Early Summer Quality Auction Results
Published August 22nd, 2008
At its Early Summer Quality Auction held on June 22 to 23, B.S. Slosberg, Inc. Auctioneers of Philadelphia featured some 350 lots of paintings, prints, and furniture during the first session, and a similar number of lots of fine art glass, porcelain, sculpture, and jewelry among a broad array of decorative objects in the second session.
For the 618 registered bidders, the focus seemed to be upon two Old Master paintings and an exceptional French Renaissance Revival mantel clock and garniture, among other top lots. Sold during the first session were two large-scale Old Master landscapes, of the Schools of Giovanni Panini and Francesco Guardi, which reached $25,300 and $8,050 respectively. The clock and garniture, from the early 1870’s and marketed by Bailey and Company, Philadelphia, prompted intense competition both on the phone and the gallery floor, settling at $16,100.
Among many distinctive furniture and furnishings lots were an Adams-style sofa table with refined and extensive hand-painted floral decoration, $2,530; an Empire carved mahogany tall post and tester bed from the mid-Atlantic region, $1,380; a Philadelphia Renaissance Revival small-scale walnut sidelock chest with original rose marble top and drawer fronts with carved stylized griffin head? pulls, $1,840; an early 20th-century Aubusson tapestry with landscape motif, $863; an elegant Regency mahogany fireside bench, $1,898; a Centennial Rococo Revival-style carved mahogany dining table, $2,645; and a small Renaissance Revival twin-door oak bookcase with lion mask corner brackets, $863. Among several noteworthy lots of Continental furniture were a Louis XV-style marquetry and parquetry two-drawer bombe commode, $1,725; a large-scale neoclassical-style bird’s-eye maple and floral paint-decorated dressing stand with mirror, $3,105; an exceptional Rococo Revival cast brass fire screen in the form of an artist’s palette with paint brushes pierced through, and retaining the apparently original screen? panel with a trompe l’oeil oil painting, $2,300; and a “Four Seasons” series of monumental figural cement garden sculptures, $2,070.
Auction info www.bssauction.com
