Date: Fri 25-Jun-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: LIZAM

Quick Words:

Cowan-CDV-Easton

Full Text:

Americana At C. Wesley Cowan Stars CDV Album

(no cuts)

By Rita Easton

TERRACE PARK, OHIO -- C. Wesley Cowan held a Historic Americana Auction on May

15, featuring approximately 600 lots of important daguerreotypes, Civil War

ephemera, swords, American Indian material culture, Western Americana,

Lincolniana, campaign ephemera, historical African-American items, flags and

patriotic textiles.

The event was held at the Businessmen's Club of Montgomery following two

preview sessions. Approximately 400 registered bidders participated,

generating a gross of $330,000.

Bringing the starring bid of $38,500 was a carte-de-visite album belonging to

Captain's Clerk Winchester Breedlove Smith of the CSS Alabama, thought to have

been assembled between 1864 to 1868, containing 28 portraits of his fellow CSN

officers and 22 images of Confederate notables. While the red, leather-bound

album was sound, some pages were torn where images were carelessly removed.

An anonymous photographer recorded an image on a sixth-plate, hand-tinted

daguerreotype of a young telegraph operator seated in his office by his key,

holding a pencil, ready to transcribe incoming messages, which fetched $18,150

from a private collector.

Leading the edged weapons category, an important silver hilt saber, carried at

the battle of the Thames in 1814, garnered $15,400. The 38.5 inch lot was

marked with a stamped inspectors mark, "W," and belonged to Kentuckian Lt.

Col. William McMillan, USI (1765-1836).

A circa 1844 hand painted papier mache cigar case, painted with a half-length

portrait of James K. Polk, with "James K. Polk 10th President of the United

States" arched over his head, made $8,250 for the 5.5 by three inch case; a

chromolithograph advertisement for tobacco, 20 by 29 inches, depicting the 50

Indian chiefs' portraits used on silk premiums for Richmond Straight Cut No.

1, Virginia Brights and Pet Cigarettes, published by Allen and Ginter, reached

$4,400; and a lot of the Kendall family papers and photographs, circa

1858-1898, with 140 items including carte de visites, letters and manuscripts,

and personal possessions made $4,675.

An example of post-mortem artistry, a sixth plate by an anonymous

photographer, featured a touching family portrait of a mother and father

sensitively posed with their deceased daughter, estimated at $800/1,000,

achieved $5,225; "Jubilation Laying the Last Rail," an impressive carte de

visite taken June 10, 1869 at the joining of the lines connecting the Union

Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads, with Savage and Ottinger's Salt

Lake imprint, rang up $7,700; and another carte, showing the multites

witnessing the occasion of driving of the last spike, went out at $3,300.

Three lots each sold at $3,575: A dramatic assemblage of five images, "The

Hanging of the Conspirators," picturing the complete sequence of the hanging,

beginning with the empty scaffolding and ending with the hanging, lifeless

bodies; a important, half-plate ambrotype of slave masters Alexander

(1796-1868) and Catherine Munday, and their servant, 38 year old Martha; and a

33-star American flag, 48 by 85 inches, made of cotton with strong colors,

with entirely hand-sewn individual bars, meant to be hung vertically.

Prices quoted reflect a ten percent buyers premium.