These small foo dogs date to the latter half of the 15th century. Image courtesy Kimball’s Auction and Estate Services.
NORTH AMHERST, Mass. – Kimball’s Auction and Estate Services will conduct an auction June 24 that will feature many fine estate items. Asian treasures range from a pair of Ming Dynasty carved ivory foo dogs to a Nikon SP 35mm camera from the late 1950s to early 1960s. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.
“The foo dogs are Ming Dynasty from the Chenghua period (1465-1487). They’re palace quality, not something you’d find in the ordinary home,” said Douglas M. Kimball.
The Nikon SP 35mm camera has an f2 5CM (50mm) normal lens. “It’s in what I call clean condition; not mint,” said Kimball, adding that it is in working order. Made in Tokyo by Nippon Kogaku, the classic Nikon rangefinders were favorites of American GIs stationed in the Pacific during the postwar years. Approximately 23,000 SP cameras were made.
An opal, platinum and 18-karat gold cuff bracelet is a highlight of the estate jewelry. “It was an Edwardian brooch that someone attached to a gold cuff bracelet. It’s certainly a married piece but very beautiful and it has a large opal,” said Kimball.
Numerous lots of sterling silver flatware will be sold including 90 pieces of S. Kirk & Sons Forget-Me-Not, a popular pattern.
Collectors of Arts & Crafts will be studying up on a Life Time Furniture oak library table by Grand Rapids Bookcase & Chair Co., Hastings, Mich. The table is in its original finish, which has some light scratching and staining, noted Kimball. It its 44 inches wide, 28 inches deep and 29 1/2 inches high. A paper label is still attached.
A selection of fine art and decorative arts will also be sold.
The auction will be conducted in Kimball’s new 6,500-square-foot gallery at 169 Meadow St. in North Amherst. The sale will begin at 3 p.m. Eastern.
View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet during the sale at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
Numerous serving pieces are included in a set of S. Kirk & Sons Forget-Me-Not flatware. Image courtesy Kimball’s Auction and Estate Services.Nikon’s SP models can be distinguished by the extra-large viewfinder window that extends above the lens, resulting in a smaller nameplate that was moved to the side. Image courtesy Kimball’s Auction and Estate Services.Originally an Edwardian brooch, the large opal lent itself to be worn as a bracelet. Image courtesy Kimball’s Auction and Estate Services.Life Time Furniture is a highly regarded name among collectors of the Arts and Crafts Movement. This library table is in original finish. Image courtesy Kimball’s Auction and Estate Services.
Allan Adler service: Complete 132-piece modern hammered sterling flatware service for 12 by Allan Adler, $15,525.
HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. – An important and complete 132-piece modern hammered sterling flatware service for 12 by the renowned California silversmith Allan Adler sold for $15,525 at Leland Little’s June 13-14 Historic Hillsborough auction. It was the grand opening event for the firm in its new gallery location, at 620 Cornerstone Court in Hillsborough.
Allan Adler honed his craft in California in the 1930s, and developed a strong following among many Hollywood celebrities (he once hosted Katharine Hepburn at his workbench as an apprentice), as well as presidents, museum curators and silver collectors. He once described his work as “clean lines with a bent toward the unconventional,” and that was evident in the large service that changed hands.
The silver service was the top earner of the more than 800 lots that crossed the block during the two days. About 250 people packed the showroom for the Saturday session, while around 150 bidders were counted on Sunday. Just under 1,000 absentee and phone bids were recorded going into Saturday, and Internet bidding was brisk via LiveAuctioneers.com, with around 500 registered bidders participating online.
Entrance to Hermitage Amsterdam. Copyrighted image courtesy Hans van Heeswijk Architecten, Amsterdam.
AMSTERDAM (AP) – The Hermitage is exhibiting czarist opulence at the opening of a new branch in Amsterdam, the city where Peter the Great started Russia’s fabulous state art collection 300 years ago and which inspired the design for his own capital, St. Petersburg.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands formally opened the Hermitage Amsterdam on Friday, June 19, 2009.
The museum is in a former nursing home known as the Amstelhof, which was built in the 1680s, about 15 years before the Russian czar first visited the Dutch capital to study shipbuilding. It remained a retirement facility until the last patient left two years ago.
“Peter the Great would be happy with this,” Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky told reporters Thursday.
Late 19th/early 20th century Second Empire gilt-bronze mounted porcelain clock, estimate $2,000-$4,000. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com and Stefek’s.
GROSSE POINTE FARMS, Mich. – Stefek’s Inc., a full-service auction company based in upscale Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich., specializes in estates and lives by the motto: “The most important estate sale we will ever do is … yours.
For the past 10 years, Stefek’s has been a leading name in the dispersal of personal property in southeastern Michigan, offering a “top-to-bottom” service to its clientele. “What this means is that we not only take the best items for auction, but we also help liquidate the remaining residential contents and clean out the home,” said Stefek’s owner, ISA-certified appraiser Lori Stefek.
The company’s estate auctions generally feature paintings, sculptures, fine jewelry, better costume jewelry, vintage couture and accessories, mid-century furniture, antique furniture, decorative items and notable collections.
Stefek’s next chance to showcase its experienced staff and professionalism will be on June 25, with a 314-lot Summer Furniture & Decorative Arts sale. Internet live bidding will be provided by LiveAuctioneers.com.
Blue calico was used on this late 19th-century Feathered Star quilt, which sold for $375 in May 2005. Image courtesy Cowan’s Auctions Inc. and LiveAuctioneers archive.
POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. (AP) – Every quilt has a story, and for some Mason County residents that story also is a tourism and business opportunity.
A group of Point Pleasant residents are developing a quilt trail through Mason County that will lead visitors to farms, businesses and historic locations across the county.
Each location on the trail is marked with a unique 8-foot-by-8-foot square, designed and painted by local residents, that represents the area’s historical or family significance.
“Our hope is that people will go out and do a kind of hide and seek or an Easter egg find with the quilt trail,” said Jackie Byars, coordinator for the Great Kanawha Resource Conservation and Development council.
Point Pleasant is the center of Mason County’s tourist industry, and the trail is a way to draw some of those visitors out to the rest of the county, said Dennis D. Bellamy, chairman of the Mason County Tourism Center.
Year round, history buffs visit the area for its Revolutionary and Civil War history, and fans of Mothman come for the paranormal aspect, Bellamy said. The Mothman is a creature reportedly seen in the Charleston and Point Pleasant areas in 1966-1967. Most observers described the Mothman as a winged man-sized creature with large reflective red eyes and large moth-like wings.
The Mason County Quilt Trail will offer visitors a way to explore some of the county’s hidden historical farms and homes and other treasures, he said.
Ohio is famous for its Amish, but not many people know Mason County also has an Amish community that sells furniture, food and other goods.
“It’s how you get people out this way,” Bellamy said. “People can hit the Amish community that is otherwise unpublicized.”
It’s also a business opportunity for many residents whose property is marked on the trail.
“The hope is people will open their own businesses stemming from the traffic the quilt trail generates,” Byars said. “When they have 50 or 100 people driving by every weekend, they would want to open something.”
Residents can set up corn mazes, or a roadside stand selling jams, pottery or fresh produce, Byars said.
It’s a way for residents to tap into agri-tourism and increase business opportunities for niche and cottage industries, she said.
West Virginia State University Extension Service has teamed up with these groups to offer business workshops and training for county residents interested in starting their own business with trail.
The Quilt Trail is completely generated by county residents and business owners who see it as an opportunity to share some of the area’s history or increase their marketability, Byars said.
“This really is a program that encourages community support and a desire to preserve the rural fabric of the county,” she said.
The Quilt Trail Program began in Adams County, Ohio, and has since spread to 21 other states.
Mason County’s trail is the first in West Virginia.
Byars plans to start expanding the trail into Putnam County next year.
“We’re taking a region approach,” Bellamy said. “The hope is for it to become the West Virginia Quilt Trail, not just the Mason County Quilt Trail.”
So far, the trail’s steering committee has put up eight squares.
They are scheduled to have a new square each month until October, Byars said.
“We’re on a roll,” Byars said.
Typically a county has about 30 squares, but Byars believes there is enough history and residents interested in participating that they will far exceed that number.
The project’s steering committee has divided the county into four driving trails and one walking trail that goes through Point Pleasant.
Each section of the county will have a theme that ties the area together, Byars said.
The trail is also a way to tap into Point Pleasant’s growing art scene, Bellamy said. The town has several popular galleries and one of the nation’s largest murals spanning its riverfront, he said.
Visitors can spend a day following the trail through rural parts of the county, then come into Point Pleasant and follow the trail to some of the city’s businesses and galleries, he said.
While the trail is primarily geared toward the history buff, there’s something for everyone, said Jane Coles, a member the steering committee.
“History is just one piece of the puzzle,” Bellamy said. “(The trail) is designed to fit so many different niches and fits so many peoples’ interests.”
There’s shopping for the ladies and farm equipment to check out for those who like to tinker, said Mollie Yauger, another member of the committee.
The program is funded by grant money and is free to all residents interested in taking part.
The group is putting together a map and brochure with information about each square. They plan to have it ready for distribution in the fall.
For more information about the quilt trail contact the Mason County Tourism Center at 304-675-6788 or www.masoncountytourism.com.
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Information from: The Charleston Gazette, http://www.wvgazette.com
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-ES-06-20-09 1050EDT
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Made in West Virginia, this Victorian crib-size crazy quilt features embroidered cotton panels. Image courtesy Leland Little Auctions & Estate Sales and LiveAuctioneers archive.This Nine Patch with Flying Geese pattern quilt was entirely hand-sewn of cotton in the 1880s. It sold for $400 in June 2007. Image courtesy Cowan’s Auctions Inc. and LiveAuctioneers archive.
Diego Rivera, Martín Luis Guzmán, 1915. Oil on canvas, 72.3 x 59.3 cm. Collection of Fundación Televisa A.C., Mexico City. Courtesy The Meadows Museum.
DALLAS (AP) – A new exhibit of works by Mexican artist Diego Rivera looks at his portraits from the several years in Paris when he focused on cubism.
Diego Rivera: The Cubist Portraits, 1913-1917 opened on June 21, 2009, at Southern Methodist University’s Meadows Museum. The exhibit, which runs through Sept. 20, features 31 of Rivera’s works, with several being exhibited publicly for the first time.
The exhibit explores Rivera’s experimentation with the style of art that uses geometric forms while he was in Europe, before he became much more famous for his signature murals and his marriage to Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.
“Almost all of the cubist portraits that he did are together here,” said Mark Roglan, director of the Meadows Museum.
Rivera, born in Mexico in 1886, worked in Europe from 1907 to 1921, mostly in Spain and France. Abandoning cubism in 1917 after physically assaulting an art critic who disparaged the style, Rivera returned to Mexico in 1921 and began his work on murals by the mid-20s. Rivera died at the age of 70 in 1957.
The cubist portraits Rivera started painting in his late 20s reveal his loved ones and friends at the time. Those featured include artist Angelina Beloff and the child she had with Rivera, Russian novelist Ilya Ehrenburg and Mexican writer Martin Luis Guzman.
Many of the portraits reflect Rivera’s friendships with those in the Russian emigre community during that time, said Sylvia Navarrette, the independent Mexican scholar who curated the exhibit organized by the Meadows Museum.
“It’s like a visual diary of the community of refugees,” Navarrette said.
The exhibit, which includes text describing the works in both English and Spanish, also shows viewers how Rivera’s cubist works progressed.
“He was exploring cubism and almost goes to abstraction,” Roglan said.
One man who was sketched by Rivera as a teen and whose mother was a friend of the painter said he always remembers the charm of the physically imposing Rivera – who stood over 6 feet tall and weighed around 300 pounds.
“He was very big and he had an enormous character,” said Carlos Phillips, now director of Mexico’s Dolores Olmedo Museum, which is named after his mother and features works by Kahlo and Rivera. “He had a way with women that you can’t believe it.”
The exhibit also showcases works from friends of Rivera along with commentary on them from Rivera’s autobiography. Rivera, who came somewhat late to cubism, said that from the beginning, he accepted Pablo Picasso’s mastery. “I readily proclaimed myself Picasso’s disciple,” he wrote.
“I have always been proud that Picasso was not only my teacher, but my very dear and close friend,” he said.
Navarrette said that by exploring Rivera’s cubist period, viewers will see another part of the artist’s career.
“It’s like a very curious aspect of his career,” she said.
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On the Net: www.meadowsmuseumdallas.org
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Albert Einstein, photo taken by UPI photographer Arthur Sasse. Image courtesy RRAuction.com.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – One of the original signed prints of Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out at photographers has been sold by a New Hampshire auction house for $74,324.
“Every kid has it in their dorm room on the wall,” Bobby Livingston of RRAuction.com in Amherst said Saturday. “It’s such an iconic display of freedom of speech.”
The picture was taken in 1951 by UPI photographer Arthur Sasse after a 72nd birthday celebration for the physicist. As Sasse tried to coax a smile for the camera, Einstein stuck out his tongue.
Two years later, at the height of the McCarthy anti-Communist hearings, Einstein signed the photo and gave it to broadcaster Howard K. Smith as a gesture of his admiration of Smith’s work.
Translated from German, the inscription says: “This gesture you will like, because it is aimed at all of humanity. A civilian can afford to do what no diplomat would dare. Your loyal and grateful listener, A. Einstein ’53.”
By 1953, Einstein had begun speaking out against McCarthyism.
“Einstein, escaping Nazi Germany, fully understood what was happening in this country and was commenting on it,” Livingston said. “That’s what makes it so special, he wrote on it and explained his intentions.”
David Waxman of Great Neck, N.Y., is the new owner. He is a specialist in important scientific books and autographs.
Waxman said the image probably is the best-known picture of Einstein, appearing on T-shirts and even currently on a New York City billboard.
He said Einstein’s inscription makes it even more valuable.
“It’s one of a kind, highly important, speaks to the culture, speaks to anybody who looks at it and thinks about it a bit,” Waxman said. “It’s a message of intelligent nonconformity.”
Waxman intends to put the photo up for sale, perhaps with other photos of famous scientists. ____
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Scene from Enchanted Village, auctioned on June 18, 2009. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com.
BOSTON (AP) – The Enchanted Village has a new home and will continue to enchant Boston-area shoppers during the Chrismas holidays.
Jordan’s Furniture purchased the iconic holiday display from the City of Boston for $140,000 at a public auction on Thursday, June 18. Jordan’s president Eliot Tatelman – who topped six other bidders – said he fondly recalled strolling through the Enchanted Village as a child.
Tatelman plans to set up the display at Jordan’s store in the Boston suburb of Avon.
The 8,000-square-foot attraction includes dozens of mechanized people and animals in a traditional New England holiday scene.
It was originally set up at the old downtown Jordan Marsh department store – no connection to Jordan’s Furniture – to attract holiday shoppers.
The Enchanted Village was most recently housed at the Hynes Convention Center, but hasn’t been open to the public since 2006.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
These are cufflinks and a tie bar in a modern design. They were made by Ed Wiener, an important designer and maker of jewelry. The set of three pieces sold for more than $1,700 at a Sollo Rago auction in Lambertville, N.J.
A smart woman created Father’s Day in 1910. Sonora Smart Dodd wanted to honor her father, William Smart, in the same way mothers were honored on Mother’s Day. The idea caught on, and in 1972 Congress made the third Sunday of June the official holiday. It can be difficult to find a gift for Dad, but cufflinks are back in style and collectors can find many vintage examples anywhere from $10 to more than $1,000. But be sure Dad has at least one shirt with cuffs that have holes, not buttons. An expensive pair of cufflinks and a matching tie bar sold last year at a Sollo Rago auction for $1,715. The gold cufflinks and tie bar in an abstract design were made by a now-famous artist, Ed Wiener (1918-1991). He was a self-taught jeweler who worked in Greenwich Village in the late 1940s. His unusual modern pieces were made of sterling silver until the late 1950s, when he started to use gold as well as silver. Any piece by Wiener brings high prices today, and since he sold jewelry to many tourists, it’s not unusual to find examples in all parts of the country. The best news is that he always marked pieces with his name, so they can be easily identified.
