- ATTRIBUTED TO CLARISSA PETERS (MRS.
ATTRIBUTED TO CLARISSA PETERS (MRS. MOSES B.) RUSSELL (MASSACHUSETTS, 1809-1854), MINIATURE WATERCOLOR PORTRAIT ON IVORY OF A YOUNG GIRL WEARING A BLUE DRESS AND HOLDING AN APPLE., OVAL 2.75" X 2.25". FRAMED 3" X 2.375".ATTRIBUTED TO CLARISSA PETERS (MRS. MOSES B.) RUSSELL, Massachusetts, 1809-1854, Miniature watercolor portrait on ivory of a young girl wearing a blue dress and holding an apple. Unsigned but bearing several characteristics of Russell's work, including the striated background with a subtle "halo" around the girl's head, the prominent eyes, the finely delineated eyebrows and fingernails, the nearly imperceptible line at the wrist that separates the forearm from the hand, the delicate details on the dress and the vividly colored apple. Dimensions: Oval 2.75" x 2.25". Framed 3" x 2.375". Provenance: Notes:In her day, Clarissa Peters Russell was a well-known miniaturist, specializing in portraits of children. Her work was so favored that when she died from a violent case of seasickness, the news made the front page of Boston newspapers.Over time, however, like many women artists, she faded into obscurity. Because she rarely signed her paintings, many of them were misattributed to her husband, also a miniaturist, or to itinerant portraitist Joseph Whiting Stock.She was born in North Andover, Massachusetts, and it is believed she attended Franklin Academy. She married Moses Russell in 1839 and the two had a son, Albert Cuyp Russell. By 1835 she was in Boston painting miniatures and giving private lessons. From 1840 to 1851, she shared a studio with her husband and was very much part of the city's art scene.Her portraits are notable not just for their fastidious details, but for being sympathetic and vibrant likenesses, in contrast to the more typical solemn and flat depictions of young sitters.Reference:"Mrs. Moses B. Russell Boston Miniaturist" by Randall L. Holton and Charles A. Gilday, The Magazine Antiques , December 1999, p. 816-823.
- LEONEL GONGORA (COLUMBIAN, 1932 - 1999)
LEONEL GONGORA (COLUMBIAN, 1932 - 1999) "Prisoners of Their Passions". Twenty pencil drawings and an etching by Leonel Gongora and a poem "An End to Obscurity" by Barry Schwartz, 1973. A red cloth portfolio with slipcase, gilt reproduction signature and title to cover, published by Blue Moon Press, New York; 1973. Introduction by Ernest S. Heller, limited edition signed and numbered 42 / 120.
- GREG FIDLER, RED BOW SERIES PAIRSigned,Unknown
GREG FIDLER, RED BOW SERIES PAIRSigned,Unknown Year, Blown glass, coldworked,11h x 3.5w and 12h x 6w. · He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Cultural Anthropology from Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire. · Through the 1990s, he worked in many glass studios from Maine to Seattle while also attending classes at The Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA. The Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle., ME., and The Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC. · In 2000, Greg received his Master of Arts degree from the University of Illinois and was awarded the Glass Residency at the Penland School of Crafts for the years 2001-2004. · “The familiar essence of glass is derived from a manufactured utilitarian need. Processes in hand forming glass undermine these attributes and in effect give my work purpose. It is my desire to produce sculpture that communicates progression while paying respect to traditional processes and their survival in the present. My ideas owe more to natural forms and my deference for the material than to consciousness obscurity.” Photo by Jeff Dimarco
Condition:
Excellent
- GERMAN VIOLIN, LOUIS LOWENDALL, DRESDEN
DATED
GERMAN VIOLIN, LOUIS LOWENDALL, DRESDEN
DATED 1883 the two piece curly maple back stamped 'DRESDEN' and 'REGISTERED' and painted with a portrait of the violinist Ludwig Spohr, the button with a Registration stamp and number 390660, the back of the scroll branded 'LOWENDALL'S ARTIST VIOLIN'; the front of ash with interior label 'Louis Lowendall/ fecit Dresdæ. Anno 1883'; TOGETHER WITH a bow stamped GERMANY and branded initials ACHM in a cross, 740mm long; in a baize-lined wood case with extra keys, frets, strings, and tailpieceback 358mm long, upper bout 170mm, lower bout 214mmNote: Ludwig Spohr, 1784 -1859, was a German composer, violinist, and conductor. Highly regarded during his lifetime, he toured extensively through Europe, and made six tours of England beginning in 1820. He composed more than one hundred and fifty works in the Romantic style, but fell into obscurity for most of the 20th century, but has experienced a rediscovery over the last few decades.
- Whitney Babin, 20th-21st C American,
Whitney Babin, 20th-21st C American, modern streetscape painting "Illuminated Obscurity", oil on canvas, signed "Whitney Babin" on reverse, 36" x 48", excellent condition
- JEAN XCERON, GREEK (1890-1967), COMPOSITION
JEAN XCERON, GREEK (1890-1967), COMPOSITION #326, 1951, OIL ON PAPER, 10 3/8"H X 6"W (SHEET), 18 1/4"H X 14"W (FRAME)Jean Xceron, Greek, (1890-1967) Composition #326, 1951, oil on paper signed lower left. Provenance: From a private collector, Indianapolis. A modernist artist who emigrated to America from Greece in 1904, when he was fourteen years old, Jean Xceron is described as having a reputation as an artist that has mysteriously fallen into obscurity---especially since he was reportedly quite prominent during his lifetime. However, a partial explanation of that omission is the fact that many of his papers and early records have been lost. He was a painter of biomorphic abstractions and did collages, which were influenced by Dadaism. Xceron was active in New York City when modernism was gaining influence. Of him during this period, it was written that his artistic role was "a vital link between what is commonly termed as the first-generation (the Stieglitz group, the Synchromists, etc.) and second-generation, the American Abstract Artists, the Transcendental Painting Group . . ." (Vrachopoulos) Because the abstract influence that moved into the New York art world after World War I went into abeyance during World War II, Xceron somehow has gotten classified as part of the second generation but omitted as part of the pioneers. However, examination of his paintings and knowledge of his activities indicate he was consistent with his unique abstract style from 1916 to 1932. After that, his work became totally abstract. He was born in Isary, Greece with the birth name of Yiannis Xirocostas. Upon arrival in America, he lived with various relatives around the country, and then between 1911 and 1912, studied at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC. At that point, he changed his surname to Xceron, and he was called John, which is the English translation for Yiannis. However, when he later studied in France, he was called Jean, the French equivalent of John, so those first names have been used interchangeably. The next year, after graduating from the Corcoran, Xceron moved to New York City. He, like many of his artist peers, was much influenced by the 1913 Armory Show, a venue that made provided many Americans their first exposure to modernist or abstract art, much of it imported from France. At that time, Xceron was affiliated with the artists around Alfred Stieglitz, who was about the only promoter of modern art in America, something he did through his New York City Gallery 291. Borrowing some of the abstract Armory Show works that Stieglitz had obtained, Xceron and some colleagues staged their own exhibition in Washington DC. This marked him and his group as being rebels, that is in violation of academic methods prescribed by those who set those standards at the National Academy of Design. Underscoring Xceron's commitment to non-traditional artwork was his membership in the Society of Independent Artists as well as his close association with Cubist painter Max Weber, Futurist painter Joseph Stella, and Dada Greek poet, Theodoros Dorros. In 1927, he went to Paris to further his art career, which included study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts; he remained for ten years, leaving as World War II approached. He earned money by writing art reviews for the European editions of the Chicago Herald Tribune, the New York Herald Tribune, and the Boston Evening Transcript. In this capacity, he became a link as a writer between the European avant-garde and the American public. But he also did much artwork that aligned him with the French modernist movements, and by the time he returned to the United States, his work was totally abstract. In 1938, he joined the American Abstract Artists, a group that was quite controversial in the 1940s and 50s in America because it was so different from the prevalent American Scene painting. Many of the Europeans artists fleeing Europe became associated with Xceron in New York City during the war years of the 1940s such as Fernand Leger and Piet Mondrian. In fact, Xceron was the person Mondrain first wrote to when he decided to leave Europe and needed help. Xceron's work was added to the collection of the Museum of Modern Art; he received a mural commission for Riker's Island under the Federal Art Project; and in the 1940s and 1950s, he was employed in a Registrar capacity by Hilla Rebay at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In that position, he was able to do his own painting as well in his spare time, and he had gallery exhibitions and regular exposure at the Guggenheim in their non-objective shows. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, his work reflected Abstract Expressionism such as in the painting commission, Radar, he did for the University of Georgia. Jean Xceron died in 1967. Sources: Thalia Vrachopoulos, "Jean Xceron: Neglected Master and Revisionist Politics", PART, publication of A Society for the Promotion of Interdisciplianry Visual Culture. oil on paper Dimensions: 10 3/8"H x 6"W (sheet), 18 1/4"H x 14"W (frame)
- EDGAR LOUIS YAEGER, MICHIGAN / FRANCE
EDGAR LOUIS YAEGER, MICHIGAN / FRANCE (1904 - 1997), UNTITLED ABSTRACT, 1937, OIL ON CANVAS, 20 1/2"H X 27 1/2"W (SIGHT), 25"H X 32"W (FRAME)Edgar Louis Yaeger, Michigan / France, (1904 - 1997) untitled abstract, 1937, oil on canvas signed lower right. Biography from the Archives of askART: Biography from Papillon Gallery Edgar Louis Yaeger was born in 1904 in Detroit, Michigan, the son of a shoe store owner and the fourth generation of his family to live in the area. Yaeger's family was hesitantly supportive of his artistic pursuits. In the early years of his life, Yaeger learned a succession of skills from his beloved grandfather, who taught him to draw, to carve figures from blocks of soap and to paint using discarded paints found in an alley, thus laying the foundation for capabilities Yaeger would use throughout his life. By his own account, Yaeger showed little interest for any vocation apart from art; while his father was disappointed that his son wouldn't follow him into the family shoe business, he lent his grudging support to Yaeger's artistic pursuits, saying that so long as he was able to earn a living he was free to continue. ?Yaeger's talent began to emerge in earnest during his high school years as he started winning prizes for his drawings and paintings. Scholarships enabled him to pursue his formal artistic training at the University of Detroit, the John P. Wicker School of Fine Arts, and Robert Herzberg's Detroit School of Fine and Applied Arts. Both to economize and to support himself, Yaeger ground paints for his own use and for sale to fellow students. Concurrently, his work began to attract the attention of a broader audience of influential art patrons. Early recognition arrived in the form of acceptance into the Carnegie International Exhibition in 1930 – a show juried by Henri Matisse. In 1932, Yaeger won two prizes which would provide a significant boost to his budding career: The Detroit Institute of Arts' Founders' Society Purchase Prize and the Detroit News'Anna Scripps Whitcomb Traveling Scholarship. Apart from the increased public profile and prestige afforded by the awards, the $500 Scripps cash award enabled Yaeger to pursue his art education overseas. Yaeger departed for Paris, then still the center of European artistic activity and the home to legions of American expatriates, where he studed at the Academe Andre L'hote and the Ecole Scandinav, where he received instruction from L'hote, Marcel Gromaire and Orthon Friesz. Yaeger embraced the opportunities for education and inspiration afforded him by life in Paris, relishing the chance to meet other artists, peruse cutting-edge Paris galleries, and to paint in the French countryside as well as the advanced education provided by his European instructors. Forced by economics to return home midway through his European tenure, Yaeger was awarded an additional $500 by the Whitcombs in recognition of his talent and thrift, enabling him to return to France, Yaeger purchased a $10 bicycle upon which he traveled across the continent, drawing, sketching and painting directly from life in a panoply of European settings. ?A confluence of factors including escalating tensions in prewar Europe and the American economic depression led Yaeger to return to the United States in 1935. Yeager settled once again in Detroit, taking up residence in his family home where he would remain for the rest of his life. Shortly after his return, Yaeger began to work on a succession of murals commissioned by Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration and its landmark Federal Arts Project. While not enamored of the officially-sanctioned Social Realist style favored by program administrators, Yaeger nonetheless joined the ranks of American artistic luminaries commissioned by the FAP to create murals, paintings, and sculptures for WPA sites in Detroit and Ann Arbor. Yaeger's FAP commissioned works included murals for Detroit Receiving Hospital's Children's Ward, the Ford Grammar School in Highland Park, and Western Market (all now destroyed). A commission for the Detroit Public Lighting Commission, a landmark mural celebrating the historical development of electric light, was partially saved from oblivion prior to the building's 1977 demolition and is now visible at Michigan State University's Kresge Art Museum. Surviving Yaeger WPA murals exist at the Brodhead Naval Armory (now closed), Grosse Pointe South High School in Grosse Pointe, and the University of Michigan's West Quad Dormitory. ?Yaeger was somewhat dismissive of his WPA-era projects; his reluctance to embrace social realism and his resistance to the influence of program administrators and site managers led him to leave many of these works unsigned. Ironically, they become a cornerstone of his artistic reputation, and likely to his regret, a prism through which the remainder of his life's work would be perceived by critics and the public. He became pigeonholed in the eyes of some as a "WPA" artist, and with Social Realism's fall from stylistic favor he received a corresponding lessening of attention and appreciation. ?Nonetheless, Yaeger continued to work at a frenetic pace, completing private commissions including mosaics for churches and murals for private clients as well as an endless succession of paintings and drawings. Prizes, gallery exhibitions, and purchases continued to accrue, albeit at a lessened frequency, through the 1960s—even during the Abstract Expressionist, Pop, and Op-Art eras. With the ascendence of conceptualism in the late 1960s-early 1970s and its attendendant dismissal of both painting and representationalism in favor of pure abstraction, Yaeger began to recede into obscurity. ?The mid-1980s, however, witnessed something of an Edgar Yaeger renaissance. As conceptualism fell from style and interest in painting returned —thanks in large measure to American Neo-Expressionists such as Julian Schnabel and Jean-Michel Basquiat and Europeans such as Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke— stylistic devices favored by Yaeger came once again into vogue. Simultaneously, a Detroit-based group of Yaeger fans led by Yaeger's friend and agent John Joseph Jr. began evangelizing the artist's work on his behalf, a practice never undertaken in earnest by the modest Yaeger. A flurry of press attention and new public commissions followed, including an outdoor mosaic on the facade of Detroit's Scarab Club. For the majority of his remaining years, Yaeger's work continued to receive steady if low-key attention within Detroit and regional artistic and press circles. Yaeger's artistic reputation was also bolstered by growing appreciation for his craftsmanship. His patience and dedication to craft are evidenced by the meticulously created handmade frames he made for many of his paintings. Yeager's method involved assembling dozens of individually cut, sized, and carved pieces of wood into a single frame, carefully combing, filing and finishing the frame until it perfecty suited the picture it housed. Yaeger refused to use power tools for any of these creations, insisting upon a deliberate, careful process of gradual refinement. His exacting standards often resulted in more time being taken in the creation of a frame than in painting the picture itself. ?Yaeger's friends and business associates usually could count on a special annual treat: The arrival of one of his original Christmas cards. Yaeger's colorful hand-tinted cards were produced through the laborious linocut process; after making his initial sketches, Yaeger would hand-carve his design in reverse onto a piece of linoleum, which he would then ink and press into the individual sheets of paper. Once the ink dried, Yaeger would patiently hand-color each one. Edgar Yaeger died in 1997 at the age of 93, leaving behind thousands of completed paintings and drawings, a smaller number of reliefs and mosaics, and his legendary murals. Art historians and curators continue to wrestle with Yaeger's placement in the modernist pantheon, seemingly disinclined to rewrite an official 20th century art narrative which largely excluded him, but institutional support – notably from East Lansing's Kresge Museum – continues to reaffirm Yaeger's rightful status as an unheralded modernist master. Such a stature may have been something this introspective master craftsman never expected or pursued, but it is a position he richly deserves. oil on canvas Dimensions: 20 1/2"H x 27 1/2"W (sight), 25"H x 32"W (frame)
- Theodore Wendel (American 1859-1932)
Theodore Wendel (American 1859-1932) "View of Venice along the Rio Nuovo Canal" c. 1878-80 oil on canvas signed "Theo Wendel" lower right 21 in. x 24 in. in a period Arts and Crafts-style carved and giltwood frame. Note: Theodore Wendel was one of the most successful and respected Impressionist landscape painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A native of Ohio Wendel studied with Thomas Noble at the McMicken School of Art at the University of Cincinnati. He traveled to Munich Germany in 1878 with his good friend Joseph DeCamp to study with Frank Duveneck at the Munich Academy. Wendel and his friends became known as the "Duveneck Boys" and the group included Duveneck Chase Whistler and Twachtman. From 1878 to 1880 they painted landscapes and figural paintings in Polling outside Munich as well as in Florence and Venice. Most of Wendel's paintings from this period disappeared and are very rare. The view offered here is from this time and depicts the Rio Nuovo canal in Venice. Using soft shades of rose pale blue and green Wendel's gestural brushwork produced an early work of Impressionism by an American artist. Later in 1887-88 Wendel studied in France and became good friends with Claude Monet. He was one of the few American artists whose work Monet chose to praise. Wendel's career was curtailed by illness in 1917 and despite being one of the most important American Impressionists his reputation gradually faded and he fell into obscurity. His work was basically forgotten until John I. Bauer organized an exhibition of his paintings in 1976 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
- KENTON OVERSIZE CAISSON PROTOTYPE After
KENTON OVERSIZE CAISSON PROTOTYPE After much examination by several collectors this toy has been attributed as a prototype for Kenton and never a museum piece commercially produced or seen by anyone. It measures nearly 44'' l. with a solid brass cannon which combined has a weight of 10-12 lbs; has original figures and have also not been seen by anyone before. It is quite an interesting toy from the late 1800's and forms an impressionable mantel display piece for those seeking to highlight a true toy rarity. Made of cast iron wood sheet metal and brass this must have made this toy a costly nightmare for the company resulting in its obscurity. A solid well preserved example; wear & break at hitch (VG Cond.)
- JAMES McARDELL (1729-1765) AFTER SIR
JAMES McARDELL (1729-1765) AFTER SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, PRA (1723-1792)
PORTRAIT OF MRS HUGH BONFOY NEE ELIOT
proof mezzotint before letters, trimmed to within plate mark, 1755, 37.5 x 27.5cm, and four other mezzotints by McArdell, comprising Mary Duchess of Ancaster 1757 and John Duke of Montagu both after Thomas Hudson, John Couts Esqr after Allan Ramsay and Rembrandt's mother, all trimmed to or within plate mark, some faults (5)
Provenance: Collection of Leonard Daneham Cunliffe (d 1937) benefactor of the Fitzwilliam Museum (d1937) thence by descent to the present vendor.
Reynolds evident pleasure in his portrait of Mrs Bonfoy was such that "it was one of the first of his works to be engraved as a mezzotint, despite the obscurity of the sitter" (N Penny quoted by D Mannings in Sir Joshua Reynolds, Complete Catalogue of his Paintings 2000, no 200, pp94-5).
- American Miniature Portrait of a Gentleman
American Miniature Portrait of a Gentleman by Robert Field (1769-1819) The 2-7/8" x 2-3/8" beautifully painted oval portrait of a young gentleman is framed in an unmarked rose gold color frame with a large bale at the top convex glass covering convex back with a band of cobalt blue guilloche enamel inner gold rim convex glass covering a lock of hair intertwined with gold wire and tiny seed pearls over a milky guilloche enamel oval. Initialed and dated 1808 over the shoulder to the left (very indistinct). Overall apprx. 3-1/8" x 2-3/4".
Robert Field enjoyed great success in his time but fell into relative obscurity following his early death in 1819 according to Harry Piers Field scholar. Born in England Field spent time in Nova Scotia and throughout the American Northeast painting important local and national figures such as judges generals merchants and politicians. He painted hundreds of portraits including George and Martha Washington and was one of the most highly sought after American miniaturists of his time.
- TWO PORTRAITS BY SIMON SAULOG (PHILIPPINES
TWO PORTRAITS BY SIMON SAULOG (PHILIPPINES D. 1995) Oil on canvas mid 20th century signed and dated lower left ''Saulog Manila '52''. Portraits of an older couple in heavy period frames. Slight imperfections. 19 1/2''h. 15 1/2''w. in frames 25''h. 21''w. The portrait of the woman has some tiny pin pric flakes. Both of the frames have chipped paint. Saulog died in obscurity but is famous as the painter of the Philippine ''Madonnas''.