Sloans & Kenyon Auctioneers Departments

Sloans & Kenyon’s April 7-8-9 Estate Catalogue Auction of fine art and antiques features property de-accessioned by Darnall’s Chance House, an 18th century house museum in Upper Marlboro MD. The de-accessioned property includes 17th and 18th century furniture, decorative objects, prints, books, and documents, including a rare engraving of Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, by Abraham Bloteling (Dutch, 1640-1690). Darnall’s Chance was built in 1741-1742 by James Wardrop, a Scottish immigrant who made his fortune as a merchant and entrepreneur in Upper Marlboro and was the husband of Lettice Lee, daughter of Phillip Lee, the progenitor of the Maryland branch of the illustrious Lee family of Virginia. Click here for more information about Darnall’s Chance House Museum.

Italian artist Domenico Gnoli’s whimsical bronze necktie sculpture, Cravatte, is the highlight of Sloans & Kenyon’s April auction. From the important collection of Belgian playwright Claude Spaak, the 27” contemporary bronze is estimated to sell for $150,000-175,000. Busto, another bronze by Gnoli (1933-70) sold at auction in Milan in November 2005 for $112,579. Gnoli’s work is in the collections of major museums including Galerie Arta, Geneva; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Baltimore Museum of Art; Musee Royal des Beaux Arts, Brussels; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; and the Victoria and AlbertMuseum, London.

Sloans & Kenyon’s three-day auction features over 1600 lots of Americana, furniture, antiques, paintings, prints, and sculpture, jewelry, silver, decorative arts, rugs, Asian ceramics and works of art, antiquities, Russian works of art, ethnographic objects including Pre-Columbian, art glass, quilts, arms and armor, toys and dolls, and books and documents.

A six-day exhibition will be held April 1 through 6 at Sloans & Kenyon’s gallery located at 5550 Friendship Boulevard in Chevy Chase, MD. Multiple views of auction lots can be viewed at http://www.sloansandkenyon.com/search.htm, a state-of-the-art auction research tool which enables auction buyers to
• Search Sloans & Kenyon’s online catalogue and the artists’ index
• Access over 2,500 detailed images for this auction
• View hallmarks, signatures, stamps and other details
• Register to bid

Sloans & Kenyon Auctioneers and Appraisers is Metropolitan Washington DC’s premier auction house and was established in 2003; estate catalogue auctions of fine art and antiques are held approximately six times each year. The company is the successor firm to Washington’s C.G. Sloan & Co. which was established in 1853. Sloans & Kenyon has recently sold property at auction from the Phillips Collection, Blair House Restoration Fund, United Negro College Fund, Universalist National Memorial Church, Victorian Society in America, and Tudor Place (all Washington DC); Capricorn Galleries; the collections of actress Jane Withers, former American Ambassador to Thailand William Itoh, Senator Edward William Brooke (R- Massachusetts); and the estates of Baroness Garnet Von Stackelberg, Countess Adelaide D’Eudeville, Suzette Derzavis, and painter Pierce Rice (all Washington DC), Samuel M. Hyatt, London, Berlin, and Washington DC; Sophia and Leonidas Arvanitidis, Monaco; and Kenkichi Yokohama, Buenos Aires, Argentina.