Intrigue graced the galleries of Brunk Auctions on the weekend of March 15th and 16th for their second auction of the year. A flurry of activity in an eclectic range of interests led to yet another successful and record setting sale in Asheville.

The most notable lot from the weekend sale was a Porcher Family Inlaid Mahogany Chest of Drawers. The piece, which descended through the Porcher family, was illustrated in The Furniture of Charleston: 1680-1820 by Rauchenberg and Bivins, Jr. and bears a MESDA label. Related chests can be seen in the collections of Colonial Williamsburg, MESDA, Historic Charleston, and the Garvan Collection at Yale. After competitive bidding from a number of phone bidders, the lot sold for $99,120, a record for a Charleston, South Carolina chest.

This marks three record setting prices for Southern furniture in three auctions for Brunk Auctions. The two previous record auction prices at Brunk are for a North Carolina Chest (Jesse Needham – $271,400 in Jan. 2014) and a John Shearer piece for $354,000 in Nov. 2013)

In addition to the record-breaking chest, a portrait by Shang Ding sold for $16,520, which is a new auction sale record for the artist. The striking painting of a young ballerina in a vibrant cerulean outfit broke a record set last autumn by the storied Chinese artist who now lives in California with his family.

Among the many superb lots from the Estate of Robert A. Walsh in Pennsylvania, was a painting by George T. Hetzel. Often confused for his uncle, George Hetzel, George T. had a very similar style. A farm scene by the Pittsburgh artist sold for a record auction price this weekend at Brunk Auctions, finishing up $7,080.

Continental Fine Art had a strong showing in the March sale at Brunk Auctions as well. Among the noteworthy lots were a pair of vedute from the Circle of Giacomo Van Lint, which sold for $40,120, a fine Barbizon school work by Charles Francois Daubigny for $37,760, a still life painting by Pennsylvania and German artist Severin Roesen that sold for $40,120, and a Pablo Picasso ceramic which totaled $15,340.

Day two of the March sale at Brunk Auctions was marked with several impressive Asian fine and decorative arts. Exceptional results include a finely enameled Satsuma Bowl and lacquered match holder which sold for $33,040, a Famille Verte floor vase which brought $30,680, and a Tibetan gilt bronze seated Buddha figure for $16,520.

Sights are set to May now for Brunk Auctions. The third sale of the year for the auction firm will feature an exquisite selection of fine Modern, Southern, Continental, and American fine and decorative arts. The top estimate during one-day sale is a collection of early and important drawings from James Whistler from his time as a cadet at West Point. Other top lots include works by Fernando Botero, Marino Marini, and Alice Neel, as well as a rare Savannah, Georgia engraving. Public preview will be on Friday, May 16th, and the auction will be held on Saturday, May 17th.

Brunk Auctions is currently accepting consignments for our Sporting & Maritime auction on the weekend of July 12th. Consignments for this sale will be accepted through April 21st.

Asheville, NC. A strong crowd gathered at the gallery for the sale on a wintery Saturday, competing with a record number of bidders on the phones and on the internet, and ultimately pushing prices through the day often to multiples of their presale estimates. In keeping with the eclectic offerings, The 2,200-plus registered bidders represented a wide range of institutions, collectors, consultants and dealers from around the world, but in the end it was North Carolina’s own Jesse Needham, a cabinetmaker from Randolph County working at the turn of the 19th century, who won the day. From the estate of Patricia Chatham, his elaborate walnut high chest ranked as the very best example of the form, and several collectors and institutions in the room and on the phones competed for the Piedmont masterpiece. Bidding opened at $30,000, and escalated rapidly, with the field narrowing to two committed bidders as the price crossed the six-figure mark. A private collector won the battle, and the hammer fell at $230,000, a record price for the maker, and a new record price for North Carolina furniture (prices quoted do not include the 18% buyer’s premium). The result ranks in the top ten prices ever achieved for southern furniture at auction.

Among the many estates and collections represented in the sale were objects from the Robert Daniel estate at Brandon Plantation, Virginia. The historic home yielded many family treasures, among them a rare Thomas Sully portrait of Peyton Randolph, selling to a museum for a strong $20,000, and a pair of Chinese armchairs selling online for $55,000 against an estimate of $1,000-2,000. The estate of Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans was also represented, highlighted by a Georg Jensen silver tea set and tray, selling for a combined $33,000. Institutional consignments included works on paper from the Morehead Cain Foundation in Chapel Hill, lead by a rare Charleston Maritime print that sold for $10,000.

Continental ceramics, bronzes, and furniture were strong throughout the day, with many lots surpassing their estimates by a wide margin. The one day sale closed with a 95% sell through rate and grossed over two million dollars, well over the preliminary estimate.

Stay tuned for our March 15-16 auction, with an eclectic mix of over 1100 lots of fine art, furniture, jewelry and decorations. See our website for an early peek at some highlights! he catalog will be available online by February 18th.

Always accepting quality consignments. Contact us for a free consultation.

On Saturday, January 18th, 2014, Brunk Auctions will hold their first sale of the New Year. The sale will feature over 800 eclectic lots from various private collections and estates.

The start of 2014 will see the return of Piedmont craftsman Jesse Needham to Brunk Auctions. The important tall chest on frame by Needham is the second offered by Brunk Auctions. The first sold in July 2013 for $66,000. The Needham tall chest available in this auction has been recorded by MESDA and can be seen in the May 1973 issue of the Magazine Antiques. This inscribed example, with its elaborate pitched pediment, it is estimated at $45,000 to $75,000.

More important early ceramics from the same private collection that brought a number of outstanding pieces to light in September will also headline the January sale. Among the rarities are an Important Pair of 16th Century Spanish Renaissance Escorial Drug Jars from Talavera de la Reina (Estimate: $12,000 to $18,000) and an important Elizabethan tile ($5,000 to $7,000).

A number of important paintings will be featured as well. A watercolor by the modernist Alice Schille should turn heads. Schille is considered by some to be among the finest American watercolorists. She often experimented with different media, and used watercolor over oil in the case of the circa 1911 painting of a (possibly Paris) flower market available in Brunk’s January sale.

Another important work of art in the upcoming sale is a watercolor of Great Spruce Head Island by Fairfield Porter. This painting comes directly from the family, and it depicts a Maine island owned by the family. Other notables include works by Andre Brasilier, Pablo Picasso, and a fine print of Andy Warhol’s Sitting Bull.

Asheville, NC –

We have all heard that art and antiques can “talk” – that they speak to us about the craftsman who made them and the place they were made, and that they give us clues about the people who owned them and how they were used. For centuries, art historians have been weaving lovely stories about the makers and users of fine and beautiful objects.

Andrew Brunk, formerly of Christie’s, has admittedly been on the lookout for a Shearer piece for twenty-five years. In a romantic series of events, he finally found this particular desk from a local consignor; a friend and neighbor of his. (On a side note, he found a Shearer side table in South Carolina just weeks later, and it will be offered in Brunk’s next auction in January)

This previously undiscovered 1808 piece was not without secrets. Concealed inside the construction of this fall-front desk is a note that was pasted in by its maker, John Shearer, over 200 years ago. To read it one needs to take the back boards off, open the tambour slides in the front “just so” and use a special scanning camera that can take images in a narrow space. It’s all sounds like a network crime series. Even the world of antiques can be high-tech.

The note reads: “I made this desk for an Honest Dutchman of the name of Philip Stover in Frederick County Maryland Close by the River in the year 1808–the same year that I made John Mitchell’s desk close by Late’s? Mill? in the same County, but a biger Rascle as well as fool Is not to be found in this county than this John Mitchell. The running doors that is in this desk was made for this very Rascle’s Desk Jno. Mitchell My Name is John Shearer joiner from Edinborough North Britan Not forgetting a Sarha Skags the Bigest Whor in this county lived there at that time”

Oh dear, not very charitable Mr. Shearer. Your client must have done something that made you very mad!

John Shearer was a cabinet maker who worked in Virginia and Maryland at the turn of the 19th century, but very little is known about his life. His body of work is documented in a recent book by Elizabeth A. Davison, “The Furniture of John Shearer.” On a number of occasions, John Shearer pasted secret notes into his furniture and he was known to sign date and inscribe his work in multiple locations.

It can be traced back to the family of Charles H. Folwell of Mount Holly, NJ in the 1930’s. It may have descended from the original owner (Philip Stuber) through the Neill family family of Hagerstown, MD.

This fantastic example of Early Southern furniture is proof that there is still intrigue in the antiques market. The desk sold for $354,000 to a buyer who wishes to remain anonymous until the transaction is completed. It was the top lot in the three-day sale.

Bidders flew in from all over the US and participated from over 65 countries online during Brunk’s first Friday night jewelry sale. Just in time for the holiday season, bidders fought over hundreds of lots of jewelry including modern and vintage works by makers including Tiffany & Co., Van Cleef & Arpels, Cartier, and others. The highest of the group was a lovely Aquamarine and Diamond Necklace, which ended up selling for $54,280.

A number of marvelous Russian icons drew considerable interest during the sale as well. The most notable of the group was a depiction of Christ Pantocrator with Sotheby’s provenance which brought $42,480.

Art Glass again proved sound at a Brunk Auctions sale. Tiffany, Daum Nancy, Gallé, and Lalique pieces excited bidders and often brought prices above estimates. Though it’s hard to choose a winner from such a fine selection of works, one of the most fantastic was a Daum Nancy acid-etched and hammered vase, which sold for $11,210.

Brunk experts have again demonstrated their keen eye for spotting quality Asian ephemera. Competitive bidding on Asian items led to soaring prices, once to the point where a buyer in the room jokingly yelled “Sold” in hopes that he could coax the auctioneer in to hammering down at a lower price. Starting the Sunday session out with a bang, Ding Ware and other porcelain, jade, panels, and other ephemera all brought outstanding prices.

The sale of maritime and sporting art was also a high point in the sale. Perhaps the “pick of the litter” was a Percival Rousseau depiction of four hunting dogs in a stream, which totaled $51,920.

Yet another notable work of art in the sale was a sculpture by Deborah Butterfield. It sold for $87,320.

This was Brunk’s last sale of the year. It totaled $4,361,221, and is their second highest sale total to date. The next sale at Brunk Auctions will take place on the weekend of January 18th.

ANNOUNCING THE OFFERING OF THE ANTIQUES AND FINE ART OF PHILANTHROPIST MRS. MARY DUKE BIDDLE TRENT SEMANS

Asheville, NC – Brunk Auctions announces their selection by the family of Mrs. Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans for the sale by auction of the antiques, fine art, and decorative arts collections from the estate at an historic event scheduled for August 24-25, 2013, at The Washington Duke Inn on the campus of Duke University, in Durham, NC.

Mrs. Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans’s accomplishments were wide-ranging and varied, and included achievements ranging from having been the first woman to serve as mayor pro-tem for the City of Durham in the 1960s, to her lifetime of service in trustee and board positions at numerous foundations as well as Duke University and the Duke Endowment. Foremost however was her focus on her family, especially her beloved grandparents Mr. Benjamin N. Duke and Mrs. Sarah Pearson Duke, her mother Mrs. Mary Duke Biddle, and her own seven children and fourteen grandchildren.

As was so succinctly noted by Duke University President Doctor Richard Brodhead at Mrs. Semans’s memorial service in 2012, “She was more than the sum of her accomplishments, … she transformed the great wealth she was born with into a lasting force of compassion.”

All who knew her were inspired by her love of music and for the fine arts. She was instrumental in launching and sustaining the North Carolina School of the Arts as well as in the creation of one of the earliest fine art galleries for the blind at the N.C. Museum of Art.

The auction of the estate’s antiques, fine art and decorative arts —culled from five generations of the Duke family, and from the five well-known homes they lived in over the course of more than 100 years — will be held on Sunday, August 25th. The day before, an open-to-the-public preview will be held in the afternoon followed by a private reception preview in the early evening hours.

Reservations for the private Saturday reception may be made by contacting Brunk Auctions, and the proceeds from the $50 per person donation will benefit the North Carolina School of the Arts. The Sunday auction will be open to the public and will feature online bidding in addition to telephone and absentee bidding; all of which will be available through brunkauctions.com.

This historic event represents the first offering of these objects, which have decorated the daily lives of North Carolina’s first family of philanthropy for over a century. The collection will be presented via a state-of-the-art online catalogue which will both showcase the objects and tell their stories in the context of the homes they once occupied, from the circa 1852 Duke Homestead in then-rural Durham to the renown 1901-built 1009 Fifth Avenue, New York, townhouse, the former Durham mansion remembered as Four Acres on West Chapel Hill Street, and the remaining stately residences known as Pinecrest and Les Terrasses in Forest Hills, Durham.

Notable within this offering of over 500 fine and fascinating objects are exquisitely wrought examples of American silver, paintings by important artists such as Thomas Anshutz, fine 18th and 19th century Chinese porcelains and jades, elegant French antique furnishings, and an elaborately inlaid art case Steinway grand piano.

Andrew Brunk, President of Brunk Auctions said, “Mrs. Semans was one of North Carolina’s most ardent patrons of the arts and education, and we are truly honored to host this historic event on behalf of her family, and to present to discerning collectors some of the fine objects that enriched her life, and the lives of her distinguished family, by their beauty and artistry.”

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Please be respectful of the family’s privacy and refer all questions to Brunk Auctions, official representatives of the family regarding the sale of the collections of Mrs. Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans.