Wednesday, April 4, 2007

SOUTHERN FURNITURE AND ORIGINAL ART TO BE FEATURED AT JACK EUBANKS AUCTION IN APRIL

Following the success of his January 13 wide ranging sale, Jack Eubanks, owner of Jack Eubanks Auction in Brevard, NC, will offer his bidders a diverse inventory of over 600 lots from a wide variety of consignors and living estates in North Carolina. Several fine lots of pre Civil War Southern furniture will cross the block accompanied by early 19th century examples from other locations.

Art will play a key role in the upcoming sale. One of the featured artists will be Charles Johnson Post (1873-1956), a New York artist and author who enlisted with the 71st New York Infantry in 1898 to experience the Spanish-American War. After a rail ride through the South and encampment in Tampa with Roosevelt, Post landed in Cuba and participated in the fighting. Along the way he documented his travels and adventures in words and pictures. His book “The Little War of Private Post – The Spanish-American War Seen Close Up” was published posthumously in 1960 by Little, Brown & Co. The current printing published by the University of Nebraska press features a color version of the Post rendering of “Bloody Ford,” the crossing of a stream in Cuba by U. S. troops under fire. The original etching will be offered at the sale. Other Post works include a battlefield scene depicting the overrunning of the Spanish trenches at the capture of the San Juan blockhouse by the 6th and 16th Infantry with the dead figure of American Lt. Ord in the foreground and also an oil on canvas of an eerie religious scene with the inscription on the back “The letter killeth but the spirit giveth life. 2nd Corintians 3:6” which is a shortened version of the verse that reads “Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” Post’s work was featured in Life on July 7, 1958 with a ten page spread of his work. A copy of Johnson’s 1912 book “Across the Andes” autographed and dedicated to his father will also be available. The Post material came from the local living estate of a friend of Post’s daughter.

A portrait of a male toddler by noted Quaker artist Marcus Mote (1817-1898) is on the agenda. Mote, a fifth generation Quaker, was in constant trouble with his Meetings because of his art which was considered to be “worldly” and “frivolous” by the religious group. In 1869 he founded the Richmond Academy of Design in Richmond, IN and established the foundation for a growing arts community. The oil on canvas portrait is shown in an oval gold frame and is inscribed verso “12/mo 1877 Richmond, Indiana.” Also on the block is a Florida watercolor landscape by Florida artist James Ralph Wilcox (1866-1915) and a screen print of an abstract work by Yosef Zaritsky (Russian/Israeli 1891-1985).

On the furniture side of the sale is a very fine walnut plantation desk, circa 1850, from the Wellborn Plantation in Eufala, AL, the property of Solon Nelson Wellborn, a pre Civil War desk with open book shelf above in “as found” condition in a tenant farmer’s cabin on a plantation in north Fulton County, GA, an Ohio walnut corner cupboard with six panes of glass in the doors, divided by muntins to look like twelve panes and many more items.

Preview for the sale is scheduled for Friday April 27 and the sale is Saturday April 28 at 9:00AM in the Eubanks Auction facility at 220 S. Broad St, Brevard, NC. Reserved seating for 160 is available by phone or email. For more information contact Jack Eubanks at (828) 884-7889, email info@jackeubanks.com or visit the website at http://www.jackeubanks.com.

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