Download the Press Release for our January 23, 2016 auction as an Adobe® PDF file here.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Sarah Campbell Drury, (615) 812-6096, sarah@caseantiques.com
KNOXVILLE, Tenn.— Art and antiques from the antebellum South mix with artifacts and art of the Old Southwest at the Winter Case Antiques Auction, set for January 23 at the company’s gallery in Knoxville, Tennessee. The 900+ lot auction will also include the William Zarnan estate collection of Continental decorative arts including art glass and paintings, plus outstanding Asian antiques, trade signs and folk art, historical and presidential memorabilia, and a trove of silver items and estate jewelry.
“Days Gone By,” a large oil on canvas depicting a band of Native Americans overlooking a canyon at sunset by Jim Norton leads a roundup of Western genre paintings. Cowboy paintings by Robert Wesley Amick, Suzanne Baker, Robert Pummill, and William Matthews are offered, along with a large circa 1900 California landscape by Henry Dietrich Gremke and other Western landscapes by Roland Enright and Carl Smith, plus portraits by Miguel Martinez and Raymond Nordwall. Complimenting the paintings is a large selection of Native American baskets including a Yokuts serving tray measuring a whopping 22 and ¾ inches in diameter and a large Pomo coiled basket bowl; pottery including a Cochiti bird effigy and double lobed bowl and assorted ollas, plus beadwork, jewelry, Kachina dolls, Navajo rugs, and tribal artifacts. Several items are from the estate of Dorothy Louise Luhrs, an archaeologist with the University of New Mexico who served as president of the Southwestern Anthropological Association from 1950-51.
Paintings, prints and sculpture comprise the largest category in the auction. An impressionist oil on canvas landscape by Paul Sawyier depicts the Vale of Cashmere at Prospect Park, Brooklyn, a once-fashionable 19th century public garden (designed by Frederick Olmstead and Calvert Vaux) that degenerated into a hotspot for illegal activity and is now the subject of a renewal effort. A Manhattan snow scene by Johann Berthelsen fits the season, as does a frosty landscape by Indiana-born painter Clifton Wheeler. There is also a Paris street scene by Edouard Cortes; a 17th century oil on board portrait of Cardinal Alamannus Adimarius by a follower of Cristofano dell’Altissimo; Continental landscapes by Efim Volkov, Francois Cachoud, Henri-Joseph Antonissen and Lucien Delarue; and seascapes by James Cassie and Louis Verboekhoven. Also featured are a 19th century portrait after the F. Winterhalter likeness of young Queen Victoria which hangs in the Royal Collection; numerous other 19th century portraits including two from the collection of the late portrait collector Edward Grosvenor Paine; still lifes by Louis Hubner, Karl Bachmann, Eszter Mattioni and Patty Prather Thum; a collection of contemporary Jewish art that includes works by Polia Pillin, Gedalia Ben-Zvi, and Schmuel and Ella Raayoni; 1940s comic book cover art by Johnny Craig and Sheldon Moldoff, a painted bronze sculpture of the three graces by Erte; and a pencil signed Picasso aquatint “La Corrida,” along with 2 early Goya etchings.
Southern art includes an iconic large view of the Smoky Mountains by Charles Krutch and a view of a Chattanooga mountain by Frank Shapleigh, plus landscapes by Lloyd Branson and Washington Girard of Tennessee, Paul Plaschke and Harvey Joiner of Kentucky, and John Fitzpatrick Kelly of Alabama. There are also abstract and surrealist works by George Cress and Werner Wildner, and Southern portraits by Washington Bogart Cooper and Charles Burton.
Early Southern art and antiques are a staple at Case, but the category is especially strong this time due to a large single owner Kentucky collection. It features a number of Southern furniture forms from the Bluegrass state including a card table attributed to cabinetmaker Porter Clay (brother of statesman Henry Clay), two tall case clocks, a rare sugar desk/bureau and a South Union Shaker chest, along with other Southern pieces such as a Tiger Maple sugar chest, a South Carolina huntboard, a North Carolina painted corner cupboard, and a Middle Tennessee press. A Lexington sampler from the collection is dated 1791, making it the earliest Kentucky sampler known to date. There is also an important 1842 bust of Henry Clay by Ferdinand Pettrich, an early brass Kentucky transit compass, and contemporary Kentucky pieces including an art glass vase by Stephen Powell (b. 1951) that measures nearly 4 ft tall. The same collection yielded an extensive collection of Kentucky coin silver with 2 ladles and a pair of tongs by Asa Blanchard along with pieces by other Bourbon County silversmiths, and coin silver hollowware by Garner & Winchester of Lexington including a large water pitcher, mint julep beakers, and a presentation goblet.
The auction presents an scarce opportunity for a buyer to acquire a 62-piece sterling flatware service in Tiffany’s exotic “Lap Over Edge Pattern” – with each piece hand-wrought in a unique design. (Pieces in this pattern are often divided into lots by form – spoons, forks, etc.- due to the pattern’s high value). Other flatware services include a 108-pc set of Kirk’s Repousse, 203 pcs of Gorham’s Chantilly, 78 pieces of Wallace’s Violet, 78 pices of Towle Louis XIV, and a 77-piece set of French first standard silver flatware by Tetard Freres of Paris. A scarce mid-18th century Irish Rococo coffee or chocolate pot will cross the block, along with numerous sterling tea services, some Russian enameled silver serving pieces, and a cruet set by Rebecca Emes and Edward Barnard of London, circa 1823. Estate jewelry includes multiple diamond rings, bracelets and pendants; gold jewelry ranging from 14 to 24 carat gold; rings designed by Henry Dunay and David Webb, and vintage wristwatches.
There is a wide array of 19th century pottery including an uncommon J. B. Williams (Ohio) water cooler, a cobalt decorated jar by the McCartheys of Maysville, KY; a J. & E. Woods-marked Kentucky jug, several pieces of East Tennessee redware and stoneware, a Davis and Son (Mississippi) jug with cobalt face decoration, and molded devil/face jugs by Lanier Meaders of Georgia. Other Southern standouts include a Shaker quilt rack from South Union, Kentucky, a Knoxville genealogy sampler, a Knox County, Tennessee biscuit table, a Wythe County, Virginia paint decorated chest, and cast iron garden urns by Wallace Lithgow of Louisville.
Many of the auction’s European decorative arts come from the Gatlinburg, Tennessee home of the late collector/dealer William (Bill) Zarnon. His estate collection features glass by Lalique (including a deep red/purple Monnaie du Pape vase), Daum Nancy, Loetz, Steuben and Tiffany, along with English, French, and Canadian silver, numerous Oriental rugs, bronze sculpture, paintings, and porcelain. The porcelain category also includes 3 fish plates dated 1879 and 1880 from the Haviland porcelain service created for President Rutherford B. Hayes, which showcased different varieties of American flora and fauna on each plate. And there is a collection of 8 Dorothy Doughty – Royal Worcester porcelain bird pairs, plus several Meissen bird figurals and a Meissen sconce with armorial decoration for the Polish Royal Family.
The auction will feature a rare John J. Audubon Havell edition print of the Carolina Pigeon or Turtle Dove (now extinct). Print and map collectors will also likely be interested in a 1626 Speed map of Italy and an 1839 pocket map of Tennessee; a Confederate Civil War autograph collection housed in an album decorated with Native American lithographs by Max Rosenthal; collections of Civil War prints and CDVS of Confederate Generals; presidential land grants; “Wanted” posters from the Lindbergh Kidnapping; a fly fishing map and book archive, and a commemorative baseball cigar box given to players on the 1914 Giants-White Sox World Tour.
Asian antiques include an important Ruyi scepter with white jade plaques, believed to have been carved during the Kang Hsu period (1690-1712) to depict the life of a famous Chinese poet. Other hardstone items include a Qianlong carved white jade bowl measuring a generous 6 inches in diameter; a Qing Nephrite Jade water buffalo and a Qianlong lapis censer. There is an archaistic bronze censer with later hardwood lid having a white jade carved finial, plus a Chinese table screen with 42 famille rose and blue and white porcelain plaques; a Chinese Export Silver tea service; Tibetan bronze figures; and several distinctive bronze and mineral snuff bottles from the estate of the late noted snuff bottle collector Fred C. Kennedy of Rochester, Minnesota. (Much of Kennedy’s original collection now resides in the Smithsonian and at Carleton College).
Other noteworthy antiques in the auction are an antique Chromatique Harp by Pleyel, Lyon and Wolff; music boxes and an automaton; a J.B. Fiske cast iron fountain; a Restoration gilt bronze clock after Choiselat, with sculpture depicting Jason and the Golden Fleece; art pottery by Grueby and Teco; mid-century modern furniture from Kai Kristensen, Emes, and Probber; and antique firearms including two Colt pistols with turquoise inlaid grips.
The complete catalog for the auction, with full descriptions, price estimates, and photographs for items in the order in which they will be sold can be viewed online at www.caseantiques.com.
The auction will take place at Case’s gallery in the Cherokee Mills Building, 2240 Sutherland Avenue in Knoxville, on Saturday, January 23 at 9:00 AM EST. Online, absentee and phone bids will also be accepted. A preview will take place on Friday, January 22, from noon to 6PM EST or by appointment. For more information or to consign objects for a future auction, call the gallery in Knoxville at (865) 558-3033 or the company’s Nashville office at (615) 812-6096 or email info@caseantiques.com.
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–Captions–
- The auction includes several Western paintings and artifacts, including this 31” x 23” oil on canvas by Cowboy Artists of America member Jim Norton (American, b. 1953). Est. $16,000-18,000.
- “Vale of Cashmere,” an oil on canvas by Paul Sawyier (1865-1917), depicts a storied section of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Est. $10,000-12,000.
- There are many portraits in the auction, including these likenesses of two sisters (one is signed TPT, dated 1772). Est. $3,000-3500 per each.
- A white jade bowl measuring 6 and 5/8 inches is one of several Qing Dynasty Chinese jades in the auction. Est. $1,200-1,600.
- These three spoons show the unique designs of each piece from a 62-piece set of Tiffany’s “Lap Over Edge” pattern sterling flatware. Estimate for the set: $10,000-12,000.
- A porcelain fish plate from the Haviland service designed for President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1879, with designer Theodore Davis cypher en verso. Est. $1,800-2,200.
- Pablo Picasso aquatint, “La Corrida”, from the Atelier Lacouriere, Paris 1956 edition of 200, est. $7,000-9,000.
