In this issue: Take advantage of our summer specials to pick up a set of six hand-carved plaques of athletes participating in summer sports (and football and ice hockey) and prints for the beach house or country retreat. We also offer two armillary spheres, a bronze model of a 17th-century Chinese armillary sphere and a colorful Ptolemaic armillary sphere from Louis-XV-era France.
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Availability of items below subject to prior sale.
Sale prices in effect through September 20, 2023.
LAZY, HAZY, CRAZY DAYS OF SUMMER
Above are a set of six wooden carved low relief plaques representing different sports, each depicting an athlete in action, carved by California artist O. Romander. They all are stained oak and about 29 inches high. Art Deco, circa 1930s to 1940s. Regularly $4,500, sale price $3,600. More information.
THE SOUND OF LONG ISLAND
Rare bird’s-eye view advertising broadside for real estate in Suffolk County, Long Island, in the vicinity of present-day Patchogue and Bellport. The ad copy promotes Long Island’s amenities and boasts, “Nothing Like It in the Wide World!” It was published in the 1890s by Oakley H. Bailey, a prolific panoramic map artist and publisher. Printed in tones of gray and neutral green. Regularly $3,800, sale price $3,400. More information.
MAINE SUBJECT
Lithograph of a Double-Crested Cormorant based on an ornithological watercolor done by Carroll Tyson on Mount Desert Island in Maine, a summer resort. In the offered print, the Double-Crested Cormorant perches on a rock by the sea, viewed from behind with its head turned in profile. The lithograph was printed in Milan in the mid 1930s. Regularly $2,100, sale price $1,750. More information.
SUMMER EVE MAKES ME FEEL FINE
Waldorf Astor and his horse trainer review a line of mares and foals on A Summer Evening — Cliveden, Astor's British country house in Buckinghamshire (shown above left with detail right). This lithograph after British painter Sir Alfred James Munnings was published by the venerable firm Frost & Reed and is signed by the artist. Regularly $1,100, sale price $975. More information.
CROUCHING LIONS, SITTING DRAGON
East meets west in this 20th-century bronze miniature model of the Equatorial Armilla is a 13-inch-high replica of huge 6-foot diameter 17th-century armillary sphere displayed outdoors at the Beijing Ancient Observatory in China. The stand design incorporates a Chinese dragon and four lions while the sphere was designed by the Belgian Jesuit missionary Ferdinand Verbiest in 1673 for the Manchu Emperor, based on those created by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Regularly $2,200, sale price $1,800. More information.
AUGUST IS FOR LEOS
A French Ptolemaic armillary sphere produced by Louis-Charles Desnos in 1753 demonstrates the apparent path around the earth of the sun and moon through the signs of the zodiac. This fine antique is made of pasteboard with applied engraved paper, and with central terrestrial globe and sun and moon discs, on an ebonized wood stand. Regularly $15,000, sale price $12,000. More information.