Fair Weather A Friend At 52nd Winter Antiques Show

NEW YORK CITY

: "Anything that had to be moved with a forklift stayed until the show closed," said Barbara Israel. The noted dealer in European and American garden antiques faced a dilemma this year: how to restock her all-but-sold-out display of heroically scaled fountains, statuary, benches, urns and planters.

For 73 other exhibitors at the 52nd Winter Antiques Show, replacing inventory during the course of the vetted, ten-day fair, which closed at the Seventh Regiment Armory on January 29, was only slightly less challenging. Hefty end-of-year bonuses, mild weather, and more receptions and special events than ever triggered a boom in attendance and sales. Receipts benefited the Winter Antiques Show's sponsor, the 115-year-old East Side House Settlement.

"Our opening night revenue increased 28 percent, surpassing $1 million. The gate was up nearly 60 percent on the first weekend. Attendance through the course of the show was about 22,000, a 25 percent increase," said the show's executive director, Catherine Sweeney Singer. Especially successful was the standing-room-only Designer's Night and a Museum Night, to be expanded upon next year. To promote the fair, Saks Fifth Avenue donated 11 display windows.

"I've never seen such exciting material. It's a balanced show in terms of both content and pricing," Winter Antiques Show Chairman Arie Kopelman said shortly before the Thursday, January 19, evening preview began. Americana accounted for 30 percent of the displays. The balance of the diverse fair ranged from antiquities to Twentieth Century design.

This year's loan exhibition, "George Washington's Mount Vernon" and Christie's coincidental sale of Charles Willson Peale's "George Washington at Princeton" for $21.3 million helped put the spin on American furniture, painting and folk art, three categories that sold especially well. Around the floor, flower-filled boxwood hedges reminiscent of those at Washington's Virginia home set a gracious tone for the displays, many of which included Washington artifacts and memorabilia.

Kenneth W. Rendell Gallery offered Washington letters and documents from $22,500 and up. Hirschl & Adler Galleries featured French-made Washington clocks, Chinese Export porcelain from the Washington Memorial service and Washington portraits, including a circa 1820 Rembrandt Peale oil on canvas likeness, $950,000. A circa 1850 Washington parade hat was $28,000 at James and Nancy Glazer.

Sumpter Priddy's burlap-lined walls provided an earthy backdrop for a 1755-60 walnut hairy paw-foot desk probably from the Rappahannock, Va., shop of Robert Walker, maker of a flamboyant easy chair in the Mount Vernon loan display. The Alexandria, Va., dealer sold a Richmond, Va., easy chair akin to one at Colonial Williamsburg, a Campeche chair and a slew of paintings.

One of four new exhibitors, Alexander Gallery returned after a 13-year absence with a 1796 portrait of George Washington by Philadelphia painter William Clarke, a huge John Frederick Kensett landscape and a charming oil portrait of a squirrel by John Woodhouse Audubon, son of the famous ornithological artist.

"It's been squirreled away since the 1940s," quipped Alexander Acevedo.

Among other new exhibitors were American furniture specialist Charles Pollak, who sold a New Hampshire Federal shelf clock attributed to Abner Jones of Weare, N.H.; David Wheatcroft; and Jan Whitlock.

Missing were Gary Young and Georgian Manor Antiques. Both were popular fixtures who specialized in smaller scale English furniture and novel accessories. Georgian Manor's Enrique Goytizolo, a 29-year Winter Show veteran who took a leave of absence to care for his ailing wife, looks forward to returning. Young has retired from the show.

"We've sold in every category: five pieces of furniture including a splay leg table, our decorated clock, a blanket chest, a dressing table and a miniature Soap Hollow chest. We also sold a Sheldon Peck portrait in a shaped frame, drawings by Braider and Fritz Vogt, and fish and horse weathervanes," said David Wheatcroft, one of several specialists in American folk art who sold exceedingly well.

"Most of my business was on opening weekend but the crowds never let up. We had lots of interested people come through every day," said Jan Whitlock, who created a cozy bedroom-cum-fireplace. The Delaware dealer's many sales included all of her cobalt-decorated stoneware and a large, late Nineteenth Century pictorial hooked rug. Her first sale, to fellow exhibitor Titti Halle of Cora Ginsburg, LLC, was a York County, Penn., center medallion quilt pieced from Indienne cotton prints. Cora Ginsburg's display featured an Eighteenth Century painted and dyed cotton Indian palampore for the British or American market.

Embroidery specialists Stephen and Carol Huber mingled American and English examples. A circa 1810 silk embroidery of Adalaide and Fonrose was $22,000; a charming Portsmouth, N.H., allegorical depiction of "Hope" with painted details by George Dame, $60,000; and a rare miniature coat of arms of the Lambert family of Salem, Mass., circa 1750, $85,000.

Larger textiles included several very rare collectors' items at Peter Pap, whose inventory ranged from a Seventeenth Century Portuguese Arraiolos needlepoint rug, $75,000; to an Eighteenth Century Indian Deccan rug, $85,000, made for the Japanese market and acquired in Japan, still accompanied by its labeled wood storage box. The carpet is a previously unrecorded example of a type occasionally shown in Japanese paintings of Kyoto's pleasure district.

In Jan Whitlock's display, an early yarn sewn and shirred lion rug, based on the print source that inspired the iconic feline in Edward Hicks's paintings, corresponded with an actual "Peaceable Kingdom" at Peter and Jeffrey Tillou. The Litchfield, Conn., dealers, who distributed more than 500 copies of their new 100-page catalog at the show, parted with the seven-figure painting on opening night.

"We've sold across the board," Jeffrey Tillou confirmed, ticking off sales that included a circa 1920 weathervane of a polo player that exhibitor Guy Bush bought and promptly resold.

"I really wanted to take it to the Palm Beach show," said a mildly disappointed John Lapinski, who works with Bush.

"It's been our best show ever," said Fred Giampietro, who parted with a merganser decoy marked $550,000 and a circa 1890 J.W. Fiske horse and sulky weathervane, $95,000, along with stag weathervane, a Howard Index horse, a painted chest, a scarecrow mannequin, a bust of William Seward, a cigar store figure, a heron decoy and watercolors.

"It's been a great year for American folk art," said David Schorsch. The Woodbury, Conn., dealer and his partner, Eileen Smiles, sold a grain-painted Cape Cod blanket chest and their Thatcher family Windsor chairs, $650,000.

Said Schorsch, "I paid $61,000 for the chairs in 1981 when I was 17, got them back in 1992 and again this summer."

Olde Hope Antiques parted with two weathervanes, including an A.L. Jewell centaur vane marked $210,000; a Mahantango chest dated 1831; a Nova Scotia painted school master's desk; Columbia and George Washington stove figures, marked $32,500 each; a pastel portrait of a woman in white; a settee; hooked rugs; and many smaller items.

There was a nucleus of exhibitors in ethnographic art. The Belgian dealer Conru sold New Guinean and South African artifacts; New York dealer Throckmorton wrote up a carved Mayan limestone; and Canadian dealer Donald Ellis parted with 28 objects, including a circa 1870 Vancouver Island sun mask. The centerpiece of Santa Fe dealer Morning Star Gallery's display was an 1860 Nez Perce war shirt, $225,000.

Given the Winter Show's insistence on the best across a spectrum of disciplines, many exhibitors find themselves enchanted by objects outside their normal purview. Olde Hope's Pat Bell, for instance, admired a sarcophagus at Safani Gallery, where an ancient Egyptian mask sold on opening night. Another antiquities dealer, Rupert Wace of London, reported sales of Egyptian and Coptic art. The Middle Ages and Renaissance largely belonged to Richard Philp, a London dealer who sold two Fifteenth Century Siennese paintings on panel, displayed alongside a Seventh Century Khmer sandstone torso, $21,000.

The Khmer torso aside, Asian art is thinly represented at the Winter Show by a handful of specialists. Longtime exhibitor Ralph M. Chait Galleries sold a Fourteenth Century Chinese sculpture of a priest and a Ming figure of a Buddha, while sculpted figures, some in jade, were also popular at Chinese art dealer Roger Keverne. The lone Japanese dealer, Joan Mirviss, featured a rare, circa 1820 two-fold screen, $58,000, by Kitagawa Fujimaro. Among the dealers in Chinese trade goods, Martyn Gregory featured a rare portrait by a Jesuit artist and a large, early painting of the hongs of Canton, $240,000. Chinese Export porcelain dealer Elinor Gordon sold a can, cup and saucer, $18,500, from the Manigault family of Charleston, S.C.

English and French furniture were in shorter supply, though overall both Mallett and Malcolm Franklin were pleased with results. Mallett sold three tables and a pair of pedestals; Chicago dealer Malcolm Franklin parted with a Queen Anne walnut chest-on-chest, a William and Mary chest of drawers, a Regency overmantel mirror, a blanket chest and a serpentine front commode.

Acknowledging the boost that the Americana market receives from Manhattan's January whirl of events, Sweeney-Singer said she was reviewing ways to increase attention to other specialties. She added, "We plan to keep the show eclectic."

Elle Shushan, Carswell Rush Berlin and Historical Design took pains with their displays. Working with interior designer Ralph Harvard, Shushan created to an homage to her hometown, New Orleans. Appointed with furniture and lighting on loan from Hirschl & Adler and a made-to-order Brussels carpet, her diminutive replica of Royal Street's 1857 Gallier House contained portrait miniatures, among them the exquisite "Rebecca Power," $16,000, by Edward Greene Malbone.

"We took a big step away from a period room setting this year with neutral, contemporary walls and floors. The result is a very strong design statement," said Carlie Berlin. The effort paid off for the New York dealer in American classical furniture, who sold a library table attributed to Isaac Vose and Son; a pair of mirrors; a set of ten carved mahogany chairs attributed to Duncan Phyfe; and a sofa. Another sofa and an armchair were on hold at fair's end.

"The show had enormous energy this year," said American furniture dealer Leigh Keno, who wrote up a Boston Queen Anne tray-top tea table that once belonged to pioneering collector C.K. Davis; a superb Philadelphia rococo side chair; a Boston Federal painted and eglomise bridal shelf clock; a Prior-Hamblin portrait of a child; and an initialed and dated 1803 inlaid sideboard, probably from Providence, R.I., from the same shop as one formerly in the Kaufman collection. Keno sold the related sideboard at the Philadelphia Antiques Show several years ago.

A virtuoso example of a Vermont grain-painted four-drawer chest, $495,000, in contrasting brown and mustard was among the stars at Wayne Pratt, Inc. Illustrated in Dean Fales' American Painted Furniture, the circa 1825 South Shaftsbury piece is from a group attributed to Thomas Matteson.

"Years ago it belonged to my parents," recalled Massachusetts dealer Bill Samaha. "The Midwest collector who bought it kept asking my father about the wood. Exasperated, he finally told her, 'You don't want this piece.' She bought it anyway and it remains a treasure."

Open grid shelving in red, white and blue made for a Mondrian-like display at Historical Design, whose installation set the pace for other dealers in late Nineteenth and Twentieth Century design.

Associated Artists sold a Hall & Son fire screen and a Daniel Pabst Modern Gothic sideboard; Macklowe Gallery, a Tiffany lamp, Zsolnay pottery and a Bernard Hoetger bronze of Loie Fuller; and Geoffrey Diner Gallery sealed the deal on a Tiffany hanging lamp.

"It's been a most interesting show," said Beth Cathers, an exhibitor for the past 12 years. Cathers & Dembrosky sold a Teco vase design by Hugh Garden, 1903. Other highlights included a 1901 Newcomb large-scale, high-glazed sculpted vase; a unique, 1902 Gustav Stickley corner cabinet; and a 1901 leather-top Stickley splay legged table.

Fine art ranged from Margaret Macdonald Macintosh's "Mysterious Garden," shown with a Charles Rennie Mackintosh side chair, $55,000, at The Fine Art Society of London, to Antonio Jacobsen's "Sidewheeler Connecticut" of 1889 at Hyland Granby Antiques. The latter sold on opening night to Geoffrey Paul, an owner of the Griswold Inn in Essex, Conn. The Connecticut once docked near the Gris, as it is affectionately known.

New Haven, Conn., dealer Thomas Colville's outstanding array of late Nineteenth Century American painting included the newly acquired "The Old Oak, Medfield, Massachusetts," an oil on canvas of circa 1875 by George Inness; tiny Whistler sketches; and "Fireside Dreams," a watercolor of his dogs by Connecticut artist J. Alden Weir.

Recently rediscovered in England, "Hollyhocks" by John Singer Sargent was the centerpiece of Adelson Galleries' display.

"We've sold a number of Currier & Ives prints. People are looking for value," said print dealer Robert Newman of The Old Print Shop, which created the antiquarian market for the classically American works.

Jonathan Trace and S.J. Shrubsole covered the silver market, Trace selling several Baltimore pieces on opening night, Shrubsole parting with two pairs of Georgian candelabra and a Boston tankard by John Coney.

After the 2006 Winter Antiques Show, what for an encore?