Earning $66,000 against its $10/15,000 estimate, this Confederate Civil War era battle flag, 31 inches square, will be staying in the South with a private collector.
Review by Madelia Hickman Ring
MOUNT CRAWFORD, VA. — Auctioneering several hundred lots can be wearing, but Will Kimbrough said the approximately 1,600 lots he and the rest of the team at Jeffery S. Evans & Associates gaveled down November 21-23 in the firm’s Premier Americana sale “felt pretty good. Each day was very different. A diverse sale is the best sale especially when you have quality in every category because it brings buyers together.” He noted almost 4,000 registered bidders participated throughout the sale, whether online, by phone, by absentee bid or in person.
The first day of the sale featured glass and ceramics from several private collections and estates in Texas, Indiana, Kentucky, Connecticut, New Jersey and Ohio, while the estate collection of Washington, DC, collector Alfred “Al” Marzorini was the focus of the second day of the sale. American furniture, folk and decorative arts from sellers in Illinois, Michigan and Virginia, as well as two institutions, rounded out the three-day event.
The firm has a strong reputation with Civil War artifacts and a Confederate battle flag was raised to $66,000 on the last day, achieving the highest price realized of the event. It was discovered by Richard Hoover in a Washington, DC, area estate auction in the 1980s and came to sale from his collection; despite competition on four phone lines, a private collector from the South, bidding online, prevailed.
Another strong result for a work from the Hoover collection was the $12,000 realized for a historical mezzotint engraving of “A Young Rescued from a Shark,” which was done by Valentine Green (British, 1739-1813) after John Singleton Copley’s painting “Watson and the Shark.”
“We had institutional interest on that, but it sold to a private collector who was new to us,” Kimbrough remarked about this mezzotint engraving on laid paper that dated to circa 1779 and was titled “A Young Rescued From a Shark.” Estimated at $500/800, it rose to $12,000.
A Shenandoah Valley of Virginia decorated stoneware covered serving bowl that was made by Andrew Coffman circa 1840-53 that had been languishing in a box on a shelf at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello secured the second-highest result of $46,800. Kimbrough confirmed it would also be staying in the Shenandoah Valley, with a private collector.
The sale included two rare and important Hampshire County W. Va., fraktur from the Marzorini estate that the firm had handled previously, in 2014. Offered separately but acquired by the same buyer, the first offered realized $36,000 while the second lot achieved just $8,640 in what Kimbrough dubbed “the buy of the day!”
A dramatic high Sierra view of Yosemite Valley by William Keith (Scottish American, 1838-1911) that was painted circa 1890 and came to sale from a Chicago, Ill., collection nearly doubled its high estimate and sold to an East Coast collector, for $25,200.
A private collector and an institution competed for a coin silver belt buckle attributed to James Geddy of Williamsburg, Va. The 2-by-1¾-inch piece dated to the third quarter of the Eighteenth Century and related to examples at Colonial Williamsburg and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts. The private collector prevailed at $20,400.
“That was a fun thing and exceedingly rare. Two interested and highly motivated bidders went after, with a private collector taking it to $20,400,” said Kimbrough about this coin silver buckle ($2/3,000).
Lazy Susan tables are, according to Kimbrough, not very rare but he’d never before seen one with drop leaves. One made of yellow pine that had been discovered on a screened back porch in North Carolina spun to what he called a “robust” price of $14,400 and will be returning to North Carolina.
Another rare furniture form was a yellow pine and birch punched-tin paneled sideboard safe that featured elements of a slab table. It finished at $13,200.
Kimbrough said everyone “was immediately drawn to” an American folk art carved and painted pig trade sign from the Marzorini estate that had sold at Brunk Auctions in 2023 and also had provenance to Jean and Jim Barrow, Frank and Barbara Pollack and Frederic and Evelyn Bartlett. A trade buyer bagged it for $14,000.
The Library of Virginia houses a significant portion of the family archives of the Donnan Family of Petersburg, so they were keen to acquire a second grouping of archival ephemera from the same family. Comprising of 60 Civil War postal covers and letters addressed to Alexander and/or James Donnan, prominent Petersburg lawyers who specialized in hiring out and selling enslaved people and dating largely from 1861 to 1865; the archive sold to a private collector for $13,200 who prevailed against the library.
Kimbrough said, “The Foltz collection is well known and that had a great pedigree, so that combined with a super rare form and its original blue paint, I wasn’t surprised it did so well.” Dated to the late Nineteenth Century, it earned $12,000 ($3/5,000).
Painted furniture was sold on both the second and third days of the auction but the best two examples — each selling for $12,000 — were offered on the second day. Bringing that price first was a vibrant blue sugar chest from the Foltz family of Shenandoah County, Va., that Al Marzorini acquired from Pook & Pook in 2016. Following it across the block about 30 lots later was a diminutive blanket chest from Maryland or Pennsylvania. This chest was also from the Marzorini estate and one he had purchased from Jeffrey S. Evans in 2014, when it sold for about $7,500.
The highest price realized on the first day of the auction was $12,000, for a free-blown and enamel-decorated presentation flask, attributed to William Beilby (English, 1740-1819) that sold to a Midwest collector. According to the auction catalog, there are just two other white-enameled presentation flasks attributed to Beilby.
Following the sale, company president and principal auctioneer Jeffrey S. Evans commented, “This sale generated strong interest across the board, from bidders near and far. The Marzorini collection and the Hoover collection were both hits and drew in large numbers of new customers for us.” Evans added, “Looking forward, we have strong auctions lined up for 2025, so we are excited about the future here at JSE & Associates.”
Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates will sell glass and ceramics January 22-24 and Americana March 6-8; the firm’s next Premier Americana sale will take place in June, dates to be announced.
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For information, 540-434-3939, info@jeffreysevans.com or www.jeffreysevans.com.
