The Magazine Antiques

Discovery | By Emily Vanderpool

Vintage finds for your valentine

February 12, 2010  |  
A Fisher-Wife
The soonest mended, nothing said;
And help may rise from east or west;
But my two hands are lumps of lead,
My heart sits leaden in my breast.

O north wind swoop not from the north,
O south wind linger in the south,
Oh come not raving raging forth,
To bring my heart into my mouth;

For I've a husband out at sea,
Afloat on feeble planks of wood;
He does not know what fear may be;
I would have told him if I could.

I would have locked him in my arms,
I would have hid him in my heart;
For oh! the waves are fraught with harms,
And he and I so far apart.

-Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

It is difficult to ignore the saccharine gestures that crop up every year for Valentine's Day. While the vocabulary of love has found various forms over the centuries and throughout cultures, one fascinating and charming version of a valentine that has endured is the sailors' valentine—shellwork tokens, which from about 1830 to 1890, were given by sailors to their loved ones upon their return home.
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Discovery | By Rachael Dealy Salisbury

Great Estates: Davenport House in Savannah, Georgia

February 11, 2010  |  Completed around 1820, Davenport House, located in the historic port city of Savannah, evinces the post-Revolutionary American taste for contemporary European design.  Isaiah Davenport, a master carpenter by trade, looked to the classicizing mode that had become prevalent in residential architecture throughout England and Europe when he constructed Davenport House for his growing family.  Today, visitors can experience the excitement of the period by visiting this southern treasure, which is one of many homes to be explored in Savannah's downtown historic district.

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After being saved from the wrecking ball in 1955, Davenport House's sophisticated exterior cast iron work and interior charms—including imported marble fireplace mantels and elaborate ornamental plasterwork—were all restored to their past glory.  The restoration was the inaugural undertaking of the Historic Savannah Foundation, and the project precipitated a slew of preservation and restoration efforts throughout the city. Thanks to the hard work of the foundation's seven founding mothers—who raised $22,500 for Davenport House in 1954, which is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places—over three hundred buildings were saved.
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Discovery | By Staff

Recommended this week

February 10, 2010  |  
Louise Devenish gives readers a peak through the looking glass. Read more on the history of mirrors at 1stdibs.com.

Culled from the organization's online classifieds, the College Art Association posts rather bleak statistics for job opportunities in the arts. Take a look.

Just in time for the Oscars, Design*Sponge blogger Amy Merrick steals the look of Jane Campion's Bright Star. See her picks, and read our interview with the film's set decorator here.
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Discovery | By Staff

ANTIQUES bookshelf

February 9, 2010  |  The Darker Side of Light: Arts of Privacy, 1850-1900 is a beautiful and engaging study of the private worlds of Paris, London, and Berlin depicted in the visual arts. Organized by the National Gallery of Art, and opening this week at the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago, the exhibition and its catalogue offer a unique view of the urban landscape and interior in the nineteenth century that—like its counterparts in literature and philosophy—emphasizes the solitary and introspective life over the frequently depicted scenes of cosmopolitan boulevards and cafes. In the introductory essay to the catalogue the curator Peter Parshall explains that the title is meant as a paradoxical play on different levels—among them references to Paris as the City of Light, and the birthplace of impressionism.
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