Sotheby’s 2009 auction season in New York will begin with the two-day sale of Important Americana. Leading the Folk Art offerings is A Rare and Important Molded Copper Fireman “Old Jake” Weathervane Made for the Union Fire Hall, now Charley Rouss Fire Company, Winchester, Virginia, American, circa 1850 (est. $3/5 million). “Old Jake,” as the weathervane has long been called, is unprecedented in its quality, form, and scale – measuring over six feet high and six feet wide – and has topped the Charley Rouss Fire Company since just after the Civil War. Also among the Folk Art highlights will be a group of approximately thirty waterfowl decoys led by a Fine and Rare High-Neck Pintail Hen, Mid-Western, circa 1900 (est. $70/90,000). Highlighting the furniture offerings, The Important Captain Edward Allen Chippendale Carved and Figured Mahogany Bombé Chest-on-Chest, Probably Salem, Massachusetts, circa 1780, is estimated at $800,000/1.2 million. Bombé case furniture represents the most expensive type of furniture available in eastern Massachusetts during the eighteenth century, and the chest-on-chest to be offered in January is one of approximately seven known examples to survive as well as a new discovery for the market, never before published. Property from the Estate of John William Boor, MD will feature select timepieces and Pennsylvania furniture led by a Very Fine and Rare Carved Walnut Chest-on-Chest, Signed by George Claypoole, Jr., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, circa 1755 (est. $80/160,000), and Property from the Estate of Peter Terian will comprise American Classical furniture highlighted by a Important Neoclassical Ormolu-Mounted and Figured Mahogany Marble-Topped Pier Table, labeled by Honoré-Lanuier, New York, circa 1818 (est. $80/120,000). The Silver and Furniture Collection of the First Parish Church in Cohasset, Massachusetts, formerly the Second Church of Christ will feature six lots of silver beakers highlighted by two pairs of beakers – The Deacon John Jacobs Silver Beakers by Jacob Hurd, Boston, 1728 (each pair est. $70/100,000) as well as An Important William and Mary Carved and Figured Maple Armchair, Ipswich or Boston, Massachusetts, circa 1720 (est. $50/100,000).

PROPERTY OF DR. AND MRS. HENRY C. LANDON III

January 24, 2009

The Property of Dr. and Mrs. Henry C. Landon III will include furniture, paintings and decorative arts. Dr. and Mrs. Landon are celebrated Americana collectors who were twice included on, Art & Antiques list of top collectors. Their collection has been profiled by numerous publications and was the subject of a 2005 exhibition at Dr. Landon’s alma mater, the University of Virginia Art Museum, entitled A Jeffersonian Ideal: Selections from the Dr. and Mrs. Henry C. Landon III Collection of American Fine and Decorative Arts. Highlights from the collection include: a Very Rare Federal Ornately Inlaid and Carved Cherrywood, Mahogany, and Maple Serpentine-Front Sideboard, Attributed to Nathan Lombard, Sutton, Massachusetts, circa 1795 (est. $80/160,000); an Important Rococo Carved and Figured Mahogany High Chest of Drawers, the carving attributed to Nicholas Bernard, Philadelphia, circa 1755- 1760 which was exhibited in the landmark 1929 Girl Scouts Loan Exhibition (est. $200/$1,000,000); and a Fine and Rare William and Mary Ebonized and Burl Walnut-Veneered Dressing Table, Massachusetts, circa 1715 (est. $30/100,000).

OLD MASTER DRAWINGS

January 28, 2009

Goya's splendid, spontaneous study, A Hunter with his Dog in a Landscape (est. $600/800,000), captures the subjects in a moment of rest, with the huntsman looking almost directly at the viewer. It was once part of a group of at least eleven hunting scenes with which Goya concluded his Sepia, or Images of Spain, Album, perhaps the most personal of all the so-called “private albums”, which he filled with drawings at various stages of his career. The group of hunting scenes is exceptional in Goya's albums in that it is the only consecutive series of drawings that he made of the same subject - in this case, hunting, a sport the artist had greatly enjoyed from an early age. These delightful drawings always show one or two hunters accompanied by their dogs, captured in action or, like here, in repose. The January sale will also include a Highly Important Collection of 16th-Century Swiss Drawings, formed by the art historian Dr. Hugo von Ziegler between the 1920s and the 1960s. The offering presents to an international audience an important yet relatively little known aspect of 16th-century European art. Most of the drawings in the collection are designs for smallscale painted glass panels, an art form in which Switzerland led the world for nearly two centuries, from the beginning of the 15th century to the end of the 16th, and as a whole, the collection gives a very complete picture of the work that was being produced in this field during the second half of the 16th century. Included in the offering is Daniel Lang’s The Pappis Arms, Flanked by a Banner Bearer and Venus, Pyramus and Thisbe Above which is estimated to sell for $25/35,000.

IMPORTANT OLD MASTER PAINTINGS

January 29, 2009

Sotheby’s sale of Important Old Master Paintings and Sculpture in New York on January 29, 2009 will feature works by many of the most important masters of the 15th-18th centuries. Among the highlights to be offered is a magnificent work by Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius – one of the most important oil paintings by the artist remaining in private hands. The work, estimated to bring $12/16 million, has been in the private collection of prominent fine art dealer Richard L. Feigen for over twenty-five years, and was a highlight of the retrospective of the work of JMW Turner RA presented in 2008 by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Dallas Museum of Art. Fourteen works from Italian businessman Luigi Koelliker's collection will included in the January sale, led by Titian's Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (est. $4/6 million). The work, which portrays the seductress Salome straining under the weight of John the Baptist's head, was painted in 1570 at the end of the Titan's life and embodies the artist's late style. Francisco de Goya y Lucientes’ Portrait of Prince Alois Wenzel Von Kaunitz-Rietberg dates to 1815-1817, after the French armies had been ejected from Spain and Goya had been re-instated as the Pintor de Cámara (est. $2.5/3.5 million). The Prince, who briefly served as Vienna’s ambassador to Madrid, is skillfully painted with keen attention to his facial features, which portray an air of entitlement, and through which faint remnants of the artist’s preliminary sketches show. The quick strokes suggest that the work may even have been painted in a single sitting. Among a number of recently restituted works in the January sale is Hendrick ter Brugghen’s 1624 canvas Bagpipe Player in Profile (est. $4/6 million). Ter Brugghen, one of the top-ranking and most highly sought-after Dutch painters of his day, depicted the player against a neutral setting, focusing all of the viewer’s attention on the simply dressed subject and his bagpipe, which was typically associated with the peasant class. The painting is believed to have been a pendant to the artist’s Pointing Lute Player – the lute serving as a perfect foil to the bagpipe as the preferred instrument of the courtly class. The painting was owned by a prominent German industrialist who was forced to surrender the painting for public sale in 1938; after seventy years in the collection of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne the painting was restituted to his heirs in 2008.

IMPORTANT OLD MASTER PAINTINGS & SCULPTURES

January 30, 2009

Highlighting a choice offering of sculpture and works of art is an Important Italian Painted Terracotta Half-Length Figure of Saint Jerome, circa 1475 (est. $800,000/1.2 million). This exceptional 15th century figure has been identified as the work of the important Paduan sculptor Giovanni de Fondulis who worked with several other prominent sculptors of the period including Andrea Riccio. Also included is a French Oval Marble Relief of Leda and the Swan, School of Fontainebleau, mid 16th century (est. $120/150,000). Few sculptures from this period have survived, making it challenging to ascribe this relief to a particular artist, but it is evident that this elegant relief incorporates all of the stylistic and iconographical characteristics of the Fontainebleau style. An Italian Glazed Terracotta Bust of Alexander the Great, attributed to Girolamo della Robbia will also be offered (est. $100/120,000). The present work, which dates between 1526 and 1535, belongs to a group of busts attributed to Girolamo della Robbia first published in 1911. They are identified as part of a decorative scheme for the interior courtyard façade of the west wing at the Château d'Assier in the south of France. It has until now been considered lost, known to scholars only through a photograph. The sale will also include Renaissance and Baroque bronzes, a marble relief by Clodion, ivories as well as stone and wood sculpture.

OLD MASTER AND 19TH CENTURY PAINTINGS

January 31, 2009

The sale will include a wide range of Old Master and 19th Century European paintings, drawings and sculpture, ranging in estimate from $5,000 to approximately $50,000. Among the Old Master highlights is a painting by the Pietro Longhi student The Maestro dei Riflesi, depicting a Venetian Carnival scene titled The Meeting (est. $20/30,000), and a late Renaissance work by the Florentine painter Domenico Puligo, a student of Andrea del Sarto, showing a Madonna and Child, (est. $25/35,000). The 19th Century Paintings will be led by an oil on panel by the Dutch painter Jan Portielje, titled A Compelling Portrait, (est. $12/18,000) and A View of Paris by the French artist Edouard Leon Cortes (est. $40/60,000).

IMPRESSIONIST AND MODERN ART

February 12, 2009

The mid-season sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on February 12 will include property from several avid art collectors, including property from the Patti Birch Trust and from the Estate of Judith Riklis. We are also offering works from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Mildred Lane Kempner Museum. Highlights of the sale include Natura Morta con L'Uva by Franco Gentilini (est. $25/35,000), which has been in private hands since 1956, and Femme en Noir à Venise by Jean Gabriel Domergue, (est. $40/60,000) picturing a poised and elegant woman in a gondola. Several works by Oscar Rabin highlight the Russian section, together with a large grouping by David Burliuk. Prominent among French artists are paintings by Maurice de Vlaminck, Louis Valtat and several small sculptures by Auguste Rodin.

CARPETS FROM THE BARBARA ZIDELL SEDLIN FAMILY COLLECTION

March 3, 2009

This March, Sotheby’s will offer Carpets from the Barbara Zidell Sedlin Family Collection. The auction, estimated to bring $2/3 million, will consist of nearly 130 lots from the personal collection of Ms. Sedlin as well as the remaining inventory of her gallery, The Ghiordian Knot. Ms. Sedlin is a strong believer and promoter of rugs as an art form and has decided to sell at auction as she is now retiring from the business. Highlights of the auction include a rare and early 17th century Northwest Persian Garden Carpet Fragment (est. $70/100,000); a Karachopt Kazak Rug with spacious design and brilliant coloring (est. $50/70,000); a late 18th century Agra Carpet with an elegant and intricate design, as well as a large ivory Ziegler Mahal Carpet in near original condition, each estimated to sell for $80/120,000. The auction also features small, finely woven Persian rugs for which Ms. Sedlin is particularly known, including a striking Sarouk Fereghan Prayer Rug with a flowering tree of bold leaves (est. $25/35,000), as well as an extremely unusual item of clothing: a Knotted-Pile Baktiari Vest (est. $7/10,000).

AMERICAN PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS AND SCULPTURE

March 4, 2009

The mid-season sale of American Paintings will feature offerings from a wide range of styles, subjects and regions and comes from several distinguished collections, both private and public. The sale will feature a strong selection of western art, highlighted by five impressive works by Oscar Edmund Berninghaus from the Bank of America art collection, among them Stagecoach Through the Missouri Hills (est. $120/160,000) and Through Missouri by Covered Wagon (est. $120/160,000). A group of more than 30 western paintings from the collection of Mrs. Novella and the late Edwin C. Linberry includes works by Birger Sandzen, Three Trees (est. $30/50,000), Jess Arms Botke, White Peacocks (est. $20/30,000), as well as works by Oscar Edmund Berninghaus, Eric Blumenschein, Emile Bisttram, Sydney Laurence, B.J.O. Nordfeldt, and Carl Oscar Borg, among others. Several landscapes by the American Impressionist Karl Buehr will be offered by the descendants of the artist’s family. Painted while the artist lived in Giverny, the canvases are suffused with the soft, brilliant light of this region of France, as seen in The Artist’s Wife in a Garden (est. $50/70,000). Two more charming Impressionist selections are a painting by Irving Ramsay Wiles, Reading in A Garden (est. $20/30,000) and a pencil study for one of John Singer Sargent’s most well-known paintings, Madame Gautreau Drinking a Toast (est. $20/30,000). Also featured will be two large paintings by the multi-talented mid-twentieth century artist, Dunbar Dyson Beck, Before the Fight (est. $30/50,000) and The Fight (est. $30/50,000).

CONTEMPORARY ART

March 10, 2009

The mid-season Contemporary Art auction will offer a rich and varied selection of works from abstract expressionism to the present day, with works by both established and emerging artists coming from private and public collections. Connoisseurs will be able to choose from a wide range of works, from a de Kooning drawing (est. $20,000/30,000) and a Haring terracotta vase (est. $40,000/60,000), to a lively watercolor by Raymond Pettibon (est. $8,000-10,000). The sale will feature selections from the Estate of Judith Riklis, including a 1969 painting by Richard Anuszkiewicz, Moonbow (est. $20,000/30,000) and an early Agam, Untitled, a whimsical work with painted movable wooden pieces (est. $30,000/50,000). A 1968-69 painting by Victor Vasarely (est. $40,000/60,000), is part of an eclectic consignment from the Palm Springs Art Museum. There are also mid-to-late 20th Century works from the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri, including a Kenzo Okada oil on canvas estimated at $30,000/50,000. A significant sampling of African American art is represented by, among others, works by Romare Bearden (including Portrait of a Lady, estimated at $20,000/30,000, from a collection consigned by a prominent celebrity), and from the color-field artist Alvin Loving, Cube, 1970 (est. $25,000/35,000).

ASIA WEEK

March 17 - 18, 2009

Sotheby’s Spring 2009 Asia Week sales begin on March 17th with Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, highlighted by this Eight Beauties Painting, ink and color on silk, signed Hua Xuan, with a cyclical date corresponding to 1736. A very rare painting of extravagantly large size—230 by 52 inches—it is estimated to sell for $200/300,000. It is unusual to find a group of women as the subject of a single Chinese painting. Each “beauty” holds a object representing different virtues; the woman in the center is pictured with a finger citron, symbolizing long life. The Asia Week sales continue on March 18th with Indian & Southeast Asian Works of Art including Miniatures, and on March 20th with Indian and Southeast Asian Modern & Contemporary Art.