Freeman’s | Hindman – American Furniture, Folk and Decorative Arts
APRIL 29 | PHILADELPHIA
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PHILADELPHIA — Freeman’s | Hindman is offering a selection of rare and important works of American history in its April 29 American furniture, folk and decorative arts auction. Highlighting the auction are a circa 1791 “Portrait of George Washington at Princeton,” by Charles Peale Polk, a mourning brooch with the hair of George Washington, a large alkaline-glazed storage jar by David Drake, an Erastus Salisbury Field “Plague Series” painting of “The Plague of Darkness,” a large and intricately worked powder horn made for Thomas Splane of Virginia and Mississippi, and an Andrew Clemens sand-art bottle for George Brumder, dated “1888.”

“We are delighted to present this incredible selection of historic property at auction,” said Lynda Cain, Freeman’s | Hindman’s vice president and head of department for American furniture, folk and decorative arts. “It is an assemblage of rare and fresh-to-market items, from private collections, estates and institutions across the country.

The top lot of the auction is expected to be a portrait of George Washington at Princeton by famed Washington portraitist Charles Peale Polk ($200/300,000). Painted between 1791 to 1793, this version of Polk’s George Washington at Princeton is an example of the artist’s largest and most inclusive composition of his famous subject. The portrait offers specifics of the historic 1777 battle of Princeton-Nassau Hall, troop encampment, company flag, as well as a more comprehensive depiction of the general’s uniform and sword hilt.

The portrait is accompanied by a fascinating provenance. Believed to have been purchased by early American art collector Darius Ogden Mills a California philanthropist and highly successful businessman in the 1870s, the portrait descended in the Mills-Reid family of New York — prominent newspaper editors, politicians and diplomats. Polk’s portrait hung on the walls of the New York Herald Tribune for the better part of three decades. Its next adventure was to Tel Aviv, Israel, where the portrait was strapped into the seat of a prop-engine plane on its way to being hung in the American Embassy during the term of Ambassador Ogden Reid, a descendant of Mills. It remained in the private collection of Ambassador Reid and his wife, Mary Luise Stewart

The auction features another remarkable Washington-related piece in the form of a lock of the founder father’s hair ($30/50,000). Belonging to an era when people exchanged hair as a memento, Lucy Payne (1769-1846) was well situated to obtain a lock of hair belonging to General Washington. Payne married her first husband, George Steptoe Washington (1772-1809), a nephew and former ward of President George Washington in 1794, just five years before General Washington’s death. Payne, a sister of Dolly Madison, bequeathed the lock of hair to her granddaughter Eugenia Washington (1838-1900). The lock of hair is preserved in a mourning brooch, which has been housed in an engraved gilt bronze and glass vitrine since the turn of the Twentieth Century.

When discussing stoneware of the American South, it is essential to consider the work of the now well-known enslaved potter David Drake (circa 1800- circa 1870), aka “Dave the Potter.” His works have gained the attention of institutions and collectors. The traveling exhibition “Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina,” assisted in broadening the public’s understanding of the important work created by Drake and other enslaved people in the American South.

On offer in the auction is a rare and large Drake alkaline glazed two-handled stoneware storage jar from 1859 ($150/250,000). The piece had descended through the same family for more than 160 years.

The sale’s full exhibition in Philadelphia runs April 23-28, Monday through Saturday 10 am-4 pm, Sunday 11 am-4 pm.

Freeman’s | Hindman is at 2400 Market Street. For information, 312-280-1212 or www.hindmanauctions.com.

NOW TOGETHER, ALWAYS INVITING CONSIGNMENTS
CONTACT Lynda Cain | 267-414-1237 lcain@freemansauction.com