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AFTERNOON SESSION
TUESDAY 22 NOVEMBER 2011
2:00 pm
(Lots 205-403)
PROPERTY OF THE SPEED ART MUSEUM (LOTS 205-243 AND 256-266)
The Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky was founded by Mrs. Hattie Bishop Speed in 1925 in honor of her late husband James Breckinridge Speed, who had amassed a fortune in coal and railroad companies. The Speed Art Museum opened to the public in 1927 with Mrs. Speed as its first director. The collection in its early years embraced fields as diverse as 19th century American paintings, antiquities and Native American art, but then expanded enormously in 1940 when Mrs. Speed's long-time friend Preston Pope Satterwhite made the first of his gifts of works of art that eventually numbered more than 500 pieces.
A Louisville native and trained as a doctor, Satterwhite moved to New York where in 1908 he married the wealthy heiress Florence Brokaw Martin, widow of James Martin, a Standard Oil executive. Her fortune allowed Satterwhite to retire from medicine and devote himself to art collecting and entertaining. They divided their time between her estate in Great Neck, Long Island (Martin Hall, which Satterwhite later renamed after his own ancestors Preston Hall) and the fabulous Spanish- style house in Palm Beach they commissioned from the society architect Addison Mizner in 1923, Casa Florencia. Following his wife's death in 1928, Satterwhite's collecting continued apace, and he purchased for the then huge price of $450,000 an apartment at 960 Fifth Avenue which took up most of the 10th and 11th floors.
Satterwhite's taste, a heady and evocative blend of Renaissance and Gothic styles, epitomized the rich collecting style of the Gilded Age as Medici collectors such as J.P. Morgan aimed to outdo the magnificence of the Renaissance princes, but in a way that borrowed from almost all periods. Thus elements of the living room of Casa Florencia were based on the Medici Chapel in Florence, while the dining room evoked a Gothic church, with stone walls, vaulted ceiling and stained glass windows.
Much of Satterwhite's collection was acquired with the guidance of the legendary dealer Mitchell Samuels of French and Company, and many of the Satterwhite treasures remain at the Speed in special dedicated galleries, including a celebrated set of tapestries of The Conquests of Louis XIV, paintings by Bernardo Daddi and the sculpture Warrior on Horseback by Willem Danielsz. van Tetrode. The Satterwhite pieces in this sale give today's buyers a true glimpse of the taste of the Gilded Age.
A PAIR OF CONTINENTAL CRIMSON VELVET UPHOLSTERED STOOLS
FRENCH OR ITALIAN, EARLY 20TH CENTURY
Details
A PAIR OF CONTINENTAL CRIMSON VELVET UPHOLSTERED STOOLS
FRENCH OR ITALIAN, EARLY 20TH CENTURY
With double X-supports and loose cushion, with French and Company stencil 18748
17¼ in. (44 cm.) high, 38 in. (97 cm.) wide, 18 in. (46 cm.) deep (2)
FRENCH OR ITALIAN, EARLY 20TH CENTURY
With double X-supports and loose cushion, with French and Company stencil 18748
17¼ in. (44 cm.) high, 38 in. (97 cm.) wide, 18 in. (46 cm.) deep (2)
Provenance
With French & Company, New York (bought from J. Paley in 1936).
Gift of Dr. Preston Pope Satterwhite, Great Neck, Long Island, New York and Palm Beach, Florida, 1944.
Gift of Dr. Preston Pope Satterwhite, Great Neck, Long Island, New York and Palm Beach, Florida, 1944.
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