Connoisseur's Antiques Fair Backers Works Hard To Get Its Message Out

NEW YORK CITY

:Prettier than ever, the Connoisseur's Antiques Fair opened for five days at the Gramercy Park Armory at Lexington and 28th Street on Wednesday, November 16, with a preview party benefiting the library of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

Managed by Caskey-Lees of Topanga, Calif., the show is organized by the Art and Antique Dealers League of America, the nation's oldest continuing antiques trade association.

"The purpose of the fair is to promote the league and to educate the public about vetting," said Robert Israel, the league's president and an owner of 65-year-old Kentshire Galleries in New York. "From that perspective, we're pleased with the results."

Attendance declined both this year and last, after gaining in 2003. Manager Liz Lees said that Caskey-Lees shows on both coasts had experience soft gates this fall, but that sales in the West have been strong.

This year's drop in attendance was particularly perplexing, given good preshow publicity, including a favorable review in The New York Times. Organizers are evaluating everything from the show's timing - midway between the International and Winter Shows, the two events the Connoisseur's Fair most resembles - to the venue. One perennial suggestion is that the Connoisseur's Antiques Fair move uptown, a likelihood if the right facility becomes available.

"It's my strong feeling that the league will repeat the show next year," Robert Israel said afterwards.

"The antiques business requires faith. This is one of the best shows around. I'm completely committed to both it and to my colleagues," said Clinton Howell, the league's vice president.

In a world of copy-cat shows, the Connoisseur's Antiques Fair is unique. Most of its 49 exhibitors are league members and some participate in few if any other shows. All exhibitors are American. Both conservative and high-style, the Connoisseur's Fair emphasizes English and Continental furniture, Asian art and ceramics, paintings and works on paper. With fewer exhibitors, this year's fair had an open, airy feeling appropriate to its reputation for high-quality antiques in an understated and welcoming environment.

Celebrating its 40th anniversary this fall, English furniture specialist Hyde Park Antiques sold a pair of George III Gothic side chairs and a sofa table.

Clinton Howell, the New York dealer in English furniture, combined a circa 1745 English walnut open armchair, $65,000, and a late Eighteenth Century Chinese lacquered eight-part screen, $265,000. Another leading dealer in English furniture, Dillingham & Company, featured a circa 1710-20 Anglo-Dutch walnut bureau-bookcase, $78,000.

When Vermont dealers John Fiske and Lisa Freeman published Living With Early Oak, they touched off a revival of interest in the English furniture that was hugely popular in the 1920s. Some collectors today, says Fiske, "find mahogany too formal and oak more friendly and relaxed to live with." A circa 1690 cherrywood and ebony chest of drawers on ball feet, $25,000, was a highlight of their 30-foot stand, made to resemble a quaint, half-timbered Tudor interior.

Antiques reflecting global trade and cross-cultural exchange were everywhere. George Subkoff's exotic display mingled a China Trade blockfront bureau bookcase, $120,000, of huang huali wood with a reverse-painted glass panel; six Indian "Company School" watercolor portraits for the colonial French market; and a pair of Paktong shell-base taper candlesticks, circa 1760-70, $6,500.

Running Battle Antiques of Millbrook, N.Y., featured a rare gouache on paper portrait of "The Fiery Cross," $75,000, a ship in Nagasaki harbor by Japanese port painter O-Chi-Yai. The painting was ex-collection of Norm Flayderman.

At Philip Suval, Inc, a rare, circa 1710 Imari-pattern armorial water bottle, $9,500, with the arms of Dr Walker, joined two rare bianco-sopre-bianco underdishes, $12,000, for the Indian market and a plate, $3,800, in the same pattern. More of the pattern, which features a Mughal rider on an elephant, could be found at Imperial Oriental Art of New York.

Jill Fenichell unveiled a single-owner collection of blue and white Chinoiserie-decorated Worcester.

"I made ten sales," said Peter Rosenberg of Vallin Galleries, one of several exhibitors who reported good shows. The dealer in Chinese art sold jade, Celadon, blue and white Kraak porcelain and the two huge cabinets.

New York dealer Arnold H. Lieberman presented Buddhist and Hindu antiquities, including a circa Eleventh Century central Indian beige sandstone stele with avatars of Vishnu and a First to Second Century central Indian red sandstone torso of a king.

Liza Hyde was au courant with antique Japanese screens, Nakashima furniture and rustic Japanese stoneware. Honolulu dealer Robyn Buntin featured a large Taisho Period bijin painting on silk by Okamoto Taiko.

The biggest revelation was Jon Eric Riis, an Atlanta dealer in antique Chinese textiles and costumes. A master weaver himself, Riis is featured in the Fall 2005 issue of Shuttle Spindle Dyepot. Riis's "Coat For Icarus," a brilliant persimmon-colored tapestry jacket shot with gilt-metal threads, was one of the most extravagantly beautiful pieces in the fair.

In the fine arts department, choice selections ranged from a moody oil study of Venice's Santa Maria Salute from the Grand Canal by Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema at Connecticut dealer Mia Weiner, to William A. Bougereau's "Premieres Caresses" at Rehs Galleries, to early modernist paintings by the American John Marin and the Englishman Ivon Hitchens at Yew Tree House Antiques.

Medievalist Blumka Galleries was in a class by itself with "The Nativity," a South Netherlands silk and wool tapestry of circa 1500.

For the handful of Americana dealers, scarcity can work to their advantage. Dorset, Vt., furniture dealer Judd Gregory stood out with a circa 1750 Queen Anne Rhode Island or Connecticut secretary desk, $32,500.

New to the fair, Pennsylvania dealer Jeff Bridgman sold his centerpiece, a rare Lincoln-Hamlin campaign banner, plus ten antique American flags.

Another handsome addition was Collins Gallery, specialists in antique Persian rugs for connoisseurs. The Massachusetts dealer recently moved to Watertown.

"I give this show a thumb's up," said book dealer David J. Fandetta, echoing the views of many. "The gate was light and sales reflected it. Even so, the League and Caskey-Lees run a top-flight operation. The preview was well-attended. Our colleagues are a joy to be with and the paying public was appreciative."