opened up in Branford, just a stone’s throw from the beach, Giampietro seized the opportunity and took his operation eastward along the Connecticut coastline.

His April 10-11 sale, which offered a collection from dealer Bob Foley and the estate collection of dealer Nancy Sevatson, as well as others, was the best one yet for the firm when the total rang in at $1.39 million.

“We had a little over 6,000 registered bidders,” Giampietro said, “Very strong volume for a sale of specific material. People loved the new space, there’s so much right around here. It was fun seeing a lot of old friends that came by, we had a robust preview.”

The sale was led at $49,200 by a folk art needlework on paper featuring three women and a bird tree. It had come from the estate of Nancy Sevatson and lore said she had bought it at a small, uncataloged auction near her home in New Hampshire. The paper was linen-lined and tacked to a wood panel, a banner to the bottom of the work read “Ann Hall Her Work 1823.” It sold to a New York collector, underbid by Connecticut dealer David Schorsch . . .

Antiques and The Arts Weekly

January 26, 2021 

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NEW HAVEN, CONN. – Just one of the company’s four online platforms saw more than 1,000 bidders watching and bidding live at all times for New Haven Auctions’ January 16-17 sale, auctioneer Fred Giampietro said. More were added into the mix from the other platforms and absentee/phone bidding as bidders pushed the sale to a $725,000 total on 706 lots.

The two-day sale pulled in about a dozen consignors from estates as far as Tennessee and Maine, though the first day focused on 404 lots from the Americana collection of Howard and Nancy Wagner of Ohio. The Wagners were well-known collectors in their area, involved in numerous groups related to collecting and historical study. Among them was the Dayton Antique Study Group, the Beavercreek Historical Society and the Ohio Folk Art Association. The two owned and operated The Yankee Peddler, a home decorating center in Fairborn, Ohio.

“Their estate included two generations of collecting,” Giampietro said. “Howard’s father, Dr Howard Wagner, was a collector and dealer. Howard grew up with antiques and inherited his father’s things as he and his wife collected their own." . . . 

Antiques and The Arts Weekly

October 13, 2020 

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NEW HAVEN, CONN. – New Haven Auctions’ two-day sale October 3-4 featured 433 lots in an “Autumn Americana Auction” that was more than 97 percent sold by lot and saw a total of $607,025. On the second day of the sale, the 428 lots offered in a session titled “Antiques & Modern from Estates & Collections” brought in a total of $366,362 with more than 96 percent of lots finding buyers. The sale welcomed nearly 8,500 approved bidders from 11 countries, with bidding in the room, absentee, on the phones and online on Invaluable, Bidsquare and the busiest, Liveauctioneers. With more than 1,000 online bidders watching the sales consistently from start to finish, the house saw a combined total of $973,387 with private collectors buying about 60 percent of the offerings.

Auctioneer Fred Giampietro was upbeat after the sale, commenting on what he saw as strength in the upper-middle level of Americana. “We are excited about the strong results and feel that our strategy of targeted marketing, combined with curated sales, makes a difference.”

Readers will be familiar with Americana dealers James and Nancy Glazer, whose Bailey Island, Maine, gallery has long been a Northeast destination for collectors and dealers alike. When the Glazers decided they wanted to downsize a bit, they called on friend and fellow Americana dealer, Fred Giampietro, now the owner at New Haven Auctions, to sell about 100 lots . . . 

Antiques and The Arts Weekly

July 14, 2020 

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NEW HAVEN, CONN. – Fred Giampietro’s New Haven Auctions ended its two-day sale of antiques from the estate of anthropologists and food historians Michael and Sophie Coe, baseball, sports and historical items on June 28 with an oil on canvas painting by John Martin (1789-1854) titled “The Destruction of the Cities of the Plains” leaving the gallery at $550,000. Signed lower center and dated 1823, the work was purchased in 1965 from Leggatt Brothers – Fine Art Dealers in London, according to catalog notes. Its frame size was 43½ by 66 inches.

Martin was an English Romantic painter, engraver and illustrator known for vast and melodramatic paintings of religious subjects and fantastic compositions, populated with minute figures placed in imposing landscapes.

Michael Douglas Coe (1929-2019) was an American archaeologist, anthropologist, epigrapher and author. He is known for his research on pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, particularly the Maya, and was among the foremost experts in the Mayan culture of the late Twentieth Century. His wife Sophie (1933-1994), with Ukrainian parents, was known for translating from Russian selected chapters from The Writing of the Maya Indians (1967) by Yuri Knorosov, who is credited with originally breaking the Maya code. Sophie Coe’s translation played a major role in legitimizing his previously derided theories. Her further contribution to the field were her studies of native New World cooking, and she became well known for her expertise on chocolate, culminating in her book The True History of Chocolate (1996). She built an extensive collection of books on culinary history, some 1,000 volumes from around the world dating from the Eighteenth Century onwards . . . 

Antiques and The Arts Weekly

May 12, 2020 

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NEW HAVEN, CONN. – With COVID-19 causing antiques shows to cancel and the shuttering of antique stores, dealers around the country have felt the loss of business acutely. On April 30, Fred Giampietro’s New Haven Auctions offered a small sale of 134 lots, all consigned from dealers from the New Hampshire Antiques Dealers Association (NHADA), with the proceeds of the auction benefiting the individual consignor/dealers.

More than 91 percent of the unreserved lots sold, achieving a total of approximately $65,000, including buyer’s premium.

“I was very pleased; the sale exceeded our high estimates and there were some real surprises,” Giampietro told Antiques and The Arts Weekly a few days after the sale closed. “About three-quarters of the sale was bought by private collectors, and I think the dealers are, in general, pretty happy with how it went.”

In compliance with state and local regulations, Giampietro conducted the sale via Zoom and without a preview, though his staff accommodated phone and absentee bidding remotely. He noted that online registrations saw a considerable increase, with about 3,000 registered bidders in total. He noted some international bidders from England, India, Belgium and Hong Kong had been registered . . . 

Antiques and The Arts Weekly

January 31, 2020 

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NEW HAVEN, CONN. — Fred Giampietro’s first New Haven Auction of 2020 was a two-day event, January 11 and 12, that saw continued strength in Americana with great provenance, and there were glimmers of hope for the long-beleaguered furniture category — at least for pieces with great provenance or historical importance. In the firm’s intimate gallery located in an industrial neighborhood approximately 30-40 bidders gathered on each of the days, many of them familiar faces you may see at antiques shows — Barn Star’s Frank Gaglio, New Jersey dealer James Grievo, New York architectural designer Nancy Fishelson, Connecticut dealer Joseph Collins on day one, for example. Yet, for all the continuing support by the trade, Giampietro said two thirds of the 5,700 registered bidders were retail customers. “I thought the sales were very strong and solid, with a lot of bidders coming a long distance,” said Giampietro afterwards. The two sales totaled $789,200, with day two contributing slightly more than one-half of the total. The online component totaled $369,000. Sharing podium duties were Fred and Kathy Giampietro. There were three busy online platforms and the phones were very active . . .

Maine Antique Digest

April 2020

Two-Day Auction of Folk Art, Fine Art, and Antiques

by Frances McQueeney-Jones Mascolo Photos courtesy New Haven Auctions

 

The gallery at New Haven Auctions was fi tted out with the collection of Susie and Richie Burmann for the January 11 auction. The mellow brick walls of the former Erector set factory in New Haven, Connecticut, made an ideal setting for the collection of folk art, and the objects on display drew a smile from most observers. Previews began four days earlier and culminated in a well-attended reception on Friday for the Burmanns attended by dealers and fellow collectors. Speaking some days after the sale, New Haven Auctions’ principal Fred Giampietro described the collectors as having an affi nity for the material, particularly New England objects. The Burmanns had gathered their collection meticulously. The provenance of the objects was included, and for most items no restoration was apparent. They began collecting half a century ago as teachers in Indiana. Susie taught for a short while and turned to restoring old houses. Richie retired from teaching at age 52 and began dealing full time. They moved east and continued buying—and selling— around New England. The couple agreed: “Buy what makes you smile.” For them every piece had a story. They both love heart-in-hand imagery, which has been used by fraternal organizations, the Shakers, the Amish, and John Calvin. They also favor tramp art, with which their collection is replete, and admit to a taste for objects that haven’t been touched. Bidders were seemingly oblivious to estimates and bid most lots well above them. Over 50% of the 196 lots in the Burmann collection lots sold to collectors.

ANTIQUES AND THE ARTS WEEKLY - Review of New Haven Auctions

September 2018

Review by Greg Smith

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NEW HAVEN, CONN. – “I’m more of a curated auctioneer,” said Fred Giampietro, auctioneer and owner at his newly minted New Haven Auctions, a division of Fred Giampietro Gallery, which held its debut 243-lot sale October 29. Indeed the offerings were selective, boasting a nice selection of Native American material; black and white photography; Americana; and art that spanned fine, outsider and folk. The totality was culled from four estates and a dozen other consignors . . .