56 19th June 2010 international events Summer across the Pond


THE auction calendar in North America continues apace throughout the summer. Here we highlight some of the more significant auctions listed over the next three months and review a handful of sales from April and May. We have taken great care in compiling this calendar, but we strongly advise that you check with the saleroom concerned before travelling any distance in case of cancellations or postponements. We also request that auctioneers continue to advise us of any changes. To have dates included in future calendars, please contact Elisabeth Hoffmann or Kim Brittain on:


Tel. + 44 (0) 20 7420 6646/6643 Email: elisabethhoffmann@atgmedia.com kimbrittain@atgmedia.com


DÜRER AT THE DOUBLE


LOT number one of the prints sale conducted by Bonhams & Butterfield (22% buyer’s premium) in Los Angeles on May 4 was a fine impression of one of the most celebrated works of the Northern Renaissance – Adam and Eveby Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).


This engraving, first published in 1504, takes as its subject the moment Eve took the apple from the snake and gave it to Adam. The parrot and the serpent symbolise wisdom and betrayal. Dürer also represents the medieval concept of the four human temperaments represented by animals: the cat is choleric, the rabbit sanguine, the ox phlegmatic, and the elk melancholic.


The mountain goat standing on the edge of the cliff, tells of the imminent Fall of Man.


AUCTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES CALIFORNIA


Chait


Bonhams & Butterfields 220 San Bruno Avenue, San Francisco, California, 94103 Tel.+1 415 861 7500 Jun 16 Watches, Jewellery Jun 17 Fine Writing Instruments Jun 18 Rugs & Carpets Jun 22 Chinese , Korean, Japanese Works of Art Jun 28 Arms & Armour Jul 18 SoMa Estate Auction Jul 18 Furniture & Decorative Arts Jul 18 Silver Jul 18 Asian Jul 18 Fresno Art Museum Aug 17 California and Western Paintings Aug 23 Asian Decorative Arts


Bonhams & Butterfields 7601 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, 90046 Tel.+1 323 850 7500 Jun 16 Jewellery Jun 20 Sunset Estate Auction Jun 20 Books and Manuscripts Jun 20 Rugs and Carpets Jun 20 Silver and Silverplate Jun 20 Asian Works of Art Jun 20 Furniture and Decorative Arts Jul 18 Sunset Estate Auction - Fine Art Jul 18 Books and Manuscripts Jul 18 Asian Works of Art Jul 18 Silver and Silverplate Jul 18 Ethnographic works of art Aug 17 California and Western Paintings & Sculpture Aug 22 Books and Manuscripts, Rugs and Carpets, Asian works of Art, Silver and Silverplate Aug 22 Furniture and Decorative Arts Aug 23 Asian Decorative Arts


9330 Civic Center Drive, Beverly Hills, California, 90210 Tel.+1 310 285 0182 Jun 27 International Fine Arts


Clars Auction Gallery 5644 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, California, 94609 Tel.+1 510 428 0100 Jul 10-11 Art & Antiques Aug 7-8 Art & Antiques


Greg Martin Auctions 660 Third Street, Suite 100, San Francisco, California, 94107 Tel.+1 415 537 3800 Jun 26-27 Fine Antique & Collectible Firearms


Michaans 2751 Todd Street, Alameda, California, 94501 Tel.+1 510 740 0220 Jul 4 Estate sale Jul 6-7 Annex Auction (at Annex Building 25 1951 Monarch Street) Aug 1 Estate auction Aug 3-4 Annex Auction (at Annex Building 5 1951 Monarch Street)


John Moran Inc. 735 West Woodbury Road, Altadena, California, 91001 Tel.+1 626 793 1833 Jul 20 Antiques & Decorative Arts


AUCTIONS IN THE US continued on page 58


Above: The Prodigal Son by Albrecht Dürer, $18,000 (£12,240) at Swann Galleries.


Good impressions are hard to come by and not too many have appeared at auction since December 2007, when Christie’s sold an excellent example for a record £120,000 at a sale in London titled Genius of the German Renaissance. The trimmed sheet, measuring 93


/4 71 /2 x


in (24 x 19cm) offered on the American West Coast, had particularly good clarity of detail and was generally in sound condition with a few expertly repaired tears and filled-in areas. It was formerly owned by Albert W. Scholle (1860-1917), a senior member of the firm of Scholle Brothers & Co, bankers in New York and San Francisco. He had an impressive collection of prints, many of which were dispersed to friends and family after his death. Additional pencil notations on the reverse are those of the gallery, Frederick Keppel & Co, New York. The engraving was estimated at $100,000-150,000 and found a buyer at the lower end of its estimate, a price equating to £68,030.


Above: Adam and Eve by Albrecht Dürer, $100,000 (£68,030) at Bonhams & Butterfield.


Some 28 engravings and woodcuts by


Dürer (of which 25 were sold) formed a key part of the print sale held by Swann Galleries (20% buyer’s premium) in New York on April 27. Another highlight from the artist’s


career, and one that predates Adam and Eveand its fascination with ideal form by a decade, is the engraving The Prodigal Son Amid the Swine. It dates from 1496, shortly after Dürer had trained himself in the difficult art of using the burin or cold chisel to prepare the plate. Vasari singled out the work for praise some decades later, noting its Germanic quality. Dürer put his version of the prodigal son, reduced to dining with pigs in a farmyard after squandering his fortune, in what could have been a local rustic setting. The impression here, again measuring x 71


93 /4 /2 in (24 x 19cm), was richly-inked


with strong and clear contrasts. According to the scholar Joseph Meder whose comprehensive study of Dürer's papers, Dürer: Katalog, was published in 1932, the watermark (a crown with the letter A) dates it to c.1530-35. It sold in the middle of expectations at $18,000 (£12,240). Again a superb example seen at Christie’s King Street sale in 2007 provides the benchmark for this particular print, selling then at £60,000. The third and most famous woodcut


from Dürer's 1498 series of illustrations for The Apocalypsefrom the Book of Revelations (there are 16 in all including the title page), is that depicting the Four Horsemen. There were two versions in this sale, the best measuring 151


/2 x 11in (39 x


27cm) from a 1511 Latin text edition. Catalogued as a “superb, dark and evenly-printed impression with strong contrasts and little to no signs of wear” it too sold at $18,000 (£12,240), although $20,000-30,000 had been predicted.


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