Claude Monet in his gardens, circa 1917. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. CLEVELAND (AP) – The Cleveland Museum of Art is lending a painting of water lilies by Claude Monet to museums in Missouri, where it will join two companion paintings for the first time in 30 years.
The painting will be loaned for a year to the St. Louis Art Museum and the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo.
The Plain Dealer reports that the three paintings measure 42 feet (13 meters) wide when together and were created by Monet as a trio but sold separately after his death in 1926.
The shows will run from April 9 to Aug. 7 in Kansas City and from September to next January in St. Louis.
All three paintings will be in Cleveland in 2015 as part of an exhibit planned for the museum’s 2016 centennial celebration.
The paintings were last together in 1980, when they toured the same three cities.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-CS-01-09-11 2101EST
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Claude Monet in his gardens, circa 1917. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
An important redware jar attributed to the Cain Pottery of Sullivan County, Tenn. Estimate: $7,000-9,000. Image courtesy of Case Antiques. KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – A cache of European paintings, a fine assortment of Asian decorative arts, and outstanding examples of Southern furniture and pottery are in the mix at the Winter Case Antiques Auction, set for Saturday, Jan. 22, at the company’s gallery.
A large landscape by Conrad Wimmer (German, 1844-1905) and a genre scene by Jan Frederik Pieter Portielje (Dutch, 1829-1908) lead an offering of European paintings, collected over several years by a prominent Northeastern family. Other European artists represented are Johannes Franciscus Spohler (Dutch, 1853-1894), P.J. Edmond Castan (French, 1817-1892), and Joseph Gyselinckx (Belgian, 1817-1884). The sale also features an 18th-century portrait of a young woman in the style of Maryland painter John Hesselius, 19th-century American husband and wife portraits by Henry Peters Gray (after John Singleton Copley) and John Wesley Jarvis (by attribution), a pastel by 20th-century African-American painter Joseph Delaney (Tennessee/New York, 1904-1991), and a fine collection of American, English and Continental miniature portraits and enamels.
Adding to the international flavor of the sale is a strong selection of Asian decorative arts. The category includes a large panel with jade and other hardstone carvings and a pair of carved jade discs, plus a number of early Republic porcelains, and more than a dozen large carved ivory figures.
Case, which was recently noted for its record-setting $55,200 sale of a Kentucky churn, will again offer several fine pieces of Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina pottery. This time, an expected star of the sale is a piece of redware from one of Tennessee’s earliest potteries. The double-handled jar, with distinctive manganese splotches and a band of incised decoration at the neck, is attributed to the Cain Pottery of Sullivan County, which was established around 1814.
“With its size and condition, this is one of the best jars attributed to the Cain pottery that’s come on the market in 20 years,” said company president John Case.
Also hailing from South of the Mason Dixon line are a Georgia huntboard in old surface, a Tennessee cherry sugar chest and a rare Kentucky Windsor chair bearing the maker’s mark of George Gibson of Maysville. Included as well are a Steinway Piano Grande player piano in excellent condition and a Massachusetts tavern table from the Old Ordinary Inn in Hingham, plus many lots of American and European furniture. The Knoxville Museum of Art is deaccessioning several pieces of Thonet furniture to benefit its acquisitions fund. They include a rare bentwood desk and a 1930s chair designed by avant-garde architect Emille Guillot, both part of a 1990s exhibit at the museum.
With precious metals at an all-time high, supply and demand are both up, and gold and silver lots comprise nearly a fifth of the auction. Gold coins, estate jewelry and silver flatware abound, and there are many pieces whose antique worth far exceeds their scrap value, including an 18th-century pierced cake basket by London maker Edward Aldridge, a pair of 19th-century Philadelphia coin silver goblets, a heavy Japanese mixed metals urn, and an unusual large military-themed chalice with winged angel handles and a shaft comprised of three miniature soldier figures. Coin silver from Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia, including some rare makers, is featured along with more contemporary pieces from Hector Aguilar, Georg Jensen, Christofle and others.
A first American edition of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and two volumes from the first American edition of Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers, both out of an early Tennessee plantation, lead the category of books and ephemera. There are also two portfolios by E.A. Seguy, Papillons and Bouquets et Frondaisons, each containing all original 20 colored plates. A collection of calling cards features one with Susan B. Anthony’s autograph and politically themed inscription, and there is a rare photograph of President Taft and his Supreme Court justices, signed by Taft and all of the judges. Several pieces of Confederate paper money, rare later U.S. currency, maps and signed political documents round out the category.
Other lots expected to draw interest include a monumental 19-inch-tall Cherokee river cane storage basket, a collection of items from the ship Lusitania, cold-painted Austrian lamps, a Canadian needlework sampler, a Daniel Boone themed girandole garniture by Cornelius and Co., a large collection of Japanese Art Deco porcelain, and an 1852 signed Southern quilt.
The auction will be held at Case’s gallery in the historic Cherokee Mills Building, 2240 Sutherland Ave., on Saturday, Jan. 22, at 10 a.m. Eastern. A preview will take place on Friday, Jan. 21, from noon to 6 p.m.
Online, phone and absentee bidding are available. The catalog for the January auction, with full descriptions and photographs, can be viewed online at www.caseantiques.com. For details call the gallery in Knoxville at (865) 558-3033 or the Nashville office at (615) 812-6096.
Emile Guillot-designed Thonet armchair, Model #B261, circa 1929. Estimate: $500-800. Image courtesy of Case Antiques.A seven-piece lot of early cruise and transport ship items includes a rare hat band/cap tally from the ill-fated Lusitania. Estimate: $2,000-$2,400. Image courtesy of Case Antiques.Large oil on canvas landscape by Conrad Wimmer (German, 1844-1905), measuring 39 inches by 29 inches. Estimate: $3,500-4,500. Image courtesy of Case Antiques.Portrait of a young woman in the style of 18th-century Maryland painter John Hesselius. Estimate: $1,000-$2,000. Image courtesy of Case Antiques.‘Daniel Boone’ gilt bronze girandole garniture set by Cornelius & Co., depicting figures from James Fenimore Cooper’s ‘Leather Stocking Tales,’ and Osage Indian figures modeled after a Catlin portrait print. Estimate: $600-$1,000. Image courtesy of Case Antiques.A silver-plated trophy with military theme and figural soldier pedestal. Estimate: $800-$1,200. Image courtesy of Case Antiques.
At any auction, the gavel has the final say. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Kaminski Auctions.
UPPER SADDLE RIVER, N.J. – “Sold!” the auctioneer calls out. This is the very moment when title legally changes hands from the owner (or consignor) of the property being sold. to the bidder who won the item.
The “bids” (the offers to purchase the item being sold) are the essential elements in any successful auction. These incremental bids by those who raise their paddles indicate to the auctioneer that they are making an offer to purchase the item.
The process of incremental bidding, i.e., a method by which bids are increased according to pre-determined increments, should be as simple as it sounds, and often is. This article deals with both the standard, everyday incremental bidding at an auction, as well as some of the vagaries of the process. It also deals with some things that bidders need to be aware of.
The numbered bid paddle (or card, or in some cases even a paper plate with a number written on it) is provided to the bidder once he or she has registered at the auction house. Registration is the process by which you supply the auction house with your identification, and any other required information, so they know who you are. Often, this requires a valid driver’s license.
Once registered and supplied with a bid paddle, bidders are given, or have the option of purchasing, a printed catalog that should include the auction’s Terms and Conditions of Sale. Read them carefully. The catalog usually contains the listing of all the items being sold, the lot number assigned to each item, detailed descriptions of the property being offered and sometimes condition reports that describe such things as repairs, breaks, etc.
The catalog may also contain an estimate of each item’s value. These values are based on the auction house’s research of historical selling prices of similar items. These estimates are often represented in ranges such as $200-$300, $400-600, etc. Most items eventually sell in or near these estimate ranges.
Now that you’re armed with your bid number and catalog, you have everything you need to move along to the next step of the process, the all-important pre-auction inspection, or preview. As you go from item to item and identify those pieces that may interest you, the catalog is an excellent in-hand reference. Refer to it frequently, as it may supply you with information you might not be aware of. Many buyers also use the catalog to circle items of interest, jot down their maximum bids (how high they are willing go), general notes, etc.
Once you take your seat and the actual auction begins, the paddle is used to indicate to the auctioneer that you are making an offer to purchase, or bid. The auctioneer will often begin by asking for a low opening bid from the audience, often one-half of the low estimate of the item being sold. Once someone’s paddle is raised into the air, the bidding process begins, and it continues to progress until the item is deemed “sold.”
For example, an opening bid of $100 is often followed with a subsequent bid of $125, then $150, and so on, as the bidding process continues. The advances in the bids usually follow pre-determined bidding increments. At Leighton Galleries, as an example, the increments are published in the catalog, and range from $10 bid increments for items selling for $10 to $100, to $100 increments for items selling for $1,000 to $5,000.
If the auctioneer opened an item by asking for a $100 bid, and you raised you paddle, the auctioneer would acknowledge your bid and, in the same breath, start looking for $125 from someone else. Then, if that someone else were to raise their paddle, the auctioneer would acknowledge that bid and almost certainly look right back at you for the next bid, now at $150. If you were to bid again, he would look back at the other bidder (called the underbidder) for the next bid, and so on, until one of you stops bidding. The sale happens when no additional bid, or advance, is made beyond the last and final bid. At that point, the auctioneer calls “Sold!” and moves on to the next item, repeating the entire process.
Sometimes in the heat of the auction, a bidder will call out a bid in excess of the bid that the auctioneer is asking for. Say the auctioneer is trying to get a bid for $225, and a bidder raises his paddle and yells out “$300”, this is referred to as “jumping” the bid. This is an aggressive move on the part of the jump bidder, an attempt to intimidate the underbidder into capitulating. This move sometimes works, but sometimes it can also fuel unintended competition.
Another bidding tactic used by determined buyers is to raise their paddle into the air, and leave it there, holding it up through the entire bidding sequence. The motivation to bid in this way varies from person to person, and for a variety of reasons. At our auctions, I personally appreciate this type of bidder since it helps to move the sale along. However, for those who might consider bidding in this way, be forewarned. Unscrupulous auctioneers might see this “paddle-in-the-air” bidder as an easy mark, as it indicates a relentless bidder who will not stop bidding until he wins the item.
I’ve seen this illegal practice myself, many times. Bidding in this manner opens the door to a dishonest auctioneer “bouncing” bids (taking nonexistent bids from the floor, the back of the auction hall, out of the air, etc.) and running up the price to the detriment of the paddle-in-the-air bidder. This bouncing will continue until the paddle comes down or the bidder shows some hesitation. Then, and magically, the “underbidder” stops bidding and the paddle-in- the-air buyer wins the item, ultimately paying far more than the real bidding justified.
One victim at a particular auction, who was bidding on a reproduction Tiffany lamp, happened to be a long-time customer of Leighton Galleries. I didn’t even know he and his wife were there until I looked around to see who was bidding so high on this reproduction lamp. As an auctioneer myself, I’ve developed a keen eye for picking bids out of an audience. A blinking eye here, a tipped catalog there, the nod of a head – I have seen them all. I stood at the front of the auction hall and believe me, there wasn’t another bidder is the house – except my customer and his wife. Not one!
This buyer grossly overpaid as a result of a dishonest and greedy auctioneer. I immediately told my customer. I cautioned him that he could bid that way at MY auction without any apprehension, but to be careful at THIS auction because he was the only bidder on the lamp; the others were phantom bids. I later learned that this particular auctioneer had been arrested and his auction business closed down for similar indiscretions.
Finally, bidders should be aware that they may find themselves competing with legitimate bidders who aren’t physically present in the auction gallery. For a long time, now, telephone bids have been a staple at auctions. Essentially the bidder on the other end of the phone is bidding just as if they were in the hall, with the auction staff communicating with them on the phone and bidding on their behalf.
Absentee bids, or bids left with the auction house, are fairly common as well. Absentee bidders are folks who can’t attend the auction due to scheduling conflicts, geography, or just not wanting to spend the evening waiting for a few items to come up for bid. In this case, they fill out a form and tell us how high they want to bid. The auction house then bids on their behalf in a competitive fashion.
Most auction houses impose minimum-bid requirements on absentee and phone bidders to justify the extra time their employees must invest in handling the bids. For instance, if a phone bidder wants to bid $100 on a sapphire ring of obviously greater value, most auction houses will not take the bid. A $1,000 bid on a bronze is a completely different circumstance.
The Internet has shaken up the auction business in recent years in ways never before imagined. These days, buyers can sit at their computer at home, in their office, or anywhere in the world for that matter, and participate by entering bids through their computer [or, if using LiveAuctioneers.com, also via apps downloadable to their iPhone, iPod Touch or Android phone; absentee only through BlackBerry]. They can leave bids just like a traditional absentee bidder, and we bid on their behalf. The Internet also allows bidders to bid in real time through the Internet, as though they were right there in the hall or on the phone. As the item comes across the screen on their computer, all they have to do is click on a BID button, and voila. Internet bidding has become so popular that in most of our auctions, more than 35% of the items sell to the Internet.
If you are new to auctions and are thinking about attending one, find a local auction, register if you choose to do so, or simply take a seat and watch. Alternatively, learn the ropes by monitoring an auction through LiveAuctioneers.com. It’s absolutely free to watch any sale in progress on LiveAuctioneers. The process is so simple, you’ll catch on quickly. Within a few minutes of watching an action, you’ll be ready to jump right in with confidence.
Auctions are an excellent way to buy everything and anything from jewelry to antiques to collections of all kinds. You decide what you’re going to pay, and it’s fun too!
John Merowski Owner/Auctioneer – Leighton Galleries Inc.
Leighton Galleries is a full-service Auction House advocating Buyer Awareness in the matters of art, antiques, auction houses and appraisal practices. Watch for Leighton Galleries’ auction catalogs and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
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Bidders can take part absentee or in real time in any auction supported by LiveAuctioneers through the company’s mobile phone bidding app available to users of iPhone, iPod Touch, Android or BlackBerry (absentee only through BlackBerry). Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com.
With pressure applied by the user’s arm, this lazy tong-style brass holdout secretly delivered or removed cards from his hand. Estimate: $400/$600. Estimate: $400-$600. Image courtesy of Potter & Potter. CHICAGO – Potter & Potter Auctions’ first sale of 2011, on Saturday, Jan. 29, will feature an unusual assortment of cheating devices – secret apparatus used to cheat at card and dice games.
LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding.
Seldom do devious devices of this nature come up for auction, let alone private sale.
“We’ve occasionally offered rare and collectible cheating devices in past auctions, and they’ve always attracted considerable interest” said Gabe Fajuri, president of Potter & Potter, “but this is our first auction that will feature many of these secret devices.”
A variety of holdouts – mechanical devices worn on the operator’s arm to secretly deliver cards to or take cards from the gambler’s hand without the knowledge of other players at the table – will be offered. One highlight of the auction will be a scarce holdout table (est. $3,000/$5,000) – an apparently innocent card table that secretly delivers a card into the operator’s hand, giving him a supreme edge in any card game.
Some material in Potter & Potter’s sale comes directly from the back rooms of Hunt & Co., one of the best-known makers of gambling equipment – both crooked and straight – of the 20th century. These include a precision-made steel Dice Shaver that can subtly modify dice (est. $1,000/$1,200); an Alnico Dice Charger used by Hunt & Co. to secretly polarize the ferrous material in crooked magnetic or “mag” dice; and a “Ferris Wheel” dice shaver.
Other curious items in the sale include a marked card detector – an optical device used to detect “I.R.” ink on the backs of playing cards; two Juice Joints, electromagnetic devices hidden inside tables which can control the roll of magnetic dice; a gaffed carnival game known as a Camelback Arrow; and tap dice, dice with weights concealed inside which the operator can control.
Rare books on cheating and gambling will also be featured. Chief among these is a first edition of S.W. Erdnase’s Expert at the Card Table (est. $2,000/$2,500). First published in Chicago in 1902, the book has never been out of print, yet fewer than 100 copies of the elusive first edition are known. An aura of mystery surrounds the true identity of the author, which to this day, remains a mystery despite repeated attempts by scholars, journalists and private detectives to determine it. Other important and early works on gambling and card playing dating back to the 18th century will also be offered.
But not everything in the auction will be of the crooked variety. Also offered will be a choice assortment of roulette wheels, slot machines, faro dealing boxes, playing card and gambling-themed novelties and decorative objects, punch boards (straight and crooked), card trimmers and rounders and gambling ephemera.
Complementing the gambling material will be an array of rare and collectible books and periodicals about magic tricks and magicians.
“Like Erdnases’s book, this auction will be divided into two categories,” Fajuri said. “The first will be the card table artifice material – the gambling devices, both straight and crooked. After that comes the legerdemain.”
Among the magic books will be 18th- and 19th-century instructional texts in English and foreign languages, as well as numerous limited edition and collectible publications from every decade of the 20th century.
For details contact Gabe Fajuri, Potter & Potter Auctions, Inc., 3729 N. Ravenswood Ave., Suite 116, Chicago, IL 60613; e-mail gabe@potterauctions.com or phone 773-472-1442. Visit Potter & Potter’s website at www.potterauctions.com.
With pressure applied by the user’s arm, this lazy tong-style brass holdout secretly delivered or removed cards from his hand. Estimate: $400/$600. Estimate: $400-$600. Image courtesy of Potter & Potter.
Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the Aug. 4, 1892 hatchet murders of her father and stepmother. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. SALEM, Mass. (AP) – A Lizzie Borden museum in Salem that sparked a lawsuit and questions over its location has closed after about 2 1/2 years in business.
Owner Leonard Pickel told The Salem News that his 40 Whacks Museum faced steep rent and high utility costs at a time of year when tourist traffic slows. He says he was never able to attract key school groups.
His museum that opened in the summer of 2008 was originally called The True Story of Lizzie Borden. But he was sued by the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast in Fall River, where Borden was accused of using an ax to murder her father and stepmother. The Salem museum changed its name.
Others questioned why a museum about something that happened in Fall River was located in Salem, famous for its witch trials.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-ES-01-10-11 0958EST
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the Aug. 4, 1892 hatchet murders of her father and stepmother. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
