Southern Auction Finds Success with Well-Documented Estates

July 30th, 2016

Case Antiques, Knoxville, Tennessee

Photos courtesy Case Antiques

Case Antiques, Knoxville, Tennessee, had its most successful sale ever by employing its dual strengths, offering 19th-century regional material of intense local interest, while presenting Asian, European, and 20th-century lots with broad international appeal. The July 30 sale offered close to 1000 lots in a marathon Saturday session. The president, staff, and hard-working auctioneer recognize that this may be the limit for the number of objects that can be run across the block in a single day.

The “southern” portion of this auction was anchored by two great Tennessee estates—the art, antiques, jewelry, and historic archives that had passed to Sarah Hunter Hicks Green of Devon Farm in the Nashville area, and the property of Henry and Jean Yeatman of Hamilton Place Plantation in Maury County, Tennessee. Preparing these estate lots for auction was a herculean task, but Case has built its reputation on detailed cataloging backed up with multiple images online.


Reportedly this small paint-decorated pine chest (19¼" x 28" x 14") from a Tennessee collection was found in Alabama. The decoration of tulips, borders, and background in blue, red, salmon, and yellow was attributed in the catalog entry to the “Scraggly Artist” of Montgomery-Berks County, Pennsylvania, on the basis of related examples cited in the catalog entry. Current condition and restoration were carefully documented. Although it came in below estimate, the chest sold for a respectable $14,160.

Balancing the classic regional material, there were diverse lots in a mix of styles and from various periods that drew bidding interest from around the globe. Sharing space in the top ten were a record-setting painting by Tennessee artist Carroll Cloar (1913-1993), an important 19th-century watercolor view of Nashville, two sparkling mid-five-figure diamond rings, a mysterious old master portrait, jade and porcelain for the Asian market, a major Edward Curtis orotone image of The Three Chiefs, and two 20th-century artworks. The Cloar came from a Philadelphia consignor clearing a New York estate who wisely sent the work back to Tennessee where its final price eclipsed the previous record set at Sotheby’s in 2014.


The Three Chiefs, this 1900 image of three Blackfoot leaders on horseback on the Montana prairie, was among the most memorable portraits in The North American Indian documentary series photographed by Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952). The orotone image in its original frame (15¾" x 18¾") surpassed its $6000/8000 estimate to reach $17,110.

While Case auctions have always featured lots of historic archives, the Devon Farm estate brought the firm a massive volume of material composed of letters, diaries, photographs, and memorabilia connected to the intertwined families who had lived there since the 18th century. Although this section could have been a soft spot in the sale, these lots proved a strong point, consistently surpassing their estimates. A large Hicks family archive with letters, photographs, receipts, and diaries sold for $7080 (est. $600/800) with buyer’s premium. Elsewhere there were land grants, a Gold Rush diary, records of enslaved persons, historic photographs of Nashville, and an extensive group of items related to raising the farm’s famous Devon cattle.


From Devon Farm, this scarce 1871 survey map of Nashville and surrounding Davidson County, printed by G.W. and C.B. Colton, New York, brought in multiple bids, and in spite of its fragile condition, it rose to $8260 (est. $700/900).

Pleased and slightly amazed by the archives’ success, John Case said, “I think that there were some concerns. We’ve never had that many archives. That’s an area that someone like Cowan’s is much more experienced in dealing with. But the lots blew past their estimates. Luckily for us, Sarah Drury recognized that this woman, Sarah Hunter Hicks Green, had all these precious boxes of miscellaneous papers. You and I know that in many similar situations they would have been tossed in a bin or out the door. It was a test of how the market in Tennessee viewed history, especially the history of Nashville.

“I think it was encouraging from a philosophical standpoint,” he continued. “It’s exciting when a painting or a piece of pottery brings this kind of money, but when it’s a piece of paper, it comes down to, do people care where it came from? Do they care about the history of the area? The result from a dollar standpoint was a resounding yes. Institutions and collectors in Nashville, in Tennessee, and even outside the state stepped up to the plate. I think it was statistically pretty incredible. We’re looking at lots that sold for five to eight times their estimate. We had competitive institutional bidding along with strong collector bidding inside the state of Tennessee and without. That was frankly the most significant surprise for me, and I don’t know how to repeat that. That could have been the black hole of our sale.”

According to Case, it was Drury who became the Hercules who completed the task: “I commend Sarah for working with state museums, archives, and special collections at universities. She went through box after box. How are we going to catalog these, showcase them, store them? We had to limit the viewings in order to preserve the lots. The photographs were so fragile, and many items had not been kept in the most ideal conditions. Much effort went into the cataloging and promotion of this material. But that’s part of the unique nature of our auction house. It was actually an existential affirmation of why we are here. It is worth the hard work. We have an obligation to the market we serve and the history of this region, so it’s sweet when you’ve fulfilled your obligation, and it’s rewarded monetarily.”

Sarah Campbell Drury, Case’s vice president of fine and decorative arts, the heroine of the story, expanded on her role: “There was a lot of paper, and to make it more challenging, a lot of the paper was not grouped in any chronological fashion. When Mrs. Green was moving out of Devon Farm, she was putting things in boxes like anyone would have done, with the intention of going through and organizing them later, but she did not get around to that before she passed away. There were artifacts from 1780 to 1980—two hundred years of history on paper, which fortunately had been saved. We had to put the right things together so that we could present them in logical group lots. Every auction has challenges, and cataloging these was our task this time, but we’re learning to love paper. It brings good prices from bidders who love history.” To see how a treasure trove of history can be logically organized, history buffs can take a look at the archival groups, beginning around lot 220, in the Case July catalog online.


One of the most important visual documents to emerge from the Devon Farm archives was this circa 1880 detailed watercolor panoramic view of Nashville (21" x 36"), on which can be discerned individual buildings including the Tennessee State Capitol and topographical elements such as the curve of the Cumberland River. The viewpoint is Fort Negley, constructed during the Civil War by Union troops and conscripted black citizens and slaves. The Tennessee State Museum wanted the map for its collection, but the lot was won by a bidder in the Northeast for $17,110 (est. $4000/4400).

If John Case was encouraged by the response to local history, he was also heartened by success with bidders from abroad: “What also surprised me is how well we did with Europe; I don’t know if this has something to do with Brexit or the economy there. In Europe now you may have to pay to put your money in the bank. For at least one of the European paintings, the Fernando Zobel, we had interest from five or six countries on that particular piece. For that artwork to get near the American record was pretty remarkable. If you get good pictures to folks with the right information, and you’re reaching out to the right market, you can sell to those buyers as well as New York can.” The abstract oil Plaza de Pilatos I by Fernando Zobel de Ayala y Montojo (1924-1984) brought $123,900 (est. $40,000/45,000) and led the sale.


Top lot of the day was the hazy abstraction Plaza de Pilatos I by Spanish/Filipino painter Fernando Zobel de Ayala y Montojo (1924-1984), which brought $123,900 (est. $40,000/45,000), a figure close to the American record for that artist. The Case crew was all hands on deck with eight phone bidders from multiple countries plus absentee and Internet action. The painting and two ink drawings (not shown) by Zobel came from the California estate of Robert L. Zarbock, and the proceeds will benefit his alma mater, the University of Illinois.


Everyone dreams of uncovering a lost old master painting. The beautiful lad with the soulful mien had been in the Yeatman collection at Hamilton Place. A previous owner had jotted a note on the back attributing the portrait to Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617-1682) or one of his students—maybe, maybe not. The estimate was only $500/700, but the numerous images of the painting online stirred interest abroad, and a European dealer won it for $41,300.

John Case said in conclusion, “We did very well across many categories including jewelry and art and decorative arts in this summer sale, and in the end, it was by far the highest-grossing auction we’ve ever had. I think our strategy is working well. We had about 4500 registered bidders, keeping in mind that I kept out about 1400 or 1500 which didn’t meet our criteria. We’ve found a formula for diversity and price points that I think works. Just on one platform the night before the sale, I had over $2 million in absentee bids on LiveAuctioneers; that’s substantial. People feel confident enough to leave these bids with us.”

As the number of sellers and buyers rises for the July and January events, will Case try a two-day sale in the future? That will, no doubt, depend on the volume of estates and individual consignments that come Case’s way, but the success in this sale will encourage the process. For more information go to (www.caseantiques.com); John Case can be reached at (865) 558-3033 in Knoxville, and Sarah Campbell Drury at (615) 812-6096 in Nashville.


Carroll Cloar (1913-1993) was Tennessee’s most celebrated 20th-century artist, and this 22½" x 33½" acrylic titled Weeping Willow and dated July 1967 set a new auction record for the painter when it sold to a southern collector for $51,920 (est. $18,000/22,000). Cloar went to college in Memphis and in 1936 traveled to New York City to study at the Art Students League. After service in World War II, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a tribute to his distinctive clean style. Using Memphis as his home base, he continued to travel and paint in North and South America and Europe throughout his life.


Next to buyers in this country, the largest volume of bidders in the July sale was in China. Thanks to the ease of global connections, Asian buyers seem to keep a close eye on Case lots and quickly spotted this Qianlong white jade bowl (6¾" diameter). The desirable bowl, which had been in a Memphis collection, brought $28,320 (est. $1800/2200).


These five pieces of Chinese export porcelain of disparate patterns, techniques, and ages came from an old established collection formed by Edward S. Thompson (d. 1979) of Columbus, Ohio, and Maryville, Tennessee—the very sort of provenance that attracts overseas collectors. The estimate was $600/800; the final price was a hefty $18,880.


Also from a Nashville collection, Wheat, this beryllium sonambient sculpture (14 7/8" high) by Harry Bertoia (1915-1978), doubled its estimate to bring $13,570.


Originally published in the October 2016 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2016 Maine Antique Digest

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