The Peabody Essex Museum is a fitting location for an antiques show and even more so this year as exhibitors seemed to focus on not just items of local interest, but displays seemed to relate directly to the museum and its collecting tastes.
In its 38th annual edition of the show November 26′8, the result was an elegant affair with tasteful and sumptuous booths, focusing on the sort of Americana and antiques that appeals to buyers here. Offerings were predominantly New England-based, but, as always, there is always plenty to see from ports both near and far.
Boston-based Stephen Score, a new exhibitor in the show this year, featured a simple yet dramatic booth, highlighting a few standout pieces. Facing each other and the only works hung on each side wall were a House and Baskets hooked rug from New England, circa 1920″0, measuring 74 by 38 inches, and a painting titled “The Dames Woolley tugboat” by SFM Badger, Charlestown, Mass., 1899.
Roberto Freitas American Antiques and Decorative Arts, Stonington, Conn., offered a William and Mary gate leg dining table with drawer, probably Massachusetts, circa 1730‵0, and a portrait by marine artist Antonio Jacobsen of the steamship Castillian Prince , dated 1893.
Bradford Trust showed a landscape by Charles D. Cahoon (1861‱951), who will be the focus of a comprehensive exhibition in June, on the 150th anniversary of the painter’s birth, at the Brooks Academy Museum in Harwich, Mass.
American Decorative Arts, Canaan, N.H., showed a large gathering basket, circa 1890‱900, and a Shaker rocker, circa 1890, from the Mount Lebanon community.
W.M. Schwind Jr, Yarmouth, Maine, offered an English Regency sofa table in mahogany with rosewood banding and string inlay as well as its original lion paw brass casters. Other standouts on display included a Massachusetts Hepplewhite easy chair in mahogany, circa 1810, and a tall Chippendale six-drawer chest in birch that retained its original brasses and traces of old red finish. The Maine chest, circa 1780‱800, descended in the Nathan Weston family of Augusta.
In one of the few shows he does in the Northeast, Charles Edwin Puckett, Akron, Ohio, came armed with a choice sampling of antique maps and illustrated manuscripts. An eye-catching piece was a hand colored engraved map of the Southern skies, circa 1720s, by astronomer and math professor J. Gabariel Dopplemayr. The map charts the Southern constellations and is laid out according to the ecliptic in the waning days of the year 1730.
Offering a pleasing mix of furniture and fine art, Federalist Antiques, Kenilworth, Ill., highlights included a French oil on canvas of a stag hunt in a woodsy landscape, circa 1700, and an American neoclassical four-drawer chest in the French Restoration manner with solid and veneered bird’s-eye maple.
A circa 1930s black and white press photograph in large-format, for the US Navy, of airplanes was offered at Andrew Spindler Antiques, Essex, Mass. The dealer successfully offered a booth of old and modern, which included a set of six leather and oak armchairs by Stewart Ross James, circa 1950s.
No matter the show, it is not hard to find the booth of Charles L. Washburne Antiques, Solebury, Penn. One need only look for the booth filled with rare and colorful majolica. Eye candy here included a rare Minton boar four-piece game dish, circa 1875 and a Minton cheese box with reeds and dragonflies, which was topped with a bird finial, along with oyster plates in a variety of patterns.
Bell Time Clocks, Andover, Mass., featured a fetching booth of clocks from table examples to banjo style. Highlights were an English bracket clock by W.J. Smith, Bath, circa 1850, with a signed and painted dial in rosewood with heavy cast brass handles; and a watchmen clock by E. Howard, circa 1870, in solid walnut, “For the Detection of Delinquent Watchmen on Night Duty in Factories, Railroad Stations and Public Buildings.”
Steven J. Rowe Antiques, Cornish, N.H., featured a circa 1840 graduated four-drawer chest on a bracket base, a wonderfully proportioned and finely carved and upholstered Louis XVI settee, a choice japanned tea box and an Earl Henry Brewster (1878‱957) oil on board, “Taormina, Italy.”
A Walker Kirtland Hancock bronze, “Large Triton’s Fountain,” held pride of place at the entry to Childs Gallery’s booth. It was the fourth in an edition of 12 from the artist revered for his “Pennsylvania Railroad War Memorial” in Philadelphia. The Boston gallerist also showed works of local interest, such as Charles E.L. Green’s oil “North Shore Wharf Scene,” circa 1900, and William Partridge Burpee’s “Lincoln Point and Lincoln House Hotel, Swampscott from Lynn Beach (Massachusetts).”
Running Battle Antiques, Newagen, Maine, offered a luxurious booth, accented by fine furniture and paintings. Highlights were a French Provincial walnut table, circa 1750, and George Webster’s “Fishing Vessels with Dutch Man O’War Beyond” in a period gilded frame.
Highlights in the booth of Michael J. Whitman Antiques, Fort Washington, Penn., included a rare plate warmer, an English brass honor box for dispensing tobacco, circa 1850, with a coin chute, and a pair of English three-arm brass chimney chandeliers with original hangers, circa 1875.
An attention-grabber at Thomas Schwenke Antiques, Woodbury, Conn., was a massive oil on canvas signed M. Delgobe Deniker (Marguerite Delgobe-Deniker, active France, early Twentieth Century) that showed an Oriental man sitting on a rooftop overlooking the Mongolian plains. The intriguing work measured 49 inches tall and 78½ inches wide and was shown in its original frame.
The painting was hung over an equally fetching rare Hepplewhite carved mahogany sofa, Salem, Mass., attributed to Samuel McIntyre, whose fine carved furniture was featured at the museum in a major exhibition just a few years ago. The sofa had Cupid’s bow crest with punch work detail and carved drapery.
Other choice pieces spotted at the show included an unusual chair table of New England origin at Hanes & Ruskin, Old Lyme, Conn., and at Carl Crossman, Wellington, Fla., nautical-themed “cabinets of curiosities” displayed in vintage fruit crates. Crossman’s collection was apropos as this very museum was begun in the tradition of these kinds of cabinets †”collections of both natural and human-made objects that sparked a sense of wonder †for the enjoyment and enlightenment of the public.”
The show will return, as it always does, Thanksgiving weekend 2011, for its 39th edition. For more information, 978-745-9500, extension 3216, or www.pem.org .
