High Hope Auction: The Estate of T. Ruben Jones

Auction: Saturday November 11, beginning at 11am

Auction Preview: Friday November 10, 10am-5pm AND Saturday November 11, beginning at 9am and lasting through the auction

Ahlers & Ogletree Auction Gallery is pleased to present a 1-day auction offering the Estate of Thomas Ruben Jones located on-site at his Georgia plantation estate, High Hope, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Mr. Jones' estate comprises a lifetime collection of period American and European antiques, fine art, and decorative arts.

The 44-acre plantation property known as High Hope was built as a model of Colonial Williamsburg and boasts a main house, guest house, tavern, chapel, gift shop, and post office that line the pea gravel streets of the private town. All lots in this rare, single-owner sale were collected by the Estate over the course of a lifetime and will be previewed in the buildings in which they have resided over the past several decades. 

Thomas Ruben Jones grew up in Paulding County, Georgia and graduated from Auburn University in 1952. In 1954 he became vice president of Longleaf Lumber Co. and later joined a partnership with his father and brothers in Jones Wood & Timber Corp., a pulpwood dealership. Ruben was a staunch and enthusiastic supporter of the arts, serving as chairman of the High Museum Friends of the Decorative Arts group and the Acquisition Trust as well as being a member of the Atlanta Historical Society and Antique Study Group, a club of recognized connoisseurs. As well as owning High Hope, Mr. Jones and his partner also purchased and restored the the Henry B. Tompkins house on West Wesley Road, a Neel Reid home built in 1923 that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
 

Notable items include 
period paintings by and after such artists as Sir Thomas Beech, Sir Peter Lely, Herbert Cyrus Farnum, Gilbert Stuart, and Sir Joshua Reynolds
32 sequential, unused panels of Zuber "Views of North America" wallpaper
a 1735 Chinese armorial charger from the Lee of Cotton service
a pair of signed maritime oil paintings by Richard Barnett Spencer
a Venetian Rococo Style carved giltwood bed dated 1772
a 19th C. New York Classical carved mahogany pier table
a Royal Worcester Queen Charlotte pattern partial dessert service
a portrait from the Studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds
a collection of English agateware & salt glazed teapots
a New York Federal mahogany secretary bookcase
an English Regency hall lantern with bird regulator
a Southern Federal inlaid hunt board
a Qing Dynasty porcelain bud vase
2 period banjo clocks