Historic Hillsborough Auction slated for Sept. 19 in N.C. Over 700 lots of fine art, period furniture, decorative accessories and more will be sold Saturday, Sept. 19, at a Historic Hillsborough Auction to be held by Leland Little Auction & Estate Sales, Ltd
News-Antique.com - Aug 27,2009 - (HILLSBOROUGH, N.C.) – Over 700 lots of fine art, period furniture, decorative accessories and more – most of it fresh-to-the-market merchandise from prominent local estates and collections – will be sold Saturday, Sept. 19, at 9 a.m. by Leland Little Auction & Estate Sales, Ltd. It is just the second major auction to be held in the firm’s new gallery, at 620 Cornerstone Court in Hillsborough.
Featured will be the estate collection of the late W. Samuel Tarlton, a nationally known art dealer and past co-owner of the upscale Craig and Tarlton, Inc. antiques shop in Raleigh; entertainment and movie memorabilia items from the collection of Bill Morrison, former art critic for the Raleigh News & Observer; and fine art pieces acquired in the 1960s and ‘70s by the Mead Corporation of Richmond, Va.
“This could very well be one of our strongest sales to date, and especially for our new, state-of-the-art gallery location,” said Leland Little of Leland Little Auction & Estate Sales, Ltd. “The decision to build a new facility near the interstate has given us great access and visibility. We are better positioned to proudly offer the collections and estates we’ve been fortunate to represent.”
Online bidding will be facilitated by LiveAuctioneers.com. Around 300 bidders generally register online. The in-person audience, meanwhile, is expected to hit around 250 people. In addition, the firm has received nearly 1,000 absentee and phone bids for the cataloged auction. “These are all good signs heading into the fall season,” Mr. Little said. “Volume and quality were strong in the first six months of 2009.”
Mr. Tarlton was a dedicated collector of fine art and period furniture. Artwork from his estate will include a sunset oil on canvas painting by Elliott Dangerfield (N.C./N.Y., 1859-1932), signed lower center and housed in the original carved and gilt wood frame (est. $15,000-$25,000); and a bronze figural work by Anna Hyatt Huntington (Am., 1876-1973), titled Yawning Tiger (est. $3,000-$5,000).
Period furniture items from Mr. Tarlton’s estate will include a strikingly featured late 18th century Pennsylvania Chippendale tiger maple desk, probably Lancaster County (est. $5,000-$10,000); a New Hampshire Federal bow front chest of drawers (circa 1800-1810), 12-panel form (est. $2,000-$4,000); and a Philadelphia Chippendale mahogany game table, made circa 1770 (est. $2,000-$4,000).
Noteworthy items from the collection of Bill Morrison include a signed first-edition copy of the book The Constant Sinner, by screen siren Mae West (1930); and a signed first-edition copy of Ayn Rand’s For The New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (1961). Art from the Mead Collection will feature an oil painting by Robert Harvey (b. 1924), Brother Home on Leave (est. $1,000-$2,000).
Four oil on canvas paintings by William Frerichs (N.Y./N.C., 1829-1905) will cross the block. They include the unsigned but documented work Frozen Falls, housed in the original gilt wood frame (est. $10,000-$20,000); The Blue Ridge, signed and in the original frame (est. $8,000-$15,000); a landscape rendering, unsigned (est. $6,000-$9,000); and a work depicting skaters (est. $3,000-$5,000).
