Those wishing to escape crowds this summer need not avoid Europe. With minimum planning, you can view some of the most spectacular but still privately owned properties and collections in Great Britain and France. Exhibitions in Arles and Barcelona explore intercultural exchange with profundity and elegance. Secrets of Great BritainSavvy travelers to Great Britain can visit nearly six thousand objects …
Instant Symposium: The Kitchen Debate, 50 years later
Today marks the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s infamous Kitchen Debate at the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow. Their clash of ideologies played out among a series of show rooms—including a model kitchen by General Electric—and was broadcast worldwide, quickly becoming a seminal moment in the history of the Cold War. We asked …
Fairyland luster at the New Orleans Museum of Art
The current exhibition With a Little Help From Our Friends pays homage to the donors of several recent gifts to the New Orleans Museum of Art. On view through October 18, the show includes more than fifty objects. Highlights include: glass from the collections of Jack M. Sawyer, and John W. Lolley; a collection of American pressed-glass presented by Florence …
Recent shifts at several prominent galleries
It’s a far from sleepy summer in the antiques business, as a series of expansions, mergers, and, in one unfortunate case, essentially a bankruptcy shake and shape the field in both Europe and New York. In London yesterday, stalwart Partridge Fine Art, founded in 1902, was placed under the control of administrators (the British equivalent of receivership) due to outstanding …
Summer Fare
London salerooms buzz through July with a frezy of activity. A more leisurely pace governs the rest of Europe at a string of exhibitions: Robert Adam landscapes in Edinburgh, medieval and Renaissance beauty in Paris, intercultural exchange in Vienna, and Böttger stoneware in Dresden. London sales When salerooms in the United States and on the Continent turn silent, London auction …
Dealer Profile: Jeff Bridgman
Something weird happened to Jeff Bridgman and his business in 2008—in fact, two weird things. In the midst of a global economic collapse, he had his best year ever, and in December, he made a large sale to a Democrat. “To the best of my knowledge, it was the first time I’d ever made a major sale to a Democrat,” …
Bessie Potter Vonnoh
The eminent American sculptor of domestic and feminine subjects, Bessie Potter Vonnoh, is the subject of a retrospective exhibition—long overdue—on view at the Cincinnati Art Museum through September 6. Featuring some thirty-five pieces of her small sculpture and garden statuary from 1895 to 1930, most in bronze but a handful in terra cotta, as well as portraits of the artist …
Massachusetts quilts
Recently more than two dozen of the most significant quilts discovered to date by the Massachusetts Quilt Documentation Project went on view at the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell in the exhibition Massachusetts—Our Common Wealth: Quilts from the Massachusetts Quilt Documentation Project, which runs through September 20. So far, some six thousand quilts have been documented as a result …
This Week’s Top Lots: July 11 – 17
* At the sale of European furniture and decorative arts at Skinner in Boston on July 11 the top lot was a Wedgwood Queen’s Ware “Frog Service” platter that sold for $54,510 (estimate $10,000-15,000). Other top sales included a pair of 18th century giltwood mirrors that sold for $28,440 (estimate $12,000-18,000), and a collection of late 18th/early 19th century Italian …
The art of the missions of northern New Spain
July 2009 | After an hour and half of riding and from the top of a small hill we descried ahead of us the splendid buildings of the mission of San Luis Rey, their dazzling whiteness revealed in the first light of day. At that distance and in the uncertain light of dawn, the edifice, of a splendid design and …