NEW HARTFORD, N.Y. (AP) – State police say they have arrested two men who carried out a string of burglaries in central and eastern New York.
They say 68-year-old Delwright Dyman of New York Mills, N.Y., and 58-year-old Marc Levesque of Windham, N.H., face second-degree burglary charges that could bring them up to 15 years in prison.
Police say Dyman used to be a member of the Barge Canal Gang, a crew of Utica-based hoodlums with organized crime ties who hatched burglaries and cracked safes up and down the East Coast during the 1960s and 1970s. Continue reading
Northern Italian gilded-iron and cut-glass 12-light chandelier, circa 1900, in the neoclassical style. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com and New Orleans Auction Galleries.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Duke Morgan and Keith Malvitz were strolling through French Quarter antique shops when Morgan spotted the perfect lighting fixture for his big new bathroom.
Large French gilt-brass and cut-glass 12-light chandelier, first quarter 20th century, in the Louis XVI style, estimate $4,000-$7,000 in New Orleans Auction Galleries’ June 6, 2009 sale. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com and New Orleans Auction Galleries.
It was an oval, Baccarat 1945 chandelier dripping with more than 30 crystals – it could have been inspired by a headdress. Malvitz thought Morgan had lost his mind.
“I just didn’t like it,” he said. “But once it was put up, it’s a gorgeous piece.”
Morgan immediately knew it was right. “It’s not too grand that it looks ostentatious,” he said. “I wanted the mood of a luxurious bathroom.”
Chandeliers in Southern bathrooms are not uncommon. Architect John Williams of New Orleans explains: “Think about it. What does the South have that colder climates don’t? High ceilings.”
Before air conditioning, many homes in hot regions were designed for climate control with high ceilings and big windows to help circulate air.
Now, it seems, chandelier lighting is finding its way into more homes in other regions, too.
“It’s a way of adding a lot of interest in a small space,” said Kevin Sharkley, a lighting design expert for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. “They come in all different sizes. East Coast architecture is suited to chandelier lighting, and there’s a demand for it in California.”
Not only are chandeliers becoming more varied in style, he said, but they’re appearing in more rooms in the house. In colder climates, he said, they’re being used more in kitchens, and in pairs over fireplaces.
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Julie Neill began doing her own lighting when she started a design business in New Orleans in 2000. She said lighting is vital to setting the mood of a room, and the only things she could find in stores were mass-produced fixtures with little flair, or antiques.
She designs each piece for specific clients, and gives them names such as “Lucy” and “Ethel.” Some look more like birdcages than Phantom of the Opera props. The “Monique” has the quintessential crystal design, but is made of wood – even the droplets.
Neill agrees that chandeliers in bathrooms work – even outside New Orleans.
“Bathrooms are becoming so luxurious,” she said. “It’s your escape.”
Swedish gilt-brass and cut-glass 6-light chandelier, first quarter 19th century, in the Gustavian neoclassical style, estimate $6,000-$9,000 in New Orleans Auction Galleries’ June 6, 2009 sale. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com and New Orleans Auction Galleries.
Chandeliers are no longer seen as accouterments for the rich. “Some people have the notion that it’s a bit ostentatious,” Sharkley said. “But there’s polished brass and polished nickel. You don’t have to have big Waterford follies all over.”
A prime source for antique and vintage chandeliers – many of which formerly occupied grand Southern mansions – is New Orleans Auction Galleries. The company conducts several auctions annually, and Internet live bidding is available in all of their events through www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
Lowe’s hardware stores say do-it-yourself installation can be done with an intermediate skill level; people who can install a ceiling fan or build a birdhouse can probably put up a chandelier in a day or so, the chain says. The Web site for This Old House rates the difficulty level of installation at easy to moderate.
The key, said Sharkley, is “measure, measure, measure.”
“You don’t want it too high – it doesn’t look elegant,” he said. “You don’t want it too low so it interferes.”
Lighting from chandeliers is so versatile it can enhance any space, he said. “Strict overhead lighting is not flattering, but chandelier lighting with dimmers, I find it very flattering.”
Morgan’s bathroom already had natural light through a large translucent window. Recessed ceiling lights and more focused fixtures by the mirrors also illuminate, but the chandelier hooked up with dimmers makes an elegant statement while still being practical. For parties, he and Malvitz often turn off all other light sources in the bathroom and set the chandelier on low.
Neill says a chandelier can become a room’s star attraction; take the “green” chandelier she configured from nail-gun bands and other recycled pieces. Nails stand in for crystal droplets.
“This is jewelry for your home,” she said. “But I do enjoy that it’s a useful product too.”
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BERLIN (AP) – A rare stamp portraying movie star Audrey Hepburn smoking sold for euro67,000 ($93,800) at an auction held in Germany on Tuesday.
The Schlegel auction house declined to identify the buyer, who was represented by an agent.
A minimum bid of euro30,000 was set for the stamp, of which only five copies are known to exist.
Auctioneer Elisabeth Schlegel announced that the stamp – which escaped being incinerated by the German government – had sold for euro53,500. After adding commission and sales tax, the total came to euro67,000. Continue reading
Ships in New York Harbor, William Torgerson, estimate $10,000-$15,000. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com and Kaminski’s.
BEVERLY, Mass. – Marine art highlights day two of Kaminski’s May 30-31 Great Estates Auction, featuring a total of 947 lots. Internet live bidding will be provided by LiveAuctioneers.com.
Top entries in the second session include American seascapes and antique ship models, including replicas of J.P. Morgan’s private Steam Yacht Corsair IV and the 1896 Steam Yacht Harvard.
The elegant Morgan yacht replica features an expertly planked mahogany deck and built-up cabins. Six detailed launches and lifeboats hang from davits. Other details include ventilator cowls, winch, deck plates, pennants, passenger benches, wood-capped deck rails and many other realistic accents. Measuring 56 inches long, the cased model is mounted on turned brass columns onto a mahogany stand. It is expected to make $6,000-$9,000 at auction. Continue reading
In October 2008, Pook & Pook Auctioneers of Downingtown, Pa., sold this carved dog by Schimmel for $140,000.
In the 1950s, America’s best-known folk-art wood-carver was Wilhelm Schimmel of Cumberland Valley, Pa. A carved eagle by this man was the dream of many a collector. His pieces, even then, went for thousands of dollars, and of course each was one of a kind. Schimmel (1817-1890) was born in Germany and immigrated to Pennsylvania after the Civil War. He worked for neighboring families and took care of their children in exchange for food and shelter. He also traveled in the area, staying overnight in jails or poorhouses. He carved birds and animals that he sold or traded for supplies and evidently a lot of liquor. Local bars wound up with many of his painted carvings. Most of the animals he carved were made from pieces of pine taken from local woodworking shops and sawmills. He carved the wood, covered the carving with plaster, then painted or varnished it. Most figures, particularly his eagles, had deep-cut crosshatching as part of the surface decoration. Schimmel was best-known for carved eagles, but he also made roosters, parrots, lions and dogs. His carvings now sell not just for thousands of dollars, but into the tens and hundreds of thousands. Continue reading
Watercolor by the Italian painter Giuseppe Aureli (1858-1929). Image courtesy Leland Little Auction & Estates Sales Ltd.
HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. – Leland Little Auction & Estate Sales Ltd. will christen their new, 10,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art gallery facility with a two-day Historic Hillsborough Auction the weekend of June 13-14. More than 800 lots of fresh-to-the-market merchandise in an array of categories will be sold at the grand opening event. Internet bidding will be facilitated by LiveAuctioneers.com, the firm’s provider of choice for about five years.
“We spent 10 very successful and productive years at our previous location on South Nash Street,” said Leland Little of Leland Little Auction & Estate Sales, “but this new gallery is a wonderful venue for showcasing fine and decorative arts. We are offering a professional and safe environment for buyers and sellers to view items from our regional collections that come to market.”
The sale will be preceded by a weeklong preview, highlighted by an Opening Night Gala on Thursday, June 11, beginning at 6 p.m. Then, on Friday, June 12, at 3 p.m., a special lecture will be presented by Johanna M. Brown, director of collections and curator of Moravian Decorative Arts (the topic of her lecture) at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.
The Saturday, June 13, sale will begin at 9:30 a.m., with a session dedicated to English and Continental silver. Included will be a beautiful Irish sterling silver tureen with an 1821 date letter. The day will conclude with another session of silver, American only, to include a 132-piece modern hammered flatware service by California artist Allan Adler. In all, 482 lots will change hands that day.
Between the silver sessions on Saturday will be hundreds of other lots, starting with European and Continental fine art. Included will be four original paintings by the British artist Christiane Klitgaard-May (1876-1954), and a watercolor by Giuseppe Aureli (Italian, 1858-1929). After that, a Staffordshire collection will be sold and will include historical blue and white Lafayette pieces.
A star of the American furniture category promises to be a Southern cherry sugar chest, circa 1830s. Local art will also be offered, to include etchings by Louis Orr (1879-1961). A collection of around 10 garden and architectural items will include a mid-1800s Scottish architectural bench. Asian art will feature large Japanese Satsuma vases from the Meiji reign, circa 1868.
English and Continental furniture will be sold both days. On Saturday, a star lot will be a nice 18th-century French walnut armoire. Decorative arts will include a terra-cotta bust of Benjamin Franklin, after the French sculptor Houdon (1741-1828). Also offered will be a fine selection of clocks and pocket watches, including a mid-19th-century Raingo Freres French figural mantel clock.
Lighting and chandeliers will illuminate the room with lots like a 16-inch-tall signed Tiffany Studios counterbalance desk lamp, marked “Tiffany Studios, New York, 417.”
A nice selection of fine art by noted American artists will be headlined by an original oil on canvas painting by Louise Cox (1865-1945). The work was deaccessioned from the Granville County Historical Society Museum in Oxford, N.C.
From the Native American category, a beaded bandolier pouch, made around 1900, is expected to draw strong interest, as is a solid group of American tiger maple furniture from the collection of the late Charles Smith of Chapel Hill, N.C. A top lot will be a 19th-century corner washstand. And from textiles and needlework, offered will be a rare and important Pennsylvania Lititz girls’ school needlework. The piece was pictured in the book Girlhood Embroidery (Vol. I, p. 448), by Betty Ring.
Additional American art will come up for bid in the form of the Mead Corp. Art Collection. The collection was begun in 1955 and works were actively acquired until the early 1980s. Two works of note from the group are an original oil on canvas by Judy Lodge (Michigan, b. 1951), titled The Table, and an oil on canvas by Frank Roth (New York, b. 1936), titled Lady McGowan’s Dream.
A collection of around 25 portrait miniatures and silhouettes will include a mourning miniature with hair brooch, attributed to Samuel Folwell (South Carolina, 1802). Also, estate jewelry will be sold both days. The Sunday auction, June 14, will begin at 11 a.m. Featured will be Southern folk and art pottery (to include Lanier Meaders and Burlon Craig face jugs); about 15 antique rugs from prominent Southern homes; and nearly 50 decoys, many from the estate of the late Charles Smith of Chapel Hill.
Previews will be held on Saturday, June 6, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Wednesday and Friday, June 10 and 12, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Thursday, June 11, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday, June 13, from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. (start of sale); and Sunday, June 14, from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. (start of sale). Internet bidding will be facilitated by LiveAuctioneers.com, the firm’s provider of choice for about five years.
To get to the new gallery facility, take I-85 to exit 165 toward Hillsborough, then turn left on Cornerstone Court. Hillsborough is conveniently situated, about two hours by car from Charlotte, 2 1/2 hours from Richmond and about five hours from Atlanta. The gallery is two-tenths of a mile off Interstate 85. A packed house is expected; plan arrive early. Phone and absentee bids will also be accepted.
Leland Little Auction & Estate Sales Ltd.’s next two big cataloged auctions will be held the weekends of Sept. 19-20 and Dec. 5-6, also in the new gallery facility at 620 Cornerstone Court.
The guest speaker for the December event will be another MESDA curator, June Lucas, the museum’s director of research. Her talk will center on Southern decorative arts, with a primary focus on painted Piedmont (N.C.) furniture pieces.
For more information phone the auction company at (919) 644-1243 or e-mail them at info@llauctions.com. To learn more about the company and its calendar of upcoming auctions, log on to www.llauctions.com. The June 13-14 sale online catalog has been posted on LiveAuctioneers.com. View the fully illustrated catalog and register to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
Modern hammered 132-piece flatware service is by California artist Allan Adler. Image courtesy Leland Little Auction & Estates Sales Ltd.These Satsuma vases from the Meiji era are 17 1/2 inches high. Image courtesy Leland Little Auction & Estates Sales Ltd.This Raingo Freres French figural mantel clock dates to the mid-18th century. Image courtesy Leland Little Auction & Estates Sales Ltd.The Tiffany counterbalance desk lamp, marked "Tiffany Studios, New York, 417," measures 16 inches tall. Image courtesy Leland Little Auction & Estates Sales Ltd.Michigan artist Judy Lodge painted The Table, an oil on canvas. Image courtesy Leland Little Auction & Estates Sales Ltd.Leland Little’s new gallery at 620 Cornerstone Court in Hillsborough, N.C., is state of the art. Image courtesy Leland Little Auction & Estates Sales Ltd.
LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) – Some of the life-size dog statues set up as part of a fundraising project in Lafayette have been moved to safety indoors because of theft and vandalism.
Organizers of the “Dog Days of Summer” project are dismayed that the painted statues weren’t safe in outdoor locations.
“I’m disheartened by the lack of respect for creativity,” said Joanne Kuhn Titolo, who had two pieces in the outdoor exhibit. “Because of the increased thefts, our artwork isn’t safe. This is horrifying.”
A total of 41 dog statues were installed in Lafayette, West Lafayette and on Purdue University’s campus. Seven have been stolen or significantly damaged, with most of the problems coming at Purdue or in West Lafayette near the Wabash River.
MACKWORTH, DERBYSHIRE, ENGLAND (ACNI) – Looking more like a three-dimensional pop-art design Andy Warhol might have created, a circa-1765/1766 American creamware teapot protesting the Mother Country’s dreaded Stamp Act set off auction-room fireworks on April 15 at the Mackworth Hotel, Derbyshire. In a sale conducted by Hansons Auctioneers of Derby, England, the Colonial-era teapot brashly emblazoned with the messages “No Stamp Act” and “Success to Trade in America” steamed up a winning bid of £79,350 (US $126,032, inclusive of 15 percent buyer’s premium).
Charles Hanson, manager of Hansons and an appraiser on BBC1 Television’s Bargain Hunt, called the selling price for the pot – which had been discovered in a boxful of Roya Crown Derby china and other general items – “quite remarkable.” Describing the saleroom action, Hanson said, “It became a theater as bidding slowly moved up. After £20,000, the bidding became a blur, rising in £1,000 increments.” Continue reading
Tiffany 13 3/4 inch gold-wash sterling silver ewer in the Etruscan pattern, given as a gift to President Lincoln upon his inauguration in 1961. To be auctioned at Cowan’s on June 6, 2009. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com and Cowan’s.
CINCINNATI (AP and ACNI) – Cowan’s Auctions will offer a remarkable American treasure in its June 6 sale: a gold-wash sterling silver Tiffany pitcher that dates to Abraham Lincoln’s first inauguration in 1861. Widespread interest is expected, with Internet live bidding available through www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
Executed in the Etruscan #809 pattern, the 13¾ inch-tall ewer – or vase-shape pitcher – is presumed to have been a gift to Lincoln. An inscription engraved around the Great Seal of the United States, which is emblazoned on the ewer’s body, reads, “To the President of the United States Abraham Lincoln from his Washington Friends March 4, 1861.”
Who those “friends” might have been remains a mystery. The curator of the Lincoln collection at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., said there is no record of the donors.
BERLIN (AP) – A collector stands to make a tidy profit after discovering a rare stamp portraying movie star Audrey Hepburn smoking – one of a series that should have been incinerated by the German government.
In 2001, the government printed 14 million Audrey Hepburn stamps as part of a series featuring movie stars including Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo. The print run was destroyed after Hepburn’s son, Sean Ferrer, objected to the cigarette holder dangling from the actress’ mouth and refused to grant copyright.
But the Finance Ministry had already delivered advance copies of the Hepburn stamps to Deutsche Post for approval. Thirty of these proof copies escaped destruction when an unknown employee pocketed them and used them to send letters postmarked from Berlin. Continue reading
