[Rarebooks] FS: Rarity from America's One Truly Great Auction House

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

If you are a certain age you remember that Sothey Parke Bernet (SPB) was
the forerunner of the American branch of the great English auction house
Sotheby's. If you are a certain age plus 10 or so years, you remember that
before SPB there was simply Parke-Bernet, the one truly great,
American-born auction house. This is their very first catalog-


TITLE: “Art Property of the Late Mr. & Mrs. Jay F. Carlisle, Comprising
the Entire Contents of Their Country Home ‘Rosemary’, East Islip, Long
Island, N.Y.”

The catalog to an auction held in New York by Parke-Bernet Galleries on
January 11-15, 1938.
Auction Sale #1.

DISCUSSION: The English and French furniture, sporting art, Flemish
tapestries, silver, glass, oriental rugs & art, Georgian silver,
Staffordshire and other porcelains, collected by Wall Street millionaire
Jay F. Carlisle and his wife, Mary (Pinkerton) Carlisle, daughter of the
founder of the famous detective firm. Leslie Hyam wrote a short
introduction to this catalog, and became positively lyrical about the
charms of ‘Rosemary’ and its furnishings. It was (according to Harry
Havemeyer in “Along the Great South Bay”)- “one of the showplaces of the
East and was decorated with the very finest antique furnishings in the
most tasteful way." Wesley Towner (“The Elegant Auctioneers”) says that
Jay Carlisle “had many friends, belonged to many clubs...his pallbearers
included Walter P. Chrysler and other notables. The furnishings at
‘Rosemary’ –the snuff boxes and ivory miniatures, the sporting prints and
tinkling wine glasses- had an aura all their own”.

That was a good thing for Hiram Parke and Otto Bernet, because just a
short time before the death of Jay Carlisle they had, with about 40 loyal
employees, walked out of the American Art Association-Anderson Galleries
after a power struggle with its owners, and set up on their own in
borrowed rooms. Mortgaging homes and life insurance policies, borrowing
from former clients and fellow dealers and throwing in their life savings,
the small group needed a magnificent event for their first sale- “It was
clear”, Towner relates, “that Providence had dispatched the Carlisle’s for
Parke’s convenience, and just in the nick of time. Hyam went out to Islip
with three teams of cataloguers. Stenographers worked double shifts,
driven by the exigencies of the cause. Photographers took pictures by day
and developed them by night, for the house was jammed with small objects
–rare Staffordshire, the bronze cowboys of Frederic Remington, a singing
bird fashioned out of silver. The mere numbering and sorting were
prodigious labors, for there were, when all counted, four thousand items.
And yet, somehow, the entire catalogue was turned out in a week, and
without an error.”

Nine thousand people previewed the sale, and the day of the auction the
400 seats in the hall were filled an hour before bidding began. The sale
was, needless to say, a roaring success, and the auction firm Parke-Bernet
was launched. A few months after the furnishings and decorations from
‘Rosemary’ were dispersed, the house torn was down, and the venerable
American Art Association-Anderson Galleries, bereft of Major Parke and
Otto Bernet, did not survive for too many more months than that.

DESCRIPTION: Softcover. 7.5”x10.5”, 287 pages, 1,541 lots, black & white
illustrations.

CONDITION NOTES: The covers have some wear and rips (please see the
photos, above and below). The interior has some minor wear and soil.

PRICE: $125-

SOME PICTURES =>

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JOSLIN HALL RARE BOOKS, ABAA
Fine books of the 16th-20th centuries
on the decorative and fine arts & design

Post Office Box 239
Northampton, Massachusetts 01061 USA
telephone (413) 247-5080

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<http://www.joslinhall.com>

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