American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists

Freeman’s Fine American & Pennsylvania Impressionists department features works dating from the eighteenth to early twentieth-centuries, with subjects ranging from landscapes and historical portraiture to genre paintings. Two auctions of American and Pennsylvania Impressionists are held annually in June and December. Led by Vice Chairman Alasdair Nichol, this department has earned a reputation for their impeccable knowledge, intelligently structured catalogues and consistently excellent auction results.

Previous auctions have reflected the diverse traditions associated with American art: the Hudson River School, the Ashcan School (many of these artists studied in Philadelphia), Regionalism, Western art, and illustration. Freeman's is perhaps best known for its success with the Pennsylvania Impressionist artists, selling more works by these painters than any other leading auction house at world-record prices.

Highlights from recent auctions include:

· James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s "Blue and White Opal – The Photographer" for $469,000.
· Daniel Garber’s "Old Farm in the Hills" sold for $457,000
· Edward Redfield’s "Early Morning Sunlight, Spring" for $362,500
· John George Brown’s "Bird Nesting" realized $375,250

Freeman’s attracts an international audience and therefore reaches a world-wide buying base. We are best known for continually offering quality material and our team of specialists is able to advise on the current market enabling clients to reach the most favorable results. Consignments are always welcome from single objects to entire collections and we respond with discretion and expertise. Please contact a member of our Department if you have questions or wish to discuss buying or consigning with us.

American Furniture, Decorative & Folk Arts

Freeman’s American Furniture, Decorative & Folk Art Department specializes in property ranging from the early eighteenth through the twentieth-century, featuring exceptional material from New England to the Southern States. Our sales offer a superb variety of consignments: furniture, fine silver, export porcelain, ceramics, glassware, textiles, maritime art and objects, portraiture, historical and landscape paintings, decoys, and folk art. Two sales are conducted annually: the first in April, coinciding with the Philadelphia Antique Show, and the second a two-day auction in November that includes our annual Pennsylvania Sale, which is exclusive to Freeman’s. This auction features furniture, paintings, decorative and folk items made and used in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, from the Colonial period to the turn of the twentieth-century.

Freemans recently brought to auction the Stevenson-Easby Collection of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, which consisted of fine American furniture and decorative arts. This collection was extensively marketed to both trade and private buyers and surpassed its high estimate, realizing over $725,000. Freemans also sold the Collection of Joseph Sorger, an established Philadelphia art and antiques dealer and collector. It was Mr. Sorgers wish that the collection, which included American Classical and Regency furniture, be sold at Freemans where he had purchased many of the pieces. The exhibition and preview party were held in Mr. Sorgers Delancey Street townhouse-an event that generated excitement for a highly successful auction.

Highlights from recent auctions include:

· An extraordinary fraktur by George Geistweit and dated 1801 from Centre County, sold for $367,000
· A Chippendale, walnut, tall-case clock with works by Edward Duffield, Philadelphia, circa 1755, selling for $193,000
· A miniature portrait of Revolutionary General Daniel Morgan after Charles Wilson Peale (1741-1827) for $85,000

Freeman’s attracts an international audience through its catalogs and website, and is best known for continually offering quality material. We welcome consignments, from single items to entire estates, and always employ an effective marketing strategy to maximize auction results. Please contact a member of our American Furniture, Decorative & Folk Arts Department if you wish to discuss buying or consigning works with Freeman’s.

Asian Arts

Freeman’s Asian Arts Department offers a wide-variety of objects that encompass works from East Asia, the Asian sub-continent, as well as from the Middle East, Oceania, and Africa. With two sales a year in March and September, Asian fine and decorative art meets an ever-increasing global demand. Our internationally-trained specialists have proven expertise in ceramics, ivory, bronze, jade, and particularly Chinese furniture and scholars’ objects.

Highlights from recent auctions include:

· An Imperial jade seal in realized $3.5 million
· A Ming Dynasty gilt bronze and cloisonn covered jar sold for $1.54 million
· Blue and white Ming-style vase sold for $1.38 million
· Rare archaistic jade vase achieved $421,000

China’s rising prosperity, and the ability of Freeman's to source material of a high quality, has resulted in record prices at our recent auctions. Outstanding sales have included works from the William Lipton Collection and, at the March sale in 2011, a large, stunning, and important Chinese blue and white Ming-style vaseQianlong seal mark and of the periodrealized a hammer price of $1,385,000. Freeman’s extremely well-attended sale in September, 2011, saw the auction of a truly exceptional work: an Imperial jade seal, from the same period as the vase, sold for a record $3.5 million.

Freeman’s welcomes consignments, from single objects to entire collections, and responds with discretion and expertise. Our team of specialists and consultants is able to advise on the current market and help achieve the best results by reaching a world-wide buying base. Please contact a member of our Asian Arts Department if you wish to discuss buying or consigning your works with us.

European Art & Old Masters

The newly established European Art and Old Masters department grew out of Freeman’s continued success with the sale of European works of art from the sixteenth to nineteeth-centuries that were previously included in our Fine American and European Paintgs and Sculpture auctions. Our European Art and Old Masters auctions will be held biannually in June and January.

This particular area of art continues to realize strong prices and has displayed a sustained resilience during the pronounced fluctuations of the overall art market.

Highlights from recent auctions include:

· A painting by Hubert Robert sold for $331,000
· A still life by German Johann William Preyer achieved $191,200
· An elegant portrait by Dutch-born Sir Peter Lely sold for $169,000
· A Flemish picture of the Colosseum reached $133,000
· A still-life by Jean-Baptiste Garnier, sold for $94,000.

Freeman’s attracts an international audience and is best known for continually offering quality material. Our team of specialists and consultants is able to advise on the current market and help clients achieve the best results by reaching a world-wide buying base. We welcome consignments, from single objects to entire collections, and respond with discretion and expertise. Please contact a member of Freeman’s European Art and Old Masters Department if you wish to discuss purchasing or consigning paintings and sculpture from this period.

Fine English & Continental Furniture, Silver & Decorative Arts

Freeman’s English & Continental Furniture and Decorative Arts Department offers a wide-range of property consigned from estates and private collections. Focused on works from the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries, these sales include pieces from the Baroque to the mid twentieth-century, often with a strong representation of eighteenth-century English furniture and furnishings. The three sales each yearin January, May, and Octoberare traditionally highpoints of our auction calendar and attract a strong national and international client-base.

Highlights from recent auctions include:

· A large KPM porcelain plaque with a topographical view of Berlin realized $61,000
· A Louis Chalon bronze, "Octopus Dancer," achieved $53,800
· A George II mahogany library armchair for $42,500
· A Regency grand orrery sold for $49,000
· A pair of French enameled opaline vases for $41,600

Freeman’s international team of specialists and consultants are committed to providing each client with the best service and advice possible about the current market. We welcome consignmentsfrom single objects to entire collectionsand respond with discretion and expertise. Please contact a member of our Fine English and Continental Furniture and Decorative Arts Department if you wish to discuss buying or consigning with us.

Fine Jewelry & Watches

Freeman’s offers important and unique treasures in four sales each year, held in November and June. Pieces hail from private estates up and down the East Coast, and include fine colored gemstones and diamonds from designers such as Cartier, Van Cleef and Arpels, Boucheron, Tiffany and Co., David Webb, and Bulgari.

Highlights from recent auctions include:

· ‘Golconda’ lady’s platinum and diamond dinner ring, 10.8 carat modified Asscher cut colorless, Type IIa diamond sold for $482,500
· Lady’s yellow and white diamond dinner ring, stunning emerald cut yellow diamond, 12.69 carats for $362,500
· Art Deco Kashmir sapphire, platinum and diamond ring, Cartier, mixed cut sapphire approximately 6.7 carats realized $206,500
· Lady’s platinum and diamond necklace, 1940s for $157,000

Freeman’s attracts an international audience and a world-wide buying base. With over fifty years combined experience, Department Specialist Madeline Corcoran McCauley and Chairman Beau Freeman provide clients with sound advice on the market to help achieve superior results. Consignments are always welcome from single objects to entire collections and we respond with discretion and expertise. Contact one of our specialists in the Fine Jewelry and Watches Department if you wish to discuss buying or consigning your treasures with Freemans.

Modern & Contemporary

The team of specialists Vice Chairman Alasdair Nichol has built is one of the largest outside of New York City. Anne Henry, Head of the Modern and Contemporary Art Department, competed with several major New York City and international auction houses to win the plum consignment of the Lehman Brothers Collection. The sale was arguably the most talked-about collection of the fall, 2009 auction season. On the heels of this success, Freemans secured the Neuberger Berman Collection in 2010. Under the management of Mr. Nichol and Ms. Henry, both of these corporate collections achieved an exceptional 100% sell-through rate, bringing over $2.5 million, and more than doubling pre-sale estimates.

With two auctions a yearin May and November Modern & Contemporary auctions have added unprecedented numbers of new bidders, and more than eighty world auction records to Freeman’s list of successes. It also confirmed our reputation as a "safe pair of hands" when it comes to the often sensitive issue of deaccessioning corporate collections. Freeman’s was also chosen by HealthSouth shareholders to auction art from the collection of Richard Scrushy, former CEO of HealthSouth. This sale of May 15, 2011, included works by Picasso, Renoir, and Chagall as well as contemporary artists Patrick Hughes and Donald Roller Wilson.

Modern and Contemporary auctions are comprised of a carefully selected mix of works from a range of movements, including École de Paris, Surrealism, Pop, and Abstract Expressionism.  Freeman’s has had notable successes with sculpture including works by Lipchitz, Noguchi Bertoia, Botero, and Calder.

Highlights from recent auctions include:

· Lucio Fontana, "Concetto Spaziale" sold for $1,161,000
· Claes Oldenburg, "Model for Clothespin"
; realized $373,000
· Harry Bertoia, "Sound Sculpture" sold for $295,000
· Alexander Calder, "Azul, Amarillo, Blanco, Sobre Rojo" sold for $241,000

Freeman’s is also committed to promoting established, mid-career, or emerging artists originally from the Philadelphia area. The works of Vincent Desiderio, Bo Bartlett, Bill Scott, Edna Andrade, and Warren Rohrer have resulted in impressive auction results.

A strong component for many of these auctions has always been prints and multiples. On the broader international front, we have shown strong results for artists from two new major art markets: India and Russia. Latin American and African- American artists are also frequently featured, and eagerly sought after.

Freeman’s auctions attract an international audience. Ourteam of specialists is able to provide advice on the current market and help clients achieve the best results by reaching a world-wide buying base. We are known for continually offering quality material, welcoming consignments, from single objects to entire collections, and responding with discretion and expertise. Please contact a member of our Modern & Contemporary Department if you have any questions about our upcoming sales, or wish to discuss buying or consigning your modern and contemporary paintings, sculpture, or prints.

Oriental Rugs & Carpets

At two auctions each year, Freeman’s offers a broad selection of carpets and antique Oriental rugs in an impressive variety of weavings. Often included in these sales are palace, oversize, and room-size carpets woven in urban areas of Persia and India, as well as scatter-size urban and nomadic weavings, runners and village trappings.

Items generally date from the late eighteenth through the mid-twentieth-centuries with a selection that will appeal to the cognoscenti, interior decorator and private collector seeking exceptional workmanship and design.

Freeman’s has featured several estate collections, including the noted Robert Montgomery Scott collection. The early Caucasian Sunburst rug from this estate sold for $341,825 - a record auction result for a Caucasian weaving.

Freeman’s attracts an international audience and are best known for continually offering quality material. Consignments are always welcome, from single objects to entire collections, and we respond with discretion and expertise. Please contact a member of this Department if you have any questions, or wish to discuss buying or consigning your rugs and carpets with Freeman’s.

Photographs & Photobooks

Freeman's Photographs & Photobooks department handles a range of photographic material including 19th and 20th century photographs,  albums, and fine photobooks.  Previous sales have included works by artists such as Annie Leibovitz, Edward Curtis, Berenice Abbott, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ansel Adams, and Cindy Sherman.

Recent auctions have offered several interesting groups of material.  A selection of daguerreotypes from a local collector featuring landscapes and postmortem portraiture achieved strong prices in September 2012.  Daguerreotypes by Philadelphia photographers were especially prized by collectors, including a rare and engaging portrait of an African American nursemaid and two children by Samuel van Loan that sold for $8,525.  The same auction included twenty five prints of Amish scenes by American photographer George Tice.  The images were created (but ultimately not selected) for inclusion in the artist's book "Fields of Peace," making the set extraordinarily unique.  After spirited bidding, the group sold for $18,750.

Other recent successes include:

• Harry Callahan, "Weed Against Detroit Sky" and "Untitled" (set of two prints), for $15,000
• Andreas Feininger, "Queen Elizabeth in New York Harbor," for $9,750
• Irving Haberman, "The Great Debate," for $8,750
• Robert Mapplethorpe, "Lydia Cheng," for $22,500

Freeman’s attracts an international audience and is best known for continually offering quality material. Our team of specialists and consultants is able to advise on the current market and help clients achieve the best results by reaching a world-wide buying base. We welcome consignments, from single objects to entire collections, and respond with discretion and expertise. Please contact a member of Freeman’s Photographs & Photobooks Department if you wish to discuss purchasing or consigning photographs at auction.

Prints & Other Graphics

Freeman's Print Department offers artwork from a wide range of artists covering more than 500 years of printmaking. Our Modern & Contemporary Art sale, held twice a year in conjunction with the Painting Department, features modern prints from artists such as Miro and Picasso and contemporary pieces by Warhol and Lichtenstein.  Fine photographs, an area in which we have been particularly successful, are another important aspect of our Modern & Contemporary art auction.  

In addition to these two sales we hold three yearly Freeman's Fridays auctions which highlight artwork from important Old Masters to some of the 20th Century's most esteemed printmakers.

Whether you are looking for a rare Rembrandt etching or a contemporary Wesselmann screen print our Print Department can meet all of your collecting needs. Please feel free to contact us directly to discuss the sale or purchase of prints at auction or for details on how to participate in our sales.

Rare Books, Manuscripts & Ephemera

Freeman’s offers fully-catalogued sales of fine antiquarian books, manuscripts, prints, maps, ephemera, and nineteenth-century photographs three times a year. A book sale was our first significant auction when we opened for business in 1805 and, as the first purpose-built auction house in the United States, Freeman’s Book Department enjoys the privilege of continuing this tradition in the welcoming environment of its present location since 1924 on Chestnut Street. Freeman’s knowledgeable specialists, led by Department Head David Bloom, provide an expertise and quality of service that remains unchanged.

· Original photograph, signed, of Abraham Lincoln sold for $103,000
· 7 vols. John James Audobon, The Birds of America, New York, achieved $52,200
· Woody Guthrie, archive of autographed letters & typescript short stories, signed, sold for $41,000
· Walt Whitman, autograph manuscript, signed, realized $39,400

Freeman’s attracts an international audience and are best known for continually offering quality material. Consignments are always welcome, from single objects to entire collections, and we respond with discretion and expertise. Please contact a member of this Department if you have any questions, or wish to discuss buying or consigning your rare books, manuscripts, or ephemera with Freeman’s.

Rare Coins

Freemans has a long tradition of offering coins and medals for auction. Whether the buyer is interested in acquiring them as collectibles, as bullion grade, or for investment, we offer the consignor proven expertise as we navigate the competitive marketplace and endeavor to derive the best prices for our clients. We have had great success over the years at these auctions, with exceptional single lot results, and average 90% sell-through rates. The Department is headed by Chairman, Beau Freeman who has over forty years of expertise with Coins and Medals.

Freemans attracts an international audience and are best known for continually offering quality material. Consignments are always welcome, from single objects to entire collections, and we respond with discretion and expertise. Please contact a member of this Department if you have any questions, or wish to discuss buying or consigning your coins and medals with Freemans.

Silver & Objets de Vertu

Freeman’s has been selling silver and objets de vertu for seven generations and is now conducting auctions dedicated to this genre. The bi-annual Silver & Objets de Vertu auction is conducted every spring and fall and includes American, English, and Continental silver from the seventeenth to the nineteenth-centuries, as well as Modern and Post-War pieces by well-known makers such as Bucellati, Tiffany, and Georg Jensen. In addition to fine tableware, centerpieces, candelabra, and flatware services, these auctions also highlight objets de vertu, including Russian enamel, gold boxes, scent bottles, and card and cigarette cases.

Highlights from recent auctions include:

·Faberge silver and enameled firebird kovsh which sold for $533,000
·A George Paulding Farnham silver and enameled vase for Tiffany and Co. achieved $115,000
·A pair of French silver seven-light candelabra by Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot, circa 1830, sold for $55,000

Freeman’s attracts an international audience and is best known for continually offering quality material. Augmenting Freeman’s history of selling silver, our specialists David Walker, Ann Glasscock, and Lynda Cain have more than forty years of combined experience in this area. We always welcome consignments, from single objects to entire estates. Please contact a member of our department if you wish to discuss buying or consigning fine silver.