KNOXVILLE, Tenn.-A major Tennessee pottery discovery, a rare complete Audubon octavo set, fine art and numerous Southern antiques are among the highlights of Case Antiques’ Sept. 27 Fall Auction. Among more than 300 cataloged lots is an extensive offering of Southern and European furniture, silver, samplers, paintings, and exceptional engravings.
One of the star lots of the sale is expected to be a rare 19th century Greene County, Tenn., redware jar stamped “J.A. Lowe” (John Alexander Lowe, 1833-1902). A pottery site attributed to Lowe was located and excavated near the Harmon Cemetery near Blue Springs in the 1990s, with thousands of shards recovered. “What makes this piece so exciting is it’s the first and only known intact piece of his pottery ever to surface,” said company president John Case.
“There’s also the interesting story of Lowe himself, who joined the Confederate army two days after his fellow potter, Christopher A. Haun, was hung for his role in the burning of the Lick Creek railroad bridge,” Case continued. “In a letter to his wife written hours before his death, Haun urged his wife to have ‘Bohanan, Hinshaw or Low’ finish off some of his wares. It’s a fascinating connection.”
Case specializes in Great Road Pottery, which includes most of the early pottery of Tennessee, and holds the current auction record for a piece of Great Tennessee pottery. In 2008 the company sold a redware pitcher attributed to the Cain Pottery of Sullivan County, Tenn., for $22,550.
Additional regional pottery forms will be offered in the September sale, including a Southwest Virginia stoneware jar signed ‘James Vestal.’ Expected to attract international attention is a complete 10 volume octavo set of John J. Audubon’s Birds and Quadrupeds of North America, published in 1860. Contained within are 655 hand-colored lithographed plates. “It’s incredibly unusual to find these images still bound,” said Case. “Most have been cut out over the years and sold individually, some for over a thousand dollars apiece.”
Leading the fine art offerings is a 23 inch by 40 inch harbor scene by Italian master Giovanni Signorini (1808-1858). Signorini was a scenographic court painter for the Grand Duke of Tuscany and was well known for painting annual events and spectacles for the Tuscan aristrocracy. Also included is a landscape with figures by William Bromley (British, 1835-1888), an 1836 watercolor portrait of James H. Lowrey of Tennessee, and paintings by Southern artists Thomas Campbell, Louis Jones, and Eleanor McAdoo Wiley.
There are also a number of rare prints including a pair of French panoramic engravings of the Olympic Games at Sparta and a rare colored engraving titled A Cudgelling Match Between English and French Negroes in Dominica. Among the fine Southern antiques are a Federal-era sugar chest, a circa-1815 tall-case clock with Cincinnati works and cherry case attributed to Tennessee; a Wythe Co., Virginia scalloped apron table, a Franklin County Tennessee postmaster’s desk in original surface, a Tennessee needlework sampler, and a Baltimore floral repoussé silver tea set retailed by George Calhoun of Nashville.
Other fine American antiques offered are an important patriotic Lancaster County, Pa., needlework sampler with eagle, a Revolutionary War-period scrimshaw powder horn and grenade, a Civil War-era Colt 1849 pocket revolver with case and accessories, several pieces of Tiffany sterling, and a giltwood picture frame labeled ‘Wilmurt & Son, New York.’
Rounding out the sale are several European standouts, among them a 19th-century London-made burlwood server signed by the famous firm Gillow, a Wemyss ceramic pig with shamrock decoration, an Italian painted cassone, a set of Coalport Indian Tree dinnerware, and other porcelain.
The auction will be held at the historic Cherokee Mills Building, 2200 Sutherland Avenue in Knoxville, on Saturday, Sept. 27 at 10:00AM EST. Bids will also be accepted by phone and Internet. A preview will take place on Friday, Sept. 26. For additional information, call 856-558-3033 or log on to www.caseantiques.com.
ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
