Featured Sale Items

In this issue: This month we travel back in time, witnessing the world in past centuries. Featured items include a view and a map that show Chicago's origin as a small 19th-century settlement. We also have a woodcut of another small town, Roslyn, Long Island, in the 1930s and a limited-edition lithograph of the University of Tennessee campus as a 19th-century pictorial map. Other items feature bygone transportation technology including an original ammeter from one of the first electric cars made in 1909. Finally, we go back to Audubon's early explorations of American birds in the 19th century, and an 18th-century English schoolboy after a painting by Joshua Reynolds.

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Sale prices in effect through October 20, 2024.

Early Chicago history is portrayed in this 1867 View of Wolf Point at the confluence of the North, South and Main branches of the Chicago River, an historically important location in the early history of Chicago. On either side of the title are small black and white illustrations of a “Bird’s Eye View of Chicago in 1823” and “Chicago in the year 1818.” Regularly $1,850, sale price $1,500. More information.

This pictorial Map of Chicago, Incorporated as a Town August 5 1833 was issued on the occasion of the city's centennial in 1933 and shows its origins as a rural town of only four square blocks. Regularly $600, sale price $550. More information.

PLANES, TRAINS & EARLY ELECTRIC AUTOMOBILES

An historical oil painting by aviation artist Eric Sloane of The Lady Peace II, an airplane that in 1936 completed the first round trip transatlantic flight between New York and London. It is inscribed with the names of the aviators on that flight. Sloane is well known for Earth Flight Environment, a mural in the lobby of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Regularly $4,200, sale price $3,600. More information.

This cut-away model of a reciprocating steam-powered engine for a railroad locomotive simulates steam power by hand-turning a crank handle to engage various rods that operate a piston valve mechanism inside an engine cylinder. Regularly $875, sale price $800. More information.

Designed for use in the world's first electric cars, this is a rare, early 20th century Weston Electrical Instrument Co. duplex voltmeter ammeter gauge.At an early date it was rehoused in a custom-built utilitarian wooden box with a leather carrying handle for use as a portable bench meter. Regularly $1,100, sale price $900. More information.

AVIAN WOODWORKING BY AUDUBON

In the fall, woodpeckers excavate several roosting holes in preparation for the coming winter. This natural history ornithological print of male and female Downy Woodpeckers perched on a vine come from the folio edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America, the color-plate ornithological work considered the finest ever produced. This superb engraving was published in England around 1831. Regularly $3,750, sale price $3,200. More information.

This picturesque view of a quiet sunlit street in Roslyn, New York, was engraved in the 1930s by artist Henry R. Diamond. It is mounted in a French mat with gold wood frame. Regularly $525, sale price $425. More information.

This expertly engraved mezzotint after Sir Joshua Reynolds' sensitive portrait painting of A School Boy carrying a large leather-bound book captures the fluidity of the painterly brushwork for which Reynolds was known. Reynolds was the foremost portrait painter in England in the 18th century and was extremely influential on later generations of artists. This impression was published in London in 1806. Regularly $475, sale price $400. More information.

This whimsical yet detailed bird's-eye pictorial cartographic view of the University of Tennessee Knoxville campus was produced by Robert Cothran and Beauvais Lyons in 1994 to celebrate the university's 200th anniversary. This rare numbered color lithograph from an edition of only 15 blends fact and affectionate satire in the style of a 19th-century view, which is presented as a trompe-l'oeil document pinned to a wall in the year 2094. The text in the lower margin explains its supposed origins as an 1894 map produced by the fictitious Cassius Demetrius Hokes predicting what the campus would look like in 100 years. Regularly $3,700, sale price $2,950. More information.