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THBGold Enamel & Amber Cane
About Seller
125 West Market Street
Johnson City, TN 37604
United States
Family-owned and family-run Johnson City Tennessee auction business for 25 years. Selling antiques and collectables for 38 years. Kimball M. Sterling, Inc. was founded and is owned by Kimball and Victoria Sterling, time and again, they have laid solid claim to world-wide attention and renown with an...Read more
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| Price | Bid Increment |
|---|---|
| $0 | $10 |
| $100 | $25 |
| $500 | $50 |
| $1,000 | $100 |
About Auction
LiveJan 3, 2026
Masterpiece Cane auction is all from a Europeon collection. We offer items from this private collection about once a year, Kimball Sterling kimballsterling@earthlink.net
View Full Catalog (89)
- Lot Description
First half of the 19th Century
Baltic amber knob with a simple sphere form made of a single piece of blameless material and presented on a yellow gold enamel collar. The high-karat collar is more elongated and cylindrical, with two oval enamel panels depicting a European lakeside scene and a flower arrangement in a vanity vase. The artwork is fine and well-executed, in vibrant colors, with gold trailing scrolls framing a canary-yellow backdrop with scattered blooms and two bordering rows of white dots.
The enameling technique reflects its Swiss origin, while the overall taste suggests a special order for the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, the colors and themes are identical to those seen in similar works in Istanbul's Topkapi Sarayi, and the use of amber is another step in that direction.
A high-quality, beautifully figured, and vividly colored snake-wood shaft, along with a matching horn ferrule, adds to the sense of luxury and exclusivity.
Canes of this quality are extremely rare in private hands. This one is not only in pristine condition, but it also has a provenance that can be traced back to 1900, when it belonged to Hugo, Prince of Radolin, a Polish-German aristocrat and statesman who served as an ambassador for the Kingdom of Prussia and later the German Empire, as well as a high-ranking official in the royal and imperial courts. In 1876, he became Germany's first ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, advocating Russia's interests during the Russo-Turkish war.
H. 3 ¼” x 1 ½”, O.L. 40”
$1,500-$2,000
Amber is a fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since the Neolithic period. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is used to make a variety of decorative objects. Amber is also used as an ingredient in perfumes, as a healing agent in folk medicine, and as jewelry.
Piratinera Guianensis, or snake wood, belongs to the family of Moraceae and originates in tropical South America. It is a truly exotic species and one of the most difficult woods to find.
Typically, it is a small tree and shows only a wonderful reddish-brown heartwood with speckles of black appearing as hieroglyphics or snakeskin markings in a small quantity of the wood, which is then rarely evenly spread across the entire face of the board. Its markings, which resemble snakeskin, give this small, relatively rare timber its name. Snake wood is dense, extremely heavy, hard, brittle, and prone to splitting.
When finished, it becomes incredibly smooth and has a unique natural polish.
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