Treasures of Americana: Pook & Pook’s October Sale
From rare Philadelphia Chippendale to Brandywine School masterpieces, Pook & Pook’s October 1–3 Americana auction showcases over 1,000 lots drawn from five renowned private collections.
The October 1-3, 2025, Americana sale at Pook & Pook is one of our largest to date. The five exceptional collections that form the nexus of the sale feature a trove of antiques and art held privately for decades. The auction encompasses everything from important 18th-century Philadelphia Chippendale furniture to 20th-century modernism and Art Nouveau. Our geographical location, rich in antiques and art, is represented by the artists of the Brandywine School, Philadelphia Chippendale furniture, Windsor chairs, and Delaware Valley and Pennsylvania German furniture and decorative arts.
Brian & Elizabeth Topping collected fine early Philadelphia furniture, early American needlework, silver, and Chinese Export. The first 200 lots of the sale are devoted to their elegant collection, which features a Philadelphia Chippendale walnut dressing table, ca. 1770, descended in the family of Captain Samuel Morris (1734-1812) of the First City Troop. A diminutive Berks or Lebanon County painted pine dower chest, late 18th c., is an exceedingly rare size. The many fine needle works include examples from the Misses Patten School, Miss Glovers School, and a Burlington County, New Jersey Quaker sampler wrought by Martha Rudderow in 1830. Over twenty lots in the collection are devoted to Georgian silver.
The collection of Yvonne De Paulis and the late Carl De Paulis, of New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, focuses on early Pennsylvania German furniture, redware, metalwork, and decorative arts. Highlights are two Pennsylvania sulphur-inlaid walnut blanket chests, made for Magtalena Fischborn and Lutwig Fischborn, dated 1781 and 1783. While held privately, these chests are familiar to readers of Chipstone, in which they have been illustrated. There is a fine selection of painted furniture and lamps by John Long and Peter Derr.
The Randy Anderson Collection of Dover, Delaware, contains a tour-de-force assemblage of Brandywine School artwork. The commanding oil on canvas Randerson Kills Prickett, an illustration for Charles Alden Seltzer’s 1916 Western novel The Range Boss, is near the top of Frank Earle Schoonover’s oeuvre. The collection boasts multiple works by Schoonover and fellow Brandywine School artists Stanley Massey Arthurs and Gayle Porter Hoskins. A large charcoal drawing by N.C. Wyeth, The Ballad of Robin Hood, is the study for the painting of the same title held in the Brandywine River Museum. The collection is equally strong in furniture: a rare Peter Stretch William & Mary walnut tall case clock, ca. 1725, has a sarcophagus bonnet with intricate blind fretwork, and a Pennsylvania Chippendale walnut bonnet top high chest, with shell and foliate carving, is attributed to the shop of Samuel Harding.
The Collection of Jo and Jim Adams of York County, Pennsylvania, contains a treasure trove of 18th-century Americana, with many objects of Pennsylvania interest, including a Wilhelm Schimmel spread-winged eagle. Among the early American instruments are some exciting lots, including an Isaac Chandlee brass surveyor’s compass and the surgical tool kit of Dr. Henry Carpenter of Lancaster. Carpenter was President James Buchanan's personal physician. A fine collection of powder horns, swords, pistols, and rifles features an American flintlock pistol attributed to Jacob Kuntz. Other pistol makers include James Walsh, John Shuler, and Frederick Sell. Two excellent spice chests include Pennsylvania Queen Anne walnut with tombstone door, and Chester County line and berry inlaid examples. A rare Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806) almanac, Banneker’s New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanac, dated 1795, is one of the rarest and most desirable of the author’s works. Banneker was a mostly self-taught African American astronomer, mathematician, surveyor, and author, and helped lay out the grid for the Federal Territory, now Washington, D.C.
The Baltzell Family Collection features an important J.W. Fiske zinc Neptune fountain, ca. 1898, one of the very few surviving examples known, and a trove of fine Baltimore repousse silver castle pattern tableware. A William Robinson Leigh oil on board Western landscape with cowboys titled Sunset, is one of many artworks.
A selection of the most important objects in the sale are drawn from private collections, including a Mahantongo Valley, Pennsylvania, painted poplar slant front desk, with extensive decoration, exhibition history, and Ralph O. Esmerian provenance, and a Berks County painted pine dower chest attributed to the “Black Unicorn Artist”, and dated 1787, with Richard and Rosemarie Machmer provenance. Paintings feature works by Grandma Moses, George Cope, Mary Elizabeth Price, Diego Rivera, William Trost Richards, and many others. There are many fine weathervanes drawn from several collections, including the rare form of a cast and tinned iron Firemen’s speaking trumpet and helmet, ca. 1890, with extensive exhibition history. Furniture that serves as sculpture includes a Paul Evans Stalagmite dining table and standing floor lamps by Tiffany Studios, Edward F. Caldwell, Wilhelm Hunt Diederich, and Tommi Parzinger. Collections of silver, Delft chargers, and Chinese Export porcelain compose large portions of the sale.
Featuring over one thousand lots, there are many remarkable and memorable objects. Please join us for a preview, beginning Saturday, September 27. The following week's schedule is preview Monday and Tuesday, September 29-30, and the auction Wednesday through Friday, October 1-3. For more information, visit www.pookandpook.com or call (610) 269-4040. Online bidding and phone, absentee, and live salesroom are available for all three sessions. (610) 269-4040.