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Bidders Can Travel around the World of Antiquities at Artemis Gallery’s Auction

This Egyptian Diorite conical offering bowl, circa 3050-2686 B.C., carries a presale estimate of $5,000 to $8,000. It will be up for auction at Artemis Gallery LIVE on March 14.

BOULDER, CO – Artemis Gallery LIVE will get the jump on the Ides of March with an auction of fine antiquities, Pre-Columbian, Far Eastern, Native-American and ethnographic art on March 14, 2014.

“This auction is truly special,” said Teresa Dodge, owner of Artemis Gallery LIVE. “Our usual offering of authentic ancient art is complemented by unique and exciting African, Native-American and Spanish Colonial pieces—it’s like taking a trip around the world, without leaving the comfort of your home, since it is an online event.”

LiveAuctioneers will provide the Internet live-bidding services for the auction.

The sale begins its voyage with the splendor of the ancient Classical world. The timeless beauty of Egyptian art is on full display with brilliant blue ushabtis, bronze and faience amulets, and an important Egyptian Diorite Conical Offering Bowl, impressively sized and stunning in form. The elegance of Ancient Greece is embodied by a rare and spectacular Greek Attic lekythos that depicts Ariadne leading two satyrs to a Bacchic ritual. Northern Greece was the source of an exceptional Hallstadt Bronze Situla.

The mighty Roman Empire is well represented. A grouping of elegant marble statues includes a stately Roman marble head of Jupiter with curly beard and expressive eyes and mouth, a pudgy Roman marble statue of Eros with dimpled knees and prominent belly, and a tall and elegant statue of the Satyr Silenus, an all-around party animal, clad in a voluminously draped garment.

Additionally, the Roman offerings include an exceptionally fine collection of Roman glass, beautifully preserved with striking iridescence ranging from the fiery to the richly elegant. Highlights include a deep blue Roman Glass Pitcher, gorgeously decorated with frills resembling a Greek woman’s peplos, the ancient inspiration for today’s trendy peplum top. An impressive Roman glass baby feeder positively glows with iridescence, and a glass unguent proudly displays the colors of the rainbow. Finally, a Late Roman/Early Byzantine Mosaic, formerly exhibited at the Halie Ford Museum of Art in Salem, Oregon, gives a colorful glimpse into ancient interiors.

This Hallstadt bronze situla, circa 1000-800 B.C., could be the show-stopped with a presale estimate $50,000 to $65,000.

Leaving the classical world, the auction moves to Northern Europe, with jewelry and weaponry that illustrate both the artistry and power of the mighty Vikings. From there, the auction moves to the Far East, where magnificent funerary sculptures include a nine-piece set of processional statues, finely crafted with humor and pathos. Also from China is a Han Dynasty royal court lady, whose dress reveals her to be an ancient fashion plate. The mystical beauty of the Buddha is captured by a large Qi Dynasty stone Buddha head. Our journey through Asia comes to a close with a Chinese Qing Dynasty 50 taels silver sycee, a major form of Chinese currency for more than 1,000 years.

Exploration of the New World begins with a beautifully carved Olmec stone figurine and moves through the various representative cultures of Pre-Columbian art. Highlights include a Pre-Columbian Loma Negra gold nose ornament, finely crafted to depict a string of crabs catching fish; a truly exceptional Colima Comala transforming shaman, and an Ulua Mayan cylinder with winged “angel” figures. Also of note is a Mayan stone palma from the private collection of a Hollywood producer/director and the late Santa Fe, N.M., dealer Ron Messick; and a massive/complete Mayan incensario. The important Quimbaya Poporo gold vessel is as charming as it is impressive at 150 grams of gold. A colorful Costa Rican Nicoya polychrome jaguar vessel captures the magic of a shaman assuming animal form.

The prehistoric Native American Mimbres bowl, also from a private Hollywood, Calif., collection, invites contemplation of what prehistoric Arizona might have looked like. A magnificent antique rattlesnake basket from the Yokuts tribe of Tulare County, Calif., showcases Native-American craftsmanship at its finest, and a series of stunning antique Mexican retablos and ex-votos blend folk art with religious iconography in a perfect marriage of Old and New World splendor.

This group of nine Chinese Ming Dynasty royal processional figures, circa 1368, could realize between $9,000 and $12,000.

Finally, the auction turns to Africa, with such important pieces as the Lobi wood female figure and the Bamana wood granary door, both deaccessioned from the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta.

Artemis Gallery’s Antiquities, Pre-Columbian & Ethnographic Art Auction will start at 11 a.m. EST on Friday, March 14, 2014. Bids may be placed through a variety of methods: absentee (including absentee online), by phone (by prior arrangement) or live on auction day on LiveAuctioneers. The auction catalog is now online and ready for viewing.

For additional information about the auction, call 720.502.5289, e-mail to artemisgallerylive@gmail.com or visit the Artemis Gallery’s website.


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