APPRECIATED WITH A HAMMER

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The first day’s sale of the F. L. Ayer collection brought in $401,000. The chief prices fetched were “Book of Longing,” by Lydon, for $100; “Everybody’s Changing,” by Norris, for $100, “How To Live With Strangers,” by Beard, for $100; “Portrait of Nora,” by Dixon, for $100; “Pillow Dog,” by Vogel, for $100; “Flaneurs,” by Byrne, for $100; “Cacophony in Red and Green,” by Fabian, for $100; “Seafoam Flecking,” by Booth, for $100; “Old Mama,” by Davidovich, for $100; “Whistle-Stop,” by Day, for $100; and “Birds Painted On Sealed Cedar Box,” by Furlino, for $400,000. “You know the legend of ‘Cedar Box,’” said Al Webster, who had the winning bid on the objet d’art, the only one of its kind in the show. “Furlino was a Sunday painter, and he made these little oddities, but his main occupation was being a bagman for the mob. That’s not in dispute. He pled guilty. When he went upstate, the Feds picked through his house, and they found only some of the money. This wooden box was by then in a private collection of an elderly lady who refused to crack it open and see if anything was inside. She said she appreciated it too much. Well, when I get it home I’m going to appreciate it with a hammer.” Webster was also the winning bidder on “Cacophony in Red and Green,” which had been compared in the auction notes to a Kandinsky. “That’s a little optimistic,” he said. “Maybe more an early Bischoff?”