Date: Fri 02-Jul-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: LIZAM

Quick Words:

mirrors-New-Orleans-Easton

Full Text:

Pair Of Italian Mirrors Reflect $57,200 At New Orleans

By Rita Easton

NEW ORLEANS, LA. -- Following a two-week exhibition from May 8 through May

21 (excluding Sundays), New Orleans Auction Galleries, Inc held a two-session

auction on May 22-23. Over 1,500 lots of fine furniture and decorative items

from various estates crossed the block, generating a gross of $2.1 million.

Three hundred fifty attended the event, with an additional 300 absentee and

phone bidders.

Blazing the bidding escalation to the top price of the day, an important pair

of Italian Neoclassical-style giltwood and grisaille pier mirrors, late

Nineteenth Century, reached $57,200.

Each featured an egg and dart cornice above a rectangular frame with classical

panels and rosettes, guilloche and stiff-leaf borders, the mirror plate over a

satyr mask, and dimensions of 94 inches high by 50« inches wide. The mirrors

were estimated at $30/50,000.

A bid of $20,900 took the second highest lot, a four-piece bedroom suite. The

American Renaissance Revival walnut and burled walnut group, which was circa

1872-1880, consisted of a half tester bed of generous proportion, 128 inches

high, inside width 60 inches, and 80 inches long; a mirrored double-door

armoire; and marble-top dresser and commode, both with mirrored backs, bearing

the stenciled label "M. C. & B. New Orleans," for McCracken & Brewster.

Garnering $18,150, a Victorian figured walnut bookcase and cabinet, third

quarter of the Nineteenth Century, placed third. A flared cornice crowned four

doors, each having three glazed panes, and the projecting lower case with four

paneled doors on a plain plinth was decorated with strapwork pendants. The

piece was estimated at $20/30,000.

An unusual Art Deco silver-mounted lapis lazuli mantel clock, early Twentieth

Century, attributed to Edward F. Caldwell & Co. in New York, 11« inches high

by nine inches in diameter, reached $15,400. A William IV gilt-bronze

twelve-light chandelier, Nineteenth Century, the circular frame draped in

garland swags surmounted by an urn, 45 inches in diameter by 37« inches long,

fetched $17,050. And a Napoleon III ormolu-mounted and marquetry-inlaid

rosewood cabinet, Nineteenth Century, with white marble top over a cupboard

door inlaid with a central panel depicting a basket of flowers, the concave

sides depicting a quiver and arrow, made $13,200.

While this gilt-edged auction featured lot after lot of four- and five-figure

hammer prices, there were several bidders who went home with affordable

prizes. An English tortoiseshell stamp box, early Twentieth Century, with a

low dome hinged lid sold for $66; a single lot of a group of three large black

papier mache snuff boxes, Nineteenth Century, brought $77; and an Italian

Baroque style metal mounted walnut box, the square lid with a ring handle, the

body fitted with shaped hasps, sold together with a carved wood lamp base,

went to a buyer for $110.

Prices quoted reflect a ten percent buyer's premium.