PHILADELPHIA.- Freeman's annual December sale of Fine American & European Paintings has become a can't-miss event for serious art collectors around the country and overseas, especially those with an interest in the Pennsylvania Impressionists. This year's sale will contain the sixth annual section devoted to works by Artists of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, led by Daniel Garber's "Quarries at Byram" ($300,000-500,000), the final remaining work removed from the artist's home and studio at Cuttalossa. This large (35-5/8 x 44 in.) Garber landscape carries an extensive provenance and exhibition history, including important shows at the Carnegie Institute, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, The Art Institute of Chicago and the St. Louis Museum of Fine Art (now known as the St. Louis Art Museum). The work also will be included in the upcoming exhibition, "Daniel Garber: Romantic Realist" at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which opens to the public on January 27, 2007.

Other Pennsylvania Impressionist pieces in the sale include important works by Edward Redfield and Fern Coppedge. Redfield's "A Misty Morning" came to Freeman's through a private New Jersey collection and is presented in a Harer frame. Estimated at $200,000-300,000, this spring scene is one of two Redfield works in the sale. "The Delaware Valley" by Fern Coppedge, one of the finest examples of her work to have appeared at auction, also is estimated at $200,000-300,000 and is one of four works by the artist in the sale.

Also in the section are two seascapes by William Trost Richards, several paintings by Walter Schofield, three paintings by Roy Nuse and a painting by George Sotter, "A Winter's Night by the Delaware Canal," estimated at $30,000- 50,000.

The sale's American section is led by a 44 x 43-3/4 in. oil on canvas by Norman Rockwell entitled "The Silhouette," estimated at $100,000-150,000. This depiction of a Colonial silhouette artist and his model was illustrated in the February 1931 issue of Ladies' Home Journal and has been exhibited at the McNay Art Institute in San Antonio and in the 1972 exhibition "Norman Rockwell: A Sixty Year Retrospective" at the M.H. De Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco.

Other American highlights include "Plowing Time" by William Langson Lathrop ($30,000-50,000); a Theodore Wores Japanese scene, "The Candy Seller," estimated at $15,000-25,000; and works by John George Brown, William Gilbert Gaul, William Merritt Chase, John La Farge, Franz Arthur Bischoff, Patrick Henry Bruce and Charles Rosen.

A private collector in Maryland consigned what is anticipated to be the top lot in the European section, a work by the Austrian artist Rudolf Ernst depicting a flamingo with obvious designs upon an Arab gentleman's plate of food. Entitled "Avaricious Eyes," the piece is expected to sell for $80,000- 120,000. Also of note are works by Richard Cosway, Nicolas de Gyselaer, Angelo Zoffoli, Hermann David Salomon Corrodi, Federico del Campo, Charles Theodore Frere, Rudolf Gustave Muller, Ferdinand Loyen du Puigaudeau and Bernardus Johannes Blommers, the 19th century Dutch artist whose "The Toy Boat" is expected to sell for $15,000-25,000.