The Scene |
Palm Beach
February 10, 2009 | “Follow the money.” What was good advice for Woodward and Bernstein is equally useful guidance for the antiques collector. When Henry Morrison Flagler established Palm Beach as a winter haven for Gilded Age society, important furnishings and art were sure to follow. And so they did.
February sees the annual Palm Beach Jewelry, Art, and Antique Show, and those who attend the exhibition at the area’s convention center should visit local galleries as well. Two areas merit special attention. The first is Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, the city’s luxury shopping strip. Laid out in the 1920s by the architect Addison Mizner, it is still an enclave of opulence, with its arcaded blocks and wide side alleys. Alongside Hermès, Gucci, Armani, and other lavish retailers are a clutch of antiques shops and art galleries that offer works of great interest.
The second area lies inland, across the lagoon of Lake Worth, in the city of West Palm Beach. There, some fifty antiques dealers have set …» More
The Scene |
New Orleans
February 2, 2009 | Natives and longtime residents of New Orleans have an endearing habit of describing their city as if it were a woman, one who is by turns refined and blowsy. Her sybaritic side is notorious, and her exquisite taste in food is famous. But what is slightly less well known is that Lady Orleans is passionate about antiques. For the dedicated collector, the city is a treasure house.
There are two main sections of town for the antiques maven. The first is the French Quarter, where several of the stores are family-owned and date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. That maturity is reflected in their inventories, which focus on fine continental and English furnishings, many of them period pieces with notable provenances. The softer side of the antiques world can-with one important exception-be seen in the shops that pepper the six-mile length of Magazine Street. Here, too, the emphasis is on traditional French, Italian, and English designs, with a healthy amount of…» More
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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