Prince Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein with one of his favorite acquisitions in the family collection, the 18th-century Badminton Cabinet with delicate pietra dura in semi-precious stone and gilt bronze sculptures. Photo courtesy Liechtenstein Museum. For Prince Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein, collecting is not just an interest. It is a family responsibility he first experienced as a young adult in the 1970s when he made the difficult decision to sell Frans Hals’ portrait of Willem van Heythuysen.
“This sale caused something of an uproar in Liechtenstein at the time, but it enabled me – straight after finishing my studies at the age of 24 – to reorganize and rebuild the princely estate and assets,” recalled the prince.
It couldn’t have been easy at that age to become the keeper of a collection assembled as far back at the 17th century. Flush with Old Master paintings from the 14th to 18th centuries, with concentrations in Flemish and Biedermeier paintings, the collection lacked in sculpture and furniture. Several very fine paintings were sold for cash after World War II, including Leonardo DaVinci’s Portrait of Ginevra de’Benci sold to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in 1967.
In celebration of the Prince’s 65th birthday, 140 pieces from the family collection are on exhibit at Liechtenstein Museum, known as the Garden Palace, in Vienna. The exhibit demonstrates 30-plus years of diligent work on the part of the Price to close gaps in the collection.
The prince admits to more interest in the sciences, but has taken pleasure in rebuilding and upgrading the family collection. He points to Erasmus Habermehl’s Equatorial Annular Sundial as a piece that combines the latest technical and mathematical knowledge of its time into a work of art.
“My interest and understanding have grown, although I am still an amateur,” said the prince modestly. “Apart from this, I realized pretty early on that buying works of art can be a very good investment, if one understands something about it. That’s why I always get the advice of experts when buying works of art.”
Part of this exhibit will be shown in Vaduz at the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein from Sept. 24 to Jan. 16, 2011. To see more of the collection visit www.liechtensteinmuseum.at
Auction Companies Expand
In this uncertain economic climate it is heartening to hear that two of the German auction houses are expanding. Both Van Ham Kunstauktionen, Cologne, and Herrmann Historica, Munich, are adding staff to represent them in a wider geographical territory.
Art Expert Pia von Buchwaldt joins Van Ham as their new representative in Hamburg. She will be available at Alsterrufer 33 to answer any questions potential buyers or sellers have about their collections, and has already held her first “expert day.” www.van-ham.com
Hermann Historica welcomes Nicholas McCullough, former director of the Arms and Armor Department at Christies, as their new London representative in a new strategic alliance with Bloomsbury Auctions und Dreweatts, London, New York und Rome. Likewise Bloomsbury, known for their antique books, manuscripts and graphics, will have representation in the German speaking auction world through Hermann Historica’s militaria auction house in Munich. Both auction houses are pleased about their new international cooperative work, but plan no future business merger. www.hermann-historica.com
Other News
Doebele Galerie + Kunstauktionen, Kunstgut Effeldorf, celebrates our love of the feline form in art with a new exhibit and sale, Cats – Strange and Fascinating, Feb. 24 through April 30. www.fine-art-doebele.de
Pop Life. Warhol, Haring, Koons, Hirst, now to Sept. 5, Galerie der Gegenwart, Glockengießerwall. www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de
Now to March 13 Ketterer Kunst shows Tom Wesselmann – Graphic Work in their gallery in Berlin-Charlottenburg. The presented work comes from the collection of New Yorker Paul Rothman. www.kettererkunst.de
Schmidt Kunstauktionen, Dresden, starts the new auction year on March 13 with an offering of 850 objects of art, porcelain, glass and furnishings from the 18th to 21st centuries. www.schmidt-auktionen.de
Van Ham Art Expert Pia von Buchwaldt. Photo courtesy Van Ham Kunstauktionen. Hermann Historica London Representative, Nicholas McCullough. Photo courtesy and copyright Hermann Historica OHG, 2010. Lithograph Katze circa 1920 by Otto Lange, 1879-1944. Photo courtesy Doebele Galerie + Kunstauktion.
An American freelance writer, Heidi Lux grew up near Rochester, N.Y., and is a graduate of that city’s Nazareth College. She presently lives in Saxony, Germany, where she works as an English language editor and private tutor. Her work has appeared in Transitions Abroad and German Life magazines, as well as Style Century Magazine.
This young maiden is a Royal Dux figurine made after 1900. It is marked with a raised pink triangle that includes the company name. It sold for $675 by Early Auction Co., Milford, Ohio, this past fall.
American collectors often nickname companies, so the Duxer Porzellanmanfactur is better known as Royal Dux. The porcelain factory was started by E. Eichler in Dux, Bohemia (now Duchov, Czech Republic), in 1860. It specialized in art nouveau porcelain figurines, busts of attractive maidens and ornate vases with 3-D figures climbing up the sides. It remained in business through World War I, World War II and the Nazi occupation, the forming of Czechoslovakia and the split into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. The company has made more than 12,000 different figures and vases. It is now selecting some old pieces to be made again and sold on the collectibles market. Old pieces are clearly marked with variations of the words “Royal Dux” or an acorn in a triangle or circle.
Q: About 10 years ago, my wife and I bought four cafe-style bentwood chairs marked “Mundus, made in Poland, fabrique en Pologne.” There’s a patent date, “Sept. 22, ’14,” on the metal leg brackets. The dark finish appears to be original. We paid about $100 for all four chairs. We’re curious about the chairs’ maker and their value.
A: Mundus was a German conglomerate formed when Leopold Pilzer (1871-1959), an Austrian banker, consolidated 16 small chair manufacturing companies around the turn of the 20th century. It competed with Thonet and Jacob & Josef Kohn, two large chair companies that later merged with Mundus (Kohn in 1914 and Thonet in 1923). Your chairs were made before the Kohn merger, so they date from between about 1900 and 1914. If they’re in excellent condition, each one could sell for a few hundred dollars.
Q: I received an Anne Shirley Effanbee doll for Christmas in 1940. I still have her. She is 21 inches tall, has her original blond wig and is wearing her original dress, slip, panties, socks and shoes. What do you think she’s worth today?
A: Anne Shirley (1918-1993) was a popular American actress during the late 1930s and early 1940s. She was born Dawn Evelyeen Paris and began her acting career at the age of 5. After portraying the fictional character Anne Shirley in the 1934 movie, Anne of Green Gables, she changed her name to Anne Shirley. Effanbee made Anne Shirley dolls in four sizes from 1935 to 1940. Yours, the second-largest size, sells today for $350-$400 if it’s in excellent condition. With the original box, it would sell for nearly twice that.
Q: My father was in law enforcement until he was killed in an accident in 1942. My mother received a condolence letter on FBI letterhead from J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director. He signed his own signature, but the letter is typed. What would the letter sell for?
A: J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) was director of the FBI from the time of its founding in 1935 until he died. His autograph on a typed letter retails for about $175. If you were to sell it to a dealer, you could expect to get about half that. Of course, an expert has to look at the letter to make sure it was signed by Hoover himself and not an assistant or a secretary.
Q: My 85-year-old mother-in-law gave us a pewter basket that belonged to her great-grandmother. It is marked “Aurora SP Mfg. Co.” We can’t find anything about it on the Internet. Can you tell us who made it and how old it is?
A: The mark was used on silver-plated hollowware made by Aurora Silver Plate Co. of Aurora, Ill. The company was in business from 1869 until 1919. Your pewter basket was originally silver-plated. Most old silver plate was made on britannia, which is a type of pewter. When the finish is worn off, the base pewter can be seen.
Q: I have a metronome that my parents bught in the early 1920s. It is made of dark wood and has a gold-colored hexagonal medallion on the front with “Metronome de Maelzel” in the middle and the words “France, Amerique, Belgique, Paris, Holland, Angleterre” along the outside edges of the hexagon. I would like to know if it is a valuable antique.
A: Metronomes have been used by musicians since the 1800s. Some were made by clockmakers, since the metronome operated on a pendulum. Attempts to make a device to measure tempo were made as early as the late 1600s, but the first successful metronome was invented by Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel in Amsterdam in 1812. Johann Nepomuk Maelzel made a similar device and was granted a patent for the Maelzel Metronome in 1816. The “MM” numbers on music indicate the number of beats per minute. Digital metronomes were introduced in the late 1970s and are more accurate than the pendulum type. Today you can even use an online metronome to help you keep time when practicing. Most old metronomes are sold to people who want to use them and sell for about the same as new ones.
Tip: Do not use transparent tape or other sticky tapes on paper. Even if the tape is removed, the paper will eventually discolor from the contact with the glue.
Terry Kovel answers as many questions as possible through the column. By sending a letter with a question, you give full permission for use in the column or any other Kovel forum. Names, addresses or e-mail addresses will not be published. We cannot guarantee the return of any photograph, but if a stamped envelope is included, we will try. The volume of mail makes personal answers or appraisals impossible. Write to Kovels, Auction Central News, King Features Syndicate, 300 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019.
Need more information about collectibles? Find it at Kovels.com, our Web site for collectors. Check prices there, too. More than 700,000 are listed, and viewing them is free. You can also sign up to read our weekly Kovels Komments. It includes the latest news, tips and questions and is delivered by e-mail, free, if you register. Kovels.com offers extra collector’s information and lists of publications, clubs, appraisers, auction houses, people who sell parts or repair antiques and much more. You can subscribe to Kovels on Antiques and Collectibles, our monthly newsletter filled with prices, facts and color photos. Kovels.com adds to the information in our newspaper column and helps you find useful sources needed by collectors.
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.
Double cherubs holding napkin ring, marked “Original made by Meriden Co.,” with hallmark, $115.
Hires baseball scorecard, celluloid, two-sided, trademark Josh Singer soda jerk, 3 1/8 x 2 1/2 inches, $302.
Staffordshire ironstone roasted meat platter, oval, Lakeside Pavilion design, gray transfer, overglazed in salmon and terra-cotta, 1890s, 21 x 17 1/2 inches, $320.
Felix the Cat sparkler toy, metal, mechanical, black-and-white Felix with big smile, copyright by Pat Sullivan, 1930s, 5 1/2 x 3 3/8 inches, $330.
Fraktur, bird, spray of flowers, written text, made for Johannes Hill, born Nov. 14, 1822, Pennsylvania, 13 x 10 inches, $335.
American patriotic shield, polychrome on wood, 13 stars over 13 stripes, “1861-1865” in gilt, 36 x 28 1/2 inches, $1,195.
Louisiana walnut plantation chair, shaped crest with back-scrolled terminal, leather back and seat, scroll arms, curule base, turned supports, early 19th century, $2,985.
Newcomb College pottery vase, panels of blue spider chrysanthemum blooms under glaze, marked, 1902, 8 7/8 inches, $4,480.
Einco googly doll, lever to adjust eyes from right to left, composition baby body, blond human-hair wig, marked “Heubach,” 16 inches, $5,750.
Identify your pottery and porcelain. Kovels’ New Dictionary of Marks: Pottery and Porcelain, 1850 to the Present pictures more than 3,500 marks found on 19th- and 20th-century American, European and Asian pottery and porcelain. It includes factory dates, locations and other information. Marks are sorted by shape, and there’s a special section on date-letter codes and factory “family trees.” Available online at Kovelsonlinestore.com; at your bookstore; by phone at 800-571-1555; or send $19 plus $4.95 postage to Kovels, Box 22900, Beachwood, OH 44122.
This rare large-scale bowl (D. 15 inches) was designed and carved by Walter Anderson and glazed by his brother Peter around 1930. Decorated with bacchantes and grapes, the example sold for $23,900 at the Louisiana Purchase Auction in November. Image courtesy Neal Auction Co. When the Antiques Roadshow stops at Biloxi, Miss., collectors will be visually reminded of the region’s great legacy of art and studio pottery. The ceramics made at Newcomb College in New Orleans and by Biloxi’s own “Mad Potter” George Ohr are well known, but many people are less familiar with the beautiful creations of the Shearwater Pottery in nearby Ocean Springs.
Several variables distinguish Shearwater’s output from other wares. The pottery was founded in 1928, decades after the beginning of local firms like Newcomb and Ohr or of national companies like Grueby and Rookwood. Unlike classic art potteries, however, Shearwater continues to function more than 80 years later. And this continuity has been maintained because the workshop remains a family affair, run by descendants of the founding Anderson brothers.
Amanda Mantle Winstead, pottery expert at the Neal Auction Gallery in New Orleans, said, “The Shearwater Pottery was not part of the Arts and Crafts Movement. It’s all about the Anderson family. They’re an incredibly talented and creative group of people – they still are. The subsequent generations are also artists. Ocean Springs is a charming town, and the Walter Anderson Museum is absolutely wonderful. Next door is the Ocean Springs Community Center which is decorated with Walter Anderson’s amazing murals from the 1950s.”
Shearwater Pottery was founded by Peter, Walter and Mac Anderson in 1928. The brothers were inspired by their mother Annette McConnell Anderson, an artist who had studied at Newcomb College. The eldest brother, Peter, studied pottery-making techniques with various masters and at Alfred University in New York state. He learned how to throw on the wheel, make molds and create the colorful glazes used on the vessels. Younger brothers Walter and Mac decorated the pieces with carved patterns and painted designs.
Today Walter Inglis Anderson (1903-1965) is by far the best-known of the three siblings, because he was also a prolific watercolor and mural artist, noted for depicting the colorful wildlife and environments of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Plagued by mental illness from the 1930s on, Anderson often retreated to islands off the coast with only survival gear. His intensely original and stylized depictions of marine life, birds and animals are highly sought-after by collectors.
His work has been the subject of major retrospectives, and both the paintings and family pottery have a permanent home in the Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs. These works also appear on the national art market and in local auctions in New Orleans. As far as the pottery is concerned, Amanda Winstead noted, “If you can connect Walter Anderson to it – if you know he decorated the piece – that is what pulls it into the next level.”
At Neal’s Louisiana Purchase Auction in November 2009, such a work – a circa 1930 bowl with a carved decoration of grapes and dancing bacchantes – sold for $23,900. Winstead points out, “For Shearwater, that was an exceptionally large piece in a form they had not been known to have existed before. The owner of it showed it to the family and they were very excited about it. The museum wants to borrow it. That was a piece that Walter Anderson had designed and carved.”
Douglas Myatt, director of Collections and Exhibitions at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, agrees, “That’s a phenomenal piece. We have a sister piece in the collection. It’s the same shape, but it was carved by their youngest brother Mac. It’s reticulated – he carved filigree around the edges – it’s pretty outstanding.
“We have quite a collection of pieces from the very earliest days – probably even before Shearwater actually opened, when Peter was doing test firings – to current things. It runs the gamut.”
In addition to the examples with carved decorations, the pottery produced charming bowls and vases painted with naturalistic motifs similar to those found in Walter Anderson’s paintings.
Collectors can learn more about the pottery and its output in two references. Dreaming in Clay by Christopher Maurer and Maria Estrella Iglesias is a comprehensive history of the pottery and its artists. The couple also provide information and a timeline at the Web site dreaminginclay.com. Shearwater Pottery by Dod Stewart with Marjorie Anderson Ashley and Earl Lamar Denham is filled with magnificent illustrations of the range of wares produced in Ocean Springs.
Stewart has a lifelong interest in Shearwater: “We used to spend our summers on the Gulf Coast, and I’ve been going over there since I was a little kid. We collected the figurines of baseball players and fairy tale figures which appealed to the kids.” The pottery’s line of figures also included a series of birds and animals.
Values for Shearwater pieces vary widely from five-figures prices for Walter Anderson’s early work to $100-$200 for later works and small figurines. Stewart stresses that every piece – from the pottery’s foundation to the present day – is an individual creation: “I think Shearwater Pottery is very under-appreciated – people don’t understand its history. It’s never been cheap because it takes a lot of time; it’s an expensive process.”
Although the museum was spared, the family compound and pottery were severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Production was disrupted for several months, but the works and its salesroom have been rebuilt and reopened. Douglas Myatt confirms, “They’re probably making more pottery now than in the last 20 years.
Learn more about Shearwater Pottery, the Anderson family, and life in Ocean Springs at the museum website walterandersonmuseum.org or call 228-872-3164.
ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
Walter Inglis Anderson (1903-1965) is best known as a watercolorist who sensitively captured the natural world of the Gulf Coast. This landscape triptych painted on Horn Island, his favorite retreat, recently brought $26,680. Image courtesy Neal Auction Co. A 1981 bowl thrown by Peter Anderson and decorated with a band of figures by Mac Anderson sold in December 2005 for $3,840. Image courtesy Neal Auction Co. Wrapped with swimming fish, this Shearwater lamp base is signed by Mac Anderson and dates to around 1930. The rare form sold for $12,925 in Neal’s December 2008 auction. Image courtesy Neal Auction Co. Walter Anderson used many of the same naturalistic themes for pottery decoration that are found in his watercolors. This shallow bowl, thrown by brother Peter Anderson, is decorated with a duck motif. It sold at auction in 2007 for $9,400. Image courtesy Neal Auction Co. A 6-inch-high vase, decorated around 1940 with the ‘Sea, Earth and Sky’ relief pattern designed by Walter Anderson, sold in 2006 for $5,875. Image courtesy Neal Auction Co. Cast by Peter Anderson circa 1950, this vase was incised and painted with a marine pattern by Walter Anderson. The Shearwater piece sold in February 2009 for $2,115. Image courtesy Neal Auction Co. A Shearwater art pottery bowl with bold black and white decoration by Mac Anderson brought $3525 at auction in 2006. Image courtesy Neal Auction Co.
Rare bronze and cut glass Baccarat centerpiece. Image courtesy Richard D. Hatch. FLAT ROCK, N.C. – A spectacular two-day estates auction will be conducted Feb. 25-26 by Richard D. Hatch & Associates, at the firm’s spacious gallery at 913 Upward Road. More than 1,300 lots in a variety of categories will cross the block, as several prominent local estates will all share top billing. LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding.
Included will be mostly fresh-to-the-market items from the estates of Theodore Weisse Jr., a decorated World War II Hump pilot; the late Southern artist George W. Beattie Jr., whose merchandise has been in storage since his death 15 years ago; and Wilfred and Francis Ogg of Hendersonville, N.C., who accumulated fine New England period furniture and other antique items. The use of the word “hump” came evolved during World War II because aircraft had to fly from India to China over world’s highest and most remote mountain range, the Himalayas.
Also sold will be the contents of Sherwood, a historical mansion in Flat Rock. Offered will be a palace-size antique Farahan-Sarouk carpet, measuring 14 feet by 25 feet 6 inches. Other wonderful rugs will also be sold, to include Heriz, Hamadan, silk Sumac Kazak and many more.
“This auction has the finest antique Oriental rugs it has ever been my privilege to offer for sale,” said Richard D. Hatch.
“This auction truly has something for everyone,” said Hatch, adding, “Even during the Great Depression, people bought fine and beautiful items. They represented an investment in culture and in history, something that could be passed down from generation to generation. I feel right now is a great time to buy. People can get so much more for their money than they could just a few years ago.”
Hatch said some of those great deals would be in the February auction, starting with the fine array of Tiffany, Pairpoint “Puffy,”, Handel, Duffner & Kimberly, Steuben and other rare and vintage lamps; then continuing with early Meissen figures, including a set of the “Four Seasons;” and other porcelains, such as Sevres, Old Paris, Herend, Limoges, Lenox, KPM plaques, Wedgwood and more.
The glassware selection will feature names like Tiffany Favrile, Steuben, Baccarat, Lalique, Loetz, Moser, Venetian and others. The array of sterling silver and silver plate offers a glimpse as to how the wealthy entertained, from sets of fine flatware to candelabra, trays to wine trolleys, Tiffany to Georg Jensen. Also sold will be a superb clock collection.
The estate jewelry is breathtaking, said Hatch. Items include a vintage platinum necklace with diamonds totaling 50 carats, an emerald and diamond necklace with earrings that total 70 carats, diamond and gemstone rings, diamond and gemstone bracelets and Rolex watches. Also to sell will be Black Forest carved items and what Hatch called “the finest New England period furniture we’ve ever had.”
Fine artwork will cover every inch of the gallery walls. Featured will be a work by Andre Gisson (New York-Connecticut, 1929-2003), best known for his landscapes, still lifes, portraits and figural paintings. Some sources cite Gisson (real name, Gittelson) as a French painter, but in fact he only claimed to be French to more closely align himself with the Impressionist movement, born in France.
Art collectors from Charleston will be treated to three original etchings by Alfred Heber Hutty (New York-South Carolina, 1877-1954), who actually worked for Tiffany Studios in Woodstock, N.Y., before moving to Charleston to be in a warmer climate. He was a leading figure in the Charleston Renaissance group of artists, active from 1915-1940. He was best known for street landscapes, genre paintings and etchings.
Other artists of note who will have works in the sale include Robert H. Nisbet, Stephen Voorhees, Maria Gianni, Leonid P. Baikov, Charles H. Hayden, M. Garms, C. Soer and Charles J. Burdick. There will also be works by Old Masters, portraits, a collection of Surrealism by Helmut Preiss, etchings by Louis Icart and Pierre Bonnard, paintings from the Hudson River School and more.
Bronzes will range from the 19th-century to Erte and feature a Bergman lamp. A nice group of Southern pottery will also be offered, to include Roseville, Rookwood, Weller and even a couple of pieces by Pablo Picasso.
Also to be sold will be samplers, quilts, coins, primitives, Biltmore Industries bellows, fine china, a collection of carved ivory, Black Americana, military items, music boxes, crystal, sconces, Art Deco items, a Roycroft signed bookcase with books, and more.
Previews will be held on Thursday and Friday, Feb. 25-26, from 1-6 p.m., and on Saturday, Feb. 27, from 9:30-11 a.m.
Phone and absentee bidding will also be accepted. All sales will be subject to a 10 percent buyer’s premium (in-house and absentee bids) and 15 percent (online and live phone bids).
For details call Hatch at (828) 696-3440. To learn more about the firm and the upcoming Feb. 26-27 sale, click on www.richardhatchauctions.com.
View the fully illustrated catalog and register to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
Many fine Persian rugs, like this fine early prayer rug, will be sold Feb. 25-26. Image courtesy Richard D. Hatch. Emerald and diamond necklace with earrings, total weight: 70 carats. Image courtesy Richard D. Hatch. One of three etchings included in the sale by the renowned Charleston artist Alfred Heber Hutty (New York/South Carolina, 1877-1954). Image courtesy Richard D. Hatch. Early Meissen figural group, The Four Seasons. Image courtesy Richard D. Hatch. One of many rare vintage lamps in the sale is this example by Duffner & Kimberly. Image courtesy Richard D. Hatch.
Original color lithograph by Marc Chagall (circa 1963), titled The Red Angel (13 in. by 9.5 in.).
ORLANDO, Fla. – More than 300 original and reprographic works of art by some of the greatest and most recognizable names in 20th-century fine art and contemporary art will be sold at a live and Internet auction scheduled for Feb. 27 by Baterbys Art Auction Gallery, beginning at 6 p.m. Eastern.
The auction will be conducted live at Baterbys’ spacious Pointe Orlando gallery, located at 9101 International Drive, Unit 1008, in Orlando, and on Feb. 20 at the West Palm Gallery, located at 13900 S. Jog Road in Delray Beach.
The entire auctioneers’ premium will be donated to UCP of Central Fla., an organization serving children with disabilities and developmental delays in the Orlando area.
Online bidding will be facilitated by LiveAuctioneers.
It is the first auction of the year for Baterbys, named Best Art Gallery in Orlando for 2009 by Orlando Style Magazine. Bidders will have the opportunity to win free works of art and other giveaways during spontaneous raffles throughout the auction. Everyone will receive a free print just for attending.
Between 1951 and 1960, Salvador Dali created 101 watercolor drawings to interpret The Divine Comedy, a poem by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). Dali’s Divine Comedy series, circa 1960, will be sold Feb. 27 and comprises six signed, framed prints. All are in excellent condition. Each is an original wood engraving in color on Rives paper, about 10 inches by 7 inches, and signed in the block by Dali. Sold will be the Paternoster Suite (est. $700-$800 each) and the Aaliyah Suite (est. $3,000-$4,000 each).
Several pieces from various suites by Pablo Picasso (Spanish/French, 1881-1973) will also be sold. Picasso, probably best known for his Cubist paintings and printmaking, single-handedly revolutionized Western art. He was born in Spain and lived there until age 19, when he moved to Paris to study the Old Masters and Classical sculpture. Baterbys has featured his works in previous auctions.
Other names from 20th century fine art will include Joan Miro and Marc Chagall. Miro (Spanish, 1893-1893) was born in Barcelona and earned international acclaim for his abstract, curvilinear design paintings, collages and murals. Miro disdained conventional painting methods and once declared an “assassination of painting.” His work has been featured in past Baterbys sales, too.
Several pieces from suites by Chagall (Russian/French, 1887-1985) are sure to get paddles waving. The artist is best known for his village peasant theme paintings. Chagall was born Moishe Shagal and adopted the French spelling of his name when he became a member of the Ecole de Paris. He was a shrewd observer of the contemporary scene and had great sympathy for human suffering.
Original oil paintings and hand-embellished giclee prints by the supremely gifted artist Elena Bond will also be offered, as will works by Guillaume Azoulay (California, b. 1949) and Isaac Maimon (Israeli, b. 1951). Azoulay’s Le Lion, a 26- by 17-inch gicleee on canvas, 2009, no. 28 of 300, with the title and year in gold pen, lower left, is a wonderful display of cool colors, in excellent condition.
Isaac Maimon is renowned for his iconic paintings of Parisian café society. The work to be sold, La Vie Francais, is a surprising mix of colors, created with masterful lines and inspired strokes on a serigraph on paper, framed at 29 inches by 35 inches, and hand-signed in pencil, lower right, from an edition of just 125. The piece portrays the women of Paris as cultured, stylish, sensual and beautiful.
Peter Max’s work is a protean display of unabashed freedom. His paintings are visual time machines that transport viewers to the heydays of the Beatles, Woodstock and Jimi Hendrix. But some of his work resembles modern concepts, such as the mixed media on paper piece Liberty and Justice For All, which will be offered, along with six original mixed media interpretations of Lady Liberty.
Nicola Simbari (Italian, b. 1929) effortlessly launched his painting career while still in his 20s, with a one-man show in London. His brilliant, impressionistic style and vivid, dramatic interpretations of the Mediterranean have established Simbari as one of today’s most sought-after artists. Several of his works will be included in the Baterbys Feb. 27 sale. All will be serigraphs, executed around 1990.
Baterbys offers its clients something that is unique in the industry: a lifetime money-back guarantee of authenticity for each work of art it sells. This is important to buyers looking to build a collection of art, since provenance is everything.
Baterbys has over 25 years’ experience in the art world and auctioneering. The firm specializes in Internet and live auctions of world-class, authentic artwork, especially 20th-century masters, from Dali through Chagall, Picasso, Fini and numerous post-Impressionists. Baterbys’ main concentration is in rare graphic works.
For details call (866) 537-0265.
View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet during the sale at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
Original signed color lithograph by Salvador Dali (circa 1968), titled The Land of Milk and Honey. Original signed and dated lithograph by Pablo Picasso (1964), titled Pour Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Original signed oil on canvas by Elena Bond, done in 2009, titled Ballerina Dream (36 in. by 36 in.).
The Getty Museum will present an exhibit focusing on the Greek colonial settlement called Selinunte and its temples. This ruin is the Temple of Hera at Selinunte in Sicily. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.LOS ANGELES (AP) – The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Sicilian cultural ministry will collaborate to conserve art objects, stage exhibitions and conduct scholarly research.The agreement with the Sicilian Ministry of Culture and Sicilian Identity was announced Wednesday in Palermo and Los Angeles.
Sicilian museums will lend marble statues and ancient vases to the Getty Museum and the museum’s preservation staff will use their expertise in creating displays that protect the artwork from earthquakes, said Getty spokeswoman Rebecca Taylor.
Many pieces that go on display at the hilltop museum in Los Angeles will be sent back to its home institution with a custom-built seismic isolator base, she said.
The collaboration is an extension of the Getty’s 2007 agreement with the Italian Ministry of Culture, said the Getty’s acting director, Daniel Bomford.
“I am delighted that the Getty Museum has reached a mutually beneficial agreement with our colleagues in Sicily that allows us to expand our relationship with Italy to this very important region for the study of the ancient Mediterranean,” Bomford said.
The Getty will also organize a conference in Sicily on protecting museum collections from earthquakes.
Taylor said the curators and preservationists sought out two important and unique marble statues, The Marble Youth from Agrigento and Youth from Motya, which they want to evaluate for preservation and put on display in California.
The Getty Museum will present two exhibits with art borrowed from Sicilian cultural institutions. One will examine Sicily’s founding Greek colonies, which were some of the wealthiest and most powerful metropolises in the Mediterranean world. Another will focus on an important Greek colonial settlement called Selinunte and its temples.
Since 2007, Italy has secured the return of dozens of Roman, Greek and Etruscan artifacts in deals with museums, including the Getty and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Italy claimed artifacts were dug up and smuggled out of the country and sold to top museums worldwide.
Getty’s deal included no admission of guilt and the museum returned 39 ancient treasures. Italian art officials, in exchange, agreed to give long-term loans of other artifacts.
The museum launched a similar partnership with Italy’s National Archaeological Museum of Florence that has allowed it to show the Chimaera of Arezzo at the Getty Villa in Malibu. The life-size sculpture of a triple-headed monster that is part lion, part fire-breathing goat and part serpent is a rare example of Etruscan bronzework from the fourth century B.C.
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Macklowe Gallery brought this Peony table lamp by Tiffany Studios to the Winter Antiques Show. The 22-inch leaded glass shade sits atop a patinated bronze ‘9th Century’ base. Image courtesy of the Winter Antiques Show NEW YORK (AP) – It’s the Holy Grail of Tiffany lamps, a sublime stained-glass shade of lilies in soft hues of pink and green, cascading down in an oblong bell to a bronze base molded to resemble the delicate pads in the water.
There’s only one left in the world for sale – the other seven variations are in museums or private collections – and it can be yours from the Macklowe Gallery in New York for a mere $3.5 million.
The lamp was among the most opulent of antiques and antiquities on display at this year’s Winter Antiques show. Regarded as the premiere antiques event in America, 75 dealers were at the annual bazaar, where New York socialites were the main clientele and museum curators perused works as large as 7 tons and as teeny as a dime.
And priced accordingly. Of course, most of these items will be bought by museums or other public institutions with galleries. But if you have the money, anything’s possible.
Benjamin Macklowe, of the Macklowe Gallery, said they waited for the show to reveal the lamp, which would’ve cost $400 in 1906. (About a year’s salary for a well-employed person.)
“My father has been chasing this lamp for 25 years,” he said. “He would hear whispers of its existence and just fly off to someplace searching for it. It was a dream come true when he found it.”
And speaking of lilies, Adam Patrick of the New York gallery A La Vielle Russie Inc. showed off a diamond-encrusted lily pin so bright it hurt to stare. It was the size of an actual flower you’d fasten to a groom’s lapel, and was made from at least 500 tiny, near-perfect gems. The cost? $110,000.
The brooch was English, dating from around 1840, in the days before platinum when silver and gold were both used to create jewelry.
“Such a delicate setting, and it’s so big, it must’ve been so involved to make,” Patrick said.
Dealers wait decades for a booth at the show, which benefits the East Side Settlement. They view it as a prime chance to show off their best and most fabulous pieces.
James Elkind of Lost City Arts brought his best find for his maiden trip to the show: an Art Deco eagle that was the model for those on the Empire State Building. Created in glazed plaster, it’s in remarkable condition and was designed by Shreve Lam & Harmon Architects. It sold for $60,000.
“I mean, that is what I got into the business for,” he said. “To rescue art, and to come with this to the show … well, it was amazing.”
But for size, a 7-ton, 9-foot-high, solid marble urn designed by Paul Manship, the sculptor who created Rockefeller Center’s Prometheus, was hard to beat. The urn was a private commission by a wealthy industrialist who installed it in his estate in a Cleveland suburb.
It was made by Manship’s crew in the Bronx, and looks like it should be from ancient Greece, except the images on the urn are those of Native Americans chasing bison. And it rotates on its pedestal.
“Made in the South Bronx, you couldn’t have more American if you tried,” said Alice Duncan, director of Manhattan’s Gerald Peters Gallery, offering the urn for $6 million.
A statue of Aphrodite, though, really was ancient: from the first century, in fact. The statue, being sold by Rupert Wace Ancient Art Limited of London, depicts the goddess of love standing on her right leg, left bent at the knee, with her drapery falling in elegant folds around her hips. Her arms and head are missing. The asking price is $650,000.
“We’ve seen fragments before, but nothing this complete,” said Wace, who travels the world looking for ancient works of art. “You won’t find another one like it on the market.”
Among the first photographs ever made are also on sale. When Jacques Daguerre was creating his daguerreotypes in France, William Henry Fox Talbot was doing the same in England. And Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographers has several Talbots, including one of the first negatives, known as the Roofline of Lacock Abbey, from 1839. It’s $400,000 for the image, which measures about 4 inches by 5 inches.
Talbot worked with paper, while Daguerre worked on a metal plate. The result is a similarly eerie-looking image of intense clarity. The Lacock Abbey negative has a creepy sort of horror-film look to it, like something out of The Exorcist.
“These are in the finest condition for sale,” Kraus said. “And it’s the largest assemblage I’ve ever displayed.”
The Tiffany lamp and many of the other opulent pieces are on display in shows around the country. Macklowe said he’ll be a bit sad when the lamp sells – and he hopes it goes to a museum where anyone can see it.
“Could you imagine having this in your home? I’d just stare at it all day. I’d never get anything done.”
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
AP-ES-02-16-10 1143EST
ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
James Elkind of Lost City Arts sold this Empire State Building eagle macquette for $60,000. The circa plaster of paris figure is 41 inches high. Image courtesy of the Winter Antiques Show. William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 1800-1877) made this salt print from a calotype negative around September 1843. It pictures ‘High Street & St. Mary’s Church.’ It and other early photographic prints are offered by Hans P. Kraus Jr. Inc., Fine Photographs. Oxford. Image courtesy of the Winter Antiques Show.
Marsden Brothers of Sheffield, England, made skates similar to these for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1840. Image courtesy of Karen Cameron, Antique Ice Skate Club. MERIDEN, Conn. (AP) – Karen Cameron ice-skated as a child growing up in Wisconsin, but the sport never had a big effect on her until years later.
Cameron, a Meriden resident for the past 30 years, sculpted Victorian dolls in the early 1990s with oven-baked clay. She researched the elaborate costumes and fell in love with the ice skates that were worn during the 19th century, especially the skates with curled blades.
“I just wanted one pair of skates, just one pair with the curls,” Cameron said.
She bought her first pair of antique ice skates in 1995. Today, Cameron owns between 250 and 300 skates. Some of the skates were bought on eBay, but the majority of Cameron’s skates were bought at antique shows or auctions all over New England.
To share her love of antique skates with others, Cameron co-founded the Antique Ice Skate Club in 2000 with Ann Bates, a resident of Land O’ Lakes, Wis., and avid antique ice skate collector.
Cameron found Bates through an advertisement in an antiques magazine in which Bates was looking for others who had an interest in antique skates. The club, which has about 70 members, has had three gatherings in the last 10 years.
“It’s hard to get people together. We’re all spread out,” said Cameron, a Medicare reimbursement specialist for Yale-New Haven Hospital’s graduate medical education program.
Two of the gatherings were in Lake Placid, N.Y.; the other was at Bates’ Wisconsin home.
Bates has been collecting antique skates for more than 35 years. She has about 280 pairs and has written several articles on the skates.
Bates said the recent development of the club’s Web site, antiqueiceskateclub.com, will make her job a lot easier since members can get information and pay dues through the site.
Before the club went online, Cameron wrote and compiled an eight-page newsletter that was mailed out to all of the members every three to four months. Cameron said the Internet makes it easier to get the newsletter out to the club’s members.
“I’m hoping the Web site will bring us all closer together,” Cameron said. “It’s an elite group of us. Not many of us are out there.”
Lyndell Betzner of Hamden is one of the elite. Betzner has been collecting skates for the past 30 years. She and her husband, a hockey fan, started attending antique shows and looking for old skates. Betzner has amassed about 100 pairs. She said she is amazed by Cameron’s vast collection.
Both Bates and Cameron are impressed with a pair of skates Betzner found in Massachusetts 20 years ago. The skates are made out of ebony and have brass blades. Betzner said there is a heart made out of mother of pearl near the ball of the foot. The skates are inscribed with the name Julia.
“Someone had the talent to make them. They’re beautiful, and they feel so lovingly made,” Betzner said.
“It just boggles the mind,” Cameron said, “how many different ice skates are out there.”
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
AP-ES-02-15-10 0000EST
ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
Cutout hearts decorate the brass blades of these unmarked skates dating to 1850-1870. Image courtesy of Karen Cameron, Antique Ice Skate Club. Barney & Berry of Springfield, Mass., manufactured these silver-plated ice skates in the 1870s for J.B. Styles, which is marked on the blades. Image courtesy of Karen Cameron, Antique Ice Skate Club. Barclay & Bontgen of Newark, N.J., made one of the first all-metal ice skates in the mid-1800s. Image courtesy of Karen Cameron, Antique Ice Skate Club. These unmarked skates from the mid-1800s have a wooden footplate. Image courtesy of Karen Cameron, Antique Ice Skate Club. The engraved blades on these skates are enhanced with a blued finish. They were made in Germany by Blechman in the mid-1800s. Image courtesy of Karen Cameron, Antique Ice Skate Club.
This Old Copper Culture socketed spear, 6 3/8 inches long, was made from rolled copper around 800 B.C. Wisconsin is known for this type of artifact. Image courtesy of Bennett’s Artifact Auctions and LiveAuctioneers Archive.COLLINSVILLE, Ill. (AP) – About 800 years ago, in a large room lit by a wood fire, fierce-looking men bedecked in bright feathers and polished copper ornaments gathered to smoke and talk.
Their intricate jewelry – fanciful objects hammered from chunks of naturally occurring raw copper – reflected the firelight. A variety of these ancient Mississippian-era copper decorations have turned up throughout Illinois and the Southeast United States, including triangular, 8-inch long-earrings embossed at the ends with a human face, headdress ornaments depicting stylized birds, even diminutive but carefully crafted copper ovals that may have been applied to a ritualistic leather belt or cape. When they are unearthed, these antiquities are covered with a green or gray patina.
Today, traffic on Collinsville Road passes a short distance from the collection of over more than 80 mounds where, archaeologists say, this American Stone Age scene is thought to have regularly occurred.
But there is something unique about a particular excavated area beside a rather plain looking mound – Mound 34 – that lies about 200 yards east of the world famous and huge Monk’s Mound at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. The carefully sifted soil at this excavation has revealed evidence of the only known copper workshop from the Mississippian-era, a culture that peaked about 1250 A.D. throughout the middle and southern portions of America. The overall Illinois state site was the location of a large, prehistoric city of perhaps 20,000 that archaeologists call Cahokia.
“It’s the only one (copper workshop) that’s been discovered,” said James A. Brown, professor of archaeology at Northwestern University in Chicago.
Brown and his research partner John Kelly, a lecturer in archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis, have for eight years led an investigation into finding the workshop and then carefully excavating the often minute particles and bits of copper that were left behind.
Brown said that the copper workshop was purely for religious purposes, to produce ornaments for those who participated in significant ceremonies that probably occurred atop the mounds.
“They are all depictions of other worldly beings,” he said of the symbols and figures found in copper as well as on pieces of pottery and decorated shells.
The irony is that a self-taught archaeologist, Greg Perino, who grew up in Belleville and pioneered a sometimes heavy handed excavation style that featured bulldozing, actually discovered the copper workshop and another nearby nearly 60 years ago. Perino died in 2005 at age 91. However, his mapping was rudimentary and it took years to relocate his find.
“Perino left us something, even with the bulldozing,” said Brown.
“You had to remember when he was working, in the ’50s, there weren’t the refined techniques we use today. He knew it was a copper workshop and he was very interested in it, but he regarded it as something that had been found elsewhere. What he didn’t know or didn’t realize or think about was there never has been one located elsewhere. Not that there couldn’t be. It’s just that no one has ever found one.”
The rediscovery of the copper workshop has gained national attention. The National Geographic Society is helping to fund the research.
However, there isn’t much left to see unless you’re a trained researcher. Dark, circular stains in the soil of the 3- by 6-foot area where copper remnants have been found may be the remains of tree stumps that were used as anvils by ancient craftsmen. It’s theorized that a flat stone was placed on a leveled off stump, and a palm-sized piece of very hard basalt, a volcanic rock, was used to pound raw copper flat.
A graduate student in metallurgy analyzed pieces of flat copper sheets found at Mound 34 and elsewhere using an electron microscope, and discovered from their molecular structure that they had been annealed, or repeatedly heated and cooled, like a blacksmith works iron.
Another graduate student, Lori Belknap, a mother of two from Mascoutah, Ill., is working on a master’s degree in geology but has shown an intense interest in Mound 34. She cut a stump and got a flat rock and a chunk of rounded basalt. After first heating a piece of raw copper to about 600 degrees, she tried to pound the relatively soft metal to the thinness obtained by the Mississippians.
“I didn’t have much luck,” she said, but the copper did flatten out enough to show the technique was possible.
The overall purpose of most excavations at the mounds site, according to Kelly and Brown, is to determine the true role of Cahokia in the Southeast Ceremonial Complex, the string of ancient cities and mounds that stretched from Wisconsin through Illinois and on into Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia.
Brown said that the bits and pieces of the copper workshop have been studied in relation to peculiar fragments of an engraved drinking cup made from a conch shell found at the top of the about 10 foot high Mound 34. The shell, which probably came from the Gulf of Mexico, contains a very distinctive symbol, kind of an arrow-like logo with a circle in the arrowhead, that first turned up in excavations of rock shelters in Wisconsin and east central Missouri and dated from about 1000 A.D, more than two centuries before the peak of Cahokia.
Symbols found on the walls of the shelters are very similar to the shell fragments found atop Mound 34. The engraved arrows, like the Coca-Cola logo and other advertising of today, tied this ancient civilization to a symbol that all may have recognized.
Brown and Kelly theorize that religious leaders lived atop the mound, drank from the ceremonial cups and were supplied with decorative copper items to show their high rank from the workshop at the base of the mound.
And in turn, the workshop and the shell cup fragments hint that Cahokia may have been the center and not just an outlying fringe of the ancient Mississippian culture. The true role of Cahokia undoubtedly still lies buried. Unlike many other Mississippian sites that have been heavily excavated, less than 1 percent of the mounds site has been dug. While many artifacts have turned up, scientists working the site say what is left buried may greatly change current views of the civilization, and reinforce the theory that Cahokia may have been the center of it all.
“We’ve focused the last couple of years on the workshop,” said Kelly, “But up above, on the top of the mound in remains of a building long since gone, we found those pieces of the engraved cups. … In terms of the roots of the overall iconography (symbolism) of the area, it appears to be taking place at Cahokia.”
Brown has theorized that the people of Cahokia may have gone as far as the Great Lakes to find raw copper and perhaps learned from people there how to work it.
“As we learn more will be able to see all of this in a very different, non-primitive storyline,” Brown said, “We will see this as the run-up to civilization.”
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A gilded wood frame with a carved oval line holds ‘Peaches and Grapes’ by Charles Baum (American, 1812-1877). The relined oil on canvas measures 29 inches by 24 inches and has a $3,000-$5,000 estimate. Image courtesy of Concept Art Gallery.
PITTSBURGH – Concept Art Gallery will auction the James J. White Collection on Feb. 20, an important sale that is highlighted by botanical illustrations and prints by internationally recognized artists and exceptional 19th-century American still life paintings.
LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding.
For 30 years White was Curator of Art and Senior Research Scholar at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, a research division of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He was recently diagnosed with a debilitating neurological disease and the collection is being sold to raise funds for his long-term care.
“It’s a bittersweet experience. I hope his collection generates the interest it deserves,” said Sam Berkovitz, owner of Concept Art Gallery.
The collection is guided by White’s scholarly interests and incomparable taste, said Berkovitz. “There are a lot of beautiful America still life paintings from the 19th century,”
Representative of the collection is an unsigned close-up of a peach and pear in a landscape setting. The 19th-century American Still Life School painting, oil on academy board, has a $150-$300 estimate.
A Charles Baum (American, 1812-1877) still life titled Peaches and Grapes has a $3,000-$5,000 estimate. The oil on canvas painting is 29 inches by 24 inches and is framed in gilded wood with a carved oval liner.
Bryant Chapin, (Massachusetts, 1859-1927) painted Strawberries and Basket, a 12 1/2- by 16 1/2-inch oil on canvas, which also has a $3,000-$5,000 estimate.
Among the botanicals is a pair of 1830s color engravings of amaryllis by Mrs. Edward (Priscilla Susan) Bury and colored by Robert Havell, who was the principal engraver of Audubon’s Birds of America. The color aquatints, 19 inches by 14 1/2 inches, are in matching gold leaf frames with hand-painted French mat. The pair has a $300-$600 estimate.
Other botanicals are by contemporary international artists. One such work is from the Studio of Mahaveer Swami, which created a pair of Mughal-style paintings using natural pigments on antique paper. Dating to the mid-1980s, the pair has a $50-$150 estimate.
The collection also includes Inuit sculpture, contemporary Indian art and natural history, maps and Civil War memorabilia.
The auction will begin at 10 a.m. Eastern.
For details call 412-242-9200.
View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet during the sale at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
The Studio of Mahaveer Swami created these Mughal-style botanical paintings on antique paper circa 1985. The pair has a $50-$150 estimate. Image courtesy of Concept Art Gallery. Fall River, Mass., still-life artist Bryant Chapin (1859-1927) dated ‘Strawberries and Basket’ ‘12.’ The oil on canvas measures 12 1/2 inches by 16 1/2 inches and has a $3,000-$5,000 estimate. Image courtesy of Concept Art Gallery. Apparently unsigned, this oil on academy board painting is of the 19th-centery American Still Life School. The 6- by 9-inch painting has a $150-$300 estimate. Image courtesy of Concept Art Gallery. A pair of Mrs. Edward Bury amaryllis color engravings date to the early 1830s. The 32 1/2- by 24-inch prints are in matching gold leaf frames with hand-painted French mats. The estimate is $300-$600. Image courtesy of Concept Art Gallery.
An American freelance writer, Heidi Lux grew up near Rochester, N.Y., and is a graduate of that city’s Nazareth College. She presently lives in Saxony, Germany, where she works as an English language editor and private tutor. Her work has appeared in Transitions Abroad and German Life magazines, as well as Style Century Magazine.
