ATLANTA – Sfera, a polished bronze limited edition sculpture by the Italian artist Arnaldo Pomodoro soared to $186,000 in an online Spring Fine Estates & Collections auction held March 27–28 by Ahlers & Ogletree Auction Gallery. The work was the top earner in a sale of more than 1,000 lots. Absentee and Internet live bidding was facilitated by LiveAuctioneers.
Session one, which took place March 27, contained Asian arts, Modernism, mid-century and contemporary design, fine art and decorative arts, estate jewelry, and fashion. Session two, held on March 28, featured period antiques, silver, fine art, important books and maps, antique scientific equipment and tools, and antique weapons. (Linked images reflect the lots’ hammer prices.)
Five furniture pieces by American woodworker George Nakashima came up for bid, each one offered as a single lot. All were from the same seller, who acquired the pieces from her mother, a doctor in Tucson who purchased them directly from Nakashima.
Leading the pack was a walnut Minguren coffee table featuring a rosewood butterfly, several free and raw edges, and a natural reticulation, and marked on the underside with the original owner’s name. It went for $74,400. Other Nakashima pieces that found new homes were a walnut hanging wall case, which sold for $40,300, a conoid end table, which rose to $27,900, a set of four cherry “New” chairs, which hit $22,320, and a cherry dining table, which sold for $17,360.
Ed Mell,‘Western Landscape,’ which sold for $40,300
Paintings by noted American artists were plentiful, and included a 1975 abstract mixed media work by Ida Kohlmeyer titled Cluster Drawing, which sold for $17,360; an oil on canvas Western Landscape by Ed Mell, which realized $40,300; and a large abstract acrylic on linen from 2004 by Carolyn Carr, titled Ebb and Flow, which sold for $11,780.
Leading the jewelry and watches category was a 1968 Rolex stainless steel Oyster Perpetual Submariner automatic men’s wristwatch which sold for $10,540, and an Elsa Peretti for Tiffany & C0. sterling silver belt in the form of a snake that could also be worn as a necklace, which hit $8,680.
A late Victorian era English part-ebonized mahogany library table in the Regency taste earned top lot status on March 28, selling for $10,540. It featured a tooled green leather writing surface above a Greek key frieze and had two concealed drawers on both sides.
Silver enthusiasts enjoyed a Joseph Craddock and William Ker Reid 1817 sterling armorial lidded George III tureen bearing the Langton family coat of arms, which rose to $9,300. Also sold was a Turkish handwoven Oushak room-size area rug with a gorgeous floral pattern on an orange field, which sold for $6,200.
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