The New York Ceramics Fair

NEW YORK CITY

:Tradition, it's been said, is something that's done for reasons no one can any longer remember. Why, 52 years ago at the dawn of what would become Americana Week, January seemed a good time for hundreds of out-of-town dealers and collectors to travel to New York we'll never really know for sure. It's tradition.

For the New York Ceramics Fair, which returned for its sixth year to the National Academy Museum at Fifth Avenue and 89th Street from January 18 to 23, the weekend blizzard that accompanied Americana Week may have been more of hardship for promoters Caskey-Lees of Topanga, Calif., and Sha-Dor of Silver Spring, Md., than for the show's 32 exhibitors, who, like dealers at the other fairs around town, said they sold well through Friday.

Promoters, on the other hand, derive their profit from the gate. With snow on Saturday and Sunday, attendance at the New York Ceramics Fair was off by more than half over the weekend, resulting in a 31 percent overall decline in attendance from a year ago.

"After making money the last two years, we lost money this year," Bill Caskey said frankly. The manager is considering ways to cut costs and/or raise revenues for the opening night party, which enjoyed a 15 percent increase in attendance, in part because the manager sent complimentary tickets to American Antiques Show exhibitors and dealers who do Caskey-Lees' Connoisseurs Antiques Show in November.

After several years of experimenting with opening days and times, the managers of all the shows seem to have arrived at a good arrangement. Many of the collectors and dealers who made it to the New York Ceramics Fair's opening on Tuesday night were also spotted at the opening of the American Antiques Show on Wednesday and the Winter Antiques Show on Thursday.

The cozy Ceramics Fair sets up in nine rooms spread through four wings on two floors. Management groups many, but not all, dealers with like inventory together. The hotbed of activity, at least on opening night, was a fourth-floor gallery housing Leo Kaplan, Ltd, of New York, and Alistair Sampson, Garry Atkins and Roderick Jellicoe, all London specialists in early English pottery. Jonathan Horne, another London dealer in English pottery, was in an adjacent room.

"We sold across the board, and consistently through the fair, including both blizzard days. My only regret is that we didn't sell our catalog piece, a group of Eighteenth Century English tea wares," said Atkins.

Both Horne and Kaplan said that they have had better shows. On opening night, collectors snapped up the ABC plates that filled Alistair Sampson's miniature dresser.

With a large booth on the second floor, Peter Warren of Wilton, Conn., featured an extensive selection of Eighteenth Century English creamware. Highlights included a decorated stirrup cup of circa 1777, $9,500; a miniature teapot with the inscription "When This You See Remember Me...," $2,900; and a tortoiseshell glazed Rothwell teapot from Warburton, $3,500.

John Howard, whose popular Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century English pottery figures always seem to be best sellers, sold his catalog piece, a figure of a squirrel, circa 1800. The Woodstock, UK, dealer wrote up 34 other sales besides, met new customers and was delighted to see some old ones. Remarkably, his strongest day was Sunday.

"Only two examples are known," Old Westbury, N.Y., dealer Elinor Penna said of the Staffordshire model of Wombell's Menagerie, circa 1820, in her stand. The figural group modeled by Obidiah Sherratt was $50,000.

Janice Paull, a Mason's Ironstone specialist whose wall of tangerine and cobalt colored Imari-pattern china could warm the coldest day, sold only slightly less than a year ago.

"It's an extremely desirable pattern," Baltimore dealer Jackie Smelkinson of Moylen-Smelkinson/The Spare Room said of the 16 piece Spode "Grape" dessert service, $6,000, in her booth.

Redware, mocha ware, yellowware and stoneware are the stock-in-trade of Americanists Barry & Lisa McAllister, Clear Spring, Md. Treasures ranged from an affordable terra-cotta architectural relief plaque with a portrait bust of George Washington, $3,200, to a Setterlee & Morey, Fort Edward, N.Y., stoneware jug decorated in cobalt blue with a shield, $35,000.

A "Landing of Lafayette" platter and a small "MacDonnough's Victory on Lake Champlain" pitcher were two of many desirable pieces of Historical Blue Staffordshire at William and Teresa Kurau, Lampeter, Penn.

Diana and Gary Stradling offered three plaques hand painted in the Japanese style by James Callowhill and fired at Willett's Opaque Porcelain, Trenton, N.J., circa 1887-88. Two of the plaques may have been those exhibited at the first national exposition of ceramics at Fairmont Park in Philadelphia in 1888.

Organized by curator Alexandra Kirtley, this year's loan show arrayed rare Tucker porcelain from the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. At least two exhibitors, The Stradlings of New York City and Art and Kathy Green of Newton, Mass., offered Tucker pieces for sale, as well. The Greens had a pair of floral-decorated Tucker pitchers, circa 1830.

"I sold a lovely and rare Staffordshire group of three cottages that had belonged to my mother, a very rare and possibly unique openwork double-walled teapot, and a rare black Fitzhugh cup," John Suval said of preview night. The Fredericksburg, Va., dealer divided his display between English pottery and Chinese export porcelain. In the later category, a beautifully painted famille rose barber's bowl, circa 1730-35, $7,500, was a standout. It bore the old paper label of the late Pennsylvania dealers Matthew and Elisabeth Sharpe.

"This is just the kind of thing Betty loved," Suval said.

Paris dealer Antoine Lebel had a rare Chinese export armorial porcelain platter for the French market, $26,000. The Kangxi piece of circa 1720 was decorated with the arms of Fernand de Villemilan, 1657-1731. The governor of Burgundy and Brittany was later in charge of the French Compagnie des Indes.

Chinese porcelain dealer Ita Howe of Bethlehem, Penn., was a great pinch hitter. The specialist in blue and white stood in for Peter Rosenberg of The Vallin Gallery, who withdrew from the show on short notice.

Nicolaus Boston, a dealer in English majolica and Aesthetic Movement pottery, sold a monumental Christopher Dresser Minton vase in an earthenware body with Butterfly and Blossom decoration. Elsewhere on the floor on opening night, New York dealer Margot Johnson happily reported that she bought some wonderful Dresser at the show.

Sylvia Powell, a London dealer in British art pottery, said she came close to matching last year's sales in what was, because of the storm, effectively a three-day show. A Doulton Lambeth ceramic sculpture of a rising phoenix by Mark V. Marshall was marked $18,000 in a booth well-stocked with William de Morgan, Pilkington, Moorcroft and Wedgwood creations.

Greg Whitaker of the Whitley Collection, Miami, was a standout with his astoundingly diverse display of Royal Doulton, from hand decorated chargers in never-seen styles to vases with characteristic designs.

Jill Fenichell pushed the envelope with a presentation ranging from English and Continental porcelain and Melamine picnic ware to her new line of porcelain inspired by antique originals. The pieces, beautifully hand painted in England and China, included covered boxes for $137 and plates, $575 each. The Brooklyn, N.Y., dealer said she did surprisingly well with Eighteenth Century porcelain this year.

The largest importer of antique French faience, Solomon Suchard Antiques & Fine Art of Shaker Heights, Ohio, boasted wares by Alfred Bow for Quimper Porquier. A striking sawtooth jardiniere was $8,500.

Paul Vandekar's lushly floral French Baccarat opaline vases, $18,000, of circa 1845 were decorated by Jean-Francois Robert and stood 14 inches tall.

In the contemporary line, Paul Katrich, a Dearborn, Mich., ceramist who crafts art pieces with rich, heavy luster glazes inspired by Art Nouveau ceramics, sold about a quarter of his display, or 11 pieces. It was his best New York Ceramics Fair to date.

For the first time, the show also included ancient art. Jerome Eisenberg of Royal-Athena Galleries in New York was a welcome addition with shelves of Greek Attic red and black pottery, including the Fifth Century BC volute krater illustrated here.

Caskey-Lees will be back in New York from March 31 to April 3 with the New York Arts of Pacific Asia and from May 20 to 24 with the New York International Tribal & Textile Arts Show. The managers are debuting a new fair, Treasures of the Silk Road to the Santa Fe Trail, at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, October 27-30.