Auctions: Auctions offer art, ephemera, and dental gear

Freeman's will feature exceptional fine art and sculpture at its first sale of this month; so will Alderfer Auctions at its sale next week.

Barry S. Slosberg also will start June with a sale Thursday of important ephemera. And for a toothsome treat, check out Morphy Auctions' discovery sale on June 15; along with other collectibles such as ashtrays, bottle openers, and doorstops, it will feature a single-owner collection of dental equipment and furnishings.

Freeman's sale, beginning at 2 p.m. June 13 at its gallery at 1808 Chestnut St., will open with about 60 European paintings and sculptures, a half dozen of them with presale estimates of five figures or more, according to the $35 color-illustrated catalog, available online at www.freemansauction.com. Notable among the artwork is a beach scene by the Dutch painter Bernardus Johannes Blommers that has a presale estimate of $80,000 to $120,000.

The 100 lots of American works that will be offered next are where the main interest will probably lie, since many are by well-known local artists. They include a large landscape by the early Pennsylvania impressionist Daniel Garber that has the auction's top presale estimate, $200,000 to $300,000.

According to the catalog description, the 36-inch-square oil on canvas, titled Old Farm in the Hills, was painted in 1946, by which time Garber was more and more interested in the upper reaches of the Delaware River. (Perhaps, the description surmises, because Garber's son, John Franklin Garber, had enrolled at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, several miles north of Bucks County).

The session also features works by several other Pennsylvania impressionists, including five by Isabel Fern Coppedge: The Hill Road, a winter scene with a presale estimate of $70,000 to $100,000; Winter Solitude Lambertville ($50,000 to $80,000); The Harbor Quay ($15,000 to $25,000); and Fishing Boats in a Harbor and Hot Springs, Virginia (both $10,000 to $15,000). Other local artists include Walter E. Baum, Antonio Pietro Martino, Arthur Meltzer, Roy Nuse, Harry Leith-Ross, and Jessie Wilcox Smith, whose charming picture Ploughing the Furrow, with a little girl behind a handheld plow, has a presale estimate of $30,000 to $50,000.

The session's second-highest presale estimate is $100,000 to $150,000 for an oil on canvas by William Glackens titled Girl in Peasant Blouse. Boy in Black Cape, one of seven works by Martha Walter, a somewhat lesser-known Pennsylvania impressionist, has a presale estimate of $80,000 to $120,000.

Off the beaten path, in more ways than one, is an oil on canvas titled The Magic Carpet by the illustrator Hal Foster (1892-1982), better known as the creator of the Prince Valiant comic strip.

It is also one of the more affordable works in the session. Depicting three men aboard a rug flying high above a town in the Middle East, it has a presale estimate of $5,000 to $8,000.

Two-day Alderfer sale Works by Pennsylvania impressionists, including Meltzer, Leith-Ross, Baum, and Coppedge, also will be featured at the second session next Friday of Alderfer's two-day sale of fine and decorative arts at the gallery at 501 Fairgrounds Rd., Hatfield. The 250-lot session, beginning at 4 p.m., will feature a grouping of Levi Wells Prentice still lifes, two landscapes by Kenneth Nunamaker, a Delaware River scene by S. George Phillips, and two sculptures by Harry Bertoia.

One, a bush-shaped sound sculpture, has a presale estimate of $20,000 to $30,000, according to Alderfer associate Kaitlin Beck. Beck says the Coppedge and the Phillips should each sell for $15,000 to $25,000.

Preceding that session will be a 400-lot discovery auction of paintings, prints, and frames beginning at 11 a.m. Also to be offered at the session are works by Lehigh County artist Mildred S. Gehman, Berks County artist Jack Coggins, and Philadelphia artists Louis B. Sloan and Harry Buckley.

Thursday's session, beginning at 9 a.m. offers furniture, sterling, and Native American baskets and pottery. At noon, approximately 150 lots of the better furniture and decorative items will be offered on www.Artfact.com.

Rodebaugh ephemera at Slosberg's Slosberg's sale of ephemera will continue its liquidation of the library of Paul Rodebaugh of West Chester beginning at 6 p.m. Thursday at the gallery, 2501 E. Ontario St.

Most of the 400-plus lots should sell in the mid-two-to-three-figure range, according to Slosberg associate Rob Goldstein, but some should go for more. They include a comprehensive collection of two bound volumes of mid 19th-century pamphlets pertaining to the planning of the West Chester and Philadelphia Rail Road and some of the approximately 100 Philadelphia area land deeds that were signed by sons of William Penn.

Dental collection The dental collection amassed by John Muhr, D.D.S., will open Morphy's discovery auction, beginning at 10 a.m. June 15 at the gallery at 2000 N. Reading Rd., Denver.

The approximately 50 lots include a rare oak dental cabinet dating to about 1880 with nine swivel drawers and a beveled mirror that should sell for $3,000 to $5,000. Quainter items include a half dozen tooth keys used for extractions; one, dating to about 1850 and with a handle made of four types of wood, should sell for $300 to $600.

The auction catalog is available online at www.morphyauctions.com. Or visit the gallery during its regular hours, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day of the week except Wednesday. For further information, call 717-335-3435.