: - The International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Show returned to
the Seventh Regiment Armory October 16-23, complete with the
spectacular objects and arresting displays that have been its
hallmark since it debuted 15 years ago.
Having markedly influenced collecting and design trends, along
with show business from Manhattan to Palm Beach, the
International show's trademark luxe and volupte has evolved into
a more diverse array. This year, along with the usual jewel box
enclosures of gilt-encrusted French furniture, there were spare
stands, insouciantly appointed with a few quirky pieces of one-of
designer furniture.
New to the fair was Douglas Dawson. The Chicago dealer in
ethnographic art arranged raw, pigment-streaked carved figures
and masks against a black backdrop. Dawson sold a variety of
pieces, including pre-Columbian works, for $12,000 to $40,000.
John Alexander offered English Arts and Crafts furniture whose
pared-down aesthetic reinterprets historical prototypes for the
modern age. Highlights included a Philip Webb designed sideboard,
$65,000, for Morris & Company, and what Alexander called "the
holy grail" in his field, a dresser, $135,000, designed circa
1907 by C.F.A. Voysey for his most important commercial client,
the Essex and Suffolk Equitable Insurance Society Office.
Alexander's sales included two pairs of armchairs, one attributed
to Dante Gabriel Rossetti for Morris, a side table and a side
chair.
Another new exhibitor, Cove Landing, achieved similarly reductive
results by displaying Regency furniture against a stark white
backdrop. The New York dealer's sales included an English Regency
center table inlaid with a specimen marble top, $25,000; a German
neoclassical chest of drawers; and an Italian painted terra-cotta
sculpture of a dog, $18,000.
The pioneering dealer in Tiffany glass, Lillian Nassau Ltd, chose
for its International show debut a suite of Russian Arts and
Crafts furniture, eccentrically embellished with repousse copper
and semiprecious stones.
"Lillian bought these pieces in Paris in the early 1970s," Nassau
staffer Arlie Sulka explained. Signed Trubetskoy, the eight
pieces dating from the 1890s cost $250,000. By show's end, the
suite had sold, along with a Tiffany peacock lamp of 1910 and
1912 sundial by Harriet Frismuth, one of two known.
In the decade and a half that he has been exhibiting at the
International show, Belgian dealer Axel Vervoordt has become one
of the world's best-known stylists. His signature installations
combine the ancient and the contemporary in a way that is both
forbiddingly chic and invitingly casual. The mix appealed to,
among others, the quintessentially American designer Bill Blass,
a Vervoordt friend and client. In an homage to Blass, whose
collection was recently auctioned by Sotheby's, Vervoordt
arranged classical sculpture and architectural models and
fittings in an elegantly minimal interior. Highlights included a
magnificent Augsburg silver-mounted carved rhinoceros cup of
circa 1675, the only known example not in an institutional
collection. Vervoordt sold a pair of Eighteenth Century English
marble mantelpieces with neoclassical friezes for roughly
$200,000.
The rhinoceros theme played well at Ralph M. Chait Galleries,
too, where New York dealer Allan Chait, shown in these pages,
featured an exceedingly rare terra-cotta figure, $16,500, of the
ancient beast, a relic of Han dynasty of China.
Harris Lindsay, London.
At Wartski, Easter egg cufflinks set with bands of pink
diamonds were one of many exquisite treasures. Made by Faberge, the
cufflinks were purchased in 1907 by her imperial majesty Marie
Feodorovna as a gift for Tsar Nicholas II.
At $85,000, a carved English limestone font of circa 1100 was one
of the show's best buys. According to London dealer Richard
Philp, the piece, which is decorated with images both secular and
pagan, is one of six known. It was made for the Everingham Parish
Church in East Riding, Yorkshire.
Other antiquities included an Egyptian bust of a man, circa 1450
BC, $200,000-plus at Charles Ede Ltd of London. British dealer
John Berwald parted with a pair of Tang dynasty prancing horses,
$100,000; a Tang dynasty striding ox, $25,000; and a Sancai
glazed horse with a blue saddle.
A pair of standing cast-iron armorial stags with gilt coronets
around their necks were crowd pleasers at Alistair Sampson of
London. Part of the crest of the Steward family of Norwich
embellished the 53 inches high, late Eighteenth Century figures.
Fair director Brian Haughton showed off a quartet of Doccia
terra-cotta allegorical putti representing the seasons, finished
in a matte white glaze as soft as a baby's bottom. The figures
were modeled by Gasparo Bruschi after the life-sized marbles in
the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle.
At Harris Lindsay, a circa 1690 English kingwood cabinet with
pietra dura drawer fronts, $295,000, was topped by a pair of
Japanese Kakiemon "Hampton Court" hexagonal jars and covers. Made
in Arita, circa 1680, the jars were $215,000.
David Firestone featured a 1760 silver teapot by Samuel Johnson
of New York and an epergne by Butty and Durnee of London. The
Boston dealers Firestone and Parson sold a teapot.
English furniture specialists Mark and Diana Jacoby of Philip
Colleck are known for stylish pieces with character and
personality. An example was their Eighteenth Century English
painted and tooled leather eight-panel screen, $135,000, made in
imitation of Chinese examples for the Dutch or English market.
Hyannis Port, Mass., dealer Hyland Granby's well stocked booth
combined a ship's figurehead, eagle carvings, terrestrial globes
and William Bradford's bound book The Arctic Region,
$135,000, illustrated with photographs taken on an art expedition
to Greenland.
Several dealers brought rare collections of objects. Kenneth W.
Rendell, the dealer in letters, documents and manuscripts,
unveiled a cache honoring the centennial of Wilber and Orville
Wright's historic flight, $350,000. Equally engrossing were 26
letters, $175,000, handwritten by Audrey Hepburn to her father.
Charles Lindbergh's maps and charts for his first transatlantic
flight were $375,000.
"This show is better for us. It's truly international," said
Robert Aronson, explaining why his Amsterdam firm withdrew from
the Winter Antiques Show to focus on the International show. The
Aronsons offered selections from the Vanhyfte collection, formed
over many years by the collector working with Robert's
grandfather, Abraham Aronson, who founded the family firm in
1881. Figural groups were among the rarest pieces including a
pair of boars, $175,000; a courting couple in a boat, $78,000;
and a pair of circa 1730-45 Chinese dancing figures, sold for
approximately $65,000.
Hirschl & Adler Galleries departed from tradition by dividing
its sumptuous booth in two. The left half contained American
neoclassical furnishings; the right was devoted to Aesthetic
Movement furniture and European painting. Among several Herter
Brothers pieces was a Godwinesque occasional table and a dining
chair, one of six known from a set made for William H.
Vanderbilt, upholstered in gauffragged leather. On the dealers'
outside wall was a sweeping Frank L. Benson canvas, "The
Hilltop."
The show's only other dealer in American furniture, Cars-well
Rush Berlin, unveiled a circa 1820 center table by Deming and
Bulkley of New York, $185,000, and a group of 20 rare pencil
drawings that contained illustrations of furniture made for
George IV's compartments at Windsor Castle. Berlin sold the
scrolled arm Sheraton sofa by Duncan Phyfe, made around 1805,
that sat beneath the pictures.
London dealer Antoine Cheneviere's meticulous display
concentrated on objects in pairs. Highlights included two matched
Florentine commodes of circa 1770, and two Swedish neoclassical
mirrors, gilded and surmounted with dome-shaped panels of foil
lined red glass.
Karl Kemp & Associates, Ltd., New York City.
New York dealer Karl Kemp departed from the Biedermeier
furniture for which he is best known, showing a Chinese red
Fornasetti secretary, $110,000. The piece, designed by Gio Ponti,
was flanked by a pair of parchment covered serpentine chests,
$88,000, designed by Samuel Marx and manufactured by Quigley of
Chicago.
Black lacquered and studded with metal spheres, what appeared to
be an abstract sculpture in Maroun Salloum's booth was actually a
"jute-a-bit," or a hall stand, from a suite of cubist furniture
made in Barcelona about 1910 by Jojol, a craftsman who worked for
Gaudi.
The fair's opening night preview party benefited the Society of
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Jamee Gregory and Leslie
Jones co-chaired the event, which drew a record 1,200 visitors
and raised nearly $1 million for the charity.
Show directors Brian and Anna Haughton return to the Seventh
Regiment Armory from March 26-31, when they host the
International Asian Art Fair.
