Stuart Deneberg of Deneberg Fine Art, West Hollywood, Calif., witha view of Antibes by Matisse offered for $850,000.
Moishe Bronstein of The Garden Antiquary, New York City, and a Nineteenth Century terracotta putto tagged at $29,500.
Waterhouse & Dodd, London, England.
By Laura Beach
NEW YORK CITY – Like any art, a successful antiques show only looks easy. Anyone who has been privy to the myriad details that go into a winning event know just how hard it is to secure exhibitors; craft a handsome, well-balanced display; and draw knowledgeable and interested buyers. Change any element – dates or venue, for instance – of a tested formula and all bets are off.
If they didn’t already know it, the managers of learned first hand the complexities of show business in their first outing at Madison Square Garden from November 30 through December 4.
Organized by Dr Jerome Eisenberg, a New York antiquities dealer who is director of Royal-Athena Galleries, and Bruce Ferrini, an Akron, Ohio, dealer in illuminated manuscripts and early writings, the New York Antiquarian Fine Art Fair was an artistic success and a commercial disappointment. The good news is that both dealers and management are committed to trying the show again, in another venue.
As is now well known, the city’s best spots for antiques shows have been unavailable since September 11. Eisenberg calculated that, what with the cancellation of major fall events such as the International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Show, his fair would provide a welcome diversion and a much-needed opportunity to buy. Anxious to reach American collectors, many of whom have postponed travel plans, London dealers, especially, agreed. What Eisenberg couldn’t know is just how hard it would be to convince his well-heeled clientele to travel to 34th Street and Seventh Avenue.
The difficulties began during set-up. With an Elton John concert before, a Britney Spears concert after, and a New York Rangers game during the antiques show (albeit several stories below), exhibitors found it difficult to so much as get an elevator up to the fifth floor Expo Center, where the antiques show was staged. “It took me a full day to get out because Britney Spears came in with four tractor trailers. I was paying my trucker by the hour,” complained one dealer.
Trucks couldn’t be driven onto the exhibition floor, which meant that some merchandise had to be carried up flights of stairs. The ordeal was repeated when the show was broken down. And then there were the incidental fees. “The Garden charged us an additional $40,000 for electrical services and required us to have a bomb-sniffing dog, not in the contract, at $650 dollars an hour. Amazing!,” said the displeased manager.
Many people had trouble finding the Expo Center. One reason was that Eisenberg was not allowed to post his eye-catching banners at the Garden’s street-level entrance, where art connoisseurs entered alongside ice hockey fans, there for the Rangers game.
Eisenberg, who had a substantial advertising budget and secured some excellent pre-show publicity, was also understandably disappointed by the lack of news coverage the weekend of the fair. A piece in The New York Times would almost certainly have improved attendance. “Ours was the only art and antiques show in town for six months, plus we had 22 dealers from London, and the Times didn’t have the courtesy to come,” said the manager. Eisenberg put the gate for the six-day show in the “thousands.” Exhibitors only knew that it was quiet.
“The quality of the show was high and the dealers were good, but I wouldn’t do this show again in this setting,” said Moishe Bronstein of The Garden Antiquary in New York. “You never know if you’ll sell at a show. The important thing is to meet new people, potential clients.”
What wasn’t missing from the New York Antiquarian Fine Art Fair was an outstanding roster of dealers who brought some of their best material. The well-balanced display, made up of 52 experts from the United States, England, France, Italy, Switzerland, and South America, included both unusual specialties and specialists who deserve to be much better known to New York-area collectors. The show was rigorously vetted, a chore that less ambitious organizers might have been tempted to overlook given the rigors of the set-up in the untested venue.
The show was also beautifully installed. Like many of the city’s facilities, the Expo Center at Madison Square Garden is worn and dirty, facts that were skillfully disguised by Kevin Looney, a capable technician who has worked with the Lester organization on the Palm Beach fairs. The carpenters and electricians were the same as those used to mount fairs at the Seventh Regiment Armory. Floors were carpeted, or, in some cases, tiled or laid with parquetry, and the hard walls of the booths were painted or beautifully covered with rich fabrics.
Highlights
Eisenberg and Ferrini recruited some top dealers. There was Tessier’s Ltd., the Bond Street jeweler; Heribert Tenschert, the Swiss dealer in illustrated manuscripts; and Galerie Ruf, a European costumes specialist from Beckenried, near Lucerne. The Swiss dealer mounted an elaborate, colorful display of European high style garments made between 1750 and 1900.
London dealers Waterhouse & Dodd aimed to impress, mounting a Renoir canvas on one wall and a Berthe Morisot on the other. The Renoir, “Fillette Assise Sur Un Fond Bleu,” was included in Ambrose Vollard’s own book on the artist in 1918. Morisot’s portrait of Jeannie Gobillard, 1894, has been identified as Manet’s niece.
Previously located in San Francisco, Denenberg Fine Arts of West Hollywood, Calif., emphasized quality in its varied assortment of paintings and sculpture. Albert Pinkham Ryder’s oil on panel “Sundown” was $140,000; Edgar Degas’ “Chevall Sautant un Obstacle,” a bronze equestrian figure of 1919, was $285,000; and an oil on canvas view of Antibes, a subject often painted by the artist, was $850,000.
Questroyal Fine Art showed a small Thomas Moran oil on canvas of Grand Canyon alongside a beautiful pastel of New York’s Flatiron building. Avery Galleries of Bryn Mawr, Penn., featured a New Jersey shore view by William Trost Richards, $275,000.
Robert Simon, an Old Masters pictures dealer from Tuxedo Park, N.Y., pointedly brought a range of offerings priced from just $25 for charming, unframed English watercolor sketches to highly finished oils, such as Elisabetta Sirani’s demure “Cleopatra,” showing the legendary temptress dissolving a pearl in wine, and “Sleeping Bachante,” a voluptuous and apparently intoxicated nude, $350,000, by Gerard de Lairesse.
Antiquities and Chinese works of art were particularly well represented. Arnold Lieberman of Greathere Ltd., featured a Sixteenth Century Nepalese mask and several Indian carvings in red sandstone, among them a torso of king, First to Second Century BC, and a Kushan Buddha torso of the same date.
London dealers Priestly & Ferraro’s amply stocked booth included a large carved and polychromed temple guardian, Twelfth to Fifteenth Century, $85,000; and a Seventeenth Century glazed pottery Tang horse, $42,500. Berwald Oriental Art of London featured a pair of large Tang court ladies and a huge Cornelius Pronk enameled porcelain vase and cover.
A bright new addition to the New York market was Irvin Ungar of Historicana in Burlingame, Calif. The rabbi-turned-antiques dealer specializes, not surprisingly, in Judaica. The rarest rdf_Description in his booth was a document, dated 1492 and signed by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, calling for the confiscation of Jewish property during the expulsion of 1492.
The most costly rdf_Description on the floor belonged to Heribert Tenschert, the Swiss books and manuscripts dealer. Offered at $3 million, Historia Naturalis by Anselmus de Boodt consists of 12 beautifully illustrated volumes containing nearly 200 watercolors of plants and animals. The illustrations were completed in Prague around 1600 by the doctor and lapidary of Rudolph II. Remarkably, these exquisite paintings have descended over the centuries as one collection.
The only dealer in American decorative arts was Heller Washam Antiques. The Portland, Me., and Woodbury, Conn., dealer filled their huge booth with an inviting range of furniture, accessories, and primitive portraiture. Top billing went to a pair of shell-carved New York side chairs, circa 1780, $16,000; a New Jersey games table, $25,000; and a rare early Connecticut Queen Anne side chair, circa 1740, $10,500.
Not for sale was Eisenberg’s own collection of animals in art, mounted as a stand-alone exhibit. Particularly charming was a vast array of Greek owls, the symbol of the Goddess Athena and an appropriate mascot for the dealer himself, depicted on ancient pottery.
Some exhibitors had good shows. “I did very well, much better than anticipated,” said Robert Simon. “I sent out a lot of invitations and a lot of my clients came. A lot of the exhibitors were from abroad. Some were superb, but unfamiliar to collectors here. I felt badly for them. If the organizers failed in one thing, it might have been in not advertising heavily enough.”
Otherwise, sales were scattered. Lee Biondi of Los Angeles parted with a Fifteenth Century French Book of Hours, marked $275,000; English dealer Bruno Cooper sold a Seventeenth Century Neapolitan table cabinet, pictured, marked $150,000; the Guilford Castle urns, a pair of 43-inch Meiji-era vases made for an Irish great house, also pictured and marked $175,000, sold at the Graham Galleries of London; and Royal-Athena Galleries closed a deal on a set of ancient Greek body armor and helmet, $95,000. “One visitor alone acquired objects for nearly $400,000 at the vernissage benefiting WNET New York,” said Eisenberg. The manager was also expecting some follow-up sales.
Dealers said they are willing to try again. “What could be better than a new, upscale antiques show with dealers of integrity and diverse wares? Given the proper preparations by the venue organizers, I would love the opportunity to exhibit again in New York at that time of year,” said Irvin Ungar of Historicana.
Concurs Robert Simon, “Most of the exhibitors see the show’s potential. They recognize that New York could use another fair with top-quality dealers in a variety of different kinds of collecting fields.”
Eisenberg and Ferrini have already announced next year’s fair dates, November 28 to December 3, in a location to be disclosed. They are also planning a major fair in Palm Beach during the winter of 2003.
Information on both shows may be obtained from the management’s Web site, www.antiquarianfair.com, or by calling 330-665-2272.
