CLICK HERE TO PLACE BIDS VIA THE AUCTION WEBSITE
CLICK HERE TO PLACE BIDS VIA THE AUCTION WEBSITE
List of Reserve Prices for Unsold Lots
WITH THE 4th of JULY as an OPENING PRELUDE…
We Proudly Present
Our Own Glass-Fire(d) Works!!
Initial bidding begins Today, Wednesday, July 5th, 2017.. Click this sentence to be routed to the auction website where you can place your bids. The last day to place initial bids is Monday, July 17th, 2017, at 5:00 pm CST. The auction is fully online, hosted on our Auction Website, which will be live soon. A web-friendly digital e-catalog can be viewed at E-CATALOG, while a printed copy is for sale at PRINT-CATALOG. If you see something to your liking, please do not fail to place an initial bid to ensure that you secure a position in the competitive bidding that follows in the second half of the auction. Competitive bidding begins Tuesday, July 18th at 9 am CST. We recommend that you give the catalog’s Conditions of Sale a careful examination for a full understanding of the protocols or give us a call to inquire about our unique auction format. You can also make an appointment to see every lot in person! If you prefer to place any or all bids by phone or have any questions, just give us a call at 1-800-538-0766.
As always we are happy to provide extra images by email as well as to talk with you over the phone about a paperweight while it’s in our hands. (We’ve tried printing out extra views for regular post but the printer’s inks and paper available don’t allow for quality reproduction.) Select lots (including many in the first 20) in this Summer ’17 are available for viewing as spin videos. These rotating visuals are especially helpful for some of the more complex weights. Just give a call! 312-583-1177 or 800-538-0766.
And yes, of course, the weight you’ve been looking for is in here somewhere (forgive the bad puns and hyperbole today). So in light of the fact that we have in this auction 77 antique and 264 contemporary paperweights, bottles, and marbles we’re limited here today in what we can cover. Let’s set the tone with a few excellent examples from the abundance of choices. These weights not only offer beauty and the highest degree of artistry and craftsmanship but also a sense of well-being. And that may be their true gift!
Please refer to the catalog for full descriptions of the lots for the following…
AMERICA FIRST!
LOT 1. The first entries in the auction are most often from those three venerable French houses, Clichy, Baccarat and St. Louis. BUT this time—the No.1 spot (patriotic drumroll) goes to the Yankees at the New England Glass Company! (Yes, we know half their workers were from France and Great Britain – just play along…) This NEGC bouquet on latticinio faceted paperweight boasts an arrangement of very dimensional and multi-tiered clematis in several colors with numerous finely variegated leaves. Stems and a delicate yellow ribbon gather all together to complete the arrangement. “These superb three-dimensional beauties rank among the best of all paperweights produced by the New England Glass Company, and in fact, the best produced by any glassworks. They made very few of these…no duplicates exist. Their quality is such that they probably served as presentation pieces given to important personages. “—The Art of the Paperweight-the Boston & Sandwich and New England Glass Companies. Featured in a special exhibit at the Bergstrom Mahler Museum in 2014-2016.
Extremely rare magnum antique New England Glass Company bouquet on latticinio faceted paperweight.
BLUE IS NOT JUST AN ALBUM BY JONI MITCHELL
Beautiful hues of the color blue play both major and notable supporting roles in the first several lots this time around. According to one of the 3 million plus entries on the all-knowing Internet, “Blue is the color of the sky and the sea. It is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven. Blue is considered beneficial to mind and body.” Maybe you can’t buy love, but looking below, it seems as though all the other good things are up for bidding!
LOT 5. Here we have a gorgeous antique Baccarat interlaced millefiori trefoil garlands in blue double overlay faceted paperweight. Two interlaced trefoil garlands create a perfect space for the central arrowhead cane, with an outer ring of white stars, ringed by a red bull’s eye-centered-white stardust. Blue-over-white double overlay, with traces of sterling from a stencil indicating gilding.
Antique Baccarat interlaced millefiori trefoil garlands in blue double overlay faceted paperweight.
LOT 15 The antique Clichy interlaced millefiori quatrefoil garlands paperweight that you see here continues nicely on the theme of blue as a restful, positive sensory experience.
Antique Clichy interlaced millefiori quatrefoil garlands paperweight.
WITH THIS IN HAND YOU CAN CANCEL YOUR LIFE INSURANCE!
LOT 20 As we cast our eye around over our current “embarrassment of riches” there is another holiday that comes to mind. This artwork seems to hold the promise of a charmed life to the lucky bearer of this glass firework, filled as it is with shamrocks (7, of course) and the symbolically beneficial butterflies. We all know St. Patrick but did you know that many cultures associate the butterfly with our souls? Around the world, people view the butterfly as representing change, hope, and life.
Here we have a rare antique Baccarat concentric shamrock and butterfly millefiori on upset muslin faceted paperweight.
“These are weights of power and impact whose design must have taken considerable thought.”—The Encyclopedia of Glass Paperweights, page 56
Rare Antique Baccarat concentric shamrock and butterfly millefiori on upset muslin faceted paperweight.
THERE MAY BE A QUIZ
Remember that all 77 antique as well as the 264 contemporary paperweights have been carefully chosen and presented to provide a balanced and intriguing selection. This auction is a wonderland populated by exotic creations: Lot 14 features a stoic, antique camel; Lot 21 dazzles with a lush pink and black dahlia, Lot 26 seduces, with a gorgeously ethereal green serpent sporting eyes that would make you eat any apple, Lot 69 is a hallucination: a seldom-seen ghostly sailing ship with a tiny red flag atop its mast. There is, of course, a host of other lovingly conceived and rendered items, including fruits and flowers and faces! Many of these are embedded in, embellished with, or embraced by lush leaves, swinging swirls, gorgeous grounds, twisting torsades and magnificent millefiori. And all these carefully crafted artworks provide a much-needed sense of well-being and balance in today’s world!
THE ORIGINAL AMERICA’S CUP
LOT 69 The very rare antique Millville frit sailing ship from the C. Frank Kireker Collection. A white frit schooner, with sails, fully deployed, floats on blue water over a clear, footed base. “But the most ingenious paperweights at Millville, were those upright scenes derived from iron or steel dies and made by Michael Kane. In paper-thin colored glass pictures as delicate as if they had been etched, Kane shows…a yacht, a clipper ship…in a superb series of vignettes that sets the pulse to beating with chauvinistic nostalgia. These large, clear, heavy handsome weights come plain, footed, on pedestals, and occasionally, as with the clipper ships, in pairs that were probably used as mantel ornaments.”—The Encyclopedia of Glass Paperweights, page 240.
Very rare Millville frit sailing ship pedestal paperweight.
YES, WE ALSO LOVE MODERN ART!
As often is the case we begin our contemporary selections with the Dean, Paul Stankard. If you are a Stankard collector, you may want to clear out another room in the house because this time around we just happen to be able to offer a mini-treasure trove (a term mathematicians know equals 16).
LOT 79 portrays an elegant interplay of blue convolvulus morning glories lying on a sandy ground beside smaller yellow blooms with delicate petals. Berries and foliage complete the composition with the network of stems.
Paul Stankard 1984 Blue Convolvulus morning glories paperweight.
BIRDWATCHING WITHOUT SLEEP DEPRIVATION
Tired of rising at 3 a.m. to catch a glance of that redstart or blue tit?
Yes, us as well. So what a relief to realize that we have in the auction aviary from Rick Ayotte, a dozen or so birds that will always wait around ‘til 8 a.m. when you start to make coffee like a normal human being. Why they’ll even let you pick them up and stroke them!
LOT 112 is a charming example. An American redstart atop a branch of orange tiger lilies. Surrounding them are petite buds and green leaves, layered with another cluster of tiger lilies.
Rick Ayotte 1986 “American Redstart with Tiger Lilies”compound paperweight.
CAN’T MAKE IT TO THE MUSEUM? LET THE EXHIBIT COME TO YOU!
LOT 144 That’s right! We congratulate Victor Trabucco on his museum retrospective—Glass Within Glass: The Magic of the Trabucco Studio, on view at the Burchfield Penney Art Center through September 17th, 2017. It features the paperweight artistry of Victor, David, and Jon Trabucco.
But, if you can’t get there, we just happen to have a half a dozen beautiful examples ready for your home from over two decades of Victor’s achievement; the works range from 1981 to 1999.
Featured here; 1983 strawberry and blossom upright faceted paperweight, from the C. Frank Kireker Collection.
Victor Trabucco 1983 strawberry and blossom upright faceted paperweight.
RAISE A GLASS TO THE CUTTER !
LOT 162 Bob Banford’s daffodil bouquet magnum faceted paperweight. This is simply too joyful an explosion of high-spirited nature not to show you. Spring eternal… and what also makes this piece stand out so is the dimensionality from the excellent faceting.
Bob Banford daffodil bouquet magnum faceted paperweight.
FROG, FRUIT AND FLOWERS – A HAT TRICK!
LOT 179 That’s right folks! You say you just ran out of the room at home and don’t know which of your favorite collecting themes to indulge in? This charming trio of elements by Colin fits nicely as the frog, fruit, and flowers complement each other well in size, palette, and placement. Nature should always be in such harmony.
Colin Richardson 2013 poison dart frog paperweight.
OF COURSE HE LIVES IN CALIFORNIA
Lot 264 Danny Salazar, who worked in our booth at the Norfolk PCA like a champion—exudes southern California, and it’s completely in evidence here. This carefree beta fish leads a completely left coast lifestyle, floating in a gentle pastel sea.
Daniel Salazar / Lunberg Studios 1987 beta fish compound paperweight.
THEY’RE ALL THERE ON PAPER!
We do wish we had time and space to spotlight all of the talented artists whose work appears in the auction but then that’s why you have the auction catalog, don’t you? You must have read somewhere by now that the human brain (and heart?) responds much better in the areas of cognition and retention from examining printed matter on paper, than when reading the same information on a computer screen. Enough said!
In Auction #66, most of the Usual (talented) Suspects are all here: Gordon Smith, Clinton Smith, Chris Buzzini, D’Onofrio, Debbie Tarsitano, Cathy Richardson, Charles Kaziun Jr., Drew Ebelhare, Damon MacNaught, Paul Ysart, William Manson, and Francis Whittemore—among many others including post-classic and modern weights by the Scottish and French houses, as well as works from some American studios such as Orient & Flume. We admire all these artists and are proud to have them as friends and associates. We regret not being able to feature works by each of them here, but you should really see our beautifully printed catalogs, where Marty Susmaras has coaxed and caressed truly attractive and dimensional images into being, that become a permanent record for all the artists!
SCARCITY ALERT!
You may have to really roll up your sleeves this time to get a David Graeber, Mayauel Ward, Eric Hansen, Mike Hunter, James Shaw, or Melissa Ayotte (among others) because we were only able to obtain 1 weight by each artist for this auction! So fight hard and play nice!
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!
LOT 335 So because we can’t choose a favorite from the all-star team above to close out with, we’re going in a different direction and leaving you with an eye-grabbing marble filled with abstract millefiori rods and star canes by Karuna Glass…or was that your guess?!
Karuna Glass abstract millefiori rods and star canes marble by Doug Sweet.
Finally, we thank you for your time and just want to say to those of you who may not have seen the card insert in our “Glass in a Class by Itself” booklet –
REGARDING ART & PASSION
“There is little that compares to the thrill of collecting. Over the centuries we have expressed our desires for culture by surrounding ourselves with increasingly sophisticated examples of beauty and refinement. The finely crafted paperweight represents the epitome of the art of sculpture in glass. It requires imaginative artistry, extreme craftsmanship, military discipline, endless patience, and just a touch of luck— in each and every handmade objet d’art.”
Thank you and good luck in the auction!
Ben, Penelope, Marty, Paul and Molly.
L.H. Selman Ltd.