Pook & Pook – Americana Auction
October 1, 2 & 3, 2025 at 9am
463 East Lancaster Avenue Downingtown, PA 19335
www.pookandpook.com

DOWNINGTOWN, PENN. — The October 1-3 Americana & International sale at Pook & Pook is one of the firm’s largest to date. The five collections that form the nexus of the sale feature a trove of antiques and art held privately for decades. The auction encompasses everything from Eighteenth Century Philadelphia Chippendale furniture to Twentieth Century Modernism and Art Nouveau. Pook & Pook’s geographical location, rich in antiques and art, is represented by the artists of the Brandywine School, Philadelphia Chippendale furniture, Windsor chairs and Delaware Valley and Pennsylvania German furniture and decorative arts.

Brian & Elizabeth Topping collected early Philadelphia furniture, early American needlework, silver and Chinese Export. The first 200 lots of the sale are devoted to their collection, which features a Philadelphia Chippendale walnut dressing table, circa 1770, descended in the family of Captain Samuel Morris (1734-1812) of the First City Troop. A diminutive Berks or Lebanon County painted pine dower chest, late Eighteenth Century, is a rare size. The many needleworks include examples from the Misses Patten School, Miss Glovers School and a Burlington County, N.J., Quaker sampler wrought by Martha Rudderow in 1830. More than 20 lots in the collection are devoted to Georgian silver.

Yvonne De Paulis and the late Carl De Paulis of New Bloomfield, Penn., focused on early Pennsylvania German furniture, redware, metalwork and decorative arts. Highlights are two Pennsylvania sulfur inlaid walnut blanket chests, made for Magtalena Fischborn and Lutwig Fischborn, dated 1781 and 1783. While held privately, these chests are familiar to readers of Chipstone, in which they have been illustrated. There is a selection of painted furniture and lamps by John Long and Peter Derr.

The Randy Anderson collection, of Dover, Del,. contains a tour-de-force assemblage of Brandywine School artwork. The commanding oil on canvas “Randerson Kills Prickett,” an illustration for Charles Alden Seltzer’s 1916 Western novel The Range Boss, is near the top of Frank Earle Schoonover’s oeuvre. The collection boasts multiple works by Schoonover and fellow Brandywine School artists Stanley Massey Arthurs and Gayle Porter Hoskins. A large charcoal drawing by N.C. Wyeth, “The Ballad of Robin Hood,” is the study for the painting of the same title held in the Brandywine River Museum. The collection is equally strong in furniture: a rare Peter Stretch William and Mary walnut tall case clock, circa 1725, has a sarcophagus bonnet with intricate blind fretwork, and a Pennsylvania Chippendale walnut bonnet top high chest, with shell and foliate carving, is attributed to the shop of Samuel Harding.

The collection of Jo and Jim Adams of York County, Penn., contains a treasure trove of Eighteenth Century Americana, with many objects of Pennsylvania interest, including a Wilhelm Schimmel spread-winged eagle. Among the early American instruments are some exciting lots, including an Isaac Chandlee brass surveyor’s compass and the surgical tool kit of Dr Henry Carpenter of Lancaster. Carpenter was the personal physician of President James Buchanan. A collection of powder horns, swords, pistols and rifles features an American flintlock pistol attributed to Jacob Kuntz. Other pistol makers include James Walsh, John Shuler and Frederick Sell. Two spice chests include a Pennsylvania Queen Anne example in walnut with tombstone door and Chester County line and berry inlaid examples. A rare Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806) almanac, Bannaker’s New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Almanac, dated 1795, is one of the rarest and most desirable of the author’s works. Banneker was a mostly self-taught African American astronomer, mathematician, surveyor and author, and helped lay out the grid for the Federal Territory, now Washington, DC.

The Baltzell family collection features a J.W. Fiske zinc Neptune fountain, circa 1898, one of very few surviving examples known, and a trove of Baltimore repoussé silver castle pattern tableware. A William Robinson Leigh oil on board Western landscape with cowboys titled “Sunset,” is one of many artworks.

A selection of the most important objects in the sale are drawn from private collections, including a Mahantongo Valley, Pennsylvania painted poplar slant front desk, with extensive decoration, exhibition history and Ralph O. Esmerian provenance, and a Berks County painted pine dower chest attributed to the Black Unicorn Artist, and dated 1787, with Richard and Rosemarie Machmer provenance. Paintings feature works by Grandma Moses, George Cope, Mary Elizabeth Price, Diego Rivera, William Trost Richards and many others. There are many weathervanes drawn from several collections, including the rare form of a cast and tinned iron Firemen’s speaking trumpet and helmet, circa 1890, with extensive exhibition history. Furniture that serves as sculpture includes a Paul Evans Stalagmite dining table and standing floor lamps by Tiffany Studios, Edward F. Caldwell, Wilhelm Hunt Diederich and Tommi Parzinger. Collections of silver, Delft chargers and Chinese Export porcelain compose large portions of the sale.

Featuring more than 1,000 lots, there are many remarkable and memorable objects. Preview, begins Saturday, September 27. The following week schedule is preview Monday and Tuesday September 29-30.

Pook & Pook is at 463 East Lancaster Avenue. For information, 610-269-4040 or www.pookandpook.com.

China Trade
Antonio Jacobsen
Grandma Moses
Charles Henry Gifford
George C. Baldwin
N.C. Wyeth
Bennington book flasks
New York coin silver tray
Connecticut embroidery
Bannekers almanac
Massachusetts embroidery
Massachusetts record
William Trost Richards
New England blanket chest
Fiske fountain of Neptune
Vermont blanket chest
Weathervane
Weathervane
William Cummens
New England high chest
Firemen’s Weathervane
Tiffany lamp
Connecticut chest on chest
463 East Lancaster Avenue Downingtown, Pennsylvania 19335 P: (610) 269-4040
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