Stories for February '15
(Issue Story)Elise Abrams, Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Elise Abrams’s shop is just north of Great Barrington on Route 7. Part of it was originally a Dairy Queen.
Elise Abrams.
A very partial interior view.
Abrams said a service like this (which is for 12 although only eight are set up) averages about $300 per piece.
Art Deco Czech geometric cut ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Nashville in Transition: Year without a Heart
The announcement last year that the 33rd edition of the well-known Heart of Country Antiques Showwould be the last saddened collectors and dealers for whom the event had become a festive annual reunion. The Opryland Hotel in Nashville, once merely large, had more than tripled in physical size during the ... (Read More)
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(Young Collectors)2014: The Year in Review
The Young Collector
It’s a fitting thing to be wrapping this up on New Year’s Eve, that night when we indulge ourselves, overindulge ourselves, in any number of ways including nostalgic reflection. Sometimes, like in the afternoons of wet fall days or in the sticky middle-of-summer mornings (or anywhere on Interstate ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Convicted Art Dealer's Release Revoked
Two things not to do after pleading guilty to fraud in connection with the sale of fake artwork are to sell more artwork and to edit the Wikipedia page of a witness who testified before the grand jury. Those things constitute what the United States Attorney in Connecticut claims art ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Art Dealer Charged with Money Laundering
Art dealer Nathan Isen, 61, of Villanova, Pennsylvania, was charged on January 8 with one count of money laundering. According to court papers, Isen is accused of selling 12 pieces of artwork in 2012 in exchange for $20,000 in cash, for the purpose of laundering the $20,000, which he understood ... (Read More)
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(Auction Law and Ethics)Prepare to Make a List
Auction Law and Ethics
“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
I’ve long liked that Mark Twain line, and the message rings true for selecting the “right” auctioneer versus just any other. When a consignor seeks to hire an ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)Fraktur: Four Exhibitions, a Catalog, and a Conference
Drawing of a woman on horseback, circa 1775, attributed to the Sussel-Washington Artist (active 1760-85). Watercolor and ink on laid paper, 8" x 6 3/8". Promised gift of Joan and Victor Johnson.
Drawing of Adam and Eve, 1834-35, attributed to Samuel Gottschall (1808-1898). Watercolor and ink on wove paper, 8" × ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)Letter from London, February 2015
Ian McKay, <[email protected]>
Joseph Mallord William Turner’s Rome, from Mount Aventine, the 36½" x 49½" oil of 1835 that at Sotheby’s on December 3 sold for $47.4 million. In the last 15 years of his life, Turner was enormously experimental and this work, produced when he was 61, just at the ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Farnsworth Extends Shaker Exhibition
Due to the popularity of the exhibit, and to facilitate an increase in school group visits, the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, will be extending the exhibition The Shakers: From Mount Lebanon to the World through March 8. The show of approximately 100 works opened in June 2014.
Drawn primarily ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)A Dozen Dealers to Launch Weekly On-line Antiques Show
Tuesday at noon. That’s the day and time a group of 12 dealers want antiques buyers to remember. Every Tuesday at noon (Eastern time), a batch of fresh antiques will go on line at the soon-to-be-launched Web site 1st N Line (www.1stnline.com), a new on-line weekly antiques show.
The idea came ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)Exhibitions
Maine Antique Digest includes, as space permits, brief announcements of exhibitions planned by galleries, museums, or other venues. We need all press materials at least six weeks in advance of opening. We need to know the hours and dates of the exhibit, admission charges, and phone number and Web site ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Appraisal Radio Show Seeks Guests
Author, auctioneer, appraiser, and home downsizing specialist Michael Ivankovich’s “What’s It Worth? Ask Mike the Appraiser” radio show has been extended by popular demand to a full hour. The show airs live on Friday mornings on WBCB 1490 AM in the greater Philadelphia area from 9 to 10 a.m. Ivankovich ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)New Antiques Event at the New Jersey Home Show
JMK Shows’ new three-day event, Decorating with Antiques, will be held March 6-8 at the New Jersey Convention Center in Edison, New Jersey. It will be a new feature of the New Jersey Home Show, New Jersey’s largest event of its kind.
The collaboration between Allison Kohler, owner of JMK Shows, ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Digitized Wallpaper
For the past two years, Historic New England has been cataloging and digitizing its wallpaper collection. More than 6000 samples have been electronically cataloged and are available on line (www.WallpaperHistory.org). The collection includes rolled, flat, oversize, and three-dimensional materials, which each require unique handling and digitization methods.
The project makes accessible ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)County Unfair
Editorial
Want to sell a highboy in Hauppauge? A sideboard in Southampton? A bookcase in Brookhaven? If so, you need a pay for a license. That unwelcome news is rippling through Suffolk County, New York, the fourth-largest county in the Empire State and home to almost 1.5 million people.
A county ordinance ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Chinese Steel Company Plunges into Chinese Ceramics Investment, Faces Lawsuit
China Gerui Advanced Materials Group Ltd. (CGAM) made a staggering announcement on September 4, 2014. Buried in a long press release announcing second-quarter financial results, the Chinese steel producer revealed it had paid $234 million in cash for a collection of 206 pieces of Chinese porcelain.
The company claimed it was ... (Read More)
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(Book Review)A Shared Legacy
Book Review
A Shared Legacy: Folk Art in America by Richard Miller, with contributions by Avis Berman, Cynthia G. Falk, Lisa Minardi, and Ralph Sessions Art Services International and Skira Rizzoli, 2014, 256 pages, softbound, $65.
A Shared Legacy: Folk Art in America by Richard Miller, with essays by Avis Berman, Cynthia ... (Read More)
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(Computer Article)What’s Your Niche?
A low-cost 7" tablet computer running Windows 8.1.
Computer Column #314
John P. Reid, [email protected]
Antiquers may want to identify their personal niche in the computer world. Personal niches are changing as hardware and software rapidly evolve. Let’s look at the whole picture and identify the range of niches.
Big Computers
The really big ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Cowan's Acquires Little John's Auction Service
Cowan’s Auctions of Cincinnati, Ohio, has acquired Little John’s Auction Service of Orange, California. Completed in January, the deal makes Cowan’s the third-largest auction house of antique firearms in the United States. It brings together two companies with more than 60 years of combined experience and more than $600 million ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)Sotheby's Magnificent Jewels Sale Caps a Year of Stellar Results
This circa 1920 signed Tiffany & Co. platinum, moonstone, and sapphire brooch designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany sold to a phone bidder for $62,500 (est. $20,000/30,000). It was accompanied by an AGL report stating that the sapphire is of Ceylon origin, with no indications of heating. Sotheby’s, New York.
When Lisa ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)California Goes After Ivory
Add California to the list of states attempting to stop the trade of antique ivory. California Assembly Speaker Toni G. Atkins introduced a bill on January 7 to close loopholes that she claims “prevent the effective enforcement of existing California law prohibiting the sale of ivory.” Senator Ricardo Lara is ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Elephant Weathervane Brings $20,060
An elephant weathervane, $20,060. Photo courtesy Locati Auctions.
An early 20th-century elephant-form copper weathervane, estimated at $1500/2500, sold for $20,060 (includes buyer’s premium) at the conclusion of an on-line auction conducted by Locati Auctions of Maple Glen, Pennsylvania (www.locatiauctions.com). The auction closed on December 15, 2014.
The two-dimensional weathervane depicts a walking ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)New Jersey Man Files Suit against Raccoon Creek Antiques
On December 15, 2014, Thomas Marshall of Monroe Township, New Jersey, filed suit in federal court against Raccoon Creek Antiques at Oley Forge, LLC and the two owners: well-known dealers George Allen and Gordon Wyckoff.
According to the suit, Marshall’s now-deceased wife had been a longtime customer of Raccoon Creek, buying ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Authorities Seek Buyer of Stolen Sign
Lt. Col. Bobby Webre of the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana is asking for the public’s assistance in locating a Denham Springs, Louisiana, man wanted on charges of purchasing a stolen antique sign and refusing to return it to authorities.
On December 11, 2014, Chad Prejean was arrested for stealing ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Hooper Family High Chest Sells for $257,000
Photo courtesy Christie’s.
The Hooper family mahogany Chippendale chest of drawers, made in Massachusetts, 1770-90, from the estate of Eric Martin Wunsch, sold on the phone at a Christie’s “Exceptional Sale” at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City on December 11, 2014, for $257,000 (including the buyer’s premium). The chest was ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Second to Isaac Newton, First at Christie’s
Title page of the 1673 Horologium Oscillatorium… by Christiaan Huygens. Photo courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd. 2014.
We do not know if the anonymous high-bidder loves early books, clocks, physics, annotated authors’ copies, Latin texts, or history of science artifacts, but he or she now owns one of the most important objects ... (Read More)
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(Show)The Holiday Antiques Show
Here is a nice 18th-century New England shoe-foot cupboard. It was prominent in the booth of Chris and Karen Doscher. The Doschers are from Wallkill, New York, and trade as Witt’s End Antiques. The piece is constructed of white pine, with a red-washed surface. The storage unit features two paneled ... (Read More)
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(Show)The Pier Antique Show
Bruce Emond of Village Braider, Plymouth, Massachusetts, offered works by still-living artist Claire Harootunian, who once taught at Syracuse University, including a course titled “3-D Design.” The rusted iron standing triangular sculptures were tagged $2900 each.
Wedgwood Fairyland Lustre vase, $7000 from Seaway China Company, Dania Beach, Florida.
The shades and ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Christian Icon Tops Hap Moore Auction
Paul Philippe bronze sculpture of a Turkish Dancer with Parrot, $6555. Hap Moore photo.
Enamel and bronze Christian table icon, $7590.
Surf fishing scene by Emile Albert Gruppe, $4140.
Five-drawer country Chippendale tall chest in a nice grungy red paint, with at least two replaced wooden knobs and an extended bracket base with ... (Read More)
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(Auction)A Short, Stout, and Very Expensive Little Sugar Pot
Rare slip-decorated redware sugar pot, 18th century and very likely from one of the potteries in Charlestown, Massachusetts, $14,375.
Saved from potential oblivion in a landfill somewhere, this 60¼" x 32¾" 18th-century trade sign on a wooden shingle turned into one of the sale’s leaders at $16,100.
There wasn’t much information available ... (Read More)
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(Auction)American Paintings
Georgia O’Keeffe, Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, oil on canvas, 48" x 40", painted in 1932, sold on the phone for $44,405,000 (est. $10,000,000/ 15,000,000) to benefit the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s acquisition fund. This iconic painting is a closeup of a delicate flower made monumental, filling the canvas, and is ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Rare Bellows Tops the Bonhams American Art Auction
Edward Henry Potthast (1857-1927), The Red Bonnet, oil on canvas, 20" x 15", sold on the phone for $149,000 (est. $100,000/150,000). The catalog notes reveal that “aside from a few self portraits and portraits of friends, solitary figures are not common in Potthast’s oeuvre.”
Several phone bidders competed for this untitled ... (Read More)
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(Auction)American Paintings at Christie's
Study for Dinner for Threshers by Grant Wood (1891-1942), charcoal, pencil, and chalk on brown paper laid down on paper, 18" x 72", executed in 1934, was sold for $1,565,000 (est. $1.5/2.5 million), a record for a work on paper by the artist. It’s a study for the finished painting ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Heritage Sells $7.3 Million of American Art
Tom Lovell (1909-1997), Captain Murie’s Pawnees,oil on canvas, 23" x 40½", signed and dated 1983, sold on the phone for $161,000 (est. $100,000/150,000). It illustrates a military story from the early history of Nebraska known as the Battle of Plum Creek, from 1864. Lovell won a gold medal from the ... (Read More)
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(Show)The American Art Fair 2014
Louis Salerno of Questroyal Fine Art, New York City, asked $975,000 for A Side Canyon, Grand Canyon, Arizona by Thomas Moran (1837-1926). The 14" x 20" oil on board was dated 1905; on the back is inscribed “A Side Canyon/ Grand Canyon, Arizona /T. Moran for G. Moulton.”
Proserpine by Hiram ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Evans Sells Americana from Virginia and the South
The high lot of the Evans sale was this folk art fraktur birth and baptismal certificate. The document is dated February 12, 1819, and is inscribed with the name Anna Magdalena Scherertz. The fraktur is watercolor and ink on paper and attributed to the so-called Wild Turkey Artist of Wythe ... (Read More)
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(Show)Heartland Antique Show, Fall Edition
Six flow blue bowls in the Conway pattern by New Wharf Pottery, $45 each from John Wanat of Indianapolis, Indiana.
English watercolor of a gentleman and a dog, $795 from Inez Allen and Nan Donovan of City Mouse Country Mouse Antiques, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Eight-gallon crock, Albany slip, stenciled in yellow with “S. ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Max Berry Banks and Toys Top $3 Million
Clown on Bar, C. G. Bush Co., circa 1880 ex.-L.C. Hegarty, tin and cast iron. Ingeniously, when placed in the clown’s hand, the coin’s weight causes the figure to lean forward; the coin drops into the bank’s base while the clown continues a full rotation of the bar. It brought ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Bids in Toyland
Despite some loss to the multicolored enamel paint, the 6½" x 4½" x 4¼" rare still bank of an unspecified “City Bank” building with a mansard roof and chimney opened the sale at $4740 (est. $1500/2500). Julia photo.
Ives Blakeslee painted palace still bank with light apple-green paint, $18,367.50.
“Walking Down ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Latin-Americana Library of W. Michael Mathes Sells for $1.2 Million
What is believed to be the first book written by a native of Mexico to be printed in Europe sold to a phone bidder for $17,500 (est. $10,000/15,000). Published in Perugia in 1579, it is Rhetorica Christiana,a manual about Mexican culture intended to instruct missionaries. The author, who also engraved ... (Read More)
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(Show)The IFPDA Print Fair 2014
Diana, 2014, the latest print by Alex Katz, made its debut at the IFPDA fair. Printed in an edition of 70, the 36 5/16" x 37 3/8" four-color linocut was $8250 (framed) from Mary Ryan Gallery, New York City, whose booth was accumulating red “sold” dots.
The NY Satellite Print Fair ... (Read More)
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(Auction)A Giant Clock and a Giant Clamshell
This Tiffany & Company mahogany floor clock sold for $98,400 (est. $90,000/ 120,000). It is in a 119" tall case, attributed to R.J. Horner & Company, with a three-train eight-day movement, attributed to J.J. Elliott of London, and nine tube chimes marked “Walter H. Durfee” of Providence, Rhode Island. The ... (Read More)
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(Show)Average Can Be Good
Roberta and David Keyes of Vintage America Antiques, Gig Harbor, Washington, returned for their second time at the show. They brought diverse and delightful offerings. Gig Harbor is on the west side of the Puget Sound, as is Bremerton, where this World War II-era sign originally hung to entice sailors ... (Read More)
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(Auction)The 46th Annual Chappaqua Antiques Show
These mid-19th-century chairs of tiger maple and bird’s-eye veneer and a cane seat were available from Kelyn Antiques, Pawling, New York. Jane Lynn said she found the chairs in New York but believes they are from New England. She asked $265 for the pair.
Samet Durmus of The Golden Horn, a ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Art Dealer William “Willie” Postar's Eclectic Estate Sells to Savvy Crowd
Charles-François Daubigny (French, 1817-1878), given the English title Bucolic Riverscape with a Rowboater, 10" x 14¼", oil on wood panel, $11,875 (est. $1000/2000) to an Internet bidder.
Grogan & Company appraisal consultant Bob Carroll is shown with Butchered Animal by Hyman Bloom (1913-2009). The 70" x 40¼" oil on canvas, 1953, ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Horology Auction Earns Nearly $1.1 Million
The E. Howard & Co. No. 6 Regulator figure-eight clock, eight day, time only, and with a weight-driven movement, was in fine original condition and sold for $40,250. The case is walnut.
The 75" walnut, walnut veneer, and burl Seth Thomas Regulator No. 19 was made for the Santa Fe Railway ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Successful Fall Auction
These cups had sold at Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, in April 1996. The 2" high x 3½" diameter cups were made for Yung-Cheng, as marked on the bottom. They became one of the highlights of Stair’s auction, selling for $23,000.
The pair of Chinese export porcelain dogs, 7" x 5½", with detail ... (Read More)
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(Show)The 2014 San Francisco Fall Antiques Show
This 1920s birdhouse from the East Coast of the United States was made with several doors to let the birds inside and out. From Il Segno del Tempo, Milan, Italy, it was priced at $3500.
Kathleen Taylor of The Lotus Collection, San Francisco, had this circa 1900 hand-painted white cotton cloth, ... (Read More)
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(Show)The 2014 Ellis Boston Show
Knollwood Antiques, Village of Thorndike, Massachusetts, had an 1824 map of Rome, printed in 16 panels, newly conserved, mounted, and framed, that dominated the booth.
Katherine Houston Porcelain, Boston, offered a variety of naturalistic pieces.
Bridges over Time, Newburgh, New York, offered a mid-century pair of T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings armchairs with leather strapping. ... (Read More)
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(Auction)"M85" Tops Art Auction in Portland
Charles Henry Niehaus (1855-1935), John Paul Jones, an 18¼" tall bronze, sold for $20,400 to an absentee bidder.
Bernard Boutet de Monvel (French, 1881-1949), 1900, a 125½" x 93½" oil on canvas, sold for $14,400 to a phone bidder.
Bernard Boutet de Monvel’s companion painting, titled 1930, also 125½" x 93½", sold ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Science Fiction Art Torpedoes the Galaxy with Impressive Bids
A 36" x 72" acrylic on canvas by Robert Theodore McCall (1919-2010), entitled Earth Orbit 98, 1977, brought the highest price at the auction. Signed and dated lower right, this painting from the Norman Jacobs/Starlog collection sold within estimate for $245,000 and set an auction record for the artist. Provenance ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Fine and Decorative Art at Auction
Pint-size sand bottle by Andrew Clemens (1857- 1894), one side with design lettered “Our Emma / 1884,” other side with a floral design, unusually large at 9" high, $19,200.
Pictured is one of a pair of 18th-century English Chinese Chippendale mirrors by George Godley of Winchester, 65" x 26½". Of carved giltwood ... (Read More)
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(Auction)American Indian and Western Art
Yarns of a Summer Day by Henry Farny (1847-1916), gouache on paper, 1894, 11¼" x 15¾" (sight), $310,000.
Apache figural tray basket, a central flower radiating light and dark petals, surrounded by ten humans, ten dogs, and five wolves, circa 1900, 19¾" diameter, $22,140.
Navajo Late Classic woman’s dress, black and red, ... (Read More)
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