Superb crested Saurolophus angustirostris, Late Cretaceous, Central Asia, a late entry in I.M. Chait’s May 6 Natural History sale. Estimate: $150,000-$200,000. I.M. Chait image.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Arriving fashionably late is nothing new in Beverly Hills, but it becomes big news when it’s a dinosaur who’s making the dramatic, last-minute entrance. In this case, the late arrival is a superb Saurolophus angustirostris known as “Donald the Duck-billed Dinosaur,’ and he just might steal the show at I.M. Chait’s May 6 Natural History auction.
Dating to the Late Cretaceous period, Saurolophus is one of the very few dinosaurs known to have inhabited more than one continent. Found in both North America and Asia, this large species is distinguished by the strange, bony crest projecting back at a 45-degree angle over the skull. The function of the crest has not been determined, but modern studies show evidence that it was hollow, and may have been used either to make sounds or to regulate heat. Estimates of its overall size suggest the Asian species represented here was the largest known at nearly 40 feet long, making it as large as a modern bus.
Saurolophus was a member of the Hadrosaurids, a huge herbivorous dinosaur lineage that includes such famous animals as the “dinosaur mummy” Leonardo, and Hadrosaurus foulkii which in 1858 was the very first dinosaur ever found in the United States, now the state fossil of New Jersey. Like all Hadrosaurs, Saurolophus was herbivorous and possessed a huge battery of chisel-like teeth designed specifically to grind plants to a digestible pulp. It shared its world with a wide variety of other dinosaurs such as the pachycephalosaur Prenocephale, several velociraptor-like Troodontids, Gallimimus the ostrich-mimic depicted in Jurassic Park, and the giant tyrannosaurid carnivore Tarbosaurus.
The first known Saurolophus was described in 1911 from material found in Canada, but more than 30 years passed before new material was found, by the Polish-Mongolian Expedition of 1947. To this day, barely more than 10 skulls are known, and the example in Chait’s May 6 auction is one of only a handful of complete skeletons ever found or mounted, making it one of the rarest of the remarkable, crested Hadrosaurs.
This stunning skeleton is superbly mounted in a dynamic, forward-reaching pose, with superb detail and preparation. The bone which is well mineralized and has beautiful mottled orange and grey color, with a reddish brown patina. It measures 176 inches from head to tail, with a 24 inch skull, and the mount stands approximately 85 inches high by 145 inches long overall: a rare, museum-class, and highly impressive skeleton.
Entered as lot 218 in Chait’s auction, it is estimated at $150,000-$200,000.
Superb crested Saurolophus angustirostris, Late Cretaceous, Central Asia, a late entry in I.M. Chait’s May 6 Natural History sale. Estimate: $150,000-$200,000. I.M. Chait image.
Did you have a bowl filled with pet fish when you were young? The idea dates back to the Roman Empire, when carp were kept in marble tanks. Once panes of glass were made, a pane could be used on one side of the tank so people could more easily watch the activities of the fish. The Chinese were making large porcelain tubs for goldfish by the 1400s. Copies of these tubs are still being made and sold, although they are usually used for plants, not fish. By the 19th century, there were aquariums and fish bowls that look like those found today. Raising fish became an important hobby, and the first public aquarium opened in 1853. By 1900 there were aquariums and fish bowls made in fanciful shapes, and some were even part of a planter or lamp. It is said that keeping fish is one of America’s most popular hobbies. So when a fishbowl topped by three ceramic polar bears was auctioned at Humler & Nolan in Cincinnati, it’s not surprising that it sold for $2,540. The fish bowl is cleverly designed. A porcelain “basket” holds an ice cave (the bowl). It’s topped by the bears, and openings show the bowl and active fish. It’s about 24 inches high and 15 inches in diameter, big enough to hold a few fish and plants. The bowl is lit from below. The maker is unknown, but it’s signed “Makonicka.” The bears and ice are designed in a style popular after 1890.
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Q: A few years ago, I bought a round 60-inch dining-room table with a pedestal base at a Los Angeles antique shop. The dealer told me the table was made in Germany, but there’s no label or mark on it. The interesting thing about it is that there’s a thick base under the tabletop that hides eight leaves. You can lift the top of the table and rotate the leaves out so they form a ring around the table, making the tabletop 80 inches in diameter. Have you ever seen a table like this?
A: Your table is called a “perimeter table,” and the leaves are referred to as “perimeter leaves.” The style has been around for decades and some cabinetmakers are building them today. A U.S. patent for this sort of table was granted in 1911. That was during an era when all sorts of different table extension designs were being invented.
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Q: I’m trying to find information about my 5-foot Col. Sanders metal weathervane. I was among the crew who remodeled a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Miami in 1980. The weathervane was going to be trashed, and I was the only worker who wanted it. So I took it home and stored it in my garage for 32 years. The weathervane is a full figure of Col. Sanders holding his cane up in the air. The weathervane must have stood on top of the restaurant for about 20 years. What is it worth? How should I sell it?
A: Harland Sanders (1890-1980) opened his first restaurant in Corbin, Ky., in 1930. The first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise opened in 1952, and there were 600 by 1964. We have seen Col. Sanders weathervanes for sale at antique shows for about $500. But a few have sold at auction for $1,000 or more. Price depends not only on where and how you sell it, but also on condition. If your weathervane is not rusty and the colors aren’t faded, contact an auction that specializes in advertising. You will have to pay a commission.
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Q: We’re moving and have a collection of old pictures in frames that my great-grandfather bought for $10 at a barn sale in the 1950s. One is a print of cattle and ducks that’s signed by James M. Hart. Under his signature are the words “copyrighted 1899 by James M. Hart.” There are some brown stains in the corner. Is it worth anything?
A: James McDougal Hart was born in Scotland in 1828. His family immigrated to Albany, N.Y., in 1830. Hart started out as a sign painter’s apprentice, then studied art in Germany. In 1854 he opened a studio in Albany. Later, he opened studios in Brooklyn and Keene Valley, N.Y. Hart died in 1901. Several of his works are in museums today. The brown stains on your print are called “foxing” and can be caused by deterioration due to age or by exposure to heat, cold or humidity. If your pictures were stored in a barn, conditions were not ideal. Some oil paintings by James M. Hart sell for several thousand dollars. But his prints, in perfect condition, sell for just a few hundred dollars. Your print would be difficult to sell since it is in poor condition.
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Q: In the late 1800s, my great-grandfather owned a tinware company in Cleveland called Mannen & Esterly Co. For the past 45 years, I have been trying to gather information about the company. As for its products, so far I have only found a few of the company’s painted tea boxes, and they’re in collections.
A: John E. Mannen is listed in the 1886 Cleveland city directory as a tinsmith. In 1894-95, his business is listed as “stoves.” By then he had moved to the address that would later become that of Mannen & Esterly. Mannen and Willis M. Esterly were granted a patent for a “clothes dryer for laundries” in 1903 and another for a “heating apparatus” in 1904. By 1909 the company advertised that it made sheet-metal goods, plain and decorated cans, japanning, “Manest” laundry dryers, “Manest” natural gas furnaces, dust separators, and exhaust and blow pipework. By 1919 the name of the business became “John E. Mannen Co., successor to Mannen & Esterly.” That company made Dri-Rite laundry dryers and Age-Gar garage heaters. It was still in business in the 1920s, but by 1936 John Mannen is listed as president of the Metal Fabricating Corp. That company was founded in 1932 and is still in business in Cleveland, making metal boxes, cabinets, bins and specialty products. Since most Mannen & Esterly products were largeappliances, you won’t find much to collect other than the tin containers you have already found.
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Tip: If you buy an old teddy bear at a garage sale, bring it home and put it in a plastic bag with some mothballs for a few weeks. Don’t let the mothballs touch the bear. The fur and stuffing of old bears attract many types of hungry insects.
Take advantage of a free listing for your group to announce events or to find antique shows. Go to Kovels.com/calendar to find and plan your antiquing trips.
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Terry Kovel answers as many questions as possible through the column. By sending a letter with a question, you give full permission for use in the column or any other Kovel forum. Names, addresses or email addresses will not be published. We cannot guarantee the return of any photograph, but if a stamped envelope is included, we will try. The volume of mail makes personal answers or appraisals impossible. Write to Kovels, Auction Central News, King Features Syndicate, 300 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019.
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CURRENT PRICES
Current prices are recorded from antiques shows, flea markets, sales and auctions throughout the United States. Prices vary in different locations because of local economic conditions.
Ideal doll, Tiny Kissy, vinyl head, brown rooted saran hair, pixie cut, green eyes, plastic arms and legs, hands jointed at wrists, push hands together she puckers up, 1960s, 16 inches, $45.
Evel Knievel lunch box, metal, image of Evel smiling and jumping canyon in rocket vehicle, 1974, Aladdin, $55.
Pierre the Chef wall clock, white hat & uniform, holding clock, electric, Sessions, 1950s, 10 x 7 inches, $60.
Gumball coin bank, Huckleberry Hound, tin lithograph, Hound, Jinks, Pixie, Dixie and Yogi Bear, 1960 Hanna Barbera copyright, Knickerbocker, 11 inches, $90.
Sterling-silver cheese slicer, acorn pattern, Georg Jensen, 3 x 8 1/4 inches, $165.
Duncan & Miller pressed-glass pitcher, Button Arches pattern, ruby stain, clear base and handle, c. 1900, 12 inches, $235.
Moorcroft bowl, orchid pattern, smoke color fades to cobalt, 12 x 5 1/2 inches, $325.
Indian Motorcycles 1913 catalog, illustrated, black-and-white embossed cover with red image of cycle, 24 pages, 9 3/4 x 6 1/2 inches, $600.
Amish quilt, cotton, diamonds, stars and feathers, navy, red and pink, brown border, Lancaster, Pa., 1925-1940, 75 x 89 inches, $1,280.
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Available now. The best book to own if you want to buy, sell or collect – and if you order now, you’ll receive a copy with the author’s autograph. The new “Kovels’ Antiques & Collectibles Price Guide, 2012,” 44th edition, is your most accurate source for current prices. This large-size paperback has more than 2,500 color photographs and 40,000 up-to-date prices for more than 775 categories of antiques and collectibles. You’ll also find hundreds of factory histories and marks, a report on the record prices of the year, plus helpful sidebars and tips about buying, selling, collecting and preserving your treasures. Available online at Kovelsonlinestore.com; by phone at 800-303-1996; at your bookstore; or send $27.95 plus $4.95 postage to Price Book, Box 22900, Beachwood, OH 44122.
An unusual and much sought after gold, ruby, diamond and enamel zarf sold for $134,000 at a Fine Jewelry and Timepieces Auction held March 25-26 by Leslie Hindman Auctioneers in Chicago, Ill. Also, an antique 6.20 carat cabochon cut unheated Burmese ruby ring realized $146,400; a pair of antique cushion cut diamonds weighing 25.75 carats brought $280,000; and a 7.20 carat heart-shaped diamond of D color VVS1 clarity and the rare “Golconda” Type 11A distinction changed hands for $448,000. Prices include a 22 percent buyer’s premium.
This Chinese blue and white vase, based on an Islamic metal prototype, is one of the highlights of Duke’s sale of Asian art in Dorchester on May 10. Image courtesy of Duke’s.
LONDON – The extent to which the UK’s more go-ahead provincial auction houses are making inroads into the business of London auctioneers is becoming ever more apparent. As the London rooms continue to raise the minimum values beneath which they will not accept goods for sale, preferring instead to concentrate on the ‘blue-chip’ end of the market, so ambitious country firms are stepping in to grasp profitable business. Nor are these consignments “crumbs from the master’s table,” but are often high-value objects whose owners have identified the multiple benefits of choosing country firms over their London equivalents.
The list of big-thinking country salerooms is now familiar and includes, amongst others, East Sussex auction house Gorringes, West Country firms Duke’s of Dorchester and Woolley and Walis in Salisbury and, further north, Tennants of Leyburn, North Yorkshire.
Over the past five years, Duke’s have made significant inroads into markets that would previously have been dominated by the London rooms. Their expertise in Asian material has proved particularly profitable and this coming month sees them building on that reputation. Their 10 May sale of Asian art includes yet further consignments of Qing Dynasty porcelain and white jade, early bronzes and other examples of the kind of works sought by newly-wealthy Chinese mainland collectors. Like most of the Asian consignments that have come under Duke’s hammer in the last year or two, the works in the May sale are mainly from private collections and are thus appealingly fresh to market. One consignment in the May sale is provenanced to the Laird of Invercauld in the distant highlands of North East Scotland.
Highlights of Duke’s sale include an interesting Chinese blue and white vase of pierced globular shape, its form derived from an Islamic metal prototype; a Chinese white jade censer carved with buddhistic lion masks;
A Chinese white jade censer carved with buddhistic lion masks that is among the more significant lots under the hammer of Duke’s in Dorchester on May 10. Image courtesy of Duke’s.
and a Qing Dynasty lemon-yellow glazed bowl bearing a Yongzheng mark.
Dorchester auction house Duke’s will offer this Qing Dynasty lemon-yellow glazed bowl at their sale of Asian art on May 10. Image courtesy of Duke’s.
All these lots are “Estimate on Request’ — invariably an indication of high hopes. Like many auctions of Asian material these days, the more important lots at the sale are not available for online bidding. Clearly the ever more global art market continues to present a few problems for auctioneers in terms of potential non-payment.
Another benefit country auction houses enjoy over their London counterparts is their ability to market objects of regional significance to local people. West Yorkshire auctioneers Hartleys of Ilkley witnessed unexpected levels of interest in an oil painting by Kenneth ‘Ken’ Jackson (1920-2006) at their April sale. This was a realistically rendered scene depicting the filming on location of the classic 1970 movie The Railway Children, starring Jenny Agutter.
West Yorkshire auctioneers Hartleys of Ilkley were bid a double-estimate £10,500 ($17,100) for this oil by Kenneth Jackson showing the location shooting of the 1970 film The Railway Children. Image courtesy Hartleys.
The painting showed the main street in the Yorkshire village of Haworth, with a group of local people watching the actors awaiting direction. The figure at the centre of the composition bears a strong resemblance to the actor Lionel Jeffries, who made his directorial debut on The Railway Children. Estimated at £3,000-5,000 ($4,880-$8,100), the painting drew a winning bid of £10,500 ($17,100). Hartleys tell us that some 850 limited edition prints were produced from Jackson’s painting, most of which are in local collections. Hardly surprising, then, that the original was so fiercely contested.
Meanwhile, a few miles up the road in Leyburn, North Yorkshire auctioneers Tennants have just seen a lively response to a slightly earlier but no less fascinating example of English social history. Their sale this weekend included a white cotton nightshirt and long-johns made for Frederick Kempster (1889-1918), who was popularly known as ‘The Blackburn Giant’ on account of his extraordinary height.
Dwarfing even the tall saleroom porters at Tennants in North Yorkshire, this cotton nightshirt and long johns made for Frederick Kempster (1889-1918), one of the tallest men in England at 8ft 4in, fetched £550 ($895) on April 28.
Kempster is reported to have stood around 8ft tall, which led to him forging a career as a circus showman around the turn of the century. It is not clear who offered the winning bid of £550 ($895), but one hopes it was a Lancashire museum. A real Lancastrian giant’s pyjamas would be sure to draw gasps of delight from local school children.
So much for tall tales from the auction circuit. Staying momentarily in the countryside, May sees the opening of “the definitive” exhibition of eighteenth-century English Windsor chairs at West Wycombe Park, a National Trust property in Buckinghamshire.
Curated by Windsor chair specialists Michael Harding-Hill and Robert Parrott of the Regional Furniture Society, the exhibition, which runs from 6 to 31 May, draws on private and public collections to assemble 35 extraordinary examples of one of the oldest and best loved English chair types.
This beautiful ‘Gothick’ pointed bow Windsor armchair is one of a number of eighteenth-century Windsor chairs assembled to form aA handsome mahogany ‘Windsor’ elbow chair, included in the exhibition of Windsor chairs at West Wycombe Park in Buckinghamshire from 6 to 31 May. Image courtesy West Wycombe Park and National Trust.
The area around High Wycombe has been synonymous with the making of Windsor chairs since the late eighteenth century, although the term itself dates from 1720 when the style was also referred to as the ‘Forest’ chair on account of its use outdoors. Lord Percival of Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire reported in 1724 that so numerous were the paths and walks on his estate that “My wife was carry’d in a Windsor chair like those at Versailles.” Nowadays she’d probably use a golf buggy.
Turning from furniture to fine art, Bonhams offer us a reminder this month of the continuing globalisation of the art market as they assemble another sale of African contemporary art. ‘Africa Now’ on 23 May includes one or two fine examples of the work of respected Ghanaian contemporary artist El Anatsui whose work is now encountered everywhere from the British Museum to the European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht. The sale includes New World Map — one of El Anatsui’s extraordinary wall hangings constructed from discarded aluminium bottle caps and copper wire.
It is expected to realise £500,000-800,000 ($813,000-$1.3m).
High expectations also accompany Nigerian painter Benedict Enwonwu’s (1917-1994) oil on canvas Dance Ensemble II of 1976,
which is forecast to make between £60,000-80,000 ($97,500-$130,100). One of a number of examples of Enwonwu’s work in the sale, it will be interesting to see if this builds on the high prices attained at Bonhams last outing of African art, which set a new auction record for Enwonwu’s work.
Returning to British contemporary art, May sees the opening of a new exhibition of work by Bridget Riley,
Bridget Riley in front of Continuum, 1963. (Photographer unknown). Ms Riley’s new joint exhibition at the London galleries of Hazliitt Holland & Hibbert and Karsten Schubert opens on 23 May. Image courtesy Bridget Riley studio.
best known for her role in the 1960s movement broadly known as Op Art. Riley’s new two-part exhibition, which is to be staged at Hazlitt Holland and Hibbert in Bury Street, Mayfair and simultaneously at Karsten Schubert’s gallery in Lower John Street, Soho (from 23 May to 13 July) marks a full fifty years since her first commercial exhibition at Gallery One in Soho in 1962. The exhibitions are devoted to Riley’s hugely popular eye-popping canvases in black and white which helped establish her international reputation.
Finally, one other event likely to prove popular this coming month, particularly given the erratic spring weather in the British Isles in recent weeks, is the exhibition entitled ‘Where the Land Meets the Sea’ at Jerram Gallery, Sherborne, Dorset from 1 to 16 May. The show features new paintings by Caitlin Palmer and Gerry Dudgeon,
Caitlin Palmer’s landscape in mixed media, entitled White Rock, to be shown in the exhibition ‘Where The Land Meets The Sea’ at Jerram Gallery, Sherbiorne, Dorset from 1 to 16 May. Image courtesy Caitlin Palmer and Jerram Gallery.From 1 to 16 May, Gerry Dudgeon will be sharing the Jerram Gallery in Sherborne Dorset with Caitlin Palmer in an exhibition entitled ‘Where The Land Meets the Sea’, which will include Dudgeon’s acrylic on canvas shown here entitled Lakeside Dwellings. Image courtesy Jerram Gallery. Image courtesy Gerry Dudgeon and Jerram Gallery.
the former revealing a keen eye for the muted blues and greys of coastal scenery under threatening clouds and blustery winds, the latter seeing the Dorset landscape through a warmer palette of decorative patterning. If only the British weather would adopt a warmer palette.
A masterpiece of Russian architecture: the Cathedral of Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat, also known as the Cathedral of Saint Basil the Blessed, on Red Square in Moscow. Photo by Christophe Meneboeuf, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
MOSCOW — Home to more billionaires than New York or London and with a thirst for art to match, Moscow is turning into a key pre-sale destination for auction houses with world masters on their hands.
London-based Christie’s and its US counterpart Sotheby’s first descended on Russia in the 1990s as interest in post-Soviet kitsch soared.
But Sotheby’s did not open its first dedicated office in the glitzy but risky and bureaucratic capital until 2007, while Christie’s waited for the global financial crisis to blow over before following suit in 2010.
Yet unlike most Western capitals, Russia’s holds an unparalleled concentration of the country’s super-rich, with the 78 Moscow billionaires last counted by Forbes magazine worth a combined $334 billion.
The money has grown so big — and the will to splash it around so prevalent — that the auction houses are now swallowing the costs involved in bringing their latest Dutch masters to Moscow for viewings ahead of auctions in London and New York.
“There is money in Moscow, that’s why Christie’s and Sotheby’s are putting in so much effort,” said Irina Kolosova, director of the Russian Institute of Art and Antiques Business.
In mid-April, Christie’s held a three-day viewing in an historic mansion that included works by Rembrandt, the contemporary British artist Damien Hirst and the Russian painter Pyotr Konchalovsky.
Last Tuesday, Sotheby’s sold a painting by Ivan Aivazovsky — the perennially popular 19th century Russian seascape master — for a record 3.2 million pounds ($5.2 million) after showcasing it in Moscow last year.
“We see Russian collectors participating in eight to ten percent of our global turnover,” spending as much as $5.7 billion on art in 2011, said Christie’s Russia director Matthew Stephenson.
Russians’ interest in the world’s most expensive paintings seemed to catch fire when oil prices first took off nearly a decade ago, flooding Moscow with petrodollars and displays of extravagant wealth.
“We really saw a surge in our sales (to Russians) after 2004, primarily of Russian art,” a phenomenon that helped return many masterpieces to their native country from all over the world, said Stephenson.
But Russian buyers are also showing a “rising interest in other regions, other cultures and works by foreign artists,” he added.
The tastes of Russia’s wealthy now seems to gravitate towards whatever is more expensive, said one art collector, with interest in minor artists dwindling at times when spenders have to slightly tighten their belts.
“Russian collectors buy it all. That’s not to say whatever is out there, but all of the best,” said collector Alexei Ustinov. “That includes Western paintings as well as the great masters of Russian art.”
He added that many viewed art as a great investment, particularly with the price gyrations experienced by Russia’s commodity exports in the past 10 years.
“On average, art increases in price by 15 to 20 percent a year,” said Ustinov. “That is not very likely to happen on any stock market or with any other type of investment.”
In a sign of a market picking up, Russian houses are also starting to auction off art for eyebrow-raising prices although the volume of their sales is still comparatively modest, said Kolosova, the Russian art institute head.
Moscow’s Leonid Shishkin Gallery made headlines a year ago by selling a Konchalovsky for 20.9 million rubles ($615,700).
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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
A masterpiece of Russian architecture: the Cathedral of Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat, also known as the Cathedral of Saint Basil the Blessed, on Red Square in Moscow. Photo by Christophe Meneboeuf, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Civil War tinted tintype of man draped in the flag of the 18th Tennessee Infantry. Sold for $400 + buyer’s premium in Affiliated Auctions’ Dec. 5, 2009 sale. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Affiliated Auctions.
PIKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — An old jail in Bledsoe County is being turned into a military museum.
The 160-year-old building with a rock exterior, a front porch and a second-story cellblock that can be accessed only by an iron staircase outside will also house the county’s Veterans Service Office.
County Mayor Bobby Collier told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that the building will be used and maintained by local veterans groups.
The county opened a new $7.4 million, 96-bed state-of-the-art jail last year across town.
Meanwhile, it began fixing up the old jail two years ago with a $17,000 Historic Preservation Fund grant. Collier said work includes updates to the building’s front, refinished wood floors and plaster stripped from original brick walls.
“We left that,” he said, pointing at original brick from 1851.
According to historical records, county officials specified that the jail be built as a two-story all-brick building that would be 20 feet wide and 40 feet long. It cost $1,500 to build and records show the county sold a second lot to help with construction costs.
After that, there’s not much mention of the jail until 1937, when local media reported county officials at first talked about building a new jail, but then scaled back their efforts to include “repairs and improvements” to the 1851-era jail.
When it closed to prisoners in 2008, the jail was among the oldest still operating in the state, according to county records and local historians. It was designed, as it stood then, to hold a maximum of nine prisoners, but often held 25 or more.
The last major update it had before the historical restoration was in the wake of a federal lawsuit in 1992. Because of the civil action, records show the county had to spend around $400,000 on repairs and upgrades.
“If only the walls could talk,” said Bledsoe County Public Library Director Carolyne Knight, who keeps and researches the library’s collections of historical records. “It has seen 46 sheriffs come and go.”
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Information from: Chattanooga Times Free Press, http://www.timesfreepress.com
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Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Civil War tinted tintype of man draped in the flag of the 18th Tennessee Infantry. Sold for $400 + buyer’s premium in Affiliated Auctions’ Dec. 5, 2009 sale. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Affiliated Auctions.
One of Edouard Manet’s (French, 1832-1883) most recognizable works is ‘Young Flautist’ or ‘The Fifer,’ 1866, held in the collection of Musee d’Orsay in Paris.
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) – An Ohio art museum is expecting big crowds for a new exhibit featuring the works of French Impressionist Edouard Manet.
The Toledo Museum of Art will be the only U.S. museum to display the exhibit that will feature 40 paintings.
The Manet paintings will come to Toledo from museums and private collectors. The exhibit will open in October and run through the end of the year.
Museum Director Brian Kennedy tells The Blade newspaper in Toledo that he expects the exhibit will draw tens of thousands of people to the city.
Manet’s works rank among the greatest of the Impressionist movement.
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Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
One of Edouard Manet’s (French, 1832-1883) most recognizable works is ‘Young Flautist’ or ‘The Fifer,’ 1866, held in the collection of Musee d’Orsay in Paris.
Paul Cezanne (French, 1839-1906), The Boy in the Red Vest, E.G. Buhrle Collection, Zurich.
GENEVA (AP) – A Swiss art expert says a $110 million painting by Paul Cezanne damaged following a robbery four years ago can be restored.
The director of the E.G. Buehrle foundation that owns the painting says the French impressionist’s work “The Boy in the Red Vest” suffered rips to its canvas after it was stolen from a Zurich gallery.
Lukas Gloor told a news conference in Zurich on Friday that the repairs will take time but he is confident they will restore the work to its former state.
Four men were arrested in Serbia earlier this month when a pan-European police operation led to the seizure of the painting, which was stolen from a Zurich gallery in 2008.
Masterpieces by Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh and Edgar Degas were also taken in the heist but subsequently recovered.
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Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Paul Cezanne (French, 1839-1906), The Boy in the Red Vest, E.G. Buhrle Collection, Zurich.
Andrew Wyeth’s home and studio are now part of the neighboring Brandywine River Museum, shown here, in scenic Chadds Ford, Pa. Photo courtesy Brandywine River Museum.
CHADDS FORD, Pa. (AP) — Andrew Wyeth’s humble studio in the picturesque Brandywine Valley isn’t something the average day tripper would stumble upon, but the late artist made his wishes loud and clear for anyone who might have found their way down the winding wooded path to his door.
“I AM WORKING SO PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB. I do not sign autographs,” announces a small white sign at the entryway.
Now for the first time, the public will be able to get past that sign and venture into Wyeth’s world.
Starting July 3, the studio will be open to the public for a handful of tours each day. Shuttle buses will transport a maximum of 14 people for the short ride from the museum to the studio for each tour. Timed tickets go on sale June 1.
“He did a great job of keeping the place under wraps,” said Christine Podmaniczky, a curator at the Brandywine River Museum.
The fieldstone A-frame structure was built as a schoolhouse in 1875 and purchased by Wyeth’s father, the celebrated illustrator N.C. Wyeth, in 1925 when the school closed. Andrew Wyeth married his wife, Betsy, in 1940 and the old schoolhouse became their home, where they raised their sons Nicholas and Jamie, as well as Wyeth’s art studio. The family also spent many summers in Maine.
They moved to another house nearby in 1961 but Wyeth kept the place as his studio for the remainder of his life. He painted thousands of egg tempera paintings, drawings and watercolors there, from the dark self-portrait “Trodden Weed” to his hundreds of secret Helga paintings, which generated worldwide publicity and controversy when they were suddenly revealed in 1986.
After Wyeth’s death in 2009, his wife donated the studio to the neighboring Brandywine River Museum. Extensive work was necessary before the building could open to tours.
“Structurally it was a mess,” Podmaniczky said, noting that the wood-shingled roof needed replacing, the foundation had to be stabilized and the chimney was pulling away from the rest of the structure. Every piece of the studio’s contents also was scrutinized, from the smallest paintbrush to the largest piece of furniture.
“We sent things out to conservators,” she said. “Everything was catalogued and numbered, all the artwork was copied and the copies were hung in the exact same places as the originals.”
The rooms are both austere and cozy, lacking in decorative flourishes but filled with cherished mementos and personal collections that shed light on Wyeth’s inspiration and interests.
Charming family photographs are interspersed with celebrity friends like Henry Fonda and Errol Flynn. In one photo, Wyeth is fencing with Douglas Fairbanks Jr.; in the next room, fencing masks line a windowsill and phone numbers are jotted down on a wall next to the telephone. There are collections of World War I uniforms and helmets, Sheperd Paine dioramas, shelves upon shelves of art books, stacked film canisters and 1,250 military figurines — some from Wyeth’s childhood and subjects of his earliest drawings.
An old film projector in what was once the living room points to the wall where the family frequently watched the epic World War I silent movie “The Big Parade,” Wyeth’s favorite film. Its landscapes and other imagery made their way into his paintings.
In the same room is a recreation of the little cordoned-off workspace, created by a then-teenage Jamie Wyeth with a couple of black fabric partitions, where he would paint his famous posthumous portrait of John F. Kennedy in 1967, among other works.
“A lot of what we relied on is oral history,” Podmaniczky said. “They were not a family who took a lot of photographs.”
The main space where Wyeth did his actual painting is the most bare in the house. The unpainted plaster walls are adorned only with sketches and studies for his paintings and a few photos, while the dominant features are a huge mirror, paint-stained apron, round stool and brushes.
Long cracks run along the ceiling and a plywood sheet covers one window, concentrating the sunshine through the north-facing windows that brought the best light.
“He was very unassuming,” Podmaniczky said. “The trappings didn’t matter. He just wanted to paint.”
Next to an artist’s palette sits an egg crate for making his signature medium — egg tempera, a thick mixture of yolks, pigment and distilled water. Mary Nell Ferry, a guide who will be walking visitors through the site, said the famous artist’s preferred eggs came from a local convenience store.
“He always used Wawa extra-large eggs for his egg tempera,” she said. “They had to be white eggs because he thought brown eggs had an oilier consistency.”
At the Brandywine River Museum, a companion exhibit brings together works featuring architectural elements and objects visitors will recognize after touring Wyeth’s studio.
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Andrew Wyeth’s home and studio are now part of the neighboring Brandywine River Museum, shown here, in scenic Chadds Ford, Pa. Photo courtesy Brandywine River Museum.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The day an agent from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stuck her foot in the doorway of his home and insisted she was coming in, Phillip Pirages knew the news wasn’t good.
His wife answered the door and called him in tears: The Italian government had identified three 13th-century choral music manuscripts Pirages was selling online as stolen, and the U.S. government was there to reclaim them.
After several unpleasant conversations, the Oregon book dealer was convinced that the manuscripts he had purchased in Europe and Ohio were stolen from Italian monasteries and churches between 1975 and 2008.
“I was very impressed with how serious the (Italian) government was about reclaiming these,” Pirages said.
Pirages said he had no inkling that the pages were stolen when he bought them.
“Often times these things are acquired as groups of things,” Pirages said. “Not in every case, but I bought a dozen leaves for a certain amount of money and, what are you going to do?”
Federal officials say he cooperated fully with the investigation by U.S. and Italian officials and won’t be charged.
“Once we established that they were stolen, he voluntarily agreed to surrender them,” said ICE special agent Melissa Cooley. “He didn’t fight the forfeiture.”
The pages were among seven antiquities turned over to the Italian government Thursday in Washington. They came from several separate investigations.
Pirages had been asking about $15,000 for the pages and says they were insured. Such pages for church choirs feature lavish illustrations and artwork.
He still speaks with some relish about the manuscripts.
“They’re beautiful, and they old,” Pirages said about his decision to buy them. “And they’re musical. And as a result of all those things, they’re salable.
“It was a no-brainer until what happened happened.”
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Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
