The Magazine Antiques - Most Recent News and Opinion

Thomas Spencer

By Patricia E. Kane — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:42:16 +0100

A newly discovered Rhode Island cabinetmaker: Thomas Spencer of East Greenwich.

Shearer Energy

By Daniel Kurt Ackermann — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:47:00 +0100

A collection in Winchester, Virginia, reflects a quest to return the work of a local craftsman to its native soil.

One House Two Worlds

By Eleanor H. Gustafson — Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Scholarship, connoisseurship, and comfort characterize the fine eighteenth-century furniture and mid-century modern classics that occupy separate realms in this Maryland town house.

Saarinen Womb Chair

By Kristina Wilson — Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Saarinen’s Womb chair and the mainstreaming of American modernism.

The Moores

By Sumpter Priddy III — Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 +0100

As collectors and scholars Roddy and Sally Moore show as much depth as they do passion

Glittering competition: the rivals of Faberge

By Barrymore Laurence Scherer — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

To many collectors of nineteenth-century silver and objets de vertu, imperial Russia is the fount of Europe's most exotic work. And even for those who can only dream of its legacy de luxe, mention of Mother Russia immediately triggers thoughts of one name, Fabergé.

Libraries and the preservation of early photography

By Larry J. Schaaf — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Much of the important photographic record of nineteenth-century life entered libraries through books with original prints and has thus survived almost by accident.

Victoria and Albert Art and Love

By Jonathan Marsden — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

A new exhibition of the paintings, decorative arts, architecture, and decor acquired and assembled by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert speaks eloquently of the mutual passion and shared tastes of a lively young couple.

European elegance in San Francisco

By Martin Chapman — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100

One of California's finest collections of eighteenth-century English and European decorative arts is to be found in San Francisco in a large Queen Anne revival house in Pacific Heights. Photography by Aya Brackett

Modern sculptors and American folk art

By Kevin D. Murphy — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100

"Do not bore. Do not be obvious." That was the advice given by painter, teacher, and critic Hamilton Easter Field to his students in the Ogunquit School of Painting and Sculpture.

Pennsylvania style

By Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The rich art and history of Pennsylvania shine forth in a collection of fine Philadelphia furniture, Pennsylvania folk art, American paintings with regional connections, and Chinese export porcelain and other treasures obtained primarily from local dealers. Photography by Gavin Ashworth

Celebrating the exotic and the ordinary

By Laurel Thatcher Ulrich — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Historic New England, subject of the loan exhibition at the Winter Antiques Show, captures our attention by preserving grand houses as well as humble objects, allowing us to see the rich interplay between artifacts, documents, memory, and place.

Benjamin Henry Latrobe and the furniture of John and Hugh Finlay

By Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0100

December 2009 | President James Madison and his wife, Dolley Payne Todd Madison, presided over Wednesday evening gatherings in the French salon tradition that were the highlight of Washington social life.

At home with Christopher Dresser

By Max Donnelley — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0100

December 2009 | When you visit Janet and Lawrence Larose's New York dining room, you are surrounded by hundreds of objects designed by Christopher Dresser. Photography by Paul Rocheleau.

The Hidden Magic of Henry Davis Sleeper's Beauport

By Howard Mansfield — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0100

December 2009 | In anticipation of the loan exhibition of objects from Historic New England at next month's Winter Antiques Show in New York, we offer two appreciations of one of the organization's most intriguing properties.

The legacy of Henry Davis Sleeper

By Shax Riegler — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Ralph D. Curtis: A nineteenth-century folk artist identified

By J.E. Jelinek — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0100

November 2009 | In 1973 at an auction in Ellenville, New York, an early nineteenth-century portrait of a woman wearing a lace bonnet, holding a red book, and seated in a high-back chair sold for what was then an unusually high price of nine thousand dollars.

American artists as they saw themselves

By Carrie Rebora Barratt and H. Barbara Weinberg — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

November 2009 | American artists had to grapple with the nature of their role and their identity in society

Charles Melville Dewey: A forgotten master of classic tonalism

By David Adams Cleveland — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

November 2009 | Of all the great disappearing acts in American art history, the tonalist artist Charles Melville Dewey's is one of the most complete and inexplicable.

James E. Freeman and the painting of sentiment

By Mary K. McGuigan and John F. McGuigan Jr. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

November 2009 | Thoughout his half-century-long artistic career in the United States and Italy, James E. Freeman specialized in creating paintings of sentiment that sought to cross the boundaries dividing different cultures and social classes.