DuMouchelles presents all-star lineup in Valentine’s weekend auction

The Detroit Pistons basketball team upset the Los Angeles Lakers four games to one to win the NBA title in 2004. This official championship ring has a $4,000-$5,000 estimate. Image courtesy of DuMouchelles.
The Detroit Pistons basketball team upset the Los Angeles Lakers four games to one to win the NBA title in 2004. This official championship ring has a $4,000-$5,000 estimate. Image courtesy of DuMouchelles.
The Detroit Pistons basketball team upset the Los Angeles Lakers four games to one to win the NBA title in 2004. This official championship ring has a $4,000-$5,000 estimate. Image courtesy of DuMouchelles.

DETROIT – Fine art, antiques and collectibles totaling more than 1,500 lots will be spread over three sessions during DuMouchelles’ Feb. 12-14 auction. LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding.

The action will begin Friday at 6:30 p.m. at DuMouchelles’ gallery at 409 E. Jefferson Ave. in the heart of the Motor City.

Sports fans will be competing for a 2004 Detroit Pistons NBA Championship ring, which is estimated at $4,000-$5,000. The 10K white gold ring is channel set with 56 round brilliant diamonds totaling approximately 1.03 carats. The inside of the ring is engraved with the name a team associate, not a player. It comes with a presentation box and certificate of authenticity.

An “Official League” baseball autographed by St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame pitcher Dizzy Dean will also be offered Friday evening. Ironically the ball will be sold in Detroit, where Dean tamed the Tigers in the 1934 World Series, winning Games 1 and 7. The ball and autograph are in good condition. It has a $1,000-$1,500 estimate.

Saturday’s session, which begins at 11 a.m. Eastern, will feature a fine neoclassical French figural clock marked “Courvoisier & Comp.” The circa 1840 clock has a marble plinth embellished with bronze ormolu and surmounted by a silver figure of Mercury resting on a rocky formation over a cylindrical clock, holding a gilt-bronze lidded torchere. The clock has no bell or pendulum. It is estimated at $5,000-$7,000.

An American Federal mahogany banjo clock, circa 1810, with colorful eglomaise glass panels and a brass eagle and sphere finial has an $800-$1,500 estimate.

Sunday’s session will get under way at noon with a rare Art Deco mosaic enamel and doré Art Deco bronze clock by Tiffany Furnaces. The model no. 360 clock, 5 inches high by 5 inches wide, is from the early 1920s. Marked “Tiffany and Co.” on the face, the clock has a $4,000-$6,000 estimate.

Painting will include an oil on canvas by Dame Laura Knight (British, 1877-1970) titled Sennen Cove, Cornwall, England. The view of the seaside village is 16 inches by 20 inches and carries a $20,000-$40,000 estimate. It was once in the collection of Monsignor Edward J. Hickey, one of Detroit’s prominent Catholic pastors.

The estate of W.A. Warrick of Plymouth, Mich., includes original book illustrations by Arthur Rackham, Norman Ault, L. Grabham and Carton Moore-Park as well as British paintings by Frederick Thomas Daws and Frank William Warwick Topham. A watercolor and gouache by Rackham (1867-1939) titled Midsummer Night’s Dream, 4 7/8 inches by 3 1/2 inches, in a bronze Art Nouveau frame, has a $2,000-$4,000 estimate.

German-born Edmund Henry Osthaus (1858-1928) immigrated to America in 1883. By 1886 he had become principal of the Toledo Academy of Fine Art. An avid outdoorsman, he was known for his depictions of sporting dogs. His pencil, watercolor and gouache on artist board of one such animal is included in the auction. The 23- by 27-inch work, from a prominent collector in Toledo, Ohio, has a $12,000-$16,000 estimate.

An 18th-century Aubusson floral carpet, 23 feet 2 inches by 14 feet 9 inches, was formerly in the collection of Arthur E. Summerfield, of Flint, Mich. Summerfield was postmaster general during the Eisenhower administration. The room-size carpet having a central gold cartouche design, with floral and leaf motifs in each corner, has a $6,000-$8,000 estimate.

Agathon Léonard’s 17-inch doré bronze and ivory sculpture of a young woman, standing, with a look of contemplation. The face, neck and arms are carved ivory and the rest of the figure is gilt bronze. The base is also bronze and is incised “A. Leonard.” The figure has a $15,000-$20,000 estimate.

For Valentine’s Day, bidders will have their pick of a 3.86-carat emerald-cut diamond and platinum ring among the more than 80 lots of jewelry.

For details call 313-963-6255.

To view the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet during the sale at .

Click here to view DuMouchelles’ complete catalog.

ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE

‘Louis C. Tiffany Furnaces Favrile 360’ is marked on this mosaic enamel and doré Art Deco bronze clock, model no. 360. Produced circa 1920, the clock has a $4,000-$6,000 estimate. Image courtesy of DuMouchelles.
‘Louis C. Tiffany Furnaces Favrile 360’ is marked on this mosaic enamel and doré Art Deco bronze clock, model no. 360. Produced circa 1920, the clock has a $4,000-$6,000 estimate. Image courtesy of DuMouchelles.

Edmund Henry Osthaus, a gifted artist famous for sporting paintings, did this portrait in pencil, watercolor and gouache laid on artist board. It is 23 inches by 27 inches and has a $12,000-$16,000 estimate. Image courtesy of DuMouchelles.
Edmund Henry Osthaus, a gifted artist famous for sporting paintings, did this portrait in pencil, watercolor and gouache laid on artist board. It is 23 inches by 27 inches and has a $12,000-$16,000 estimate. Image courtesy of DuMouchelles.

Dame Laura Knight (British, 1877-1970) painted 'Sennen Cove at Cornwall, England' circa 1917. The 16- by 20-inch oil on canvas has a $20,000-$40,000 estimate. Image courtesy of DuMouchelles.
Dame Laura Knight (British, 1877-1970) painted ‘Sennen Cove at Cornwall, England’ circa 1917. The 16- by 20-inch oil on canvas has a $20,000-$40,000 estimate. Image courtesy of DuMouchelles.

The enamel dial on this neoclassical French figural clock reads ‘Courvoisier & Comp.’ It stands 33 inches tall and has a $5,000-$7,000 estimate. Image courtesy of DuMouchelles.
The enamel dial on this neoclassical French figural clock reads ‘Courvoisier & Comp.’ It stands 33 inches tall and has a $5,000-$7,000 estimate. Image courtesy of DuMouchelles.

Space rock worth thousands stirs ownership debate

Lorton Meteorite. Photo by Chip Clark, Smithsonian.

Lorton Meteorite. Photo by Chip Clark, Smithsonian.
Lorton Meteorite. Photo by Chip Clark, Smithsonian.

WASHINGTON (AP) – An out-of-this world rock has become the center of a down-to-earth dispute over who its rightful owner should be.

The tennis ball-sized meteorite plummeted through the roof of a Virginia medical office just after dusk on Jan. 18, the same time as people reported seeing a fireball in the sky. It plunged through the ceiling of an examination room and landed near the spot where a doctor had been sitting a short while earlier.

“I’m the most likely person to be sitting in that place where it hit,” Dr. Marc Gallini said. “It just wasn’t my time, I guess.”

He and fellow practitioner Dr. Frank Ciampi say their first thought was to give the rare find to the Smithsonian Institution, which offered $5,000 for it. Within days, it was sent to the National Museum of Natural History for safekeeping.

The doctors are worried, though, that their longtime landlords plan to stake their own claim to the space rock. The collectors market for meteorites can be lucrative.

Gallini, who has run his family practice in Virginia, since 1978, said he notified his property owner, Erol Mutlu, of plans to hand the object over to the Smithsonian, which holds the world’s largest museum collection of meteorites. Gallini says he got Mutlu’s permission. Later in the week, though, Mutlu sent the doctors an e-mail warning that his brother and fellow landlord Deniz Mutlu was going to the Smithsonian to retrieve the rock, Gallini said.

He wouldn’t share the e-mail exchange with The Associated Press, but The Washington Post reported that Erol Mutlu wrote that “it’s evident that ownership is tied to the landowner.”

“The U.S. courts have ruled that a meteorite becomes part of the land where it arrives through ‘natural cause’ and hence the property of the landowner,” the e-mail said.

Deniz Mutlu later appeared to back away from the claim, saying the family was making no such demands and the meteorite is safe for now at the Smithsonian. He added, however, that he didn’t know how long it would remain there.

A lawyer representing the landlords would not comment Tuesday.

The doctors hired their own lawyer and demanded the Smithsonian not release the meteorite until the ownership question was resolved. The lawyer plans to ask a court to rule.

“We really want this to end up in the right place,” Gallini said. The doctors plan to donate the money from the Smithsonian to Haiti earthquake relief, he said.

The Smithsonian won’t comment on ownership and said in a statement that it will “retain possession of the ‘Lorton Meteorite’ until a legal owner has been established.”

The Smithsonian collection includes about 15,000 meteorites; of those, 738 were gathered shortly after they fell from the sky. The Lorton meteorite came from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, curators said.

It has a blackened outer surface from burning through the atmosphere, said Tim McCoy, a mineral sciences curator at the Smithsonian. Inside are flecks of metal and thousands of tiny rocks containing “the primitive stuff left over from the birth of the solar system,” he said.

That material allows scientists to look back about 4.6 billion years, McCoy said.

The last meteorite known to strike a building was in New Orleans in 2003, said Linda Welzenbach, the museum’s meteorite collections manager. There were other finds that year in the Chicago area.

Space rocks can fetch thousands of dollars from collectors. Meteorite hunters descended on Washington’s Virginia suburbs to look for other remnants of the Lorton meteorite.

One was Steve Arnold, co-star of the new Science Channel TV show, Meteorite Men. Arnold estimates the Lorton meteorite could bring $25,000 to $50,000 on the open market, unless more pieces turn up. But he said Tuesday that none turned up from his search around the doctors’ office.

Meteorites have been the subject of legal disputes before. In the early 1900s, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled a 15-ton meteorite belonged to the landowner on whose property it likely landed, not the person who found it.

The doctors’ attorney Marvin Miller said Virginia law differs and favors the tenant.

As of Tuesday, the land owners had made no formal demands, but Miller said he would soon ask a court to decide.

“That’s the fairest way to deal with things for everybody’s sake,” he said.

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On the Net:

National Museum of Natural History: http://www.mnh.si.edu/

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AP-CS-02-03-10 0817EST