Literally crowning the sale’s top lots was a European silver imperial crown, marked “GR” on the rim, likely for saints or icons, which sold for $10,000 to a North American bidder. The crown featured a gold-tone wash, acanthus leaves, figural busts, a ring of quartz stones along the base and a ball finial with band engraved with zodiac figures.
Review by W.A. Demers
NEW YORK CITY — During Auctions at Showplace’s April 21 sale, a European silver imperial crown, marked “GR” on the rim, likely for saints or icons, sold for $10,000 to a North American bidder. The crown featured a gold-tone wash, acanthus leaves, figural busts, a ring of quartz stones along the base and a ball finial with band engraved with zodiac figures. It was one of the crowning lots of Showplace’s spring auction, which presented 280 lots of fine and decorative arts from estates of the New York City and metropolitan areas, interior decor pieces by major designers, jewelry and more.
A Louis Majorelle Chicoree mahogany sideboard served up $8,750. The Art Nouveau carved mahogany sideboard, circa 1905, featured an upper cabinet with arched bonnet above two shaped curio shelves. Its supports bore similar leaf carvings, above a two-door cabinet base with scrolling foliate carvings and cantilevered molded supports. From a Rye, N.Y., collection, it resembled a close variant of this model illustrated in A. Duncan’s Louis Majorelle: Master of Art Nouveau Design (London, 1991).
Notable jewelry included a Bulgari 18K yellow gold diamond emerald ring that sold for $5,312. Made in Italy, it featured 19 channel-set round brilliant diamonds weighing a total of approximately 1.00 carat, further adorned with 19 channel-set round brilliant cut emeralds weighing a total of approximately 0.90 carat. The ring’s size was 7½ and it came from a 188 East 78th Street estate.
Made in Italy, this Bulgari 18K yellow gold diamond emerald ring, size 7½, sold for $5,312. It had 19 channel-set round brilliant diamonds weighing a total of approximately 1.00 carat, further adorned with 19 channel-set round brilliant cut emeralds weighing a total of approximately 0.90 carat.
The fine art category was strong, led by Maria Lassnig’s (1919-2014) “Double Self Portrait,” 2008, screenprint in colors, at $8,125. Numbered edition “77/100” and signed in pencil lower left, it was presented in a silver-tone metal frame measuring 29¼ by 37 inches. Lassnig was an Austrian artist known for her painted self-portraits and her theory of “body consciousness,” a term that she coined in her native German to describe her style. Here, Lassnig depicted the parts of her body that she actually felt as she worked. Consequently, a lot of her self-portraits depict figures that are missing body parts or use unnatural colors. The shading of the grotesque forms then becomes a code for interpreting her “body consciousness.”
Fetching the same amount was William Scharf’s (1927-2018) “A Dawn’s Reason” oil on panel, 1993-97, from the collection of a New York-based artist. The work was signed, titled, dated, inscribed to the back and housed in a black painted wood frame. Scharf is described on the Hollis Taggart website as a “visionary painter with ties to the avant-garde artistic community in New York at midcentury…His abstracted compositions of organic and geometric formal elements recall the free associations of Surrealism and the all-over grandeur of Abstract Expressionism, and at the same time embody a very individual and immediately recognizable pictorial sense.”
Alfred Henry Maurer’s “Girl on Red Ground,” an oil on canvas mounted on board, depicted a slender female in black against a red background. The painting, which was bid to $5,937, was from a New York City collector.
More traditionally pictorial was Alfred Henry Maurer’s (American, 1868-1932), “Girl on Red Ground,” an oil on canvas mounted on board depicting a slender female in black against a red background. The painting, which was bid to $5,937, was from a New York City collector. Its label on the reverse read, “E. Weyhe …Baker #2461A / Girl on Red Ground / original oil by / Alfred Maurer.” New York dealer Erhard Weyhe represented the American Modernist artist. Maurer showed his work in avant-garde circles internationally and in New York City during the early Twentieth Century. Today, his works are held in high regard, but it was not so during his lifetime and, at the age of 64, he committed suicide.
Also bringing $5,937 was Lewis Hine’s (American, 1874-1940) photograph, “Man on Hoisting Ball by the Empire State Building,” circa 1930s, which was housed in a burlwood frame and came from the New York City estate of a Twentieth Century photography collector. Though many of his photographs, like this one, were industrial in nature, Hines is described as a “socially conscious photographer,” seeing his camera as a tool for promoting social reform. Like Maurer, while today he is regarded as being at the highest level of American photographers, he died in poverty at age 66.
From the same estate as the Bulgari ring came Martin Lewis’ (Australian/American, 1881-1962) “Windy Day,” which elicited $5,000. The 1932 drypoint on laid paper was signed in the plate lower left and in pencil lower right.
Prices given include the buyer’s premium as stated by the auction house. For information, www.nyshowplace.com.
