Diverse Offerings: Asian Decorative Arts to a Pennsylvania Oil on Canvas Lead Sales at Garth's The diversity of the crowd reflected the range of lots offered as Garth’s Auctioneers hosted its 2010 opening auction of Fine Art, Furniture & Decorative Arts on January 29-30th.
Columbus Museum of Art was an autumnal landscape by Connecticut artist Leonard Ochtman. Estimated at $2/3,000, the scene of wooded hills brought $9,870.
The selection of Asian items prompted some of the greatest turn out of new bidders. From the familiar porcelains such as the Rose Medallion punch bowl measuring just 16” in diameter( $1,763 ) to the more unusual ceremonial dishes from Nepal which were made of skull caps with ornately enameled silver plated copper inserts and lids inset with turquoise( $1,446 ), prices were very strong. A 42 ¼” x 62 ¾” Chinese painted landscape on silk, similar to the Woven K'o-ssu-type, was adorned with a tree, crane and rock formations in softly faded colors of green, red and brown and earned a top price of $3,013. Prices for sought after jade and porcelain lots soared from those levels to the high 4-figures and the low
5-figures. Lot 227, comprised of five carvings representing a cup with pierced floral handles, a wine vessel, an octagonal vase, a small figure of mountains, and a fish, each were no longer or larger than 5” – 7”, but demanded a big price of $14,460. A single 8” diameter shallow bowl also soared well past its estimate. Selling for $12,925, the Chinese porcelain was hand decorated with flowers and the eight Taoist symbols on the interior and the Guangxu blue reign mark on the underside. A lot with a pair of Famille Verte style teapots and a pair of paneled porcelain vases with flowers sold for a surprising $7,050. Three groups of jade carvings in shades of mutton fat, pale green and apple green sold in consecutive lots late in the day. A group of brooches, a pair of earrings and two butterfly pins sold for $3,819, while a group of small tokens - hands, pendants, flowers, and rings, as well as, a belt buckle and bat rings sold for $12,925. The third group comprised of belt hooks, plaques, fish and a pendant made $7,638. The response to the carved ivory in the auction proved equally as robust. A polychromed ivory figure of a farmer feeding grain out of a basket to three hens sold for $3,916 against an estimate of $200-400, while a carved figure of a woman, Quan Yin, holding a flowering branch garnered $4,820.
If one needed a place to display all the newly acquired jade and ivory carvings, the French curio cabinet may have been a good choice. The seemingly straightforward, 20th century cabinet was festooned with elaborate ormolu mounts and hand painted romantic scenes on the lower case. It was later discovered that the piece, more usually called a vitrine, was by François Linke, an important Parisian cabinetmaker. As such, it was not a surprise when the bidding went above 5-figures before stopping at $27,025. Other decorative pieces created bidding frenzies as well with a Lemerle-Charpentier, Paris mantle clock selling well at $3,525 due to the figures of a dismounted soldier and rearing horse surmounting a dial
