“Girl with Shuttlecock,” 1737. Private collection.
It’s Summertime, and the Auctioning’s Easy
Brunk Grosses $1.3 Million Down South
ASHEVILLE, N.C. – Robert S. Brunk Auction Services, Inc. held a two-session auction on July 22 and 23, hosting an audience of 559 registered bidders during the two days. Twelve hundred lots were sold, generating a gross of $1,342,000.
Leading the event with a $50,000 hammer price was a Seventeenth Century Italian oil on canvas depicting the half figures of a girl at the clavichord and a boy holding a rose. The Old Master was 26 by 42 inches and possibly from the circle of Pier Francesco Cittidini of Milan, 1616-1681. The lot was restretched on a Nineteenth Century stretcher but the canvas was now loose, and there was some flaking, pentimento, and minor evidence of retouching. The unlined painting was possibly cropped at the bottom.
A fringed hide sinew sewn beaded pipe bag with curvilinear forms radiating from a central point, in blue, greasy yellow, translucent green and red beads, possibly Creek or Delaware Indian, approximately 25 by 6 inches, with some brittle leather and a hole on one side and some bead loss, estimated at $400 to $800, sold at $14,500; and a Navajo corn plant Yei pictorial rug, handspun wool in shades of olive, brown, green, orange, natural ivory, black and red, depicting a corn plant Yei wearing elaborate feather and headband, two cows, elk, deer, blackbirds with arrows, and several borders, 96 by 68 inches, some fading and a small hole, estimated at $15/20,000, went out at $38,000.
An Apache coiled olla storage jar, with gently curved sides and flaring neck, decorated with geometric and human figures, 18 by 24 inches, some stitch loss and fading, estimated at $15/20,000, sold at $14,000; and a hand-written Wells Fargo and Company file, describing 100 train and stagecoach robberies from 1870 to 1902, each entry describing locations, dates, and losses, with narrative descriptions of how each robbery occurred, each page of the ledger with printed letterhead, a handwritten index i the front, 13 ½ by 8 ¾ inches, with losses to the leather corners and a few pages in the front loose, estimated at $15/20,000, was purchased at $35,000.
A three-volume set by Thomas L. McKenney, a History of the Indian Tribes of North America, with biographical sketches of the Indian chiefs, published in 1872 by D. Rice and Company of Philadelphia, with 123 hand colored lithographs, sold at $39,000 against an estimate of $20/25,000.
The silver designs of William Spratling were well represented, with a set of Mexican silver flatware, circa 1947 to 1967, service for 10 but lacking one knife, in the Amarres pattern, 79 pieces, each piece with a wire wrapped neck, and a ball at the tip, a total of 118.86 ounces, garnered $14,000, against an estimate of $10/15,000. Several pieces had slight rubber band scars on the handles. Provenance, Economos Works of Art.
Prices quoted do not reflect a required buyer’s premium.
