: The Winter Antiques Show celebrated its 50th anniversary in grand
style with an opening night preview party on Thursday, January
15, that revelers were reluctant to leave. Sales were robust
through the course of the ten-day show, especially for dealers in
a broad spectrum of American furniture, painting and folk art,
who benefited from the influx of collectors in town for Americana
Week.
Despite bitter cold, opening night attendance was even with last
year. Charity proceeds increased by 20 percent, thanks to a new
price structure that set the top ticket at $2,500. On the show's
first Saturday, the gate surged to nearly 4,000, but dropped on
Sunday with the return of snow.
"There are a number of special things in this year's show,
including the pavilion that we're standing in front of," said
Catherine Sweeney Singer, the Winter Antiques Show's executive
director, gesturing toward this year's sumptuous loan exhibition.
Setting the tone for the fair's golden anniversary was "A
Celebration of the American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of
Art," organized by American Wing chairman Morrison H. Heckscher
and its curators, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, H. Barbara Weinberg
and Beth Carver Wees among them.
As a backdrop, the curators had chosen a rich teal, a color
equally reminiscent of the Met's Wigmore Gallery, devoted to the
arts of Louis C. Tiffany, and the luxurious satins of John
Singleton Copley. The exhibit's centerpiece was a 281/4-inch
bronze Diana by Saint-Gaudens, a miniature version of the one
that dominates the American Wing's courtyard. The deity was the
perfect mascot for the Winter Antiques Show, where the rare and
beautiful have been pursued since 1955.
"The challenge of the American Wing is to show painting,
sculpture and decorative arts together. That was our challenge
here, as well. Mixing media is how we should be thinking about
American art today," said Heckscher, by analogy characterizing
the Winter Antiques Show's greatest accomplishment, uniting more
than 30 collecting specialties into a cohesive whole.
Presiding over opening night was Honorary Chairman Michael R.
Bloomberg, mayor of the City of New York, and Winter Antiques
Show Chairman Arie Kopelman, who during his tenure has enhanced
the charity's coffers through a variety of corporate
sponsorships.
Veronica Hearst, Sherry Bronfman and Betty Sherrill mingled with
Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman. Oprah Winfrey, who came with her
designers, earned exhibitors' praise for her wide curiosity in
objects ranging from needlework to Classical furniture.
"We have more exhibitors this year, 74 in all," said Sweeney
Singer, who with Kopelman has refined and expanded the Winter
Antiques Show over the past decade. Newcomers this year included
Adelson Galleries, Conru Primitive Art, Dillingham & Company,
Historical Design, Cora Ginsburg LLC and Richard Philp. Richard
Green and Frank & Barbara Pollack, Inc, returned after an
absence.
The Seventh Regiment Armory was filled with new discoveries, at
least one made only hours before the Winter Antiques Show opened.
"The Wadsworth Atheneum has the copy. This is the original," said
garden sculpture dealer Barbara Israel, who had just determined
the truth about her marble figure, "Eve Repentant," by Edward
Sheffield Bartholomew (1822-1858). "Nathaniel Hawthorne thought
it was indecent, but this was Bartholomew's masterpiece," said
Israel, who was asking $110,000 for the figure.
Thomas Colville unveiled a painting by Elizabeth Nourse, an
expatriate contemporary of Mary Cassatt who was known for her
depictions of peasant mothers and children. The canvas, "End of
the Day," was found in France and purchased by the New Haven,
Conn., dealer last summer. It dates to 1888, the year that Nourse
arrived in Paris from Cincinnati.
Eight versions of the Mary Cassatt print "The Bath" occupied a
wall at Adelson Galleries, where a John Singer Sargent oil on
panel view of Capri took center stage.
"We had to wait two years to get the second one from the same
owner," Peter Schaffer of A La Vielle Russie said of two
Nineteenth Century paintings by Nicholas Gregorievitch Svetchkov
of Brittany and Welsh springer spaniels.
Known for its expertise in Philadelphia's Peale family of
painters, the Schwarz Gallery assembled canvases by three Peales:
Rembrandt, Charles Willson and James. The Philadelphia dealers
also offered a Peto trompe l'oeil painting and "A Peaceable
Kingdom" by Edward Hicks, priced $1.65 million.
Somewhat less peaceable was Jan Breughel the Younger's "The Entry
of the Animals into Noah's Ark," a jewel-toned oil on panel,
signed and dated 1645, that was prominently displayed by
Litchfield, Conn., dealer Peter Tillou.
A monumental portrait of George Washington at Yorktown by Charles
Willson Peale set the tone at Hirschl & Adler Galleries,
where the largest known American breakfront bookcase attributed
to Duncan Phyfe was $650,000.
The show's most imaginative booth belonged to Elle Shushan, a
Philadelphia specialist in portrait miniatures who asked New York
designer Ralph Harvard to create a multisided enclosure inspired
by John Nash's Brighton Pavilion. Shushan's American, English and
Continental portraits included two by the husband and wife
artists Mr and Mrs Moses B. Russell; one by Philadelphia master
Rapha-elle Peale; early Twentieth Century Revival miniatures by
Laura Coombs Hills and Eulabee Dix; and three miniatures of the
Langdon family of South Hero, Vt., by the unrecorded artist E.S.
Fairchild.
Clinton Howell Antiques, New York City.
Persimmon felt made a vivid backdrop for Eighteenth Century
Continental painted and lacquered furniture at L'Antiquaire and The
Connoisseur, where a Venetian drop front cabinet and a Turin
commode were highlights.
Kenneth W. Rendell Gallery celebrated the anniversary of Thomas
Edison's invention of the light bulb by offering a cache of six
drawings and a prototype bulb. The manuscripts dealer also
featured F. Scott Fitzgerald's original draft for the novel At
Your Age, for which the author received a record sum from a
publisher.
"I have a weakness for the Queen Anne form," said Leigh Keno,
admiring in profile a pair of sinuous Philadelphia side chairs
with rare volute-carved feet, $175,000. His booth also housed a
Marblehead, Mass., desk inscribed with the name Benjamin Reead,
the date 1771, and the case piece's original price, ten pounds
sterling. More than 200 years later, Keno was asking $380,000. A
Hartford area bonnet-top highboy with pinwheel carvings was
$170,000 and a New England Queen Anne black-painted tray tea
table, $95,000.
"We sold three of our best pieces to new clients. That bodes well
for the market," said the New York dealer, who parted with the
William Bradford painting "Sloops and Schooners at Evening Calm,"
$365,000; a pair of Federal sconces, $125,000; and the tea table.
To established clients Keno sold the Queen Anne chairs, a
Chippendale card table and a bird carving.
On hold was Woodbury, Conn., dealer Wayne Pratt's best piece, a
Boston block front lowboy, one of less than ten known and priced
in the mid-six figures.
New York dealer Guy Bush built his booth around a Bergen County,
N.J., cupboard in red paint and a Connecticut Valley tiger maple
Chippendale secretary desk with shell carved interior.
"It's the only known hairy paw-foot piece made south of New York
City," Virginia dealer Sumpter Priddy III said of a rare desk,
$785,000, half of a secretary thought to have been made by Peter
Scott for the Governor's Palace at Colonial Williamsburg.
"We sold a major Boston pier table and a gueridon stand, and have
had serious museum interest in our Deming and Bulkeley center
table," said Carswell Rush Berlin, a New York dealer in American
Federal and Classical furniture.
Associated Artists of Southport, Conn., had an excellent show,
selling a variety of important pieces from a stand evenly divided
between furniture by Herter Brothers of New York and Daniel Pabst
of Philadelphia.
Twentieth Century American furniture included a Gustav Stickley
double-door bookcase, $195,000, and Byrdcliffe blanket chest,
$115,000, at Cathers & Dembrosky. Washington dealer Geoffrey
Diner offered a Gustav Stickley eight-legged sideboard of 1902
and a rare, early leather-top #417 writing table, along with a
Gerrit Rietveld chair.
"We've got the greatest English Chippendale sideboard table in
the world," said Chicago dealer Paul Franklin, pointing to the
lavishly carved example, $75,000, against his back wall.
"To me, the important thing is that you can come to this show and
buy," said Fairhaven, Mass., dealer Ricky Goytizolo of Georgian
Manor Antiques, pointing out an Anglo Indian calamander and
marble table, $12,800, of 1840.
Chinoiserie was the order of the day at Hyde Park Antiques, where
dealer Bernard Karr unveiled a George I green lacquered secretary
bookcase, $480,000.
New York dealer Clinton Howell returned for his second year,
offering a rare pair of marquetry and inlaid console tables,
$975,000, by John Linnell; and a pair of oversized carved and
upholstered Queen Anne gesso stools, $350,000, in the highest
French style of the day.
"We've sold well across the board - big furniture, little
furniture, accessories," said Gary Young, a Centreville, Del.,
dealer in English furnishings who is always a bellwether for
business.
European modernists included Barry Friedman, Ltd, who built his
booth around a ceramic fireplace of limpid green, designed by
Hector Guimard, architect of the Paris Metro, in 1897, $125,000.
Other rarities included a Gerrit Rietveld "Red-Blue" chair,
$225,000, of 1920; and a Leger pencil drawing of 1924, $285,000.
Historical Design showed an Italian rosewood writing table inlaid
with silver and mother-of-pearl. By Eugenio Quarti, the table had
been exhibited in the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle.
At the Fine Arts Society, a dazzlingly inlaid Lamb of Manchester
display cabinet, $150,000, complemented James Jacques Tissot's
exotic 1882 painting of the prodigal son tempted, "In Foreign
Climes."
"We've sold virtually everything - our Soap Hollow cupboard and
clock, the chest of drawers, the dog weathervane, stoneware, our
carved dog, a Pembroke table, our shore birds and a set of
shelves. Sometimes this show just clicks, and it clicked for us,"
Patrick Bell of Olde Hope Antiques, New Hope, Penn., reported
midway through the fair. "Interest has been extremely strong.
There has been some hesitancy for the past two years, but New
Yorkers have been reassured by the stock market being over
10,000."
"We could use more storage space. We're 80 percent sold out,"
noted Fred Giampietro. The New Haven, Conn., specialist in
American folk art showed a race track tout, $475,000, and four
mortar and stone fencepost heads dug out of a farmers' field in
Roxbury, Conn., last year, $135,000.
At David A. Schorsch, a complete nest of eight round Nantucket
lightship baskets, $125,000, signed by the maker, took pride of
place alongside a heart and hand carved wooden figure that the
Woodbury, Conn., dealer purchased at Northeast Auction in August.
An object conservator recently discovered inside the sculpture a
crumbling letter stating that the piece was made in 1839 by Bella
Dexter and Ezra Ames of Chelsea, Mass.
"I tried to present a really good booth," Barbara Pollack said
with modest understatement. A tour de force of American primitive
portraiture and painted furniture, Pollack's memorable stand
ranged from Sheldon Peck's oil on panel "Portrait of a Lady in a
White Shawl," $45,000, to a pair of pastel profile portraits by
Ruth Henshaw Bascomb, $125,000, to a huge New England redware jar
that The Magazine Antiques chose for its first color cover
in 1931. The Illinois dealer's sales included the jar, a
miniature Chippendale chest, a pig trade sign and a William
Matthew Prior portrait of a child in a red dress with hammer and
tacks.
There were several fewer exhibitors on the floor on the first
Sunday, when Patriots fans like Robert Wilkins and Wayne Pratt
slipped away to catch the playoff game that will send their team
to the Super Bowl.
"We've had a very good show," said Suzanne Courcier, who spelled
her husband for the afternoon. Courcier & Wilkins' sales
included a Shaker blanket chest in brilliant bittersweet red; a
Shaker tall clock by Benjamin Youngs, $125,000; a Shaker
cupboard; a painted table; rugs; and game boards.
"From a dollar standpoint, I'm up 15 percent this year," said
Donald Ellis. The Ontario dealer in Native American art sold six
major pieces on opening night, including a First Phase chief's
blanket, a harpoon counterweight and an extraordinary bear mask.
An 1830s Plains warrior shirt and leggings were on hold.
New York dealer Spencer Throckmorton sold a terra-cotta sculpture
of a wind god, Veracruz culture, 900-1200. Conru from Belgium,
the show's other dealer in primitive art, stopped traffic with a
Solomon Island crocodile inlaid with nautilus shells, $75,000.
Guthman Americana featured an embroidered Huron moose-hair pouch
and moccasins; Nathaniel Bartlett's 1755 powder horn and woven
sash; an unrecorded broadside of a sonata sung for General
Washington in 1789, $55,000; and a hand colored print, "The
Burning of New York, 1776," $17,500.
"We sold several really major silk embroideries," Old Saybrook,
Conn., dealer Carol Huber said midway through the fair.
"We had an active start and sold quite a few pieces on opening
night," said Titi Halle of Cora Ginsburg LLC, whose encyclopedic
textile offerings ranged from an early Fifteenth Century Chinese
counted-stitch embroidery to block printed cotton fabric designed
by Russian painter Serge Poliakoff in 1946.
"We avoid the obvious," said Eddy Keshishian, a London and New
York dealer in antique rugs, carpets and tapestries. Signature
pieces included a Swedish Modernist carpet; an English Art Deco
carpet woven in Donegal, $265,000; and a rare Tabriz in an rare,
pale palette from the great English country house Lutton Hoo.
"The screen is the star," Japanese art specialist Joan Mirviss
said of a late Seventeenth or early Eighteenth Century gilded
six-fold example with the stamp "Inen." Depicting the four
seasons, the screen, $70,000, is unusual in its sophisticated
combination of opaque and translucent pigments.
Frank and Barbara Pollack, Highland Park, Ill.
Among the show's other Asian art dealers, Ralph M. Chait
Gallery offered a set of Chinese stoneware tiles decorated with
dragons and phoenixes, $110,000; London dealer Roger Keverne asked
$260,000 for a pair of magnificent Kangxi porcelain vases and
covers; and Cambridge, Mass., dealer Marc J. Matz presented a rare
carved and painted Indian ivory palanquin from the late Mughal
period.
Antiquities specialist Rupert Wace of London sold a Second
Century AD Roman marble head of a bearded male, $300,000, to an
American museum.
"It's very difficult to get Egyptian sculpture," New York dealer
Alan Safani said of his show-stopper, a limestone statue of a
nobleman and his wife from the reign of Tutankhamun, priced in
excess of million dollars.
Richard Philp, a London expert in early English and Continental
works of art, offered a Thirteenth Century Sienese painting on
panel of a female martyr by Segna di Bonaventura.
"The market seems to be a bit fuller at the top. Dealers have
done well and the auctions were good, too" said Leigh Keno. So
often a harbinger of things to come, the 2004 Winter Antiques
Show was an upbeat start to the new year.
