Good Sales at the Armonk Antiques Show

ARMONK, N.Y.

:Yellow shiny slickers and figures huddled under umbrellas did not bode well for the opening of the 27th annual antiques show sponsored by The North Castle Historical Society and organized by The Last Detail Antiques Shows, which was held on April 23 and 24. Although it was quiet on Saturday, hampered by the weather - or so several dealers thought - Sunday's sun brought out many customers who were looking at the variety of items on display - and buying. Sales were made from the high-end art at the booth of Galerie d'Art Européen to the industrial revolution era molds offered by Lew Allessio and Jim Shaffer at Plenty and Grace. According to Mr Shaffer, "The weather did not cooperate on Saturday, but turnout was much better on Sunday."

Byram Hills High School was decked out with a great variety of items from the 50 dealers participating. They brought fine European Art from the Eighteenth-Twen-tieth Centuries, Art Deco and estate jewelry, vintage posters, Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century French furniture, Deco design furniture, antique maps and photographs of Native Americans by Edward Curtis, silver, rugs, smalls, country and Americana and even some reproduction furniture, just to mention a sampling of what was on view.

Martin Greenstein of Last Detail Antiques, who organized and managed the show, worried that there were several things working against it - first, the rain, and then it was the Passover holiday - but he felt that many dealers had a good show with some excellent sales. Talks with several dealers confirmed his thoughts, especially about the second day of the show.

A 1940s European platinum and diamond (30 carats) necklace was sold by Brad Reh of Brad Reh Fine Estate Jewelry in Southampton. Among his antique and vintage estate jewelry were a couple of strands of South Sea matched color natural pearls in an unusual peacock gray that, according to Reh, possibly took more than six months to collect as pearls that match so perfectly in color and size are quite rare.

Down a long hallway festooned with Chinese lacquer, toleware, leather couches, decoys, vintage croquet sets, trade signs and umbrella stands was the booth Lunatiques. It featured French and American country furniture and a pair of planters from an Upstate New York estate that could each hold three plants in decorative wire motifs.

The planters were prominently displayed and had several people eyeing them at the very start of the day, even as a buyer snatched up a large paisley vintage shawl for $100.

In what is a gymnasium is during the week but was well partitioned for the show, was Maile Allen of Maile's Antiques. She brought her Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century maps and botanicals but featured a collection of Native American photographs by Edward Sheriff Curtis. Some of the historic photographs were framed and each covered different Native American tribes and historic events.

Writing about these photographs, President Theodore Roosevelt said, "I regard the work you do as one of the most valuable works which any American could now do," President Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to Edward S. Curtis, December 16, 1905, showing the photography of Curtis was significant even when it was being shot in the early 1900s. Allen acknowledged, "The photographs were attracting a lot of attention, but it was the historic maps that sold well, with many people purchasing them as graduation gifts - especially if the map was from the area or state where the recipient lives." She concluded, "It was a well run and well organized show," a comment repeated by many people at the show.

David Beauchamp, who has just moved his antiques business from Hancock to Walpole, N.H., had many lovely pieces with him. Beauchamp, who specializes in the neoclassical period (circa 1800-1840s) Federal, American Empire and formal mahogany furnishings, decorative accessories and antique boxes, had an especially interesting worktable by Samuel McIntyre on display. With a price tag of $16,000 it had delicate carved clusters and leaf punch work on decorated ground with turned and tapered legs. Beauchamp believed it was the same table seen in a 1977 Antiques article. He had it displayed surrounded by black lacquer Chinese Export boxes that seemed to come in every shape and size imaginable.

Around the corner from his booth was a painting in Jesslyn James' Galerie d'Art Européen that stuck a foreign chord among the Nineteenth Century European artists' work - it looked remarkably like Martha's Vineyard! In fact, Ann Albinski, the Polish-born artist who lived and worked in France, had come to the United States and spent several summers studying in Provincetown, Mass., and the subject was indeed a lighthouse on Martha's Vineyard.

Painted in the early 1920s in a refreshingly slightly abstract style, it was unmistakably an American sea and landscape; it shown like a beacon among the other drawings and paintings. The tag read $3,800 for this signed oil on canvas.

James mentioned that the show had been easy to set up and that "Marty is so well organized and prepared, it makes for a wonderful show." Perhaps the 70-plus signs all pointing the way to the high school helped. Greenstein has learned from past experience that signs, placed just in the right spot, make a world of difference.

The Last Detail Antiques Shows, Ltd's next show will be in November at the Fox Lane High School in Bedford, N.Y., followed by shows in January and February in White Plains and Bedford, respectively.