The Market |
Dealer profile: Titi Halle
January 14, 2010 | The precious textiles and clothing sold at Cora Ginsburg have as much charm, beauty, and depth as any other category of antiques, but like the firm itself, you may have to look for it. Tucked into two cozy rooms on the third floor of a nondescript residential building on Manhattan's East Seventy-fourth Street, the gallery is as sparely furnished as a designer boutique, and many of its choicest items are not on display but must be retrieved from a back room and unrolled for viewing. At which point the owner, Titi Halle, is liable to hand you a magnifying glass so you can understand what it is you are looking at.
Halle is as unimposing and intimate a presence as her shop. One of a select group of dealers in a field that requires knowledge of goods from all over the globe spanning three or four centuries, she has a command of many disciplines—textiles, fashion, folk art, handcraft, weaving and printing technology, even the history of tangential matters such as Mummers' performances. On Antiques Roadshow she comes across as elegantly erudite. But in her gallery, with her shy smile, eyeglasses, and girlishly long hair, she might remind you of a favorite librarian. Spreading one piece of fabric on the floor for a recent visitor, she cheerfully exclaimed, "That's what floats my boat!"
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The Market |
This week's top lots
January 8, 2010 | 
What: Map of the state of Georgia by Daniel Sturges, 1818
Where: Brunk Auctions (January 2 & 3)
Estimate: $15,000-25,000
Sold For: $55,000
This 50-panel map took over twenty years for Daniel Sturges—the Surveyor General of Georgia, who also designed the state's great seal—to complete. It was reportedly used by the Marquis de Lafayette in 1825 during his tour of, what were then, all of the nation's twenty-four states.
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The Market |
Top Lots: 2009 Year in Review
December 30, 2009 | 
TOP WARHOL
What: 200 One Dollar Bills by Andy Warhol, 1962
Where: Sotheby's New York (November 11, Contemporary Art Evening Sale)
Estimate: $8-12 million
Sold For: $43.7 million
A large-scale masterpiece from Warhol's first series of silkscreened paintings, 200 One Dollar Bills was also from the artist's second earliest group of serial works. Originally from the collection of Robert and Ethel Scull, the work was last sold in 1986 for $385,000.
TOP LEGEND
What: The Pearl Carpet of Baroda, Gujarat, India, c. 1865
Where: Sotheby's Doha (March 19, Arts of the Islamic World)
Estimate: Upon request (bidding reportedly started at $5 million)
Sold For: $5.4 million
Comprised of over 2.2 million pearls and beads, and about 2,500 table and rose cut diamonds, the Pearl Carpet of Baroda—a tour-de-force of the Mughal style—was commissioned by the Maharaja of Baroda, Kunde Rao, for the tomb of Mohammed at Medina. Known for his passion for jewels, the Maharaja also owned the 128-carat Star of the South diamond.
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The Market |
Endnotes: Combat ready
December 30, 2009 | When visiting the International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Fair in New York in October, I was struck by the imposing arms and armor on display in the booth of Peter Finer of London—enormous poleaxes, a beautifully ornamented Italian half suit of armor, a bronze cannon on its field carriage. It made me stop and wonder idly about how you might display such things at home, and then quickly brought to mind an article Antiques ran a year ago about the rise and fall of William Randolph Hearst as a collector. Among the most dramatic of Hearst's holdings were the legions of suits of armor he displayed in the vast Gothic style armory he created in his New York apartment in the early twentieth century. Most were among the treasures sold after he was beset by financial woes in the 1930s.
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The Market |
This week's top lots
December 18, 2009 | 
What: Ten églomisé panels from the "Birth of Aphrodite" by Jean Dupas, c. 1934
Where: Sotheby's New York (December 17, 20th Century Design)
Estimate: $200,000-300,000
Sold For: $512,500
These amazing art deco panels come from one of the four reverse-painted glass murals that Dupas created for the Grand Salon of the S.S. Normandie—the largest and most luxurious ocean liner of its day. The rare surviving panels—some of which are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art—were removed from the ship's interior just before the Normandie, while being converted for use as a troopship during World War II, was destroyed by a fire.
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Pickle Dish, American China Manufactory (Bonnin and Morris), Philadelphia, 1771-72. Soft-paste porcelain with lead glaze; height 4 3/16, width 4 1/2
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