Friday, September 30 | 4:30-7:30PM Saturday, October 1 | 9AM – 2PM Join Skinner at the Woodlawn Museum, Gardens & Park in Ellsworth Maine for an evening of antiques, education and socialization on Friday, September 30 followed by an Appraisal Day on Saturday, October 1. Friday, September 30 | 4:30PM What’s It Worth? $30 per person or $50 per couple Admission includes the appraisal of one item per person or per couple Pre-registration required online Space is limited On Friday evening guests can enjoy a Skinner “What’s It Worth?” event starting with a wine and cheese reception from 4:30-5:30PM. Browse through he Black House with Skinner expert appraisers Kerry Shrives and Jane Prentiss and learn about a number of pieces in the Woodlawn collection. From 5:30-7:30 the group will gather in the estate’s Sleigh Barn to enjoy a presentation where the appraisers will provide information and estimated values on the objects that […]

Featuring Special Collections of Wedgwood & English Ceramics BOSTON, MA – Skinner, Inc. will present a two-part auction of European Furniture & Decorative Arts & Fine Silver in its Boston Gallery on Thursday, October 6 and Friday, October 7. With over 850 lots on offer, the auction will feature Part II of The Paul Lauer Collection of Wedgwood and The Edward Knowles collection of English Pottery, as well as an expansive selection of fine silver and European fine and decorative arts of the 16th through early 20th centuries. Fine Silver The auction opens on Thursday, October 6 at 4PM, with almost 200 lots of fine silver, featuring a broad range of flatware and hollowware from the United States, Europe and Asia. English silver highlights include a George III sterling silver covered tureen (Lot 10, Estimated between $3,000-5,000), a stunning Victorian brass-inlaid and Coromandel toiletry box (Lot 20, $2,000-4,000) and an extensive […]

BOSTON, MA – September 8, 2016 – Skinner, Inc. presents its third Fine Jewelry auction of 2016 on Tuesday, September 27 at 10AM in Boston. The auction will feature over 700 lots of diamonds, colored stones, and antique and period jewelry. The Nancy and Gilbert Levine Collection Skinner is proud to offer The Nancy and Gilbert Levine Collection, donated to the Toledo Museum of Art and sold to benefit its future acquisitions. The collection comprises ninety-six pieces spanning over a hundred years of jewelry design history. Standouts include a stunning pair of aquamarine and diamond earrings dating to circa 1785 (Lot 133, estimated bewteen $4,000-6,000), a rock crystal demi-parure from the 1820s (Lot 160, $4,000-6,000), and a gold and turquoise bracelet, circa 1835 (Lot 172, $2,000-3,000). The Levine collection is particularly strong in Victorian earrings and archaeological revival jewelry. Signed Jewelry Among the many designer pieces in this auction there […]

MARLBOROUGH, MA  – Skinner, Inc. is pleased to introduce home design at auction:  Heidi Pribell Interiors for the Home Online, a curated collection by a design industry leader with in-gallery previews and on-line bidding. The auction opens on September 8 at 10AM and concludes on September 16 at 2PM; previews will be held at Skinner’s Marlborough Gallery on Tuesday, September 13 from noon to 5PM and Wednesday, September 14 from 10AM to 7PM. Heidi Pribell Interiors for the Home Online blends glamour with bohemian flair in this over 70 lot auction of contemporary and antique furniture, art, and decorative accessories. Some of Pribell’s favorite offerings include a Carlton desk, retailed by Harrods with interior maker’s plaque to a pair of Ken Brown large format collages and an original William Morris reclining chair with original Utrecht purple velvet upholstery. “From inventory I have built for 30 years, first as an antiques […]

BOSTON, MA – Skinner, Inc. will present a strong selection of fine photographs for beginning and experienced collectors in its September 23, 2016, Fine Prints & Photographs auction, which opens for bidding at 12PM. The sale of 61 lots features works by modern and contemporary masters including Ansel Adams, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Walker Evans, and Annie Leibovitz in addition to a special themed section celebrating photography in Boston and New England. The New England region, and Boston in particular, has played an important role in the history of photography. Invented in 1839 in France, the daguerreotype process was the first practical means of obtaining permanent images with a camera, and was quickly adopted in America. One of the first demonstrations of this exciting new invention took place at the Massachusetts Historical Society in the spring of 1840. By 1850 the city was home to dozens of daguerreotype studios including that […]

BOSTON, MA – August 31, 2016 – Skinner, Inc. will present an impressive selection of American & European Works of Art at auction on Friday, September 23, comprising 428 lots in total. The day will be divided in two parts: Fine Prints & Photographs at 12PM and Fine Paintings & Sculpture at 4PM. The auctions showcase an extensive variety of paintings, sculpture, prints, photographs, and works on paper ranging from Old Master prints through Modern and Contemporary offerings. In conjunction with the auction, Skinner will be hosting a Young Collectors’ Night on Wednesday, September 21, at 6PM, an exciting evening of art and hors d’oeuvres welcoming young and beginning collectors. Learn about the basics of collecting and buying at auction, featuring a panel discussion with Skinner fine photographs specialist, Michelle Lamunière; curator and art consultant, Elizabeth Devlin; and gallerist, Joseph Carroll. Major Auction Highlights Figurative artworks by European and American […]

To most people the Victorian Era is known for the industrial revolution, social reform, and the Pax Britannica. For me, all those run a distant second to the Victorians greatest achievement: earring design. Victorian earrings are everything that I love about antique jewelry. Here are the three reasons why: 1. Motifs Victorians were endlessly inventive with their design motifs. If you can think of a subject matter, I could probably find you a pair of Victorian earrings. Flora, fauna, people, places, ancient civilizations- all could be found dangling from the ears of Victorian ladies. My favorites have always been the Ancient Egyptian inspired earrings. I especially love the ones that incorporate scarab beetles. In our September 27 Fine Jewelry auction is a wonderful pair (Lot 195) that has both micromosaic and gold scarabs in each earring. They are wonderfully colorful and interesting, and very typical of the Victorian design aesthetic. […]

Andrew Wyeth was an iconic figure in American painting of the 20th century. Son and student of famed illustrator N.C. Wyeth, the young man seemed destined to follow his father’s footsteps yet developed his own individual style. His father’s illustrations took as subjects active figures and colorful places from around the word, while Andrew Wyeth found artistic inspiration in friends and family and his immediate surroundings of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and Port Clyde, Maine. Andrew Wyeth’s contemplative landscapes, portraits, and still lifes, rendered with delicate realism and underlying abstraction, become metaphors for memory, nostalgia, and loss.His palette, too, was more subdued, choosing the subtle shades of nature rather than the vibrant colors of his father. Andrew Wyeth painted mainly in watercolor and tempera, and he was a master of the technique described as drybrush. In an interview with friend and Metropolitan Museum of Art director Thomas Hoving in 1976, the […]

What does the inside of an artist’s mind look like? Purportedly inspired by a doodle he made while on the telephone in 1962, the French artist Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) sought to reveal the inner landscape of the mind by creating a new type of art he called Hourloupe. He would fill entire pages, or canvases, with fluid scribble-like lines in densely packed, all-over compositions, like this work entitled Situation LXXXXI (a l’arbre)  (Lot 425) coming up in Skinner’s Fine Paintings & Sculpture auction on September 23. Dubuffet explained that these forms evoked the manner in which objects appear in the mind. Indeed, the name Hourloupe implies a magnification of the conscious, or unconscious, mind-scape, distorted by normal temporal dimensions. Disparate figures and forms appear in close association with one another, compressed as if co-existing in a temporally altered reality. The visible result is a crowded jumble of images and emotions. […]

I get asked this question more than any other.  The short answer:  Everyone. A single word isn’t much of a blog post, so let me give you the longer version. Skinner auctions are public auctions.  Absolutely anybody who loves art or antiques is welcome to attend. The previews are a time for potential bidders to come into the gallery and view lots first-hand; to examine the condition of a Wayne Thiebaud woodcut, or the construction of a card table or to feel the heft of a piece of Wedgwood. You read that correctly: to feel the heft.  With the assistance of a gallery attendant you are allowed to touch things. Museums are amazing places, and you should visit them often. But you will never be able to convince one of the guards to let you see the back of that little Picasso, no matter how nicely you ask. Ask us, […]

Designer Heidi Pribell dishes on fabulous finds in her curated online auction of home décor.  May this posting be of inspiration to all of those who struggle with making tough decisions about what should stay and what should go. In preparing to relocate my studio, I made the decision to take a close look at inventory, and I contacted Skinner Auctioneers & Appraisers of Boston & Marlborough, MA. I am flattered that they chose to launch a new area with home design at auction: Heidi Pribell Interiors for the Home Online. Once you love a piece of furniture, a painting or a decorative accessory, you are likely to always love something about the piece, but here are a few guidelines that helped me make a decision to cull and create a 133-lot capsule collection to be sold at Skinner. Popular wisdom recommends keeping the stuff that gives us a thrill […]

Wristwatches and automobile racing have been closely linked to each other since the early 20th century. In a sport so heavily reliant on speed and times, having an accurate and accessible timekeeper is paramount. Modern chronographs, the predecessor to the stopwatch, were created in the early 19th century and were primarily used for artillery. Through the 20th century, chronograph wristwatches transitioned for use into other activities such as diving, submarine maneuvering, and airplane piloting. While utilized by the U.S. Navy and NASA, the chronograph became most associated with competitive auto racing. Formula One racing rose to prominence after its creation in the 1940s. Aided by technological advances in mechanics and aerodynamics as well as humanity’s fascination with speed, Grand Prix racing gained significant popularity throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Because of this, drivers and the watches they wore became synonymous with the sport. Few other companies are linked so […]