Fine European & American Furniture Auction at Bonhams & Butterfields

Saturday, 06 May 2006 10:09

San Francisco, CA - More than 650 lots of European and American furniture and decorative arts, including silver, are to be offered at Bonhams & Butterfields in San Francisco on Sunday, May 21, 2006.  Highlights include a pair of George III chairs, George II silver and property from estates and noted private collections.

A fine pair of early George III mahogany library chairs sit as sale highlights for the May auction.  Featuring rectangular upholstered backs, padded arms with fret-carved down curving stiles over trapezoidal seats supported by cabriole legs and hairy paw and claw feet, the chairs should bring $50,000 to $70,000.  The [possibly] Irish chairs demonstrate what specialists call “an accommodating scale, reflecting their intended use in a library.”  Libraries were a masculine retreat within proper 18th century country manors and these chairs were designed with a classic Palladian generosity of size.

From a Virginia collection comes a pair of George II silver gilt three-light candelabra by Eliza Godfrey, London, 1751, engraved with the crest of Crichton for William, 5th Earl of Dumfries, standing nearly a foot high and expected to bring $35,000 to $55,000.  William I silver gilt and wood wine coasters, a silver coffee pot and a set of silver gilt dishes will be offered from that East Coast collection, while another owner’s Victorian bright-cut engraved silver five-piece tea and coffee set is to be offered with its matching tray, salver, biscuit box and complimentary silver and silver-mounted glass objects -- the grouping estimated at $20,000 to $30,000.

The sale’s continental section features tables and seating, mirrors and chests including a fine Venetian paint-decorated chest of drawers, mid-18th century, with a faux marble serpentine top above a bombe case accented by paneled stiles and sides with applied fruited vines, exemplifying the delicate Venetian Rococo aesthetic (est. $25/35,000).