February 24, 2009 - Auction Central News

Furniture Specific: Larkin ‘free’ furniture

This simple oak desk was mainstay of Larkin premiums beginning in 1901. Image courtesy Fred Taylor.

The late 19th century in America was a time of impending change, economically, socially and politically. The Western frontier was essentially a thing of the past, the Midwest was safe and the far West was livable. The South was still languishing from Reconstruction but its time would come.

Between 1870 and 1916 more than 25 million immigrants poured into the country and the population swelled from 40 million to over 100 million in that nearly half century. All these new consumers wanted new products, needed new jobs and demanded delivery systems for it all. The amount of railroad track in the nation increased from 9,000 miles in 1850 to over 200,000 miles in 1900, spurring growth along the right of way.

The country’s furniture industry, growing as fast as it knew how, was unable to keep up with the demand for new household goods with its antiquated design, production, marketing and delivery systems based primarily on the experiences and practices of the early Industrial Revolution. Something had to give and change was coming.

Two major forces would soon coincide to bring a vast quantity of relatively high-grade furnishings to middle-class Americans, something that previously had been totally out of their reach. The two movements, one philosophical and one economic, would combine to produce the Progressive Era from 1890 to the beginning of World War I. Continue reading

BULLETIN: French judge rejects appeal over Chinese bronzes in YSL sale

PARIS (AP) – A French judge has ruled against halting the sale of disputed Chinese bronze fountainheads heading for Christie’s auction block as part of fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent’s estate.

The judge has also ordered the association that sought to prevent the sale to pay euro1,000 ($1,275) in fines each to the auction house and to the firm of Pierre Berge, the collection’s consignor and longtime partner of the late French fashion icon.

The bronze heads of a rabbit and a rat disappeared from the summer Imperial Palace on the outskirts of Beijing when French and British forces sacked it at the close of the second Opium War in 1860.

The issue has cast a shadow over a three-day auction, starting Monday, of 733 works of art collected over half a century by Saint Laurent and Berge. It has not, however, deterred bidders. As reported in a separate Associated Press story appearing on Auction Central News, the Monday evening opening session of the auction has broken the existing record for a European auction, bringing in $266 million.

Lawyers for a China-linked group, APACE, sought to block the sale of the bronzes – not the entire auction. The group acknowledged that Saint Laurent acquired the bronzes legally, but said they should be returned to China or at least displayed in a museum.

Jean-Paul Chazal, a lawyer for Christie’s, said he was “entirely satisfied” by the ruling, and chastised APACE for straying from the rules it faces under French law.

He insisted that such an advocacy group has a role to defend its members “not to substitute itself for the Embassy of China, a state, or a government prosecutor.”

Painting by Robert Scott Duncanson a big winner in Cowan’s Feb. 7 sale

'Robbing the Eagle's Nest' by Robert Scott Duncanson, dated 1856, $105,750. Image courtesy Cowan's Auctions.

CINCINNATI – With a packed auction house and phone banks at capacity, the economic recession seemed far from everyone’s mind at Cowan’s Auctions Winter Fine and Decorative Art Sale held on Feb. 7, 2009. More than 1,050 registered bidders from 22 countries vied to take home one or more of the 667 lots offered at the auction.

Online bidders through LiveAuctioneers had a significant impact, as well. The 488 approved online bidders prevailed on 78 of the sale’s lots, including a woven tapestry of a sheep-shearing scene, which was purchased via the Internet for $6,600 against a presale estimate of $1,000-$1,500.

Decorative Arts Director Diane Wachs was elated with the outcome. “The auction did very well. We had the biggest in-house audience we’ve ever had at Cowan’s.” Wachs described the bidding as “aggressive,” both from retail buyers and dealers.

The highest selling item of the sale was the painting titled Robbing The Eagle’s Nest, by Robert Scott Duncanson (1823-1872). The large oil on canvas sold for $105,750 (all prices quoted are inclusive of 17.5 percent buyer’s premium), more than doubling its high estimate of $50,000. The painting was originally acquired directly from the artist, and descended from the buyer to the present owner.

A bust of Minnehaha by Edmonia Lewis sold well above its estimated price and grossed $52,875. Lewis was the first African-American and Native-American woman to gain international recognition as a sculptor. In October 2007, Cowan’s set an auction sales record with the sale of another Lewis sculpture, The Bride of Spring, for $138,000.

Minnehaha is a character in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem, The Song of Hiawatha (1855), the single best-selling poem in the English language of the entire 19th century. To date there are five known signed and dated originals of Lewis’s Minnehaha bust housed in public and private collections. This previously unknown example adds one more to that number.

Official: 5 elephants killed in Kenya, auction and other sales to blame

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – Poachers seeking ivory have killed five elephants in southeastern Kenya in the past six weeks, a government wildlife official said Monday.

The elephants were killed in the Tsavo East National Park and its surrounding areas in southeastern Kenya, said Jonathan Kirui, an assistant director of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

“This is the highest number elephants killed at this park in recent times for their tusks in such a short period,” Kirui told The Associated Press.

Kirui, whose area of responsibility includes the park, said informers have told the wildlife agency that the price of a kilogram of ivory in Kenya rose to between 3,000 and 4,000 shillings ($37 and $50) in 2008. A year earlier a kilogram of ivory sold for 1,000-2,000 shillings.

James Isiche of the International Fund for Animal Welfare said his organization is concerned the latest reports could portend a return to the elephant poaching era of the 1970s and 1980s, when poachers devastated Kenya’s elephant population.

The U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, imposed a global ban on the ivory trade in 1989 and Kenya reformed its wildlife conservation department to form the current Kenya Wildlife Service, helping to reduce poaching. But the current estimated population of 30,000 is still less than a fifth of the 1973 estimate of 167,000.

Lost pages of Buck’s Good Earth returning home via FBI

PERKASIE, Pennsylvania (AP) – The long-lost handwritten manuscript of Pearl S. Buck’s classic novel The Good Earth is set to go on display next month at the late author’s home outside Philadelphia.

The Pearl S. Buck House, in Hilltown Township, will display the 400 hand-edited pages for six months, beginning March 3.

It will be the first time since May 1930 that the manuscript will be reunited with the desk, chair and typewriter that Buck used when she wrote the novel, said Donna Rhodes, a curator at Buck’s home.

The Good Earth, Buck’s most famous book, follows the life of a peasant farmer in pre-Revolutionary China as he marries, accumulates wealth and experiences both success and heartache. Buck, the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries, lived mostly in China from infancy through age 40.

The novel won the Pulitzer Price in 1932 and helped earn Buck the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938.

The manuscript had been missing for about 40 years when it was found in June 2007. The daughter of Buck’s longtime secretary said she found the pages in a suitcase in her basement and took them to a Philadelphia auction house, which called the FBI.

The manuscript has spawned a legal fight involving Buck’s heirs and foundations with links to her. A lawyer representing Buck’s birthplace in Hillsboro, W.Va., also staked a claim for ownership based on a notarized “bill of sale” that Buck signed in 1970, three years before she died.

Belhorn one of 8 auction-house participants in Feb. 28 Super Auction

Rookwood 1930 art deco matte blue bowl. Image courtesy Belhorn Auction Services LLC.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – It’s a new concept that’s sure to attract collectors’ attention: The Super Auction. Greg Belhorn of Belhorn Auction Services, will launch the new series of megasales on Feb. 28, with antiques, art and quality collectibles from eight auction houses in three states: Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.

The premiere event to be held at the Washtenaw Farm Council Grounds, 5055 Ann Arbor-Saline Road, Ann Arbor, Mich., will begin at 10 a.m. EST on Saturday. The 194 lots offered by Belhorn Auction Services will be open to real-time Internet bidding through LiveAuctioneers.com.

The fast-paced day of selling will last approximately five hours, with three auction rings operating throughout the 1,400-lot event. Collections from across the Midwest and South are scheduled to cross the block.

Included in the sale are selections of vintage toys including vehicles, banks and lead soldiers; American art pottery, sports memorabilia featuring tobacco cards and early hockey cards; sterling silver by Tiffany and others, military items, sportsmen’s memorabilia, decoys and firearms, timepieces including wall and mantel clocks and pocket watches; a large and varied selection of antiques, paper and ephemera; and a selection of coins.

Full details and auction inventories are available at www.thesuperauction.net. The Belhorn Auction Services lots may also be viewed and bid on through www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

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