Auctions: Pricey Confederate flag; seasonal bat lamp

Pook & Pook Inc.'s two-day sale next weekend in Downingtown features a slew of important and pricey items: a Confederate Civil War battle flag, a 19th-century Montgomery County fraktur birth certificate, and an oil-on-canvas foxhunting scene by Charles Morris Young, for starters, each of which is expected to sell for five figures.

But it also features more lighthearted, and affordable, objects suitable for the Halloween season, including an art nouveau table lamp with bats holding its glass shades, and an original Charles Addams cartoon.

The cartoon, depicting two jungle missionaries in front of a dancing witch doctor, who evidently has shrunk one to the size of a doll, is among the nearly 300 lots in the first session, beginning at 6 p.m. next Friday at the gallery at 463 E. Lancaster Ave. One of 100 lots from a Dodge family descendant, it has a presale price estimate of $2,000 to $3,000, according to the auction catalog (also accessible online at www.pookandpook.com). It will be familiar to New Yorker magazine readers of a certain age, but lacks the caption it presumably had in print.

The cartoon is one of several pieces of illustration art in the session. Two oil-on-canvases by Frank E. Schoonover done in 1915 for a story in Scribner's magazine are each expected to bring $5,000 to $10,000.

A commercial illustration of a hunting scene with two African Americans and a skunk exiting a log, done by Irving R. Brown for Winchester Firearms Co. - and that would be socially unacceptable by today's standards - should bring $5,000 to $8,000.

Another, though not exactly an illustration, is an oil-on-panel by the contemporary George Rodrigue of a dog with yellow eyes, white nose, and blue fur in front of a group of seated men ($3,000 to $5,000). We think of blue dog as the term for conservative Southern Democrats, but Rodrigue created his blue dog for a book with that title about self-discovery that he and coauthor Lawrence Freundlich published in 1994.

Next Friday's session also will offer the Young foxhunting scene ($20,000 to $30,000) and several other important paintings. They include three Walter Baums, notably Snow Bound Brook ($10,000 to $15,000); five Chester County scenes by Barclay Rubincam, notably Building the Bridge, depicting the construction of a covered bridge on a rural creek ($8,000 to $12,000); and a cabin scene of an African American family by William Aiken Walker ($14,000 to $18,000).

The session opens with more than 70 lots of redware and country furniture, beginning with an American folk art hooked rug circa 1800, depicting two large stags ($5,000 to $10,000).

Furniture and folk art. The Confederate Civil War battle flag, the birth-certificate sampler, and the art nouveau bat lamp are among the 750 lots in the auction's second session, beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 1.

The flag, made around 1862 for the 23d Battalion of Virginia forces, has a presale estimate of $40,000 to $60,000, the auction's highest, in part because Confederate military memorabilia are harder to find than those of the Union forces.

The fraktur birth certificate was by Anthony Rehm, a Montgomery and Bucks County artist active in the early 1800s. Rehm did it in 1824 for Durck Adams Groff, who actually was born in 1821. The elaborate watercolor-and-ink-on-paper certificate has a presale estimate of $30,000 to $50,000.

The bat lamp, made in early-20th-century Austria and expected to bring $6,000 to $9,000, is one of the few art nouveau items in the sale. Most of the furniture is 18th- and early-19th-century Pennsylvania, including a Pennsylvania Chippendale walnut schranck made around 1775 ($15,000 to $25,000), but with some notable exceptions, such as a Connecticut Chippendale cherry two-part secretary made around 1770 ($8,000 to $12,000).

The session also features folk painting and folk art, including some American Indian items, and ends with three dozen lots of vintage weapons.

Previews: noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. next Friday; and 8 a.m. to sale time Oct. 1. For more information, call 610-269-4040.

Furniture at Kamelot Auctions. Beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday, Kamelot Auctions will offer more than 600 lots of modern and period furniture and decorative items at its gallery in the 4700 Wissahickon Ave. complex. The auction catalog is accessible at www.kamelotauctions.com.

Among furniture highlights: a circa 1940 arts and crafts carved-oak sideboard with relief-carved pastoral scene ($600 to $800); a circa 1930 art deco figured maple rolling bar cart and a fitted interior ($600 to $900); a pair of cowhide ottomans done in a patchwork pattern with leather stitching ($300 to $500) - Kamelot always seems to have cowhide furniture in its sales; and a circa 1960 Jansen ebonized and bronze mounted cartonnier desk, one of many Jansen pieces on the block ($4,000 to $6,000).

Previews: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday. For further information, call 215-438-6990.

Decoys and sporting collectibles in Tuckerton. Beginning at 10 a.m. Friday at the Parkertown Firehouse, at the corner of Parkertown Road and Railroad Avenue in Tuckerton, N.J., Frank & Frank Sporting Collectibles will offer almost 400 lots of decoys and carvings by artisans, including Shourds family members, Hurley Conklin, and R. Madison Mitchell, plus a few pieces of artwork. Among highlights: a rare black duck by Bob White of Tullytown, one of half a dozen White decoys ($1,500 to $2,500); an 18-inch Frank Finney carving of a brown trout on a simulated stone base ($1,500 to $2,500); and a rare Hudsonian curlew by Taylor Johnson ($16,000 to $18,000).

Preview 8 a.m. to sale time Friday. For more information, call 732-938-2988 or go to www.frankandfrankdecoys.com.