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Slug: Rago Craftsman Auction January 15-16

#615119

TG – 5 cuts

LAMBERTVILLE, N.J. — David Rago Auctions will conduct the Craftsman Auction, January 15 and 16, at the Rago Arts and Auction Center. The sale features many important pieces of art pottery, tiles and select mission furniture as well as a strong selection of art glass.

Sure to be the highlight is a rare Harvey Ellis inlaid table estimated to be worth upwards of $100,000. Ellis worked for Stickley for a scant half year before his untimely death in January of 1904 and, as a result, his inlaid furniture never made it into general production. The limited number of examples that have survived have worked their way into the most prominent private and museum collections.

Another highlight is a Charles Rohlfs gothic drop front desk, circa 1900, on a pivoting base with two interior drawers, a bookstand, a side cabinet with shelves and four drawers on the opposite side of the drop front and the top is elaborately carved with flame finials. Other pieces include a desirable L. & J.G. Stickley bent arm Morris chair and a L. & J.G. Stickley library table; a Gustav and Grueby 12-tile tea table; a Gustav Stickley, 1901, chalet smoker’s cabinet; a Roycroft Ali Baba bench; a L. & J.G. Stickley three-door bookcase; matching Gustav Stickley tall and low chests, circa 1903.

Another item on the block for the first time is an unusual tyg by George Ohr and Susan Frackelton that has three different ear-shaped handles alternating with three spouts, incised “Health, Wealth, Happiness.” Other Frackleton pieces being featured include a large salt-glaze stoneware punch bowl with three-lobed clusters of applied blue grapes and vines with the interior painted “Love Is the Sweet Wine of Life” and initialed “M.N.C.W.I. 1902” as well as a small decorated dish with carved poppies and painted butterflies on a gray ground.

Sure to capture a lot of attention is a single owner collection of George Ohr pottery consisting of 27 pieces accrued over the past 25 years. The collection features a large vessel having a folded rim and a deep, folded, protruding base with the top covered in gunmetal glaze and the base in brown-speckled glossy amber.

Also available are a Fulper 14- by 12-inch melon-shape vase, covered in a superior, thick, curdled cucumber green crystalline; a Rookwood 20 inch tall Iris glaze scenic vase painted by Carl Schmidt, circa 1910; a Teco double-gourd vase with four buttressed handles in a smooth matte green glaze with charcoaling along the edges; a very large Dirk Van Erp hammered copper vessel; a rare Roycroft hammered copper cylindrical bud vase in a wood grain pattern; as well as pieces by Daum, Newcomb College and Galle.

Seven stunning lamps represent Tiffany Studios. A Tiffany turtleback-hanging chandelier with two rows of glass medallions in lustered blue-green Favrile glass over a six-socket fixture is valued at $70,000 to $90,000. Other Tiffany lamps include a wonderful fluted bronze base topped by three sockets and a leaded glass shade in the Geranium pattern and a gilt-parcel table lamp in the Venetian pattern, having a shade with repeating medallions of fleurs-de-lys and geometric patterns in a mosaic of polychromatic slag glass in gilded leading.

A fine collection of Tiffany glass is offered as well: a large Tiffany ovoid Favrile vase with green and blue leaves in pulled feather pattern on a lustered cobalt and indigo ground; a Tiffany paperweight vase with millefiori flowers in ivory and yellow with green leaves on a gold ground; and a rare pair of gold Tiffany Favrile glass candlesticks with the bobeches applied to gently swelling ribbed stems on spreading, ribbed bases and folded feet.

Two large Saturday Evening Girls decorated bowls are being offered; one with an unusually colorful and large flaring bowl decorated in cuerda seca with large white geese and green trees in a white, blue and yellow landscape, and the other being an exceptional flaring bowl decorated in cuerda seca with yellow nasturtiums and green leaves on a taupe and yellow ground.

The auction will also feature a wide selection of tiles, including a rare and exceptional Grueby complete frieze of eight 6-inch tiles, “The Pines,” and decorated in cuenca with stylized trees in a landscape; and a three-tile frieze decorated in cuenca with ivory waterlilies and light green lily pads on a dark ground, each stamped “Grueby Boston.”

Rago Arts and Auction Center is at 333 North Main Street. Previews will be through January 14 from noon to 5 pm, and on auction days, January 15 and 16, 9 am to noon. The auctions begin at noon.

For information, 609-397-9374 or email info@ragoarts. com, or www.RagoArts.com.