EUROPEAN DECORATIONS AND ORIENTAL RUGS FEATURED AT GROGAN’S MAY AUCTION Dedham , MA- A large collection of European decorative works of art and an impressive selection of Fine Oriental Rugs and Carpets will be featured at Grogan and Company’s upcoming May auction.
News-Antique.com - May 04,2012 - The auction begins at 12 noon on Sunday, May 20th, and will be comprised of over 600 lots of American and European Paintings, Prints and Sculpture of the 18th, 19th and 20th century, Old Master Drawings, American and Continental Furniture, Decorative Works of Art, Jewelry, Silver and Oriental Rugs and Carpets.
The featured fine art lot is Josef Alber’s Homage to the Square, ‘Late Sound’, a 40 x 40 inch oil on masonite created in 1964 by the venerated modern master of color. The painting of a black square over a gray square over a blue square is estimated at $200,000-400,000 and is one of more than a thousand works in a series Albers created over a period of twenty five years to study the effect of color and shape to create illusion. Milton Avery’s Bird in Bay, a 22 x 28 inch oil on canvas from the same Grosse Pointe, Michigan family as the Albers, is estimated at $50,000-10,000; while two provocative Black and White Photographs by New York artist and AIDS activist Robert Mapplethorpe include Ron Simms and Formal Cock, and are estimated at $3,000-5,000 and $8,000-12,000 respectively.
In addition to the Modern and Contemporary offerings, the auction will feature several fine American and European 19th century paintings. Highlights include Robert Koehler’s At the Café, a 19 x 15 inch oil on panel that was first exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and later at the National Portrait Gallery’s Exhibition of American Art from the 1893 World’s Fair Exposition held in 1993. The impressionistic painting has a presale estimate of $10,000-20,000 and has descended within the same family since it’s acquisition from the World’s Fair. A 26 x 36 inch oil on canvas Sunset Over Baltimore Harbor by Italian artist Nicolino Calyo depicts a rare and dramatic view of Baltimore Harbor in the first half of the 19th century. Calyo better known for his finely painted gouache’s, also became famous for painting the Great Fire of New York in 1835. The Baltimore view is estimated at $10,000-15,000. A selection of fine European sculpture includes works by Hippolyte Moreau, Louise Albert Lefeuvre, Eugene de la Planche and Albert Carrier Belleuse.
Property from the Estate of Lawrence Maguire, a Wellesley, Massachusetts Collector, includes a large collection of Old Master Drawings, Russian icons and fine European decorative works of art. Highlights from the estate include a pair of 40 inch Louis XVI Style Patinated and Bronze Figural Candelabra, estimated at $5,000-8,000, and a 19th century French Bronze and Marble Figural Mantle Clock, bearing a $5,000-7,000 estimate. An Empire Carved Giltwood Firescreen with a pre-sale estimate of $2,000-4,000, may have been part of a suite of furniture ordered by President James Monroe in 1817. The fifty three piece suite of furniture was commissioned from Parisian cabinetmaker, Pierre-Antoine Bellangé, after a fire in the White House destroyed the Elliptical Drawing Room (now the blue Room) and included two firescreens. In 1860, the Blue Room was renovated and each piece of the
