For anyone interested who has money to spare, I believe there's still time to register. See the catalog at https://www.invaluable.com/catalog/oy0fb8zhle. It's THE WILLIAM A. CLARK ANTIQUITIES COLLECTION of Greek and Roman Art, consisting of 150 lots. From what I can see, it's mostly Greek vases and terracotta heads and figurines. Sands of Time Ancient Art is proud to assist the American University Museum, Washington DC, with the deaccession of the William A. Clark collection of ancient Greek and Roman art. This collection draws from the art of many ancient Greek cultures, including mainland Greece, Cyprus, and Greek colonies established around the Mediterranean basin, especially Southern Italy and Anatolia. Clark acquired his antiquities collection from the French painter, Louis-Joseph-Raphaël Collin (1850 – 1916), an artist of some renown in his day, who was awarded the Grand Prix at the Exposition Universelle Internationale de Paris in 1889. Collin assembled the collection between 1890 and 1910 with the assistance of experts from the Louvre, particularly Edmond Pottier, curator in the department of Eastern antiquities at the Musee du Louvre from 1908 to 1925. The collection is being sold for the benefit of the American University Museum. As the American University Museum still maintains large holdings from the original Clark donation, proceeds from the sale will be used to support the direct costs of exhibiting, maintaining, preserving and storing items in the Corcoran Legacy Collection. While deaccession funding would usually be used for the acquisition of works consistent with museum policy, the Corcoran museum trustees and the American University Museum directors agree the deaccession and sale of these antiquities will keep Sen. Clark's generous legacy alive. The collection was exclusively available for sale to museums and public institutions in 2021. With those selections now finalized, we now offer the balance of the collection for public sale via the Invaluable auction platform. The auction will be held on Tuesday, May 10th, 2022. A hardcopy publication of the complete collection will also be available for sale in April, 2022. To register your interest and to receive updates on the collection, please sign up to receive emails via our Contact Us page. The Collection The collection draws from the art of many ancient Greek cultures, including mainland Greece, Cyprus, and Greek colonies established around the Mediterranean basin, especially Southern Italy and Anatolia. It reflects the tastes of an era that saw the formation of many great private collections in America. The Paperwork Every object in the Clark Collection is accompanied by paperwork from the Corcoran Gallery of Art. This includes an accession record sheet, plus, depending on the object, correspondence, conservation records with before and after treatment photographs. The Exhibitions The Corcoran exhibited a number of objects in 1978, marking the 50th anniversary of the installation of the Clark Collection. In 1989, a select number of objects were loaned to Montana, for two exhibits; Clark served as one of Montana's first senators in 1901. The collection was again exhibited in 2001 celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary at the Corcoran. The Catalogues Objects from the Clark collection have been published in 1928, 1932, 1978, 1989, and 2001 by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and in 2022 by Sue McGovern-Huffman, Sands of Time Ancient Art. The Provenance Louis-Joseph-Raphaël Collin (1850 – 1916), France Senator William A. Clark (1839 - 1925), Montana, New York The Corcoran Gallery of Art (1925 - 2014), Washington, DC American University Museum (2014 - 2022), Washington, DC There aren't a great many lots and there isn't a great deal of variety compared to most antiquities auctions, but I don't think any buyer has much to worry about in terms of authenticity -- or legality, given how long ago the collection was assembled.
..some neat stuff!...i'm afraid its out of my collecting ability spend wise...thanks for sharing Donna
Thank you for posting. I have a thing for classical Greek vase painting. One of my favorite professors literally wrote the book on them. Okay, a book on them That's a spectacular opportunity to pick up some classical statuary too. If, unlike me, you were smart enough to go into a field like high finance in your 20s.
Oh, that William S. Clark! I know him well, as I'm sure many here do, given his history in mining. He built this notorious pile of a house on Fifth Avenue (I can't get pics to upload again): https://static.wixstatic.com/media/870423_856df69e5af243ac9b6d07e6bce2dea3~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_935,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png The biography of his daughter Huguette is a fascinating read.
Donna, despite the impressive provenance of this collection I thought the estimates were very high, & only two objects have received pre-sale bids. Did any of these objects tickle your fancy enough to bid on them ? The 19th century copies & fakes seemed to have very high estimates too . Senator Clark must have bought a number of these objects as genuine that later turned out to be 19th century fakes since a number of these were tested according to the descriptions.
I agree that the estimates are very optimistic, but I don't think that the minimum bids are unreasonable. Compare the minimum bids for the Greek vases -- keeping in mind that there's a premium for this kind of provenance -- with the prices charged for Greek vases by a well-known antiquities dealer here in NYC, from whom I've made a number of purchases over the years: http://www.hixenbaugh.net/gallery/gallery.cfm?category=Greek Art. I suspect that the best pieces were sold in the institutional auction last year. I won't be bidding on anything myself; the Greek vases are all a bit too expensive for me. Some of the terracotta "Tanagra-ish" heads have minimums I could afford to bid, but I already have enough similar pieces of my own, all previously posted here. Besides, some of mine are actually nicer, I think! Compare, for example, the "grotesque" head at https://www.invaluable.com/auction-...-a-grotesque-hellenistic-period--c-5f445159a2 with the one I posted at https://www.cointalk.com/threads/some-antiquities-i-havent-previously-posted.374223/#post-5549229. I don't understand why anyone would bid on the 19th century fakes and pastiches, at any price!
Hindman Auctions is also holding an antiquities auction later this month- https://hindmanauctions.com/auctions/1035-antiquities-and-ancient-art
No comparison, your grotesque head is superior . The Bastet amulet & female Tangara head are both great objects too .
Some really high-quality pieces in that auction, especially the Egyptian and Near Eastern antiquities on the first couple of pages. Some of the estimates actually seem rather low, albeit still higher than I can afford! Oddly enough, I've never participated in an antiquities auction. Every single piece I've bought since I started collecting antiquities in 1981 has been purchased at retail, either at stores or online.
I would love to have a vase, but I would give that my 2 little chiweenies would have it in pieces chasing my cat through the house. I guess I have to talk to my wife about which would be the most desirable, Salvadore (my cat), or my 2 chiweenies, Bell(adora, our girl) or Beau(cephus, our boy). We have 2 other dogs as well. Our "Wire Terrier - boy, Rocky" (When my wife rescued him, she said he looked like a Raccoon and is about 10. Those 3 stay in our "doggie den" that use to be a deck in the back of the house. Our last "Rescue" was found outside our home. We live off of a dirt road and we get all sorts of things. We found a horse at our front door, eating my wife's flowers. I thought the puppy was a boy, my wife said girl. I named "him" "Tag" because he chases our little ones all over our back 5 acres. It turned out that she WAS a he and is an Australian Shepherd and became so large, the other dogs couldn't play with him anymore. He sleeps in Mom's closet floor. The chiweenies and Rocky sleep in the "Doggie Den" and I am always in the doghouse because I bought the 2 chiweenies without telling my wife. Sorry about this. My cat stays in my office in another building because my wife is allergic to cats. Salvadore/Honey sleeps in my lap when I am in my office. It's fun to have him with me when I am looking at coins.
I guess you can't feel anything once you're dead. But, that aside, I'd be pretty miffed if I donated my collection to a museum and they ended up auctioning my stuff off to beef up their budgets!
I was wondering when this would come up. When I studied museum work as part of my anthropology major decades ago, deaccession was one of the more sensitive topics. It's never taken lightly and is a last resort. Museums are typically nonprofit educational institutions, often surviving on a shoestring budget. I have heard that the pandemic has been hard on museums, many of which were closed to the public for extended periods. I was taught that the best policy is to never accept conditional donations and to make it clear to the donor that the items donated will be used in the institution's best interest going forward, whatever that may be. In most cases, those who genuinely want to benefit an institution will do the most good by selling their collection and donating the proceeds. [edited]
To build on the comments of @dltsrq, my wife is a university professor and, at several institutions where she has taught, donated funds dedicated to specific fields of study (scholarships or travel funds for students in a particular program, purchase of library materials in a particular subject) taken by the administration and put into a general fund. We have seen this happen at several universities and I suspect it happens at all of them. Assume any money you donate to a large institution (university, museum, etc) will not necessarily be used for the purposes to which you intended it. It's not that any of these funds were misused, just repurposed by the current leadership of the institution.
I didn't mean to say that what the museum was doing was ethically problematic, or that the need for this kind of thing isn't easy to rationally deduce. I'm just remarking about what would be my emotional reaction if it happened to me. Here's a scenario that might clarify my perspective to some degree: - If my friend told me that they desperately needed $500, I would give it to them no questions asked and feel good about having helped them out. - If I gave my friend a $500 gift and then learned that they had sold it to somebody else for the money, that would piss me off. I guess the museum thing would bother me because, if I am giving items, then my purpose would have been to provide the public with the opportunity to view them. If the items end up in private collections so that they museum can get the money, then the museum benefits while going against my intentions. But again, I understand why they do these things and I don't blame them, but that doesn't mean that donors wouldn't be justified in having hurt feelings over the ordeal.
Too bad more museums aren't selling more of their extras, especially coins that may be hidden away in basement storage. Anything to relieve the high prices and lack of good coins - it is the very inverse of what we had in the early 2000's. With ironically, not as many collectors, or so it appears to me. This may not be the place for it but there was a very interesting thread some years back about the lack new collectors, and the fact that many collections were being sold to dealers. Is this still going on? It is always difficult to understand the ancient coin market but it seems to me that what we have are fewer collectors, fewer coins offered for sale, and paradoxically higher prices. I do not mean to criticize museums - I am sure that nearly all take good care of their collections. On the other hand, there have to be many that have large numbers of ancient coins, very few of which are ever on display.
