When bidding opens on February 23rd for a single-owner sale presented by Lark Mason Associates on www.igavelauctions.com, collectors will have an eclectic assortment of furniture, decorative arts, paintings, prints and jewelry on which to make an offer.

In the fine art category, top highlights include Still Life (Poppies), by Moïse Kisling, an important Jewish artist who was a member of the School of Paris and part of the Montparnasse Circle (Est: $30,000-50,000). Poppies are the national flower of Poland, the artist’s home country, and became an important symbol of war and rebirth after World War I, in which the artist fought against the German Empire and got seriously wounded. This painting was created as a wedding gift for his friends with heartwarming wishes embodied in these bright and lush red flowers. 

Also included are two watercolor paintings by the post-Impressionist painter Henri Lebasque:  Sailboats, which depicts many colorful sailboats on the ocean in the south of France (Est. $4,000-6,000) and Woman Reading (Est. $8,000-12,000); a deep-bitten etching printed with relief, titled Eau-forte No. 10 B, by Pierre Soulages, one of the major figures of post-war European abstraction known for his gestural and calligraphic brushstrokes.

Decorative art aficionados will find a massive late 19th century ornately engraved Tiffany silver-plate presentation platter from the survivors of the SS Ville du Havre, a French steamship which operated round trips between New York and the Northern coast of France went down on November 22, 1873 after colliding with a British clipper ship, resulting in the loss of 226 lives. Some of the passengers were rescued by an American cargo ship, the SS Tremountain and the platter -engraved with an image of Neptune, tridents, masted sailing ships, laurel wreath, medals, anchors, flowers, and the words COURAGE – HUMANITY– was presented by the passengers in gratitude to its captain, M.W. Urquhart. 

Furniture is represented with a Neoclassical-style two-tier marble top circular table with caryatid supports in the manner of the maidens at the Erechtheion temple in Athens tops the furniture offerings. With rosso marble surfaces rimmed with gilt metal galleries, edged with egg-and-dart and bead molding, and rising on tapering Ionic column legs, it is an excellent example of a piece of furniture designed to be similarly useful and beautiful, with its numerous historical references. 

About Lark Mason

With locations in New Braunfels, Texas and New York City, Lark Mason Associates, the eponymous, auction house specializing in Asian, ethnographic, and ancient works of art, was founded by Lark Mason after many years as an expert at Sotheby's New York.

Mason served as a General Appraiser from 1979 until 1985, and as a Senior Vice President and specialist in Chinese art with Sotheby's Chinese Works of Art Department from 1985-2003.  From 2000-2003 he concurrently was a Director of Online Auctions for Sothebys.com. He also served as a consulting curator at the Trammel and Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art in Dallas, Texas from 2003-2009. He is a generalist in American and European works of art and paintings, as well as an expert in the field of Chinese art and has valued and advised many private collectors and institutions.

Lark Mason Associates regularly hosts auctions on the iGavel Auctions platform and has an established history of record sales of Chinese and other works of art and holds the record for the highest price achieved for any work of art in an online sale, for a painting sold in May 2014 that realized close to $4.2m. Mason, the owner and CEO of iGavel Auctions, is noted for his regular appearances on "The Antiques Road Show."

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