FLOWER MOUND, TX — Mt. Washington Glass Company was founded in 1837, but its heyday arrived in 1880 and lasted through the early 1900s. Its products from this era are regarded as eminently stylish. A Mt. Washington piece would set a home off and let the visitor know the decorator had distinguished taste.
Mt. Washington’s Burmese line was inspired by Eastern design techniques. Uranium glass was just that: regular glass with added uranium, often 2% but up to 25% in some examples. Uranium glass will glow when viewed in ultraviolet light.
Jaremos is bringing a Mt. Washington Burmese uranium glass vase to market in its Art Glass sale on Wednesday, September 11. Standing 9.5in in height, the consigner reports that this exact piece was previously exhibited at the Mt. Washington Art Glass Society’s annual convention. Jaremos estimates the piece at $1,500-$2,500.
NEW ORLEANS — Crescent City Auction Gallery has a long history of success with Clementine Hunter paintings. On Saturday, September 14, the house will bring a total of nine naïve works to market as featured lots in day two of its September Estates Auction sale.
The highest-estimated lot is Melrose Plantation, a 24 by 23.5in oil on board from a private collection. In typical fashion, Hunter (1887-1988) creates a complete storytelling scene in which Black laborers go about their tasks in a colorful setting. The work has been authenticated by Tom Whitehead, professor emeritus at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana.
Crescent City estimates the undated work at $7,000-$10,000, but given recent performances by similar Hunter works, it could go much higher, even with so many Hunter paintings in the same session.
SHELTON, CT — The economic boom in the postwar American economy helped propel numerous industries to new heights. The massive amount of discretionary income allowed the average former GI and his young family to afford a starter home, a new car, vacations, and former luxury items such as travel trailers and boats.
Japanese toymakers, the first to embrace and exploit the narrative-changing emergence of consumer batteries such as D-cells, seized on the American boating craze. They produced a vast fleet of miniature cabin cruisers, fishing boats, and other toy vessels, all (more or less) seaworthy and powered by lifelike minature outboard motors. Unconstrained by licensing, the Japanese firms created exact likenesses of motors from the biggest names in the industry — Evinrude, Johnson, Chrysler, Mercury, and more.
Lloyd Ralston Gallery has a set of 10 miniature marine outboard motors up for bid Wednesday, September 14 as part of its Toys and Transportation sale. One motor comes with its original box, while the rest are loose. All but two are powered by an external battery pack (apparently not included); the miniature Wen Mac and Sea Fury are gas-powered. The lot carries a $800-$1,200 estimate.
FREDERICK, MD — David Gottlieb saw the rise of trade stimulators — miniature mechanical devices not unlike slot machines for use by bar patrons to drive drink purchases — and could foresee a huge opportunity in similar devices. In 1927, he founded D. Gottlieb & Co. in Chicago, the home of hundreds of similar manufacturers where mechanical talent was plentiful.
By the 1940s, Gottlieb was a dominant force in the pinball game industry. Gone were the 1930s police actions smashing the devices as ‘gambling’ machines. The postwar boom led to returning GIs looking for fun on weekends, a perfect environment for pinball to thrive.
In 1951, Gottlieb released Mermaid, a unique pinball machine with a fisherman animation incorporated into the backglass. The central focus of the backglass art is the mermaid, of course, who dangles a hook threaded with a worm before an approaching hungry fish. The worm has a question mark hovering over his head, as though he doesn’t understand that he’s about to be lunch. ‘Wood-rail’ refers to the wooden construction of the machine’s body and backglass scoring enclosure; later machines would use metal edging over wood bodies.
A restored example with a fresh playfield is a top-estimated lot at Jaybird Auctions on Thursday, September 12 as its personnel travels to Warren, Ohio to liquidate the Lifetime Pinball Collection of Richard Lawnhurst. The machine has been assigned an estimate of $15,000-$25,000.
ATLANTA — Twenty lots of English tea caddies are included in the Thursday, September 12 sale at Ahlers & Ogletree Auction Gallery. They form part of the offerings from the Atlanta estate of Gregory Crawford, and most are early 19th-century caddies veneered in tortoiseshell (the shell of the hawksbill turtle), which was particularly popular in the Regency period. At the time, tea was still a relatively expensive commodity; it made sense to keep the leaves in a locked casket, in case the maid became thirsty.
The sarcophagus-form example pictured here, with silver mounts and bone ball feet, is estimated at $1,500-$3,000.
