News-Antique.com - Nov 30,-0001 - A CELEBRATION OF THE ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE
April 5-6, 2006 Exhibition opens: April 4
Among the highlights of the offering of English Furniture, Decorations,
Silver and Ceramics is a stunning collection of George I and III style
miniature furniture of the highest quality and craftsmanship. Chief
among the items on offer is a rare George I style Walnut-Paneled and
Furnished Miniature Room by F. J. Early, a cabinet maker working in the
1920s and 30s whose work is included in leading collections – Mrs. J.
Ward Thorne (now in the Art Institute of Chicago), Titiana’s Palace and
The English Royal Collection. The architectural details of the miniature
room are English Baroque style and it is fitted with finely grained walnut
panels and hinged double-doors backed with mirrors. The miniature
armchairs, side chairs and stools are almost exact copies of those often
attributed to Giles Grendey, the 18th century Clerkenwell furniture maker
and the George I style bureau cabinet is fully articulated. The room,
seventeen pieces in total, is estimated to sell for $15/20,000.
One of the highlights of the
silver section of the sale is a
French Parcel-Gilt Silver
and Enamel “Orientalist
Fantasy” Smoking Set made
around 1878 by Boucheron of
Paris. Probably designed by Paul Legrand, the Smoking Set is estimated
to sell for $80/120,000. The extravagant figural group depicts a fullymodeled
Geisha playing an instrument, an oriental boy supporting an
ashtray, a detachable lighter in the shape of a caparisoned elephant, a snuff
container with a fu-dog finial, a reclining figure with pigtail and pipe in
enamels, all mounted on a base modeled as a cloud of smoke. Employing
the techniques of cloisonné enamel, niello inlay, vermiculé etching, and
gilding, the Smoking Set has been called by Kevin Tierney, Director of
the Silver Department in New York, “one of the most remarkable silver
objects offered in the last 40 years.
THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE: ENGLISH BOOKS 1536-1640—SOTHEBY’S LONDON
London Auction: July 13, 2006 New York Exhibition: April 19-23
From April 19-23rd highlights of the London sale of English Literature and History (July 13, 2006) will be on view in
New York. Featured in the exhibition will be one of the finest known examples of the most important book in English
Literature – the First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays
(1623). The volume, which appeared seven years after
Shakespeare’s death, contains 36 of his plays, including 18
printed for the first time – plays which might otherwise have
been lost for all time. Without the First Folio there would be no
Macbeth, no Twelfth Night, no Antony and Cleopatra, no
Winter’s Tale, no Tempest and no As you Like It. Some 750
copies were printed and about a third of these survive, mostly
incomplete. The present example is being sold by Dr.
Williams’s Library in London which was established in the
early 18th century under the will of Dr. Daniel Williams, the
leading dissenting minister of his generation. The folio is
remarkably untouched, remaining in its 17th-century calf
binding
