Barbara Israel Garden
Antiques, Katonah, N.Y.
Americana
Week in Review:
By Laura Beach, photos by R. Scudder Smith
NEW YORK CITY
"This year is very special. We're back in the Armory," said show
chairman Arie L. Kopelman, welcoming visitors to the opulent
display featuring 70 exhibitors from the United States and
Europe.
"You would have thought we were asking people to go to Detroit,"
show spokesman Leelee Brown said of last year's temporary
quarters at the Hilton Hotel on Sixth Avenue. There was little
such hesitancy this year. Collectors came, admired and bought.
"We had over 3,000 visitors yesterday, a record in recent years
for an opening Saturday," show director Catherine Sweeney Singer
said from the floor on Sunday afternoon. "On Friday, we had 2,000
people, which is above a year ago. Today, the gate has already
hit 2,000."
Sponsored by Elle Decor magazine and presided over by
power couple Diane von Furstenburg and Barry Diller, the honorary
co-chairmen, the opening night preview party was packed with
collectors from around the country, socialites and the occasional
celebrity, including New York's millionaire mayor, Michael
Bloomberg.
As if compensating for the weak economy, dealers redoubled their
efforts to entice buyers by mounting displays of exceptional
quality and interest.
Wayne Pratt's booth was an ingenious replica of a 16-foot Maine
interior with painted plaster walls by Rufus Porter. Pratt is
offering the original for $275,000. What the Woodbury, Conn.,
dealer reasonably called "the best sideboard in America," a
fancifully inlaid, serpentine example by Nathan Lombard, was
priced "in the six figures."
Commissioned to sell the piece by the Shaker Museum,
Massachusetts dealers Suzanne Courcier and Robert Wilkins
featured a monumental Shaker cupboard chest, $124,500, from
Hancock, Mass.
"Adam and Eve," a 1504 engraving by Albrecht Dürer, was $630,000
at Hill-Stone Incorporated. It is the first copy on the market in
30 years, said dealer Alan Stone.
Hirschl & Adler's booth was dominated by a large
marble-topped gueridon. One of two labeled examples known by New
York cabinetmaker Charles-Honore Lannuier, the table was $2
million.
Peter Tillou, Litchfield, Conn.
The Schwarz Gallery sold a striking pair of portraits by Charles
Peale Polk, painted between 1793 and 1794. Other early sales
included a Dentzel carousel horse, $55,000, at Giampietro; a
carved wooden ram and two weathervanes at Robert Young; an
engraved powder horn at Guthman Americana; a pair of miniature
portraits of Mr and Mrs William Brown at Elle Shushan; a Haida
portrait mask and an Ojibwa carved figure at Donald Ellis; an
18-inch Tang dynasty pottery figure at Roger Keverne; and a
whimsical, life-sized figure of a tiger at Barbara Israel.
No exhibitor did a better job on short notice than English
furniture specialist Clinton Howell, who selected the Pompeian
red felt for his walls just six days before the opening, after
the Richard Green Gallery of London abruptly withdrew from the
event.
This year's loan show honoring Shelburne Museum in Vermont
combines the patrician and populist in a way that perfectly sums
up the spirit of itself. Included in the display is a Cassatt
painting, Tiffany furniture and, of course, masterpieces of
American folk art.
"Shelburne Museum is the legacy of two great women collectors,
Louisine Havemeyer and her daughter, Electra Havemeyer Webb,"
said museum president Hope Alswang, who likened her staff's
journey from snowy Vermont to New York to Hannibal Crossing the
Alps.
continues through January 26. Hours are noon to 8:30 pm daily
except Thursday and Sunday, when the show closes at 6 pm.
