A great vintage Folk Art sculpture – and newly listed! See my Ebay link at right for pics and details. This is a huge vintage wood carving depicting a barefoot man playing a drum. Incredible attention to detail down to the intricate carved designs on the drum. A superb Folk Art collectible for display indoors or out…
It has been quite a while since I did any primitive rug hooking but now that I’ve started hooking again I remember how much I love that lost folk art! These six pieces are likely the smallest miniature hookings ever created! Each dress is a mere 3 inches tall.
To start, I built my own lap frame and then took very thin strips of wool and hooked them on to a Scottish burlap base. Backs are finished with blanket-stitched felt.
I used my own patterns which are drawn directly onto the burlap. I just love these sweet little vintage style dresses. They look so sweet hung directly on the wall with their tiny handcrafted wire hangers inside a large wood frame.
These are currently listed in my Ebay auctions – see link at right.
Dresses in progress showing burlap base…
Another feature separates decoy ducks from other antiques and collectibles. “They are a quintessential American art form, with pleasing sculptural qualities,” Nancy says. “They were being made even before the white man came to our shores.” Nancy’s referring to the decoys that Native Americans used to snag birds. In 1924, archeologists found 11 ancient working decoys that were 1,000 years old, in the Humbolt Range of western Nevada. Indians often made these decoys by weaving reeds into the shape of a duck or by actually mounting the feathery bird skin onto a frame.
Authenticity Matters
Still, despite these special features, decoy birds live by the rules established by the contemporary marketplace. “They are in their own sort of way vernacular sculpture and folk art,” Nancy explains. “But they are subject to the same concerns and issues as any antique.”Authenticity, for example, is crucial. “You want to pay attention to whether the decoy is entirely intact,” Nancy says. “Is the head the original head? Is there any indication of alteration or cosmetic restoration? You don’t want that. You want the original bird.”
As in all other collectible areas, collectors seek out working birds still in tip-top shape. “The optimum is a decoy that was made for hunting but never saw service,” Nancy says. Too fine, though, and collectors should begin to suspect foul play. Forged decoys, Nancy points out, often are painted very realistically, as if they were plucked from a Peterson’s Guide—an accuracy that reveals they weren’t made for a hunter’s gunny bag.
With reproduction decoys, “you’re hard-pressed to tell the difference between a real bird and a wood one,” says Nancy, again reminding potential collectors that decoy ducks were functional hunters’ equipment before they became collectible. “The broad outline is what matters the most. Some Indians made their decoys out of sticks and mud.”
A bird in hand … can cost you
After their insistence on authenticity, decoy collectors tend to fly their own routes. Many collectors, for instance, only scope out decoys of local bird populations. Cape Codders seek saltwater ducks that bob along its sandy shores and Minnesotans seek lake-loving Midwestern migrators. Some collectors ignore geography, preferring instead to focus on aesthetics. They care more about a decoy’s form and line than its genealogy. “Do you prefer the abstract coloring of the Maine Eider?” Nancy asks the potential decoy collector. “Or do you like the delicate birds? Or are you drawn to the solid-looking ones? That’s all personal preference.”And so is the hunt for particular decoy artists. A. Elmer Crowell (1862-1951) an East Harwich, Massachusetts, carver widely considered the best decoy maker ever, had one of his Canada Geese sell for an astounding $684,500 at a 2000 Sotheby’s sale, the highest-flying decoy sale price to date. Everything about it was perfect, Nancy notes. The Canada goose’s position—its neck turned back and its sleepy head imbedded into its feathers—was extremely rare and its condition was mint. “It was a virtuoso carving.”
At the Indianapolis ANTIQUES ROADSHOW, Nancy estimated that a mint-condition pair of drake Mallard decoys carved by noted Illinois decoy-maker Charles Perdue, were worth in the $10,000 to $20,000 range. (“Sitting pretty, as we say in the duck business,” Nancy told the owner.) Nancy adds, though, that many decoys carved and painted by unknown folk artists can sell for under $1,000, with many selling for just a few hundred dollars. And don’t be put off if you find a bird with a few pocks in its side. “Collectors are very reassured,” observes Nancy, “to see little shotgun marks on them, because then they know they are working with real decoys.”
2002 Antiques Roadshow Article
LINK
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/index.html
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