The origins of the New Jersey jeweler
Seventeenth-century French enameled watches in the Walters Art Gallery
This article was originally published in the December 1963 issue of ANTIQUES. In his book Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers, F. J. Britten notes that “watches with enamel painting before 1640 are exceedingly rare, and there is a marked difference in the character of such decorative work executed at the beginning, compared with that done during the later …
Farther afield: TEFAF, BADA, and the Salon du Dessin
Europe puts its best foot forward to welcome the massive influx of international collectors and dealers who head there each spring. The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) Maastricht attracts the largest crowds and most attention but The British Antiques Dealers’ Association (BADA) annual fair in london and Paris’s tailored Salon du Dessin, both of which follow closely on TEFAF’s heels, …
Invisible Artistry: The restoration of a late seventeenth-century London town house
Fig. 1. Outside the rear elevation of this c. 1670 house in North London are a wrought iron strapwork garden seat, c. 1820, and a pair of seventeenth-century carved stone gatepost finials. Photography by Debbie Patterson When a client asked the London antiques dealer Robert Young to visit his newly acquired house he could not have known that this visit …
Looking both ways: A Pennsylvania collection keeps present and past in constant touch
“My husband said the house screamed for antique furniture–but I have a hard time with sameness.” This candid recollection by a lively collector provides a partial explanation of how and why she and her late husband joined their appetite for antique furniture and folk art with abstract expressionist art and contemporary sculpture. The rest of the explanation lies in the …
Talking antiques: Winter Antiques Show
We asked exhibitors at the Winter Antiques Show to highlight one exceptional object in their booths and describe it as they might to an interested collector. Here are the things they chose, along with some of their comments. ALLAN AND PENNY KATZ This artful rendering of a birdcage in the shape of the United States Capitol Building was undoubtedly made …
They all slept here
Furnishing the interiors of a historic house should strike a delicate balance
Uncommon women and the art of the common man
Collecting can be as much a declaration of independence as it is a need for possession, particularly when the objects of desire are unorthodox and the pursuer is a sentient, intelligent woman. Appreciating something different, something odd, something not sanctified or certified by art history, almost inevitably leads to discovering an identity, asserting individuality, and transporting oneself into a new …
Farther afield: Highclere Castle: The real Downton Abbey
The staggering luxury of Downtown Abbey’s turreted house and lush grounds have mesmerized audiences as much as any of the adventures of the Crawley family and their staff The real Downton Abbey is Highclere Castle, located in Berkshire at a crossroads between Winchester and Oxford, Bristol and London. The property’s thousand acres of parklands include the remains of an Iron …
New collector: Spratling silver
The son of Dr. William P. Spratling, a celebrated neurologist and pioneer in treating epilepsy, William Spratling had a tragic childhood, losing his mother and a sister when he was ten, and his father five years later. He went on to Auburn University in Alabama, where he majored in architecture and was apparently teaching the subject there within two years …