There is no arguing with the idea that the Winter Antiques Show, which opened last night at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, is the BIG one. Now in its fifty-sixth year, its seventy-five dealers from around the world are showcasing some of the very best in the decorative arts, painting, and folk art. There is a lot to …
Endnotes: Combat ready
When visiting the International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Fair in New York in October, I was struck by the imposing arms and armor on display in the booth of Peter Finer of London—enormous poleaxes, a beautifully ornamented Italian half suit of armor, a bronze cannon on its field carriage. It made me stop and wonder idly about how you …
Endnotes: Duck call
This Canada goose clearly lost its bearings, migrating all the way to South America in the twentieth century before returning to the United States this past August. A routine e-mail inquiry to Christie’s in New York resulted in the exciting realization that it was only the fourth decoy of its type to come to light. What makes it so special …
The present learns from the past
September 2009 | The Shelburne Museum and The Magazine ANTIQUES have a long history together. Within a year of the museum fully opening in 1953, Alice Winchester, the magazine’s editor, introduced it to her readers as “one of the…most unusual museums” in the country, its “collection of collections” assembled over a lifetime by Electra Havemeyer Webb, whom she described, with …
Endnotes: African American schoolgirl embroidery
“Amy is a treasure,” Linda Eaton, curator of textiles at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, said to me referring to Amy Finkel, the Philadelphia needlework dealer, who recently brought a rare Berlin work picture stitched by a black American schoolgirl to her attention. Knowing that Eaton has long felt that Winterthur’s collection does not adequately represent the cultural diversity that …
The Worsham-Rockefeller rooms
Two Gilded Age rooms make their way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Spring is in the air for Charleston Antiques Week
Charleston’s architecture, gardens, and history always draw visitors, but for lovers of antiques, there’s no better week of the year to be here. Wednesday, the twelfth annual Charleston Art and Antiques Forum opened—four and a half days of lectures, tours, discussions, and visits to private collections—and Thursday evening brought the festive preview party for the Charleston International Antiques Show, a …
Endnotes: Boston needlework
We were prepared to pay considerably more, so were happily surprised,” says American needlework dealer Carol Huber about her successful bid on this charming Boston canvas-work picture, offered at the first auction of American furniture and decorative arts held by Bonhams in New York in mid-January. When she saw it in the catalogue, she thought the presale estimate of $6,000 …