Samuel John Peploe, Still-life of Roses in a Green Vase (around 1924) Scottish Paintings and Sculpture, Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh, 9 June
Estimate £120,000-£180,000 (sold for £135,000 hammer, £164,000 with premium)
Between the 1920s and the 1940s, Walter Quarry Wood, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, built a substantial collection of Scottish Colourist paintings under the guidance of Duncan Macdonald of the dealers Alex Reid and Lefevre. The collection comes to auction in Wood’s home city of Edinburgh this week, carrying a combined estimate of £1m. At its heart are several paintings by Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, an acquaintance of the family, and his good friend and painting companion Samuel John Peploe, including landscapes of the island Iona and still-lifes by both artists. Among the five still-lifes in the Wood collection are two sensitive late flower studies by Peploe—one of tulips and the other, shown here, of roses.
Elizabeth Catlett, Seated Woman (date unknown) American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, Sotheby’s, New York, 9 June
Estimate $60,000-$80,000 (sold for $60,000 hammer, $75,000 with premium)
This determined-looking bronze figure by the African-American sculptor Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) has a solid monumentality that belies her 30cm stature. Catlett campaigned throughout her long career to improve the lives of working-class African-American and Mexican women. This work, which is one of Catlett’s smaller pieces in bronze, is typical of the strong, yet often weary, seated women she represented from the 1940s. The present owner acquired the work directly from the artist’s studio in Cuernavaca, Mexico. In 2009, the red cedar sculpture Homage to My Young Black Sisters (1968) made an auction record for Catlett, selling for $240,000 ($288,000 with premium) at Swann Galleries in New York.
Kaj Gottlob and A.J. Iversen, bar cabinet (1951) Nordic Design, Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, 9 June
Estimate DKK250,000-DKK300,000 ($38,000-$45,000) (sold for DKK280,000 hammer, DKK364,000 with premium)
Three rare pieces of classic 1950s Danish design lead Bruun Rasmussen’s annual Nordic design auction: Poul Kjærholm’s Bowstring chair, Hans Wegner’s Long Dolphin chair and this marquetry drinks cabinet by Kaj Gottlob. Gottlob worked with the cabinet maker A.J. Iversen on the piece, which is inlaid with ebony and two types of Brazilian rosewood. The drop front door opens to reveal an interior that appears like a miniature theatre set. Intended as a showcase for Gottlob and Iversen’s combined talents, the cabinet was exhibited at the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers’ Guild Exhibition at the Designmuseum Danmark in 1951.