The Walthal family has been in the Memphis real estate business for three generations. Many of the items from this estate will be auctioned on June 11. Pictured is Edward W. Walthal, Laurie Walthal's deceased husband.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A major estate auction featuring the lifetime personal collection of Mrs. Lawrence “Laurie” Walthal will be held Saturday, June 11, at the Agricenter International in Memphis.

Walthal was a lifelong resident of Memphis and a past president of the Memphis Country Club, of which she was a lifelong member. She was very involved in church activities and local charities. Most of the pieces in her collection were descended to her by her father and grandfather (both presidents of the Memphis Cotton Exchange) and her late husband’s family.

This gorgeous Royal Vienna portrait vase is one of many Royal Vienna and Dresden pieces to be sold.

The auction, beginning promptly at 10 a.m. (CDT), will be conducted by Kennedy’s Auction Service. Walthal’s collection will headline the event, but other consignments will be sold as well.

The Walthal family has been in the Memphis real estate business for three generations. In fact, one of the more interesting pieces in the sale is a Walthal Real Estate Companies roll-top desk, built by the Gunn Company of Cincinnati. The desk is massive, at 72 inches wide, and was no doubt witness to many of the real estate transactions that helped shape modern-day Memphis.

“It’s easy to see that Mrs. Laurie held the pieces that made up her collection close to her heart because of the time and effort she spent in preserving and caring for them,” said Mark Kennedy of Kennedy’s Auction Service. “This may just be one of the finest auctions ever held in the mid-South.”

Online bidding can be made through LiveAuctioneers.

Period furniture will feature an impressive, six-piece J. & J.W. Meeks parlor suite in the lovely Stanton Hall pattern. The suite includes a sofa, four chairs (two of them armchairs) and a Recamier (fainting couch). Also sold will be an important 19th-century rosewood rococo marble-top pedestal with floral, grape and mask carvings and with a hanging fruit center (42 inches tall).

Another furniture piece expected to generate intense bidder interest is an antique pietre dure (Italian for “hard stone”) center table with porphyry, lapis and other marbles. The table measures 48 inches long by 31 inches wide by 29 inches tall. Pietre dure is a skilled decorative technique in which precious or semi-precious stones are inlaid into marble or other soft stone.

An original oil painting by Edward Lansom Henry (1841-1919), titled “Sketch of the Reading of the Story of Bluebird,” will be on the block.

Decorative accessories will include a handsome patinated and gilt bronze clock with cherubs, a fine collection of Royal Vienna and Dresden portrait vases and plates, a large collection of 19th-century bronzes by noted listed artists, and a monumental 19th-century marble statue of Cupid and Putto wrestling over a heart on original green marble pedestal, artist signed.

Artwork will feature two works by Frederic Tanqueray Anderson (1846-1926), who was a bookkeeper at the Memphis Cotton Exchange, studied under the French Impressionist Camille Pissaro in 1889 and regularly contributed to magazines such as Harper’s Weekly and Leslie’s. Also sold will be an oil on canvas by Edward Lamson Henry (1841-1919), titled “Sketch for the Reading of the Story of Bluebird,” with labels from the Ira Spanierman Gallery in New York City and the Greenville County Museum of Art in Greenville, S.C.

A preview will be held on Thursday, June 9, from noon to 8 p.m., and on Friday, June 10, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. In addition to live bidding and Internet bidding via LiveAuctioneers.com, phone and absentee bids will also be accepted. A 12-percent buyer’s premium will be applied to all purchases (15 percent for online purchases), with a 2-percent discount for cash or good check.

For more information about this auction, call 731.434.0700, e-mail to Mark [at] KennedysAuctionService [dot] com or visit the Kennedy’s Auction Service web site.

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