June 2014 - Page 7 of 19 - Auction Central News

Russian buyers drive up icon prices at Jackson’s International

This finely painted Russian icon depicting Saint Sebastian of Sokhot, measuring 17 x 15 inches, and signed and dated by Vasily Peshekhonov 1855, sold for $125,000 at Jackson’s International Auction of June 3 in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Jackson’s image.

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa – Two sessions and $2.75 million in sales – that was the net result of the June 3-4 auction at Jackson’s International. Nearly a half million dollars of the total came from buyers who had bid onine through LiveAuctioneers.

“It helps when you have good, fresh to the market material,” said President and CEO James Jackson. “As anyone in the trade can attest, it is easier to sell a really nice $100,000 item than a really nice $500 item,” Jackson continued. “Furthermore, we were happy to see the Russians passionately participate, yet even they are becoming more refined in their collecting tastes. Ten years ago, one could put anything Russian on the block and a multitude of Russian buyers would duke it out. Now, after the international market crash of 2007-2008, the dust has settled, inventories are up, and boring does not sell.”

LiveAuctioneers delivered 983 registered bidders to the sale. The 240 lots purchased through LiveAuctioneers totaled $466,990. The sell-though rate by number of lots equaled 39.54 percent. Page views on LiveAuctioneers.com totaled 105,393.

The auction featured three main collections including Russian icons and European works from the estate of the late Dr. Edward B. Gerber (1928-2013) of Reno, Nevada; Spanish Colonial works from the noted collection of Puerto Rico native Antonio Roig Ferre; and the lifetime Asian collection of Joan McBride of St. Paul, Minn.

The auction opened with Russian icons, something in which Jackson’s International has developed a global following. The first lot to cross the block was an icon of the Archangel Mikhail, painted in the Western style around the year 1890. It sold to the phone for $37,500. The next three lots (all icons and all executed between the years 1855-1910) were representative of the late style that is extremely popular with nouveau riche Russian collectors as evidenced by the fact that each sold for an astounding $125,000 against estimates $10,000-$15,000 or less.

“Ironically,” noted Jackson, “one can purchase a very excellent icon of the same size, but 250-300 years older, right now for a fraction of the price of which some of these later icon examples are selling for. In my estimation, these old icons are probably a good bet as these will surely rise in value again.”

Some other icons were of note, including lot 6, a signed icon from the workshop of Ivan Malyshev and dated 1882, the 14 x 12 inch gilt-panel depicting saints Kosmas and Damin, sold to a buyer in St. Petersburg, Russia for $55,000. Lot 22, a Russian icon of St. Nicholas, from around the year 1900, with silver-gilt and enameled riza, sold to a buyer in Paris for $40,000. Lot 37 represented the current craze for icons which depict images of individual saints with popular contemporary names. This example, dating to around 1900, and depicting a waist up image of the warrior saint, Dmitry, was estimated at only $3,000-$5,000, yet ended up selling to a buyer in Moscow for $40,000.

Russian decorative arts also fared well, although there is a noticeable slowdown (some dealers would even say price correction) when it comes to unspectacular silver and enameled objects, regardless of the maker. Nevertheless, lot 131, a small (1 1/4 inches) Faberge gold and enamel badge, for the Imperial Russian yacht Tsarevna, sold to a Russian phone bidder for $20,000. Other items of note include a small (4 inches) Faberge agate kovsch with hairline made $7,500, and a 3 1/2-inch gold kovsch by Tilander, finished at $10,000.

A battle-worn Imperial Russian regimental banner from the reign of Paul I, circa 1800, sold to a Russian collector for $40,000 and an Imperial Russian bombardier officer helmet of the Grenadier Regiment, circa 1760s, also sold to Russia for $22,500. An interesting Russian Orthodox embroidered sticharion (church vestment) from the coronation of Csar Nicholas II sold for $21,250 and a unique embroidered, velvet folio with Soviet period inventory label, identifying it as previously belonging to Csarevich Alexi Nikolaevich, sold for $6,250.

Some Russian porcelain sales and other decorative arts worthy of note include a set of 10 Kornilov Brothers porcelain plates with traditional winter scenes, which sold to a Russian phone bidder for $17,500. A Russian porcelain cup and saucer from the Imperial Porcelain Factory did $7,500 and a charming, little Russian porcelain tête-à-tête service by Kornilov finished at $5,250. Lastly, a group of unique North Russian carved wood utensils comprising a figural skopkar and five wooden scoops, all deaccessioned from a Wisconsin museum, totaled $9,000.

Next to sell were European works, leading off with lot 327, a fine gothic gilt-copper and enamel processional cross, 13th century and in an excellent state of preservation, finished at $23,750. It was followed by a pair of late 19th century Belgium cast-bronze angel candlestands, which sold for $15,000. A French carved alabaster angel resting on a marble, gilt-bronze mounted stand sold for $11,875, and a pair of 19th century French bronze figural candlestands made $10,625. A group of four paintings depicting the scenes of the life of the Virgin by Mexican artist Nicolas Enriquez, each signed and dated 1765, and measuring 11 x 9 inches sold for $28,160. An interesting 18th century Cuzco School painting, titled The Three Trinities, finished at $8,750. Other artworks worthy of note include a lovely 19th century carved marble figure of Cleopatra by the Italian sculptor Giuseppe Gambrogi, which sold for $23,750 as well as an unsigned bronze relief panel depicting Socrates and his disciplines, circa 1953, by noted Croatian artist Ivan Meštrović (1883-1963), which sold to a Texas buyer for $21,250.

The second session opened with a small offering of American art beginning with a handful of estate-signed paintings by William Glackens (1870-1938) which, with the exception of a small (18 x 14 inches) floral still life that came in at $13,750, went unsold. However, that was not the case for the three Marvin Cone paintings that followed, all of which saw active bidding, A small oil on board sketch of a stone quarry by Cone came in at $119,000. That was followed by a 9 x 22 inch red barn scene, which made $68,750, and a still life measuring 18 x 15 inches did $32,500. A large, lovely spring landscape by Indiana artist Edward Williams (1870-1950) made $47,500 and the bronze Duck Baby fountain by Edith Parsons, with verdigris patina, finished at $9,375.

The rest of the sale featured, to a large degree, Asian works from the Joan McBride collection. This session opened with a bronze figure of famous Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Sculpted by French artist Paul Paulin (1852-1937), the 1921 effigy sold to a buyer in India for $20,480 against an estimate of $2,000-$3,000. That was followed by a Sino-Tibetan gilt-bronze Buddhist figure which sold to an in-house bidder for $11,520. Next up was a 19th century Sino-Tibetan gilt-bronze figure of Bodhidharma which sold for $9,375 to the same in-house bidder. An interesting Tibetan gilt-copper repoussé plaque sold for $11,875, which was followed by a 6-inch Chinese carved jade water coupe, which sold for $11,250. Whereas a Chinese carved white jade double water coupe finished at $12,800, and a Chinese carved celadon 6-inch plate made $7,680.

Chinese and Japanese jades saw considerable interest with some renewed interest in the previously soft Japanese market, although it seemed apparent that the recent ivory ban likely hampered sales. More Asian works of note include a small Chinese carved and polychrome erotic panel (9 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches), which sold for $14,000 against an estimate of $200-$400. A Chinese carved rosewood and jade mounted altar stand sold for $10,240, and an interesting Japanese carved ivory and rootwood climbing monkey sculpture finished at $8,125. Asian works concluded with a small offering of contemporary art followed by Tibetan or Mongolian silver and jade mounted objects. Of the modern Asian art, the top lot was a 26-by-36-inch oil on canvas painting by Vietnamese artist Le Pho (1907-2001), which finished at $37,500. That was followed by a watercolor courtyard scene by Chinese artist Fang Xiang (b. 1967) and three Le Pho oil on canvas floral still lifes, which totaled $47,360. A Chinese Mongolian-style, silver-lidded jar with hard-stone mounts sold for $11,520, which was followed by a Chinese silver-plated and hard-stone mounted seal box, which made $15,360, and three Chinese Mongolian-style jade and silver-mounted swords totaled $42,000.

Asian works were followed by a mixed offering of European decorative arts including a black-forest Swiss-carved figural game clock, which sold for $9,375. A three-piece French bronze hunting motif garniture sold to Russia for $20,480. A German carved wood and polychrome lusterweibchen chandelier came in at $9,375, and a carved and gilt-wood Lyon and Healy concert harp sold for $17,920. Other European glassware, porcelain, and decorative arts worthy of mention include a KPM plaque depicting the Holy Family, selling for $6,875, a 7 1/2-inch Galle carved and fire-polished vase bringing $7,500, a Daum Nancy cameo glass chandelier making $6,250, an 8-inch elephant’s vase by Charles Catteau for Boch Freres selling for $1,750, and a pair of contemporary art glass vases by Dante Marioni which sold for $6,150.

The sale finished with a small collection of mostly contemporary jewelry from a private, Midwest collection featuring a ruby and diamond cocktail ring, circa 1935, which sold for $10,000. An Art Deco ladies diamond and sapphire platinum filigree ring made $8,125, a Tiffany moonstone matching necklace, bracelet and earrings set, circa 1940, did $6,400, and a contemporary Sophia D diamond-and-platinum bow necklace went for $5,000.

Click here to view the fully illustrated catalog for this sale, complete with prices realized.

ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE

This weathered Imperial Russian regimental banner from the reign of Paul I, circa 1800, sold for $40,000. Jackson’s image.

This gothic gilt-copper and enamel processional cross, measuring 20 inches in height, sold for $23,750. Jackson’s image.

This carved marble figure of Cleopatra signed Giuseppe Gambrogi sold for $23,750. Jackson’s image.

This diminutive (9 x 7 inches) Chinese carved and polychrome, hidden erotic scene panel sold for $14,000. Jackson’s image.

This French three-piece bronze garniture after Carrier sold for $20,480. Jackson’s image.

Sworders to auction veteran firefighters’ memorabilia June 24

Scarce World War II tin fire helmet with NFS transfer, 'Home Office Fire Inspector,' complete with chin strap and liner, helmet marked ZA II HBH 1938. Estimate: £150-200. Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers.

ESSEX COUNTY, UK – A unique collection of Fire Brigade memorabilia from across the globe is being sold by Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers on Tuesday, June 24.

LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.

The remarkable collection was put together by George and Pamela Hallam, who were both long-serving fire officers. They started with the Nottinghamshire fire service; George Hallam serving for 25 years from 1959 and Pamela for 17 years, having joined in 1968. More than 200 artifacts from around the world are being sold, ranging from rare helmets, badges and uniforms, to fire marks, nozzles and medals, and date from the second half of the 19th century.

Iconic pieces such a San Francisco Fire Department helmet is starting with a price of £80 ($136), and bidding is expected to start at £150 ($255) on a scarce World War II NFS tin fire helmet. There are a number of medals being auctioned as well as fire badges put up on buildings in the 19th century and into the 20th century to indicate if a property was insured. Most of the medals are for long service, with a good selection of British examples, nearly all named. They include a rare gold medal awarded to a Superintendent Webber in 1924.

The Hallams traveled the world, adding to their collection while going from Australia to China, the Middle East, South America and the United States, as well as many other countries. A series of handwritten notes record their visits to these countries and the history of the items they brought back for their collection.

“This is an amazing collection as it is such a complete record of firefighting history, from so many places around the world. The couple clearly valued their days in the fire service and assembled this with such knowledge and passion,” said George Schooling, Sworder’s marketing executive.

Another highlight of the sale next week is a fire tender being sold by a local farmer who bought it for his own enjoyment. The Land Rover was just one of 47 built by the Rover factory and after being rolled off the production line was used in Ireland. The tender only has 11,600 miles on the odometer and qualifies for free road tax in the UK.

It’s expected to sell for between £15,000 and £20,000 ($25,500-$34,000). The Hallam Fire Brigade Collection Sale takes place at Sworder’s auction rooms in Stansted Mountfitchet on Tuesday, June 24.

For further information contact Schooling at Sworders on 01279 817778 or email auctions@sworder.co.uk.

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

American leather Cairns firefighter's helmet, truck 12 SFFD, San Francisco Fire Department. Estimate: £80-120. Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers. — American leather Cairns firefighter’s helmet, truck 12 SFFD, San Francisco Fire Department. Estimate: £80-120. Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers.

London Assurance fire mark pressed tin, 30 x 25cm (12 x 10 inches), Estimate: £40-60. Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers.

World War II German fire brigade tunic and helmet, made by Carl Henkel Blelefeld. Estimate: £150-200. Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers.

Delaware museum loses accreditation over sale of its artworks

William Holman Hunt (English, 1827-1910), 'Isabella and the Pot of Basil,' completed in 1868 and based on a scene from a John Keats poem. The Delaware Art Museum has consigned the painting to auction at Christie's.

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) – The Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington has lost its national accreditation and may not be able to borrow artwork from other museums after it began selling paintings to pay debts.

The American Alliance of Museums said Wednesday that collections cannot be treated as disposable assets.

The alliance says its accrediting commission voted unanimously to revoke the museum’s accreditation. The group says the museum’s actions violate museum standards and ethics.

The Association of Art Museum Directors advised members to stop loaning works to the Delaware museum.

Delaware Art Museum officials have said they faced the choice of selling artworks or closing.

The museum sold William Holman Hunt’s 1868 painting Isabella and the Pot of Basil Tuesday in London for $4.25 million. It was a record but short of an initial estimate.

AP-WF-06-19-14 1506GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Titian’s ‘Danae’ to be shown at National Gallery Art in DC

Titian's 'Danae with Eros,' 1544. National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

WASHINGTON (AP) – An Italian Renaissance painting rarely seen in the U.S. will be displayed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington to mark the start of Italy’s presidency of the European Union.

The museum announced Wednesday that Titian’s painting Danae will be on view July 1 through Nov. 2. It was painted in 1544 to 1545 as a depiction of erotic mythologies.

The Danae was looted by German troops for Nazi leader Hermann Goring during World War II and was found later in an Austrian salt mine. It was recovered by the U.S.-led “Monuments Men” in 1945 and was returned to the Italian government two years later.

The National Gallery has a significant collection of works by Titian, including 13 paintings.

The Danae was first exhibited in Washington in 1990.

AP-WF-06-18-14 2246GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Pilot killed in crash of vintage aircraft at Mont. ski area

A similar Grumman JRF-5G pictured at the Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco in September 1951. Image by Bill Larkins. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

SULA, Mont. (AP) – An airplane that crashed near a western Montana ski area, killing the pilot, was an antique that was being flown to Montana from Florida.

Ravalli County Undersheriff Steve Holton tells the Missoulian the twin-engine Grumman G-21 Goose amphibious plane had been flown from Florida to Minnesota before a new pilot took over to bring it to Hamilton.

The plane crashed and caught fire Tuesday afternoon in the parking lot of the Lost Trail ski area lodge near the Montana-Idaho border. Pilot Michael Blume, 62, of Burnsville, Mont., was the only person on board, Holton said.

National Transportation Safety Board investigator Larry Lewis says the airplane appeared to come straight down into the ground and there was no evidence the pilot had tried to land in the lodge parking lot.

AP-WF-06-19-14 1342GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Taiwan threatens to call off Japan art loan in poster spat

One of the most popular pieces in the National Palace Museum collection is the 'Jadeite Cabbage'. Image by peellden. This file is licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

TAIPEI (AFP) – Taiwan threatened Friday to terminate a loan of treasured artifacts to Japan after the name of its national museum was changed in promotional posters in a row highlighting the island’s sensitivity over its global diplomatic status.

Taiwan protested as a matter of “national dignity” and demanded corrections after some of the Tokyo posters referred to the “Taipei Palace Museum” rather than the “National Palace Museum” which owns the artifacts.

The name issue has long been a sensitive topic for Taiwan, which is recognized by only 22 countries in a decades-old diplomatic tug-of-war with China from which it split in 1949.

“National dignity definitely comes before cultural exchanges. The government and the public will not accept if a cultural exchange hurts our national dignity,” presidential spokeswoman Ma Wei-kuo said in a statement.

Japan, like most countries, has diplomatic ties with Beijing rather than Taipei, but maintains close trade and civil ties with Taiwan, which was its colony from 1895 to 1945.

Taiwan’s first lady Chow Mei-ching was scheduled to attend the opening of the show next week at the Tokyo National Museum but she would cancel the trip if Taipei’s demand was not met, officials said.

The National Palace Museum announced last year the loan of 231 artifacts to

Japan, its first to an Asian country, following exhibitions in the United States, France, Germany and Austria.

The Taipei museum boasts more than 600,000 artifacts spanning 7,000 years of Chinese history from the prehistoric Neolithic period to the end of the Qing Dynasty that were mostly removed from Beijing’s Forbidden City.

The museum’s contents – one of the world’s finest collections of Chinese treasures – were brought to the island by Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, when he fled to Taiwan after losing the Chinese civil war to the communists in 1949.

For years the National Palace Museum was unwilling to lend the artifacts to Japan for fears that China would try to reclaim them, until the Japanese government passed a law in 2011 to prevent such seizures.

China regards Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary, although tensions have eased markedly since Taiwan’s Beijing-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou took office in 2008.

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

‘Girl with Pearl Earring’ goes home to revamped Dutch museum

Johannes Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring,' 1665. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

THE HAGUE (AFP) – The Dutch Mauritshuis museum, historic home of Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring and a treasure trove of other Golden Age masterpieces, reopens next week after two years of renovations.

The elegant 17th-century classicist mansion in The Hague has undergone a 30-million-euro ($40-million) revamp and more than doubled its floor space thanks to an Art Deco extension accessed through a light-filled underground atrium.

“It’s wonderful to see the collection back home where it really looks at its best,” museum director Emilie Gordenker told AFP at a press preview on Friday.

During the renovation, which began in 2012, many of the museum’s best-known pieces, including Girl with the Pearl Earring, have been touring the world, drawing millions from New York to Tokyo.

Mona Lisa of the North

“The Girl with the Pearl Earring has become an icon, she’s become the Mona Lisa of the north, and she does belong here,” Gordenker said.

“There’s something very special about the painting which maybe in a way is a bit like the Mauritshuis: we’re small, we’re intimate,” she said of themuseum that is also known as “the jewel box.”

A show at the Frick in New York drew record crowds to see the painting, which inspired a 2003 film starring Scarlett Johannson, but also Carel Fabritius’ The Goldfinch, the title of U.S. author Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer prize-winning 2013 novel.

Given its new-found fame, The Goldfinch has been moved to another room in the renovated Mauritshuis.

“We decided to put it in a place where it has a little bit more room, we’re expecting a large number of visitors to come specifically for this painting,” Gordenker said.

The museum’s collection is small, around 800 paintings with just 250 on display, but of very high quality, including Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp and the Golden Age’s best-known landscape, Vermeer’s View of Delft.

The original building dates from the height of the Dutch Golden Age, which roughly spanned the 17th century, when the Dutch dominated much of world trade and, as a result, art.

Spectacular new-found bourgeois wealth meant that millions of paintings were commissioned, often portraits or landscapes, rather than the romanticized biblical imagery that had dominated the Italian Renaissance.

Too many visitors

“The museum used to be this city palace … but being a museum every year it got more visitors and they didn’t fit in the building any more,” architect Hans van Heeswijk told AFP.

Whereas previously visitors went in through the service entrance, they now walk through the mansion’s main gates and down a modern spiral staircase past the adjacent Dutch parliament and prime minister’s office into the minimalist 21st-century atrium.

“We felt it important that we wouldn’t create some architecture that’s related to the Mauritshuis from the 17th century because the other building is an Art Deco building from 1930,” Van Heeswijk said.

“So we have three buildings that have a different architectural style but they have the same quality.”

Visitors walk through the atrium – “Don’t call it a tunnel!” warned Gordenker – to the new wing, acquired on long-term lease from neighboring gentleman’s club De Witte, one of The Hague’s oldest social institutions.

The new wing houses a library and education center and is also used for temporary exhibitions.

The museum has launched a quirky marketing campaign that sees people from around the world who have a reproduction of “The Girl,” as she’s known in the museum, hanging in their home invited to the museum where a reproduction of their room is rebuilt around the original.

The Mauritshuis renovation comes after three of Amsterdam’s main museums reopened after completing their own restoration works: the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh museum and the Stedelijk Museum.

King Willem-Alexander will officially reopen the museum on Sunday, with entrance free that evening.

ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE

The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. Image by Ralf Roletschek. This file is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.

Ewbank’s to sell unique Rudyard Kipling archive June 25-26

Rudyard Kipling with his father, John Lockwood Kipling. Ewbank's image.

SURREY, UK – A unique family collection of Rudyard Kipling letters, photographs and personal items, some of them belonging to the author’s troubled “forgotten sister,” is to be sold by Ewbank’s. The archive is expected to excite Kipling scholars around the world and will be offered on the second of the auctioneer’s two-day summer sale, which is on June 25-26.

LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.

The collection of around 90 lots, much of it previously unseen, was inherited by Helen MacDonald, great niece of Kipling’s mother Alice MacDonald, about whom a future Viceroy of India would say “Dullness and Mrs. Kipling cannot exist in the same room.”

Alice married Kipling’s father, John Lockwood Kipling, and moved to India in 1865. Her three sisters married respectively the artists Edward Burne-Jones and Edward Poynter and Alfred Baldwin, father of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. From Helen MacDonald, Rudyard Kipling’s first cousin once removed, the archive passed by gift to the present consignor.

Most poignant is an autograph letter to Kipling’s brother-in-law John Fleming about Kipling’s sister, Alice “Trix” – herself a published novelist, being certified insane.

Kipling and Trix were both born in India but his days of “strong light and darkness” in Bombay ended when, following the custom in British India, at the age of 5, he and his 3-year-old sister were sent to England. They lived unhappily with a foster couple in Southsea, who boarded children of British nationals serving in India.

Written on paper from “Hotel du Parc & sa dependance Hotel Ibrahim Pacha” in the French Pyrenees, on March 13 1911, Kipling notes that the objection to Trix being certified is sentimental, “but none the less jars on me.”

“One must remember that the attack has now lasted barely three months and it has been taken in hand practically from the first, so one can begin to hope that another few weeks may see the turn in the malady. At any rate the fact that she regards the nurse as she does is proof, at least, that she is in sympathetic hands. What her demeanour may be to her family and surroundings is a matter that may depend on a hundred causes to which, in a short visit, one has no clue. It is to be remembered that in the overwhelming number of mental cases they turn for a while against those who are nearest to them. Our weather is rather cold with a falsely blue sky.”

The letter is estimated at £300-500, as is Trix’s folding paper fan, which she used like an autograph album. It dates from 1891-1895 and is signed in ink by Rudyard Kipling, Stanley Baldwin, Edward Burne-Jones and his wife Georgiana and Edward Poynter.

A hint of the darker side of Trix’s mind is offered by her black-painted gilt decorated box, decorated by her father, John Lockwood Kipling, containing her fortune-telling paraphernalia comprising her crystal ball and a copy of Cheiro’s Palmistry For All, containing “New information on the study of the hand never before published,” inscribed to Alice Fleming (her married name) from “Linda”. It is estimated at £200-300. It has been suggested that Trix’s interest in fortune telling may have led in part to her unsettled mind.

According to Mary Hamer, author of Kipling & Trix, published in 2012, Trix experimented with “automatic writing,” an activity associated with spiritualism. She writes: “Trix would sit at her desk, pencil in hand, notebook at the ready, and wait. Her hand, she reported to friends, would start moving of its own volition, scribbling over the page.”

She subsequently sent copies of the messages back to the Society for Psychical Research in London, where they were taken extremely seriously. Her “spirit-writings” were collected as part of a group experiment, known as the “cross-correspondences.” Under the pseudonym of ‘Mrs. Holland’ she became a celebrated spiritualist medium.

“Rudyard warned his sister to keep clear of spirit writing, well aware that it had been known to cause breakdowns. But it was too important to her. She persisted. And duly broke down, in 1898 and again for a long period starting in 1911, when her mother died,” Mary Hamer writes.

Living later in Edinburgh, she would make visits to the zoo there, making her way from cage to cage, talking to the animals in the Hindustani language she learned as a young child. Her notebook filled with the words and phrases she used is estimated at £100-200.

Trix’s heart-shaped silver brooch inlaid with green and clear paste stones, passed down to her by her mother, is accompanied by a note in Trix’s hand giving it to the Macdonald sisters It is estimated at £30-50.

Other, more valuable, jewelry in the archive may have either belonged to Trix or was bequeathed to her, but this cannot be confirmed. Diamond rings of three and five stones are estimated respectively at £1,000-1,500 and £800-1,200, while a Victorian diamond flower brooch has retained its original retailer’s box, which is marked Carter’s of Bombay and Poona. This was almost certainly owned originally by Trix’s mother and is estimated at £600-800.

John Lockwood Kipling was himself an accomplished artist, illustrating many of his son Rudyard’s books. The archive includes a panel hand-painted by Lockwood Kipling depicting a vase of flowers and birds among scrolling foliage. It is referred to on Page 383 of Trix, Kipling’s Forgotten Sister by Lorna Lee, the caption reading: “The decorative panel (varnished paper) by Lockwood which Trix used as a firescreen. Trix always wanted this and it was collected from “The Gables” at Tisbury by Jack Fleming (Trix’s husband ) after Lockwood’s death.” It must subsequently have passed to Helen MacDonald when Trix died and is estimated at £100-200.

Two pen and ink drawings by Lockwood Kipling titled respectively The Ruby Prince showing a man surrounded by cobras, signed with initials, the other The Snake Woman, each measuring 7 inches by 4 1/2 inches, are together estimated at £50-100.

A hand-decorated and written menu in pen and wash celebrating Rudyard Kipling’s 25th birthday on Dec. 30 1890 depicts him and other figures and is signed with his father’s initials JLK, while the reverse bears Rudyard Kipling’s own ink design. It measures 9 inches by 5 1/2 inches and is estimated at £100-150.

An autograph letter from Kipling to Trix dated Dec. 15, 1935 is on four sides of headed paper from Bateman’s in Burwash, Sussex, the Jacobean house where Kipling and his wife, Carrie, lived from 1902, now belonging to the National Trust. Kipling used the house and its setting for many of his stories in Puck of Pook’s Hill (1906) and the sequel Rewards and Fairies (1910).

Addressed: “Ho! daughter of my mother,” the letter reads:

“Im busy clearing up odds and ends as behoves one whose 70th birthday is upon him! I accept it but I can only say that I don’t feel in the least like it, nor do I like it in the least.”

There are references to his first cousin, Stanley Baldwin, and the League of Nations and to having recently met Neville Chamberlain: “he seemed quite calm which I confess I am not in respect of Italian possibilities. Its a vindictive people with long memory.” The letter and its envelope are estimated at £100-150.

In a report on an exhibition at The Elms, Rottingdean, Kipling’s seaside home near Brighton from 1897-1902, The Kipling Society’s Journal of 1951 refers to “the intriguing – and somewhat eerie Max Desmarets” whose Valentine written by Kipling on Feb. 14, 1884 was exhibited. The journal notes the Valentine was written while Kipling was in India in tiny handwriting on a small folded gilt-edged card illustrated by him in red ink and opening with the couplet: “How shall a ghost from Père la Chaise Greeting send to a vanquished love?” “… but who Max Desmarets was and how he drifted into R.K.’s ken – or imagination – no one knows. This exhibit also had previously never been published or shown.”

The sale includes what is believed to be the actual valentine, written and illustrated by Kipling on two pieces of gilt-edged card and is almost certainly that referred to in the exhibition. It is estimated at £200-300. Interestingly, an edition of the Allahabad Pioneer (for which Kipling was later to work) dated Jan. 2 1884, states that Kipling took the part of M. Desmarets in an amateur performance of Plot and Panion at the Railway Theatre in Lahore. This would have been during the time he worked on the Lahore newspaper, the Civil and Military Gazette, after he returned to India in 1882.

In 1883, Kipling visited Shimla (then known as Simla), a well-known hill station and the summer capital of British India. Kipling returned there for his annual leave each year from 1885 to 1888, and the town figured prominently in many of the stories he wrote for the Gazette.

A handwritten poem signed and dated “Rudyard Kipling Simla 1885, June 2nd 1885” is estimated at £200-300.

The archive contains many photographs, some previously unseen, including two from the Simla studio of Bourne & Shepherd, Simla, Calcutta and Bombay.

A head-and-shoulders cabinet photograph is autographed and inscribed “Yours very sincerely Rudyard Kipling,”’ inscribed verso “A kind of scrubbed boy – a lawyer’s clerk’ (Merchant of Venice). The photograph is estimated at £200-300, while a three-quarter length cabinet photograph from the same studio is estimated at £100-150.

A cabinet photograph depicting Kipling and his mother is dated “Dec 13. 90,” and is dedicated to his sister: “Trix from Mother and Ruddy.” By Elliott and Fry Photographers, 55 Baker Street, London, it is estimated at £200-300, while another depicting Kipling and his father, John Lockwood Kipling, by Bourne & Shepherd, is estimated at £100-150.

Two silver gelatin photographs of Kipling when he was young, one with shoulder-length hair and wearing a sailor’s uniform, the other with short hair wearing a jacket and bow tie are together estimated at £80-120, while two albums and numerous loose photographs relating to the Kipling and MacDonald families, many of which can be found throughout the book Trix: Kipling’s Forgotten Sister are estimated at £100-200.

A 19th century photographic family tree featuring 22 portraits of the Kipling, Macdonald, Burne-Jones and Poynter families is also estimated at £100-200, as is a 19th century Kipling family leather and brass mounted family photograph album including, Rudyard Kipling, Margaret Burne-Jones, Julius Frederick MacDonald, Alice Baldwin and Agnes Poynter.

The archive also contains what is believed to be the earliest photographic portrait of Kipling’s first cousin, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, aged about 6. It is estimated at £100-200.

For further information, contact the auctioneers on 01483 223101 or email antiques@ewbankauctions.co.uk.

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

Rudyard Kipling with his mother, signed, 'Trix.' Ewbank's image. — Rudyard Kipling with his mother, signed, ‘Trix.’ Ewbank’s image.

Cabinet photo of Alice 'Trix' Kipling. Ewbank's image. — Cabinet photo of Alice ‘Trix’ Kipling. Ewbank’s image.

Hand-decorated menu to celebrate Rudyard Kipling's 25th birthday. Ewbank's image. — Hand-decorated menu to celebrate Rudyard Kipling’s 25th birthday. Ewbank’s image.

Hand-painted panel by John Lockwood Kipling. Ewbank's image. — Hand-painted panel by John Lockwood Kipling. Ewbank’s image.

Rudyard Kipling cabinet photo. Ewbank's image. — Rudyard Kipling cabinet photo. Ewbank’s image.

'The Snake Woman' drawing by John Lockwood Kipling. Ewbank's image. — ‘The Snake Woman’ drawing by John Lockwood Kipling. Ewbank’s image.

Trix Kipling's fan that she used as an autograph album. Ewbank's image. — Trix Kipling’s fan that she used as an autograph album. Ewbank’s image.

Beautiful antiquities await bids at Ancient Resource sale June 29

Provincial Roman marble frieze depicting nude Eros. Ancient Resource image.

MONTROSE, Calif. – Ancient Resource LLC is celebrating its fifth year as America’s premier venue for online ancient art with its 32nd auction set for June 29 beginning at 10 a.m. Pacific.

LiveAuctioneers.com will provide presale and Internet live bidding.

“It took our combined 50 years of experience to scour the market for the fantastic selection of art that we are proud to present this month,” said Gabriel Vandervort, co-owner of Ancient Resource LLC.

“The results stand on their own. This is without a doubt the finest selection of ancient, pre-Columbian and tribal art offered this year – well provenanced and substantially fresh to market too,” added Vandervort.

The splendor of Greece is represented by lot 74D, a Parthian alabaster goddess. It is sensuous, intact and enhanced with a beautiful patina. The glory of Greek ceramics is represented best by lots 124B and 124E, a rare lidded oinochoe and, rarer still, a plastic vase in the form of a female face. Lot 76A is one of the few survivors of Greek bronze artwork, a figurine of a nude Greek kouros.

A magnificent yet approachable piece of Egyptian stonework is lot 26A, a green jasper head of an Egyptian is a New Kingdom work of art worthy of a museum collection.

This month’s auction includes a fine selection of Roman marbles as well. The finest of which is lot 74F, an over life-size head of a satyr, his face carved with the most evil intent, most likely from a full statue depicting him intertwined with a woman. The auction also features Roman bronzes, highlighted by lot 76B an impressive nude Hercules.

This sale also features an ethnographic collection that has been stored for almost 30 years.

As always, all lots are guaranteed as described, well-provenanced and legally owned.

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

Roman bronze lar figurine depicting god of the larder. Ancient Resource image.

Choice Roman light blue glass flask. Ancient Resource image.

Egyptian green jasper head of a man, New Kingdom. Ancient Resource image.

Roman marble head of a satyr. Ancient Resource image.

A Large Jalisco figure of a warrior. Ancient Resource image.

Japanese Noh mask of Hanna, the Ghost of Jealous Women. Ancient Resource image.

Luba Shankadi seat from the Congo, mid-20th century. Ancient Resource image.

Miscellaneana: English teapots

I'm a little teapot... The Royal Worcester 'Aesthetic' teapot dated 1882. It's worth £3,000-5,000.

LONDON – Josiah Wedgwood had the right idea: the father of English ceramic manufacturers took home all new prototype designs of his teapots so that his wife could “road test” them for performance and suitability before they went into production. If she approved, he gave the green light and the Etruria machinery rolled.

What she would have made of the so-called ‘Aesthetic’ or ‘Patience’ teapot illustrated here is beyond imagination, but this most famous teapot is one every collector covets. The teapot is far from fit for purpose. It was difficult to fill, even harder to pour without spillage and almost impossible to keep clean, although whether it was ever intended for serious use is open to debate.

Either way, its quirky charm has ensured it a place in ceramic design history … and conservatively, a £3,000-5,000 saleroom price tag for anyone with an empty space in a cabinet of curiosities.

Designed by Richard William Binns, (1819-1900) and modeled by James Hadley, (1838-1903), it was made by Royal Worcester in 1881 as a mockery of the Aesthetic Movement. Its appearance followed the success of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s operetta Patience, first performed that year at the Opera Comique in London.

An inscription on the base which reads: “Fearful consequences through the laws of Natural Selection and Evolution of living up to one’s teapot,” is a barbed commentary on how the male and female characters, modeled front and back seemingly share the same amorphous gender.

They wear the “greenery-yallery of the Grosvenor Gallery,” as the operetta puts it, puce hats and fashionable Pre-Raphaelite red hair; and aside from taking a swipe at Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution, Oscar Wilde, a champion of the Aesthetic Movement, comes in for some real stick.

While at Magdalen College, Wilde, who bears more than a passing resemblance to the figure on the teapot, wore his hair long, poured scorn on “manly” sports and decorated his rooms with peacock feathers, lilies, sunflowers, blue china and other objets d’art. Entertaining friends lavishly, he famously once remarked: “I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china.”

The comment passed into literacy history, while the teapot displays all those symbols. The male figure has a sunflower as a buttonhole, while the female has a lily tucked into the waist of her outfit, but it is the limp-wristed pose adopted by the man that, perhaps, hints at a deeper symbolism.

Novelty teapots are not a modern phenomenon. In the 1750s, Staffordshire potters such as Thomas Whieldon were producing teapots shaped like pineapples and cauliflowers, while the Victorians allowed their imagination to run riot. Minton capitalized on the furor caused by Charles Darwin with a teapot in majolica modelled as a monkey.

One of the most valuable Minton teapots, however, is modeled as a vulture attacking a serpent. It was designed for Minton in 1874 by Colonel Henry Hope Crealock. The complexity of the design meant few were made and only a handful has been sold at auction in recent times. The one illustrated here had a repaired handle but still made £17,000.

Crealock was a professional soldier – he served at the siege of Sebastopol, in the Second Opium War and the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879 – and also a skilled draftsman who recorded animals and events during his military service across the world.

The accoutrements of the great British habit of tea-drinking have been collected since the new drink of tee, or tay, or tcha (the derivation of the word char) was introduced in the 17th century. Teapots must surely be the most collectible, and the search for new examples keeps literally thousands of people absorbed, many for a lifetime.

One of the rarest and most important examples to watch out for at the next flea market was made by the Chelsea factory in about 1750-52. It is molded with the leaves of the Asplenium scolopendrium, better known as the hartís-tongue fern. Only one example is known to survive today and is a copy of a French teapot of the same design, produced in the 1740s. Already sold five times at auction, having first appeared in 1941, it has a current saleroom value of £30,000-50,000.

One of the earliest teapots produced in British porcelain was made at the Limehouse factory in London. This was among the first English porcelain production centers, founded in the mid 18th century within a year of Bow and Chelsea. Production was short-lived lasting little more three or four years before it closed in early 1748.

At just 3æ (three and three quarters) inches high, the little blue and white teapot circa 1746-48, illustrated, might easily be overlooked or passed off being intended for a dolls’ tea party. Keep your eyes peeled: it’s worth £20,000-30,000, as is the rare and important Bow teapot, also illustrated, decorated with flowers by James Welsh. Only one other like it is known.

The great thing about collecting teapots is that apart from there being countless different styles and shapes to be unearthed by both well known manufacturers and anonymous ones alike, new designs appear on the market with unnerving regularity.

Once you start collecting, you might never be able to stop, particularly if you share the notion that today’s new production is tomorrow’s collectible. In 100 years’ time, it becomes an antique – officially. Given the prices some might go on to achieve, perhaps we shouldn’t poke fun at the novelty teapots sitting on the shelves at gift shops … whether they pour a good cup of char or not.

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ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE

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