La Peregrina 16th century natural pearl; diamond bail early 19th century; natural pearl, diamond, ruby and cultured pearl necklace by Cartier 1972, formerly the property of Phillip II of Spain and his Spanish successors 1500s-1808, Joseph Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon, the Duke and Duchess of Abercorn, and Elizabeth Taylor.
Tomorrow night, at Rockefeller Center, Christie’s will be selling as the 12th lot of the Collection of Legendary Jewels Belonging to Elizabeth Taylor, the “La Peregrina” Pearl, one of the oldest and best-documented historical jewels.
La Peregrina, possibly the most valuable pearl in the world and certainly one of the absolutely largest (more than 50 carats) natural pear-shaped pearls ever recorded, was found near the island of Santa Margarita in the Gulf of Panama by an African slave sometime in the early to mid-16th century.
The story is that the pearl came from an oyster so small that its finder nearly did not bother to open it.
The Governor of Panama, Don Pedro de Temez, acquired the treasure and rewarded the slave with his freedom for finding it.
Temez presented the enormous pearl to King Phillip II of Spain who gave it to Mary I of England at the time of their marriage in 1554, but it returned to the possession of the Spanish crown after her death in 1558. It was one of the favorite and best-known pieces of the Spanish crown jewels, and is visible in portrait after portrait of Queen Consorts.
After Richard Burton bought it for $37,000 at a Sotheby’s sale and presented it to Taylor as a Valentine’s Day present, it fell into the jaws of one of the actress’s Lhasa Apsos. 2:33 video
The probable sales price, despite the economic times, will confirm just what a good investment Burton made.
Elizabeth Taylor wore “La Peregrina” in an uncredited cameo appearance in “Anne of a Thousand Days” (1969).
————————————————— UPDATE, 12/14: La Peregrina sold for the world record price of $11,842,500.Yahoo News
A rare original draft printing, one of one hundred printed in 1861, and one of only four copies known to have survived of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, presented to the Convention in Montgomery, Alabama on February 28, 1861 is to be sold by Heritage Auctions at a sale to be held at the Ukrainian Institute of America at The Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion, 2 East 79th Street, New York, NY 10075 on December 8-9, 2011.
This copy must have belonged originally to one of the delegates from Louisiana, Alexandre de Clouet, Charles M. Conrad, Duncan F. Kenner, or Henry Marshall. It is most likely the Kenner copy, as Kenner’s home was confiscated and his personal effects looted when New Orleans was captured May 1, 1862.
This copy descends from the estate of one Albert Gaius Hills, a Boston Journal correspondent, who was present during the capture and subsequent occupation of New Orleans.
Heritage is not posting an estimate of the sales price at the present time, but it will probably command an impressive price.
Heritage Auctions is selling some of the famous actor’s personal effects and papers in Los Angeles in a sale ending October 6-7th.
I have glanced through some of the catalogue, and there is some fascinating stuff: costumes, hats, and even scripts from famous movies, including his eye patch from True Grit, a tweed overcoat from The Quiet Man, a Marine Corps uniform from Sands of Iwo Jima . There are letters from Jimmy Stewart, Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, and John F. Kennedy, and some very amusing letters from director John Ford, full of bawdy humor. They are even selling Wayne’s driver’s license and American Express card.
Lot 44129 is kind of interesting. It seems that, in 1977, just two years before his death, The People’s Almanac sent Wayne (along with other winners of the Academy Award) a poll questionnaire asking “who were and are the 5 best motion picture actors of all time…(and)...the 5 …best motion pictures of all time.”
John Wayne wrote down, as his list of actors: “1) Spencer Tracy 2) Elizabeth Taylor 3) Kathrine [sic] Hepburn 4) Laurence Olivier 5) Lionel Barrymore,” as his list of movies: “1) A Man for All Seasons 2) Gone with the Wind 3) The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 4) The Searchers 5) The Quiet Man.”
The lot includes the actual handwritten lists, signed by John Wayne, and is currently bid at $800.
I thought it was odd that John Wayne shared the fashionable critics’ high regard for The Searchers, among his own films. I would argue strenuously myself that She Wore a Yellow Ribbon featured his most impressive all-time job of acting.
A pair of singing-bird pistols made of gold and inlaid with gems sold for HK$45.5 million ($5.8 million) at a Christie’s International sale in Hong Kong [on May 30th].
A huge round of applause erupted after a 10-minute fight that Christie’s head of watches Aurel Bacs described as “an epic bidding war between two of the world’s most connoisseur collectors.” The only publicly known matching pair in the world were included in a 456-lot sale of timepieces that raised HK$164.7 million ($21.2 million), the highest tally for an Asian watch sale, the London-based auction house said. Two Patek Philippe watches sold for more than $1 million each.
William Koch (one of the notorious conservative donor Koch Brothers) bought the 2×3” ferrotype taken by an unknown photographer in Fort Sumner, New Mexico in late 1879 or early 1880 at a Denver auction last Saturday.
This carte de visite image, commonly referred to as the Upham tintype (named for its longtime owner Frank Upham, a nephew of the original owner Dan Dedrick, one of Billy the Kid’s outlaw friends) is the only image of the famous Western gunfighter believed by experts to be authentic.
Wikipedia article on the Kid, which discusses the photograph.
Cleaning out a house near Heathrow Airport inherited from their deceased aunt and uncle, a British family found sitting on the mantel an old vase. They took it to an auction house, where the vase was identified as genuine piece of Chinese Imperial porcelain, probably looted from one of the summer palaces in 1860 by British and French troops during the Second Opium War.
These vases must have considerable sentimental value, as two very determined Chinese bidders proceeded to drive the sales price of this (to my eye) overly busy and noisome object into the stratosphere, establishing a new price record for a piece of Oriental art.
A Qianlong period (c.1740) Imperial yang cai reticulated double-walled vase with six-character reign mark has became the most expensive Chinese work of art ever to sell at auction anywhere in the world. It sold for £51.6m ($83m) at Bainbridge’s Auctions, in the west London suburb of Ruislip, to an anonymous Chinese buyer in the room. It is not yet known whether he represented a mainland Chinese institution or private buyer. The price beat the previous record of RMB436.8m ($65.95m) set at Beijing Poly in June 2010 for a Song Dynasty scroll by Huang Tingjian (1045-1105).
The vase was discovered during a routine valuation at a house in the London satellite town of Pinner. Its owners had inherited it from a relative, who they believe acquired it in the 1930s. “They had no idea what it was, but we could see that it was good—we gradually realized how special it was when our expert cataloguer began to do some research”, said Jane Bainbridge, co-partner in the auction house.
The estimate was set at £800,000-£1.2m, but rumours began to circulate that it could reach the £15m mark after an advert was posted in the British trade newspaper Antiques Trade Gazette two weeks ago. It was timed to tie in with the annual Asian Art in London sales and exhibitions. “People began to phone us up from all over the world after that”, said Bainbridge. ...
The term yang cai translates as “foreign colours” and refers to the palette of enamels that were introduced from Europe around 1685, and later became associated with the famille rose export wares.
The 16-inch (40.5cm) high vase is of ovoid form with celadon glazed pierced body of interlocking chilong, through which could be seen the inner body of Ming style blue and white scrolling flowers. Four medallions around the body are decorated with varied pairs of fish set against modelled and carved waves.
Lot Number 73, in Amoskeag Auction Company’s Auction #76 – March 27, 2010 sale, is a really spectacular Pair of Duelling Pistols with Original Accessories by Faure LePage, whose shop at 8 Rue Richelieu operated between 1865 and 1913.
Faure LePage was clearly a very worthy representative of a family of gunmakers descended from Perin LePage, assistant to Nicolas Boutet at the manufacture Imperiale de Versailles, 1793 until 1813, then Arquebusier de l’Empereur to Napoleon I. Perin LePage’s manufactory at Versailles was sacked by Blucher in July, 1815. LePage subsequently built fine firearms in Paris originally with Nicolas Bernard as his barrel maker. Bernard left to establish his own firm in 1821.
LePage Duelling pistols were renowned for their accuracy. Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin brings Лепажа3 стволы роковые [VI:25: LePage’s fatal barrels] to his duel with Lensky, and John Leonard, in the New York Times, notes:
Lensky, a reader of Goethe rather than Rousseau and therefore a much nicer person than Eugene, falls victim in the verse epic to ‘’fell barrels’’ hand tooled in Paris by Lepage. So, too, did Pushkin insist on Lepage pistols for his appointment with d’Anthes, pawning some table silver to pay for them. And as if to salt this open sore, the all-knowing and all-telling Binyon informs us that the pistol d’Anthes used to kill Pushkin was borrowed from the French ambassador’s son, who would use it four years later to kill Mikhail Lermontov.
The LePage duellers being offered by Amoskeag this month are demonstrated to have been made some decades later by their splendid Art Nouveau ornamentation, probably during the 1890s.
These beautiful weapons come down to us carrying all the romantic associations of the Mauve Decade and the gas-lit Paris of Trilby, Absinthe, and Toulouse-Lautrec, when Honor was still a vital part of human existence, and members of the upper classes of society were expected to be prepared to defend theirs. Generals fought Prime Ministers (Boulanger v. Floquet) and painters (Manet v. Duranty) and novelists (Proust v. Lorrain) sought satisfaction from their critics. The owner of this set of pistols knew he would have one final glimpse of luxury and beauty, if worst came to worst.
Ilya Repin, Дуэль Евгения Онегина и Владимира Ленского [Duel Between Eugene Onegin and Vladimir Lensky], 1899, Pushkin Museum, St. Petersburg.
That Skull and Bones balloting box was not actually sold. Apparently, Christie’s withdrew it from the sale late last month, IvyGate reports, after receiving a mysterious “title claim.” The Russell Trust has plenty of lawyers.
—————————————————————
Hot Air (one of the most important conservative blogs) has been sold to Salem Communications. Congratulations and good luck.
————————————————————— As part of the Carnival celebration, preceding the beginning of Lent, in the Spanish village of Laza, “Peliqueiros” or ancient tax collectors, are portrayed wearing warning cowbells and prepared to beat the villagers with sticks.39 Carnival photos.
—————————————————————
Stratfor: Tradecraft in Dubai Assassination
3:14 video
Will Goodall (1812?—1859?), renowned huntsman to the Belvoir (pronounced “beaver”), the Duke of Rutland’s, was famous for his devotion to his hounds, whom Lord Bentinck reports he contended required to be treated like women, as “they could not bear to be bullied, deceived, nor neglected with impunity.”
Lionel Edwards (Huntsmen Past and Present, 1929) tells us that Goodall’s illustrious career was curtailed by an unfortunate accident.
Will died as the result of falling on his horn, which he carried in his breast, on the last day of the season, after Croxton Races. The meet was at Belvoir. The day was the third anniversary of the Hunt presentation to him—a day on which the inn at Grantham had rung again to the tune of “Will Goodall’s the boy!” The year was probably 1859, the last year of Lord Forrester’s Mastership, as the sixth Duke of Rutland’s first season as Master appears to have been 1859-1860. Will was only ill ten days, during which time he rose from his bed but once, to show Lord Henry Bentinck his young Rallywoods of the third generation. It was with a strange fitness that as the hearse moved away the hinds began to “sing” a strange and mournful requiem, which the “Druid” tells us, fairly thrilled the mourners.
A Guest Blogger at Lilla Mason’s (huntsman of the Iroquois Hounds) Full Cry blog last summer wrote a tribute to Goodall last July.
James and Denise Davies… decided to bid on the copper horn at a local auction near their home in Zimbabwe. The couple have a restaurant in the African nation and also have been collecting antiques for about six years.
“Nobody bid on it, so we got it more next to nothing,” said James, whose usual auction picks are more in the line of figurines and military memorabilia. “We were the only bidders.”
It would seem that Mr. and Mrs. Davies had acquired Will Goodall’s famous (and fatal) horn.
In the part of Virginia I live these days, the memory of Mosby is still green, and his ferocious defense of the territories of Loudoun, Fauquier, and Clarke Counties against the far more numerous forces of the invader are remembered with appreciation and honored even today.
After Appomatox, Mosby negotiated a truce, which he desired to continue until General Joseph E. Johnston ceased the struggle in North Carolina. General Hancock of the Union Army declined to extend the truce, threatening to lay waste to the theater of Mosby’s operations if he failed to surrender immediately.
Unwilling to surrender, but also loath to inflict further suffering upon the civilian population, on April 21, 1865, Mosby disbanded the 43rd Battalion, 1st Virginia Cavalry rather than surrender to Union forces.
In his 1906 memoirs, John W. Munson of Company B wrote of that evening, “The outlook for the morrow was gloomy…. Colonel Mosby, like the rest of us, showed plainly that his heart was heavy. The blow had fallen with awful force and, though little was said, the gloomy faces of the Partisans told how tumultuous were the thoughts surging amid the memories of past achievements…” (Munson, John W., Reminiscences of a Mosby Guerilla, p. 269.)
The following morning, at Glen Welby, the home of Major Richard Henry Carter, Mosby requested writing material and composed his farewell order. (Munson, p. 269). He then rode to Salem, (now Marshall), Virginia where he had ordered his regiment to rendezvous. James J. Williamson, of Company A, described the scene in detail in his memoirs: “The men came in slowly. It had rained in the early part of the morning, and a thick fog hung like a pall over the face of the country. The damp, raw air did not strike the feelings with a more chilling influence than that which was sent to the heart by the gloomy aspect which every object seemed to wear. Not a smile was to be seen on any of the faces… all looked sad. Mosby was walking up and down the street, occasionally stopping to speak to one or another of the men as they rode in. About noon the order was given to mount, and the companies formed. The whole command was drawn up in line on the green… Well-mounted and equipped, the men presented a magnificent appearance, and… Mosby rode up and down the line… When all preliminaries were arranged, Mosby s Farewell to his command was read by the commander of each squadron to his men.” (Williamson, James Joseph, A Record of the Operations of the Forty-Third Battalion Virginia Cavalry…, pp. 391-393)
Williamson recalled, “While the address was being read, a profound silence reigned; and when the word ‘farewell’ was uttered, it fell like a knell upon the ears of the assembled band. They gave Mosby three hearty cheers and the order was given to break ranks. Then ensued a scene trying to all… The men pressed forward around their officers to bid them adieu, and soon hardly a dry eye could be seen. Strong men, who had looked unmoved on scenes which would have appalled hearts unused to the painful sights presented on the field of battle, now wept like little children. Mosby stood beside a fence on the main street and took the hands of those who gathered around him. His eyes were red, and he would now and then dash aside the struggling tears which he was unable wholly to suppress. Men would silently grasp each other’s hands and then turn their heads aside to hide their tears; but at last it became so general that no pains were taken to conceal them. It was the most trying ordeal through which we had ever passed. A number of ladies who had assembled to witness the disbanding of the command were apparently as much affected as we were.”
Mosby’s Farewell to his Command read:
Fauquier, April 21st 65
Soldiers! I have summoned you together for the last time. The vision we [have] cherished of a free & independent country has vanished and that country is now the spoil of a conqueror. I disband your organization in preference to our surrendering it to our enemies. I am no longer your commander. After an association of more than two eventful years. I part from you with a just pride in the fame of your achievements & grateful recollections of your generous kindness to myself. And now, at this moment of bidding you a final adieu, accept this assurance of my unchanging confidence & regard. Farewell!
Jno: S Mosby
Colonel
The original manuscript of Mosby’s Farewell to his Ranger Battalion is being auctioned by Heritage Galleries, February 12, 2010, Lot 5900 of Sale 6039.
Christies will be selling at its New York sale 2287, titled Important American Furniture, Folk Art, Silver & Chinese Export, on January 22nd, lot 157, a Skull and Bones balloting box, along with a membership book dated 1872, the graduation year of the former owner, Edward T. Owen (1850 – 1931).
Owen, after Yale, studied at Gottingen and the University of Paris, and became in 1878 professor of French language and literature at the University of Wisconsin. He taught for one year (1886) at the University of California at Berkeley. Professor Owen was also a successful real estate investor and played a prominent role in creating the park system of Wisconsin’s capital, personally donating significant portions of the city’s parks and drives.
Professor Owen apparently, as a hobby, amassed a very important collection of “lithodoctra,” which he he left to the University of Wisconsin. I am particularly impressed myself, finding the word completely unknown to both Google and the Oxford English Dictionary. Litho is obviously “stone” and doctra “teaching, instruction.” But what on earth are lithodoctra?
Professor Owen’s Bones material includes 50 photographs of members of the Yale Senior Society, including future President William Howard Taft; Morrison Remick White, who later became Chief Justice, and William Maxwell Evarts, who went on to become US Secretary of State.
HuffPo recently linked a 4:49 video allegedly showing a courtyard behind the Society’s High Street tomb and investigating a crawlspace beneath the building.
The Swinford Tollbridge, crosses the Thames half a mile from Eynsham in Oxfordshire, was built in 1769, and has its own act of Parliament allowing its owner to collect tolls, and banning the construction of competing bridges for three miles up and downstream of its location.
It is believed that George III additionally granted a tax exemption on all its toll revenues.
It is used by four million vehicles annually, and charges a toll of of 5p per car and 50p per truck producing (tax-free!) revenues of 190000 pounds (US$320000).
It sold today at auction for 1.08 million pounds ($1.66 million).
The fly in the ointment is the existence of considerable agitation on the part of the unruly peasantry seeking the abolition of the toll.
Nesting Canada Goose, Copley Fine Arts Auctions, Sporting Sale, July 15-16, 2009, sold for $661,250
Maine Antique Digest thoughtfully informs us that, too bad! we’ve already missed major Massachusetts events devoted to the work of the renowned Cape Cod decoy carver A. Elmer Crowell (1862-1951) whose carvings have repeatedly set new records for auction prices.
Running curlew, sold at Copley in 2007 for $186,500, setting a decorative bird record
The Massachusetts Audubon Visual Arts Center in Canton had a symposium, Elmer Crowell & Beyond: A Gathering of Collectors & Enthusiasts, alas! on May 2nd, associated with a tremendous (now concluded) Crowell exhibition titled A. Elmer Crowell: Master of Decoys & More.
The good news is that an exhibition catalogue is in the works which will be available from Mass Audubon in the Fall sometime. The title will be A. Elmer Crowell: Master of Decoys. Contact Amy Montague at Mass Audubon.
Meanwhile, another Crowell exhibition A Bird in the Hand: The Carvings of Elmer and Cleon Crowell at the Heritage Museum & Gardens in Sandwich, Massachusetts began in April and will be running through the end of October. MAD thinks it is likely to prove very popular and run longer.
Cleon Crowell and his father A(nthony). Elmer Crowell
The local historical society atBerwick, Pennsylvania, a borough of 10,000 people in largely rural Columbia County, was inventorying its collection of Early America almanacs and discovered it possessed a rare 1733 first annual edition of Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack.
The almanac, bound with several others, proved authentic, and was sold yesterday at Sotheby’s, bringing $556,500, the second largest price ever paid at auction for an American book. The record holder remains George Washington’s copy of the Federalist Papers also sold by Sotheby’s in 1990 for $1.4 million.
Whatever will the historical society do with so much money?
I know myself of a county courthouse in Pennsylvania where original documents signed by Benjamin Franklin in his capacity as secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are still sitting unrecognized in the county clerk’s office. I could have pointed out their value, but I kind of like the idea of their being in the same place they’ve always been.
[T]he olifant its echoing music speaks. – La Chanson du Roland—Sicily, c. 1100 A.D.
Sotheby’s December 2nd Old Master Sculpture and Works of Art sale in London featured a remarkable relic of the Middle Ages, an Oliphant, a great (47cm., 18½”) 12th century hunting horn, fashioned from the tusk of an elephant and once embellished with silver. Despite the recession, it sold for $194,950 / 139,250 GBP, considerably above the estimated price of 50,000—80,000 GBP.
Catalogue description:
The word ‘oliphant’ is a loanword from old French meaning ‘elephant’, which is first documented in the English translation of the Song of Roland in the 12th century. It described the ivory sounding horn with which the hero Roland summoned aid during the batter of Roncesvalles, shortly before his death at the hands of the Arabian enemy in 778. Carved from a whole elephant tusk and originally banded with silver and hung with cord, these horns would have produced a low but loud call. They were prized symbols of wealth and power, passed down through the centuries in Europe’s treasure houses.
Few oliphants from the eleventh and twelfth centuries survive. They are a fascinating witness to a unique period of cultural exchange between East and West on the Mediterranean island of Sicily. Oliphants were carved from African ivory and were probably prevalent in Fatimid Egypt, although no example has survived. Until 1071 Sicily was part of the Fatimid empire. However, quarrels within the Muslim regime gave the Christian rulers of southern Italy an opportunity to send in Norman mercenaries as a conquering force. Roger I, who became Norman Count of Sicily and the first in the line of Norman rulers of Sicily, led the invasion. The Norman genius was not only in capturing this Islamic stronghold but in maintaining it successfully, by keeping Muslims and Byzantine Greeks in positions of influence. Using the heterogeneous nature of their society, the Normans in Sicily capitalised on their geographic location as a nexus of culture and trade. In the twelfth century, when the island became a kingdom, it was one of the wealthiest states in Europe, wealthier even than England.
The decoration of oliphants, most often with animals and scrollwork, sits within the tradition of Islamic imagery, without over-reliance on the human form. Oliphants carved by Muslim and Byzantine craftsmen for their new Catholic rulers continued in this style. The present Oliphant is very simply decorated and can be most closely compared to another in the collection of the Louvre Museum, Paris (OA 4069). The foliate designs on the two bands close to where the mouthpiece was originally secured, are carved to the same pattern and the body of the Oliphant is shaped in simple flat planes along its length. The Louvre oliphant is dated to the end of the 11th century. The twisted rope work design along the upper length of the present oliphant can be compared to a similar design on a twelfth century oliphant in the collection of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.
