When it comes to historys great monachs, Frances King Louis XV is not held in particularly high regard. Succeeding his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five and ruling till his death in May 1774, Louis XV was described by Princeton historian Jerome Blum as "a perpetual adolescent called to do a mans job." Many scholars believe that Louis XV damaged the power of France, weakened the treasury, discredited the absolute monarchy, and made it more vulnerable to distrust and destruction. No surprise then that the French Revolution broke out just 15 years after his passing. But Louis had style, and French culture and influence were at their height during his reign. Louis XV style or Louis Quinze was characterized by supreme craftsmanship and the integration of the arts of painting, cabinetmaking and sculpture. Furniture of the period typi...Read More

Everything tastes better with freedom on top. As Americans prepare to celebrate 241 years of Independence from the British Empire, we ‘the people’ will joyfully decorate hot dogs, cannonball into pools, ignite explosives, jar lightening bugs and battle on baseball fields. Festivities that are owed to the fierce revolutionaries and pen welding intellectuals who declared it so - on this day, July 4th 1776.  Lot 24, Harry Jackson, The Flag Bearer, Bronze; Estimate $25,000 - $35,000 A hard gallop, hove to heel with stars and stripes at the helm. Harry Jackson, a true romantic for the wild hearted American West, will be represented in The Coeur d'Alene Art Auction, Fine Western & American Art sale on July 29th. Several sculptures by the prominent realist artist known for his paintings and bronze sculptures of cowboys and Indians forcefully showc...Read More

In 2015, the annual Bidsquare Cares holiday charity auction raised funds for charity:water to bring clean, safe drinking water to people in developing countries. Below wed like to share an update from charity:water on how the funds raised are going to use. Whats happening now? The projects we are helping fund in Tigray, the northernmost region of Ethiopia, are underway. Currently, more than 5 million people live there and less than half of them have access to clean and safe drinking water. But thanks to your help, charity:water is working to change that! Charity:waters partner, the Relief Society of Tigray (REST), has already constructed 223 new projects through the grant the Bidsquare Cares charity auction helped fund. Now they are hard at work forming local Water Committees and training them on water point maintenance, financial managemen...Read More

The Packard Motor Company was built off the back of a snub James Ward Parckard received from Alexander Winton, owner of the Winton Motor Carriage Company. A mechanical engineer, James offered suggestions that he believed would drastically improve Wintons cars, was ignored, then decided to build his own. He partnered with his brother William, Winton shareholder George Lewis Weiss, and got to work. Packards first car was completed on November 6, 1899, and within four years over 400 had been built in their Warren, Ohio factory. During that time, Henry Bourne Joy, a member of one of Detroits oldest and wealthiest families, bought a Packard. Impressed by its reliability, he visited the Packards and soon enlisted a group of investors and formed the Packard Motor Car Company, with James Packard as president. Packard moved operations to Detroit soo...Read More

Ladies & Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones legendary guitarist, Keith Richards and wife Patti Hansen are unbuttoning their crushed velvet, gold and leather...antique and fine art collection. Stair Galleries, The Collection of Keith & Patti Richards and Various Owners auction on June 24th will be offering property from the couples Manhattan apartment as well as a small selection from their Connecticut home. Hand picked by Patti and interior designer Carol Perry, the richly romantic, Upper East Side apartment boasts European furnishings, artworks and ornate objects from Italy, England and France. When it comes to rock royalty, this catalog is everything you want it to be, the Richards even ash their cigarettes in Venetian glass ashtrays (of course). Image: Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones with wife Patti Hansen; Lynn Goldsmith/CORBIS All proc...Read More

Bidders can take a musical trip down memory lane on Saturday, July 1 when Antique Place holds their Great Independence Week auction. The sale contains over 340 lots that include art glass, porcelain, Asian art, sculpture and more, with an overriding feel here of nostalgia for a time long past, when things were simpler, plastic didnt exist, and peoples idea of technological advancement was a well paved road. Nothing holds truer to this notion than the five silver singing-bird boxes being sold here back-to-back. With their quaint mechanism and detailed old-world finish, they possess an innocence and charm that is almost mesmerizing, especially when placed beside the assorted Apple products that litter a 21st Century bedroom. Of the five lots on offer, Lot 41 - a silver mechanical double singing bird box, is considered the pick, and the one mo...Read More

When automobiles first appeared, no one believed they had staying power, actually, the vast majority of people saw them as a fad. However, as the technology and use for the motorcar grew, nostalgia and fascination for its transformative history grew along with it. Well over a century later, automobiles have not only continued to be used but they have drastically impacted our lives.  Making their Bidsquare debut, l'art et l’automobile (arteautoauction) hosts Automobile Memorabilia, Timed Auction, available now through June 27th, offering a collection that includes historical auto-memorabilia by some of the best automotive artists in the world, from factory sales literature, to race programs, autographed photos, vintage posters, prints & paintings, and automobile hood ornament & sculptures.  Left to Right: Lot 30, Grand Prix Automobile et Mot...Read More

Russia is a land rich in artistic traditions. From the great men of letters such as Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Pushkin, to artists like Kandinsky, Chagall and Goncharova, it is a country that has always paid great respect to creative pursuits. Artisans too have played a significant roll, none more so than the craftsmen who took to enameling at the end of the 19th Century. Enameling had been around for thousands of years - the Russians just brought the process to an entirely new level of creativity, complexity and beauty.  And while this came to an abrupt end with the arrival of the Russian Revolution, the pieces live on in all their glory in collections the world over. Demand for this work has never been stronger, which brings us to the World Treasures: Russian, European, Asian & American Fine Art sale, where a stunning array of enameled Russ...Read More

Imagine crossing a dark living room, your arm blindly oscillating in search of the nearest light source...click!...you’ve switched on a marvelous patch of bending iridescent-gold tulips or perhaps you’ve ignited a flurry of cream colored dogwood flowers! What a marvelous surprise it would be to absorb the celebrated ambience of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s bronze and blown glass lamps. Louis Comfort Tiffany, the famed early 20th-century designer, known for his impressive impact on Art Nouveau, continues to shed light on master craftsmanship as the man behind some of the most desired decorative artworks in the world.  Lot 1108, Tiffany Studios Dogwood Floor Lamp, From an Unreserved Texas Estate; Image detail; Estimate $100,000 - $150,000  On June 16th, James D. Julia will present its highly anticipated, annual early summer, Extraordinary Rare Vin...Read More

The history of maps is the history of mans efforts to conquer the earth. With fleets of boats at the ready, nations commissioned thousands of expeditions in their efforts to chart the globe and to plunder whatever riches they could find at the other end. Men whose names would go down in the annals of history - James Cook, Ferdinand Magellan, Christopher Columbus, Vasco Da Garma, became the heroes of their age, fearless in the face of uncertainty, or so the story goes. They were under immense pressure to succeed; to succeed they needed maps, and they needed them to be accurate.  Always exquisitely crafted in the greatest detail, its no wonder these maps are now in such demand from a posse of passionate collectors. Which brings us to The Old Print Shops, Cartographic Wonders sale, a timed auction that runs through to Monday, June 19, where fi...Read More