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The endless wave of show attendees courses down the aisle of the tented pavilion.
Review and Photos by W.A. Demers
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. – No rest for the warriors. Frank Gaglio and crew of Rhinebeck, N.Y.-based Barn Star Productions had barely unloaded his trailer following the promoter’s successful outing in Morristown, N.J. [See Antiques and The Arts Weekly, April 19, 2019], and it was time to revisit his revival show at the famous Lyndhurst Mansion, now in its second year.
Thankfully, weather was delightful over the April 6-7 weekend, and combined with the museum’s opening weekend with the annual flower show [see accompanying article], High Tea in the cottage, jewelry appraisals by specialists from Rago’s and other happenings, the critical mass brought out well over 2,000 people – some of them young couples with strollers – to the museum grounds and the carriage house where Gaglio’s boutique show was presented.
Gaglio and his team again hit a homer over the weekend.
“We got through it,” said an exhausted but satisfied Gaglio, contacted afterwards. “Not only were my dealers able to make good sales, but Bob Richter’s talk went brilliantly.”
The show is wait-listed by dealers, constrained by the confines of the tented structure attached to the Welcome Center complex, a refurbished carriage house just down the hill from the mansion, Antiques on the Hudson sets up as a boutique-style show – just 27 exhibitors – but the compact emporium provides antiques collectors the opportunity to shop an array of garden antiques, period furnishings, fine art, estate jewelry, vintage and midcentury design.
The weekend was additionally bolstered by the appearance of special guest host Bob Richter, author and television personality. At noon on Saturday, he led a group in a walking tour through the show, stopping at every booth and engaging dealers to talk about highlights they had brought. He signed copies of his latest book, Vintage Living: Creating a Beautiful Home with Treasured Objects from the Past.
Anchored by a set of four pieces of rattan furniture, circa 1920, colorful Uzbeck suzani pillows and a large vintage department store display rabbit, circa 1960s, Find Weatherly, Stamford, Conn., created a welcoming vignette.
“It was a good show,” said David Smernoff, who deals not only in antiquities but in classic and Modern art as well. The New Haven, Conn., dealer sold massive bronze sculptures by Betty Gilman (American, 1924-2017), Modern paintings and Hudson River School paintings. “I had lots of interest from people who after the show went to my website – www.davidsmernoff.com – and Instagram account, looking for things they had seen at the show,” said Smernoff.
Greg Hamilton of Stone Block Antiques, Vergennes, Vt., sold from a collection he had acquired from a local house only a couple of days before the show opened. On offer in his booth were a pair of Eighteenth Century Italian fruitwood settees, Queen Anne tea table, Eighteenth Century Chinese export and a pair of lamps featuring figural decoration that may have been roof tile figures. “Great show,” remarked Hamilton, adding that he was busy both days.
“Sales were good. Sold a large French marble and iron table, large mirrored folding room divider, some silver, some jewelry. Bought garden benches, large cast stone figures.”
It was good to see garden antiques specialist Joan Bogart back on the show circuit after a brief absence. She filled a booth with some choice pieces such as a Fiske cast iron fish tank, which for the show had a solitary inhabitant, a Florentine Craftsmen lead turtle fountain that she had found in Jupiter, Fla., a pair of hooded metal garden seats and a colorful metal frog sprinkler in original paint.
Another dealer specializing in garden antiques, the husband and wife team of Judith and James Milne, brought the outside in with their usual menagerie of cast stone animal figures, a trio of “graces” in carved wood from the Nineteenth Century, a glass top table supported by three magnificent carved wood swans and a pair of English figural youths holding up planter basins from the 1940s.
“As usual with Frank’s shows, it was well organized and promoted. Very good crowds,” said Steven Thomas, Woodstock, Vt., who filled a booth with fine art and small sculptures, including a 12-by-9-by-6-inch sculpture titled “Bernini’s Dilemma,” 1999, by American artist Varujan Boghosian (b 1926), which playfully alluded to the sculpture in Rome by Gian Lorenzo Bernini of an elephant that has an obelisk balanced on its back.
In celebration of anticipated warmth and color of the spring season, Hawthorne Fine Art, New York City, complemented the mansion’s transformation with the color and fragrance of spring blossoms with its own exhibition showcasing oils, watercolors and pastel artworks. Many of the works were painted by historic, academically trained female artists and represented new acquisitions for the gallery.
Barn Star’s next event is the spring Antiques at Rhinebeck at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds, May 25 and 26. For information, 845-876-0616 or www.barnstar.com.
Designers Say It With Flowers In
Lyndhurst’s Spring Opener
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. – Presiding over the same weekend hosting a boutique antiques show [reviewed in an accompanying article] and flower show was the wonderful Gothic Revival Lyndhurst Mansion with its captivating views above the Hudson River. Serving as the perfect backdrop for both shows and a High Tea event, it was designed in 1838 by Alexander Jackson Davis, sits in a park-like landscape and houses a comprehensive collection of original decorative arts.
Complementing the antiques on offer just down the hill in the carriage house, the annual Lyndhurst flower show raised the bar with an explosion of color and compelling floral installations on April 6-7. It was a rare opportunity for visitors to see the mansion’s historic rooms – themselves richly furnished with antique furniture and decorative arts – dressed up in sumptuous flower arrangements. On both Saturday and Sunday, visitors could – sans guide – walk through the mansion and imagine they were seeing it as it was in its heyday – decorated with fresh flowers from the estate gardens and greenhouse.
A special preview party on the evening of April 5 kicked off the event. Lyndhurst executive director Howard Zar said, “We had the idea for the flower show because it harkens back to the estate’s heyday when the historic mansion was always decorated with fresh flowers from the estate gardens and greenhouse. In its fourth year, the show has grown to a place where it can also reflect on Lyndhurst’s unique identity as a place where its art and architecture was once considered new and contemporary.”
It is well known that Jay Gould, owner of the Hudson River estate, rebuilt Lyndhurst’s greenhouse dating from 1881, so that he could grow his prize orchids, considered one of the most impressive collections in the United States. Colonial Village Flowers of Scarsdale, N.Y. recreated a sumptuous floral feast of orchids and other blooms in the mansion’s dining room.
And it was true, with the addition of full-room floral installations and a floral print exhibition, visitors could experience both the excitement of innovative floral interpretations alongside the traditional ones that they have enjoyed in the past.
One such new experience was a presentation by Brooklyn-based Joshua Werber, who, inspired by Anna Gould’s gowns in the museum’s collection, dressed several female manikins in the drawing room and, in a live performance before gathered guests at the preview party affixed magnificent floral headdresses to each hairless head.
Among other local floral and event designers represented over the weekend were Worship (upstairs bath); ArcadiaFloral.com (upstairs bedroom); Seasons (upstairs bedroom); Whitney Crutchfield (hand dyed, hand woven textile window treatment) Wile (downstairs hallway); AuCiel (picture gallery) and others.
Lyndhurst, as one can imagine, is a weddings magnet during the spring, summer and fall months, and it has more than three dozen already booked for the season, an attractive proposition for area florists.
Lyndhurst, also known as the Jay Gould estate, is at 635 South Broadway. For information, 914-631-4481 or www.lyndhurst.org.
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