Rare Flemish tortoiseshell
and ebony cabinet of drawers, circa 1680, $130,000. Adrian
Alan, London.
By Stephen May
WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. - In keeping with tradition, the seventh
Palm Beach International Art & Antique Fair, January 30 to
February 9, featured a dazzling and eclectic array of fine and
decorative arts, as well as antiquities, furniture, jewelry,
textiles and objets d'art. Dealers from all over the world
offered an enticing and costly trove of wares that organizers
estimated were worth over one billion dollars.
The bazaar opened at the International Pavilion with a vernissage
to benefit the rapidly expanding, nearby Norton Museum of Art.
Benefactors paid up to $5,000 per couple to attend the opening
night festivities
Of the 50-odd dealers, 18 were from the United States; 24 from
England; five from France; two from Belgium, and one each from
Argentina, Austria, Hungary, Italy and the Netherlands. In spite
of the downturn in the economy, dealers seemed cautiously
optimistic about prospects for sales. Buyers certainly had
top-of-the-line objects from which to choose.
Furniture, always a big attraction, was available in a broad mix
of choices. London-based Adrian Alan, a specialist in Nineteenth
Century European furniture and artwork, had one of the most
spectacular booth entrances. Its centerpiece was a rare, colorful
Flemish tortoiseshell and ebony cabinet of drawers, with
wonderfully intricate details, dating to around 1680. Standing on
a later carved, giltwood stand, it was priced at $130,000.
Flanking this ornate piece was a handsome pair of bronze mounted,
marble sphinx created in France around 1860. Part muscular animal
and part sexy woman, and measuring 38 by 24 by 61 inches, these
two unusual decorative devices were for sale for $260,000.
Also hard to miss was Jean Lambert-Rucki's dark-polished wood
mask, circa 1941, in the booth of Jacques De Vos of rue Bonaparte
in Paris. A combination of African art and cubism and mounted on
a stand at least nine feet tall, it was priced at $95,000.
Galerie Atlan, also headquartered in Paris, offered a dizzying
array of Eighteenth Century and First Empire furniture, as well
as paintings and sculpture. A highlight was an intensely
decorated Louis XVI mazarine chest of drawers, measuring 491/4 by
341/4 by 723/4 inches.
Quite a contrast was provided by the straight lines and unadorned
appearance of a set of lemontree furniture sited front and center
by Jackson's, a Stockholm dealer. Consisting of a desk, two
armchairs and a shelf, it was offered for $250,000.
Among American dealers, drawing a good deal of attention was the
booth of Mary Helen McCoy Fine Antiques of Birmingham, Ala. McCoy
had assembled an imposing display of Seventeenth to Nineteenth
Century French provincial pieces and accessories, including a
towering Louis XVI biblioteque (1774-1793), selling for $120,000.
Perhaps the oldest object on view, dating to the First Century
AD, was a life-sized marble torso of the Diadoumenos. It once
belonged to dancer Rudolf Nureyev. Ariadne Galleries of New York
was asking $750,000 for this intriguing Roman copy of a fifth
century BC Greek statue.
Jewelry was evident in great profusion in a number of booths,
none more sparklingly than that of Richters of Palm Beach. With
outlets in Atlanta, Maui and Nashville as well, this Worth Avenue
specialist in antique and estate jewelry and gems displayed cases
filled with diamonds, rubies and other precious stones.
There were a lot of glittering items, too, at Elise Abrams
Antiques of Great Barrington, Mass., notably a silvered bronze
and cut glass crystal centerpiece, circa 1890, signed Baccarat.
Asking prices: $70,000. Abrams also featured a variety of
appealing, hand painted plates.
For collectors of dinner and tea services, there were several
interesting opportunities. One of the most fascinating was a
29-piece dinner service made in China, circa 1775, apparently for
President John Adams and his wife Abigail. Each porcelain piece
was decorated at the center with a large pink enamel rose within
a floral border. A plate from the present service is in the White
House Collection. This Qing dynasty dinner service was priced at
$51,200 by Jorge Welsh Oriental Porcelain & Works of Art of
London.
Also highly appealing was a Josef Hoffmann five-piece tea and
coffee service, 1925, made in Vienna of hand wrought brass and
gilding, with fruitwood handles. Displayed by Historical Design,
a New York late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century fine and
decorative arts dealer, this impressive Austrian set could be had
for $115,000.
Josef Hoffmann five-piece tea and coffee service, 1925,
hand-wrought brass and gilding, with fruitwood handles,
$115,000. Historical Design, New York City.
A rich display of antique Persian and Oriental carpets by
Geoffrey A. Orley & Shabahang of Palm Beach and Bloomington
Hills, Mich., was highlighted by a splendid Bakhtiari "Tree of
Life," circa 1900, carpet. This intricately designed, 193- by
232-inch work of art was offered for $375,000.
Wallpaper and map collectors found several specialists in their
fields. The display of Carolle Thibaut-Pomerantz, a Manhattan and
Parisian dealer in antique wallpaper panels and decorative arts,
was highlighted by "Le Jardin d'Armide," 1855, designed by
Edouard Miller and printed by Jules Desfosse. Described as "one
of the finest, if not the most important, Second Empire wallpaper
décor," it featured an architectural setting and colorful
depictions of flowers and trees, with the statue of Armide at the
center. This rare wallpaper décor, measuring 113 by 105 inches,
was available for $95,000.
Charles Edwin Puckett, with his wife Teresa, brought a wide
variety of early maps, medieval illuminated manuscripts and
classical antiquities from their gallery in Akron, Ohio. Their
offerings included leaves from a Fifteenth Century "Book of
Hours" and a map of "Virginia" and "Florida" engraved in the
Seventeenth Century in the Netherlands.
Visitors interested in antique arms, armor and related objects
did well to make a beeline for the booth of Peter Finer of The
Old Rectory in Ilmington, Warwickshire, England. Finer, looking
every inch the staunch country collector, exhibited everything
from swords, guns and suits of armor to portrait paintings. A
curious, rare, metal German Jeseter's Helmet, circa 1580,
festooned with three bells, spirally twisted gilded ram's horns
and a gilded plume holder, and fitted with a hinged visor and
broad moustache, was for sale for $78,000.
Galleries dealing in paintings and sculpture were particularly
strong in American and French work, with some intriguing pieces
emanating from such artistic outposts as Hungary and New Zealand.
Passers-by were drawn as if by magnet to "Escaping Nymph," 1933,
an audacious and unusual painting by Sandor A. Toth, a
Hungarian-born artist who spent time in Paris. This striking 35-
by 26-inch canvas, exhibited by Kieselbach Gallery of Budapest,
was priced at $65,000.
Another riveting sight was the 119 inches long and 88 inches high
green bronze sculpture, "Long Horizon," by New Zealand sculptor
Paul Dribble (born 1943). Occupying the entrance to the booth of
London dealer Whitford Fine Art, it was offered for $120,000.
MacConnal-Mason Gallery, a venerable London dealer in Nineteenth
and Twentieth Century European paintings, featured numerous
attractive genre: country and animal depictions by British, Dutch
and French artists. But the eyes of most visitors seemed drawn at
least at first to an intense depiction of five disparate figures
seated around a roulette table in a gambling den. An astute
commentary on types of figures in French society, "Le Tripot,"
1883, was painted by Jean Eugene Buland (1852-1927), a Paris-born
painter with a gift for precise detail, insightful faces and
masterful compositions. This riveting painting was priced at
$750,000.
A lot of works by Raoul Dufy, the prolific French artist, were
visible in a number of galleries, including Frost & Reed of
New York and London and Galerie Fabien Boulakia of Paris.
Boulakia also had on hand some fine paintings by the likes of
Georges Braque and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and an outstanding
Jacques Lipchitz sculpture, "Seated Man with Guitar," 1948, for
which he was asking $600,000.
Among the French and Dutch art displayed by Nortman BV of
Maastricht, the Netherlands, a standout was a small, superb still
life by Gustave Caillebotte, "Nature Morte aux Pommes," 1888. Its
unusual price of $1,000,050 was reached in translating euros into
dollars, a gallery representative explained.
Galerie Cazeau-Béraudiére, a Paris dealer in Impressionist and
Modern Masters, featured a large, exuberant Pablo Picasso
painting, "The Man with Sword," 1969, behind a quintessential,
elongated Alberto Giacometti bronze sculpture, cast in 1973. The
Picasso was priced at $3 million, the Giacometti at $1.4 million.
A niche in the booth of Salis & Vertes, a Salzburg, Austria,
dealer specializing in modern European art, was filled with fine
works by Marc Chagall. Ranging in price from $200,000 to
$950,000, they drew a steady stream of admirers.
Another gallery focusing on Twentieth Century work, M.F.
Toninelli Art Moderne of Monaco, was proudly displaying works
ranging from Francis Bacon to Marino Marini to Cy Twombly. The
star was a beautiful, gleaming bronze by the incomparable
Constantin Brancusi, "Princess X," 1916, listed at a hefty $5.5
million.
The most expensive painting at the fair appeared to be a $12.5
million canvas by Joan Miro, "L'Oiseau Au Plumage Deploye Vole,"
1953. This color-filled, expressive work, flanked by a subtle
Kandinsky and a Picasso cubist canvas, was displayed by
Manhattan's Acquavella Galleries.
Chicago dealer R.S. Johnson was pleased to be exhibiting a large
and colorful cubist painting by Albert Gleizes, "Still-Life with
Checkerboard," 1924. Asking price: $265,000.
Irving Galleries of New York, whose interests include European
and American painting, sculpture and photography, featured a
wonderfully moulded bronze sculpture by Lithuanian-born, American
émigré sculptor Lipchitz. "L'acrobat sur un Cheval," 1914,
created when the artist took up cubism while living in Paris, was
for sale for $600,000.
Galleries devoted to American paintings and sculpture, especially
from the first half of the Twentieth Century, had some of the
strongest work at the fair. Two Manhattan dealers, Adelson
Galleries and Berry-Hill Galleries, which consistently mount
outstanding exhibitions in New York, led the way.
"Le Tripot," Jean Eugene Buland, 1883, $750,000.
MacConnal-Mason Gallery, London.
It was hard to know where to begin at Warren Adelson's exhibit,
which displayed standout paintings by Marsden Hartley, Childe
Hassam, John Marin, Richard E. Miller and Georgia O'Keeffe (a
$950,000 floral canvas), among others. The most interesting was a
vibrantly hued, expressive early Hartley landscape of western
Maine, "Hall of the Mountain King," 1908. The price was $3.5
million. It would look good in the current Hartley retrospective
at the Wadsworth Atheneum. Adelson also had two museum-quality
Hassam oils on view, "Isles of Shoals, Appledore," circa 1890,
going for $850,000, and "An Isles of Shoals Day," circa 1901,
priced at $675,000.
Berry-Hill's offerings included fine works by Milton Avery, Mary
Cassatt, Frederick Frieseke, John Singer Sargent (an $8 million
landscape) and Robert Vonnoh. There were two nice Cassatts of
female children, a pastel ($1.5 million) and an oil ($4 million).
The show-stopper here was a large, stunning and light-filled
painting by Vonnoh, "The Ring," 1892.
Another Manhattan dealer, Questroyal Fine Art, had an impressive
exhibition of smallish American paintings, including canvases by
Albert Bierstadt, Alfred T. Bricher, William Merritt Chase,
Jasper Cropsey, Sanford Gifford, Thomas Moran and Francis Silva.
The standout was an early Hassam painting of Paris, "Rue
Madelein, Place de l'Opera," 1988, selling for $495,000.
With a plethora of topnotch offerings in so many fields, this
year's Palm Beach International Art & Antique Fair continued
its tradition of high standards. Fittingly, this prestigious
showplace for international work was teeming with what appeared
to be serious collectors.
