Bama Planter

Now that my English lady is sold, and three more restored paintings are on Ebay for sale, I walked around the house and photographed the oil portraits that are here.  Here is my family's Old Miss of the plantation, hanging in my library.  She was a kind soul.   Going up the stairs is the cousin who was a wealthy businesswoman, namely a saloon owner.   The 1790's portrait by an artist named Taylor Dean. My mysterious stranger.  He is shy and hard to photograph.  My Alabama Portrait.  Felix Taylor Taliaferro ( pronounced Tolliver in the  South).  He was a cotton merchant in Mobile, Alabama after the war.   His grandmother was a cousin to President Zachary Taylor.  He moved to Alabama and got married but later moved back and lived in Orange County, Virginia, and by 1900 was in Hudson, New Jersey.  His father was Edmund Pendleton Taliaferro and his mother Octavia Hortense Roberts...

Well, I sold her yesterday on Ebay. She was never happy here. I think being English, a log cabin in central Alabama wasn't her style. She went from wall to wall, room to room, but just didn't seem to fit in. She's moving to San Francisco,  and I can see a slight smile has formed on her face. Her eyes have a sparkle now. Understand, she never caused any trouble, never complained, never made any noise in the middle of the night. She patiently waited on me to realize that her time here was just a waiting game for something better. Maybe the ghosts of the plantation children who died in my house made her nervous.    Maybe the family portraits who actually belong  never welcomed her.     She was always an outsider. She's leaving tomorrow, and I do hope her new home far away in California will be everything she is looking for, and that at last she can find the contentment she so desperately sought but was denied here. (Update: My new buyer friend in San Fran...

This Saturday in Hanceville Alabama will be the place to go  for some fine Primitives.  How about seven pieces of Southern stoneware pottery?   I think back row number three has great color. An early cherry corner cupboard. If I bought this, I don't think I could ever sell it.  A Sheraton Work Table pre-1850.  A walnut pewter cupboard. Pretty spectacular. A walnut stepback cupboard that appears to have original  finish. The top should lift off the bottom for easier moving, but each part will still be heavy. I've never been to the Hanceville auction, don't know anyone there, so I want to see if the prices are cheap or sky high.  If the Atlanta or Nashville dealers show up,  forget it.  They never run out of money. 

While looking over the auctions for this weekend in Alabama,  I found some really good primitives that caught my attention. This baby cradle in pine with dove tails is really nice. It will be at  David Tims Auction in Pell City, Alabama.   For English and French antiques, his shop is the place to go, but if you like American prims, you can find some real gems there, also.  I love this Southern Walking Spinning Wheel,  going on the block at Whits Auction in Attalla, Alabama.  I used to think these were called "walking spinning wheels" because the legs looked like they were ready to walk across the floor.   Tasha Tudor said that it's the spinner who does the walking; that in a normal spinning session the spinner will walk back and forth for a mile or more . Maybe she was exaggerating a bit.   Whit's Auction is also offering this Federal mirror; circa. 1800 , I think.   They are a love-it-or-leave-it t...