7
Provenance
Barbara and Bob Levine Collection
Barbara and Bob Levine are native Vermonters. For a while they lived in New York, and visited Vermont with their young
sons and golden retriever asleep in the back of the station wagon. On these trips, they frequented the many area antique
shops and what they found fostered their collecting bug, beginning with coin silver spoons.
As the family grew, the Levines’ taste for antiques matured. They began to concentrate on 18th and 19th century Vermont
furniture and decorative arts, including needlework samplers, clocks, and portraits by itinerant artists. Because of their grow-
ing interests, Barbara and Bob became involved on the collections committee and the board of trustees of the Bennington
Museum. Its outstanding exhibits of Vermont furniture further inspired their quest for hard-to-find authenticated Vermont
material, resulting in what is thought to be the largest private collection of Vermont furniture and decorative arts in the U.S.
Highlighting the Levine collection is a rare and important Federal tiger and bird’s-eye maple veneered bureau made in
Rutland, Vermont, c. 1805-15. Also featured is a needlework sampler made by Margaret Allen that may well be the earliest
piece of Vermont needlework in existence, and a decorative carved and gilded catamount figural tavern sign, probably made
in Bennington county, c. 1893. The figure was reportedly carved by a carousel figure carver for the 1893 Bennington, Ver-
mont, centennial celebration. A rare example of Vermont clock-making is the cherry shop wall regulator with an engraved
brass dial made by Levi Pitkin in Montpelier, Vermont, c. 1800. A rare portrait of a St. Albans woman by Ruth W. Shute
is the only known piece by this folk artist which bears a printed label: “Painted by Mrs. R.W. Shute St. Albans F[ebruary]
1835.”
Barbara and Bob, approaching their 80s, still spend time on Lake Bomoseen during the summer months. It is their hope
that this auction will give other Vermont lovers an opportunity to acquire the objects that the Levines have enjoyed collect-
ing for almost half a century.
Property Approved for Deaccession by the Board of Trustees of Historic Deerfield, Inc., proceeds to the benefit
the Museum Collections Fund.
A Massachusetts Historical Society
Connecticut collections
A Nantucket, Massachusetts, collection
A Concord, Massachusetts, antiquarian
A Lexington, Massachusetts, collection
A Maine estate
A Florida family
A Norwell, Massachusetts, estate
A Vermont family
A New York City collector
Property from the Collection of Joanne Forney
New Hampshire and New Jersey estates
A Michigan family
Property from a New York collection of American pottery