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Maine Antique Digest, April 2015 27-D
- AUCTIONS -
Wright offered 22 lots of work by Frank Lloyd
Wright and Chicago school architects from a pri-
vate collection that focused on a broad spectrum
of chair designs by Wright. Seen here is an arm-
chair from Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma,
1956. Constructed of cast aluminum, upholstery,
and rubber, the cover lot of Wright’s Important
Design sale sold for $22,500 (est. $20,000/30,000).
Americans are the core of Frank Lloyd Wright
collectors, said Brent Lewis, director of the auc-
tion house’s New York City office, “but interna-
tional demand has been growing. More and more
collectors from Europe are buying his works.”
Wright.
Architect Jon Stryker’s
collection
of
Euro-
pean and Scandinavian
design and photogra-
phy from his Manhat-
tan apartment achieved
$7,257,814 (85.4% sold
by lot). This Diego Gia-
cometti sculpture,
L’Ar-
bre de vie
, circa 1960,
sold to an anonymous
buyer for $701,000
(est. $150,000/200,000).
Sotheby’s.
A collection of models from the
Strong
Museum,
Rochester,
New York, was part of Wright’s
sale. This 20th-century windmill
salesman’s model of patinated
bronze sold for $24,130 (est.
$10,000/15,000). The model has
fully realized mechanisms and
measures 23¾" x 10¾" x 14½".
Wright.
A pair of rare circa 1975 table lamps by John Dick-
inson, estimated at $10,000/15,000, sold for $43,180.
Painted cast plaster and galvanized steel, the lamps are
33" tall and 19½" in diameter. Wright.
Works from a collection of postwar Italian glass,
assembled in the early and mid-1990’s by Ste-
phen Montifiore and Victoria DiNardo and
including pieces by Venini, Barovier, Seguso, and
others, were part of Wright’s sale. This 9" high
vase by Fulvio Bianconi sold for $27,500 (est.
$9000/12,000). The collection featured vividly col-
ored glass of high quality. Wright.
This revolving music stand by Charles Rohlfs (1853-1936) was
included in the Design Masters sale at Phillips. (The sale totaled
about $3.1 million with 25 of 36 lots sold.) The stained white oak
and hand-wrought copper music stand and holder, circa 1901,
with each drawer interior with original green stain, came from
a private New York collection and sold in the room for $56,250
(est. $50,000/70,000). Rohlfs of Buffalo, New York, was a fur-
niture maker who mixed styles including Arts and Crafts, Art
Nouveau, and proto-modernism. Joseph Cunningham, cura-
torial director of the Leeds Art Foundation, wrote
The Artistic
Furniture of Charles Rohlfs
, (Yale University Press, 2008), an
excerpt of which was included in the lot’s description. Phillips.
These two stoneware forms created by Hans Coper (1920-1981) sold well
at Phillips’ sales. The Goblet form (right) with vertical impressions, 1968,
15 7/8" high, sold for $164,500 (est. $60,000/90,000). The other, a Spade
form, circa 1972, 10" x 8" x 2¾", sold for $84,100 (est. $30,000/40,000).
Both are impressed with the artist’s seal. Phillips.
This Tiffany Dragonfly
table lamp, circa 1910,
with a rare mosaic and
Turtleback base, sold in
the room to collector/
dealer Sandy van den
Broek for $965,000 (est.
$600,000/900,000). She
reacquired the lamp
after having sold it and
six other lamps to a pri-
vate person about five
years ago. Sotheby’s.
The LeedsArt Foundation, Philadel-
phia, bought this Byrdcliffe cabinet
for $143,000 (est. $120,000/180,000)
at Sotheby’s Important 20th Cen-
tury Design sale. It came from
White Pines, the residence of Jane
Byrd McCall Whitehead and Ralph
Radcliffe-Whitehead in Woodstock,
New York. Furniture from the col-
ony was produced between the fall
of 1903, when the colony opened,
until the beginning of 1905. This
oak with wrought-iron hardware
cabinet, branded “Byrdcliffe 1904,”
is one of four known examples of
this large cabinet form. It mea-
sures 65¾" x 65½" x 22". Most of
the furniture was designed by col-
ony founder Ralph Whitehead and
decorated by various Byrdcliffe
artists. The polychrome maple leaf
panels in orange, red, and yellow on
this piece were designed by Zulma
Steele, according to Sotheby’s cata-
log. The Leeds Art Foundation has
five other Byrdcliffe works in its col-
lection, which includes two bride’s
chests, a chiffonier with painted
panels, a hanging shelf-cabinet, and
a related linen press. “The cabinet
we acquired is likely the best-preserved piece of Byrdcliffe in terms of color and patina, save only
the [Sassafrass] cabinet at the Metropolitan [Museum of Art],” wrote Joseph Cunningham, cura-
torial director at Leeds, in an e-mail. There are fewer than 100 Byrdcliffe Arts and Crafts colony
pieces existing today.