May 30, 2013 - Auction Central News

Woodbury Auction strong for 4th anniversary sale June 9

George III mahogany piecrust table. Woodbury Auction image.

WOODBURY, Conn – On Sunday, June 9, at 11 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, Schwenke’s Woodbury Auction will present its Fourth Anniversary Spring Fine Estates Auction. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.

“This will be one of our strongest sales to date, and we are happy to be offering the wonderful American folk art collection of Arnold and Sheila Aronson—150 lots of carefully selected American Folk Art examples comprising painted furniture, artwork, whirligigs, quilts, weathervanes and accessories,” said owner Thomas Schwenke. The Aronson Collection will be auctioned as a special section during the sale, beginning at 12:30 pm.

One of the prime single lots is a rare cast bronze unawarded production model of the Heisman trophy from the Roman Bronze Works, grouped with an unassembled second model. These are being offered for the first time, having been acquired by the consignor from the late Philip Schiavo, owner of the Roman Bronze Works. Several other bronzes, some from Roman Bronze Works, are also on offer, as well as a portrait bust by Elie Nadelman.

Also featured is Andy Warhol’s Wild Raspberries a folio of 18 hand-colored lithographs created in 1959 and signed by Warhol to/ for the original purchaser; along with the book Pre-Pop Warhol, published by Panache Press of Random House, which was written in part using this folio, and including two thank-you letters from the publisher to the original owner.

The sale also includes property from various estates and consignors from Litchfield County, Conn., and Westchester County, N.Y., and the Native American collection of a New York man, including Navajo folk art carvings, New Mexican painted retablos, Hopi, Zuni and Laguna pottery, kachinas, artwork and baskets.

Other decorative arts lots of interest include a 13-piece Tiffany Venetian pattern desk set including the inkwell, blotter, pen holder, calendar, notepad, letter hold, pen tray, postage scale, stamp box, paper clip are being sold individually and are fresh to market from original owner’s family a 17th century framed, silk trapunto English needlework of Romulus and Remus alongside a lion; and a Kathe Kollwitz etching, Frau Mit Totem Kind.

Seven distinctive pieces of Indian jewelry, including five Muhgal-style 20K gold examples, are offered on behalf of a New York State private collector.

Many fine lots of American and English furniture are being sold as lots 502 to 614. Prime American examples include a Portsmouth inlaid mahogany swell front-chest with fan inlays, a circa 1810 Federal tiger and bird’s-eye maple server, most likely New Hampshire, an American Chippendale mirror with phoenix, an inlaid mahogany corner cupboard, a Sheraton figured maple drop-leaf worktable, and a Philadelphia Chippendale carved mahogany side chair. English featured pieces are a George II concertina card table, a George III mahogany pie crust table, possibly Irish, a signed London bracket clock, a Regency mahogany cellarette, and a pair of Sheraton brass mounted hall chairs.

This sale also will feature many estate Oriental carpets including Persian and Caucasian room and scatter sized rugs, and other regional Asian rugs of varying sizes.

The sale will begin at 11 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, with the Aronson Collection being sold at 12:30 p.m.

The catalog for the sale is viewable at www.woodburyauction.com. Phone Woodbury Auction at 203-266-0323.

View the fully illustrated online catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

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

Elie Nadelman, ‘Portrait Bust.' Woodbury Auction image. — Elie Nadelman, ‘Portrait Bust.’ Woodbury Auction image.

Pair of gold bracelets. Woodbury Auction image.

Andy Warhol ‘Wild Raspberries’ folio. Woodbury Auction image.

American mahogany side chair. Woodbury Auction image.

Heisman bronze model. Woodbury Auction image.

Top-class paintings in Elite Decorative Arts’ June 8 sale

Oil on canvas painting by Mihail Chemiakin (Russian, b. 1943), dated 1997 (est. $18,000-$22,000). Elite Decorative Arts image.

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – High-quality works of art with impeccable provenance—to include oil paintings by Russian artists Mihail Chemiakin and M.V. Brusilovsky—will headline a Fine Artwork & Decorative Arts Auction on Saturday, June 8, at Elite Decorative Arts. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.

The auction will begin promptly at 1 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Over 300 lots will come up for bid. In addition to fine art, items will include porcelain, bronzes, silver, estate jewelry, art glass, Chinese objects and more.

“Our more recent auctions have seen Asian antiques commanding center stage, but in this instance great artwork will prevail,” said Scott Cieckiewicz of Elite Decorative Arts.

Works by a pair of noted Russian artists are expected to do particularly well. A 42-inch by 42-inch oil on canvas depiction of men with beast-like characteristics and a dragon in the background by Mihail Chemiakin (b. 1943) should fetch $18,000-$22,000. The signed work, titled Carnaval de St. Petersbourg (1997) sold for $25,041 at Christie’s London gallery in 2009.

The other is a monumental (77 1/2 inches by 64 inches) oil painting by M.V. Brusilovsky (b. 1932), titled Ekaterinburg-New York, Romantic Subject (Aggression). Signed and dated 1992, the work is a depiction of people with animals and carries a presale estimate of $7,000-$10,000. Interest in works by emerging Russian artists—like Chemiakin and Brusilovsky—is on the rise.

An oil on canvas painting by Japanese artist Kumi Sugai (1919-1996), titled Soleil (Sun) and executed in 1968, should find a new owner for $8,000-$12,000. The work is a rendition of the iconic Japanese “Rising Sun” set against a black and white checkered border. It is signed and dated “Sugai 68” to the lower right, and to verso, and measures 39 1/4 inches by 39 1/4 inches.

A framed three-page autographed letter signed by the renowned American artist Winslow Homer (1836-1910), with drawings, is expected to hit $6,000-$8,000. The letter, penned in black ink on three separate leaves, was written May 17, 1909, and addressed to his sister, Laura. In it, he describes the condition of his cottage, with detailed illustrations on all three of the pages.

Homer writes, “The cottage is in good order. Dining room varnished—all the place rain proof—a marked garden planted with mint” and “I think next year if I live I shall keep away from here until June 1st.” The drawings show three plants in pots, titled Three Primroses, and the grounds showing a ship’s rudder, fences and a “game reservation,” with a dog chasing rabbits.

An oil on board street scene depiction by the French artist Elisee Maclet (1881-1962), signed lower right and mounted in a gilt frame, measuring 15 inches by 22 inches, carries a presale estimate of $3,000-$5,000. Maclet began his career as something of a dabbler—a “Sunday painter” —but following World War II his views of Paris earned him recognition and success.

A German expressionist oil on canvas painting by an unknown artist, showing a farm house near a stream, mounted in a wooden frame and measuring 19 inches by 24 inches, should realize $4,000-$6,000. Also, a pair of early 20th century photos by Charlotte Fairchild, depicting silent screen legend Mary Pickford, each signed in pen by Fairchild, should make $2,000-$3,000.

Chinese objects will include a pair of relief carved ivory scholar’s desk wrist rest plaques from the late Qing Dynasty, showing courtyard scenes with maidens under pine trees and having an etched calligraphy poem to the top center (est. $4,000-$6,000); and a hand-carved African ivory tusk depicting a standing Guan Yin holding lotus blossoms on branches, wearing a flowing layered robe, 22 inches tall, on a fitted base and with a presentation box (est. $3,000-$5,000).

A stunning and large antique Sevres hand-painted cobalt French porcelain urn depicting landscape scenes and with bronze-mounted handles and foot, 42 inches tall, is expected to breeze to $6,000-$8,000; and a 19th century Samuel Marti & Co. bronze and wood mantel clock clad with bronze women and cherubs and domed glass screen should hammer for $2,000-$3,000.

Elite Decorative Arts is always accepting quality consignments for future auctions. To inquire about consigning an item, an estate or an entire collection, call 561-200-0893 or e-mail info@eliteauction.com. To learn more about Elite Decorative Arts and the upcoming June 8 auction, on to www.eliteauction.com. Updates are posted frequently.

View the fully illustrated online catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

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

Oil painting by Russian artist M.V. Brussilovsky, signed and dated 1992 (est. $7,000-$10,000). Elite Decorative Arts image.

Chinese relief carved ivory scholar's desk wrist rest plaques, 9 inches high (est. $4,000-$6,000). Elite Decorative Arts image. — Chinese relief carved ivory scholar’s desk wrist rest plaques, 9 inches high (est. $4,000-$6,000). Elite Decorative Arts image.

Nineteenth century Samuel Marti & Co. bronze and wood mantel clock (est. $2,000-$3,000). Elite Decorative Arts image.

Two photographs of Mary Pickford by Charlotte Fairchild, photographer signed (est. $2,000-$3,000). Elite Decorative Arts image.

Rare autographed letter signed by iconic American painter Winslow Homer from 1909, with drawings (est. $6,000-$8,000). Elite Decorative Arts image.

Stunning antique Sevres hand-painted cobalt French porcelain urn, 42 inches high (est. $6,000-$8,000). Elite Decorative Arts image.

Ship ahoy! Mary Rose Museum opens to much fanfare

The Mary Rose undergoing conservation at the historic dockyard in Portsmouth, England. Image courtesy of the Mary Rose Trust. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Unported license.

PORTSMOUTH, England (AFP) – The relics from the Mary Rose, the flagship of England’s navy when it sank in 1545 as a heartbroken king Henry VIII watched from the shore, have finally been reunited with the famous wreck in a new museum offering a view of life in Tudor times.

Skeletons, longbows, tankards, gold coins and even nit combs are going on display alongside the remains of the pride of Henry’s fleet.

Thousands of the 19,000 artifacts excavated from beneath the seabed can be seen in the new £27 million ($41 million, 32 million euro) Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth on England’s south coast, which opens on Friday.

Historians have dubbed the treasure trove the “English Pompeii”: a fragment of the past perfectly frozen in time.

“The objects are beautifully preserved because they were buried under the mud, and it’s that silt that actually preserved the objects,” said archaeologist Christopher Dobbs, one of the original salvage team members.

Built in the very dockyard where the new museum sits, the wooden ship was launched in 1511.

The Mary Rose fought three wars with the French but mysteriously keeled over and sank off Portsmouth on July 19, 1545, while fighting off a French invasion fleet. Around 500 men were killed, with no more than 35 surviving, as Henry looked on from the shore as it slipped below the waters of the Solent.

After a six-year search, the legendary ship was definitively identified in 1971.

Following years of painstaking work, the wreck was at last raised in 1982, in a spectacular operation watched live by millions on television.

Around a third of the wooden warship, which was nearly buried under the seabed, had survived, the exposed parts having eroded away.

Now thousands of articles removed from the decks are being exhibited alongside the wreck, which had previously been on show in a more modest museum in Portsmouth since 1983.

Wooden gun carriages, cooking pots, scalpels, leather book covers, syringes, fiddles, whistles, weapons, navigation devices and furniture are among the items on display.

The new museum, part of a £35 million heritage project, is a three-tiered, ellipse-shaped building made of black-stained timber.

Visitors walk through the galleries encircling the ship’s carcass in the near-darkness that is essential to preserve the objects, but it also evokes the conditions the crew would have experienced below deck, with the sound of wind, waves and creaking wood.

Day-to-day items recovered from the deep help to tell the story of the sailors’ lives.

“There is, we believe, nothing like this as an insight into life and death 500 years ago anywhere in the world,” Mary Rose Trust chief executive John Lippiett told AFP.

“It isn’t just a warship: it’s what they wore, their clothes, their food, what they drank out of, their spoons.

“It is the most extraordinary collection of artifacts and from that we can know better than anything what it was like in those days.

“From the human remains we can tell what a dreadful life they led, what injury and illness they had.”

Remains of around 45 percent of the crew were found.

Using the skeletons, experts have reconstructed the faces of seven crew members, their roles determined by where they were found, the objects around them and analysis of their bone structure.

They believe the faces are those of an archer, a carpenter, a cook, a gentleman, a master gunner, an officer and a purser.

The extraction of DNA from bones found on board is ongoing.

Crewmates were prone to nits, as proved by the number of fine-tooth combs found—with the centuries-old lice still trapped in them.

An early backgammon board, violins and leather book covers give an insight into the leisure pursuits on board.

Meanwhile, beef and pork bones survived in the mud, as did the skeletons of the ship’s dog and the rats she chased.

More surprising was the discovery of rosary beads for prayer. They were not yet banned but their use was condemned following Henry’s split from the Roman Catholic church in 1534.

The museum’s centerpiece, the surviving section of the Mary Rose, is drying out in the “hotbox” behind sealed glass.

Since it was raised, the hulk—more than 100 feet long and 40 feet high—has been sprayed with water and polyethylene glycol solution to prevent it from disintegrating.

Around 100 tons of liquid now need to be sweated out, which could take up to five years.

Then the glass barrier will be removed, allowing visitors to see the world’s only 16th-century warship on display, in all its glory.

Lippiett said: “We’re just starting, in very many ways, the story of the Mary Rose.”

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Ai Weiwei’s work for Biennale shows disturbing prison scenes

Ai Weiwei in a June 2007 photo by Benutzer. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Germany license.

VENICE, Italy (AFP) – Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei tells the story of his 2011 incarceration with an installation of six large rusty metal boxes in the nave of a Venetian church at the Biennale art festival.

In the Baroque surroundings of St. Antonino—a short walk from St Mark’s Square— the unusual display encourages visitors to peer inside the mysterious boxes to see what might be inside.

Like a twisted doll house turned into a Chinese prison, the sculptures are scenes from his detention with the artist shown going about his daily tasks with two guards present all the time.

In one he is sleeping as guards watch, then he is naked in the shower, pacing in his cell, eating a meal, talking and going to the toilet.

The impression is of an overwhelming attack on the artist’s intimacy that immediately puts visitors ill at ease as they peer like voyeurs.

The realism of the works echoes the traditional aesthetic of the communist country—rendered all the more unusual in the context of a church.

The choice of a house of worship could be another gesture of provocation from Ai since China has difficult relations with the Catholic Church.

The six boxes, which are around 1.5 meterd high and 3.5 meters long, have a sobriety that fits with the church’s theatrical elegance.

The exhibition titled S.A.C.R.E.D. was installed by the Lisson Gallery (www.lissongallery.com), based in London and Milan, and can be viewed until Sept. 15.

“It is a personal statement and a political statement,” Greg Hilty, curatorial director of the gallery, told AFP.

“It was a very traumatic experience for him. He needed to exorcise the trauma,” he said.

“It is about a man’s search for identity,” he said.

Ai has emerged as a fierce critic of the government in Beijing, often through his prolific use of the Internet and involvement in sensitive social campaigns.

He was detained for 81 days in 2011 during a roundup of activists at the time of the Arab Spring popular uprisings, and on his release he was accused of tax evasion and barred from leaving the country for one year.

The Chinese artist, who cannot be in Venice, because he has still not been returned his passport, described his detention in a video message published on his site last week.

The video showed Ai under interrogation, marking a document with a red thumbprint and wearing a black hood labeled “Criminal” before being scrutinized by guards in the prison shower.

Ai told AFP in Beijing that for the video he created an “exact model” of the room in which he was kept for much of the period.

“There are so many political prisoners in China who are being kept in even worse conditions than I was,” he said. “When I was detained, the guards would ask me to sing songs for them … even in such a place people still have imagination.”

Cash-strapped France under fire over presidential wine sale

The sale includes wines from every major region in France. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

PARIS (AFP) – President Francois Hollande has been accused of selling off France’s national heritage with an auction of hundreds of bottles of fine wine from the cellars of his Elysee Palace.

A total of 1,200 bottles, including some of the world’s most prestigious labels, were due to go under the hammer from Thursday evening in a sale that has become symbolic of the cash-strapped government’s austerity drive.

Officially, the purpose of the auction is to liberate funds to rejuvenate the presidential collection but officials have also stressed that the proceeds will be invested in more modest replacements and that any surplus will be plowed back into government coffers.

The conspicuous cost-cutting is in keeping with the tone of Hollande’s presidency, which has been clouded by a gloomy economic backdrop.

But it has not gone down well with Michel-Jack Chasseuil, one of France’s most prominent wine collectors.

Chasseuil has written to Hollande to express his regret over the decision to allow bottles “that are part of the heritage of our country to be sold off to billionaires from all over the world.”

He added: “Even if they go for fantastic sums, it will be a derisory amount in terms of the national budget and when you think about what these wines represent in the eyes of the whole world.”

Dealers and private collectors from all over the globe have expressed interest in the sale and high prices are anticipated because of the bottles’ novelty value.

The sale includes wines from every major region in France as well as a number of bottles from two of the most prestigious, and expensive, estates in the world—Bordeaux’s Chateau Petrus and Burgundy’s Domaine de la Romanee-Conti.

Two bottles of Petrus from the outstanding 1990 vintage have been given a guide price of between 2,200 and 2,500 euros ($2,850-$3,250), based on current valuations in the fine wine world.

In practice, they are likely to go for far more because of their unique provenance and because they are guaranteed to have been kept in optimum conditions for ageing in the Elysee cellars.

There will also be keen interest in the prices achieved by two bottles of Chateau Latour, a 1936 that is the oldest wine in the sale, and one from 1961, regarded as one of the outstanding Bordeaux vintages of the 20th century.

“It is a sale loaded with symbolism and I’m intrigued to see what the outcome will be,” Ghislaine Kapandji, the auctioneer in charge of the sale, told AFP.

The sale represents 10 percent of the 12,000 bottles currently held in the Elysee cellar, which has been regularly replenished since it was established in 1947.

Each bottle included in the auction has been given a special additional label certifying that they came from the “Palais de l’Elysee” with the date of the sale, which will conclude on Friday.

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

NY man charged with stealing historical documents

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) – An upstate New York museum volunteer is accused of stealing and trying to sell documents from the Buffalo History Museum.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Buffalo says Tuesday that 50-year-old Daniel Witek is charged with mail fraud.

According to court documents, Witek offered to sell documents from the history museum’s A. Conger Goodyear Papers Collection to a New York City manuscript dealer. The dealer then contacted the museum.

Anson Conger Goodyear was a Buffalo-born businessman and a founder of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

A phone listing for Witek could not be located.

AP-WF-05-29-13 0705GMT

Gatling gun could top $100,000 at Heritage Auctions, June 8

Rare U.S. Model 1875 Colt Gatling gun on original Naval boarding carriage delivered to U.S. Navy Feb. 24, 1881. Serial no. 293. Heritage Auctions image.

DALLAS – A Model 1875 Colt Gatling gun that was delivered to the U.S. Navy on Feb. 24, 1881, is expected to sell for more than $100,000 on June 8 as part of Heritage Auctions’ Civil War and Militaria Signature Auction. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.

The rare Gatling gun, serial no. 293, is on its original steel boarding carriage, is from the collection of renowned Michigan Civil War re-enactor and firearms expert Mke Yeck, who died last year.

“To call the Gatling gun one of the most spectacular and evocative weapons ever made understates its impact on the American psyche,” said Cliff Chappelle, consignment director for Arms & Armor at Heritage Auctions. “The chance to acquire one of these spectacular guns, let alone one as well-preserved, as sizable and from such an impeccable source, does not come around very often, I can assure you that.”

“He bought the guns primarily to promote himself and his business and to have a good time,” said Matthew Hand, Yeck’s grandson and the executor of his grandfather’s estate. “In the 1960s and 1970s he was the largest black powder muzzle loading weapon supplier in the Midwest. In fact, there are still a number of Civil War re-enactment weapons out there made by him and with his equipment on them.”

Yeck, a World War II veteran of the Normandy Invasion, was told by his doctor in the early 1960s that he was getting an ulcer and needed to find a hobby to help him relax. Yeck soon found himself drawn into the world of black powder muzzle loading weapons, acquiring a flintlock pistol. Intrigued, and never one to do anything halfway, Yeck soon started acquiring a wide variety of powder and ball weapons, learning about their make and manufacturing them himself.

“He kinda went all out,” said Hand, “and decided to start his own antique firearms business, which kept growing and growing through the 1960s, 1970s and in to the early 1980s, when he finally had to slow down.”

Yeck became very well known in collecting circles for his extensive militaria, artillery, machine gun, World War I and II rifles and uniforms collections, as well as his impressive grouping of classic and antique cars. Along the way, as he participated in more Civil War re-enactments, he and his business, Michael Yeck Antique Firearms, became a fixture on the scene at any gathering or demonstrations.

View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet at LiveAuctioneers.com.

View the Heritage Auctions website: HA.com.

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Sign up for daily highlights by email