The Robert C. Eldred Co.’s annual Fall Americana Auction, held this year November 20, 21 and 22, will include a wide array of fresh-to-market items from private estates and collections. Highlights include weapons and militaria from a private New Jersey collection, twenty-two Harold Gibbs miniature bird carvings from a Massachusetts collection, paintings, folk and decorative art from a special Cape Cod collection, and a group of Boston School portraits from a private Virginia collection. The sale will also include a large section of maritime art, as well as period furniture, silver, Oriental rugs, Americana and decorative arts, and nearly 300 paintings. Eldred’s will also be offering the second part of the Morgan Rank Collection of Folk Art and Musical Instruments; the first half was sold in the company’s Summer Americana auction in July.

The auction’s first day, Thursday, November 20, will cover weapons, militaria, Masonic items and maritime art. Highlights from the first day include a 19th Century Marlin Ballard Schuetzen rifle, a Clark Voorhees carving of a bottlenose dolphin, a bone model of the whaleship Wanderer, Napoleonic prisoner-of-war items, and six ship portraits by Antonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen.

The Morgan Rank Collection features more than 200 handcrafted musical instruments, many made from everyday materials like cigar boxes, matchsticks and tin cans. Notably unique pieces include a banjo-type instrument made from a bedpan and a heart-shaped fiddle with a scroll piece carved in the form of a woman playing a similarly shaped fiddle. Rank, who operated an eponymous gallery in East Hampton, New York, from the 1970s through 2001, primarily acquired these instruments for his own personal collection. The Morgan Rank Collection will be sold on the second day of the auction, Friday, November 21. Lots of silver, decoys, including the Gibbs miniatures, textiles, folk art and more will also hit the block during Friday’s auction session.

The auction will conclude Saturday, November 22 with a large selection of fine American and Continental paintings, including works by Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky, Ralph Cahoon, William R. Davis, James Gale Tyler and Gerrit Albertus Beneker. The collection of Boston School portraits, recently exhibited at the Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News, Virginia, will also be part of the auction’s third session. Other highlights from the day include a large circa 1930s Hereke rug, a rare China Trade slant-front desk, and a sculpture by Frederick Charles Shrady.    

The auction will take place at the company’s main facility located 1483 Route 6A, in East Dennis, Massachusetts. Interested bidders can visit www.eldreds.com for a complete sale listing and to register to bid via phone, absentee bid or online. Those wishing to bid live in the audience may register at the offices the day of the auction.

The public exhibition will be held Wednesday, November 19 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the mornings of the sale starting at 8:45 a.m.

The Robert C. Eldred Co., New England's oldest established antiques and fine arts auction house, holds approximately 25 auctions per year encompassing Americana, paintings, Asian art, European decorative art, maritime antiques and collectibles. It was recently named one of the top auction houses in North America by Blouin Art Info.

For more information about the Fall Americana and Paintings auction or the Robert C. Eldred Company, please call (508) 385-3116.