NEW YORK.-Sotheby’s mid-season sale of American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture achieved $4,009,001 today, within its presale estimate of $3.9/5.7 million.

Jennifer Roth, Senior Vice President at Sotheby’s, said, “We were delighted with the competitive bidding and high prices achieved for the top lots in today’s Mid-Season American sale. We saw many works that were fresh to the market and of high quality well exceeding their estimates. The F.A Wyman (lot 57) was a fascinating highlight, in that the artist is undocumented, but the detail and quality of the work catapulted it to over three times its high estimate. Wyman’s panorama of a small town with its artisans and trades people in the 1890’s was followed closely in price by Harry Roseland’s The Beach at Coney Island, which celebrated Americans at leisure in the 1930’s (lot 113). This lot also far exceeded its estimate. We are very pleased that the William Merritt Chase Study in Pink (lot 136) doubled its mid estimate and has found a new home in an American museum. Strong prices were seen for works by African-American artists, Hawaiian artists, and illustrators. The strength of the Pennsylvania region, which we have seen in recent years, continued today with nine of ten lots from a Private Collection, New York finding buyers and bringing strong prices for B.J.O Nordfeldt, Walter Schofield and Fern Coppedge. Another section of the sale which saw active competition was a small group of early, rare oil depictions of Monhegan Island, Maine by Rockwell Kent, including the 1907 Sunset Over the Sea (lot 197). All five works sold, bringing $87,000 for the collection and more than doubling the presale high estimate of $41,000.