Canada’s National Post tells of the surprise discovery of a second Paulding Farnham vase:
A second, identical version of the 108-year-old objet d’art has come to light in the U.S., along with a previously unknown document that details how master American jewelry designer Paulding Farnham — dubbed Tiffany’s Lost Genius in a recent biography — created two massive vases as his tribute to a British Columbia mining operation that would, alas, lead him eventually to financial disaster and marital ruin.
The newly discovered Ptarmigan Vase — titled for the silver bird perched on its rim and the B.C. mine site of the same name — is to be auctioned at Sotheby’s Jan. 20-21 sale of important Americana, with an estimated upper value of US$600,000.
The vase sold last year had a pre-sale estimate of between $80,000 and $120,000, but was purchased by the Ottawa-based gallery for US$662,500 after a fierce bidding battle.
Long-lost twin emerges for National Gallery of Canada’s ‘unique’ $650K ‘Ptarmigan Vase’ (National Post)
