The allure of Leeds House: An unparalleled private collection finds its ideal home in Philadelphia

Editorial StaffExhibitions, Living with Antiques

Last winter, one of America’s great private collections slipped quietly from its urban home of nearly two decades in upper Manhattan to the splendor of a historic estate in Philadelphia. Preparing to move the peerless arts and crafts furniture, metalwork, glass, and ceramics, not to mention the sculptures, paintings, and works on paper, consumed the prior autumn months. Art handlers …

Talking antiques: Winter Antiques Show

Editorial StaffFurniture & Decorative Arts

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 …

Farther afield: Highclere Castle: The real Downton Abbey

Editorial StaffFurniture & Decorative Arts

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 …

Japanese screens

Editorial StaffArt, Exhibitions

 By Ruth Davidson; Originally published in January 1971 For the enchantment of visitors to Asia House Gallery this month and next there will be on view byōbu, or Japanese painted screens, from twelve museums and private collections in New York. Arranged so as to suggest their appearance in a Japanese house, the twenty six screens will be shown in two …

Breaking ground: British folk art at the Tate

Editorial StaffArt, Exhibitions

In 1768, when the British Royal Academy of Arts was established, it emphatically distinguished the fine arts from crafts by exiling the latter, declaring that “no needlework, artificial flowers, cut-paper, shell-work or any such performances should be admitted.” By 1948 artworks from outside the main­stream still had not overcome this prejudice, prompting the designer, writer, and folk art enthusiast Enid …

Bringing an Old house back to life

Editorial StaffFurniture & Decorative Arts

By MARGARET NOWELL; from The Magazine ANTIQUES, February 1945. There are few more worth-while experiences than bringing back to life an old house. This is what Mr. and Mrs. John Howard Joynt have done with the handsome brick house at 601 Duke Street in Alexandria, Virginia. Fig. 1-The house, with its gray brick wall, encloses two sides of the property, and overlooks …

A desk associated with George Washington

Editorial StaffFurniture & Decorative Arts

By JOAN SAYERS BROW; from The Magazine ANTIQUES May 1978. The  handsome slant-front desk illustrated here was originally owned by Colonel George William Fairfax (1724-1787), whose estate, Bevoir, was near Mount Vernon on the Potomac River in Virginia. In April 1773 Fairfax took his wife, sally Cary, to England, after asking his neighbor George Washington to watch over Belvoir while they were …