Carswell Rush Berlin, New
York City.
By Laura Beach
NEW YORK CITY -- Louisine Havemeyer and her daughter Electra Webb
were born collectors. At the family's home in Manhattan and
Electra's Vermont retreat, now the Shelburne Museum, these gifted
aesthetes between them gathered a diverse assortment of beautiful
objects: Degas dancers, landscapes by Monet and Manet, antique
Dutch delft, Chelsea porcelain, furniture by Louis Comfort
Tiffany and Samuel Colman, weathervanes, scrimshaw, even a
version of Edward Hicks "Penn's Treaty with the Indians,"
acquired by Webb from Edith Halpert in 1953 for $5,000.
Webb, who died in 1960, did not live to see selections from her
140,000-piece collection exhibited at the 2003 Winter Antiques
Show as part of this year's loan exhibition, "American Dreams,
American Visions." Still, one imagines that she would have
enjoyed perusing the 70 plush stands filled with art and antiques
that, while of varied origin, style and date, made a common claim
to excellence.
The Winter Antiques Show opened for ten days on January 16 at the
Seventh Regiment Armory, the show's home for most of the last 49
years. After being in temporary quarters at the Hilton last year,
management, customers and exhibitors, who hail from the United
States and Europe, seemed happy to be back.
"There's no place like the Armory," said Massachusetts dealer
Robert Wilkins, who shook hands with New York Governor George
Pataki and thanked him for coming. Wilkins' partner Suzanne
Courcier showed Soon Yi Previn a crib quilt. Previn's husband,
filmmaker Woody Allen, winced at the price.
"I can't say that people are rushing in and grabbing everything
they see," said Olde Hope's Pat Bell, who, like many exhibitors,
remembers the more robust 1990s.
'There's a hesitation," agreed London dealer Roger Keverne.
"People look, walk around for a half hour, then come back and
buy."
"The first weekend was an exercise in crowd control," said Elle
Shushan, a dealer in portrait miniatures who struggled to attend
to shoppers in her jewel box of a display.
Overall, the fair was expected to raise a million for its charity
sponsor, East Side House Settlement.
New discoveries and wonderful rarities were the theme of nearly
every exhibit.
"This is the Rosetta stone of Badger paintings," said Leigh Keno,
barely able to contain his excitement about the signed painting
by Daniel Badger, the younger brother of Boston painter Joseph
Badger, that hung on his back wall above a Boston dressing table,
$175,000, and two rare roundabout chairs, one from Newport, circa
1760-65, $390,000; the other from Boston, circa 1740, $210,000.
Until the appearance of Keno's canvas it was not conclusive that
a group of pictures found in the South were by Daniel Badger, who
is now known to have advertised as a sign painter in Charleston,
S.C., in 1735. Keno's picture, circa 1750-55, recently turned up
at a New England auction, where it was cataloged as English. The
alert buyer recognized the piece, which depicts an unidentified
boy in blue with his pet squirrel, as American. The buyer brought
it to Keno. The Badger painting, $280,000, and a Boston slab
table from the Copeland collection, $300,000, were among the New
York dealer's many opening sales.
Guy Bush of Washington, D.C., sold an eastern Massachusetts
Chippendale serpentine front tiger-maple bureau notable for its
bold figuring, small size and original brasses. Other highlights
included a Philadelphia Chippendale chest of drawers that
descended in the Logan family, $210,000; a French gilt Washington
mantel clock, $150,000; and a bonnet-top high chest of drawers,
circa 1750-70, made for Boston merchant John Rowe, $375,000.
"We've sold a Dunlap five-drawer chest; a ball and claw foot
desk; a Rhode Island server; a nice candlestand; several
paintings, including an early Cahoon; a weathervane; and lots of
Nantucket baskets," said Wayne Pratt. Still on offer were Rufus
Porter painted plaster murals, $275,000, taken from a Maine home;
and an inlaid Massachusetts Federal cherry sideboard, price "in
the six figures." Attributed to Nathan Lombard, the sideboard is
illustrated in American Furniture 1998 in an article on
Lombard furniture by Brock Jobe and Clark Pearce. .
"It's killer, the best," Albert Sack, the dean of American
furniture dealers, said as he stood transfixed before a
marble-top Chippendale table, $345,000, offered by dealer
Virginia dealer Sumpter Priddy. Other treasures included an
inlaid Federal Shenandoah Valley chest of drawers, $95,000, and a
portrait of George Catlin dressed as a Sioux Warrior, $395,000.
"Given economic and political circumstances, I didn't know what
to expect, but we've done very well," said Robert Wilkins, whose
sales of Shaker furniture included a monumental architectural
cupboard chest, $125,000, from Hancock, Mass., and a cherry
sewing cabinet. Courcier & Wilkins also wrote slips for a
decorated box, game boards and a stump work tablecloth.
Ralph M. Chait Galleries, Inc., New York City.
"If I'm right, the date of this table is 1815, which means that
Duncan Phyfe was copying Charles-Honore Lannuier, not the other
way around," Carswell Rush Berlin said of a regal looking
eagle-carved New York games table, $350,000. The piece is from a
highly distinctive group of griffin and eagle-base tables that
were formerly attributed to Lannuier. Berlin believes that the
group of tables derives from an ancient example at the Vatican
Museum, rendered and published by Charles Heathcote Tatham in
1799. Other Nineteenth Century eagle and griffin tables of
Berlin's type are at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Winterthur
and Yale.
Hirschl & Adler's booth was dominated by a large
marble-topped gueridon. The table, one of two known with
Lannuier's label, was $2 million.
"The show has been extremely good for us. We've sold both big and
small pieces: secretaries, sideboards and quite a bit of period
decoration," said Gary Young, a popular Maryland dealer in
English furniture who is always a bellwether for the fair.
Clinton Howell, a New York dealer in English furniture who was
invited into the fair when Richard Green Gallery of London
abruptly withdrew a week before opening, featured a pair of bow
front console tables, $875,000, by John Linnell. Their elaborate
marquetry surfaces reveal the French training of some of
Linnell's staff, Howell said.
Mallett at Bourdon House of London's flamboyant display included
a pair of Russian metal console tables in the Gothic style, circa
1840, $240,000; and an Anglo Indian carved ivory settee and two
chairs. Mallett at Bourdon House is opening a shop this spring in
New York, at 929 Madison Avenue.
The Schwarz Gallery of Philadelphia sold paintings by five
members of the Peale family, the Philadelphia dynasty that is a
Schwarz specialty. A pair of Charles Peale Polk portraits were
claimed on opening night. Sill lifes by James Peale, Mary Jane
Peale and Sarah Miriam Peale followed. Also in the booth was a
$1.5 million "Peaceable Kingdom" by Pennsylvania folk Edward
Hicks. "It's very early, painted between 1822 and 26, and in
almost pristine condition. It came out of the Hicks family," said
Robert Schwarz, Jr.
"This show is a phenomenon all its own," said Elle Shushan, who
sold most of her American portrait miniatures, including a pair
of likenesses of Mr and Mrs William Brown by Elkanah Tisdale of
Lebanon, Conn. "They came out of the Erskine Hewitt sale in 1938
and had been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum in 1936," the New
York dealer noted.
New Haven, Conn., and New York City dealer Thomas Colville parted
with 14 paintings, most of them American. The sold works included
a Leon Kroll, $250,000, plus pieces by Gifford, Chalfant, Carlson
and Hart. "All of the pictures are going to people who really
love art, who aren't decorating and who aren't investing. About
two-thirds of the buyers are regular clients," Colville said.
"Penelope still sits by her loom. With the Pugin bench and the
William Morris curtain, she's grabbed a lot of attention," Max
Donnelly of the Fine Arts Society said of "Penelope," a luscious
pre-Raphaelite painting by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, still
for sales at show's end for $900,000. The London dealers sold a
Charles Rennie Mackintosh coat stand to a new client and an
important picture by bird painter by Henry Stacy Marks.
China Trade pictures specialist Martyn Gregory made a splash with
"A Panoramic View of the Waterfront at Canton," circa 1845,
$280,000. The 78-inch-long canvas, which still bears a fragment
of Youqua's label, giving his studio address at 34 Old Street in
Canton, shows the city's entire frontage, from the Western
suburbs on the left to the French folly fort on the extreme
right.
Gerald Peters Gallery of Santa Fe and New York showed four Henry
Inman portraits, $100,000 each, of Native Americans. The
portraits are copies of the Charles Bird King paintings that were
immortalized in McKinney & Hall's series of prints. The
original paintings were destroyed by fire.
"It doesn't get much better than this," Hyannis Port, Mass.,
dealer Janice Hyland said of Duncan McFarlane's luminous
painting, $185,000, of an American ship, "Young Brander," shown
in three views in Liverpool harbor.
"We sold three of our most expensive pieces -- a race track tout,
John Scholl's 'Celebration' and a wonderful dog weathervane --
plus a Shaker rocking chair, a great hooked rug and a carved
figure of a cow," said David Schorsch, one of several very
successful folk art dealers in the show.
"This was our best preview since we joined the show seven years
ago," said Pat Bell of Olde Hope Antiques. The New Hope, Penn.,
dealers sold one of the best decorated cupboards they have owned,
a New Jersey example in medium blue paint with dark blue feather
graining; a Moses Eaton stenciled blanket chest; a dressing
table; a huge Jewell eagle weathervane, $76,000; fraktur;
baskets; stoneware; and a large sunflower quilt.
New Haven, Conn., dealers Fred and Kathryn Giampietro got off to
a strong start, selling a Dentzel carousel horse, $55,000, then
following with an overmantel carving, a decoy, and ship's
figurehead. A perfect Howard horse weathervane, one of only
several known, was $285,000.
"We're seeing more interest in silk embroideries," said Old
Saybrook, Conn., dealer Carol Huber, noting the increasingly
sophisticated audience for early American needlework
"We've been well received," said Robert Young, who returned for
his second year. The London dealer in English and Continental
folk art finds American buyers receptive to primitives, if not
always acquainted with their European histories. "It's all to do
with surface, line and originality," he said of folk art's
transatlantic appeal.
Don Ellis, the Ontario dealer in North American Indian art, sold
a Haida portrait mast, a Ojibwa carved figure, and an Eastern
Sioux cradle decoration to make it his best Winter Antiques Show
in his ten years.
Spencer Throckmorton of New York unveiled a collection of Meso
American sculptures. Two owl totems, among the earliest carved
stone relics in the New World, dated to 2600 BC and cost $12,500
and $8,500, respectively. A Costa Rican volcanic stone carving of
600-1200 AD was $75,000.
William Guthman, a dealer in pre-1840 military Americana,
featured a frontiersman's tomahawk, $75,000, and a carved powder
horn from the Siege of Lewisburg, $37,500.
"We got off to a slow start, but we've since sold a full suit of
German armor, circa 1560, for a six-figure sum; several medieval
swords; some daggers; and other pieces," said Peter Finer, the
Warwickshire dealer in arms and armor. Presiding over his stand
was a medieval Neapolitan sepulchral marble, pale as a ghost,
sculpted with the effigy of a knight from the Ferretti family of
Ancona.
"It's the only one I've offered because I haven't seen another
one to buy," said Finer. Priced $450,000, the Fourteenth Century
sculpture was on hold by show's end.
"We're selling everything," said Chinese art dealer Roger
Keverne, ticking off a list that included an Eighteenth Century
Tang dynasty figure of an attendant in a green robe, a Tang
horse, lacquer, jade, bronze, porcelain, a set of watercolors of
fruits and a Ming pottery model of a group of tables.
Thomas Colville Fine Art, New Haven, Conn.
Japanese art dealer Joan Mirviss featured an Eighteenth Century
print of a woman in a striped kimono, $36,000, by Kitagawa
Utamaro and a two-panel screen, "Swimming Ducks" of circa 1790,
price on request.
"We have a big nibble," Barbara Israel, a dealer in garden
statuary, said of her magnificent "Diana," $175,000, a white
marble figure of 1890 inspired by the 1710 original in the
Louvre. The Katonah, N.Y., dealer sold "Leda and The Swann,"
$145,000, a bronze by English-born American sculptor Albert
Stewart; a whimsical, life-sized figure of a tiger; a pair of
marble benches; a composition stone figure of a boy in a hat
playing a horn, 1900; and six urns.
This year's Winter Antiques Show offered proof that beauty
triumphs, no matter what the circumstances. "We're slightly
recession proof. We have serious collectors who will always find
the means to buy," observed Peter Finer. "People realize the
great things aren't going to come around again soon," added Leigh
Keno.
