Displaying items by tag: mahogany

When two of Denmark’s most iconic design figures come together to create a piece of furniture, the results are bound to be spectacular. This important Cuban mahogany cabinet by Kaj Gottlob for AJ Iversen is a stunning example of one such sublime collaboration. Offered by H.M. Luther, New York-based dealers of rare and unique works by the most celebrated designers from Scandinavia and Continental Europe, this highly sophisticated piece was conceived by Gottlob, a leading architect, and crafted by Iversen, an accomplished cabinetmaker. Iversen, along with the many architects and designers he partnered with, including Gottlob, helped pave the way for Danish Modern, an iconic style revered for its...

Coming up on June 22, Bonhams Los Angeles is holding a European Furniture and Decorative Arts auction featuring highlights from a myriad of noteworthy collections, including that of Casablanca director Michael Curtiz, and Rupert Murdoch – formerly from the collection of Dr. Jules C. Stein.

Leading the 539-lot sale is a pair of François Linke French gilt bronze mounted Vernis Martin decorated mahogany vitrines, circa 1900 (est. $60,000-80,000). It highlights a strong selection of Parisian furniture and decorative arts from the late 19th century including works by such makers as Linke, Beurdeley, Zwiener, Sormani, Durand, Barbedienne, Escalier de Cristal, Boudet and Christofle.

A wooden Le Corbusier statue of a woman sold for 3.1 million francs ($3.3 million) at Christie’s in Zurich, setting an auction record for the Swiss artist.

“Femme,” a 6-foot-tall mahogany sculpture with red and white painted elements, was created by modernist architect Le Corbusier in 1962. The price, which includes a buyer’s premium, beats Le Corbusier’s previous record of 1 million pounds ($1.5 million), according to Hans-Peter Keller, head of Swiss art at Christie’s.

Back in 2013, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, acquired Frank Lloyd Wright’s Bachman Wilson House from Lawrence and Sharon Tarantino, a husband-and-wife architect-designer team. The only catch was that the house was located in Millstone, New Jersey. Staff at the Crystal Bridges quickly got to work devising a plan to disassemble, transport, and rebuild the house on the museum’s sprawling 120-acre campus. After months of preparation, The Art Newspaper reports that the structure’s first posts are due to be raised this month.

Wright designed the Bachman Wilson House for Abraham Wilson and his wife Gloria Bachman, whose brother, Marvin Bachman, was an apprentice in the Frank Lloyd Wright Taliesin Fellowship, in 1954. Perched on a bank of the Millstone River, the house was subject to repeated flooding over the decades as the river and surrounding landscape continued to encroach on the glass-and-mahogany structure.

The 18th-century cabinetmaker Nathaniel Gould left inkblots in his battered gray notebooks as he recorded the luxurious mahogany output of his workshop in Salem, Mass. His listings of clients and fees, found seven years ago in forgotten boxes at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, have enabled researchers to attribute his mostly unsigned antiques. Next weekend, about 20 of these pieces will go on view at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem in the exhibition “In Plain Sight: Discovering the Furniture of Nathaniel Gould.”

The show’s catalog blends tragic family lore with statistics. Gould’s clients lost their furniture in fires, their fortunes in bankruptcies and war and their family members in shipwrecks. Coffins for children were among his workshop’s frequent commissions.

Christie’s Americana Week auctions, which included the sales of Important American Silver on January 23, Important American Furniture, Folk Art and Prints on January 24, and Chinese Export Art on January 27, fetched a total of $10,189,025.

The Chinese Export Art sale realized $3,034,750 and the top lot was a rare set of four large Chinese export porcelain nodding head figures from the Qianlong Period, which sold for $173,000. The Important American Silver sale netted $1,737,875 and the top lot, a silver Brandywine bowl by Cornelius Vander Burch from the late 17th century, brought $317,000. The Important American Furniture, Folk Art & Decorative Arts sale was the biggest hit of the week and realized $5,416,400. The top lot was an 18th century Chippendale carved Mahogany scallop-top tea table from Philadelphia, which garnered $905,000. Andrew Holter, head of American Furniture and Decorative Arts at Christie’s, said, “Today’s solid results underscore collectors’ continued appetite for works of exceptional provenance and quality.”

The prestigious Winter Antiques Show, which is in its 60^th year, will present a loan exhibition honoring the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Fresh Take, Making Connections to the Peabody Essex Museum will present over 50 paintings, sculptures, textiles and decorative objects from the Peabody Essex, one of the country’s oldest and most progressive museums. The exhibition will be on view during the entire run of the Winter Antiques Show, which will take place from January 24, 2014 to February 2, 2014 at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City.

Highlights from Fresh Take, Making Connections to the Peabody Essex Museum include an 18^th century inlaid ivory chair from India, a mahogany dressing chest by Thomas Seymour (circa 1810) and a 19^th century portrait of the author Nathaniel Hawthorne by Charles Osgood. Jeff Daly, formerly a senior design advisor to the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will design the exhibition.  

Fresh Take will coincide with the Peabody Essex Museum’s 215^th anniversary. The institution recently embarked on a $650 million campaign and expansion that will place the museum among the top 10 art institutions in the country in terms of gallery space and total endowment.  

The 2013 Spring Show NYC opened to the public on Thursday, May 2, 2013 at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan. Organized by the Art and Antique Dealers League of America, this is the third edition of the Spring Show NYC, which features furniture, paintings, drawings, sculpture, ceramics, glass, decorative arts, and much more.

This year’s show includes over 60 international galleries. Highlights from the fair include Ammi Phillips’ (1788-1865) Portrait of a Child from Jeffrey Tillou Antiques, French landscape painter Eugene Louis Boudin’s (1824-1898) Village aux Environs de Dunkerque from Rehs Galleries, and a set of eight George II carved mahogany dining chairs from Clinton Howell Antiques.

The Spring Show NYC will be ongoing at the Armory through May 5, 2013. Tonight, the fair will host Arts Night Out, allowing 30 young patron groups from New York ‘s top cultural institutions to visit the show. Proceeds from the event will benefit the ASPCA.

Christie’s announced that Americana Week 2013 will be held from January 24-25 and on the 28^th in New York. The week will include a series of public viewings and auctions focusing on American craftsmanship and artistry. An Important American Silver sale will be held on the 24^th, an Important American Furniture, Folk Art, and Prints auction will take place on January 25^th, and on the 28^th, Christie’s will hold English Pottery and Chinese Export Art sales. The Americana Week auctions will present over 400 lots, many of which are from the 18^th and 19^th centuries and have never been offered at auction until now.

Highlights from the American Silver auction include a drum-form teapot by Paul Revere (1734-1818), a Japanesesque mixed-metal and hardstone style tea service by Tiffany & Co., and a set of silver casters by Simeon Soumaine (circa 1685-circa 1750) from 1740.

Leading the American Furniture, Folk Art, and Prints sale is a Chippendale carved mahogany block-and-shell bureau table signed by John Townsend (1733-1809). The bureau table will be offered alongside a Queen Anne carved maple armchair attributed to John Gaines III (1704-1743), an Edward Hicks (1780-1849) painting depicting William Penn’s treaty with Delaware tribal chiefs, a number of early needlework samplers from The Stonington Collection, and much more.

The English Pottery auction presents over 50 lots including early salt glazed stoneware, redware and creamware formed by William Burton Goodwin, and a London delft polychrome dish, which is painted with the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac.

Highlighting the Chinese Export Art sale are a Chinese export ‘orange Fitzhugh’ armorial dinner service from the early 19^th century, a pair of Chinese export famille rose fishbowls, and a Chinese export ‘Lady Washington States China’ dish, which was presented to Martha Washington by Andreas van Braam (1739-1801), the director of the Dutch East India Company, in 1796. Van Braam designed the dish as an introductory gift for the First Lady.

On September 24^th, Christie’s presented their American Furniture, Folk Art, and Decorative Arts Sale in New York. Spanning the 18^th and 19^th centuries, works included furniture from the Wunsch Americana Foundation, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and American folk art and maritime paintings. The sale was 85% sold by lot and 93% by value.

The top lot was a Chippendale carved mahogany easy chair that was entrusted to Christie’s by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Estimated at $600,000-$900,000 and attributed to the renowned yet mysterious Garvan carver, the chair brought in $1.16 million, the third highest price ever paid for the form. “We are thrilled to have been the successful bidders on the Garvan Carver easy chair. It is a wonderful chair,” said Todd Prickett of C.L. Prickett who specializes in American antiques. The Museum will use the funds for new acquisitions.

Another lot that brought in more than expected was a Queen Anne Japanned Maple Bureau Table. One of about forty known examples of japanned furniture from colonial America, it is the only bureau table known to exist. Estimated at $60,000-$90,000, the table sold for $98,500.

Two paintings by the maritime artist, Antonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen (1850–1921), sold for more than their estimates that ranged from $12,000 to $18,000. The Paddlewheel Steamer St. John went for $45,000 while Fred B Dalzell went for $25,000.

Not all lots did as well as anticipated. A pair of Federal eagle-inlaid mahogany side chairs attributed to William Singleton were estimated at $60,000 to $90,000 but only sold for $32,500. The pair of chairs had been lent to the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the Department of State in 1968 and remained in the Monroe Reception Room as part of a larger set of four related chairs until they were returned to the Wunsch Americana Foundation. Until know, the location of this particular pair was unknown.