Extraordinary Antiques in Washington, Conn.

WASHINGTON, CONN. - Even if they had not noticed the tall, colorful ribbon-bedecked whirligigs designed by Renny Reynolds that were fluttering in the breeze or the evening's spectacular outdoor light show by Barbara Bouyea, area residents knew that Bryan Memorial Town Hall was exactly where they wanted to be on the evening of Friday, September 30 - opening night for the Washington Connecticut Antiques Show.

Jean Chapin, executive director of the Gunn Memorial Library and Museum, called the show "the solo event in town," and indeed, it opened to a large, eager crowd at 6:30. Four hundred and sixty-five preview tickets to benefit the library had been sold in advance, leading show committee volunteer Fran Itkin to correctly predict that this was going to be their best year yet. Inside, 22 dealers from the United States and Canada, selected under the direction of co-chairs Sandra Elizabeth Canning and Rod Pleasants, had prepared a veritable autumnal feast of antiques.

To keep the momentum going, international designer Robert Couturier led a Saturday morning preshow walk-through. At 2 pm, Chris Giftos, former chief floral designer and manager of special events at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for 33 years, lectured as he assembled amazing floral arrangements that were later auctioned to benefit the library and museum.

Good things often come in pairs and Mark Thormahlen of Yellow Church Antiques, Millbrook, N.Y., brought a pair of William and Mary walnut and burlwood torcheres, circa 1620. The torcheres had Isle of Man legs and wonderful inlay on the tops. To set them off were two Louis the XVI-style giltwood mirrors. From the English Regency Period, the straddle chair on casters was for learned gentlemen who whiled away the hours, straddling the great leather seat and leaning forward with the book in front of them on a sliding book support. The leather was olive colored.

Sally Orent, Sayville, N.Y., also had a leather library chair from England, circa 1870. It was set close to the ground - once you got into the chair you probably wouldn't want to get out of it anyway - and had a long supportive curved back. While the chair itself predated Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books, one could certainly imagine lounging in that chair to read them now. A large painting of joyful hounds on the hunt (not the villains of Baskerville) also commanded attention. Sylvester Martin of Birmingham painted it. Orent also brought a sweet little mahogany jewel box, circa 1880, and an English papier mache collector's box, circa 1890, with mother-of-pearl inlay and many other fine smalls.

Cuhna-St John, Essex, Mass., had a set of four cast stone rococo-form urns filed with fruit and flowers that dated from 1925. One of the great pieces of folk art/Americana in the show was the stars and stripes shield with white iron stars on a blue field, red and white stripes, placed at the center of the back wall. It came from a Thomaston, Maine, barn and had good old paint.

Barry Strom, Litchfield, Conn., had a 6-foot, 8-inch Eighteenth Century Swedish Baroque cabinet in red paint that was dry-scraped in Sweden. It had its original hardware and keys, gorgeous lines and Spanish feet. "It probably came from Stockholm," said Strom. The interior of the cabinet was just as appealing, with interesting detail and two hidden-in-plain-view drawers. Strom also had a demilune console with a paint decorated floral motif top and ornate carving set off with pale gray paint and gilding.

John Thomas Thorpe, Esq, Lord Mayor of London, smiled knowingly at the patrons of the Washington Antiques Show from his grand portrait in the booth of Alexandra Kasmin, Pine Plains, N.Y. The portrait was the work of English artist Samuel Drummond (1765-1844), whose works are held in the Courtauld Institute of Art and the National Portrait Gallery, both of London.

Not quite at Thorpe's feet, but in the same booth, was a life-size greyhound in brown-glazed terra cotta, English, circa Nineteenth Century. A mahogany easel with svelte lines was also English, Nineteenth Century. All of the wonderful things in her booth gave Kasmin something to crow about, including the lead coq, French Nineteenth Century that had great movement and presence, standing at two and a half feet tall, and the three taxidermy roosters that flashed their attractive plumage. Kasmin sported a handsome rooster on her business card too.

Rhona Eleish of Eleish-Van Breems, Woodbury, Conn., decked her booth with Swedish copper. A small copper pot was stamped with initials, number and date of 1794, marking it as a possession of a noble family. Many vessels were identified this way. Eleish said, "Sweden was one of the first European countries to industrialize copper mining. Every one thinks of the French, but the Swedes were making extraordinary, large and thick copper vessels."

Much of her copper was displayed on a pure Baroque-style country table from the north of Sweden with one long drawer measuring 30 inches high with a 65-by-35-inch top. There was a Nineteenth Century copper star pudding mold with a handle and a lid. A ceremonial milking pail of copper was dated 1825. It was a gift to a lucky bride who would probably use it only for the Easter and Christmas milk said Eleish. An 1818 colorful Swedish wedding chest with a grain-painted red ground and blue-gray panels and floral decorative painting was a standout at the booth, while the gears and wheel of a wooden pine yarn winder had sculptural appeal. There was also a mangle board, baskets, and a wooden mortar and pestle. A large oil on canvas showed a hen and chicks, English School, circa 1830.

Mo Wajselfish, Leatherwood Antiques, Sandwich, Mass., hung a great selection of sailor's woolies at his booth. Sailors sewed images of their sailing ships to fill their idle hours, leaving us with fascinating relics of life out of the fast lane. He brought an oversized seashell in Majolica that served as a water/beverage container, French, late Nineteenth Century. Black Forest whip holders and gardening bears came in various sizes. Unusual dog-head jewelry musical boxes were Swiss, late Nineteenth Century.

Paulette Peden of Dawn Hill, New Preston, Conn., had four French metal stools in silver paint with Savonarola-style bases, a circa 1890 French chandelier with several tiers of crystal teardrop pendants. Her both featured a peasant-style rococo Swedish wedding chest in a great blue with orange/red accents painted KOD 1817 from Jämtland, Sweden, a mountainous province on the border of Norway. A Gustavian tall case clock had a carved half-star ornament at the top and ivory paint. A Gustavian period painted bench with traces of the original blue decoration, Sweden, circa 1790, was 74 inches long and covered with a white upholstery with blue stripes. At the center of the booth was a marble-top table with a curved iron base in white paint, French, late Nineteenth Century, surrounded by a set of four side chairs.

One of the most intriguing pieces at the show was a worn stone bust attached to its base with a pintle. The bust came from North Yorkshire and dated to the Eighteenth Century. Even without the nose, which had worn away, you could see a resemblance to Shakespeare. The dealer, Tracey Young of Elemental Garden, Woodbury, Conn., also had a large metal French wine rack in silver paint and a set of four lions with good lichen from a Georgian estate in Newcastle-upon Tyne. Each 38-inch-high lion sat on top of a 15-foot wall. There were three pairs of carved stone spheres from England, circa 1840.

A pair of Nineteenth Century French bronze sculptures of rather elegant farmers were signed Blavies and had been mounted as lamps in the booth of H.A. Mottai Antiques, Greenwich, Conn. One farmer carried a scythe; the other handled a plow and carried a rifle. A pair of laced English leather riding chaps, early Twentieth Century, overstuffed pillows, dog portraits, polo paintings gave the booth the air of a cozy country retreat. They also brought a wonderful marquetry box of the mid-Nineteenth Century that had a floral motif.

Up on the stage was the magnificent double booth of George Sergeant Antiques, LLC, Woodbury, Conn. A George III painted satinwood card table with spade feet had a rare concertina-action base, Tibats-signed hinges and a date of 1775. "I honestly believe it could be Thomas Chippendale the Younger," said Sergeant. The card table was decorated with an oval medallion featuring a classically posed woman playing the lyre and floral garland swag underneath the medallion, a bow over it. If you looked closely you could see that the artist had painted cards on the legs amidst the other decorations.

Sergeant also brought a George IV ebonized wardrobe in mahogany in three sections, seven drawers in the center section flanked by a pair of oversized cupboards, a Sabicu & Padouk sofa table, with drop leaves and two drawers, circa 1800, English, once in the Vanderbilt collection. An Eighteenth Century Italian console had a demilune shape, marble top and carved olive leaves on the skirt. When Sergeant found it, it was covered with dark green paint, which when removed revealed a delicate gray and gold, now fully restored. Another unusual piece was the high back walnut George I settee with hawk-head arms and six supporting legs.

Jill Fenichell, Bespoke Porcelain, Brooklyn, N.Y., was set up on the upper level with porcelain plates from Europe and Great Britain. Because she is hesitant about carting her porcelain around, the Washington show is one of just a handful of shows that she does, including The Connoisseurs' Antique Fair and The Ceramic Fair, both in New York City. A pair of plates from Naples had emblems of the muses, circa 1810. She brought selections of Limoges, Wedgwood and others. "The Washington Show was held in a charming location," said Fenichell after the show. "Opening evening was well attended. I reconnected with two decorators at the show. What did sell was Aesthetic Period ironstone."

Dana Kraus of Regalia was offering fine old pieces of jewelry by David Webb, Tiffany, Schlumberger, Verdura, Ostier, Van Cleef, Chanel and others. An unusual starfish brooch was 4 inches wide and was encrusted with coral decorations on gold over base metal. An exquisite Colombian five-carat emerald ring set in platinum carried a price tag in the high five figures. Her booth, like many others, was mobbed opening night.

Johnnycake Books, Salisbury, Conn., brought engraved plates from De Bronzi di Ercolano (The bronzes of Herculaeum), Vol. 2, Statuary, Naples, 1771, formed a border across the top of the booth, over the bookcases filled with rare and hard to find editions. One of the rare books brought was Some English Gardens by George S. Elgood R.T. and Gertrude Jekyll with lovely lithographs of gardens throughout. A 1904 first edition of American Estates and Gardens and an early map of Washington, Conn., were also tempting.

Selina vander Geest of NL-GB, Millbrook, N.Y., brought a fine drawings, watercolors, gouaches, and oils on paper. All of these originals were beautifully framed, some with gorgeous gold-lined mats cut by the same craftsman used by Prince Charles. A wonderful black chalk drawing of an owl by Ray Lambert was priced at just $550. "La nuit dans le Bois," was a narrative piece showing a campfire in the dark and mysterious woods with several figures clustered about an old man by illustrator Francois Fortune Antoine Ferogio. A set of brown ink and gouache tapestry designs from the Eighteenth Century were priced at $1,500 each. There was an appealing portrait of a Lakeland terrier by Elaine Diverly, black, white and red chalk on grey paper. A landscape by Edvard Quesnel, brown ink and wash on oval paper, small size, monogrammed, was Nineteenth Century, French.

It is no wonder that The Washington Connecticut Antiques Show continues to be such a draw for dealers and patrons alike. Extraordinary antiques and an appreciative clientele make for an enduring combination. Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the show.