PITTSFIELD, Mass. – From endearing portraits to dramatic landscapes, Fontaine’s Auction Gallery will present a fine art auction on Saturday, April 21, starting at 2 p.m. Eastern. Absentee and Internet live bidding is available through LiveAuctioneers.
“I’m very pleased to have the level of quality seen in this auction,” said owner/auctioneer John Fontaine. “There is tremendous appeal for both serious and novice collectors.”
The auction consists of 200 fully cataloged lots featuring works by Norman Rockwell, John F. Carlson, Charles C. Curran, Paul E. Pissarro, John C. Terelak, Alexandre N. Averin, Minas Avetisian, Friedrich J. Voltz, Clementine R. Hunter and many more. Oil paintings, watercolors, gouache, etchings, sketches and mixed media works encompass a wide range of categories, including American and European portraiture of the 19th and 20th centuries, American, British and Dutch landscape scenes, still life paintings, seascapes and harbor scenes, etchings by Louis Icart and Renoir, as well as impressionist, post-impressionist, folk and contemporary works.
Among landscape standouts is a signed oil on canvas by John F. Carlson (1875-1945) titled March Floods, an impressionist forest landscape depicting a wooded scene with remnants of snow melting and flooding the forest floor, 33 by 40¼ inches framed (above).
American art continues to figure prominently in the auction as evinced by a signed Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) oil on canvas from 1923 titled Misty Afternoon. The landscape scene (below) shows a woman standing on the rocks of a mountaintop in Cragsmoor, N.Y., 27¼ by 31½ inches framed. Also on offer is a signed oil on canvas by John Charles Terelak (b. 1942) of a postimpressionistic landscape scene, Sunset on the Marsh, 35 by 43 inches framed.
Always an auction favorite, Norman Rockwell (American, 1894-1978) is represented in this sale with three whimsical examples, all accompanied by a Christmas card from the Rockwell family, starting off with a pencil on paper sketch, Maid with Movie Magazine (alternately titled Cinderella for The Saturday Evening Post (Nov. 4, 1922), 17 by 13½ inches. A mixed media with watercolor on paper by Rockwell is a portrait of a boy, 13½ by 11½ inches. A pencil on paper sketch, Christmas: Santa Claus Reading Mail (alternate titles are Santa At His Desk and Letters to Santa) for The Saturday Evening Post (December 1935). The scene depicts Santa Claus seated at a writing table with his pipe, holding a quill pen and a letter in his hands, on the table is his ledger, an inkwell and a stack of mail, 15 by 10¼ inches.
The auction takes on an international flavor with several choice works from Asia and Europe, including a signed Yanzhou Xu (Chinese, b. 1961) oil on canvas portrait of a Chinese mother holding her child, 49 by 39 inches; a Roelof Jansz van Vries (Dutch, 1631-1701) landscape of a homestead scene with figures, house and trees, 26¾ by 30¼ inches; and a signed Friedrich Johann Voltz (German, 1817-1886) oil on canvas of a lakeside landscape with cattle in the foreground, a man seated in a rowboat on the shore and a mountainous background, 24 by 37½ inches framed. Also crossing the block is a signed Franz Eduard Meyerheim (German, 1838-1880) oil on canvas, Mother’s Joy, 1871, of an interior scene of a woman walking down a hallway and holding her baby, coddled in a blanket, 28¼ by 25½ inches.
A 100-lot discovery session will kick off the day at 10 a.m. with uncataloged but quality estate-fresh fine art. Fontaine’s Auction Gallery is at 1485 W. Housatonic St. For more information email info@fontainesauction.com or phone 413-448-8922.
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