…Blue, blue, electric blue That’s the color of my room Where I will live Blue, blue… The gallery at Pook & Pook this week is full of 18th and 19th century painted furniture. There are pieces in ochre, salmon, green, and red, but the ones I love are the cool blues. The words of David Bowie running through my head, I take a deep breath, relax, and take in the sight. The painted furniture, textiles, glass and mocha are an ocean of blue: robin’s egg, cobalt, aqua, teal, navy, turquoise, midnight and sky, to name a few. Image courtesy of Pook and Pook, Inc This is remarkable, since it was neither easy nor inexpensive to paint things blue in the 18th and 19th  centuries. Paint and brushes had to be made from scratch, bristles gotten from an unwilling badger. Pigments, derived from organic sources, were ground using a hand-held stone muller agains...Read More

Bought from an antiques dealer several years previously, the present owners of this painting wanted to know more about their dog. They took him along to a BBC Antiques Roadshow in July 2014 where it was instantly recognized as a copy of the dog in Hogarth’s “Manifesto” self-portrait painted in 1745.  But who reproduced it and when was it painted? A contemporary? Or by someone later? Or perhaps even by Hogarth himself? More research was needed. In a broadcast follow-up TV program, and after discussions with several Hogarth authorities, the owners were informed that their own dog was deemed to be a good 19th century copy, possibly executed in the National Gallery where, in the 19th century, artists were given out-of-hours access to copy any chosen work on public view.   Lot 277 Fine Interiors - 29 & 30 June | Follower of William Hogarth Willi...Read More

With the inclusion of two fine examples of embroidered samplers in Sworders' auction of Fine Interiors on the 29 and 30 June, we take a look into the world of domestic crafts, and how they have influenced the work of the modern and contemporary artist of today. The artisans of today have a wealth of technology at their crafty fingertips to aid them in their skilled work. Charles Babbage designed the first mechanical printer in the 1800s, to be used with the ‘Difference Engine’ that he also developed in 1822. This was the original concept for a digital programmable computer. But long before the likes of cameras and printers were invented, embroiderers and lacemakers needed some other way to record their various designs, stitches, and patterns in order to reference them in future work. The solution was to create a hand-stitched ‘sampler’, an ...Read More

With a total of $10 million, more than double the high estimate, and a 89% sell-through rate, Rago’s Early 20th Century Design and Modern Design auctions illustrate the continued strength of the design market. Tiffany Studios, Important Dandelion Lamp from the 1900 Paris Exposition; Sold for $3,745,000 The highlight of the two-day auction event was the record sale of an important Tiffany Studios Dandelion lamp from the 1900 Exposition in Paris. One of only two known monumental examples, the lamp brought in an impressive $3,745,000, a new world record. With more than a dozen registered phone bidders and a handful of active participants on the online platforms, the energy in the room was electric with different waves of activity and three bidders contending until the very end. A set of The Pine tiles by Addison LeBoutillier for Grueby sold fo...Read More

Playthings have always been an inseparable part of children’s lives. Antique toys unearthed during excavations give us a glimpse of playtime activities around the world. While yo-yos may be one of the oldest toys, clay animals, horses on wheels, and rattles were the favorite toys of ancient Greek and Roman children. Archaeologists even recovered a 2,000-year-old carved animal figurine near Stonehenge. Prehistory and history abound with toy treasures that speak about ancient people and the times they lived in.  Lot 85a, Large Syro Hittite Pottery Bull Pull Toy on Wheels, Ancient Near East, Syro-Hittite, Bronze Age, ca. 2nd millennium BCE. Sold for $2,490 Playthings cradled in the lap of civilization The settlements of the Indus Valley Civilization have some of the best-preserved toys. These give us a glimpse of ancient children and their pla...Read More

Not every minor artist toils in obscurity. Relegated down the ranks of 19th century American painters by history, William Russell Smith was an eminent artist in his day. He is important because his paintings preserve images of a young nation, his diaries record a host of painters and historical figures, and his life story captures much of the 19th century American experience. Lot 51, Russell Smith (American 1812-1896), oil on panel Village of Llanberis, Wales, signed lower left, dated 1860 Born in the damp smoke of Glasgow’s Industrial Revolution, Russell suffered a bout of scarlet fever that was to leave him deaf in one ear and plagued by migraine headaches. His father, born in a castle to its hereditary caretakers, and his medical student mother, from a family of academics, were social reformers who left the climate of increasing unrest a...Read More

The uninterrupted desire to experiment was, perhaps, Pablo Picasso’s greatest attribute. A changemaker de facto - before his sixtieth birthday, the artist had already secured his name in history as a revolutionary force. Having evolved through several periods of art, beginning with the co-founding of Cubism and onward through tireless decades of dimensional shifts on canvas, Picasso delivered unrivaled modernity through iconic strokes of monumental proportion. Unsurprisingly, his later years were no different, and based on the over 3,500 fired clay works he would create from 1946-1973, he was just getting started. Picasso painting a piece of his pottery in his Vallauris studio. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images) FINDING CLAY In 1946, while visiting the small coastal town of Vallauris in the south of France, Pablo Pic...Read More

Art lots to keep your eye on in Pook & Pook, Inc.'s May 21, 2021 sale include several paintings by members of The Philadelphia Ten artist group. Lot 20, Maude Drein Bryant oil on canvas country landscape. Estimate $2,000-$3,000 The Philadelphia Ten was the brainchild of ten women painters who had all trained in Philadelphia at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now the Moore College of Art and Design) and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the early 1900’s. The group exhibited sixty-five times between 1917 and 1945. Over the years, composition of The Ten included twenty-three painters and seven sculptors, but their annual shows were mostly limited to ten artists whose work was shown in depth. Individual styles ranged within the group, but the greatest influence was that of Pennsylvania Impressionism, and the predominant ...Read More

Mesmerized by the magnificence of the jade stone, the Chinese Qianlong Emperor collected the most exquisite and exclusive assortment of jade objects of the Qing dynasty period. Legend tells that the emperor composed more than 800 songs and verses dedicated to his jadeite treasures. Scribes carved this literature onto jade artifacts, as was the practice with many Chinese rulers. Qianlong’s obsession with jade sparked a passion for jade jewelry around the world. After raw jade imports from Burma increased, this precious stone became a cultural passion among Chinese royal and noble families. A gigantic jade sculpture carved in the 18th century CE is a classic example of how the jade stone captured the Chinese imagination. Yu the Great Taming the Waters, which depicts a Qing landscape, required over seven years of work and illustrates China’s r...Read More

PHILADELPHIA, PA — Freeman’s is pleased to present Sylvia Shaw Judson’s Bird Girl, the highlight of its June 6 American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionists auction. This fresh-to-market work is one of the most recognizable American sculptures to ever appear at auction. Conceived in 1936 by the Chicago-based Judson, Bird Girl was cast by Roman Bronze Works in New York. One of four extant original bronzes, this iconic image is immediately familiar from Jack Leigh's haunting photograph used as the cover of John Berendt’s 1994 best-selling novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Sylvia Shaw Judson's, Bird Girl, Bronze. Coming up in Freeman's June 6 American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionists auction. This life-size statue of a nine-year-old girl holding a pair of shallow bowls in outstretched arms has been in the same private family col...Read More