Moran’s Announces Major November 13, 2012 Antiques & Decorative Arts Auction --Spectacular Continental furniture and decorative objects from the 19th and early 20th centuries brighten the fall season at John Moran Auctioneers
-- Important silver makes a grand showing with i
News-Antique.com - Oct 19,2012 - Pasadena, CA—Opulent Continental furnishings, clocks and decorative objects will shed their brilliant light on John Moran Auctioneers’ autumn season. The house is pleased to announce their November 13, 2012 Antiques Auction, a major sale showcasing the luxury and fine craftsmanship of 19th and early 10th centuries in truly exceptional items from private collections and estates. Magnificent silver will also cast a gleam, making a large and impressive showing with pieces of great craftsmanship and rarity.
Leading the many pieces of furniture in the Louis XVI style is an elegant rosewood vitrine by famed Belle Epoque cabinet maker Francois Linke (1855 – 1946 Paris), exquisitely crafted of rosewood features finely chased ormolu mounts and Wedgwood jasperware plaques (estimate $50,000 – 70,000). It was consigned from a Beverly Hills, CA private collection where it has been held since 1971. The same collection yields a number of other items of similarly refined taste, including a striking pair of Louis Philippe gilt bronze five-light candelabra, each modeled as a winged female herm holding in each hand two cornucopia-form branches (estimate $4000 – 6000).
A Régence style ormolu-mounted kingwood parquetry regulator, made in Paris in the last quarter of the 19th century, makes a spectacular visual statement while communicating an interesting combination of allegorical motifs. The case, designed in the manner of Charles Cressent, is an interpretation of the early 18th century style, a transition from the rectilinear Louis XIV style to the buoyant Rococo style of the reign of Louis XV. The mounts, which bear the stamp of the bronzier 'H. Kahn', consist of the crest of an eagle atop an orb with a scythe and a snake, symbolizing victory over time, the cherubs flanking the case emblematic of sculpture and of architecture, and the trophy on the trunk symbolizing science and the arts. The regulator is nearly identical to one reputed to have belonged to the President of Mexico Jose de la Cruz Porfirio Diaz Mori (1830 – 1915), and is expected to realize $70,000 – 90,000.
An important, and delightfully exuberant, Italian Rococo style console & mirror, dating from the early 19th century, are of carved and gilt wood inset with pietra dura (colored stone inlay) plaques depicting flowers, birds and shells, the table with an inset pietra dura top depicting fluttering doves suspending ribbon-tied swags of flowers and opalescent pearls. The two pieces, which are to be sold together with an estimate of $70,000 – 90,000, are made for a room of grand proportions, the mirror measuring seven and a half feet in height.
The sale’s many other 19th century Continental highlights include: a lovely Louis XV style vitrine of kingwood with very fine, delicate ormolu mounts, dating from the late 19th century (estimate: $2000 -3000); another Louis XVI style ormolu-mounted vitrine, of kingwood with a vernis martin panel depicting a fete galante (estimate: $8000 – 10,000); a pair of Empire ormolu-mounted cobalt porcelain candelabra with spiral-twist stems (estimate: $4000 – 6000); and an exquisite egg-shaped silver & cobalt enamel pendule
