Garth's Spring Americana Auction Featuring The 9th Annual Ohio Valley Session Will Be Held On May 15

May 4, 2015

On Friday, May 15, Garth's Auctioneers and Appraisers will host its spring Americana Auction featuring its ninth annual Ohio Valley session highlighted by a collection of pottery from the late Jim Murphy (1941-2012). "It is our pleasure to handle the Ohio Pottery collection of the late Jim Murphy. His passion and knowledge of Ohio Valley material culture can be witnessed in his assemblage, including some rare and important examples. Buyers are demanding quality pieces of material culture from the Middle Ohio Valley region, and we are proud to continue to offer them in Garth's annual Ohio Valley session," said Richard "Jeff" Jeffers, principal auctioneer and CEO of Garth's.
Over 500 lots covering a range of early Americana furniture and decorative arts and 203 lots, Ohio Valley material will be offered, including fine Americana from the collection of Judith and James Miller of Alexandria, Va.; a collection of Ohio sewertile from the collection of Jack and Susan Batdorff; plus select offerings from across the United States and the United Kingdom. A broad assortment of lots will cross the block, including stoneware, Vance and Avon art pottery, sewertile, Pennsylvania furniture, paintings, clocks, outsider art, Chinese export, lighting, silhouettes, tea caddies, Navajo rugs, a nice selection of coverlets and a large quantity of documents, including a grouping relating to Elmer Ellsworth.
Garth's is pleased to begin the sale with stoneware from Murphy's collection. Murphy spent more than three decades researching Ohio pottery, often publishing his findings in short but highly important articles in various publications, including the “Journal of the American Art Pottery Association,” as well as several self-published pamphlets (some of which, along with his notes, were posthumously published by his friends Jeff Carskadden and Richard Gartley as “James L. Murphy's Checklist of 19th-Century Bluebird Potters and Potteries in Muskingum County, Ohio”). His devotion to collecting was just as passionate, and Jim amassed an encyclopedic collection of Ohio pottery. Garth's has been honored to have offered small selections of Jim's collection over the past couple of years, but this offering represents the final installment, and it includes some rare and important examples of Ohio pottery. "Jim Murphy was a stalwart researcher of Ohio pottery, from early stoneware to mid-20th century art pottery. We sold small parts of his collection in 2013 and 2014 in Ohio Valley auctions, but this huge collection of Ohio stoneware is the last of his stoneware. There never was, and likely never will be again, such an encyclopedic collection of Ohio pottery assembled," said Andrew Richmond, vice president of Garth's.
Leading the offering is a Westhafer and Lambright stoneware jug from Tuscarawas County, Ohio. The ovoid jug has a wide mouth, two strap handles, and cobalt decoration and stands 18.5 inches high with a presale estimate of $300-$600. An Avon Faience "Spring" jardinière on a pedestal by Frederick Hurten Rhead or William P. Jervis derives from Tiltonsville, Ohio, and stands 40 inches high. The jardinière, ca. 1902, features an art nouveau squeeze-bag decoration with the inscription, "the Splendid raiment of the Spring Peeps Forth." It is estimated at $2,500-5,000. Also from Murphy's collection, a Nathaniel Clark stoneware crock dated 1852 with an estimate of $500-$1,000 and a stoneware jar incised Summit County, Ohio, dated 1848 (est. $400-$800).
Many pieces of fine art will be offered, including a portrait of a mother and child attributed to Ohio, ca. 1845, with a presale estimate of $800-$1,600. An oil-on-canvas of the Hudson River Valley is a wonderfully naive image of boats on the Hudson and a man with farm animals in the foreground. Signed and noted on the back "hudson river. Burying ground at Peekskill, NY and monument to John Paulding, Snh." John Paulding was a Revolutionary War hero, one of three who captured John Andre. The estimate will be $1,500-$2,500. The print “Fruit and Flowers” by Currier & Ives carries a presale estimate of $2,500-$5,000, and an oil-on-wood panel still life, attributed to Severin Roesen (1815-72), is expected to bring $4,000-$6,000. The painting titled “The Card Party” by Clementine Hunter (1886-1988) features three women having a card party, initialed on the right, and is expected to sell for $2,000-$3,000. Two additional portraits are sure to garner attention. The first is a portrait of a French officer (French School, late 18th-early 19th century), which shows a striking young officer in uniform displaying a wound to his arm (est. $2,400-$4,500). The second portrait features a woman attributed to Charles Balthazar Saint Memin (France/New York, 1770-1852). The charcoal and pastel on pink paper includes a label identifying her as "Miss Mary Caldwell," daughter of Samuel and Martha Rownd Caldwell, 1774-1851 (est. $1,000-$1,500). A mail coach by Charles Cooper Henderson (United Kingdom, 1803-77) features a night scene of a four-horse coach and should bring $1,500-$2,500.
Furniture is well represented by a mid-19th-century Zoar, Ohio, cupboard. The two-piece walnut and poplar cupboard was purchased, along with the cabin in which it stood (near the northwest corner of the garden) in the 1940s by a Dr. Groh, and it remained in his possession until the Plice family purchased the cabin and cupboard in the 1950s. The Lacroix family purchased the cupboard in the 1970s, and they then sold it to Jack and Pat Adamson in 1980, who sold it to a private collector in 1996. The cupboard was illustrated in Snyder and Goudy's “Zoar Furniture” and should bring $2,000-$4,000. An Ohio Valley inlaid chest of drawers features vine inlay terminating in tulips and suggests an upper Ohio or western Pennsylvania origin (est. $1,500-$3,000). A Preble County, Ohio, parquetry veneered stand has a presale estimate of $800-$1,200. Similar stands of this type are known, and some have provenance to the Preble County area. Thomas Morgan of Eaton was the most prominent and prolific cabinetmaker in the county at the time, and is a possible candidate for the maker of this group of distinctive stands.
Two Banjo clocks will cross the block, beginning with a Knowell Linnell, from St. Albans, Ohio. The clock is of typical form with scenic and foliate-decorated tablets and a gilt surface. Linnell was born in 1788 in Granville, Massachusetts, and came West, settling near Granville, Ohio, establishing his clock factory in St. Albans Township around 1825. An old note inside indicates that the clock was in the possession of "Judge Reeves" of Lancaster and purchased at that house sale by Harold Cain of Newark, and then purchased at his estate sale in 1979. It is signed by Gus Heisey and has presale estimate of $4,000-$8,000. A Benjamin Willard (the youngest son and apprentice of Simon Willard) Boston banjo clock, ca. 1835, will also cross the block with the same estimate of $4,000-$8,000.
Elmer Ellsworth (1837-61) was an ambitious young man whose rise to prominence was cut short on May 24, 1861, when he became the first Union soldier killed in the Civil War. He grew up in Illinois and studied law in Chicago, where he also mustered the Cadet Attachment to the 60th Illinois Militia. A Springfield attorney named Abraham Lincoln hired young Ellsworth as a clerk in 1860, and Ellsworth followed Lincoln to Washington in 1861. Shortly thereafter, he moved to New York and raised the 11th New York Volunteers, modeling their training, and their uniforms, on the Algerian and French troops fighting in North Africa, called the Zouaves. Having recruited firemen for his unit, Ellsworth nicknamed them the Fire Zouaves. On May 24, 1861, Ellsworth and his Fire Zouaves began their occupation of Alexandria, Va. There they encountered a large Confederate flag hanging over the Marshall House Inn. In Ellsworth's determined attempt to take down the flag, he was gunned down by innkeeper James Jackson, who was promptly killed by Zouave Corporal James Brownell. Ellsworth immediately became a martyr for the Union cause, inspiring songs and poetry, and a nation of patriotic souvenir-collectors began seeking out photographs and autographs of the fallen soldier.
Highlights from the collection include a Certificate of Organization and muster roll for the cadet attachment to the 60th Illinois militia, signed by Elmer Ellsworth and dated Chicago, April 29, 1859 (est. $1,500-$3,000). A document relating to the raising of a cadet attachment to the 60th Illinois militia regiment by Elmer Ellsworth should bring $800-$1,200. The two sided document is signed twice by Ellsworth. One side is addressed to then Illinois Governor William H. Bissell that Ellsworth has helped organize the cadet attachment; the other is a bond for the use of necessary arms and equipment. Death relics and a gift letter, dated June 5, 1861, addressed to Ben Hopkins of Newton Upper Falls, Mass., notes, "From Julius, addressed to "Bro Ben, enclosed is a piece of the carpet on which Ellsworth fell when he was killed by Jackson in the Marshall house in Alexandria” (est. $800-$1,200).
Additional items include a William Fadens 1796 map of the United States, which has a presale estimate of $1,500-$3,000. Two half-plate Daguerreotype of U.S. Representative Peter Wilson Strader and his family by James Presley Ball, Cincinnati, Ohio, ca. 1855, each brass mat with Ball's stamp, and accompanied by 19th-century handwritten identifications (est. $2000-$4,000). Silhouettes of Lawrence Lewis and Elizabeth "Nelly" Parke Custis Lewis, Woodlawn Plantation, Fairfax County, Va., ca. 1805, feature George Washington's nephew and step-granddaughter, with inked details to Nelly. The silhouettes are expected to sell for $1,500-$2,500. A Louis XIV signature, dated April 28, 1688, Versailles is matted and framed (est. $250-$500). For those buyers looking to add textiles to their collection, they will be pleased to see Washington Jacquard Coverlet woven by James Cunningham, (est. $600-$1,200) and a Maine sampler from Lewiston, Androscoggin County, 1830-1835, featuring a two-story house flanked by massive horses, tiered trees topped by birds, large floral baskets, and blue birds under the maker's name "Louisiana D Robbins / Lewiston Me" (est. $500-$1,000).
Garth's main gallery is located at 2960 Stratford Road in Delaware, Ohio.
For further information, call 740-362-4771 or visit www.garths.com.


 

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