Press Release

Bloomfield, NJ, USA, January 11, 2024 -- Nye & Company Auctioneers’ two-day, online-only Collectors’ Passion auction slated for Wednesday and Thursday, January 24th-25th, will feature folk art from the estate of Marjorie and Robert L. Hirschhorn; a curated selection of early American, English and Continental furniture; a fabulous assortment of silver; and a broad selection of fine art and maps.

The auction, beginning at 10 am Eastern time both days, will include property from several Tri-State area collections, including a selection of property from the Stanley Weiss collection. Real time Internet bidding and absentee bidding is available on multiple platforms, including Nye & Company’s redesigned website. Telephone bidding will also be available, on a limited basis.

January is traditionally a month when Americana crosses the podium and this year is no exception. The collection of highly-inlaid parquetry furniture, canes and walking sticks from the estates of Marjorie and Robert L. Hirschhorn anchors the artwork made on this side of the Atlantic, including Johnny Cash’s personal hand-carved owl-and rattlesnake-carved cane.

There are also commemorative, G.A.R., Civil War, allegorical canes and walking sticks, some with figural handles and highly carved shafts. There are examples with busts of dogs, humans, animals and even Abraham Lincoln. The Hirschhorns accumulated a number of elaborately-inlaid pieces of furniture and clocks, including a Roxbury-style tall case clock bought in 1993.

The rare two-part clock on stand was made by Clayton Williams of Mt. Airy, North Carolina, circa 1959, and was made with 7,260 pieces of wood from 25 different kinds of wood from across the globe. The 16-Sided, Elaborately-Inlaid Center Table is one of several pieces in the collection depicted in Richard Muhlberger’s American Folk Marquetry: Masterpieces in Wood.

Items from the Stanley Weiss collection include a classical giltwood overmantel mirror, a Queen Anne mahogany drop-leaf dining table and a Federal satinwood tambour secretary. Items from a Connecticut collector include a Chippendale birchwood blockfront kneehole desk, an American School double portrait of children, and a lovely Ichabod Potter mahogany drop-leaf dining table.

A Pennsylvania and Connecticut collector is selling a Chippendale walnut chest-on-chest with the idiosyncratic tall scroll-board of Lancaster County and a nice tall case clock. The aesthetic counterpoint to the previously-mentioned chest-on-chest is the ethereal Queen Anne carved walnut dressing table, attributed to Henry Clifton of Philadelphia, and made circa 1750-1760.

The overhanging top sits above an arrangement of drawers, on cabriole legs and delicately carved scroll feet (commonly called Spanish or brush feet). That piece comes from a small but choice Westchester, New York collection. Also included is a superb Federal serpentine front chest of drawers, illustrated in American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, Vol. III.

Another piece with attenuated proportions is the Federal inlaid New Jersey tall clock, Isaac Brokaw, Bridgetown, circa 1800. Several nautical paintings from the Pennsylvania and Connecticut collection include a fine China Trade Hong painting, Fonggua School of Macao; a ship portrait of the “Kalos,” and a bucolic painting of a boat on a lake by Charles Harry Eaton.

The nautical theme continues with the oil on canvas by the American artist, Frank Shapleigh (1842-1906) who deftly illustrates a ship wreck off Anastasia Island and the Spanish ruin at St. Augustine, Florida. Of the large-format pictures are two Italian Old Master Paintings, from an Ohio family, depicting Abraham and the Three Angels and Expulsion of Hagar & Ishmael.

Another Pennsylvania and U.K. family is selling a full-length portrait of Queen Victoria by Charles Cohill, after Thomas Sully. The portrait is mentioned in Carrie Rebora Barratt’s book, Queen Victoria and Thomas Sully.

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