Like a carefully tended garden, an antiques show requires organization and variety. Marvin Getman’s October 20′1 Boston Antiques and Design Show evinced the results of such care. Sales were good and energy was palpable. With Getman, each event is tighter than the last, and there is always some new enhancement.
Of the 160 dealers present, 25 were new to the event; and seven book and print dealers set up. Getman was confined to a motorized scooter that he used to speed around the Shriners Auditorium visiting booths. He was injured in a biking accident earlier in October. He is recovering nicely and plans, with his wife, to participate in the Pan Mass Challenge next summer.
Brian Cullity of Sagamore, Mass., showed a group of rare books that elicited sales, including a 1931 edition of Madame Sex by Isaac Goldberg that was printed privately at the Panurge Press in New York. Cullity, known for the fine and tastefully eclectic, also showed an English brass snuff box, circa 1780‱800, with an engraved and punched perpetual calendar on the lid. Choice Sandwich glass and ceramics were also on offer.
Robinson House of Westwood, Mass., mixed Japanese pottery with prints and added to the mix an Eighteenth Century Burmese Buddha, a Persian painting and a Chinese Kang table.
From South Dennis on Cape Cod, David Thompson brought a circa 1870 schoolmaster’s desk in original paint and a pair of table desks of quartersawn oak by J.M. Young’s Sons Furniture Company. There were also interesting old photographs, books and prints and a blue willow platter with the image “New York from the Narrows” by William Ridgway.
Steele and Steele of Middletown, R.I., had sales and sales. Their appealing offerings ranged from a country bench with nice splay legs, shoe forms, a trestle table, a bocce set and a sweet highchair in blue paint.
Michael Hingston of Etna, N.H., was having a good show, and smalls, such as art pottery, silver and paperweights, were selling easily. Hingston also had a pretty New Hampshire Sheraton bureau and balanced his booth with artwork like a painting by William Wyman, a 1961 German mountain scene and an oil on board view of Loch Brenner.
Tradewinds Fine Art of Charlestown and Narragansett, R.I., sprinkled sold signs on paintings in the booth and several blank spaces on the walls attested to other sales. “Winter Peace” by Robert Strong Woodward sold. Of three Venetian scenes by Impressionist artist Dominico Riccitelli, who was born near Naples and arrived in Providence at 15, two sold early. Tradewinds brought a wide assortment of marine paintings, including one by Frederick John Mulhaupt.
Lincolnville, Maine, dealer Martin J. Ferrick filled a booth with enviable New England furniture, such as a dandy Connecticut Hepplewhite mahogany four-drawer chest with inlay and a Chippendale cherry slant lid desk on an ogee bracket base and a nice Sheraton cherry candlestand with vivid bird’s-eye maple. There was also a Maine birch tall chest, and a Chippendale six-drawer chest sold early.
Quelle Surprise, based in Gloucester, Mass., sold good smalls †perfumes and other glass, porcelain and silver. Harry and Mary Ellen Morgan also showed a rosewood apprentice chest from about 1850.
Boston dealer Peter Murphy usually shows pretty eclectic material, and this show was no exception. He had a pair of Swiss frames, circa 1900, with bird’s-eye maple and burlwood leaves, a Swiss pocket watch with transfer work, a collection of German cigarette cards, a ceramic book with scrolls and a pretty lithopane hall light.
A carved flying pig welcomed visitors to the booth of Rehoboth, Mass., gallery When Pigs Fly. Country smalls were the big draw, although a hand carved tractor and a US Mail airplane attracted no small attention. There was a sawbuck table, a nice shopkeeper’s desk on stand and a substantial Boston and Maine railroad tool box, along with vintage leather luggage and stoneware.
A pig was a focus point in the Biddeford, Maine, dealer booth Little River. He was an ironstone blue and white calico guy who was set apart from the plentiful glass for sale.
Antiques of Hingham, Mass., showed a wool parade jacket and badge from 1890, Braintree. Other delights were a nautical scrimshaw desk, a Kentucky rifle with a tiger maple stock, stoneware and a group of medals. A taxidermy raccoon only enhanced the country ambiance of the booth, while a pond sailor did duty for marine material and a tall Steiff kangaroo overlooked it all. The McCullochs, who also run Broad Cove Auctions in Hingham, said the show was good, “Really good.”
Dan and Nancy Antiques of Feeding Hills, Mass., were selling silver and some fine Thomas Webb cameo glass. Stephen Renda of Lynn, Mass., showed an impressive copy of “The Flight of Paul and Virginia.”
Greg Hamilton of Stone Block Antiques of Vergennes, Vt., told Getman it was one of his best shows ever. He showed good paintings, silver, jewelry and a map of Paris. More unusual was a Nineteenth Century heliograph, used to measure the altitude of the sun, along with an 1858 patent for using the device to make a durable photographic image on a lithographic stone, and a daguerreotype of one of the inventors who devised the technique. There was also a nicely formed bone shaker.
Book and print dealers were set up in the Fez Room of the auditorium †a smaller space, carpeted and with lower ceilings, conducive to quiet browsing. Booksellers were pleased and surprised at their success. Greg Gibson of Ten Pound Island Book Company sells rare and esoteric material related to whaling †he sold five important pieces. Joan and Dick Gosselin of Talking Leaves of Hooksett, N.H., showed rare books on art and militaria and said they were having a good show. They also brought along material with local references that appealed to buyers. Thomas Boss of Salem, Mass., had some fine books and artwork that attracted attention.
Crones Collectibles had their last show with Getman and did a land office business. They offered deep discounts as they are about to board their motorhome and head in a general direction described as “south-ish.”
Pioneer Folk Arts of Ellsworth, Maine, had good sales that included a knockdown carnival figure from the 1920s, a carving of a man, cast iron architectural elements from a porch and vintage painted signs. Two handsome hooked rugs were for sale. One depicted a boat and the other was made in 1951 with an allover design with cats, a bird, a sailboat, a child by the sea. The latter was signed “MM” and was thought to have been made in New Hampshire.
Forgotten Furnishings of Waitsfield, Vermont, experienced brisk sales. For sale was a wagon seat, which had been found in Vermont and retained traces of blue paint, along with andirons and silver.
Bayberry Antiques of Rockland, Mass., shared a booth with Anne B. Russell of Newburyport, Mass. They had large framed calligraphy pictures of an elephant and a leopard-like creature, baskets, textiles, treen and decoys, a fine blanket chest and a nice country shelf.
Everyone likes to look at photograph displays, so the Griffin Museum of Photography of Winchester, Mass., was well patronized. The museum offered photographs of Hildegarde, Merle Oberon and Buster Keaton, along with images of local interest, such as sports events at the old Boston Garden.
A lawyer’s deed box held pride of place in the Alley Antiques booth. The Pelham, N.H., dealer also showed a fine cast iron horse-drawn fire wagon.
Kairos Gallery, now of Chappaqua, N.Y., mixed up the mix, adding glass, religious items and contemporary paintings to its offerings of Asian ceramics and decorative objects.
Bolton Landing, N.Y., dealer Class Menagerie reported a good show, and the sold stickers sprinkled around the booth verified that.
For more information, www.neantiqueshows.com or 781-862-4039.
