Schwenke Auctioneers – Two Owner Estates
May 23 at 11 am
50 Main Street North Woodbury, CT 066798
www.woodburyauction.com
consign@woodburyauction.com
203-266-0323

WOODBURY, CONN. — On Tuesday, May 23, Schwenke Auctioneers will offer the estate of Muriel Gantz, Greenwich Conn., as the first section of its 35th anniversary estates auction. John and Muriel Gantz began collecting in the mid-1960s, and for more than 40 years they frequented shows and shops in New York and New England, building a distinguished collection of American and English furniture and folk art, decorative arts and fine art. They were dedicated clients of Connecticut dealers John Walton, Jerome Blum and Marguerite Riordon; The Old Print Shop in New York City; and Richard Green Fine Art in London, to name a few. Like many collectors, they kept detailed records of their purchases and spent countless enjoyable hours documenting those items and seeking out new acquisitions. This estate comprises 300 lots and well over 500 items.

The balance of the sale includes more than 130 lots from a West End New York City estate with eclectic European furnishings and fine art; more than 50 lots comprising the estate paintings of Eugene F. Savage, noted American muralist who lived the later part of his life in Woodbury; and more than 200 select lots from more than 35 other estates and collections from the tri-state area.

The Gantzes had broad and varied collecting interests. They liked late Seventeenth and early Eighteenth Century American furniture. The couple also favored early English furniture, and especially early English Staffordshire and Prattware. Perhaps the most outstanding aspect of their collection is a large group of British artworks.

The sale offers two works by Charles Spencelayh RMS, HRBSA (British, 1865-1958). First is an oil on board titled “As Good As New,” depicting an older gentleman in a somewhat unkempt possibly home workshop, fixing a late Regency-style dressing mirror. The second Spencelayh work is a larger detailed oil on canvas depiction of well-attired older gentleman in his art and antiques adorned office, reading his bank statement, titled “Overdrawn At The Bank.”

Five works by Edgar Hunt (British 1876-1953) are on offer from the Gantz estate, one titled “In The Barnyard” an oil on canvas, signed lower right. Purchased from Vose Gallery in Boston is a work by Thomas Hewes Hinckley (American, 1813-1896) “Blue Hills From The Dedham Side.”

Foremost among the American furniture being sold is an eastern Connecticut carved cherrywood secretary desk. Important other American furniture is a cherry reverse serpentine chest with molded notch corner top, blocked ends and ogee bracket feet with “C” scrolls; five Connecticut banister back arm chairs; a Pilgrim century ash “Brewster” arm chair; and a New York Chippendale carved mahogany claw and ball foot serpentine game table.

The collection also includes a pair of Bermuda cedar Queen Anne side chairs and a Bermuda cedar Queen Anne lowboy. English furniture includes a Queen Anne slipper foot walnut tray top tea table; a George II carved mahogany double top turret corner game table; and an early Queen Anne double dome mirrored door fall front secretary desk.

The Savage estate collection comprises more than 45 significant individual artworks consigned by a descendant of the artist. Eugene Francis Savage (1883-1978) was an American realist and surrealist painter known for his mural, genre, figural and landscape works. Many of the works being offered from his estate are studies for some of the noted murals as well as others, and several are from his works done in Hawaii and in the Seminole area in Florida. Foremost among the works is a sizable oil on canvas, signed and dated 1960, titled “Truth and the Seven Deadly Sins,” a fully realized composition originally conceived as one panel of a mural in the Queen’s County Courthouse, New York City, representing the triumph of truth over error and transgression, with various sins represented.

Other significant works include “Means Of Communication,” oil on canvas signed lower right, study for Communication Building, New York World’s Fair, 1939; and a mural study “Just And Unjust Taxes,” an important study for the mural at Covington, Ind., Courthouse.

The other 300-plus estate lots include Asian decorative arts, American, English and Continental furniture and decorative arts, folk art and American country furniture, early English and other sterling silver, jewelry, fine art, miscellaneous decorative art, and estate Oriental rugs. Eclectic furniture from the West End estate include a Continental heavily carved oak round extension dining table with four figural caryatid carved legs and central carved pedestal; a Biedermeier carved and figured birch inlaid abbatant with an ornate inlaid interior; and an early Italian inlaid walnut prie dieu, with various marquetry and penwork details centering the Virgin Mary.

The sale will begin at 11 am. Live preview is being conducted on Tuesday, May 16, from 1 to 6 pm and Thursday, Friday and Saturday May 18, 19 and 20 from 10 am to 5 pm.

Schwenke Auctioneers is at 50 Main Street. For information, www.woodburyauction.com or 203-266-0323