Objects Of Desire

IN ONE OF THE LARGE bay windows of their new gallery at 290 Dartmouth St., Doyle auctioneers Kathryn Craig and Chris Barber are grappling with two cast-iron Dalmatians to the beat of ’90s club hits. The window display has an improvised animal theme, curated from a lot that’s up for auction in another week. It’s a Friday afternoon, but Craig and Barber have miles to go before they sleep. There’s still a tower of boxes to build, more set up, then a drive out to the ’burbs to pick up a lot from a seller.

With wisps of packing material swirling at their feet, the team moves on to preparing the gallery for auction, hanging paintings and staging intriguing displays in a nimble, rhythmic two-step: Lean in to assemble, lean back to observe, and repeat. They save their breath for a few good-humored observations and directives.

At the moment, the gallery is a temporary jumble of fascinating and incongruous objects—relics from centuries and cultures past. Two American folk-art portraits solemnly stare down a pair of low-slung, burnt-orange leather recliners. There are bundled Persian carpets, antique game boards, bucolic landscapes in dark wood frames, statues of deco-era nymphs, elegant silver tea sets, and a bright-eyed ceramic parrot surveying the room from a glass case. In another week, everything will sell, and the gallery will fill, empty, and fill again in rapid succession.

A family business, Doyle was founded in New York by Newton, Massachusetts, native William Doyle in 1962. When he became ill in the 1990s, he passed the running of the business to his wife, Kathy. In 2019, Kathy turned it over to their daughter, Laura, who had already put in nearly two decades learning the trade under both parents. It’s the largest woman-run auction house in the U.S., with about 100 employees overall, including specialists in furniture, Asian decorative arts, jewelry, Americana, and rugs and carpets. New York has the largest staff and the most activity, with the other locations run by teams of two or three appraisers and a handful of administrators.

Though small compared to giant brands such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s, Doyle has earned a

reputation for handling interesting and important collections with care, and for securing high prices at auction. They’ve appraised and sold estates for a long list of cultural icons and Hollywood A-listers, including Bette Davis, Stephen Sondheim, Louis Armstrong, and Oleg Cassini. They’ve also sold the goods from time- honored New York institutions like the Russian Tea Room and Elaine’s.

In 2003, Doyle set a new world record for the auction sale of a piece of Chinese porcelain when a rare flask from the Yuan Dynasty sold for six million dollars, a coup that made the papers. Artists and artist estates also are something of a specialty for Doyle; recently they managed the sale of Vermont artist Ogden Pleissner’s paintings. The Boston gallery sees a lot of fine art and jewelry.

Laura Doyle likes to emphasize the importance of the human touch. “The auction business has been transformed by technology, but at heart, what we do is about people. It’s personal. These objects have a great deal of meaning for buyers and sellers, and the stories and emotion behind collections transcend the transactional. We pride ourselves on building lasting relationships with our clients.”

Doyle’s approach has served the house well, and its reach is global, with buyers and sellers from around the world. Its New England presence, which started as a pop-up gallery on Clarendon Street in 2022 intended to last just six months, lasted two years. In 2025, when the opportunity arose to establish a permanent home in Back Bay, Doyle seized it.

A IS FOR AUCTION

While the popular PBS TV series “Antiques Roadshow” did a lot to dispel the myth of the haughty appraiser, auction houses and high-end antique dealers still have a certain reputation for snootiness. People are always apprehensive about being made to feel ignorant. They’re also wary about being taken for a ride.

“Some people have the idea that auction houses aren’t approachable, and for them selling a collection can be a little frightening. We try to dispel any fears or negative expectations.

I’m very upfront and transparent about the process,” says Craig. “We hand-hold all the way.” Barber nods.

According to them, there’s no such thing as a typical auction. “There are commonalities, but the flowchart almost never works the same way twice,” says Barber.

Usually, estate representatives or private individuals will approach Doyle to get a proposal for how it would handle selling the inventory. Doyle’s team might look at photographs to determine if the collection is something they’d handle. The next step is to meet the seller and see the items in person.

Doyle then appraises the collection and offers a ranged estimate for what they could expect at auction. Most auction houses take a 10 to 30% cut of the profits, depending on the collection’s value, but even that spread can vary, depending on the value of the items.

Before the auction, items are photographed, catalogued, and put online with prices, descriptions of condition, and measurements. After registering, people can bid online, over the phone, or in person.

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

The beauty or rarity of an object can drive up the price, as can the fame of the artist. But a good backstory can turn an otherwise unremarkable piece into a treasure, says Barber.

Over several decades last century, Nina and Bertram Little amassed an impressive collection of folk art in their summer home—Cogswell’s Grant—in Essex, Massachusetts, now a Historic New England property. They were, according to Barber, scholars and collectors of American folk art of the highest order “before that was a thing that anyone was doing.”

Sotheby’s had a landmark sale of their collection in 1994 that changed the folk-art market forever. “There were some things that either didn’t sell in that auction or that the family held back. And we have about 20 of those things in an upcoming auction,” says Barber.

Barber holds up a game board that’s about 15 inches square, with a dull colored checkerboard on top. It’s a plain pine board from around 1840, nothing special to look at. Except that it is, Barber points out, because Bert used it for a drinks tray when he and Nina entertained guests.

“That’s the kind of story that people will latch onto and pay a disproportionate amount of money to be able to say that they own that. If it had no relationship to Bert and Nina Little, it’s a game board that’s worth $400, but because these people were so seminal in the world of Americana, it might sell for thousands.

A GOOD HOME

For Barber, who fell in love with art history in high school and trained at Christie’s after college, the ideal is to sell the right item to the right buyer at the best price.

“You’re putting items in a place that’s better for them. And that sort of satisfies my preservation, art, historical side. I’m happy when objects go to a place where they’re cared for and loved,” he says.

After working in the business for more than two decades, Craig and Barber have ample networks of collectors and can provide them with tips about items of interest coming up for sale.

“An auction house is most successful when the list of people who might buy something at their auction house is as large and, let’s say, active as it can be. You need to know your

market and who all the people are, but you also should know the best buyers within that group,” explains Barber.

Doyle’s team always has the option to put items up for sale in the region where they are most likely to sell. Contemporary art, for example, might do better in New York than Boston.

Paintings by southern artists might move faster in the Charleston gallery.

Says Craig, “We just took in a collection of eight Picasso ceramics, worth $60,000 to $100,000. It’s from Boston, but we’re selling it in New York because there we have a broad range of buyers for that specific category. They might not make their way up here to Boston to see them in person, but they will in New York.”

Shepherding items into the right hands is a pleasure for Craig, too, which is why she’s never left the house. She was hired full time after a college internship at Doyle’s New York office, and remained working there in Manhattan until 2012, when she announced she was leaving for Boston to start a family. She submitted her letter of resignation, but after a tearful meeting, Laura and Kathy asked her to continue with Doyle as the New England Regional Advisor. She didn’t hesitate.

“I love so many aspects of this job,” says Craig. “Helping families navigate the process of selling their collections is a privilege I don’t take lightly. Researching a piece of silver, a

work of fine art, or a stunning piece of jewelry, satisfies my scholarly curiosity. And nothing compares to the thrill of discovering a hidden gem that might have gone unnoticed.”

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OLD MASTERS AND MORE

This auction on December 12 will feature over 300 lots spanning an impressive range of categories, from archaic Asian works of art and Old Master fine art to American furniture, 20th-century contemporary pieces, and jewelry. Visit www.doyle.com/ locations/boston-new-england or call 617-999-8254 for more information.

CLAIRE VAIL