What’s in store for January

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Hundreds of dealers, collectors, and connoisseurs have descended on New York to participate in the city’s antiques season that begins this week with the New York Ceramics Fair, the American Antiques Show, and the 56th Annual Winter Antiques Show. In anticipation, we’ve updated our online Store with selections from several exhibiting dealers, offering a small taste of the diversity and …

Editor’s letter, January 2009

Editorial StaffOpinion

Several years ago I visited the Reverend Peter Gomes, Harvard University’s chaplain and professor of Christian morals, to interview him about the way he had furnished Sparks House, the residence Harvard provides for its preacher. I was struck by the exuberance of his rooms, their voluptuous colors—golds, reds, and greens­—their antiques—Yankee, French, Scottish, English—the dramatic spiral stairwell lined with wallpaper …

Top Lots: 2009 Year in Review

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TOP WARHOLWhat: 200 One Dollar Bills by Andy Warhol, 1962Where: Sotheby’s New York (November 11, Contemporary Art Evening Sale)Estimate: $8-12 millionSold For: $43.7 million A large-scale masterpiece from Warhol’s first series of silkscreened paintings, 200 One Dollar Bills was also from the artist’s second earliest group of serial works. Originally from the collection of Robert and Ethel Scull, the work …

Guest Blog: Lucy Spriggs from Ivanhoe Books

Editorial StaffBooks

Art historian and writer Lucy Spriggs is the owner of Ivanhoe Books—a Los Angeles-based bookshop specializing in new, rare, and out-of-print books about art and design. She also maintains Ivanhoe’s blog, where she presents selections from her amazing inventory of vintage titles and new arrivals. We asked Spriggs to share her unique eye for art and interiors books in a …

Editor’s letter, December 2009

Editorial StaffOpinion

There is a great deal of fretting these days about the future of collecting and the dearth of young collectors. Were there ever many young collectors? Probably not. It takes the perspective of age (as well as the accumulation of capital) to do what the best antiques collectors do: value a folk art painting or a tall-case clock for the …

At home with Christopher Dresser

Editorial StaffLiving with Antiques

Photography by Paul Rocheleau| from The Magazine ANTIQUES, 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. They are artfully arranged on a series of shelves: teacups perch on lily-pad saucers; frogs leap around a bowl; butterflies flit across cloisonné skies; and cranes are buffeted …

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

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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. The picture, painted on tulipwood, was unsigned and is believed to have come from …

Elbert Hubbard: An American Original

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Premiering tonight on PBS (check here for local listings), Elbert Hubbard: An American Original offers a sweeping profile of the arts and crafts visionary and founder of East Aurora, New York’s Roycroft community. Charting the controversial and often contradictory course of Hubbard’s personal and professional lives, this documentary film by Paul Lamont includes wonderful archival footage as well as interviews …

Guest Blog: Hollister Hovey

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As part of our recurring series of guest bloggers (see earlier contributions by Art Inconnu and The Curated Object) today we are pleased to feature Hollister Hovey, a blogger with panache for turn-of-19th-century antiques and collecting. The New York Times recently named her among the “New Antiquarians” shaping the current vogue for vintage Victoriana. We asked Hovey to curate a …