GARTH’S AMERICANA AUCTION MARCHES TOWARD SPRING IN TITANIC WAY… Over 500 lots of Americana will sell during Garth's Auctions March 31 sale. The annual March auction will offer a wonderful selection of antique formal and painted furniture and decorative arts.
illustrated (or a similar one to it) in Cameron’s New York Times best-selling book, James Cameron’s Titanic. Estimated at a reasonable $400-600, this is a reasonable way to own a great object with significant history as the 100th anniversary of the tragic sinking approaches this year on April 14th.
Other fine lots of furniture to be sold include lot 1, a finely decorated American pine corner cupboard, ca. 1820-40. The upper section has a twelve pane door, the top row with gothic arches, and the lower section has paneled doors and a shaped skirt. With its original faux curly maple paint decoration, the 84” high cupboard carries an estimate of $4,000-$8,000. A set of six Fancy Windsor Side Chairs, possibly from Baltimore, are quite graphic thanks to elaborate decoration of swans, urns, and flowers in gold against a green ground on the tablet tops. Ex. GW Samaha, the set is predicted to bring $600-1,200. A fine Queen Anne figured walnut, pine, poplar and possibly cedar slant front desk, probably from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ca.1760, is another top lot. The stepped interior with shell-carved drawers and secret drawers behind the prospect door rests on five drawers and ogee bracket feet. Sold at Sotheby's (New York), January 2001, lot 751, it is now estimated at $3,000-6,000. The interior, particularly the configuration of the hidden compartments, is similar to a desk-and-bookcase attributed to Samuel Harding that sold as part of the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Lammot du Pont Copeland at Sotheby's in January 2002 and is now part of the collection of the Chipstone Foundation.
A few of the 30 lots of Currier & Ives lithographs might want to make you hit the great outdoors as Spring approaches. Lots 21 & 22 will sell early Saturday and are from the Camping Out series. Each a large folio, Camping Out, Some of the Right Sort, C# 777 and Camping Out, In the Woods, Laying Off, C# 774, respectively depict men in a hunting camp and four men by a river with their catch of fish. Each lithograph is estimated at $1,000-$2,000. Lots 192-195 represent the complete American Field Sports series with each lithograph estimated in the $400-800 to $800-$1,200 range. A large hand-colored folio, Winter in the Country - Grist Mill, C# 6738, is one of the Old and New Best 50. With opaque colors and minor imperfections, the 22 1/2"h. x 28 3/4"w. image is still estimated at $2,000-$4,000.
If your idea of “new” is simply adding to your American Indian collection, then the March sale will also tempt you with approximately fifty pieces of pre-historic pottery, most of it from the Mississippian period, ca.1200-1600, once belonging to the late Stephen Kelley, author of Adams County, Ohio Home of the Serpent Mound. There are effigy pieces, featuring a few pieces from Ohio, but most of it from Arkansas, including a carved sandstone effigy pipe in the form of a kneeling person, ca.1200-1400, from Pike County, Illinois. The 9 3/4"h. pipe is ex Byron
