from The Magazine ANTIQUES, March/April 2012 | In 1851 Albert, prince consort of Queen Victoria, and the architect Henry Cole realized their grand vision of an international exhibition where the traditions, aspirations, and accomplishments of many nations were showcased.1 Hardware at the Great Exhibition by Joseph Nash (1809-1878), from Dickenson’s Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (London 1852). Color lithograph. Victoria and Albert Museum, …
The Unknown Jewelry of Marie Zimmerman
from The Magazine ANTIQUES, January/February 2012
Winter Antiques Show 2012
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. Barbara Israel Garden Antiques We are thrilled to be bringing a cache of extraordinary objects to the 2012 Winter Antiques Show, including …
Vose Galleries at 170
By Tom Christopher left to right: Elizabeth Vose Frey, Carey L. Vose, Abbot W. “Bill” Vose, Marcia L. Vose. Vose Galleries of Boston is that rarest of survivors: now completing its 170th year in business and still under the direction of the founding family, the firm itself predates many of the paintings that it buys and sells. Yet it …
In the American Grain: Art and Capital at Crystal Bridges
from The Magazine ANTIQUES, November/December 2011 | The small town of Bentonville, Arkansas, home to some 35,301 souls in the most recent census, is about to be transformed beyond recognition. Already it enjoys some modicum of renown as the ancestral abode of the Walton family: its late patriarch, Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, opened his first five and dime here …
Shearer Energy
Fig. 1. The chest of drawers by John Shearer (active c. 1798–at least 1818) that earned Linda Quynn Ross the nickname “Miss Shearer Energy” is now in the living room of her house, Carter Hill, in Winchester, Virginia. On top is a late eighteenth-century box from Frederick County, Virginia. The table at the left is by Shearer, the one on …
The Moores
Fig. 1. Slingshots carved and painted by members of the North Carolina Cherokee tribe during the first half of the twentieth century for the tourist trade (see also Fig. 6). Fig. 2. A rare nineteenth-century gourd fiddle and two banjos by African American maker Bill Plummer (1873–1942), of Chilhowie, Virginia, hang in the den (see also Fig. 10). Fig. 3. …
After Grosvenor
On the heels of its seventy-fifth anniversary last June, the Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair announced that it would close. Only time will tell how its absence will shift the balance of European fairs in 2010. In the meantime, Europe’s organizers unveil their plans for the coming year. BRUSSELS Held at the same time as the Winter Antiques Show …
The legacy of Henry Davis Sleeper
December 2009 | November 1915. On “one of those autumn days when the darkness comes so suddenly that one seems to bump one’s head against it,” a small party departs from an unnamed city. Wrapped in furs and nestling into blankets, they huddle in the back of the open car to ward off the chill. Soon paved roads give way …
Great Estates: Fonthill in Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Located on sixty acres in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Fonthill, the home of Henry Chapman Mercer (1856-1930), one of the leaders of the American arts and crafts movement, stands as a testament to handcrafted goods, replete with relics dutifully gathered by Mercer in the wake of the industrial revolution.Mercer, a Bucks County native, graduated from Harvard in 1879. After receiving a law …
