SOUTHAMPTON, PA.- This year’s edition of Stephenson’s popular Spring Decorative Arts Auction will be held live at the company’s Southampton (suburban Philadelphia) gallery on Friday, May 31, with absentee and Internet live bidding available exclusively through LiveAuctioneers. The nearly-500-lot sale features fine and decorative artworks; Tiffany and other American silver; fine jewelry, and period furniture, including coveted midcentury modern productions. There are many other treasures for collectors to discover, mostly sourced from Philadelphia and other Mid-Atlantic estates and collections.

Twenty lots of old silver have come to Stephenson’s directly from the Chatham, New Jersey, estate of Dr Lincoln Pierson Brower (1931-2018), an eminent entomologist distinguished for his successful efforts to gain legal protection for the monarch butterfly. The silver goods include several Tiffany pieces and a desirable English kettle on stand produced by Hunt & Roskell, the Bond Street London jewelers and silversmiths who, for many years, held the Royal Warrant of Queen Victoria. Ornate and elegant, the circa-1844 kettle and companion stand bear multiple hallmarks and the maker’s mark of John Samuel Hunt. The total silver weight is 93.63ozt. Auction estimate: $2,000-$3,000. Also having provenance from the Brower estate are several unusual clocks, barometers and period furnishings.

Fine jewelry is a staple of every Stephenson’s Decorative Arts sale, as the auction company’s loyal following of buyers is well aware. One of the May 31 jewelry highlights is a 14K gold engagement ring of sophisticated style with a central 2.4-carat diamond, estimated at $3,000-$5,000. Also, as “on trend” as any jewelry style can be, a 14K gold rope-link chain necklace with alternating navette and circular links is entered with a $2,000-$3,000 estimate.

Several pieces of French Art Deco jewelry, as well as art and furniture, were sourced from the estate of Dr Joan DeJean, who was Trustee Professor Emerita of Romance Languages at the University of Pennsylvania. She previously taught French literature at Princeton and Yale. “Dr DeJean was a highly accomplished woman and a dyed-in-the-wool Francophile who grew up in a French-speaking family in Louisiana. She was also the author of twelve books and a pioneer in the feminist readings of French texts,” said Cindy Stephenson, owner of Stephenson’s Auction. “She had an apartment in on Rittenhouse Square in Center City Philadelphia as well as an apartment in Paris. Her appreciation for French design was reflected in the way she lived and the things with which she chose to surround herself.”

Among the auction items that belonged to the late professor is a late-19th-century lithographic poster designed by Alphonse Mucha (Czech, 1860-1939) as an advertisement for JOB Cigarette Papers. The immediately recognizable Art Nouveau image is of an ethereal woman with jeweled, flowing hair delicately holding a cigarette as smoke wafts around her. Its size is 21 x 16½ inches (sight), and the pre-sale estimate is $3,000-$5,000. Jewelry from the DeJean estate includes a red and black chrome-plated Art Deco necklace and bracelet set by Jakob Bengel, a leading German manufacturer of fashion jewelry in the 1920s/30s. The auction estimate is $250-$500.

A French-made Ligne Roset “Opium” model sectional sofa of midcentury modern design by Didier Gomez comes with provenance from a Society Hill (Center City Philadelphia) estate. It has a chrome base, pea-green upholstery and beautifully contrasting moss-green and pea-green pillows, with an attached “Ligne Roset Made in France” label. Estimate: $1,500-$2,500

Continuing in the modern aesthetic is a pair of white Italian Murano art glass egg-form lamps with chic diagonal accent swirls. The lamps were designed circa 1970s by Vetri and are both functional and fashionable. The lot estimate is $600-$800.

Also noteworthy is a 1912 Rookwood Pottery sculpture designed by Clement Barnhorn and depicting the Greco-Roman child sea-god Palaimon riding a dolphin. The piece is marked on its interior with the Rookwood logo and Shape #2019. Skillfully modeled and displaying an attractive gray/green glaze, it could make a splash when it crosses the auction block with a $1,000-$1,500 estimate.

Of a more traditional style, a substantial antique tiger maple butler’s chest with cabinet top is estimated at $600-$900, while a group lot of seven hand-colored engravings by Georg Balthasar Probst (German, 1732-1801) – from the estate of Dr Joan DeJean – has been cataloged with an $800-$1,000 estimate.