John Jelliff Pieces Coming Up at Neal Auction

Jul 03 2008

John Jellif Furniture Prices Dropping or Anomaly?

Published by RareVictorian at 8:29 am under Auction, Ebay Antiques

I will be checking the results of the above attributed John Jelliff 4-piece parlor set after the July 12th Neal Auction sale is over. The 8-piece set that recently sold at Cowan’s drew a disappointing $2,600. Maybe there was a structural issue with one or more of the pieces as was mentioned in the forum or maybe it was something else. You might be interested to see a closed-arm version of this sofa here.

I’m wondering if the fact that it was 8-pieces vs. 4 or 6 was a deterrent in this particular case. I commend Cowan’s for keeping the large set together and not breaking it up across multiple lots. I would guess that not too many households have the space to accommodate a matching 8-piece set. I would have cleared out my Parlor of mismatched sofas, chairs, and sell the pool table to make room for a matching 8-piece set if I knew it was to be sold for $2,600.

There will be a few more data points for us as well coming up in the Neal sale. A sofa design that had previously sold for $5,750 alone at their December 2007 sale will also be coming up again and is pictured below. Pre-auction estimate is set at $1,500 to $2,500 and I don’t expect it to reach anywhere near the $5,750 of the prior sale due to a vast difference in upholstery quality.

And if that is not enough, there is yet another sofa which is part of a broken up suite (chairs & armchairs) attributed to Jelliff coming up in this sale (below) and a separate pair of armchairs. Last time Neal had such a flurry of Jelliff-attributed pieces, the sale saw very strong prices.

On a parting note, Jelliff afficianados might appreciate this sofa attributed to him from a 2005 sale that looks like what I would imagine a collaboration between Jelliff and George Hunzinger would produce. I don’t know if it truly is a Jelliff, but it is an interesting sofa nonetheless.

Tags: armchair, John Jelliff, Neal Auction, parlor set, Sofa

5 Responses to “John Jellif Furniture Prices Dropping or Anomaly?”

# LISE BOHMon 03 Jul 2008 at 12:20 pm

Jelliff furniture in rosewood commands a higher price. I believe this set was walnut and not as desirable.
# RareVictorianon 03 Jul 2008 at 12:40 pm

Yes, true on the Rosewood. But even Walnut can be up there in some instances as the $5,750 sofa was Walnut.
# Charleson 03 Jul 2008 at 12:56 pm

I am wondering also if it is not just Jellif–will be interesting to watch as the economic issues continue to see if that is an underlying issue in the pricing of all high end antiques or if this is a Jellif centric issue.
# Michadi Antiqueson 03 Jul 2008 at 4:25 pm

I believe that Charles may be correct. We specialize primarily in upper-middle to high end American Victorian Furniture and have seen sales drop to zero in recent months. Fortunately this is not my primary source of income, otherwise my family would be hurting. People tend to pull back on discretionary spending as the economy heads south, and art (which is really what antique furniture represents) certainly falls into that category.

Michael
# james conradon 04 Jul 2008 at 4:29 pm

yup, there are deals in antique furniture across the board if one believes the dealers i am in contact with. It doesnt seem to matter if its victorian, early american, shaker, colonial, etc. There has never been in my life time a better time to buy middle market antique furniture, no matter which style.