Tanglewood estate is key to Morton Kuehnert sale Sept. 18

Sapphire and diamond earrings. Estimate: $17,000-$22,000. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.
Sapphire and diamond earrings. Estimate: $17,000-$22,000. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.

Sapphire and diamond earrings. Estimate: $17,000-$22,000. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.

 

HOUSTON – Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers will present more than 400 lots of beautiful furniture, sterling, porcelain, lighting, fine art, Oriental rugs and fine jewelry on the auction block at 11 a.m. Central on Sunday, Sept. 18. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.

The public is invited to a champagne preview reception on Friday, Sept. 16, from 5 p.m. until 9 p.m. in the Houston Galleria area auction house at 4901 Richmond Ave.

The majority of the lots are from a Tanglewood family estate in Houston, the estate of Stella Porter, San Antonio, and the collection of Florian Fine Art & Antiques, also in Houston.

Highlights of the auction include an exquisite collection of sterling. A top example is Lot 22, an Austrian sterling tea and coffee service with the mark of Josef Carl Klinkosch, Vienna, circa 1875, with the kettle-on-stand, marked Richard Martin & Ebenezer Hall, London, 1874. The set weights 4288 grams and is estimated at $25,000-$45,000.

Lot 268, a pair of gilt-bronze mounted Sevres porcelain coupe, France, 1750, is estimated at $1,000-$2,000. Lot 400, an Anglo-Indian walnut game board with ivory game pieces is estimate at $2,000-$3,000. Lot 66 is a Steinway concert grand Rococo Revival East Indian rosewood piano, circa 1863, estimated at $25,000-$35,000.

Showstoppers are Lot 68, a Baccarat chandelier, estimated at $15,000-$20,000 and Lot 69, the matching Baccarat candelabra, estimated at $12,000-$15,000.

Lot 224, a fascinating Gallé cameo glass vase, is estimated at $7,000-$10,000.

Lot 248, an 18th century Dutch red and gold-leaf serpentine chest, is estimated at $1,000-$2,000 and Lot 198, a late 18th century Chinese lacquered screen with carved panels and original hardware, is estimated from $2,000-$3,000. Lot 249, four mid-19th century Italian Rococo-style armchairs of heavily carved walnut, is estimated at $1,500-$3,000. Lot 92, a beautiful oil painting by Yolandi Adrisonne, St. Raphael 2008, is estimated at $3,500-$5,000.

Lot 154, an 18K white gold sapphire and diamond necklace, is estimated at $65,000-$85,000, and the matching earrings, Lot 155, are estimated at $17,000-$22,000. Lot 134, an antique Persian rug dated 1909 and measuring 3 feet 9 inches by 5 feet 2 inches is estimated at $2,250-2,500.

Other highlights include Lot 164, a late 19th century monumental English Renaissance-style oak bookcase, estimated at $7,500-$12,500 and Lot 163, a bronze and marble center table estimated at $7,000-$10,000. A delicate mid-19th century eight-piece Jacob Petit gilded and decorated porcelain tea set is estimated at $2,500-$3,500.

For details visit www.mortonkuehnert.com or call 713-827-7835.

 

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.

ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE

Yolandi Ardisonne's ‘St. Raphael 2008.’ Estimate: $3,500-$5,000. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.

Yolandi Ardisonne’s ‘St. Raphael 2008.’ Estimate: $3,500-$5,000. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.

 

Antique Persian rug. Estimate: $2,250-$2,500. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.

Antique Persian rug. Estimate: $2,250-$2,500. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.

 

Sapphire and diamond necklace. Estimate: $65,000-$85,000. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.

Sapphire and diamond necklace. Estimate: $65,000-$85,000. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.

 

Empire-style center table, France. Estimate: $7,000-$10,000. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.

Empire-style center table, France. Estimate: $7,000-$10,000. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.

 

Sales of covered bridges calendar to aid Vermont storm victims

The sale of the 2012 Covered Bridges of Vermont calendar will benefit victims of Irene. Image courtesy of International Coins & Currency.
The sale of the 2012 Covered Bridges of Vermont calendar will benefit victims of Irene. Image courtesy of International Coins & Currency.
The sale of the 2012 Covered Bridges of Vermont calendar will benefit victims of Irene. Image courtesy of International Coins & Currency.

MONTPELIER, Vt. – International Coins & Currency, having been a part of the Green Mountain community for 36 years, will donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of a 2012 Covered Bridges of Vermont calendar to charity.

“Hurricane Irene recently blew through our state leaving great devastation in its wake. Towns and villages are flooded and many roads and bridges washed away, including some of our iconic Vermont covered bridges,” states International Coins & Currency in a news release.

From now until Nov. 1 International Coins & Currency will donate $3 to the Vermont Foodbank for every calendar sold.

This beautiful, 12-month wall calendar features a dozen of Vermont’s covered bridges, including the Bartonsville Bridge of Rockingham on the June page. This 141-year-old covered bridge was destroyed in the recent disaster.

These Covered Bridges of Vermont 2012 Calendars make wonderful gifts and are a great way to bring the simple beauty of Vermont into your home. To order the calendars and help benefit the people of Vermont, visit International Coins & Currency online at www.iccoin.com. The calendar costs $10.95; shipping charges apply.

Exhibition recalls Paris art world of the 1920s

Picasso’s ‘Maternity.’ Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Art & Jewelry Auction House.

Picasso’s ‘Maternity.’ Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Art & Jewelry Auction House.
Picasso’s ‘Maternity.’ Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Art & Jewelry Auction House.
ROME (AFP) – Picasso, Dali and Modigliani are at the heart of an exhibition on the Roaring Twenties in Paris, organized by the city of Ferrara in northern Italy and held in the historic Diamond Palace.

Paris was the capital of art from the end of World War I until the start of the 1930s, hosting celebrated artists from Monet to Matisse, Mondrian, Braque, Duchamp, De Chirico, Miro and Magritte.

The exhibition sets out to recapture the intense period of creativity in the City of Light through paintings by the great masters of the era, as well as sculptures, photos and drawings borrowed from several museums and private collections.

Among the works on display are Picasso’s Maternity, Marc Chagall’s The Cock, Michail Larionov’s Costume for a Soldier in the Ballet Chout and Henri Matisse’s Reclining Nude II.

“Gli anni folli: The Paris of Modigliani, Picasso and Dali” runs at the Diamond Palace until Jan. 8.

www.palazzodiamenti.it

 

 

Architects: New British homes are ‘shameful shoeboxes’

LONDON (AFP) – Many new houses in Britain are “shameful shoebox homes” which are too small to allow families to live together happily, an architects’ body said Wednesday.

The floor area of the average new three-bedroom home is 88 square meters (947 square feet), some eight square meters short of the recommended minimum, according to research by the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba).

Riba chief executive Harry Rich said: “Our homes should be places that enhance our lives and well-being. However, as our new research confirms, thousands of cramped houses – shameful shoe-box homes – are being churned out all over the country, depriving households of the space they need to live comfortably and cohesively.”

The study of three-bedroom houses was based on a sample of 3,418 homes across 71 sites in England.

The research was based on the London Plan space standards which have recently been introduced in the capital.

Riba says consumers need better information from estate agents and house builders and called for floor area measurements to be included in marketing material as they are in many other countries.

“Consumers are provided with very poor information when they are buying new homes,” Rich said. “In the UK, people buy homes based on the number of rooms. In the whole of the rest of Europe pretty much, and certainly North America, you know how many square meters you are buying when you buy it – and that’s not available to UK consumers.”

However, home builders said making homes bigger could put prices beyond the reach of many potential buyers.

Andrew Whitaker, head of planning for the Home Builders Federation, told the BBC: “That’s going to mean houses are going to become more expensive, and we’re already suffering from a lack of affordability for young people and first-time buyers.”

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Filmmaker brings Bruegel canvas to life

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Flemish, 1525-1569) Christ Carrying the Cross, completion date 1564. Museum Mayer van der Berg, Antwerp, Belgium.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Flemish, 1525-1569) Christ Carrying the Cross, completion date 1564. Museum Mayer van der Berg, Antwerp, Belgium.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Flemish, 1525-1569) Christ Carrying the Cross, completion date 1564. Museum Mayer van der Berg, Antwerp, Belgium.

LOS ANGELES – Combining a love of art with cutting-edge digital technology filmmaker Lech Majewski has brought a Renaissance masterpiece to life — in vivid style — on the big screen.

In an innovative movie, the Polish-American director tells the story of a dozen characters represented in Dutch master Pieter Bruegel’s 1564 canvas “Christ Carrying the Cross.”

The painting, which hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria, depicts Christ’s last journey bearing his cross to Golgotha, where he was crucified.

Majewski’s “The Mill and the Cross” has been showered with praise at a string of film festivals, including the recent Venice Biennale, before its release this week in North America.

“I’ve been interested in Bruegel since my teenage years. I’ve always been fascinated by him. I could spend hours and hours watching his paintings,” he told AFP.

Majewski, also a theatre director, poet and painter — New York’s Museum of Modern Art gave him a retrospective in 2006 — persuaded Charlotte Rampling, Michael York, and Dutch actor Rutger Hauer to join his biblical journey.

Hauer, who played the famous replicant in Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner,” slips into the role of Bruegel himself, whom Majewski portrays throughout the film sketching and working on his canvas.

“You always have to arouse the interest of the viewer. For example, in criminal stories you have the ‘Whodunit?,’ the question of who killed, and that’s why people want to watch the movie during one hour and a half. “They want an answer,” said Majewski.

“In order to have any kind of interest from the viewer in this film, I saw in my mind the idea of people crowding behind Bruegel,” Majewski said, referring to hundreds of people crowding into the painter’s masterpiece.

“Think about that: in real life, when you have a painter painting or drawing something in public, you always have a crowd of people behind him, watching the way he’s doing it. I thought that if these people can spend a lot of time and watch an artist paint, why not apply it to the mechanism of the narration?”

Impressive photo-editing, use of digital technology and seamless transition between images from the painting and reconstructed decor in the film give the cinema-goer an arresting sense of being inside a living painting.

Majewski says the film is also intended as a tribute to the artistic masters of past decades.

“Nowadays, everything can be a piece of art, which I detest,” he said. “I think this is killing the art. I am for returning back to some basic qualities that can discern the artificial, the stupid, the empty, the rubbish and the trash of today from the Old Masters. They are the real giants. The artists celebrated today are just dwarfs. Sick dwarfs.”

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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Flemish, 1525-1569) Christ Carrying the Cross, completion date 1564. Museum Mayer van der Berg, Antwerp, Belgium.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Flemish, 1525-1569) Christ Carrying the Cross, completion date 1564. Museum Mayer van der Berg, Antwerp, Belgium.