The technique of enameling, in which colored ground glass is fused to metal by firing, dates back to ancient times. Although originally devised as a substitute for precious or semi-precious stone inlays, enameling became a highly-sophisticated art form in its own right.

Many countries produced fine enamel works, but the workshops in Russia – especially those of the 19th and early 20th century – created vividly colored examples that are eagerly sought-after by collectors. The country stood at a cultural crossroads, absorbing influences from East and West.

The catalogue Russian Enamels: Kievan Rus to Faberge, which accompanied a 1996-1997 exhibition mounted by the Walter Art Museum in Baltimore and the Hillwood Museum in Washington, is a classic reference for collectors. The volume includes examples ranging from a Greek 2nd century B.C. bracelet found in the Crimea to precious treasures from the workshops of Carl Faberge.

The late Anne Odom, then Chief Curator at Hillwood, wrote: “The quintessentially ‘Russian’ enamels were the result of a melding process that had been going on for centuries, mixing Turkish, Persian, and Western styles that had entered the Russian design vocabulary in the 17th century. By the end of the 19th century they had been fused into a style that today is popularly recognized as Russian.”

Collectors and connoisseurs of enamels have a lot to celebrate. In addition to works in the permanent collections of the two museums, the exhibition mentioned above included loans from a mysterious private collection. This source has recently been revealed as the collection of Jean Montgomery Riddell, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 100.

The Riddell collection – more than 260 examples of enameled Russian silver – has been bequeathed to Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum. A case of representative pieces, including the tankard illustrated here are already on display, and the museum plans a touring exhibition with catalogue within the next few years.

William Johnston, Walters’ Senior Curator at Large, wrote the introduction to the 1996 catalogue and is now working on the Riddell project. The curator met Mrs. Riddell many years ago, when she came to the museum. He remembers, “The Walters is quite strong in Russian decorative arts, including enamels, silver, and ivories. I took her around, and she asked if we would be interested in her collection. We went down to her apartment in the Washington, D.C. area and she showed me around, and then we kept in touch over the years.”

The collector’s husband, Richard J. Riddell, had begun to collect Russian enamels during his work for the United States government. With his collection as a foundation, Jean Riddell began to enlarge her holdings through acquisitions from well-known dealers at home and abroad.

Johnston continues, “Jean Riddell formed what was regarded as the largest collection anywhere of Russian enamels. She bought a few earlier representative pieces from the 17th and 18th centuries, and she also bought some St. Petersburg Faberge. But what she concentrated on were the Moscow enamels of the late 19th century and the early 20th century.”

These Moscow pieces include tea wares and boxes decorated with traditional Russian motifs by noted artisan Feodor Ruckert, exquisite painted plaques from the Stroganov Institute, a striking kovsh made by Ivan Khlebnikov, and plique-a-jour pieces from the firm of Pavel Ovchinnikov. The Russian Enamels catalogue recommended above has an excellent glossary which explains complex enameling techniques such as champlevé, cloisonné, filigree, and plique-a-jour.

Auction prices for these enamels have soared in recent years, as wealthy Russians have actively participated in the international market. When Soviet politicians were more concerned about factories and harvests, decorative arts flowed to Europe and the United States. Now western collections formed in the 20th century are coming up for sale, and Russian buyers compete vigorously to buy back fine examples of their national heritage.

Jackson’s International Auctioneers in Cedar Falls, Iowa has become an outstanding player in the global market. One of the firm’s specialties is Russian material including icons, porcelain, silver, and enamels. Their November 2011 auction totaled $4.5 million, thanks in part to a miniature Russian triptych of the Kazan Mother of God, which sold for $240,000.

Stars among the enameled lots included a silver-gilt box with a painting of a warrior on the cover, marked by Feodor Ruckert of Moscow, 1908-1917, which sold for $132,000, and a hexagonal box of the same period from Faberge’s Moscow workshop decorated with a portrait Tsar Ivan which brought $84,000.

James L. Jackson, the auction house’s president, has become an expert in the Russian market. He notes that small treasures like the personal icons and decorated boxes are highly prized by Russian buyers, not only as additions to their own collections but also as gifts to friends.

He explains, “Believe it or not, these are the kind of things they give – something small and portable. When you have that much wealth, what is $100,000 here or there? He acknowledges that the Russian market has become an important part of Jackson’s business: “That’s been growing and growing and growing. Fifteen or twenty years ago, there were very few people who could speak fluently about Russian icons and knew the major players – collectors, sellers, dealers, museums, what have you.”

Having catalogued so much Russian material, Jackson finds he has become the go-to man on the subject: “The fruit that it bore was that people of every ilk – major collectors, museums, universities – began to call me, because I’m of the old school where you share knowledge. There are some serious American collectors, to be certain, but I would say all of the major works in the last sale went back to Moscow and St. Petersburg.”

Jackson is already looking forward to the next sale of Russian material on May 22-23, 2012, which will include important material from private collections including more icons from Dr. John Sinsky. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide the Internet live bidding.

Meanwhile, collectors can follow the progress of the exhibition of the Riddell bequest at www.thewalters.org. Enthusiasts also can look forward to the Hillwood Museum’s upcoming exhibition, “The Style that Ruled the Empires: Russia, Napoleon, and 1812,” on view February 14-June 2, 2012. Copies of the Russian Enamels catalogue are available at www.hillwoodmuseumshop.org.

Visit Jackson’s International online at www.jacksonsauction.com.

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PHILADELPHIA (ACNI) – A mass-manufactured symbol of suburban living, the lawn and garden sprinkler has moved from the tool shed to the collectors cabinet. Like many other products of late 19th and early 20th century industrial design, the well-turned sprinkler is now appreciated as a piece of sculptural and cultural beauty.

Andy Durham, of Annandale, Va., has a collection of more than 80 sprinklers, mostly steel and iron watering implements made from the late 1800s to the 1950s. The joys of collecting were instilled in Durham as a boy, when he’d visit his grandfather, a collector of holly trees, fluorescent minerals, and books on Quaker history.

Durham’s first obsession was horticultural books. Then, about 15 years ago, he picked up a metal sprinkler for $5 at a garage sale, and used it to keep his lawn green. “It dawned on me one day that this is an antique,” and he began searching a new marketplace called eBay for other early sprinklers, a logical collecting progression for Durham, a landscape architect.

He learned that sprinklers were an offshoot of the first pressurized water and fire-suppression systems invented in the 1870s. They were initially used in buildings and utilized public water systems and individual water tanks. They moved out to agricultural use, and then to the growing landscape and public park movements. As the front lawn and home garden became an important component of the middle-class suburbs, the sprinkler industry saturated the market.

In the early 1880s, Durham explained, the designs were practical, intended to do a job on a farm or lawn. “There was a burst of creativity in the first decades of the 1900s. There were many manufacturers involved, and that allowed for expression of styles and shapes.”

Durham appreciates a wide range of sprinklers stylistically, he said, but is most interested in the heavy, detailed metal pieces, some of which boast beautiful scrolls and lion claw feet. One of his favorites was made by the White Showers Company of Detroit. It has a brass piston and carefully crafted cast iron parts. White Showers went into operation before the Great Depression, made a limited number of sprinklers, and went out of business after the market crash.

The 1940s saw the introduction of Bakelite, the early plastic, in sprinkler design. Exciting space age designs were launched in the 1950s. But the manufacturers incorporated aluminum and cheaper plastics, as the well-crafted metal sprinklers became too expensive to produce and ship.

Durham said collectors can find smaller examples for as little as $20, and “nicer ones in the hundreds of dollars.” Finding sprinklers at garage sales, flea markets or even antique shops has become a challenge, “but if you click on eBay you can still find dozens,” he said.

Durham’s collection includes examples of how sprinklers were portrayed in advertising, from postcards used by traveling salesmen, to full-size pages in 1940s Life magazines, capitalizing on the mail-order trend.

One of the popular collecting categories is figural sprinklers. The Firestone Rubber Company featured a line of upright, silk-screened figures on sheet metal that included the Sambo character, a clown and monkey, explained Durham.

A highly sought figural sprinkler is the Cowboy, a 30-inch-high figure whose lasso spins around and drops down as he waters the lawn. There were fewer than 100 made, Durham said, and may sell for as much as $4,000 now.

Figural sprinklers are the focus of John and Nancy Smith, of Barnesville, Md., whose more extensive collections include banks and doorstops. “We love figural cast iron,” explained John, “and lawn sprinklers really lent themselves to figural designs.”

But not very many were made in cast iron. The Smiths count 18 different figural sprinklers in that medium. “And searching for those with great original paint was a challenge. They were used, so they had a tendency to rust,” John Smith said.

The Smiths began collecting cast iron sprinklers in 1971, and made their first purchase – a wood mallard – for $35. Today, that duck can bring up to $2,000. One of the most graceful sprinklers, the Mermaid, has gone from $200 in the 1970s to $8,000 now.

“What happened,” John Smith explained, “is that they have a folky look, so folk art dealers are buying them. They are commanding a great deal of money these days. The Monkey sprinkler sold at auction recently for $9,000. A folk art collector bought that one.”

The cast iron figurals were mainly produced in the 1920s and 30s, Smith said, by some of the same foundries that made the doorstops he and his wife collect. “The 20s and 30s were tough times, and they created the sprinklers to make some extra money.”

The early cast iron sprinkler companies included the English manufacturer Nuydea, National Foundry of Massachusetts, and Grey Iron of Mount Joy, Pa. Nuydea produced the Frog on Globe, as well as sprinklers with ducks and cardinals in the 1920s. Other companies made turtle and alligator models and a two-faced man.

“Bradley and Hubbard, one of the ‘Cadillac’ casting companies, made tremendous forms on sprinklers, including a wood duck and mallard,” Smith said.

While Andy Durham can find his objects of desire online, the Smiths hunt for figural sprinklers at antique shows and auctions and through dealers of figural cast iron. “But in the condition we like, they are getting very difficult to find. They’re starting to get rare.”

Visit John and Nancy Smith’s website to view their collections and sale items at www.castirononline.com.

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Copyright 2011 Auction Central News International. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 

 

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An estimated 2.7 million guitars are purchased in the U.S. every year, many of them by aspiring rock idols and guitar heroes.

A small percentage of the instruments that change hands are older examples going to self-described “guitar junkies” like Pete Prown, gear editor for Vintage Guitar magazine and a collector for 25 years. According to Prown, this is an excellent time for collectible guitar buyers, and the market has been active.

In October, actor Richard Gere raised $936,000 for humanitarian charities by selling off his 107-piece collection, including solidbody Gibson and Fender models owned by blues legend Albert King and reggae artist Peter Tosh. Individual guitars by other rock icons have gone much higher. Eric Clapton’s instruments have sold for a half-million dollars each at charitable auctions, and a Jimi Hendrix guitar can go for a cool million.

Even if you can’t afford an axe wielded by Hendrix, “it’s a great time to be a buyer in the vintage market,” Prown says. Classic rock guitars had soared to astounding prices in the last decade, but the bubble burst around 2007. The benchmark electric guitar is the 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, which had attracted bids of up to $500,000. In recent years, these Les Pauls have dipped to $150,000 or less. A solidbody 1960 Les Paul went for $98,500 in the Gere auction.

And there are many more affordable choices for those who don’t have a movie- or rock-star budget.

Prown, a Philadelphia-area collector, began by pursuing products of an “underground upstart” company called Ibanez Guitars, based in Bensalem, Pa., when he began playing in the late 1970s. He chose his quarry from the 1978 Ibanez catalog, which became the bible for a particular group of collectors. “There’s definitely a cult for Ibanez that has grown over the years – almost all are guitarists of a certain age when the light went on. We wanted something weird looking and different from the traditional-looking Fenders and Gibsons of the previous generation.”

Among his first acquisitions was an electric-acid-green, limited edition Ibanez Jem endorsed by Steve Vai, a hard rocker who played with David Lee Roth and Frank Zappa. Prown also has an Ibanez Professional, a.k.a. the Bob Weir Guitar because it was played by the Grateful Dead musician. “It has the vaunted Tree of Life mother-of-pearl inlay,” Prown says of the decorative neck.

One of Prown’s “blue chip” underground guitars is a 1987 Paul Reed Smith Custom 24, a gorgeous mahogany guitar with a “flamey” maple top. Smith started his business while he was in high school in the 1970s in Annapolis, Md. He operated out of a tiny shop until 1985, when he opened the first or several factories on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

“He’s like the Henry Ford of recent guitar markers,” Prown says of Smith, “a very personable, down-to-earth guy, and a complete guitar junkie.”

Prown has accompanied Smith to the company’s “body blank shop,” where he’s seen the guitar maker pull out slabs of wood from the racks, tap on them, and determine which will make a fine instrument.

“They take a chunk of mahogany and glue a piece of maple on top, so you have this big rectangular sandwich. But it’s a sculpture, and inside it is a guitar,” Prown explains. The blank is inserted into a box, where a computerized router will carve the precise specifications entered by the designer.

The Paul Reed Smith guitars are known for their excellent construction, but also for their detailed handwork. Inlaid mother-of-pearl Chesapeake Bay seabirds fly between the frets of the Smith guitars. “He’s the Chesapeake guy,” Prown says.

On a recent trip to the Chicago Music Exchange, one of the high-end guitar boutiques, Prown added an acoustic 1948 Epiphone Spartan to his collection. An archtop with “f holes,” like those found in a violin, the Spartan was a standard design for jazz guitars of the postwar period.

“One of the reasons why this guitar sounds so good is because it’s old. You can make the wine metaphor – it ages. The more you play it, the more the wood vibrates and resonates and opens up,” Prown says. “Which is another reason why old guitars are desired: they sound good.”

So there’s the look and the sound that make the guitars desirable. The third criterion is the “vibe,” Prown says. “What does it evoke?”

Prown’s taste has mellowed from ’70s hard rock to ’50s jazz and blues. “But you don’t want to play old jazz on a crazy electric guitar,” he says as he pulls out a “real blue chipper,” a 1956 Gibson Les Paul Custom “Black Beauty.”

Les Paul, who died last year, became one of the preeminent guitar stars of the ’50s by bringing the worlds of jazz and pop together. “He was one of the first electric guitar players and probably the first guy whose name was on a solidbody electric guitar as an endorsement.”

With its black finish mahogany body, white trim, ebony fingerboard, and gold hardware, the Black Beauty was the perfect complement to the tuxedoed jazz musician. Prown flips the guitar over to show proof of its aged pedigree: belt-buckle scratches. “Old guitars have belt-buckle wear.”

The Black Beauty sold for as much as $40,000 seven years ago; it can be found for $25,000 today.

Besides shops like the Chicago Music Exchange, collectors can buy great instruments from like-minded dealers at the Great American Guitar Show, a twice-yearly gathering in Oaks, Pa., or at the shows in Arlington, Texas, and other cities around U.S., Prown says.

He also directs collectors to Vintage Guitar magazine, which provides dealers’ price lists and an annual price guide.

Boston-based Skinner Inc. Auctioneers & Appraisers offers high-quality guitars at its sales. David A. Bonsey, Skinner’s director of fine musical instruments, explained that the auction house tends to deal in mainstream manufacturers, like Fender, Gibson and Martin, but Paul Reed Smith products are also mainstream these days.

While guitar prices at auction “have not gone down at all,” Bonsey says, “there is not as much of a feeding-frenzy mentality as there was before 2007.” Up until that year, the vintage guitar market rose steadily. “When the economy hit the skids, the instruments were not devalued – they are still what they are – but prices did undergo a self-correcting market change. On average, prices dropped 25 percent.”

Gibson acoustic guitars appeal to a more conservative clientele and the prices have been “less volatile,” Bonsey says. “There are so few of the really great ones. And the acoustic guitars may have more of a magic about them, more mystique. I haven’t seen prices fall for them, but sales have slowed down for mid-range guitars.”

For collectors looking for what’s around the corner, Bonsey suggests archtop electric guitars. “People are not buying a lot of them, maybe because they don’t identify with their smooth jazz sound.”

There has been a surge of interest in “roots-type guitars” made by Silvertone, Harmony and Kay, Bonsey says. “There may be a certain cheese factor. Some of these old guitars have become very attractive as visual objects and for their funky appeal.” Those mid-range guitars that have gone for a couple of hundred dollars are now commanding over a thousand.

Bonsey also has seen renewed taste for lap-steel guitars. “Musicians are coming up with new sounds, sort of the next generation of what Duane Allman was doing – these hyper-technical guitar licks. That market will continue to grow,” Bonsey says.

Prown, too, has watched young musicians steer the vintage guitar market. “All of today’s younger bands like this kind of vintage rock look, the Beatle-y kind of guitars, and yhey’re weaving it into modern rock. They’re not playing Beatles stuff on it, but to them it’s kind of cool and ironic” to use a 1960s instrument in a new way.

Prown has seen another big change in the evolution of guitar collecting. The Les Paul that cost $300 in 1971 and is worth 10 times as much now is rarely seen on stage or in studios. “It used to be a guitar you played; now it’s a museum piece.

“The bittersweet thing is, people are buying guitars that never get played. Unlike some collectibles, a musical instrument is a practical antique. It’s meant to be played, to make music, not to squirrel it away.”

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John Rogers (1829-1904) was that rarest of all phenomena, a successful artist. He sold over 80,000 sculptural compositions, mass-produced in painted plaster, during the second half of the 19th century. While only the wealthiest families could afford marble or bronze works of art, middle class households could purchase a graceful “Rogers Group” for $10 or $15.

More people became aware of fashions in home décor through the new medium of photography. Books appeared with recommendations for tasteful interior design. The accompanying photos of parlors and dining rooms always included sculpture—large or small—carefully arranged on pedestals, mantels and sideboards.

Born in Salem, Mass., Rogers’ skill as an artist emerged when he was working as a mechanic and draftsman in his twenties. He had begun modeling in clay and was further inspired by the sculpture he saw at an international exposition in 1853. Following the course of many aspiring artists, he set sail for study in Paris in 1858.

While studying abroad, he realized that neoclassicism was not his style. When he returned to the United States the following year, he began to achieve success by producing genre scenes from everyday life, a specialty he would make his own.

The genre tradition in painting had been established by artists such as William Sidney Mount and George Caleb Bingham. An excellent sculptor, Rogers was able to produce the same effect in three-dimensional figural groups. In 1863, he was elected a full member of the National Academy of Design where he often exhibited his compositions.

The New-York Historical Society has organized a traveling exhibition, “John Rogers: American Stories,” which includes many pieces from their permanent collection. The exhibition is on display at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens in Memphis through Oct. 9. The final venue will be in New York City at the newly renovated New-York Historical Society building Oct. 19, 2012 through Feb. 17, 2013.

Collectors will enjoy the wealth of information provided by the accompanying catalog, which features a timeline of the artist’s career. In the opening essay, Michael Leja writes, “The middle decades of the 19th century marked a watershed in the development of a mass market for images in the United States, and Rogers was more influential than any of his contemporaries in bringing sculpture into this new marketplace.”

“He was, in other words, a key player in the invention of a mass visual culture, and his oeuvre reveals the technical and aesthetic challenges entailed in this momentous remaking of art. To our present vantage, when the hyperproduction and instrumentalization of images continue to rise to new levels, Rogers’ career presents an illuminating historical case study.”

Roger’s subject matter is often sentimental or humorous, as was often the case with Victorian art works. In a popular group from 1875 – Checkers Up at the Farm – a young man laughs as he beats an older relative at the game, while a young mother and child look on. Consumers would recognize the familiar scene and take it home with a smile.

Rogers also reproduced scenes from Shakespeare and popular fiction of the day. Courtship in Sleepy Hollow: Ichabod Crane and Katrina Van Tassel dates to 1868. You are a Spirit, I Know; When did you Die? is a four-figure group from King Lear made in 1885.

The beginning of Rogers’ career coincided with the Civil War years, and the artist from the North was a staunch Abolitionist. Many of the groups simply recorded daily life on the front – The Picket Guard of 1861 or Wounded to the Rear: One More Shot from 1864 – and were popular with veterans and their families.

Other themes had more political overtones. An 1868 photo of the parlor of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s home in Galena, Ill., contains two Rogers Groups. The Council of War depicting Grant at President Lincoln’s side stands near the window. On the mantel is a family composition titled Union Refugees (1863) which shows a young couple and their child fleeing the South because of their loyalty to the Union.

Today, Rogers is particularly celebrated for his accurate and heroic depictions of African-Americans in the war years. One of the artist’s earliest groups, The Slave Market of 1859 shows a defiant black father being sold apart from his grieving family.

The most groundbreaking group, however, is Wounded Scout: A Friend in the Swamp (1864), which presents a black freedman helping a wounded soldier through difficult terrain. Modern eyes, accustomed to multicultural sculptures, such as The Soldiers by Frederick Hart at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., may not realize how radical the Rogers’ image was in its day.

Ellen Daugherty, associate professor at the Memphis College of Art, recently lectured in conjunction with the traveling exhibition. She said, “The thing that Rogers does so well is create a little moment, a visual anecdote in time. He tells some of the story and you’re allowed as the viewer to weave the rest of it, to decide how to complete the narrative. He opens up his potential audience rather than shutting them down.”

Daugherty is an expert on the portrayal of African-Americans in 19th and early 20th century art. In discussing the Wounded Scout, she noted, “Any type of art that depicts the humanity of African-Americans at this time period is rare. This black man is kind, helpful, and someone the wounded soldier can lean on in times of trouble.”

“The thing that makes it quite powerful is the touch – the way that Rogers puts the two figures together. The black man holds the soldier’s arm so tenderly; he exhibits characteristics of nobility, humanity and concern for his fellow man.”

Collectors can still find affordable examples of Rogers’ “Sculpture for the People” for sale in the antiques marketplace. Fontaine’s Auction Gallery in Pittsfield, Mass., will offer a one-owner collection from the South of about 55 groups in their Sept. 10 sale. Among the lots offered will be Civil War themes such as The Council of War and Union Refugees, theater scenes, and depictions of home life.

Jim O’Brien at Fontaines says, “It is wonderful for us to have the opportunity to sell such a large and diverse collection. We typically only see two or three groupings in the course of a year; so to see many of the rarer groupings all at once is a treasure.”

“Rogers’ studio in New Canaan, Conn., has been designated a National Historic Landmark. John Rogers is credited with being a pioneer in the making of elastic molds for works of art. He patented many of his works, displaying the dates on the base of the sculptures.”

O’Brien adds, “Rogers’ sculptures are very popular among collectors. When looking at any given piece, you can really get a feel for what life was like in the 1800s. The realistic qualities of his works are amazing; Rogers was an expert in not only duplicating realistic features of his subjects, but he also was a master at capturing movement and intimate scenarios in everyday life.”

Starting bids on the Fontaine lots start as low as $200. Note that condition affects value for the easily damaged plaster groups. Rogers also made durable master bronzes to use as his models. Many of these are included in the New-York Historical Society exhibition, but they rarely appear on the market.

Certain groups were copied by 19th-century English potteries in Parian porcelain. These were apparently not authorized by Rogers, but they are attractive and often bring four-figure prices at auction.

 

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