Walter Baum's "Canal and River" is one of the Pennsylvania impressionist works featured at Alderfer Auction & Appraisal.
The fall auction season will hit full stride next week with three major suburban events: a two-day sale of antiques and artwork featuring Pennsylvania impressionists; another two-day sale, with items from the Henry Ford Museum; and a third one offering such quirky items as a mounted warthog head.
Contact David Iams at daiams@comcast.net.
Each sale is described in a form of catalog that would have been unheard of a decade ago.
The Pennsylvania impressionists, including Walter Baum and Walter Schofield, will be offered by Alderfer Auction & Appraisal beginning at 4 p.m. next Friday during the second session of its sale of fine and decorative arts at the gallery in Hatfield. The illustrated catalog for the nearly 600-lot sale, parts of which will be carried online by Artfact, comes on a CD.
Baum's Canal and River has a presale estimate of $20,000 to $30,000; Schofield's Mine Buildings, Arizona is expected to bring $15,000 to $25,000. Other works by Pennsylvania impressionists include The Ferry at the Mill by Xanthus Smith ($6,000 to $8,000); landscapes by Arthur Meltzer and Harry Leith-Ross (each $2,000 to $4,000); and Approaching Winter, a Bucks County scene by the lesser-known Tatiana Alexeeva ($3,000 to $5,000).
Other top items among the 242 lots in this session include a Harry Bertoia sound sculpture ($12,000 to $18,000), a classic Guy C. Wiggins New York snowstorm scene titled Wall Street Winter ($6,000 to $9,000), and an oil-on-canvas scene of nudes in a garden by Boris Anisfeld ($15,000 to $20,000).
The first session, beginning at noon Thursday, will be devoted to decorative arts, including jewelry; crocks and other pottery; toleware; watercolors and theorems; quilts; autographs; Asian items; silver, notably a 15-piece Wallace "Princess Anne" sterling tea service ($4,000 to $6,000); and 70 lots of furniture and carpets. The top piece of furniture is a painted decorated Berks County dower chest with a presale estimate of $5,000 to $7,000.
The auction will offer an uncataloged sale of discovery art beginning at 10 a.m. next Friday. Previews are from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. next Friday at the gallery, 501 Fairgrounds Rd.
For further information, call 215-393-3023 or view the catalog online and submit an absentee bid at www.alderferauction.com or www.artfact.com
Provenances at Pook & Pook. The items from the Henry Ford Museum, with other items with distinguished provenances including the estate of Richard Dietrich, will be offered by Pook & Pook Inc. Thursday and next Friday at one of its periodic variety auctions in its Downingtown gallery.
At first, Pook & Pook's variety sales, usually involving a thousand lots or more at generally affordable prices, were uncataloged. Then listings, with pictures of every lot, were posted at www.pookandpook.com, where they are still accessible. But for next week's sale, Pook & Pook also issued an 80-page print catalog, which, while not illustrating every one of the sale's 1,100 lots, depicts about half of them.
About the only ones with presale estimates above three figures are a Mid-Atlantic Hepplewhite mahogany, serpentine-front sideboard expected to bring $1,500 to $2,500 at Thursday's 500-lot session, which will begin at 2 p.m., and two Chinese jade figures expected to bring $1,000 to $1,500 and $2,000 to $3,000 on Thursday. Thursday is also when five lots from the Henry Ford Museum will be offered, the best being a German floor-model globe dated 1914 and expected to bring $400 to $700. The session will offer a large number of toys as well.
The second session, beginning at 9 a.m. next Friday, will offer vintage weapons, porcelains, and other collectibles and artwork, notably one lot described as butterfly wallpaper designed by Damien Hirst, presumably the artist who was asking close to $100 million for a platinum human skull he covered in diamonds. The wallpaper's presale estimate is $400 to $800.
Previews are from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, and 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. next Friday at the gallery, 463 E. Lancaster Ave. For further information, call 610-269-4040.
Wiederseim antiques. The mounted warthog head is included - though not particularly featured - in Wiederseim Associates' antiques auction beginning at 9 a.m. Sept. 11 at the Ludwigs Corner firehouse in Glenmoore. Several years ago, Wiederseim became one of the first auction companies to give up print catalogs entirely in favor of the more economical online catalogs, accessible at www.wiederseim.com
What will lead the way Sept. 11, said Ted Wiederseim, will be the paintings, notably works by George Matthews Harding and Thomas Bangs Thorpe. Two scenes by Thorpe (1815-78) depicting the Mexican Yucatan are each expected to bring $2,500 to $3,000.
Among the half-dozen works by Harding (1882-1959), an illustrator who also did World War I battle scenes, is Across the Rhine, Dec. 14, 1918, which the Brandywine River Museum exhibited in 1971. It has a presale estimate of $750 to $1,000.
And an oil-on-canvas portrait of Elizabeth Matilda Everingham done around 1820 has a presale estimate of $3,000 to $4,000.
Other items in the 500-lot sale include a Queen Anne walnut secretary bookcase made around 1740 with a presale estimate of $7,500 to $9,500 and a set of 10 terrapin soup plates ($400 to $600) - not to mention a folk carving of Adam and Eve ($150 to $250) and the warthog ($150 to $200).
Previews are from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. next Friday and 7 a.m. to sale time Sept. 11 at the firehouse, 1325 Route 100, just north of Route 401. For further information, call 610-827-1910.
Contact David Iams at daiams@comcast.net.
