AUCTION FINDS OF THE WEEK- JUNE 3RD: 20TH CENTURY DESIGN

by Kelly Keating on 06/07/13

This week's auction finds offer 4 items beginning with a great piece of furniture and ending with a quirky jewelry box.  All of the items were made in the 20th century at varying times and show the wide variety of design expressions in the modern era.  If you are looking to furnish a room in a "modern" style here are some great objects for inspiration.

This week's first discovery is a wonderful Limbert Furniture Company, Grand Rapids, MI, circa 1908 3 drawer library table with copper hardware in the Arts & Crafts style- lot 171 at Rago Arts and Auction Center in Lambertville, NJ on June 8 with a pre-sale estimate of $2,500-3,500.  The library table has the typical Arts & Crafts mortise and tenon construction which proudly displays how the piece was put together rather than hiding it.  What a great piece for a library, dining room or center hall and let's fill the top with Arts & Crafts pottery and books for a great look or this week's other treasures.

Charles P. Limbert (1854-1923) was founder of the Limbert Furniture Company and a contemporary of Gustav Stickley, although the two most likely didn't know each other. (Stickley was more of a self-promoter while Limbert was content to let his furniture speak for itself). Limbert's quartersawn oak furniture is characteristic of the Arts and Crafts movement in America; some of it looks similar to that produced by other makers of the day. Many of the company's better pieces, however, are pleasingly unique, are solidly constructed and stand on their own merits. Compared with Stickley's work, Limbert's designs were typically less severe and more visually interesting, usually achieved through the use of cut-outs and other elements inspired by such diverse influences as English Arts and Crafts, Dutch folk furniture, Scottish architect/designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and the Vienna Secession.

The passage above is an apt description of the library table at Rago.  There is something pleasing about and it does indeed lack the severity of a Stickley piece.  Particularly nice is the curved inner profile of the legs which softens the design and makes it more sensuous.

This week's next discovery is a green matte glazed Arts & Crafts vase by J B Owens Pottery- lot 136 at North American Auction Company in Bozman, MT on June 15th with a pre-sale estimate of $400-600.  This piece would look great on the Limbert library table with a single lily or blossom branch.  The vase features a very rare Teco Matte Green Drip Glaze and is circa 1900.  The piece is a four footed gourd shaped vase with four unique applied handles that meet around the circumference of the narrow vase opening. What a great color and shape that combine to create a very tactile appealing object.

The third treasure this week is a large glazed Art Deco circa 1930's wall plaque by Waylande Gregory (1905-1971) featuring a stylized nude woman in a lush landscape- lot 302 at Rago Arts and Auction Center in Lambertville, NJ on June 8 with a pre-sale estimate of $2,000-3,000.  Nicely framed this plaque would look quite well above the Limbert table.  Gregory was one of the most innovative and prolific American Art Deco ceramics sculptors of the early twentieth century. His groundbreaking techniques enabled him to create monumental ceramic sculpture, such as the "Fountain of the Atoms" and "Light Dispelling Darkness", which had hitherto not been possible. He also developed revolutionary glazing and processing methods and was a seminal figure in the studio glass movement.  Although this lot is a small work (17"x17.5") it certainly demonstrates Gregory's command of the medium.

The last discovery this week is a Francis Thenet circa 1920 bronze octagonal jewelry box featuring a squirrel motif.  This piece is a quirky little lot, but I love the patina, shape and how the squirrel fills the space of the octogonal lid.  The squirrel jewelry box, lot 2413, is being auctioned at Michaan's Auction House in Alameda, CA with a pre-sale estimate of $900-1,200. I would like to see this box as part of a grouping on the Limbert library tablescape. 

I hope one of this week's auction picks inspired you for the design of your own space.  All of this week's objects work well together.  The Limbert library table could be our centerpiece with the Owens pottery vase and Thenot jewelry box as part of its tablescape with the lovely and stylish Gregory plaque hanging above.

Contact me at [email protected] if I can find you a wonderul auction treasure.

Till next week.

Kelly T Keating
www.theantiqueflaneur.com