Quilts from Art Auctions
I’ve been traveling throughout California, attending art auctions looking for unique quilts. I have had a lot of success. I have found so many quilts that you could tell were filled with thousands of hours of careful planning and stitching.
I was attending an art auction in Orange and found a beautiful quilt. The quilt was from the Civil War era and was made in the design of Blazing Stars. There was a beautiful appliqued red and green swag-like border. The center of the quilt has a feathered heart hand quilted.
The art auction that I went to in San Bruno had a fabulous quilt that was made in the 1860s. The quilt was hand appliqued using cheddar, red and green cotton solid fabrics. The background was white, and the border has a meandering flowering vine. It was truly special.
I found a great quilt that was made in 1894 while I was at an art aucti on in Rancho Cucamonga. The style of the quilt was really fun. It was called a Victorian Crazy Quilt. There was so much elaborate hand embroidery over every seam, and within the blocks, it was magnificent.
I was on vacation in Napa and attended an art auction that had several beautiful quilts. The one that I won was made in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and was completed in the 1870s. I like the design called Ocean Waves. The chain had earth green and chocolate brown triangles that were pieced with exceedingly exceptional skill and precision. The border and background color was warm, cadmium orange.
The quilt I found at an art auction in Paradise was an 1840’s thin, cotton Quaker quilt, which measures 108″ x 88″ and had ten stitches per inch. It was a Quaker cotton wedding quilt. The top border, near the pillows, had a blueprint, and each side and the bottom had wide borders with North Carolina Quilt blocks in each corner. There were two rows of North Carolina Lilies in the center, and one row on each side facing outward.
The quilt made its way into the art auction because someone made the decision to sell some of the great historic heirlooms that were passed down through her family to her. I was very fortunate to acquire this heirloom that had passed through the many generations of Quaker families. Now I own one of the great Pennsylvania Quaker masterpieces.
Log cabin quilts are a design that I have always liked. My grandmother made a quilt using this design for me when I was twelve. I found one made in a similar fashion at an art auction Los Gatos. The quilt was made in the 1870s and was made by Mennonites.
I was lucky to find the art auction; it was difficult to find. The quilt is just fantastic. The light and dark design of this quilt have a red center on one side with two green bars, two cinnamon bars, and two blue bars and then two red bars and on the other side of the red square in the center are two yellows, two black and white stripe, two lovely Lancaster blue bars, and two peppermint stripe bars.
There was an art auction in Huntington Beach that advertised quilts, and I was really happy with the pieces that I found there. The quilt that I bought had a pictorial motif, like an album quilt, with a lot of interesting designs. Each block was quite different and special.
Native American Art Auctions: Art Antiques
Whether traditional or contemporary, Native American artwork is both highly collectible and universally appealing. Native American art forms the basis of much exemplary public as well as private art collections. People that collect Native American artwork can be very passionate about their collections.
Older, more traditional Native American artwork and cultural artifacts are not merely revered and / or emulated by modern artists, and they are also held dear as parts of art collections the world over.
Fine Native American art done by well known American Indian artists, such as Nampeyo, the Hopi potter, can raise the caliber of a private or public art collection quite significantly. Iris Nampeyo lived on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. She made a good income making pots and selling them at local trading posts.
A remarkable aspect of Nampeyo’s work is that over time she became more ad more interested in making pots according to ancient ways, as opposed to the modern pottery that was being made by people at the time. The quality of her work, as well as her interest and use of ancient pottery techniques, certainly add to the demand and high price tags of her work.
If you find yourself in the market for Native American art antiques, be prepared to pay the price. Particularly with Native American art, availability doesn’t correlate to demand or cost, as is the case with many other highly collectible art types.
Items such as early Plains beadwork or late-nineteenth-century basketry are certainly examples of what would be considered extremely rare finds in the world of Native American art auctions.
When choosing from various art pieces, compare styles, read, and research. This is the only way to educate oneself about the different types of American Indian art. Then it’s time to shop around. Just like anything else, you won’t know what’s available unless you take the time to comparison shop.
During the 1900s, many of the Native American art and crafts that other peoples associate with American Indians began to be commercially produced, especially by Asian nations. These Native American fakes became so widely purchased that several millions of dollars were taken from the American Indian artists in the form of cheap imitation Native American art.
Before purchasing Native American art antiques, it’s a good idea to perform additional research has to the authenticity of the piece or pieces. Unless you’re highly knowledgeable on the topic and have experience spotting fakes, this type of art can be tough to verify by inexperienced sight alone.
All in all, collecting American Indian art antiques is just like collecting any other antique; the definitive and primary timeframe is anything that is pre-1950s. Although a name that is well known can seriously increase the value of an object, condition, workmanship, and prevalence are factors that are just as important.
Increasingly, even seasoned art dealers that deal in American Indian art find it difficult to discern authentic art antiques from imitation pieces. For this reason, it is particularly important to opt for dealing with reputable sources. In order to ensure that your perfect Native American art antique is the real deal, it’s worth taking the time to locate such a well-known art dealer or museum.
There are specialized art museums and dealers that offer Native American art pieces. These organizations generally are most interested in promoting Native art and cultures. The better of these institutions and organizations directly invest many of the profits gained from the sale of art pieces back into the Native American community.
When it comes to collecting Native American art antiques or any other type of art, don’t buy it unless you love it. Your best pieces are going to cost a pretty penny. If you don’t fall in love with a piece, chances are you’re not going to like it any better once it’s on your wall. So hold out for the perfect piece, you’ll be glad you did.
Folk Art Auctions
Folk art auctions feature a wide range of objects that reflect the artist’s craft traditions and traditional social values. Folk art is generally produced by people who have little or no academic, artistic training. Folk artists usually use established techniques and styles of a particular region or culture.
Folk art auctions include paintings, sculptures, and other decorative art forms. Some artists also consider utilitarian objects, such as tools and costumes, as folk art. For the most part, the category of folk art auctions excludes works by professional artists.
It has been my experience that folk art auctions have something for just about anyone. I found a folk-art painting of a cat in a peach tree that was done by the artist Tascha. The artist also noted on the folk art auction that they create unique ceramic tile art.
My mother purchased a blanket chest for me years ago that I listed recently in a folk art auction. The chest was made about two hundred years ago and is very beautiful. The original painted decorations are still intact.
I found an interesting folk art auction for a carnival knock-down dummy in the shape of a large cat. It was made around 1930 and is twice the size of similar items. I researched the item on a non-auction site and found that it is worth a lot of money.
My heart is still swayed by Americana folk art auctions. I recently fell in love with a painting I found up for auction of Elvis on a Harley in front of a large American flag. It was spectacular! The stretched canvas was painted with acrylics.
I especially like the Halloween themed folk art auction I found that was offered by Sister Raya New Orleans Folk Art. The title of the painting was Little Spooky the Cat – Awaiting the Great Pumpkin. The painting was painted in classic vintage style and used gold maple, red sapphire, blue pearl, white, pumpkin orange, sable brown, amber rust, and jet black. I would love to have this hanging on my wall all through the autumn months.
Another folk art auction that I found and was sad to bid up past my budget was a handmade set of miniature dominos. The set was in a folk art decorated maple case. The set dates from the mid to late 1800s. It was really exquisite, and I’m sorry that I missed out on it.
I liked another folk art auction that I found for a modern fraktur. Fraktur is a specific kind of Pennsylvania German folk art. The fraktur I found was a watercolor of a marriage record. It was very colorful and looked like it held extraordinary significance to its original owners.
I found a wood box from Maine in a folk art auction that appealed to me. It was rather small, but was painted chrome yellow and was trimmed in forest green. The paint was crazed and worn, and it was made in the late nineteenth century. There were no visible nails, and the hardware was reported as looking original.
The folk art auction that I missed out on that was way out of my price range was for an Andrew Clemens sand bottle. The sand bottle was date 1887 and was covered in patriotic decorations. It was an apothecary style bottle with a stopper, and it contained at least ten different colors of sand. The bottle ended up selling for eighty-five hundred dollars. I’m sure that it has ended up in an excellent collection of folk art.
I found an amusing folk art auction for three wooden carvings. The name of the piece was Three Articulating Folk Art Whimseys and were all made by the same artist. The carvings were accented with sheet metal neckties. The first carving in the folk art auction was of a cobbler, a blacksmith, and a gentleman with a donkey. The second carving was a diminutive soldier, and the third was a cobbler smoking a pipe. I think that this piece of Americana was purchased at a low price of three thousand dollars and was worth much more.
