Eager for fresh antiques after the satiety of Thanksgiving, buyers came to the 37th annual Peabody Essex Museum Antiques Show November 27′9 prepared to buy and prepared to have some fun.
The show is polished and professional; the preview party is indeed gala and the food and drink are copious. Sushi stands placed around the show site did a land-office business. The party benefits the educational programs of the 1800 Peabody Essex Museum; museum staff, overseers and show committee members turn out in force with superior support of the show.
Bradford Trust returned to the Peabody Essex show for the 14th time, this year with an even mix of traditional and contemporary, both of which have wide appeal. They showed (and sold) the compelling watercolor smelting scene “Silver Mine Plume” by Frederick Montague Charman. Roy Mennell, co-owner of the Harwich Port, Mass., gallery, said it was the fourth Charman he and his wife and partner, Sheila, had sold at the Peabody Essex show. They also sold a vibrant Henry Kallem painting that formerly hung in their kitchen. Mennell said he observed a rush of return visitors on Sunday afternoon, when people considering objects seen over the course of the show returned to make the purchase.
Mennell, like other dealers, was especially complimentary of show manager Christine Crossman Vining †who has managed the show since the beginning. She produces a well-organized event each year, with special touches for dealers not found at most other shows. Load in and pack out was flawless †the show closed at 5 pm; by 9:15 everyone was gone and Vining was having a drink across the street at the Hawthorne Hotel.
Vining set herself up in a jewel box of a booth, offering paintings and interesting smalls like the French blue painted box decorated on the top with a scene of a child and a black servant, made around 1770. She had acquired it in 1972 or 1973 from Bill Samaha at the Golden Ball Tavern show in Weston, Mass., and it had migrated into her safe deposit box where she found it recently. Vining also had a diminutive China Trade carved cupboard with drawers that was made from timbers from the wrecked English vessel Minden , aboard which Francis Scott Key is said to have written the poem “The Defense of Fort McHenry,” which became “The Star Spangled Banner.” Vining said the ship, built in India from English wood, is also pictured in nearly every China Trade painting of the port of Hong Kong. She was ebullient about her booth; she sold $20,000 in antiques and replenished her stock throughout the event.
Carl Crossman, Vining’s brother, filled cases with the exquisite Chinese porcelain for which he is known. He mixed in a few furniture pieces, including a nice Wright and Ditson croquet set that made more than one visitor want to don whites. He headed back home to Wellington, Fla., pleased with the outcome of the show.
A last-minute addition to the show, Bell Time Clocks of Andover, Mass., had what dealer Bob Frishman described as “the best show in a long time.” The soft susurrus of ticking clocks made for a soothing space amid the hubbub of the show. Frishman had attractively priced objects that were rewarded with many sales. He sold a Boston banjo clock by Charlestown maker Joshua Seward, a Swiss pocket barometer in a fitted leather case, an English sextant in a mahogany case and a German mechanical singing bird with a very sweet tweet, among other objects.
Hanes & Ruskin Antiques came from Old Lyme, Conn., with good furniture that included a sweet Connecticut Queen Anne pine table, circa 1761, with notched corners and cabriole legs on delicate ankles that attracted much interest. A fine New York Sheraton mahogany bookcase sold, as did a Rhode Island Windsor armchair and an English ship’s portrait. Hanes & Ruskin also had a Pennsylvania walnut four-drawer chest and an English mahogany hanging corner cabinet that was filled with portrait miniatures that also attracted attention. Lee Hanes said after the show that it was one of the best New England shows they have done in many years.
Dick Vandall of American Decorative Arts in Canaan, N.H., conceded dolefully as he showed some Shaker pieces, “I swore I wouldn’t do this again.” He referred to beginning another collection of Shaker material. But having disposed of a good chunk of his Shaker holdings, he is starting over, despite his best intentions. His gleanings ranged from an Enfield, N.H., dry sink, a recent acquisition found in far northern New Hampshire, to the tiniest pen wipe in the world, made in the Canterbury community with a tiny bisque doll. He showed three Shaker almanacs for the years 1887 and 1887, and Mission furniture, including a child’s chair. Early in the show he had sold five smalls and a chair. Vandall’s Shaker and Mission material was offset by three leaded glass panels, each with a bird as the central motif, from a Nova Scotia house.
Stonington, Conn., gallery Roberto Freitas American Antiques & Decorative Arts had a China Trade portrait of General George Washington by a Spoilum school artist that attracted significant interest. A Rhode Island Goddard Townsend school Chippendale maple slant lid desk, circa 1760‱780, was impressive and attracted the interest of serious buyers, as did a Chippendale oxbow blocked end chest of drawers made around 1770 in Massachusetts or Rhode Island. There was also a fine hanging one-drawer spice box.
First-time exhibitor at the Peabody Essex, Boston dealer Stephen Score was still rhapsodizing about the show several days later. He lauded it all: Christine Vining’s masterful organization, the porter crew from Northeast Auctions, committee members and museum staff. “It was wonderful to set up a few feet from galleries full of treasures,” he said, adding that he sold some very good things to some very nice people. A carved and painted wood cherub with a horn, circa 1840‱860, found a new home, as did a pair of Antoine Roux watercolors of ships on a calm sea and of a ship foundering on the rocks. A portrait of the tug James Woolley by Samuel F.M. Badger attracted attention, along with a French pair of painted leather five panel screens. For Score it was “a first-rate event.”
Arthur Guy Kaplan had a glittering display of estate jewelry that attracted a steady and enthusiastic group of shoppers.
A splendid Art Deco carpet held pride of place in the Landry & Arcari booth. The carpet was made in China in the 1920s, woven with Deco design elements. The Boston and Salem dealer offered rugs and carpets of every size and pattern and shoppers were drawn to the booth.
Woodbury, Conn., dealer David Brooker filled the walls of his booth with sporting art guaranteed to appeal to the North Shore attendees. He showed such pictures as Jake Wotton’s “Duke of Newcastle Hunting at Clumber Park,” a cattle portrait by John Nost Sartorius and hunt scenes by John Sanderson Wells. A handsome portrait of a black stallion by Edward Waller Webb hung near “Over the Fence” by George Derville Rowlandson; canine portraits by John Frederick Herring Jr and George Earl were also for sale. For the few who preferred them, two Venetian scenes by Oliver Dennett Grover were also offered.
Michael J. Whitman reported that he rung up even more sales of gleaming metalware than last year and was pleased. The Fort Washington, Penn., dealer sold a Dutch repousse and chased copper bucket, circa 1800, a Polish engraved brass sugar box from about 1880 and assorted candlesticks and kitchen utensils.
Running Battle Antiques of Newagen, Maine, showed English oak from several centuries, such as a Victorian oak pedestal campaign desk and a Seventeenth Century oak coffer dating from 1640‱650, a Spanish country walnut table and a William and Mary walnut armchair with a fancifully carved crest and a similarly carved bottom that dealer Hamilton Meserve said may have been an afterthought. There was also a circa 1630 food hutch or bread cupboard with a single door that came from West Country England and a fine South Wales oak dresser.
The deep tones of oak furniture was offset by the China Trade paintings of the bark May Queen in rough seas off the coast of China and the clipper Reindeer off Philippines and two Vietnamese ceremonial Yao Taoist scrolls. Meserve brought along a couple of boxes of books on antiques from his personal collection, some of which he said were duplicates. He was observed comparing notes across the corridor with book dealers Russack & Loto, who had filled their booth with an intriguing mix of art and antiques books from the Norwood, N.H., location. Judy Loto said sales were steady and gratifying.
Childs Gallery of Boston filled the walls of its booth with works by William Partridge Burpee, the circa 1880 oil on paper “Maine Mists” and the pastel “Gloucester Harbor,” a 1916 ink wash salmon fishing scene by Frank W. Benson, and the oil on canvas “The Blue Dress” by Abraham Leon Kroll. A selection of works by Sally Michel, including “Fishing Boat on the Aegean Sea” and “Outdoor Chairs,” lent bright color to the booth, and “Callas and Amaryllis” by Ben Norris was a sensuous addition.
Federalist Antiques had an interesting English circular tole tray and stand, circa 1785, a China Trade gilt and lacquer chinoiserie workstand made for the Western market and an impressive carved spread-wing eagle on a rocky base made in England in about 1820. There was a good-looking Sheraton banquet table topped with a nice English hunt bowl with interior famille rose decoration.
Diana Bittel displayed the marine art for which she is known and which resonated with the mission of the Peabody Essex Museum. Marine paintings included a Thomas H. Willis oil on canvas ship’s portrait with embroidered silk thread and the ship’s portrait “Brig Good Hope Entering and Leaving the Port of Palermo.” The booth was also hung with some fine scherenschnitte work attributed to Isaac Stiely of Mahantongo Valley and sailor valentines and other shellwork, such as the Continental shellwork made in Geneva, Switzerland. Bittel also had a Philadelphia Chippendale cherry four-drawer chest and a Connecticut Chippendale mahogany oxbow chest, circa 1770, and a New England Chippendale figural maple chest-on-chest.
Vibrant Nineteenth Century Navajo weavings served as a magnetic force drawing visitors to the booth of Santa Fe, N.M., dealer Michael L. Smith. Gems included a woman’s dress half, a late classic blanket and a late classical serape or child’s blanket with crosses.
For information, 866-745-1876 or www.pem.org .
