New York – Christie’s is pleased to announce its annual sale of Important Americana, taking place live over two days at Christie’s Rockefeller Center on 18 and 19 January 2024. Important Americana is the cornerstone of Americana Week, which includes live sales of Fine Printed and Manuscript Americana on 17 January and 19th Century American & Western Art on the morning of 18 January. As always, Important Americana will feature a wide range of American fine art, furniture, folk art, and silver, as well as Chinese Export Porcelain and American ceramics.

1. FOUNDING FATHERS: Leading the sale is a rare lifetime depiction of George Washington by the first President’s greatest portraitist, Gilbert Stuart, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This magisterial picture is one of the most significant of the artist’s renditions based on Washington’s first sitting with Stuart in 1795. Named after one of the early owners, these Vaughan-type portraits show the sitter facing to the right and of the fourteen known to survive today, only four are in private hands. The example being offered in January was among the earliest of this group and was owned in England by the Philips family, Manchester-area textile merchants who had supported the American cause during the Revolution. In addition to the magnificent Vaughan type portrait, the auction includes a significant group of works depicting other Founding Fathers, including pieces from direct descendants of Benjamin Franklin and powerful images of Washington by Rembrandt Peale.

2. FOLK PAINTINGS: The sale includes major works by some of the most renowned artists in the field. An intimate portrait of a mother and child by the first known Black American professional portraitist, Joshua Johnson, which has remained in the family of the sitters to date; a group of works from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Martin S. Himeles, Sr., of Pikesville, Maryland that includes an ethereal Ammi Phillips portrait and a signed William Prior portrait of a sister and brother. An overmantel by Winthrop Chandler, which remained in a tavern in Leominster, Massachusetts until the 1980s, is an extremely early example of landscape painting in America.

3. FOLK SCULPTURE: Leading this section of the sale are pieces in extraordinary condition from a private collection, including a rare Figure of a Racetrack Tout largely retaining its original painted surface and a large, stylized peacock feather church banner weathervane discovered on a church in Orono, Maine. Other sculptural gems include an “Index” horse weathervane of impressive scale and condition.

4. FURNITURE: Highlights include two important chairs that reveal the skill and range of master carver John Pollard: the Deshler side chair and the Dickinson side chair from the Wunsch Collection. Other significant works include a rare and exceptional “Lighthouse” shelf clock (also from the Wunsch Collection) and a Paint-Grained Chest-of-Drawers with sophisticated grain painting that remains in remarkable original condition.

SILVER: A strong selection of around 100 lots, with pieces from four important single-owner collections: Colonial silver from the Wunsch family; small gold items like mourning jewelry (including another Myer Myers ring) from the Manney family; 40 lots from the Orange Blossom Collection – the subject of a highly successful sale this past spring – including Tiffany, Whiting and more; and the colonial tankard collection of the late Mr. and Mrs. Bowen Blair of Lake Forest, IL.

CHINESE EXPORT PORCELAIN AND AMERICAN CERAMICS: The selection is led by a group of 40 items from the Estate of Marvin Davidson and includes a very rare pair of dragon-carp tureens and stands, a figure group of Europeans formerly in the famed Mottahedeh collection, an ‘erotic’ pedicure group, and armorial wares, including a plate from the Okeover service. Other highlights include a beautifully enameled pair of court ladies and European subject wares, encompassing everything from plates with scenes from Don Quixote to barber’s basins and ‘hunting’ punchbowls.