Tiffany Studios bronze crab inkwell with exceptional patina (est. $10,000-$15,000). Image courtesy of Fontaine’s Auction Gallery. PITTSFIELD, Mass. – What is being appropriately billed as an Exceptional Antique Auction has been planned for Saturday, May 21, by Fontaine’s Auction Gallery, in the firm’s spacious showroom at 1485 W. Housatonic St. Offered will be over 500 lots of antique furniture, vintage lighting, fine art, decorative accessories, period furniture, clocks, estate jewelry, watches and more. LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding.
“We’re calling it an exceptional auction because the merchandise truly is exceptional,” said John Fontaine of Fontaine’s Auction Gallery. “These lots have been culled from better estates and collections in Massachusetts and beyond, resulting in a tremendous opportunity for people looking to redecorate, purchase investment-grade antiques or add to their collections.”
Prospective buyers unable to attend the event may bid online through LiveAuctioneers.com (which they can access by logging on to the Fontaine’s website, www.FontainesAuction.net). Phone and absentee bids will also be accepted. Previews will be held on Thursday, May 19, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday, May 20, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturday, May 21, from 9 a.m. until the start of sale, at 11 a.m. Eastern
Period furniture pieces are certain to excite the crowd, beginning with a 12-piece R.J. Horner figural carved dining set, the best such set Fontaine’s has offered in its 40-year history. The set is complete and has the excellent original finish. Next is a Wooten extra grade three-hinge cabinet secretary, 76 inches tall, 44 inches wide. The piece boasts a highly carved gallery with burled panels, ebonized trim and incising. Also sold will be a large figural umbrella stand depicting an almost life-size carved dog seated beside a rustic carved tree stump, 33 inches tall.
Several other pieces by the renowned craftsman R.J. Horner will be sold, to include a winged griffin oak corner china cabinet with a mirrored back and triple curved glass front; an oak three-door Atlas bookcase with large figural carvings of muscular men on the sides; and a figural carved mahogany two-part hall tree with an open carved cherub crest over a beveled mirror.
The name Tiffany will be chanted frequently throughout the day. Tiffany lamps will include a dichroic swirling lemon leaf table lamp with 18-inch geometric shade and heavily mottled background glass; a turtleback desk lamp with a fine bronze base and leafy platform; and a nice student lamp with a fine bronze base and beaded and coiled rope twist embellishment.
Other Tiffany pieces will include a great bronze inkwell with the fine figure of a crab, its claws reaching forward, pinching the coiled handles of the inkwell pot mounted with an oyster shell; a six-arm chandelier with 88 Tiffany iridescent glass prisms hanging from the bronze fixture; a cypriote glass vase, 7 inches tall, with a textured surface; and a Favrile quilted green and opalescent bowl with 12-inch rim.
From the vintage clocks category comes two examples of note: an E. Howard No. 81 oak grandfather clock boasting a silvered chapter ring with black movement and Graham’s dead-beat escapement; and a Gilbert No. 12 oak standing regulator with black open moon hands.
Art glass vases will be served up in abundance, to include a Legras onion-form cameo vase, signed, 12 1/2 inches tall, cut with deep green leaves and branches; a Moser hand-decorated smoke glass vase with a bulbous body, 8 1/2 inches tall; a Galle cameo cut vase with a fiery red and orange pattern, 7 inches tall; a Webb enameled bulbous glass vase with butterfly and satin glass finish, 5 1/4 inches tall; and a Charles Schneider cameo glass vase with nice teardrop body.
Also sold will be a Steuben calcite and jadeite 15-inch round centerpiece with beautiful glass platform.
Bronzes are surefire crowd-pleasers, and this sale’s got several worth mentioning: a fine figural bronze of a hoop dancer by Georges Morin (German, 1874-1928); a monumental bronze of a Kabyle hunter returning from his hunt, by Arthur Waagen, executed circa 1883-1898; and a 58-inch bronze after Giovanni Bologna of a flying Mercury figure with his helmet, staff and winged feet.
Returning to furniture, the name John Henry Belter in synonymous with fine American furniture, and this auction has several Belter examples. These include a Henry Clay pattern sofa, rosewood triple arched back with scroll carvings on the crest rail; and a cornucopia laminated rosewood side chair boasting a pierce carved scrolling back and a good, clean original finish.
Need a table? This sale’s got over a dozen to choose from, including a mahogany 60-inch round acanthus carved dining table with split pedestal base and four oversize legs; and an inlaid rosewood game table with octagonal rosewood top and checkerboard inlay. The table can be illuminated by an Anthony Hart 16-inch cherry blossom table lamp. The shade has an irregular bumpy form with clusters of flowers and berries. The lamp has a great matching light-up base.
Audiophiles will be intrigued by the Reginaphone Style 246 floor model disc player (including 50 discs), with mahogany case and two doors in front; and an oak Victor Model “V” phonograph, with an oak case and paneled horn, in excellent working condition. Again, for lighting purposes, a perfect complement would be an Andre Hunebelle art glass fish lamp with a deep amber glass shade with a nouveau border (13 inches by 9 inches).
For more information log on to www.FontainesAuction.net or call Bob Burke or John Fontaine at (413) 448-8922.
Marvin Gaye and Melba Moore headlined the 1977 Unity Day concert in Oakland, Calif. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Clars Auction Gallery. DETROIT (AP) – The Motown Historical Museum is celebrating the life and times, as well as the moves and grooves, of Marvin Gaye.
The Detroit museum, located in the original home of Motown Records Corp., has unveiled an exhibit chronicling the legendary artist’s two decades at Motown, from 1960 to 1982. The exhibit in the second-floor gallery opened Friday and runs through at least September.
It’s the first time the museum has produced a major exhibit on Gaye, and follows a successful installation on the Jackson 5 last year that marked the one-year anniversary of the death of Michael Jackson.
The largely chronological exhibit features Gaye’s album covers, sheet music, costumes from concerts and even a Marvin Gaye Way street sign from Washington, D.C., the hometown of the man born Marvin Pentz Gay Jr. in 1939 and fatally shot by his father in 1984 after a violent argument.
Chief curator Lina Stephens said the museum had been planning a Gaye exhibit for a while but Jackson’s death “shifted a lot of things” around. One thing is clear: Gaye’s exhibit has many more items and artifacts because of his lengthy tenure with the label.
“He was a good artist to focus on because he was here since just about the beginning,” Stephens said. “It’s easy to incorporate his story line.”
The display spans the career of a man who helped create, refine and redefine the sound of the label and popular music itself, including playing piano and drums on “Please Mister Postman,” singing the chart-topping smash I Heard it Through the Grapevine, and tackling political and environmental concerns with What’s Going On and Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).
“He started out singing songs he thought he wanted to sing,” Janis Gaye, Gaye’s ex-wife, told The Associated Press by phone from her home in Providence, R.I. “When he hit ‘What’s Going On’ and started having his own voice in every way – arrangements, lyrically and spiritually – that opened a whole new door for him.”
Janis Gaye, who was with Marvin Gaye for 11 years and married to him from 1977 to 1981, said she has been talking to museum officials about the exhibit and hopes to loan a few signature items, such as his Grammy awards and silver platform boots she designed for him.
She said she took his “everyday boots” and had rhinestones and platforms put on them. They later became synonymous with Gaye, appearing on album covers and a magazine spread.
The boots were “one staple he really did love,” Janis Gaye said, and they will be difficult to part with – even temporarily.
“I told (museum officials) I may have to sleep there for the next nine months,” she said.
The exhibit includes an early single by Gaye on Motown’s subsidiary label, Anna, named for Motown founder Berry Gordy’s sister – the woman who became Gaye’s first wife. He was still married to Anna Gordy Gaye in 1973 when he met Janis Gaye, who was 17 at the time and is now 55.
Janis Gaye said she is writing a book about her life with the man she describes as her “dear, sweet ex-husband” that’s expected to be released later this year.
“We must have broken up and gotten back together at least 20 or 30 times,” she said. “It was a magical time, at times. … There are many, many memories to look back on – some fond, some not so fond.”
She said she hopes museum visitors see the depth of his creativity and recognize his enduring legacy, which includes a performance next May of the What’s Going On album by John Legend and The Roots with the National Symphony Orchestra. It marks the 40th anniversary of Gaye performing the album at the same venue.
“I would just like for people to see his whole body of work,” Janis Gaye said. “Socially conscious, sexually conscious, whatever it happens to be. It’s all Marvin. It all came from that one mind.”
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-05-08-11 1654GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Marvin Gaye and Melba Moore headlined the 1977 Unity Day concert in Oakland, Calif. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Clars Auction Gallery.
Ownership of the printing plate used to print this 1775 New Hampshire currency is in dispute. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Early American History Auctions Inc.
SPRING VALLEY, Minn. (AP) – It was a plate among plates. At a viewing for an estate auction in Spring Valley, Minn., an aging copper printing plate sat next to dishes and saucers.
Many people were there to look at the coins of a man whose estate was about to be divvied up.
One collector, southeast Minnesota resident Gary Lea, stopped and picked up the plate, about the size of a sheet of paper.
Under decades of grime, he could still see the engraving and could make out that it must have been used to make money.
He thought the date said 177- – seventeen-seventy something.
Back home after the viewing, he combed through a book, Early American Currency. In a section about New Hampshire he found what he was looking for: A black-and-white photograph of currency that matched the plate he’d seen.
The description of the currency stated, without fanfare, that money created from the plate had been used to finance the “Live Free or Die” state’s part in the Revolutionary War.
Also, it said, most historians agreed the plate was likely engraved by Paul Revere.
The next week at the estate auction, the same plate rested near the same dishes.
Chances were, Lea thought, the plate wasn’t real.
Most printing plates hadn’t survived because they were usually reused and re-engraved.
A replica could still fetch a respectable price, but wouldn’t be as coveted. A forgery could bring less.
Also, there were plenty of coin collectors at the auction. Surely they knew what a copper plate etched by Paul Revere looked like.
Lea would have to devise his strategy on the fly.
The bidding for coins began. It was heavy.
“They were going for a lot more than what some of them were worth in my estimation,” Lea said.
That meant the plate would probably go high.
The plate came to auction.
Lea and just two other bidders raised hands.
One bidder – a scrap iron collector – quickly dropped out.
The second continued for a while against Lea, then dropped, too.
Lea owned the plate, for a price he declined to name for this story.
He would soon discover the battle to own it was nothing compared to the battle to sell it.
Most collectors, garage-sale junkies and auction hounds live to find that one document squirreled away in a painting of dogs playing poker.
Antiques Roadshow has sent an entire generation of snoops and treasure hunters to the attic.
Amid that fervor, Lea did the impossible: He found a plate that may have been handled by Paul Revere.
His euphoria over buying the plate was immediately followed by the urge to get rid of it – so to speak.
“I knew I couldn’t afford to keep it,” Lea said. “I was happy just to have known that I was the owner of it at one time, and part of its rediscovery.”
Lea did some research and placed a few calls. Soon, Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas agreed to sell the plate.
Most items in the house’s auction catalogs were described by several sentences, maybe a paragraph.
The copper plate had four pages.
The description included a discovery by New Hampshire’s head archivist Frank Mevers that the plate was likely not engraved by Revere, but by one of New Hampshire’s native sons.
Lea had also discovered other information about the plate.
The last time it was documented in New Hampshire was 1775, when the state was still a colony.
The last time it was documented outside the state was 10 years before the Civil War, when Dr. Joshua Cohen, a prominent Baltimore physician, owned it. From 1828 to 1865, Cohen collected more than 2,700 “specimens” of Colonial currency.
In 1930, Cohen’s estate sold for less than $9,000. Most coins and currency went to the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan.
But the plate wasn’t recorded there, either by error or because it had fallen out of the collection sometime previously.
However, in the 1850s, Cohen had made an unauthorized reprinting of the New Hampshire currency, using the original plate.
He slightly modified the plate. For example, “the vignette within the 40 shilling engraving has several extra branches added to the tree trunks,” one expert said. “It is apparent that the re-engravings on all four vignettes were cut with a heavier touch than the hand that created the original engravings.”
The reprintings Cohen made helped Lea determine, more than a century later, that he’d found the original plate at an estate sale in southern Minnesota – 1,324 miles from Concord.
When Lea compared his plate with the 1850s reprints, it matched.
Perfectly.
“Even the scratches lined up,” Lea said.
The auction was set for Boston on Aug. 11, 2010. The plate’s starting bid was $50,000, though some thought it could easily fetch six digits.
Then New Hampshire called.
It wanted its plate back.
The New Hampshire State Attorney General’s Office intervened the morning of the sale, requesting that Heritage Auctions withdraw the plate or immediately face a court order blocking its sale.
New Hampshire’s attorney argued that since there was no record of the plate every being declared excess property, it must have been taken at “some unknown time” by some “unknown persons.”
Concerned that a legal threat would scare away potential buyers, Lea canceled the sale.
His decision surprised the auction house.
“He had good title as we saw it and nothing was wrong,” said Richard Brainerd, general counsel for Heritage Auctions. “No due diligence would have suggested he didn’t have a right to hold it.”
Attorneys from New Hampshire disagreed, saying that “a presumption should arise that the plate remains State property.”
Lea knew a threat now hung over the plate. If he tried to auction it again in the future, anyone who bought it was likely also buying a lawsuit.
He knew he could hold onto the plate – even will it to family members.
But New Hampshire wasn’t going to forget about a plate it hadn’t remembered for 236 years.
It wasn’t a matter of if, but when.
Lea decided the only way to be declared the plate’s rightful owner was to use the same legal system that blocked him from selling.
He hired an attorney and took the state of New Hampshire to court – in Fillmore County, Minn.
Lea’s move created several intriguing legal questions.
For example: Can you sue one state in a different state? Can a state demand the return of items it claims are part of its heritage and treasury?
And which court gets the final say about a plate that was created in New Hampshire, traveled to Maryland, was found in Minnesota – possibly by way of Michigan – and then shipped to Boston for auction?
Attorneys for New Hampshire argue that since their state inventoried books and other common furniture before selling them, it made no sense that a plate, which played an integral part in the Revolutionary War, was tossed out without so much as a note.
But the attorneys have also admitted that the last time the state knew it had the plate in its possession was 1775.
New Hampshire “was unable to find legislative action” that shows the plate was properly sold, said Assistant Attorney General Peter Roth, but so far, it has stopped short of saying the plate was stolen.
“Those aren’t allegations I’m prepared to make,” Roth said. “That’s the kind of evidence that if we go to trial would be developed and investigated in the process of discovery.”
Roth said he believes the plate ended up in the hands of Cohen – who was known to pay people for Colonial currency – through any number of contacts or methods.
New Hampshire has also argued that Minnesota is the wrong court to decide the plate’s ownership. But Fillmore County Judge Robert Benson ruled March 23 that Minnesota had jurisdiction to decide the rightful owner of the plate.
Lea’s attorney, Bennett Myers, has asked the court to make Lea the “sole and proper” owner of the plate and “extinguish” any ownership claim by a third party.
The court has almost 90 days left to make a decision that will determine who rightfully owns the plate.
There’s that old cliche that possession is nine-tenths of the law.
Brainerd, Heritage Auctions’ general counsel, chuckled when recounting it.
As the third-largest auction company in the United States, Heritage has sold lots of old things – including currency – that originally came from states but through sale or abandonment fell into the hands of private collectors.
Brainerd said that for years local, state and even federal officials have found little use for yellowing documents. When storage becomes problematic, or when governments no longer need to legally keep them, they throw them or give them away.
This provides a large market for the auction houses, antiquarian dealers, booksellers and history buffs who literally buy up America’s discarded history.
But new legislation proposed or passed in a number of states threatens private ownership of those items.
Texas recently passed a law that gives it ownership to any state item it didn’t voluntarily discard or sell.
And a number of East Coast states have adopted or considered language that “reclaims” government artifacts from the Colonial period.
Unfortunately, the laws are so new that virtually no cases have tested them, Brainerd said. That means there’s no case law, advising attorneys or judges to assist Lea’s – or anyone else’s – claim to goods once owned by the state.
If those laws stand, Brainerd said, every rare treasure discovered at an auction or garage sale could be susceptible to a lawsuit.
But that, he said, isn’t the most important point.
“Depriving a citizen of personal property without process, well, that’s something that is reprehensible to Americans,” he said.
Gary Lea’s only hope is to win the legal battle he began.
For now, the state of New Hampshire enjoys an advantage he doesn’t – a taxpayer-provided bankroll that will fund the fight as long as the attorney general wants.
Lea has lawyers and bills to pay.
Without a ruling from the court, the ownership issue won’t be settled and the market value of the plate would be damaged, Lea’s attorney Myers said.
“Doing nothing is a win for New Hampshire by default,” he said.
Experts disagree about who engraved the plate.
They can’t say for sure when it was even in New Hampshire last.
Who knows how it found its way to Cohen.
Heaven only knows how it wound up on an auction table in Fillmore County, lying among sets of dishes.
There appears to be only one thing everyone agrees about.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-05-06-11 1706GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Ownership of the printing plate used to print this 1775 New Hampshire currency is in dispute. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Early American History Auctions Inc.
Panoramic view of the Hong Kong skyline taken from a path around Victoria Peak. Dec. 13, 2007 photo by David Iliff, licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, whose terms may be viewed online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License. MIAMI (AP) – The company that owns Art Basel Miami Beach is expanding into Asia.
MCH Swiss Exhibition (Basel) Ltd. owns and organizes the annual Miami Beach art fair, as well as Art Basel Switzerland. The company announced Friday that it has signed a purchase agreement with the owners of ART HK – Hong Kong International Art Fair.
The Hong Kong show will keep its name for 2012, but it will move from late May to early February. That puts it between Art Basel’s June fair in Switzerland and its December fair in Miami Beach.
Organizers plan to eventually rename the Asia show Art Basel Hong Kong.
Art Basel Switzerland is considered the most prestigious contemporary art fair in the world. Its co-directors tell The Miami Herald they’re hoping to strengthen the Art Basel brand.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-05-07-11 1550GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Panoramic view of the Hong Kong skyline taken from a path around Victoria Peak. Dec. 13, 2007 photo by David Iliff, licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, whose terms may be viewed online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License.
Three deities are represented in this bronze Hindu altar, which stands 6 inches high. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Bill Hood & Sons Arts & Antiques Auctions. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – The altar on C.K. Hiranya Gowda’s kitchen counter is small but elegant.
There’s a small sandalwood sculpture of Sri Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu deity, along with other small sculptures of Hanuman and Devi, two other deities.
A small oil lamp burns near the altar. Fresh flowers and fruit are set out as offerings.
Every day Gowda, a retired ear, nose and throat doctor, starts his day with prayer and meditation in front of the altar. It’s a practice he learned from his parents while growing up in rural India. Every day his prayer is the same.
“I pray that God gives me the strength to do the best I can do,” Gowda said.
The Vishnu exhibit at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts is bringing attention to home shrines or altars. Gowda’s altar is one of five local Hindu home shrines featured, and it’s on display till the end of May. But Hindus aren’t alone in their practice: Buddhists, Catholics and even a Nashville Lutheran use them for worship.
The exhibit gives local Hindus a chance to give their neighbors a glimpse into the day-to-day practice of their religion, Gowda said.
“It’s a gift to everyone,” he said.
Ann Taylor, curator of interpretation at the Frist, helped organize the home shrine display. She has been impressed by how local Hindus make space for their faith despite the hectic pace of modern life.
“They don’t make worship a big deal,” she said. “It is part of their day-to-day life.”
Personal shrines aren’t limited to the home, said Bill Harman, professor of religion and philosophy at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.
Harman said that shrines are often also set up at workplaces. He has seen them in restaurants and even in taxicabs. The shrines often include photos of spiritual teachers – Gowda’s altar, for example, includes a photo of Sathya Sai Baba, a guru from India who died last week.
The shrines provide a sense of identity for families, Harman said. Most families will begin the day with some kind of ritual at the altars. He said that at times in India’s past, worship at public temples was banned. But that didn’t stop worship at home.
“The home altar is really quite critical,” Harman said. “Over the centuries, it’s the home altar that kept Hinduism alive.”
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Lutheran uses one
Eric Ryniker, a member of First Lutheran Church in downtown Nashville, set up an altar in his home several years ago. At the time, Ryniker had just started practicing a pattern of regular daily prayers known as the Divine Office. His altar started simple – a table with some prayer books on it. Now he has icons of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and two saints, along with his Bible and a photo of his daughter.
He said that having an altar helps him take his mind off the worries and distractions of life and allows him to focus on his prayers.
“When I sit there before the icons and pray the ancient prayers of the church, not only am I free from the distractions and occupations of my daily life, but it is almost as though I am stepping outside of the world,” he said.
While home shrines are common among Catholics, Ryniker said that some of his fellow Protestants are uncomfortable with them because of the biblical injunction against graven images.
He said that he doesn’t worship the icons that are part of his shrine. And he points out that an early church gathering known as the 7th Ecumenical Council – held in the 8th century – approved of icons.
“Because of the incarnation, they said it was OK to have earthly things as a part of spiritual life,” he said.
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‘My silent space’
Lisa Ernst, who teaches Buddhist meditation in Nashville, also has a home altar, with a Buddha and an incense burner on it. For her, the altar is a reminder that mediation is an important part of her life.
“It is like I am honoring the practice by setting aside that space,” she said. “There is a pragmatic side to it: You are saying this is my silent space.”
Gowda credits his daily rituals and prayers for helping him keep an even keel during his career as a doctor. He specialized in treating cancer patients, which often involved long surgeries, requiring him to keep his focus for hours at a time.
Sometimes he’d include his patients in his daily prayers.
He also said the altar reminds him that spiritual peace matters more than material rewards. As a doctor, he said, he was often tempted to buy a bigger house or fancier cars as signs of his success. None of that matters when we die, he said.
“At the end, nobody can take anything with them,” he said. “God said, come along. If you bring anything with you, you are too heavy for me.”
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-05-08-11 1607GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Three deities are represented in this bronze Hindu altar, which stands 6 inches high. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Bill Hood & Sons Arts & Antiques Auctions.
Author Willa Cather’s childhood home is located in Red Cloud, Neb. Built circa 1878, it is on the National Register of Historic Places. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. RED CLOUD, Neb. (AP) – When Guide Rock’s International Order of Odd Fellows Opera House opened in 1905, it was indicative of the optimism spreading across Nebraska at that time.
“Guide Rock built their opera house in 1905, when the town had 419 people, and they built an opera house that had 400 seats in it,” said Jay Yost, president emeritus of the Willa Cather Foundation board of governors. “To me that was the height of optimism, because it’s not as if you’re going to get the same 400 people in town for four performances, so they thought the town would get much bigger. It just showed you what people thought would happen with their towns.”
That opera house in Guide Rock is just one of 63 from across Nebraska represented by the Yost/Leak collection of postcards and memorabilia displayed in the Red Cloud Opera House. The total collection includes more than 200 opera houses. The collection will return to the Red Cloud Opera House Aug. 15 and remain in the gallery until Sept. 10.
Yost, who grew up in Red Cloud, now is a New York City banker. He discussed the collection and the opera houses in “Social Networking 1890: Nebraska Opera Houses in their Heyday,” a presentation he made as part of the 56th annual Willa Cather Spring Conference.
“Now we have Twitter and Facebook and all those ways for people to connect,” he said during an interview.
“Back in the 1890s and 1910s, one of the major ways people were able to connect with other people was getting together at the opera house. That was for community plays or weddings or dances as well as performances by traveling troops or musical companies or opera companies. Things like that.”
Stephany Thompson, director of foundation programming, said the Yost/Leak collection provides a local context to the overall theme of the annual Willa Cather conference.
“I think it brings a sense of what the state of Nebraska’s history of popular culture was,” she said. “I think many of the topics discussed in the conference will be of an international theme. The fact that we have a collection of Nebraska postcards really brings it to back to this state, to this area.”
Yost began collecting artifacts relating to pre-World War I performance spaces in Nebraska and Kansas around 2000.
“I got on the Cather Board in the late ’90s,” he said. “We were in the process of raising money to do this restoration (of the Red Cloud Opera House), and eBay was just coming out then. I thought it would be cool to start collecting opera house memorabilia thinking someday we would want to do something like this.”
The Yost/Leak collection includes more than just postcards. In the Opera House gallery now there are souvenirs such as spoons from the Arapahoe Opera House.
“Again, it shows you how important the thing was when they were doing commemorative souvenirs of these places, because it was one of the places in town that somebody would want to remember,” Yost said. He said at one time there were 513 documented opera houses in Nebraska. A study in the late 1980s showed only about 25 percent of those opera houses remained by then and only about 25 percent of those hadn’t been significantly damaged.
“For me it’s just sad that so many small towns don’t have a place to come together now,” Yost said. “You might have a community hall, but there’s really no soul to it. You can’t put on a performance, or we have had the prom dinner here the last couple of years, so people are recreating those memories three generations down the road.”
All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-05-06-11 2248GMT
ADDITIONAL IAMGE OF NOTE
Author Willa Cather’s childhood home is located in Red Cloud, Neb. Built circa 1878, it is on the National Register of Historic Places. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
A milestone in Columbus, Ohio, marks the path of the National Road. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
CUMBERLAND, Md. (AP) – The city of Cumberland held a parade Saturday to mark the 200th birthday of the nation’s first federally funded interstate highway.
A National Road bicentennial parade was held Saturday. The event included a caravan of antique wagons and vehicles arriving from Vandalia, Ill.
The parade culminated in the groundbreaking for commemorative marker. On Sunday, a time capsule was sealed.
The National Road ran from Cumberland to Vandalia, Ill. along a route largely followed today by U.S. 40.
It connected in Cumberland to the National Pike, leading to Baltimore.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-05-07-11 0823GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
A milestone in Columbus, Ohio, marks the path of the National Road. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
A retrospective of Japanese ceramic shapes is pictured on this Satsuma lidded jar made about 1920. The 10-inch jar with a lid sold for $7,000 at a Leland Little auction in Hillsborough, N.C.
Gold is selling for very high prices today, but porcelain was more precious than gold in 17th-century Europe. Thin white porcelain was first made in China in the 10th century, but it wasn’t seen in Europe until 1260, when some pieces were brought back by Marco Polo. It was treasured as a rarity and valued like gold, but Europeans couldn’t figure out how it was made. In 1700 Augustus the Strong, the Elector of Saxony (Germany), heard that Johann Bottger, an 18-year-old German, was trying to make gold from base metals. Augustus kept Bottger a prisoner in Dresden to make gold. At the same time, another scientist with the long name Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus was working to discover the secret of the other treasure, porcelain. Tschirnhaus and Bottger were told to work together, and porcelain was finally created in 1713. Augustus was pleased and built a royal porcelain factory in the city of Meissen. But the secret of porcelain was out, and it soon was made in many countries. For centuries, Bottger was credited with the discovery of porcelain, but now research suggests it was really Tschirnhaus. Many types of ceramics – majolica, stoneware, bone china, ironstone and pottery – were soon being used in households for tasks like cooking and storing. Decorations included ceramic figurines and tiles. It is not surprising that artists sometimes pay homage to ceramics in the designs they create on ceramics. Well-known designs include a famous Chinese pattern picturing urns and vases, a Japanese Satsuma lidded jar picturing Asian ceramics from many different centuries, and English and American dinnerware sets decorated with examples of 1950s dishes.
Q: A few years ago, I bought a 27-inch round mahogany side table at a local antiques shop. It stands on four square tapered legs and has a fluted set of four drawers all around it. Only one of the drawers is real. The other three are false drawers. There’s a metal label inside the real drawer that reads “Kittinger Authentic Handmade.” Please tell me its history and value.
A: Kittinger Furniture Co. has been in business in Buffalo, N.Y., since 1866. It has a reputation for making high-quality furniture in traditional styles. If you bought your table “a few years ago,” it’s worth about 20 percent less than what you paid then. Prices for many vintage furniture pieces have not gone up in the last few years. We have seen tables like yours selling for $200 to $500. Older pieces in excellent condition sell for a little less.
Q: I would like information about a liquor decanter I was given about 20 years ago. It’s in the shape of a sailboat. The bottom of the decanter is marked “Famous Firsts, Edition No. 5, 1851 Yacht America, 1970, R.E.M. Originals.” Is it valuable?
A: Famous Firsts Ltd. of Port Chester, N.Y., made limited edition figural liquor decanters from 1968 until 1985. The initials on the bottom of your bottle are those of Richard E. Magid, the owner of Famous Firsts. The designs were based on “famous firsts,”like the first yacht race. In 1851, the yacht America won the first race between the United States and England in what became known as the America’s Cup. The name honors the winner of the first race. Other Famous Firsts decanters include famous cars, planes, ships, phonographs, sewing machines and telephones. Your decanter sold for $50 when it was new. The value of figural ceramic liquor bottles have plummeted, though, and it’s worth about $25 or less today.
Q: We have a porcelain plate, approximately 17 inches in diameter, that has a hand-painted scene of trees and of ducks swimming in a pond. The bottom is marked “LM & Cie Montereau.” The plate has been in our family for about 70 years. Can you tell us who made it?
A: The “LM & Cie” mark was used by Leboeuf, Milliet & Co. of Creil and Montereau, France. The company was founded in 1841 by Louis Martin Leboeuf (1792-1854) and Jean Baptiste Gratien Milliet (1797-1875) and was in business until 1895.
Q: I have a metal Coca-Cola sign that I’m curious about. It’s shaped like a bottle, 37 inches high and 11 1/2 inches wide. On the bottle are the words, “Trade Mark Registered, Bottle Pat’d Dec. 25, 1923.” On the bottom of the bottle it says “Made in U.S.A., American Art Works Inc., Coshocton, Ohio.”
A: The patent issued on Dec. 25, 1923, was for the contoured shape of the bottle. This was a renewal of a 1912 patent for the shape, which is sometimes called a “hobbleskirt” because it’s the shape of a woman in a hobbleskirt. Bottles with this patent are sometimes called “Christmas bottles.” American Art Works was in business in Coshocton from 1909 to 1950. The company made blotters, calendars, fans, signs, trays and other advertising items for various companies. The sign must have been used in the 1930s and ’40s.
Q: I have a Konwal lighter with “Operations Directorate” on the cap and a “Joint Chiefs of Staff” emblem on the body. It is 4 inches high. I would appreciate any information you can tell me about it.
A: Konwal is a company in Japan that made lighters with military insignia in the 1950s and ’60s. The insignias were glued on. Prices for Konwal lighters today range from $10 to $80. Lighters with etched military symbols were made by Zippo Manufacturing Co. Zippo made lighters exclusively for the military during World War II, and millions of lighters were issued to military personnel. Prices for Zippo military lighters start at $15 and go up from there.
Tip: Never store photographs with rubber bands or paper clips. Store photos in acid-free boxes or envelopes, available at specialty stores and through mail-order catalogs.
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CURRENT PRICES
Current prices are recorded from antiques shows, flea markets, sales and auctions throughout the United States. Prices vary in different locations because of local economic conditions.
Holly Hobbie Mother’s Day plate, “A Mother’s Love Blooms Forever,” Calico Girl with patchwork umbrella sitting on stool, 1976, 10 1/2 inches, $15.
Crinoline petticoat, pink net, two gathered layers of net, lace trim on hem, 1950s, 24-inch waist, $90.
Playpal Lori Martin doll, National Velvet outfit, blue sleep eyes, long brown hair, red plaid shirt, cowgirl boots and hat, Ideal, 30 inches, $175.
Lucite ice bucket, octagonal, lid pivots on post, circa 1970, 9 1/2 x 8 inches, $395.
Hooked rug, pudgy purple pony surrounded by stars and tulips, two large parrots, cotton and wool, black and cream ground, circa 1930, 40 x 24 inches, $410.
Louis XVI-style window bench, carved scrolled arms, caned side panels and seat, gilt and gold painted surface, fluted legs, 1900s, 31 x 40 x 16 inches, $745.
Herb grinder, cast-iron grinding wheel, trough in pine frame, grooved legs, floor model, American, 19th century, 19 1/2 x 26 inches, $1,410.
Spot great costume jewelry faster than anyone and get the buys of a lifetime. Kovels’ Buyers’ Guide to Costume Jewelry, Part One explains how to recognize mid-century costume jewelry, Mexican silver jewelry, modernist jewelry and other European and American pieces. Learn all the names you need to know, from Hobe and Sigi to Ed Wiener and Art Smith, from Coro and Trifari to Los Castillo and Spratling. And we explain how to recognize a good piece of genuine Bakelite. Our exclusive report, 8 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches, is filled with color photos, bios, background and more than 100 marks. It’s accurate and comprehensive and includes all of the information in our 2008 report on 20th-century costume jewelry. But it’s in a new, smaller and more convenient format. Available only from Kovels. Order by phone at 800-303-1996, online at Kovels.com, or send $25 plus $4.95 postage and handling to Kovels, Box 22900, Beachwood, OH 44122.
U.S. National Archives Building, Constitution Avenue facade, Washington D.C. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. WASHINGTON (AFP) – The U.S. National Archives on Thursday launched an international database of Nazi-era documents that officials said will make it easier to recover plundered Jewish artifacts.
The International Research Portal for Records Related to Nazi-Era Cultural Property will work with the National Archives of the United Kingdom, the Federal Archives of Germany, the State Archives of Belgium, the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, and various other groups to display millions of pages of detailed images.
The creators said that the site will catalog cultural property that was stolen, looted, seized, forcibly sold, or otherwise lost during the Holocaust, in the hope of reuniting the lost objects with their rightful owners.
The property documented in the records, the National Archives said, runs the gamut from artwork to books to religious objects, antiquities, archival documents, carvings, and other artifacts.
“At the forefront of Holocaust restitution research efforts for over 15 years, the U.S. National Archives has strived to identify its records and to make them widely available and accessible to all,” said David Ferriero, archivist of the United States.
He said the new portal will help individuals and institutions recover their precious stolen assets.
“Researchers from all over the world will now be able to use a single point of entry to gain digital access to these widely dispersed archival materials,” he said at a ceremony Thursday.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
U.S. National Archives Building, Constitution Avenue facade, Washington D.C. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
‘The Illustrator,’ one of two scarce Edward Hopper etchings in the sale, inscribed by Hopper to an artist friend. Estimate: $20,000-$25,000. Image courtesy of Case Antiques Inc. Auction & Appraisals. KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – A piece of rock ’n’ roll history, two Edward Hopper etchings and a rare first model Henry Rifle are among the eclectic offerings at the Spring Case Antiques Auction, set for May 21 at the company’s gallery in Knoxville. LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding.
The Meet the Beatles! album, containing the Beatle’s first U.S. chart-topping hit I Want to Hold Your Hand, was released in 1964 just ahead of the band’s first U.S. tour. It came from the estate of Dr. Jules Gordon, the New York physician who treated George Harrison for strep throat on Feb. 8, 1964, the day before their American television debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. Both album and autographed cover are in very good condition and are accompanied by a New York Times article mentioning Gordon’s treatment of Harrison. The lot is estimated at $10,000-$15,000.
Two etchings by American artist Edward Hopper (1882-1967), The Illustrator/Portrait of Walter Tittle and Don Quixote, are also expected to garner attention. They are among seventy intaglio works produced by Hopper between 1915 and 1928 before he turned exclusively to painting, and both are inscribed by Hopper to his friend and fellow artist, Arthur Hosking (American, 1874-1970). Also from Hosking’s estate are four vibrantly colored woodcuts by Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt (1878-1955), a Swedish-American artist who invented a method of printing more than one color with a single impression.
Other fine art in the sale includes a panoramic rendering of St. Mark’s square from the Grand Canal in Venice by Warren W. Sheppard (American, 1858-1937), a harbor scene and landscape by Charles Paul Gruppe (Canadian, 1860-1940), an abstract drawing with dog by Roy Dean De Forest (American, 1930-2007), and a nude screenprint, Helen, by Tom Wesselmann (American, 1931-2004). Regional artists represented include painters Robert Rucker (American, Louisiana, 1932-2001), Eliot Candee Clark (American, 1883-1980), John Wood Dodge (New York/Tennessee 1807-1893), Lloyd Branson (Tennessee, 1861-1925), Louis Edward Jones (American, 1878-?), and George Daniel Hoffman (American/South Carolina, 1915-1999), and sculptor Thomas Puryear Mims (American/Tennessee, 1906-1975).
A Henry repeating rifle, serial number 5217, with history relating to the Battle of Bull’s Gap in East Tennessee, leads a large offering of Civil War related material. Henry rifles, used primarily by Union forces, were made from the late 1850s through 1866, with only 14,000 produced. This one retains an old, probably original patina. A number of other Civil War firearms, swords, excavated relics, letters and documents are also included in the sale, along with an oil portrait by George Dury of Confederate Maj. Gen. Daniel Smith Donelson, for whom Tennessee’s pivotal Fort Donelson was named. Dating even earlier is a Revolutionary War period powder horn, inscribed with the name of Sgt. John Heister and elaborately carved with a scenic view of Philadelphia and its harbor. World War II items, including Thanksgiving and Christmas Day menus from the U.S.S. Arizona, are also featured.
The success of Asian material at Case’s recent auctions has prompted an influx of consignments of Chinese and Japanese material for this sale. There is a century-old collection of Asian carved ivory netsukes and okimono figures, a large collection of Ojime beads including an outstanding Shibayama (ivory inlaid with mother of pearl) example, early Republic porcelain, woodblock prints and a fine Chinese lacquer and hardstone four-panel floor screen.
Four recently discovered pieces of redware from a previously unrepresented 19th-century Tennessee pottery family, the Morts, leads the category of Southern arts, a staple at Case. Several other lots of Tennessee pottery are accompanied by a miniature Himer Fox (North Carolina) jug, and a Washington County, Va., cobalt stoneware jug decorated with the profile of a man with muttonchop sideburns. There are also two rare Tennessee needlework samplers including the first Nashville-made one ever to come on the market, two rare state maps, and a good selection of early 19th century Southern furniture.
Among the 70-plus lots of fine silver are a Federal/Classical silver basket by Harvey Lewis of Philadelphia, coin silver flatware, and a sterling compote with figural mounts by New York silversmith John Cann. Other decorative arts highlights include two plates in Haviland’s Flora and Fauna pattern designed for the President Hayes administration, a scarce Quezal art glass vine vase, a Loetz iridescent snake vase, an early Swiss Perrelet gold pocket watch, and several lots of high quality 19th century French giltwood furniture and signed 19th and 20th century garden antiques. The sale also includes a collection of early fire fighting memorabilia, numerous pieces of 19th and early 20th century campaign/political memorabilia, a collection of Victorian sewing material, a collection of signed Miriam Haskell jewelry, and a collection of 19th century antique bicycles including two early French boneshakers.
“This is certainly one of our most eclectic sales to date in terms of categories, but what ties everything together is good quality, condition, and in many cases, stellar provenance,” said Case. “There are enough things in this auction you’re unlikely to ever see again to make it a destination point for collectors, even at a busy time of year. And of course we accept phone, absentee written and Internet bids from those who can’t attend in person.”
The auction will be held at Case’s gallery in the historic Cherokee Mills Building, 2240 Sutherland Ave., in Knoxville, on Saturday, May 21, starting at 9:30 a.m. Eastern. Food is available. A preview will take place on Friday, May 20, from noon to 6 p.m. or by appointment.
For more information visit Case Antiques’ website www,caseantiques com or call the gallery in Knoxville at (865) 558-3033 or the Nashville office at (615) 812-6096.
A Civil War era first Model Henry rifle, with old, probably original patina, found near the Bull’s Gap battlefield in Tennessee. Estimate: $17,500-19,500. Image courtesy of Case Antiques Inc. Auction & Appraisals.Warren W. Sheppard (American, 1858-1937) was noted for his Venice scenes. This panoramic view, in its original period frame measuring 55 inches by 37 inches, is one of his largest and most finely detailed renditions. Estimate: $8,000-$10,000. Image courtesy of Case Antiques Inc. Auction & Appraisals.Fine Chinese lacquer and hardstone four-panel floor screen, with gilt narrative calligraphy on the reverse. Estimate: $4,000-$6,000. Image courtesy of Case Antiques Inc. Auction & Appraisals.Virginia cobalt decorated stoneware jug, one of several pieces of fine Southern pottery in the auction. Estimate: $3,000-$4,000. Image courtesy of Case Antiques Inc. Auction & Appraisals.An early French boneshaker, one of several antique bicycles from a lifetime collection featured in the sale. Estimate: $1,500-$2,500. Image courtesy of Case Antiques Inc. Auction & Appraisals.
