Copley Fine Art Auctions will hold its tenth annual Sporting Sale on July 24th and 25th. The event will be hosted at the Radisson Hotel in historic Plymouth, Massachusetts. This year, with the tenth anniversary, there are some exciting adjustments to the auction schedule. The sale will take place on one day, Saturday, July 25th, with Friday, July 24th given over to an auction preview party from 5:30PM to 7:30PM, a decoy and sporting art dealer show, and other special events. 

On Saturday, July 25th, bidding on over 530 lots will begin at 10AM, with preview times running from 8AM until 10AM. Decoys will cross the block first with sporting art to follow.

Friday’s events will include an exhibition of new works by the McNair family of bird carvers Mark, Ian, and Colin, and Mark will host a live carving demonstration. The first meeting of the New England Decoy Collectors Association will be held at 1PM.

This summer’s sale will include a diverse grouping of decoys, with important works on offer from a wide range of carving regions. A mallard hen by Charles H. Perdew highlights the offering, and southern decoys are led by a running curlew and swimming brant by Nathan Cobb, Jr. from an important Southern collection. Also available are a mallard drake and rare long-tailed duck drake by the Ward brothers of Maryland and notable carvings by Ira Hudson and Lloyd Sterling.

Important New Jersey carvings include two black ducks by Nathan Rowley Horner and a pintail by Clark Madara. New England is well represented with works by A. Elmer Crowell, Joseph Lincoln, Orlando Bibber, George Boyd, and Charles Hart among many others. Additionally, over twenty-five shorebirds from an important private shorebird collection and a broad selection of miniature bird carvings will be available.

Copley will also present a range of classic American sporting art including several private collections, with over twenty-five works from a Virginia collection and a large number of pieces from the collection of noted sporting art author John T. Ordeman. The sale includes an original watercolor by Arthur B. Frost, English Snipe Shooting, which was reproduced in 1895 by Charles Scribner’s Sons in Frost’s Shooting Pictures, a portfolio of twelve chromolithograph prints. It is considered one of the artist's most iconic and recognized works.

Paintings by artists such as Harry Curieux Adamson, Richard Bishop, Edgar Burke, Roland Clark, Lynn Bogue Hunt, Ogden M. Pleissner, Chet Reneson, Aiden Lassell Ripley, William J. Schaldach, Arthur Shilstone, Brett J. Smith, and Milton Weiler will be available, among many others. Bronze sculpture by French animalier artist Isidore Bonheur, William J. Koelpin, and others will also be on offer.

Online bidding on over 530 items will be available. A full color catalog is available. The auction will take place at the Radisson Hotel in Plymouth, MA, with a preview on Friday, July 24 from 5:30 to 7:30PM. Bidding will commence at 10AM on Saturday, July 25, with a preview from 8AM to 10AM. For more information, a full schedule of events, or to order a catalog please send an email to info@copleyart.com, call 617.536.0030, or visit www.copleyart.com.