Day 1 of the ‘Winter Antiques Sale’ at Litchfield Auctions took place on February 22nd and featured just over 600 lots of decorative arts from around the world. This included lighting fixtures, musical instruments, photography, glassware, and Asian Art. The highlights of this auction were from the Asian Art category with lot 62 leading the way. Conveniently titled ‘Two Chinese Ring Neck Vases’, this grouping conservatively estimated at $150-$300 sold for $25,350. After an intense battle of 82 bids, the winner from Bidsquare acquired the two vases for 169 times the low-end estimate. Lot 62, Two Chinese Ring Neck Vases; Sold on Bidsquare for $25,350 over a $150-$300 estimate What’s so special about lot 62? Even though the shorter vase is attractive in itself, it is a modest 20th Century copy of Chinese Guan vases from the Southern Song Dynast...Read More

CHARLESTON, SC - Copley Fine Art Auctions, LLC, the nation’s premier decoy and sporting art auction house set a company record for one of their Winter Sales realizing $3.4 million in total sales. The February 15th auction was held in conjunction with the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE) at the Charleston Marriott in South Carolina. There was a frenzy of over 900 bidders participating from all platforms and across all categories, including antique and contemporary decoys, paintings, prints, folk art, canes, and Americana. The auction, consisting of 533 lots, was 96% sold, extending Copley’s unrivaled track record in the industry. The auction hall was filled with energy and plenty of foot traffic throughout the sale. At the auction’s start, every seat was filled and bidders were standing against the walls as established collectors, dea...Read More

It’s not at all common for an artisan to successfully shape and influence the aesthetics that come to represent an entire century - nonetheless a whole country. Each creative movement is accompanied by a talented roster of makers whom, in retrospect, either sparked the fire or achieved the pinnacle of that movements’ intentions - and they’re usually rebels.  One such craftsman who achieved remarkable recognition for his avant-garde, Art Nouveau style was Danish silversmith, Georg Jensen. In 1904, at the age of 37, Jensen established his silver smithy in Copenhagen. There, he would forge a globally respected brand based on the highest of standards - a craft-based approach with a progressive sensibility. His achievements in silver would reach a global audience and reverberate throughout Scandinavian design for generations to come. Jensen reje...Read More

NEW YORK CITY – Diversity has long been the watchword of the Winter Show, which this year signaled its inclusiveness in ever more ways. The fair, which previewed on January 23 and continues at the Park Avenue Armory through February 2, has always favored quality over quantity, seeking to offer the best of the best from the ancient to the contemporary. If anything, it was even broader this year. Helen Allen, executive director of the Winter Show, welcomed visitors as Philippe de Montebello, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and co-curator of the loan exhibition from the Hispanic Society Museum and Library, looked on. Photo courtesy Winter Show. Benefiting East Side House Settlement, the show directed by Helen Allen and co-chaired by Lucinda C. Ballard and Michael R. Lynch strengthened its embrace of contemporary material, if ...Read More

DENVER, PENN. – A single-owner collection of American furniture, guns and powder horns and decorative arts representing material culture from the Susquehanna Valley crossed the block at Morphy Auctions on Thursday, January 16. Assembled over more than 40 years by an anonymous collector who has decided it is “time for others to enjoy the collection,” the 220-lot sale totaled $2.3 million, saw strong prices across the board and was 98.6 percent sold when the gavel fell on the final lot. The breakdown of the sale saw bidding in the room taking home 40 percent of the sale, with 23 percent selling to phone bidders and 21 percent to buyers using Morphy’s dedicated platform – Morphy Live – to bid online. The remaining 16 percent of lots sold to buyers bidding online through the three other online platforms that featured the sale. Before the sale, ...Read More

DOWNINGTOWN, PENN. – As a snowstorm headed towards the mid-Atlantic, Pook & Pook, Inc, proceeded as scheduled with its January 17-18 Americana and International Auction. The storm did not deter buyers and the sale achieved a total of $1.5 million hammer ($1.9 million including the buyer’s premium), exceeding its aggregate estimates of $426,000/1,493,000, with more than 97 percent of lots selling from the podium. As is tradition at Pook & Pook, a late Friday afternoon reception with catered sandwiches, fruit, cheese and desserts, with wine and soft drinks, encouraged potential buyers to preview just before the sale got underway at 6 pm. The first 49 lots were from the collection of Jean and Eugene Jacobson of Englewood, N.J. It was cataloged as Nineteenth Century Chinese export, but according to Ron Pook, it was Late Eighteenth Century and m...Read More

Rago/Wright has announced a follow up to the landmark 1984 exhibition at Fifty/50 Gallery of American modernist studio jewelry, Structure and Ornament, curated by Mark McDonald, who organized the original show at Fifty/50.  This auction expands the narrative of jewelry in the twentieth century—its evolution away from precious metals and stones that adorned the body in beautifying ways, and toward an experimental, boisterous and conceptual medium that reflected and contended with the rapid changes in culture, the arts, technology and society. This auction is the first of its kind in the United States to solely focus on studio jewelry. Mark McDonald, owner of the renowned Fifty/50 Gallery, has been involved with these works since the early 1980s and has formed many close, personal relationships with the artists and collectors featured in the ...Read More

TOWSON, MD — Baltimore-based Auctioneer Alex Cooper will host a two-day Gallery Auction on Thursday, December 12th and Saturday, December 14th, featuring an expansive collection of modern and contemporary art, fine jewelry, sterling silver, currency, fine rugs, period, mid-century modern, quality reproduction and period furniture, and decorative arts. Lot 1005, Atsuko Tanaka, Untitled, Synthetic polymer on canvas, signed and dated 1963; Estimate $40,000-$60,000 The auction is headlined by a stunnig work by female Japanese abstract artist, Atsuko Tanaka, Untitled, 1963. Tanaka, best know for her work, Electric Dress, was a member of the infamous Gutai Art Association formed in 1954. The work has had one owner, a Baltimore collector. Synthethic polymer on canvas, the piece has been signed and dated in both English and Japanese on verso and me...Read More

CRANSTON, R.I. – Bruneau & Co. Auctioneers, Altered Reality Entertainment and Travis Landry, Bruneau & Co.’s Director of Pop Culture, are combining forces to hold a Winter Comic Book & Toy auction extravaganza on Saturday, December 14th, online and in Bruneau & Co.’s gallery at 63 Fourth Avenue in Cranston. The auction will begin promptly at 11am Eastern time. The sale is packed with over 350 lots of rare graded comic books, to include many Marvel and DC comics; generous key book lots; an original graded set of Star Wars 12 backs; a Vinyl Cape Jawa; a factory sealed Blue Snaggletooth and more. Since its inception, Bruneau & Co. has partnered with Altered Reality Entertainment (the parent company of Rhode Island Comic Con) to organize toy, comic, and collectible auctions, bringing Pop Culture to a live auction setting. “There is no better su...Read More

Lambertville, NJ: Rago’s November Fine Art sale realized $3,430,969 across two days, Friday, November 8 and Saturday, November 9.  The highest selling lot of the weekend came from Friday’s Post War + Contemporary Art sale; lot 135, an untitled ink on poster board rendering of the classic “Crawling Baby” by Keith Haring that sold for $117,500 against a high estimate of $50,000. Other works by Haring also fared admirably in the sale, including lot 136, a women’s leather jacket featuring a drawing and signature by the artist which sold for $6,875 and lot 137, a wooden paddle also sporting a drawing and artist’s signature, which sold for $10,625. Lot 135, Keith Haring, Untitled (Crawling Baby), 1989, Ink on poster board; Sold for $117,500 Other highlights from Post War + Contemporary Art include: lot 190, Joseph Cornell's mixed media box constr...Read More