Featured Finds Thread

pffff, yes, indeed it is, been researching chimney clocks all afternoon, so maybe that's why

 

I think the post may have been edited, but a mantle is similar to a shawl. A mantel or mantelpiece clock is so often mis-named a 'mantle' clock that it may be time to declare it official.

Bakers had it right, of course.

 

I have never heard of a chimney clock, what is it/are they?

 

If you put a mantel clock on the mantel of a fireplace, then it's sitting in front of the chimney, which makes it a chimney clock.

 

I'd call it a "buy me" clock m'self.(LOL) This turned up in the local, more or less, Sally. I passed it by the first time, but went back and bought it on Saturday. Why, I'm still not sure. It's a gelatin print of USC and signed. I think the photographer was a law professor...at UCLA.

 

Don't know if this counts as a find....I look for these pretty hard, haven't seen anything from this carver for nine years.
Went up to Vancouver BC to bid.
George Walkus, circa 1930, 11" tall:

 

Nice!

 

Ya...that counts.....Did you have to fight hard for it ?

 

Not nearly as hard as I expected. There was one phone bidder going against me, but I expected that several others in the room would have jumped on it, and I had predicted the bidding to go about 3-5 times as high as it actually did.
The catalog did not make a specific attribution, which was a stroke of good luck, or kindness.....but I overheard a couple dealers who obviously knew exactly what it was, and I expected a big fight.
Dealers who buy for resale have their own agenda though, and often don't bid as high as someone like me who simply loves the object.
I was worried about some of the collectors with deep pockets though....one who you probably know has an undersea business, and he mentioned he has sold 45 submarines this year, at a million each.
I'm nowhere near that league.
But you know that lovers of NW Coast Native are a nice bunch of folks, generally, and I suspect some of them know how much I care about these little white-undercoat guys, and may just have decided to let me have it.
Because I was surprised it wasn't a harder fight, and I thank those whose kindness and goodwill helped me along.

 

Say what???
Are those 45 drug running subs???

 

Nooo, I think they are deep.....& I mean DEEP sea divers...!

I met him once...at his business...

Steve, I'm glad you ended up with it...as it now has a great home....& pals to play with !!
Did you see who got the Bill Reid drawing..for Bobby....??

I have an odd feeling I know where that came from....

 

congrats on your buy all_fakes, that is a beauty!

 

Thanks!
I didn't see who got the Reid drawing, and am not sure if it was a phone bidder or in-house.
There were four largish estates with items in the auction; one was a retired ferry captain, one the estate of RCMP Constable Robert Montgomery, and I didn't hear details of the other two.

It is hard to explain the affinity I have for the Walkus family items.
Logic would say that they are very good, much like Willie Seaweed's work; and that Seaweed is famous in part because Bill Holm wrote a book on him, and isn't it a pity that nobody has written a book about George Walkus and his brothers, and sad that we are now so many generations removed that the ability to ferret out details of their lives is fading fast. We have two photos of George Walkus, neither very clear; and two or three of his son Charlie George Walkus; and the living grandchildren and great-grandchildren don't know a lot about them.
So that is what logic says...but when I see and hold one of these, or visit them in the museums, I get all teary-eyed.
Some other NW Coast work does that to me too.
I saw a Davidson panel of Raven, hanging on a museum wall, and the feeling that the rest of the creature was behind the wall, coming toward us from the Spirit World, was so strong that I could not remain standing. My wife had to come retrieve me.
There is more to it than the objects themselves.

 

Hi,
That is how you can tell if a painting is a PAINTING. Art is something that moves you or makes you immobile.
greg

 

That's absolutely beautiful, Fakes. Absolutely beautiful.
That's what Edward Lear's majestic, elegant, meticulously-rendered birds do to me. My own street-art style is so totally opposite, but there's something about looking into his birds' eyes (especially the parrots) that makes me want to cry, just because of the life and beauty and spirit I see there. He was the first bird illustrator to draw and paint from real, living birds, not skins... and he absolutely caught the LIFE of those birds. He added a dab of a special mixture of glossy stuff to the eyes that makes them glow as if from within. Makes people feel they are with that bird personally from so long ago. I blew a tax refund a few years back in buying a toucan from Oppenheimer. It's my most prized possession... it's the only thing hanging in my living room. There's no room for anything else. Every day my eyes meet that bird's is a day I remember that beauty and art live forever somewhere in a special dimension.

 

I have it on good authority that some in the room were talking about me....& my dealings with Allard & their Indonesian carvings.

It's nice to know I'm still remembered on the wet coast !!!

Hey Steve.....maybe you should write that book yourself !!!
It'd be a best seller !!!!

 

Yes; there was mention of the A. auctionhouse, and their Indonesian items; and someone mentioned that they knew a gentleman and scholar who had some experience with that subject.
I think it went something like "I've met him! What a nice guy!"
We are a far-flung but close-knit group.....it is one of the pleasures of the live auctions that one meets in person folks that previously one had met only online.
And so many of them are just incredibly nice people.

 

If I may digress with a little story:
At one of the previous Seahawk auctions I bid on a lot with several NW Coast spoons, because there was one spoon that had a label indicating it was made by a little known carver from Metlakatla, a community I have studied quite a bit. (see http://metlakatlacarvers.com).
It was really not worth a great deal other than the rare label, and I did not have much interest in the other spoons, so I dropped out and the lot went to a well-known dealer from Vancouver.
In speaking with her later I offered a bunch of biographical information on the spoon's carver, just because it was info not generally known.
At the next auction she took me aside and gave me the spoon. Said she had really been more interested in the other spoons in the lot, and she knew that item meant more to me than to her.
What a lady; and what kindness.
That is the sort of people one can meet in this community; and the sort of kindness that one often finds.
You yourself, Komo, are one of those kind people, and as generous.
Are your ears burning yet?

 

Honkin’ huge paint by number. The painting (excluding frame) measures 27” by 36”.




There is a site called the Paint by Number Museum, so I was able to ID this. It’s part of the Super Craft Master series from Palmer Paint and is titled “April in Paris”. (I was surprised when I saw some of the prices realized by PBNs on eBay.)

I think the frame is from Palmer Paint as well: a model they called "Blond Oak"

The condition of both painting and frame is really remarkable. Looks like it was finished yesterday. I suspect it's been hidden under a blanket at the back of a closet for the last 50+ years. Now why would someone do that?

There were 90 colors in the palette.

 

I actually quite like this! It is very charming.