Rare Native American Portrait Is a Chief Highlight at Case's Summer Auction

KNOXVILLE, Tenn.—A veritable time capsule of treasures from two old Southern families – ranging from a rare 1830 Native American portrait to Civil War Generals’ letters and Georgian jewelry -- will cross the block July 9-10 at Case Auctions, in a 2-day sale that also includes an original Leroy Neiman painting, a rare Swiss automaton watch, and an important African American quilt.

This miniature portrait of a Chickasaw brave known as Kinheche, painted by Caroline Dudley of Franklin, Tennessee in 1830 during a Chickasaw treaty negotiation with Andrew Jackson, is one of the few known period portraits of Native Americans. Estimate $10,000-12,000.

 The auction takes place at Case’s main gallery in Knoxville, and features objects from multiple estates and private and museum collections. Several are from the estate of Mary Bright Wilson, a former Middle Tennessee resident whose family moved from North Carolina and Virginia to settle the area in the late 1700s, and from the Kentucky collection of Peggy Mahoney and Michael Mahoney, whose family tree includes thoroughbred breeders and a Confederate General.

One of the key highlights of the Wilson collection is a rare miniature portrait of a native American brave named Kinheche or Kin-he-chee, painted in 1830 during a historic summit between Chickasaw leaders and President Andrew Jackson in Franklin, Tennessee. Among the observers at the event were a prominent local gentleman, Guilford Dudley, and his 22-year-old daughter Caroline. According to family history, Miss Dudley (who may have been an art teacher at a nearby Female Academy) was so intrigued by Kinheche’s appearance in his tribal garb that she painted his likeness, intending to give it to him, but was advised by the Chief not to do. She died two years later, and the Franklin Treaty ultimately failed to protect the Chickasaws from the Trail of Tears.

“The Franklin Treaty was the first negotiation under what would become known as the Indian Removal Act, so there’s historic significance just in having a visual record of that event,” noted Sarah Campbell Drury, Case’s Vice President for Fine and Decorative Arts. “But portraits of people of color -especially Native Americans - are extremely rare for this period, and to find one painted by a woman who observed the event is extraordinary,” “

The Wilson collection also includes miniature portraits of North Carolina Revolutionary War General Thomas Eaton and his daughter Harriet, and an archive of Civil War letters saved by members of the Fulton family of Fayetteville, which sent four sons into battle on the Confederate side. (Two of them - Colonel John S. Fulton and his brother Robert Fulton, lost their lives). One letter, from Gen. William Bate to Col. Fulton, records the battlefield death of Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk, while others detail the falls of Ft. Henry and Ft. Donelson and the resulting capture of Nashville. Other ephemera items include slave inventories and paper money from the Civil War period to the Revolutionary War period. The Wilson collection also includes antique diamond and gold jewelry worn by women in the family, Chinese paintings brought back from the Far East by Naval officer James Fulton in 1860, and war mementos dating from the Civil War through World War I.

The Mahoney collection features several important examples of Kentucky furniture such as a rare Windsor settee attributed to William Challen of Lexington, a petite blockfront Sheraton huntboard, and a sugar chest with unusual serpentine skirt, all of which originally graced family homes, Cherrycote in Lexington and Clarkland Farm in Bryan’s Station, KY. The Mahoney collection also includes a Confederate Thomas Griswold foot officer’s sword and scabbard, three vintage Rolex watches, a collection of Georgian, Art Deco and other jewelry, and a large collection of silver, including a Gorham Martele tray and several pieces of American coin silver.

A large (36” x 48”) Leroy Neiman original painting of a dinner party is on the auction menu with an estimate of $40,000-44,000.

The Summer auction also features a diverse selection of art. A large Leroy Neiman oil on canvas depicting a glittering dinner party, from the estate of Palm Beach and Chattanooga publishing executive Margaret Harold Roberts, leads the American paintings. There is also a tonalist watercolor by South Carolina artist Alice Ravenel Huger Smith and a Ralph Blakelock landscape; marine paintings by Earl Collins, Lester Chadbourne, and Alex Breede; a collection of regional landscapes by Pennsylvania/New Jersey artist Jeanne Davies; and a collection of 20^th century sporting art by David Maas, Chet Reneson, Brett James Smith, and Dwayne Harty. Other American painters represented include Charles Griffin Farr, William McKendree Snyder, Sterling Strauser, Maude Eggemeyer, George Ames Aldrich, Louis Fuertes, James Crawford Thom, Scott Prior, and Peter Max. Southern regional artists include Louis Jones, Carl Sublett, Robert Loftin Newman, Bertha Herbert Potter, Joseph Delaney, and George Cress.  Sculpture collectors will find a bronze figural horse race grouping by Lorenzo Ghiglieri, and a bronze garden sculpture of a child by Rachel Hawks, along with a colorful 31”H contemporary art glass sculpture by Stephen Rolfe and two sporting themed bronze lamps by George Northup (modeled as fish and quail).

European art standouts include a Flemish School triptych after Quentin Matsys (1466-1530), depicting scenes of Christ’s infancy, and two Rembrandt etchings, Jan Lutman, Goldsmith, (state II/III) and The Return of the Prodigal Son (state II/III). There are a number of Ecclesiastical paintings collected by the late Judge Thaddeus Cox from his home The Oakes “Castle,” a landmark Gothic style mansion in Johnson City, Tennessee, including a gilt panel after Baldassare Peruzzi and icon after Fra Angelico. Also featured are a Jakob Philipp Hackert landscape drawing, a Gerard Portielje oil genre scene, two 18^th century maritime paintings, and a large landscape, The Silver Dart by English painter John Clayton Adams, exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1893. European artists Charlotte Nasmyth, Alois Lecoque, Hugo D’Alesi, Samuel Bough, Arnold Marc Gorter, and Yolane Ardisonne are also represented.

Landscapes by two Florida “Highwaymen” artists, Robert Butler and Sam Newton, are available for sale, along with two works by “Memory Painter” Helen LaFrance: one of a tiger and the other depicting The Woolridge Cemetery Monuments in her hometown of Mayfield, Kentucky. There is a large Mary Tillman Smith triple portrait titled “Family,” plus works by J.B. Murray, Berenice Sims, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Mose Tolliver, Elijah Pierce, and Lonnie Holley, along with a Carl Worner bottle diorama depicting a Cincinnati saloon.

Contemporary works on paper include a Picasso signed collotype, Le Peintre (published by Guy Spitzer, circa 1960) and a Lyonel Feininger abstract woodcut, Dorf, along with signed lithographs by Sonia Delaunay, Joan Miro, Paul Klee, Fernand Leger, and Henry Spencer Moore. There is also a 16” diameter Picasso Madoura ceramic charger, Visage aux Feuilles, numbered 32/100.

Simon Gounouilhou (Swiss, 1779-1847) was known for his automaton watches. This one features movements that bring the kitchen to life in fascinating detail. Est. $20,000-24,000.

A rare Swiss automaton pocket watch attributed to Pierre-Simon Gounouilhou (French/Swiss, 1779-1857) tells both the time, and a story. The double open face watch features a Dutch kitchen scene on one side with various movements that bring it to life, including a woman grinding a mortar and pestle, a crackling fire, and chicken rotating on a rotisserie, all in an 18k gold surround.

Other examples of this watch are in the collections of the Patek Philippe Museum and the Casa-Meseu Medeiros E Almeida. Watches by Girod Gandy, Rolex, Omega, are also featured along with more than 100 lots of estate jewelry. There are 3 diamond solitaire rings in gold settings, all with GIA reports; a 194 gram Victorian gold tassel and chain with photograph of it being worn by its original owner; an Etruscan Revival three-piece lot of gold and coral jewelry attributed to Castellani of Rome; a Georgian brooch with diamonds totalling over 3 carats, and an Art Deco diamond brooch weighing a total of over 9 carats.

There are more than 150 lots of silver in the auction, including multiple tea sets. One of the most unusual is a rare 19^th century coin silver repousse tea service chased with scenes of New Orleans’ Jackson Square on one side and images of pelicans on the reverse, reminiscent of those on the Louisiana State Seal. There is also a coin silver tea set by Alexander Morin of Philadelphia, previously owned by Brigadier General Abe Buford of Kentucky, and a collection of Kentucky coin silver that includes several mint julep cups, two Asa Blanchard ladles, and numerous pieces of flatware from rural Kentucky makers. A large William IV sterling urn with Poseidon finial, by Joseph and John Angell of London commands attention, along with a George II sterling cake basket and large Tiffany flatware services in the Audubon, Chrysanthemum, and Colonial patterns. Flatware services in Buccellati’s Milano pattern, Gorham Buttercup, International Trianon, Reed and Barton Francis I, and Wallace Violet, are also for sale.

A well-documented and exhibited African American quilt leads the textile offerings. The applique quilt was made by Josie Covington (1869-1909) of Triune, Tennessee and features a number of applique motifs including star shaped flowers, pinwheels, scissors, and a central hand. It was included in a traveling exhibition sponsored by the Cleveland Museum of Art and was the cover image for the accompanying catalog. The auction also includes a bright pink Hawaiian Quilt, a Bourbon County, KY needlework sampler dating from 1815, and two rare Tennessee samplers, along with an 18^th century Flemish Verdure tapestry and several fine Persian carpets.

Southern Pottery is a staple at Case. This summer’s offerings include an exhibited West Tennessee 10-gallon stoneware jar attributed to Tinsley Craven, a Greene County earthenware jar with possible attribution to Christopher Haun, face jugs including two by Lanier Meaders, and a scarce 3-gallon Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey jug.

For those seeking to set an elegant table, the auction features more than 100 pieces of St. Louis crystal stemware in the Excellence and Thistle patterns, along with large services of Royal Crown Derby “Gold Aves” and “Imari” pattern dinnerware, and Mottahedeh and Herend porcelain. Other porcelain standouts include a rare large Staffordshire figure of a dog reclining on a pillow, a pair of Worcester Abolitionist platters, and a soup plate in the design of the Rutherford Hayes White House pattern, decorated with okra. There is also an important cased set of Ott & Brewer American Belleek cups and saucers in varying designs, a wedding gift to William Henry Cutter and his bride in 1883. Cutter’s father discovered Kaolin on their New Jersey farm in 1845, and the discovery provided the raw material for Ott and Brewer to ultimately become the first American pottery to manufacture ivory porcelain designed to simulate Irish Belleek.

A set of six American fancy chairs with hand painted landscapes, similar to a pair decorated by Samuel Bartolli in the Peabody Museum collection, is among the notable furniture for sale, alongside an American classical card table with shell carvings attributed to Anthony Quervelle, a Chippendale style “Rising Sun” armchair, and a collection of New England furniture that includes a block front Chippendale desk. There is a broad selection of British and European furniture, including an Irish 18th century mahogany tray top tea table, an English Regency “rent table”, a large Baroque style refectory table, and a Franz Hermie Louis XV style tall case clock. Signed furniture by Limbert, Emile Galle, and Liberty of London is also featured.

Historic weapons include a pair of Pedro Esteva Miquelet flintlock pistols, a cased pair of John Manton & Son dueling pistols, a pair of J. Child English percussion pistols, and a collection of Civil War era Colt revolvers.

Other auction standouts include a Steinway Model B Grand Piano, an 11-piece Tiffany bronze desk set (including two frames) in the Ninth Century pattern, an estate collection of luxury handbags, a cast iron Indian and Bear mechanical bank, a collection of first edition Charles Dickens books, collectible coins, and a rare, possibly complete set of lobby cards for the 1921 Rudolph Valentino movie, The Sheik.

View the Case Antiques, Summer Fine Art and Antique Auction - Day 1 & 2, July 9-10 auction catalogs and regstier to bid live online via Bidsquare.