Topping the sale at $48,800 was this group of five French Belle Epoque room panels that had graced the walls of Annesdale mansion, the Snowden family home in Memphis. Five bidders chased the lot, but it ultimately sold to a phone bidder ($18/22,000).
Review by Madelia Hickman Ring; Photos Courtesy Case Antiques Auctions
KNOXVILLE, TENN. — “Our October 6-7 auction was a successful sale, with 93 percent of the lots sold. Two of the top three lots — the Belle Epoque floral panels and the portrait of Anne Overton — came from a historic Memphis family. There was a heavy amount of interest in items from this prominent family,” said Sarah Campbell Drury, vice president of fine and decorative arts for Case Antiques Auctions, which presented more than 800 lots in its Fall Fine Art & Antiques two-day sale.
The Belle Epoque panels Drury was referring to were a set of five monumental French carved giltwood room panels with Aesthetic Movement-inspired oil paintings on canvas with gold-leaf ground set into elaborately carved and pierced rocaille frames. One of the largest panels featured a peacock atop a flower-filled urn while the remaining panels depicted urns and stands festooned with a variety of flowers, birds, butterflies and other seasonal imagery. Each standing nearly 12 feet tall, the panels had been in the Annesdale mansion, one of the most historic in Memphis, Tenn. While the panels were unsigned, it is believed that the Snowden family, who resided in the mansion from 1868, acquired them in Europe in the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century. Estimated at $18/22,000, the panels sold for $48,800 to a private collector, bidding on the phone, underbid by two phone bidders and two online bidders.
The sale offered several other artifacts from Annesdale, most notably an oil on canvas portrait of Ann Coleman Overton Brinkley (1823-1845), who died in childbirth and was herself the daughter of Judge John Overton of Nashville. The Overton’s owned Traveller’s Rest, now a historic house museum in Nashville. Brinkley’s portrait was a circa 1880 copy of an original miniature portrait that had been painted by John Wood Dodge in 1841. Drury was pleased to say that Traveller’s Rest acquired Ann Coleman Overton Brinkley’s portrait, for $5,856. “It’s always so satisfying to us when we help historic objects find their way to a museum where the object can be shared with everyone.”
Portrait of Ann Coleman Overton Brinkley, by or after John Wood Dodge, circa 1880, oil on canvas, framed 41 by 25 ½ inches. Sarah Campbell Drury said the painting was purchased for $5,856 by the historic Overton family house museum, Traveller’s Rest, which plans to make Ann’s homecoming “a special event” ($1,8/2,200).
More items from the Snowden family — nearly a dozen in total — were also in the sale, including a pair of portraits of Colonel Robert Bogardus Snowden and Anne Overton Brinkley Snowden (1845-1923) by an unidentified artist ($1,342), a group of seven Memphis, Tenn., plat books from 1900 ($2,440), a Ball, Black & Co Medallion silver oval tray ($1,586), which brought the same price as a group of Snowden family photos and a slave document.
Antoine Blanchard (French, 1910-1988) painted Parisian street scenes in an impressionistic manner that are eminently popular with collector. The catalog note referenced the Dictionnaire Critique et Documentaire Des Peintres Sculpteurs Dessinateurs et Graveurs (1999), which observed that Blanchard depicted Paris in all seasons but always in 1900. Case’s sale presented what Drury deemed “a very fine example” that exemplified “what people love about Blanchard’s paintings.” Though the catalog did not identify the painting’s provenance, it stipulated the work was accompanied by a certificate of authenticity by W.T. Burger & Co of LaPorte, Ind., and documentation of the Les Enfants Arts Gallery of New Orleans. A collector prevailed over the competition to win it for $7,320, well beyond expectations.
A group of three political cartoons from the administration of President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) all focused on the controversy over national banking. Assembled by the late collector Dr Ben Caldwell, the group sold on the phone to a private collector for $4,636.
“These cartoons from the Andrew Jackson presidency (1829-1837) concerning the controversy over the national bank show that acrimony and satire are nothing new in Washington!” noted Sarah Campbell Drury, about three political cartoons that found a new home for $4,636 ($800/900).
Though it was not one of the highest selling works in the sale, a Revolutionary War era coin silver spoon, bearing the mark of Boston-area silversmith Daniel Parker was a noteworthy result for Drury, who found it in a large drawer full of otherwise ordinary silver flatware in a Nashville home. Dated to circa 1770, measuring 8½ inches long and carrying an estimate of $300/350, interest pushed it to $915 from a collector.
Strong results were also witnessed by more contemporary lots. A pair of Knoll Barcelona black leather chairs, designed in 1929 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and manufactured circa 1965 that were in great condition and retained their original Knoll Park Avenue labels sold to a trade buyer for $4,352.
Provenance may have helped drive interest in a group of Stickley furniture from the estate of country singer Naomi Judd, who Drury also recognized for her interest in art and design. “Her tastefully decorated house in Leiper’s Fork, Tenn., featured a gigantic oak paneled living room in the manner of Frank Lloyd Wright, which she filled with contemporary Stickley furniture in the manner of their original circa 1900 designs. Walking into the room, you truly did feel like you’d stepped back in time. A pair of Stickley newel post floor lamps sold for $1,792 and a pair of Stickley Harvey Ellis Prairie armchairs sold for $2,432. Both lots were Twenty-First Century, and both sold to the same buyer.” A pair of Prairie armchairs and a settle, all by Stickley, also traded successfully for $1,792 and $1,408, respectively.
This pair of Harvey Ellis Prairie style armchairs by Stickley Audi were dated 2008 and came from the Nashville estate of country singer Naomi Judd. They sold for $2,432 ($1,2/1,400).
The sale saw new world records for modern and contemporary artists. “Sacred Gathering” by Tennessee artist Bruce Peebles (1936-2016) depicted three intertwined standing figures with abstract faces and had been in a Nashville collection. It realized $3,172 and sold to a private collector, besting the artist’s previous record of $456 (Waddington’s, 2019). Another private collector also pushed the artist’s record for Alan LeQuire (Tennessee, b 1955) to $2,880, for “Nude Woman Lounging on an Abstracted Chair/Sofa.” The artist’s previous auction record had been $1,298 (Brunk, 2013). Drury thought that the $2,816 achieved for Homer Green’s (Tennessee, 1910-2002) Outsider art horse painting was also a new record.
Case Antiques Auctions has scheduled its next auction for January 27-28.
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For information, www.caseantiques.com or 865-558-3033.
