SUNRISE, Fla. – Gene Moore (1910-1998) came from humble beginnings in Alabama to become one of the defining architects of the Tiffany & Co. brand image — not as a jewelry designer, but as the man who put a public face on the firm through decades of window displays at its flagship New York store. The public came to see Tiffany through his incredible ‘window dressings,’ which were a key marketing element that captivated passersby and helped cement Tiffany as the pinnacle of luxury and taste.
During his time working with Tiffany, Moore also created a line of decorated silver figures drawn from the American traveling circus milieu. Though circuses have generally fallen out of favor, they were central in pre- and postwar American popular culture; a day at the circus was a must for most American families.
Moore’s designs are whimsical and were intended to be collected serially upon each item’s release. What appears to be a single-owner collection of 17 Moore figures came to market November 30 at Hill Auction Gallery. Most were in good but shelf-worn condition, clearly from years of loving handling, and nearly all sold within or above estimate.
The top lot was a silver circus lion and its accompanying circus parade wagon. Estimated at $2,000-$4,000, it hammered for a stunning $8,000 ($10,240 with buyer’s premium), illustrating that though circuses may have gone out of style, collectibles associated with them that bear the Tiffany & Co. mark have not.
PALM BEACH, Fla. – Very few English Golden Age clocks signed by Ambrose Gardner are recorded. However, his name is well-known as he worked for many years as an apprentice in the household of the ‘father of English clockmaking,’ Thomas Tompion.
A member of the Goldsmiths’ Company, who was perhaps hired for his skills as an engraver, Gardner was the foreman at Tompion’s workshop on Water Lane off Fleet Street in London. Elements of Tompion clocks stamped with the initials ‘AG’ are thought to have been his work.
The only two clocks fully signed by Gardner have appeared for sale in the past decade. Both are high-status ebony veneered table clocks with quarter repeating movements dated to around 1700. They include many details identified as ‘Tompion’ features to both the cases and movements, and may have been made under his supervision. Whether or not Gardner branched out on his own around the turn of the 18th century is a matter of speculation.
The example offered by Bonhams in London in 2015 was signed to the backplate only. Although now missing its repeat work, the deluxe complication that meant the clock would once have chimed the hours and quarters on the pull of a cord, it sold at £20,000 (roughly $25,100).
The similar clock that appeared for sale at Hindman in Palm Beach on December 7 was in better condition, with the repeating mechanism still intact. It was fully signed by Ambrose Gardner to both the dial (above the numeral XII) and to the back plate and was consigned from the estate of Joanna Hoffman, whose father John Hoffman had been a member of the British Antique Dealers’ Association. The best of several clocks from this source in the sale, it soared well above its estimate of $15,000-$25,000, hammering for $55,000 and selling for $71,500 with buyer’s premium.
GUILDFORD, U.K. – As Formula One fans readied for the final grand prix of the season, Bonhams’ Abu Dubai Auction Online sale on November 30 included plenty of car racing memorabilia. Leading the lineup was the helmet the four-time drivers’ champion Alain Prost wore at the infamous Dallas Grand Prix at Fair Park in Texas on July 8, 1984.
Prost, driving for Maclaren, was among those who tried (and failed) to have the race stopped. Instead, driving in intense heat on a disintegrating track surface repaired with quick-drying cement, the rate of attrition was brutal. Of the 26 drivers who started the race, only eight made it to the checkered flag, with some of them three laps behind winner Keke Rosberg.
Prost himself had led the race with 10 laps to go, but was forced to retire after hitting a wall and breaking a wheel rim. He had given his helmet to a McLaren employee who worked closely with many of its drivers during his 25 year-tenure. As a fine memento of one of the most memorable races of the 1980s F1 era, it was estimated at £10,000-£12,000 but hammered for £55,000 and sold for £70,400 ($88,400). The 1984 edition was the only running of the Dallas Grand Prix.
HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. – In 1585, English colonists Thomas Hariot and John White recorded their first impressions of life on Roanoke Island in present day North Carolina. Hariot published A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, with White composing a suite of watercolors illustrating the region’s flora and fauna and also its native peoples.
The efforts of both men came to the attention of Belgian engraver Theodor de Bry, who published an edition that combined Hariot’s text and engravings based on White’s original watercolors. De Bry chose to portray Roanoke as a garden of Eden and likened its native inhabitants to the ancient Britons and Scots. Printed in English, Latin, French and German, it proved hugely influential in encouraging European settlement of the vast lands that would become British North America.
A first edition copy in Latin printed in Frankfurt in 1590 was offered for sale at Leland Little on December 1. Deemed ‘a very good copy with all plates and map,’ it had been expertly conserved and bound in leather-covered boards by Don Etherington, director of the Book Conservation Program at the American Academy of Bookbinding. It was estimated at $20,000-$30,000 but it sold short of that range, hammering for $12,500 and selling for $15,125 with buyer’s premium.
WINDSOR, Conn. – This terracotta figure is typical of the highly stylized pottery models honoring a fertility or mother goddess made in Persia in the first millennium BCE. They are sometimes called Amlash culture figures, a reference to the small village in the north of modern-day Iran where excavations uncovered similar fragmentary pieces. This example, standing slightly more than 12in (30cm) high, is depicted nude with voluptuous hips and buttocks, thick tapering legs, curving arms and a disc-shaped face. It wears a three-tiered crown with concentric circles incised as decorative elements over the shoulders.
The figure was offered sale at Nadeau’s Auction Gallery on October 21 as part of the estate of Dina Recanati (1928-2021), an Israeli artist who lived in New York City and Tel Aviv. The very best figures of this type can bring six-figure sums, so the estimate of $1,000-$2,000 was modest. It attracted plenty of admirers before hammering at $24,000 and selling for $30,720 with buyer’s premium.
