KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A rediscovered coastal landscape by the American Luminist painter John Frederick Kensett (1816-1872) is expected to make waves at the Summer Case Antiques Auction, set for Saturday, Aug, 5. Absentee and Internet bidding is available through LiveAuctioneers.
Fresh from a Nashville estate, it will be included in the Kensett catalog raisonné being compiled by Dr. John Driscoll. The painting (above) depicts Sunset on Contentment Island on Long Island Sound at Darien, Connecticut, and is believed to have been painted in the final year of Kensett’s life. The catalog essay, written by Kensett scholar Dr. Janice Simon of the University of Georgia, notes that this painting “convey[s] an artist engaged with the modernist sensibilities of Tonalism with its emphasis on suggestion over definition, poetry of color over niggling detail, deep feeling over topographies of place.” It is estimated at $50,000-$70,000.
The painting last appeared publicly in the 1873 Kensett Memorial Exhibition at the National Academy of Design (a period photograph of it hanging in the exhibit is shown in Case’s catalog). In fact, Kensett’s Contentment Island scenes rarely come on the market; his brother gifted most of them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art shortly after the artist’s death. This one ended up in the collection of Orrin Wickersham June, whose family owned Wickersham Gallery in New York. June married a Tennessee woman and moved to Nashville in the 1960s, and by the 1970s, he had sold the Kensett to his friend, the Nashville collector, arts scholar and preservationist Dr. Benjamin Caldwell. It was a focal point in Caldwell’s notable American fine and decorative arts collection until his death in May of this year.
The auction includes many other treasures from the Caldwell estate, including his collection of Southern silver (Caldwell was regarded as an expert in the field, and authored the book, Tennessee Silversmiths), Southern art, and his Canton porcelain collection, plus several pieces of furniture from The Magazine Antiques profile on the Caldwell home written in 1971.
The auction also includes more than 800 lots of American and European paintings from various Tennessee estates, a museum collection of folk and outsider art, an extensive Civil War collection, historic documents, fine jewelry, and Asian antiques.
Other fine art being sold includes a colorful, Fauvist-inspired Birger Sandzen oil depicting a Sunset in Rocky Mountain National Park (below), dated 1927; genre scenes by Victor Anderson and John Rankin Barclay; and landscapes by Alexander Hogue, Edwin Dickinson, J. Francis Murphy, Gilbert Gaul, Tinus de Jongh and George Whitaker.
Two 1890s Toulouse-Lautrec posters, Confetti and Jane Avril (below); drawings by Andrew Wyeth, March Avery and Walter Anderson; historic portraits by Ralph E.W. Earl and John Vanderlyn; and an 1850s bird’s-eye view drawing of the University of Virginia are also offered.
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Case’s outstanding selection of silver includes rare coin silver pieces from silversmiths across the South such as Samuel Bell of Texas, Joseph Elliston of Nashville, Tennessee; Samuel Ayres of Lexington, Kentucky; Nathaniel Vogler and Jehu Scott of North Carolina; John Ewan of Charleston, South Carolina; and Robert Houghton of Mississippi. Notable sterling includes a rare George III sterling epergne with coat of arms for the Horner family, a pair of Scottish 18th century candlesticks, Kirk Repoussé hollowware, and numerous sterling tea sets and flatware services.
A sparkling assemblage of estate and vintage jewelry includes a Marcus & Co. platinum bracelet containing 6.8 carats of diamonds, a Tiffany gold and jade necklace and bracelet, three vintage Rolex watches, a 2.53 carat round brilliant diamond ring with baguettes, and an Omega 14K gold necklace.
The auction will take place at Case’s gallery in the Cherokee Mills Building, 2240 Sutherland Ave. in Knoxville, on Saturday, Aug. 5, at 9 a.m. Eastern time. For more information call the gallery in Knoxville at 865-558-3033 or the company’s Nashville office at 615-812-6096 or email info@caseantiques.com.
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