| Basquiat Artwork |
Basquiat marchand Mr. Geldzheler in the 80's went for a trip in South America......
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| A Cradle of Chinese Civilization Along the Yangzi River: Bronze Treasures from Hunan |
The earliest records of the ancient bronzes of Hunan Province, China, come from the Song dynasty (960–1279) scholar Hong Mai (1123–1202)....
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| Outsider and Self-Taught Art Focus: Thornton Dial |
An important part of the story of art has been characterized by self-taught ingenuity and work ethic honed by struggle for survival and passionate appreciation for life....
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| Winter Antiques Show Loan Exhibit: Charleston's Master Works Presented by Historic Charleston |
As British North America’s most cosmopolitan seaport, Charleston fascinated and astonished visitors from both sides of the Atlantic. As early as 1709, English...
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| Outside Perspectives: Visiting Artists in Charleston |
Charleston, South Carolina, has long been a destination for those seeking warm weather, picturesque landscapes, and the charm of a historic city....
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| Winterthur Primer: A Metamorphosis: The Changing Nature of Fraktur Studies |
In 2008, Winterthur Museum acquired a spectacular four-part fraktur metamorphosis series, prompting the collaboration of curators, conservators, and scientists to more fully understand the object....
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| Winterthur Primer: X-Radiography Examination of an Embroidered Coat of Arms |
In the last half of the eighteenth century, wealthy New England schoolgirls often displayed their stitching skills by executing elaborately embroidered coats of arms.1 One such object...
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| Son of Whom? A Collector's Journey |
When my wife and I acquired a portrait at a Sotheby’s Important Americana auction in 1990 (Fig. 1), the catalogue entry read, “According to tradition, this young man is...
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| Making History: Art and Industry in the Saco River Valley |
The Saco River makes its way from its source in New Hampshire’s White Mountains to Maine’s Atlantic coast. Its dramatic course through the Saco River Valley defines a region where...
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| I. Gilbert. Painter: Little Known Folk Artist |
I first became acquainted with the work of the early American folk portrait painter I. Gillbert about thirty-five years ago on a visit to the home of noted collector, researcher, and writer...
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| American Modernism: The Shein Collection |
The early American modernists may be usefully understood as the generation of artists born primarily between 1875 and 1890 who promulgated the new languages of...
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| Picasso Looks at Degas |
Throughout his long and prolific career, Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) observed and absorbed the work of other artists. One artist Picasso particularly admires was...
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| Boston School Paintings: The Collection of Dr. and Mrs. James R. Taylor |
When James R. Taylor (1887–1962) of Boston began acquiring paintings and decorative objects in the first quarter of the twentieth century...
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| William Merritt Chase: The Final Volume |
William Merritt Chase: Still Lifes, Interiors, Figures, Copies of Old Masters, and Drawings, is the fourth and final volume of The Complete Catalogue of Known and Documented Work by...
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| Frederic Edwin Church in Jamaica |
“Now for Jamaica . . . the scenery is superb,” Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900) remarked when he traveled to Jamaica in May of 1865 in search of new tropical material and respite...
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| Winslow Homer and the Poetics of Place |
The connection between Winslow Homer (1836–1910) and the Portland Museum of Art is long-standing and intimate. Homer exhibited at the museum in his lifetime, and through the course of the twentieth...
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| Portraits from My Garden |
Laura Coombs Hills was born on September 7, 1859, in the prosperous and thriving seacoast city of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Her father, Philip Hills, was a vice president of a local bank, the Institution for Savings....
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| When Pottery Became Art, 1880-1930 |
The Newark Museum, founded in 1909, began collecting art pottery from the start. From its first art pottery exhibition in 1910 until the death of its founding director, John Cotton Dana, on the eve of the Great Depression, the museum was one of the...
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| American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915 |
Between the decade before the American Revolution and the eve of World War I, a group of modest British colonies along the eastern coast of North America became states; new states pushed the frontier westward;...
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| Clock Cases in American Colonies |
In 1656 Christiaan Huygens, the Dutch mathematician, physicist, and astronomer, invented the first practical pendulum clock....
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| Lifestyle: Presentation is Everything -- An Edgy Manhattan Loft |
Frank Maresca opens the door of his Manhattan loft and sticks his head into the front entrance in greeting. Behind him is the first glimpse of his collection — a painting for a 1931 poster by French artist Paul Colin that makes visitors do a double take...
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| Dove/O'Keeffe: Circles of Influence |
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) is most famous for her sinuous depictions of flowers and the American southwest, yet she credited abstractionist Arthur Dove (1880–1946) as the individual who had...
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| Museum Focus: Beyeler Foundation |
The stylish and serene municipality of Riehen, situated on the right bank of the Rhine River at the northeastern edge of Basel, Switzerland, is home to the Beyeler Foundation, a remarkable small...
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| Winterthur Primer: Taste or Technology? Changing Silver Borders |
From the time America declared independence, silversmiths experimented with methods for achieving uniform and stylish ornament for their silver....
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| The Call of the Coast: Art Colonies of New England |
The coast of New England has long attracted tourists drawn to the primal drama of wave on rock or the soothing play of glasslike ocean greeting sandy shore....
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| A Painted Diary: The Landscapes of William Merritt Chase |
When he was twenty years old, William Merritt Chase (1849–1916) set out to become an artist. That he became one of the most honored and respected American artists of his day was the result of extraordinary talent, determination, and canny self-marketing....
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| American Ceramics, 1876-1956: The Robert A. Ellison Jr. Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
Among the significant additions to the new American Wing of The Metropolitan Museum are the thirteen glass cases featuring the promised gift by collector Robert A. Ellison Jr. of over 250 examples of American art pottery. The earliest works date to the...
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| Hudson River Celebrations |
The year 1909 marked the 300th anniversary of the discovery of the Hudson River by Henry Hudson in 1609 and the 100th anniversary of Robert Fulton's journey up the Hudson River on the first successful steamboat....
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| The American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
Art may be eternal, but what it means to people isn't, and that's why each generation displays it differently. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which first exhibited the arts of colonial America precisely one hundred years ago,...
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| Informed Collecting: Dealers' Insights |
Like Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt's name is synonymous with the American West. Painting in the late nineteenth century, Bierstadt celebrated America's westward expansion with his grand, naturalistic compositions....
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| Informed Collecting: Fine Firearms |
Collecting fine firearms has been a tradition among Kings, nobles, gentry, and merchants for centuries. Whether a sporting gun decorated with panels of engraved stag-horn or embellished with inlaid gold and engraving, or dueling pistols with...
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| Lifestyle: Family Treasures |
Nearly half a century has passed since Clarence L. Prickett drove by a handsome 1800 stone farmhouse for sale in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and got out to take a look. A peek through the dining-room window revealed...
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| Lifestyle: Eagles & Tulips, Snakes & Weathervanes: A Pennsylvania Folk Art Collection |
Behind the facade of a sprawling Mid-Atlantic stone house is one of the foremost collections of American folk art. Exuberant color and an affinity for sculptural and playful forms characterize this astonishingly layered gathering of objects....
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| Winterthur Primer: American Portraits in Pastel |
Portraits created using pastel crayons were a popular alternative to oil portraits in Europe and America from the mid 1700s to the early 1800s. Available in nearly all the same colors as oil paints, when drawn across paper the crayons left a smooth...
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| The Craft of Conservation: Recreating a Philadelphia Cartouche |
In the spring of 2007, when a bedroom in Mount Pleasant, the historic house in Fairmount Park administered by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, was being reinstalled, curators at the museum were given the opportunity to exhibit objects in the...
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| Art for the People: Decorated Stoneware from the Weitsman Collection |
Stoneware was the everyday ware of the nineteenth century. Used for such practical purposes as storing and serving food and liquids, it was also used to make such items as flower pots, banks, match holders, and pipes for tobacco. Potters often...
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| Museum Focus: Drayton Hall |
Drayton Hall is foremost an architectural wonder. It is the oldest and one of the most important examples of Georgian-Palladian architecture in America. The structure of the house follows many of the rules of architecture found in Andrea Palladio's...
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| Anthony Rasch: From Silversmith to Citizen |
Bavarian-born silversmith and merchant Anthony Rasch von Tauffkirchen (ca.1780-1858) belonged to a generation of silversmiths in the United States who endured its volatile economy during the first half of the nineteenth century. His career...
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| The Jacob Sass Desk and Bookcase: Documenting a Provenance, Preserving a History |
This desk and bookcase (Fig. 1) is one of the few examples of eighteenth-century Charleston furniture with an indisputable attribution: written on the interior of a desk drawer is the inscription "Made by Jacob Sass—Charleston/ Octr....
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| Discoveries from the Field: Edwin Lord Weeks' The Golden Temple at Amristar |
Considered a major work when painted in circa 1890, Edwin Lord Weeks’ (1849–1903) The Golden Temple at Amritsar had faded from public awareness as interest in Orientalist-themed paintings declined in twentieth-century America. Increasingly overlooked as...
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| Discoveries from the Field: Lydia's Drawers -- A Case for Localism in Chester County Furniture |
Rarely does one find a piece of furniture not only signed by the maker, but also noting where he was from and the date of construction. Even rarer is any inscription on the piece providing the name of the recipient. Might a client have...
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| Discoveries from the Field: New Bedford Rising -- Two Eighteenth-Century Furniture Finds |
A recently discovered table and chest-on-chest add to a small, but growing group of furniture that we can tie to eighteenth century New Bedford, Massachusetts. Together with the other documented examples, they testify to a sophisticated regional...
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| A Tale of Two Sisters: The Davies Collection of French Art from National Museum Wales |
Between 1908 and 1924, two sisters amassed the bulk of one of the earliest and most extensive collections of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century French paintings in Britain, at a time when such art was routinely ignored by individuals and...
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| 1934: A New Deal for Artists |
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated President in March 1933, the United States of America was in crisis. The nation had fallen into a profound depression after the stock market crash of October 1929....
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| A Ceremonial Desk by Robert Walker, Virginia Cabinetmaker |
This commanding desk is among the most significant discoveries in Southern furniture to come to light in recent decades. The desk's remarkable iconography -- including hairy paw feet, knees carved with lions' heads, and the bust of a Roman statesman...
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| Philadelphia Portrait Miniatures 1760-1860 |
William Dunlap's comments on miniature painting evoke the values and ideals that made it a prized genre for Philadelphians during the period of profound changes that transformed America...
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| A Handful of Harts: The Cabinet Landscapes of William Hart (1823-1894) |
The nineteenth century critic George W. Sheldon spoke to the popularity of William Hart's (1823–1894) cabinet landscapes2 when he observed they "may be found in almost all the principal private collections in the Atlantic cities......
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| Historic Hotel: Nemacolin Woodlands Resort |
The 3,000-acre Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and sculpture garden is cloistered in the woods of Laurel Highlands, about sixty miles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania....
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| ADA Forum: Philip Zea -- 2009 ADA Merit Award Recipient |
Philip Zea has been selected as the recipient of the 2009 Antique Dealers’ Association of America Award of Merit. Currently the president of Historic Deerfield, Inc., in Deerfield, Massachusetts, Zea has dedicated his career to the...
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| The Hidden Legacy of Enslaved Craftsmen |
Enslaved black and free white craftsmen worked side by side across the southern landscape....
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| Museum Focus: Neue Galerie New York |
In 1994Ronald S. Lauder and his longtime friend, Serge Sabarsky purchased a Beaux-Arts mansion on New York City's Museum Mile....
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| Graphic Masters: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum |
Drawings often reveal greater spontaneity and experimentation than paintings and sculpture....
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| What Were They Thinking? Silk Embroideries Give us a Clue |
Silk embroidered pictures made by schoolgirls were the height of fashion in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries....
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| Glassmaking, America's First Industry |
The Corning Museum of Glass has the largest and most comprehensive public collection of American glass in existence....
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| The Corning Museum of Glass |
Nowhere are the mysteries of glass and the skill of its craftsman celebrated more completely than at The Corning Museum of Glass....
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| Cézanne and Beyond |
A year after Paul Cézanne's death in 1906, the Paris Salon d'Automne staged a large retrospective of the artist's work....
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| A Sense of Place |
A deep respect for the history of this country and the material associated with its past is evident in the collections within this private residence....
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| Elie Nadelman: Poised for Posterity |
The simplified, sinuous, sensuous line is the signature of one of America's greatest sculptor's of the twentieth century–Elie Nadelman....
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| A Masterful Mix of the Centuries |
Exceptional taste and an unerring eye have guided the formation of this multidimensional collection....
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| Reviving an Icon: The National Arts Club |
Founded in 1898, the National Arts Club quickly became one of the country's most prestigious associations....
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| The Chipstone Foundation Opens New American Collections Galleries |
The Chipstone Foundation has a long history of asking new and progressive questions about the material past....
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| Destination: New York City Murals |
Murals are among our oldest and most popular forms of artistic expression....
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| Thomas Wilder: Early New England Portrait Painter |
In 2005 I received a request from Joan Marr, curator at the Historical Society of Windham County, Newfane, Vermont, for information concerning Thomas Wilder....
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| Selections: A Private Collection of American Stoneware |
While a student in the 1950s at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathy, David Bronstein lived with a family who dealt in antiques....
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| What's in a Name?: The Science of Wood Identification |
Microscopic wood anatomy and identification are often used to help authenticate antiques and determine their origin....
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| Into the Woods: Furniture History at Historic Deerfield |
A new exhibition at Historic Deerfield brings a multidisciplinary perspective to early American furniture....
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| Informed Collecting: Cotswold School, Arts + Crafts |
By 1890, the Arts and Crafts Movement in England was already in its second generation....
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| Of, By and for the People: The Art of the Presidential Campaign |
In 1836, after serving two terms as president, Andrew Jackson expressed two regrets: 'I didn't shoot Henry Clay, and I didn't hang John. C. Calhoun....
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| George Caleb Bingham and Thomas Hart Benton: Pioneering
Art in the Midwest |
One of the most important cultural changes in nineteenth-century America was the transformation of the western frontier into the Midwest. A byproduct of.....
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| To the Ends of the Earth: Painting the Polar Landscape |
The polar landscape painting tradition in Western art belongs most appropriately to a period of one hundred years that begins in the 1830s and ends in the 1930s....
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| Interiors of Beacon Hill, Boston |
Photos by P. Vanderwarker
For the students of American domestic architecture, the streets of Boston's Beacon Hill are an outdoor museum....
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| The Pyramid Club and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts |
In 1937, a group of prominent African-American doctors, lawyers, and businessmen formed the Pyramid Club....
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| Museum Focus: Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art |
In May of 1981, Vance Kirkland, a Colorado-based painter known for his alchemic techniques and avant-garde sensibilities, passed away....
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| The John Head Project: Part 1: Documenting His Work |
For want of documentation, Philadelphia's earliest furniture makers survive in little more than name....
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| New Light on Thomas Chambers |
Discovered in the later 1930s and identified by name in 1942, when the first signed painting emerged, the distinctive marine and landscape paintings of Thomas Chambers inspired pioneering research....
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| E. Popeye Reed: American Stone Carver |
E. "Popeye" Reed was an American original. A self-taught artist who carved in stone and wood, money was never a motive for this native Ohian....
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| Investing in Art: Guy Rose (1867-1925) |
One of California's most significant painters, Guy Orland Rose is known for his role in the development of impressionism in his native state....
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| Art Lovers |
Some collectors find that acquiring a work of art is similar to falling in love. There is a flash of recognition (I like it!), the heart beats faster (I want it!), then desire overshadows all other emotions (I can't live without it!)....
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| Destination: Twin Cities |
In recent years, Minneapolis has come to be known as the "Mini Apple" boasting – along with its sister city, St. Paul – an art scene and theatrical events rivalling those of the "Big Apple."...
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| Six Choices for the Sitter: James H. Gillespie (1793-after 1849) |
In the years before photography became commonplace, itinerant painters earned a living by traveling between the cities and towns of America painting portraits of the populace....
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| Recent Acquisitions in the Collection of the Nantucket Historical Association |
Founded on July 9, 1894, by sons and daughters of the last great Nantucket whaling generation, the Nantucket Historical Assocation began with the express mission to preserve 'all sorts of relics.'...
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| Carolina Collects: Exploring the Spirit of Collecting in South Carolina |
This summer, visitors to the Columbia Museum of Art will be granted a peek into the private collections of South Carolinians across the state....
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| The Paul Revere House |
On December 31, 1902, John Phillips Reynolds Jr., a great-grandson of Paul Revere, purchased Revere's house in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts, to prevent it from being torn down....
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| Two Gaming Tables: A Comparison |
A contemporary definition of the word pair is, 'Two identical, similar, or corresponding things,' whereas the Royal English Dictionary published in 1804 defines a pair as 'two things suiting one another.'...
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| Connected to the Past: Objects from the Collections of the Newport Historical Society |
Founded in 1639, Newport was the de facto capital of Rhode Island until after the American Revolution....
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| My Father's House: Artist Will Barnet Returns to his New England Roots |
Between 1990 and 1992, artist and teacher Will Barnet (b. 1911) produced a series of paintings entitled My Father's House, inspired by visits to his sister who was growing old alone in the family home in Beverly, Massachusetts....
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| Sven Birger Sandzén (1871-1954) |
Born in Bildsberg, Sweden, landscape painter and printmaker Sven Birger Sandzén (1871-1954) was the son of a rural Lutheran preacher and his wife, an accomplished watercolorist....
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| Lifestyle: A Virginia Country Estate |
A family with a burgeoning Americana collection and severed Virginia roots found a home in rural Greenwood, Virginia....
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| The Art of the America's Cup |
The America was the original muse for a cadre of nineteenth-century artists whose work inspired a tradition of marine artists documenting America's Cup races....
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| Rediscovery of a New England Master: Russell Cheney 1881-1945 |
Although Russell Cheney was known during his lifetime for his floral paintings, still life work, and landscapes of France, Italy, and the American West, his depictions of his native New England dominate a prolific body of work....
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| Sense of Place: Strong Local Roots Define This Collection |
here's a story that Litchfield, Connecticut, antiques dealer Jeffrey Tillou likes to tell. It is about a certain high chest in the eighteenth-century tavern he calls home....
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| John Ruskin: J.M.W. Turner's Most Passionate Defender |
J.M.W. Turner, the blockbuster exhibition opening in July at The Metropolitan Museum of Art — a traveling show that started at the Tate Gallery in London....
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| Mary Cassatt: A Woman's World |
Mary Cassatt: Prints and Drawings from the Collection of Ambroise Vollard at Adelson Galleries, New York, is the third exhibition of Cassatt works shown at the gallery in recent years....
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| Fine Art as an Investment: Everett Shinn (1876-1953) |
Athletes have a locker-room term for a player who wins through sheer desire and hustle — they call him 'hungry.' Few artists it seems were hungrier for success than Everett Shinn (1876-1953)....
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| Giverny and Old Lyme: Art Colonies Tous les Deux |
At the turn of the last century, artists flocked to villages around Europe to paint the landscape en plein air in the company of friends....
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| To Please Any Taste: Litchfield County Furniture and Furniture Makers, 1780-1830 |
In 1969 the Litchfield Historical Society published a catalogue to accompany their latest exhibition on Litchfield County furniture....
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| Historic Hotel: Auberge Saint-Antoine, Quebec City, Canada |
Picture a hotel situated in a row of beautifully restored eighteenth- and nineteenth-century brick and stone buildings....
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| Georgia O'Keeffe and the Camera: the Art of Identity |
From her debut as a provocative young artist in Alfred Stieglitz’s photographs to depictions of her as a grande dame of the art world in prints by Andy Warhol, Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) captivated the media with a persona as bold as her art....
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| Maine's 2008 Folk Art Trail |
Maine is credited with being the birthplace of American folk art collecting, initiated in 1913 by New York painter and art critic Hamilton Easter Field (1873-1922), when he established an art school in the thriving art colony in Ogunquit, Maine....
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| Museum Focus: The Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller Mansion and National Historical Park |
The Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller Mansion in Woodstock, Vermont, (Fig. 1) built in 1805 as a farmhouse, was the boyhood home of George Perkins Marsh, one of America's first environmentalists....
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| Discoveries from the Field: MESDA's Barber Family Desk and Bookcase |
In June 1960, Frank Horton, founder of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, purchased an elegant desk and bookcase for his growing collection....
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| When Money is no Object |
This is the third time we have asked four insiders what they would buy if they found themselves at New York’s Winter Antiques Show with $1 million burning a hole in their pockets....
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| En Plein Air: Painting and Photography in the Forest of Fontainebleau |
Although the history of modern French landscape art is often thought to have begun with impressionism in the 1860s, a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art argues that its true origins go back even farther. In the Forest of Fontainebleau:...
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| Art Focus: The Influence of Wiliam Morris Hunt |
One of the most important American artists of the second half of the nineteenth century, William Morris Hunt (1824-1879) transmitted his enthusiasm for the aesthetic ideals he espoused through rhetoric, instruction, and essay....
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| Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show |
The 2008 Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show once again featured an outstanding array of top level inventory offered by over two hundred of the most highly regarded international dealers. Now in its fifth year, the quality and variety of the fine a...
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| El Greco to Velazquez: Art During the Reign of Philip III |
El Greco and Velazquez are the twin giants of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish painting. They loom so large that it can be hard to see past them and discern the wider artistic landscape in Spain at the moment when it was the richest...
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| A Reviviscent Newport Colonial: The Nichols-Wanton-Hunter House |
The restoration of the Nichols-Wanton-Hunter House was completed by the Preservation Society of Newport County in 1953, providing a splendid example of mid-eighteenth century colonial architecture in the Newport vernacular (Fig. 1)....
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| An Appreciation of Nineteenth-Century Folk Portraits |
Many so-called "primitive" portraits of the first half of the nineteenth century are extraordinarily captivating in their abstract, imaginative, and seemingly humble execution....
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| A California Collection |
California is not known for its large quantity of antiques, but searching in local shops, estate sales, and auctions has rewarded this collector with many rare, important, and undocumented pieces....
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| Fore and Aft: Philadelphia Collects Maritime |
Philadelphia has a rich maritime history. Located along the Delaware River, it was a principal colonial port city. In celebration of this past, nautical art and antiques from public...
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| Christian Beschler: The Sussel-Unicorn Artist |
The Arthur J. Sussel estate auction at Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, on October 23, 1958, included a religious text dated 1799 decorated with "a lion and unicorn and two pairs of parrots amid rosettes, tulips and vases of floral vines (Fig. 1)."...
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| Conservation of a Fabled Masterpiece |
The Philadelphia Museum of Art has in its collections numerous objects with carving attributed to Martin Jugiez (d. 1815), in addition to the historic Mount Pleasant...
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| The Tradition of Teaching |
At the beginning of each school term, matriculating students at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts gather for an orientation session. Between such nuts and bolts details as locker combinations and studio assignments, Albert Gury, chair of the paint...
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| Collecting Profile: J. Thomas Savage |
Are you curious to know what your art advisor may be buying when he/she is not buying for you? Ever wonder about the collections museum curators exhibit in their private homes? And -- just as important -- how do those working in a business that, more ofte...
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| Joe Kindig III: 2008 ADA Merit Award Recipient |
Matisse once observed to his friend Pierre Bonnard that it took a combination of extraordinary circumstances for a man to arrive at the age of seventy and still pursue with passion what he loves. If so, it gives quite an edge to Joe Kindig III, this year'...
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| Green Your Home with Antiques: Going Green in the Eighteenth Century -- Understanding Original Windsor Furniture Color |
Much of the recent research into the colors used in eighteenth-century American Colonial interiors has revealed a brighter color palette than the muted tones made popular in the Colonial Revival period. New methods of paint analysis have uncovered evidenc...
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| Winterthur Primer: Cleaning Painted Surfaces |
In the world of professional paintings conservation, we adhere to the ethic that everything we do must be "reversible." In other words, we should not add anything to a work of art that, if removed, would cause harm to the artist's original materials....
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| Abraham Parsell, Miniature Painter |
Little is known about the painter Abraham Parsell (1791-1856), whose miniature portraits on ivory continue to charm us today. He produced small, mostly oval portraits housed within a chased metal pendant style frame, often with a small oval aperture on th...
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| In the best taste: Sévre-style Minton ÿby Amy Gale |
Victorians admired eighteenth-century Sévres porcelain, but authentic pieces were hard to come by. Even wealthy collectors were challenged (in the words of the 4th Marquess of Hertford) to find something "in a perfect state & most positively ol...
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| Romancing the Stones: The Creative Genius of the Oscar Heyman & Bros. Jewelry Dynasty |
For the past ninety-five years, Oscar Heyman & Bros., Inc., a family-owned firm of master jewelry artisans, has sat, albeit anonymously, at the helm of jewelry royalty. While their name is not well-known outside of professional circles, their pieces h...
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| 53rd Washington Antique Show: Inspirations from the Garden |
The Washington D.C. area is rich in garden history and an appreciation of all things botanical. In memory of First Lady and conservationist Lady Bird Johnson (1912-2007), "Inspirations from the Garden" is the theme of the 53rd Washington Antique Show. The...
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| Fine Art as an Investment: Edward Henry Potthast (1857-1927) |
A painter of appealing impressionist works, Edward Henry Potthast (1857-1927) is best known for his cheerful and vibrantly colored beach scenes -- two of which broke previous auction records for the artist by each selling for $1,384,000 in the spring of...
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| 2008 Winter Antiques Show Loan Exhibition: The Shaker Museum and Library -- Seeking Perfection: The Shakers' Material World |
The Shaker Museum and Library, Old Chatham, New York, holds the most significant collection of Shaker materials in the world. With more than half obtained directly from Shakers, the collection exhibits remarkable original finishes and detail, superb quali...
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| Art Focus: Artists of the Fourteenth Street School |
The term "Fourteenth Street School," originating in the early 1950s, refers to a group of New York painters who, during the 1920s and '30s, continued the tradition established by the Ashcan School a generation earlier of realistically portraying everyday...
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| ...Seven Holes: The Story of a Serendipitous Find |
"It's beguiling, it may be American, and it may even be eighteenth century." My wife, Judy, made these comments a number of years ago. She was referring to a portrait of a young man that she saw hanging on a wall in an antiques shop in Woodbury, Connectic...
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| Early Protective Covers for Upholstered Furniture: Fit, Fabric, and Applicability to Today's Interiors |
Visitors to museums or historic houses, as well as readers of home décor catalogues or shelter magazines, may have noted the increasing prevalence of slipcovers on chairs and sofas. Removable coverings for upholstered furniture have a long history of use,...
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| Early Colonial Furniture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art |
The Metropolitan Museum began to form a collection of American furniture of the colonial and early federal periods almost exactly one hundred years ago. The driving force behind this effort was Henry W. Kent, assistant to Robert W. de Forest, the...
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| The Worlds of Frederic Edwin Church |
When, in 1855, Frederic Edwin Church began to exhibit his paintings of the South American landscape, based on his first voyage there two years earlier, he was quickly recognized as America's greatest landscape painter, heir to that identification achieved...
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| Designer Style |
People find an "eclectic environment" comforting, in the opinion of hipster hotel owner/designer Eric Goode, who along with business partner, Sean MacPherson, has proven his point with the success of their antique-laden Bowery and Lafayette House hotels i...
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| Lifestyle: Connecticut Pastoral |
In most discussions about collections of antiques, the objects are the focus of attention. But in this instance, the collection includes the structures that house it as well. The five historic buildings that comprise this home were moved to the site in th...
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| Lifestyle: The Art of It -- The Stellar Folk Art Collection of Jerry and Susan Lauren |
In his role as executive vice president of men's design at Polo Ralph Lauren, Jerry Lauren, together with his brother, Ralph, have dictated style and fashion to the world for almost four decades. When it comes to collecting, he applies his discerning eye...
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| Lifestyle: A Houseful of Friends |
Some collector's analyze purchases, assessing potential appreciation or gauging how good a deal they're getting. Others buy from the heart; acquiring objects that are specific to a particular place or to a particular time in life. Some objects are kept......
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| Lifestyle: Classical Revival -- Classical Furniture Graces a Greek Revival Home |
The adage, "it's not just what you know, it's who you know" applies to collecting as it does in life, according to the owners of an 1837 Beacon Hill row house in Boston, Massachusetts. This couple moved into the building in 1979 and began collecting serio...
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| Winterthur Primer: Invisible to the Eye -- The Scientific Analysis of Decorative and Fine Art |
It has become increasingly common to see chemists working side by side with curators and conservators to gain a more complete assessment of an object of art. Today scientific research departments are found in more than a dozen museums in the United States...
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| Lifestyle: The Museum that Jack Built |
What is it about men named Jack? They have a vitality that keeps them at the top of their game, whatever their game is. Think Jack Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, Jack Welch. Now, add one more amazing "Jack" to that distinguished list, Jack Warner of Tuscaloosa,...
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| Highlights: The Haughton International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Show 2007 |
Leading dealers from the United States and Europe will converge on the Park Avenue Armory, in New York City, this October for what promises to be one of the most important shows of the year. Since 1988, The International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show --...
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| Noteworthy Sales: Recent Sales by Dealers |
"Dealers and collectors have been guessing which decoy would be the first to reach the million dollar mark," says decoy broker Stephen O'Brien, Jr. With his sale of this drake, and a concurrent sale of a Canada goose......
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| Discoveries: A Forum that Highlights Important Finds, Significant Objects, New Research, and Museum Acquisitions |
Most unsigned paintings never get authenticated with concrete evidence. Such was not the fate for this work by Hudson River artist William M. Hart. For sixteen years this outstanding landscape eluded identification by those familiar with it. Over the year...
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| Highlights: Inspiring Impressionism |
Inspiring Impressionism is the first complete survey to explore the influence of Old Master painters on impressionist artists. This pioneering exhibition will display examples of the 17th-century Dutch and Spanish Schools and French Rococo style alongside...
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| The Ten American Painters |
Founded in 1877 as an alternative to the conservative National Academy of Design, the New York based Society of American Artists -- at its outset -- embraced a merit-based exhibition policy and allowed artists to develop progressive styles. Its membership...
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| Investing in Antiques: Under the Radar and Under $10,000 |
With prices for major antiques reaching the stars, finding something worthwhile for a moderate price may seem increasingly unlikely. So, what -- if anything -- can you buy for under $10,000? If you are looking for high quality, there are still many option...
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| Investing in Antiques: Decoys |
There are two types of decoy collectors: hunters and connoisseurs. So says Gary Guyette of Guyette and Schmidt, Inc., the country's largest antique decoy auction firm. Until the late 1980s, with few exceptions, the profile of the decoy collector, he says,...
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| The Decorative Arts Trust Celebrates its 30th Anniversary |
Collectors and art enthusiasts revel in discovery. Finding a little-known house museum with a treasure trove of pottery, absorbing the delicate detail of a painted table, or viewing a private collection in the presence of top scholars and curators are the...
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| Green Your Home With Antiques: Museums Are Going Green -- Why Not You? |
As responsible custodians of priceless collections, museums have made use of advances in technology to regulate such things as temperature and humidity to ensure the long life of their treasures. Yet, the more energy they use to house and preserve objects...
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| Hands On: Portsmouth Lolling Chair |
he lolling chair is one of the most distinctive American furniture forms of the Federal period (ca. 1790-1815). Produced throughout the new republic, the form reached its zenith in style and form in the coastal regions of Massachusetts and Southern New Ha...
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| The Portraits of William Merritt Chase |
Early in his career, William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) decided that the best way to achieve a high profile and derive financial reward in the art making business was to paint portraits, a skill at which he was quite accomplished. The first exhibition of t...
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| Bayou Bend: Celebrating Fifty Years |
In 1957, the philanthropist Miss Ima Hogg (1882-1975) donated her mansion, Bayou Bend, and her collection of American decorative arts and paintings to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Located in one of Houston's historic neighborhoods, the elegant 1920s...
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| Great American Folk Art at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum: Part 2 |
Colonial Williamsburg's Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum moved into new, state-of-the-art quarters in February 2007. With 11,000 square feet of gallery space, the museum currently features eleven exhibitions drawn from its permanent collections. T...
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| Connecting a London-Trained Joiner to 1630s Plymouth Colony |
Studies of seventeenth-century New England furniture have often discussed the influence of London training on joiners who came to New England, and how such craftsmen and their objects might have influenced furniture tradesmen throughout the region. A rece...
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| Nantucket Art Colony |
In the early twentieth century Nantucket's whaling wharves launched a generation of artists who transformed the island's identity from an economic hub dependent on the sea to a haven for the arts. The Nantucket art colony came to life in the 1920s among t...
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| Architectural Highlights of Boston's North Shore |
Boston's North Shore was first settled by English colonists soon after the Mayflower Pilgrims disembarked at Plymouth, along what is now the southern Massachusetts coast, in 1620. The Cape Ann colony, where Gloucester and Rockport are situated on the Nort...
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| Re-creating Jonathan Warner's Bed Hangings |
The 1814 inventory of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, merchant Jonathan Warner listed a full complement of green damask upholstered items in the parlor chamber: ten chairs, an easy chair, a night chair, and bedstead with bed hangings. Also in the room was a la...
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| Jules Tavernier at Red Cloud Agency in 1874 |
"I am about to cross one of the wildest regions [of the West], where no artist has gone yet," Jules Tavernier (1844-1889) wrote his mother from Cheyenne, Wyoming, on May 7, 1874. The next day he was to embark on a dangerous month-long journ...
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| Historic Opinions: How Critics Shaped American Tastes in Furniture |
All styles eventually go out of fashion. Colonial hoop dresses, Victorian handlebar moustaches, and 1960s shag carpeting all enjoyed great popularity before falling out of favor. Similar cycles of taste have governed the history of furniture design. Going...
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| Investing in Antiques: Collecting Chinese Export Porcelain |
Between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries the Chinese catered to the almost insatiable European demand for porcelain. Made specifically for the western world with distinctive forms and decoration tailored to this market, the "designs and styles [...
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| Fine Art as an Investment: Stuart Davis (1892-1964) |
A leading member of the first generation of artists who put a distinctly American spin on the modernist ideas then percolating in Europe, Stuart Davis (1892-1964) is celebrated for his lively and colorful canvases that incorporate imagery from the America...
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| Lifestyle: A Passion for Art and Life |
Betty Blake pushes back a stray tendril of white hair, shoos her overly-eager dog Reno away from her visitor's feet, and with a laugh says, "I just flew in from Dallas at one a.m. so I'm not quite together, but I'm so happy you're here." Betty has just re...
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| Lifestyle: A Time Capsule with Heart |
This pristine Greek Revival home on the southern New England coast was neglected for at least sixteen years until the present owners acquired it in 1993 and began the careful reclamation that allowed it to emerge from the brambles, bamboo, and bittersweet...
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| Green Your Home with Antiques: Antiques -- In Vogue with Green Design |
Lately, one cannot pick up a magazine or tune into a favorite home improvement show without noticing a feature on the movement toward green design. What exactly is green design? Green means environmentally responsible. It addresses the impact of building...
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| Destination: Newport, Rhode Island |
Rich in both natural and cultural resources, Newport, Rhode Island, has long appealed to travelers. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Newport became notable for its grand summer residences built by industrial tycoons. Many of America's great artist...
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| Discoveries: A Forum that Highlights Important Finds, Significant Objects, New Research, and Museum Acquisitions |
This dramatic centerpiece was originally created for display at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Though orders could be placed with various styles of ornamentation, this Tiffany and Co. swan may be the only example in existence. Decorated.....
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| Highlights: News, Events and Trends |
Portsmouth-born native John Samuel Blunt (1798-1835) is the focus of an exhibition that showcases the artist's 1821 sketchbook. Sketchbooks of this age are rare for any American artist -- and virtually unique for Portsmouth. The artist's descendants have...
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| Highlights: New, Events, and Trends from the Antiques and Fine Art Marketplace |
This year, the Bedford Pickers Market show, long a highlight of New Hampshire’s annual antiques week in August, will move from its traditional Friday spot to Monday. Dealers and collectors will both benefit from the change, says show promoter Frank...
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| Winterthur Primer: The Winterthur Library, An Invaluable Resource |
Most people think of the library at the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum as a resource for advanced scholarship. While this is true, it is also a great deal more. Increasingly in the last few years, we have welcomed new users, either in person or b...
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| The Gem in the Park: The Washington County Museum of Fine Arts |
Often overlooked, some would say undiscovered, the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts (WCMFA) in Hagerstown, Maryland, has been exhibiting its world-class collection for seventy-five years. The museum is important both for its place in the cultural lan...
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| If I had €1 Million |
Even though I had been told before I left for TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair) in Maastricht, The Netherlands, that it was arguably the premier antiques show in the world, nothing prepared me for what I saw when I arrived the first day, jet lagged and g...
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| Paul Poiret: Furnishing the Fashion Industry |
Paul Poiret “arrived on the Paris scene when the nineteenth century was closing belatedly and the twentieth century slowly was opening.”1 Born in 1879 to the owners of a woolen goods and cloth business near the Les Halles section of...
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| Edward Hopper: Hours of Darkness |
Many of Edward Hopper’s (1882–1967) most admired paintings are night scenes. An enthusiast of both movies and the theater, he adapted the device of highlighting a scene against a dark background, providing the viewer with a sense of sitting in...
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| Discovery: “Fully Elastic Armchair” |
Samuel Gragg's elastic chair is an icon of bentwood furniture design. Curving both vertically and horizontally, the design conforms to the shape of the human body. Undoubtedly, Gragg's training as a Windsor chairmaker, and possibly his exposure to ship...
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| Art Focus: American Still Life: Part III -- Modernist Influences in the Twentieth Century |
Although a number of American still life artists who gained prominence during the nineteenth century were still active and influential after 1900, the still life genre in America in the early part of the twentieth century was profoundly impacted by modern...
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| William Ranney Rediscovered |
For much of the twentieth century, William Ranney (1813–1857) was primarily known for his realistic depictions of the West. Stampeding horses, wild mustangs, vaqueros, trappers, and emigrating families were popular themes acquired by collectors. Alt...
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| Hiram Powers' Technique: The Art of Seizing a Likeness in Marble |
Hiram Powers (1805-1873) was one of the most celebrated American sculptors of the nineteenth century. His full-length nude marble statue The Greek Slave (1844), one of his best-known works, earned him international acclaim. A retrospective exhibition of...
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| Noteworthy Sale: Allan and Penny Katz |
This double-sided trade sign was made to advertise the shoemaking shop of Hartman Martin Thron, born in 1821 in Lauterbach, Germany. By 1844 Thron had settled in Rome, New York, near Utica, where he married Christina Strahle, also from Germany, with whom...
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| Highlight: Baltimore Summer Antiques Show |
Over 550 international dealers will convene over Labor Day Weekend to make this the largest summer indoor antiques event in the nation. This year the event celebrates its twenty-seventh year with an even more impressive range of fine art, jewelry, silver,...
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| Highlight: The Unknown Monet — Pastels and Drawings |
Disputing the idea that there is nothing new to say about Claude Monet (1840-1926), this exhibit draws on a body of largely unknown graphic work and recently discovered documents to throw new light on the artist's creative process. Monet denied the role...
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| Highlight: James Graham & Sons — A Century and a Half in the Art Business |
This leading dealer in nineteenth- and twentieth-century American paintings, American and European sculpture, and contemporary art celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. The exhibition and accompanying book by Betsy Fahlman, Professor of Art History...
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| Highlight: The Year of O'Keeffe -- Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Celebrates A Decade with Two Exhibitions |
The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum celebrates its successful first decade with two impressive exhibitions. Circling Around Abstraction brings together over fifty works from various institutions and private collections to explore O'Keeffe's (1887-1986) consistent...
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| Great Impressions at Lincoln Center: A New Gallery and Major Printmaking are Part of a Renaissance of Visual Art |
These are heady times for Manhattan's Lincoln Center. Construction has just begun on a facelift for some of its nearly fifty-year-old halls; opera simulcasts in movie theaters nationwide are a hit; attendance is way up (with eighty-five sellout...
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| Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939 to Emphasize American Works |
Never before have the conditions of life changed so swiftly and enormously as they have changed for mankind in the last fifty years. We have been carried along... [and] we are only now beginning to realize the force and strength of the storm of change...
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| Green Your Home With Antiques: Investing in Antique Rugs Can Benefit Your Health and the Environment |
From government policies to award-winning documentaries, "green" consciousness now permeates all aspects of our lives. The major concerns of the early twenty-first century are energy efficiency, solar power, and the need to cultivate a way of life that is...
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| Lifestyle: Hollywood Babylon Revisited |
"A neglected house gets an unhappy look; this one had it in spades." Joe Gillis, the doomed screenwriter protagonist of Sunset Boulevard, could have been talking about The Cedars in an earlier incarnation, when he said those words. Indeed, some interior...
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| Lifestyle: A Bit of New England in Pennsylvania |
Thirty years ago a Pennsylvania couple purchased a plot of land in the rolling countryside of Bucks County. Their plans were to build a home emulating an early Pennsylvania house. Their mind was swayed, however, after a visit to Shelburne Museum......
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| Highlight: Alabama Folk Art |
Alabama boasts more folk artists than any other state in the country. Several factors, including a tradition of tolerance of eccentricity and resistance to change, are credited with contributing to the state's rich folk art. This artistic legacy will be c...
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| Highlight: Delaware Clocks |
This is the first publication dedicated to the study of this regional mechanical/ furniture form in over one hundred years. The book chronicles the research undertaken for the exhibition, providing an overview of nineteen of the finest timepieces made......
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| Highlight: Kindred Spirits -- Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape |
A reconstruction of the career of Asher B. Durand (1796-1886), the acknowledged dean of American landscape painting from his election as president of the National Academy in 1845 until his death at the age of ninety. The contributors reassess Durand's......
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| Highlight: American Furniture 2006 |
The 2006 edition of this annual interdisciplinary journal dedicated to advancing knowledge of furniture made or used in the Americas from the seventeenth century to the present includes a tribute to Frank L. Horton, founder of the Museum of Early Southern...
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| Highlight: Captured Motion -- The Sculpture of Harriet Whitney Frishmuth |
By Janis Conner, Leah Rosenblatt Lehmbeck, Thayer Tolles, and Frank L. Hohmann III. Hohmann Holdings, LLC, New York; Christie's publications. 296 pp., illus., hardcover. $125 plus tax and s/h. Call 800.395.6300 (within the U.S.), or 212.636.2500....
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| Highlight: Tea, Wine and Poetry -- Qing Dynasty Literati and Their Drinking Vessels |
Nearly fifty object on view, including teapots, wine ewers, cups, hanging scrolls, fans, seals, calligraphy, albums and ink rubbings, illuminate the wine and tea- drinking culture of China from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. The objects......
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| Highlight: 15th Annual Newport Symposium |
The theme of this year's symposium is...
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| Highlight: An Observant Eye -- The Thoreau Collection at the Concord Museum |
Most of the household and personal objects belonging to Henry David Thoreau and his family have remained in Concord, Massachusetts, the author's birthplace and home. Objects are not typically associated with the Transcendentalist Thoreau, whose interest.....
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| Highlights: At the Field Museum |
Journey through 13,000 years of human ingenuity and achievement and discover what scientists have learned about Americans who lived here before the arrival of Europeans. Step into the windswept world of Ice Age mammoth hunters; explore the Aztec empire......
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| Highlight: Winterthur's Furniture Forum, 2007 |
This March, Winterthur Museum's forum Inlay, Veneer, and Imported Woods in America, 1785-1830, brought collectors, dealers, scholars, and museum professionals to hear lectures by leading members of the field. Topics covered included imported and......
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| Highlight: E & J Frankel Celebrates 40 Years |
Celebrating 40 years of presenting Asian art to the world community E and J Frankel, Ltd. of New York announces its 100th gallery exhibition, Four Decades: 40th Anniversary Retrospective. The exhibition will display currently available works that......
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| Highlight: Marguerite Zorach -- A Life in Art |
This first solo show of Marguerite Zorach's (1887-1968) work in thirty years will feature twenty-five oil paintings. Zorach's career is often overshadowed by that of her husband, sculptor William Zorach, but this early advocate of modernism in America......
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| Highlight: The Spring International Art and Antiques Show |
This Spring Wendy Management presents its fifth annual Spring International Art and Antiques Show. Fifty-two important international dealers will display a vast array of objects, from Roman antiquities to contemporary art and period furnishings......
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| Highlight: George Stubbs (1724-1806) -- A Celebration |
Stubbs's work is represented in many American collections, but this exhibition draws on British- owned examples. With seventeen pictures on view, the show's intimate scale emphasizes his acute powers of observation and meticulous technique. A failure......
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| Highlight: Celebrating 20 Years William Vareika Fine Arts, Ltd. |
Over the past twenty years William Vareika Fine Arts has evolved into one of the leading resources for important eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and early-twentieth-century art. Recently doubled in size, the gallery will now exhibit five centuries of world......
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| Noteworthy Sale: Heller Washam Antiques |
This mantel was discovered in the...
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| Noteworthy Sale: Robert Young Antiques |
This delightful bowl is dug out and carved from a solid piece of birch burl; lobed examples are incredibly rare. It retains traces of painted decoration and untouched color. It bears the initials...
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| Highlight: The Summer Fair -- Olympia Fine Art and Antiques |
This year, interior designers Mario Buatta, Joanne de Guardiola, Brian McCarthy, and Rose Tarlow are the cochairs of the American Friends of the Summer Fair Olympia. The fair will bring together 250 British and 50 international interior design......
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| Highlight: The Romance of Modernism -- Paintings and Sculpture from the Scott M. Black Collection |
Features selections from the private collection of Scott M. Black, founder and CEO of Delphi Management Company, including works by Cezanne, Degas, Monet, Pissarro, and Renoir; postimpressionist paintings by Bernard, Denis, Luce, van Rysselbergh, and......
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| Highlight: Barcelona and Modernity Gaudi to Dali |
Between the hosting of the Universal Exposition in 1888 and the birth of Franco's Fascist regime in 1939, Barcelona was the primary center of radical intellectual, political, and cultural activities in Spain. Picasso, Miro, Dali, and Gaudi are among the.....
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| Noteworthy Sale: Schwarz Gallery, Philadelphia PA |
Late in his career the Philadelphia portraitist Rembrandt Peale became absorbed in the task of producing portraits of George Washington. He advertised these images as being a synthesis of his own 1795 life portrait, the life sittings taken by his......
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| Hands-On: A Taunton Chest Revisited |
When the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, rediscovered their Taunton chest (see Ward), Russell Morash, executive producer and director of The New Yankee Workshop on PBS, recognized it as an ideal piece to reproduce for their television show. Morash, host......
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| Discovery: John Archibald Woodside, Sr. (1781-1852) Patriotic Watercolor |
John Woodside was considered the best sign and decorative painter in Federal Philadelphia; his work possibly influenced folk artist Edward Hicks (1780-1849). Most of Woodside's pieces are unsigned. In this image, Woodside's name is signed on a rock in......
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| Winterthur Primer: A Timely Discovery -- The Story of Winterthur's Jacob Graff Clock |
A chance discovery has enabled curators at Winterthur to reconstruct the history of one of the most treasured clocks in the museum's collection (Fig. 1). The clock, made by Jacob Graff between 1745-1755, was acquired in 1946 by Henry Francis du Pont.......
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| A Taunton Chest Redivivus |
A case in point. In the fall of 2005, it came to our attention that an extraordinary miniature painted chest (Figs. 1a-b) of the type associated with Robert Crosman (1707-1799) of Taunton, Massachusetts, was going to come up for auction in the sale of......
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| Great American Folk Art at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum: Part 1 |
When John D. Rockefeller Jr. established Colonial Williamsburg's Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in 1957, he recognized that the collection needed to grow beyond its namesake's initial gift of 424 objects. New discoveries, evolving scholarship......
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| A Premier Folk Art Museum Celebrates Fifty Years and a New Home |
This year the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in Colonial Williamsburg celebrates its fiftieth anniversary and its new home. Relocated two blocks from its previous address, the building is adjacent to the DeWitt Wallace Museum on Francis Street.....
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| Discoveries from the Field: A Hollingsworth Family Sofa and its Upholstery Revealed |
The work of Philadelphia furniture makers of the second and third quarters of the eighteenth century is distinguished by conservative design principles, fine proportions, strong construction precepts, ornamentation that required the skills of carvers......
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| Made for Love: Selections from the Jane Katcher Collection of Americana |
The bonds of love and friendship infuse a diverse array of American folk objects, revealing the material ways Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries expressed emotion. Portraits large and small depict loving family groups; children's......
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| Classical Furniture in Federal Philadelphia |
When Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764-1820) arrived in cosmopolitan Philadelphia in 1798, the city had been the capital of the "new Republic" of the United States for eight years. By introducing Philadelphians to Grecian-influenced architecture with his......
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| Classical Decorative Arts of Philadelphia |
Although most of the "fancy goods," or accessories, such as glass, ceramics, and lighting, used in wealthy American homes in the first few decades of the nineteenth century were traditionally imported, household goods of excellent quality were......
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| Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls: The Women of Tiffany Studios |
While Louis C. Tiffany (1848-1933) was the artistic genius behind the creative endeavors of Tiffany Studios, the discovery of a cache of correspondence written by Clara Driscoll (1861-1944), head of the Women's Glass Cutting Department, has revealed......
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| Art Focus: American Still Life -- Part 2 -- The Late Nineteenth Century |
For most of the nineteenth century American still life painting celebrated the nation's rich natural bounty. Typical subject matter included the fruit-filled tabletops in works by Raphaelle Peale (1774-1825) and James Peale (1749-1831); the luxurious......
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| Appraising Your Collection |
In today's market, where the value of art and antiques can change over the course of a single auction or private sale, the appraiser is a vital ally to the collector. With an independent, impartial appraisal of your collection in hand, you have the inform...
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| Painterly Controversy: William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri |
In late November of 1907, New York newspapers trumpeted a controversy that had the art world in an uproar. Headlines exclaimed:...
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| If I had $1 Million... Part 2: A Winter Antiques Show Buying Spree |
Our second annual "If I Had $1 Million" spree took place again this year at the prestigious Winter Antiques Show held in mid-January at New York City's Park Avenue armory. Since initiating our fantasy spree, we've discovered that others enjoy playing......
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| Fine Art as an Investment: Colin Campbell Cooper (1856-1937) |
A painter of appealing impressionist works who is best known for his vibrant early twentieth century cityscapes, Colin Campbell Cooper (1856-1937) is currently the subject of a bicoastal museum exhibition examining his similarly multifaceted career.......
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| Lifestyle: Out of Africa |
Thirty-five years ago, Denyse Ginzberg experienced what the French call a coup de foudre, which literally translates into English as a lightening bolt, but usually connotes love at first sight. Shopping in the home decor department of Lord and Taylor......
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| Lifestyle: Consensus Collecting |
Being in the right place at the right time; a cliche perhaps, but that is exactly how Stephen and Dinah Lefkowitz found their Old Saybrook, Connecticut, home. House hunting along the Connecticut shore, the couple decided to walk through the historic.......
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| Show Preview: The Haughton International Fine Art Fair 2007 |
This annual fair's range and quality of paintings, drawings, watercolors, and sculpture, draws institutional and private buyers from around the world. The only...
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| Highlight: Corcoran Gallery of Art to Host Largest Exhibition of Modernist Art and Design in U.S. |
This Spring the Corcoran Gallery of Art is hosting the critically acclaimed exhibition Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939. Originally organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum (VandA) in London, it is the largest and most comprehensive......
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| Dean Failey: 2007 ADA Merit Award Recipient |
It was a biology professor who pointed Dean Failey, this year's ADA Award of Merit recipient, in the direction of his decorative arts career. Dean, senior vice president and senior director of American furniture and decorative arts at Christie's......
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| Destination: Philadelphia |
The 46th Annual Philadelphia Antiques Show promises to be among the year's highlights. Recognized as one of the premiere American antiques and decorative arts shows in the country, this year's event will draw fifty-six of the nation's most distinguished.....
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| Investing in Antiques: All things being equal... Traditional and Modern Furniture |
While masterpieces remain strong in all categories, recent media coverage has cited a weakness in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English, European, and American furniture markets. In her article "Bargain Time for Antiques" (2/08/07)......
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| Discoveries from the Field: A Charleston Linen Press? |
A previously unknown early nineteenth-century furniture form from Charleston, South Carolina, was recently discovered over 114 miles away in an unassuming 1930s Columbia, South Carolina, neighborhood. Research is currently underway to identify the......
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| Show Review: Palm Beach Jewelry, Art and Antique Show -- Presidents' Day Weekend -- February 16-20, 2007 |
This year's Palm Beach Jewelry, Art and Antique Show built on the steady momentum it has gained since its first appearance in 2004. Clearly it has become one of the most important shows in the country. Two hundred and five dealers from the U.S., Canada......
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| Highlight: Events at Colonial Williamsburg, VA |
February 4-8, 2007: 59th Annual Antiques Forum; March 15-17, 2007: The Williamsburg Playhouse of 1760 and the World of 18th-Century Theater...
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| Highlight: Bellamy Banter -- Life and Work of John Haley Bellamy |
The Piscataqua Decorative Arts Society's 2007 season of events begins with a panel discussion exploring the life and work of carver John Haley Bellamy (1836-1914), a native of Kittery Point, Maine, and best known today for his eagles -- spare and simple.....
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| Highlight: Winterthur Events |
Furniture Forum: March 1-2, 2007; Special One-Day Conference: March 31, 2007; Ceramics Conference: April 27-28, 2007...
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| Highlight: Decorative Arts of the Kings |
The unparalleled opulence of the courts of Kings Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI are embodied in the exquisitely crafted objects they commissioned. As part of their three-year partnership with the Musee de Louvre, the High examines the private lives......
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| Highlight: Attingham Summer School in England |
An eighteen-day residential summer school designed to provide insight into the English country house. The program will be located in Sussex, Nottinghamshire, and Norfolk, and will offer tutorials and visits to public and private properties....
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| Highlight: Building the Frick Collection -- An Introduction to the House and Its Collections |
Chief curator Colin Bailey documents the construction of the Gilded Age mansion that houses the museum, and examines how its creation influenced Frick's taste during the final years of his life. Newly discovered letters and telegrams reveal the extent......
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| Highlight: Picasso to Pop -- Aspects of Modern Art |
Beginning with a Picasso drawing of a head dated 1906, Picasso to Pop charts the Wadsworth's history of acquiring works by twentieth-century innovators. Experimental works by George Grosz, Paul Klee, Georges Roualt, and Wyndham Lewis represent the......
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| Highlight: Captured Motion -- The Sculpture of Harriet Whitney Frishmuth |
Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (1880-1980) is best known for her exuberant images of female nudes. During her lifetime, Frishmuth's Joy of the Waters and The Vine were among the most often replicated American bronze sculptures, with editions numbering in......
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| Highlight: American Impressionism |
American impressionism emerged during the late nineteenth century in response to the many challenges to traditional ways of life -- automobiles, telephones, electric light bulbs, and Kodak cameras were all being encountered for the first time.......
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| Highlight: Decatur House Restoration Project |
In the developing years of the nation's capital, internationally-celebrated naval hero Stephen Decatur (1779-1820) declared his commitment to the blossoming city by constructing a grand, Federal-style residence just steps from the White House.......
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| Highlight: Ceramics in America 2006 |
Intended for collectors, historical archaeologists, curators, decorative arts students, social historians, and contemporary potters, this interdisciplinary annual journal examines the role of historical ceramics in the American context.......
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| Highlight: Adelson Galleries Relocates |
Adelson Galleries has moved to their new space at 19 East 82nd Street, located one block east of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The first floor of the 1890s townhouse features nearly 4,000 square feet of exhibition space.......
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| Museum Expansion: Renovation of a Masterpiece -- Yale's Louis I. Kahn Building |
With the recent reopening of Yale University Art Gallery's Kahn building, this pioneering structure is set to rekindle both admiration and discussion. Having undergone a $44 million renovation, the well-worn relic of mid-century modernism is set to......
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| Highlight: Modernism in American Silver -- 20th-Century Design |
During the nineteenth century, the American silverware industry became the largest in the world. By the 1930s, however, less expensive alternatives such as chromium-plated metal and aluminum had become increasingly popular. Faced with a shrinking......
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| Highlight: John Singer Sargent -- Figures and Landscapes, 1874-1882 |
This is the fourth in the planned eight-volume Complete Paintings of John Singer Sargent, a project supported by Adelson Galleries in New York. This volume focuses on Sargent's groundbreaking work in landscapes and figures during the eight year period......
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| Highlight: The Target Collection of American Photography -- A Century in Pictures |
Features ninety works produced from 1877 to 1998 by such celebrated photographers as Ansel Adams, Richard Avedon, Imogen Cunningham, and Dorothea Lange. These photographs provides insight into the ways artists documented the visual world during the......
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| Highlight: A Perfect Solitude -- The Art of Walter Launt Palmer (1854-1932) |
Walter Launt Palmer is best known for his snow scenes, in which he captured the subtleties of illuminated and shadowed winter landscapes. His subjects also included Venetian canals, bathed in pastel colors and sunlight, and detailed interiors that......
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| Noteworthy Sale: MME Fine Art, LLC |
Alfred Thompson Bircher (1837-1908) was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and spent his early career in New England. Although largely self-taught, he painted with the artistic luminaries of his time. When working in the White Mountains he was.....
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| Discovery: Richard Clague (Southern, 1821-1872) |
Referred to as the "the father of southern landscape painting," Richard Clague brought the academic traditions of Geneva and Paris to Louisiana. Trained abroad, his debt was to Theodore Rousseau and the Barbizon school. In 1862 he opened a studio in......
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| Inspired by China: Traditional Furniture and Contemporary Inspiration |
A fizzy explosion of red wire isn't what comes to most people's minds when they see a piece of seventeenth-century Chinese furniture, but that's how contemporary designer Gord Peteran responded to an ornate cloisonne incense stand from the Song dynasty......
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| Antiques Council Focus: Good, Better, Best in Antique Oriental Rugs |
The concept of good, better, and best is difficult to apply in the world of antique Oriental rugs because personal taste is so much a part of what makes one rug more interesting than the next. For the purposes of this article I will use the following......
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| Winterthur Primer: A Look at Fabrics on Early American Quilts |
Quilts are collected for many reasons. Some people value them as colorful examples of folk art -- either period or contemporary -- others, as documents commemorating aspects of women's history or displaying characteristics associated with a particular......
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| Treasures of the Chesapeake: Select Items from the 2007 Washington Antiques Show Loan Exhibition |
Treasures of the Chesapeake is the theme of the 2007 Washington Antiques Show's loan exhibition, which presents thirty-three treasures made and used in the Chesapeake Bay region. Encompassing territory in three states, the region stretches 180 miles......
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| The Artist's Vision: Romantic Traditions in Britain |
Because it was not a formal school and was not characterized by a single artistic style, the artistic and intellectual movement called Romanticism can be difficult to define. In part a reaction against the rigorous logic of eighteenth-century......
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| Knights and Castles: A History of Irish Furniture |
I first met Desmond FitzGerald, the romantically titled Knight of Glin, during my university vacation in the summer of 1993. A year later, I found myself in the hall at Glin Castle, his family seat on the banks of the river Shannon in County Limerick......
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| Art Focus: Early American Still Life -- Part 1 |
Still life -- the representation of inanimate objects -- is an early and enduring artistic theme. Yet when compared with portraiture, landscape, and history painting, still life has generally been relegated to the lower rungs of the thematic hierarchy......
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| Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall |
Artist and designer Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of the famed New York jewelry firm built his dream home in Oyster Bay, New York, between 1902 and 1905. On nearly 600 acres overlooking Cold Spring Harbor, the......
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| John Singer Sargent and His American Contempotraries in Venice |
Born to American parents in Florence, Italy, in 1856, John Singer Sargent spent his youth traveling through Europe with his family. From 1874 to 1885 he lived in Paris, receiving formal training in fine art and forming friendships with artists from.......
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| The Lure of Antique Frames |
Antique frames, in their seemingly infinite shapes and sizes, are beautiful mementos of bygone days. Intricate designs evoke a time when craftsmanship was an art in itself. Instead of being diminished by the passage of time, frames, like fine wines, are.....
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| A Southern Backcountry Perspective: The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts at the Winter Antiques Show |
Nestled in the historic town of Salem, North Carolina, and one of four museums collectively known as Old Salem Museums and Gardens, the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) has entered its fifth decade as a center for the study of the.......
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| Mr. Petrie's Shop on the Bay |
In the bustling urban landscape of mid-eighteenth-century Charleston, a sizable artisan community, who satisfied the material and luxury demands of the city's cosmopolitan population, flourished. Among them was Alexander Petrie (ca. 1707-1768), whose......
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| Daniel Garber: Romantic Realist |
In the second decade of the twentieth century, artist Daniel Garber (1880-1958) emerged as one of leaders of the New Hope School, also known as the Pennsylvania School of Landscape Painters. This handful of artists was tied together more by the location.....
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| Lifestyle: The History Within |
For one mid-Atlantic couple, collecting is "a pleasure you can count on for a lifetime." The success of that philosophy is evident in every nook and cranny of their home. In over forty years of collecting, the couple has gathered the best of the best......
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| Moses in Miniature: A Recently Discovered Portrait by John Singleton Copley |
The significance of a newly found portrait miniature (Fig. 1) by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) is greater than its tiny size. Discoveries in the oeuvre of an artist so thoroughly studied, so scrupulously inventoried, so eagerly sought-after, are rare....
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| Lifestyle: American Folk Art in a Classical Setting |
The classical architectural elements of a Connecticut couple's 1912 Italianate style house provide the perfect backdrop for their captivating array of folk art. Objects acquired over the past thirty years are artfully placed within the spacious floor.......
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| Eric Gill at the Victoria and Albert Museum: New Sculpture Display |
The V and A's unique collection of work by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), given to the museum by the artist in 1914, dominates its new sculpture display in the same way his revolutionary approach dominated the development of European sculpture from the late.....
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| Lifestyle: Mutual Appreciation -- A Florida Collector Displays His Passion for 20th-Century Pennsylvania Impressionists in a Tropical Setting |
Some thirty years ago, when a south Florida CEO with northeastern roots set out to establish his art collection, he determined to choose from the heart, selecting works he loves -- distinctive twentieth-century American impressionist, realist, and.......
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| Fine Art as an Investment: Hugh Henry Breckenridge (1870-1937) |
A pioneering modernist painter whose work won prizes at major international expositions and is included in major museum collections, Hugh Henry Breckenridge (1870-1937) remains largely undiscovered among the wider collecting public.......
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| Destinations: New York City Antiques Shows and Fairs |
The eighth annual New York Ceramics Fair is the premier ceramics fair in the country. Featuring at least 40 leading international exhibitors who will offer exquisite examples of antique ceramics, glass, and enamels from the earliest Classical periods......
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| The Price of Denial: The Hidden Costs of Failing to Plan for the Disposition of Your Collection |
The Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College has estimated that more than $41 trillion in assets will be passed intergenerationally by 2053. Of that sum, art and financial experts project that $4 to $6 trillion will be in art and antiques......
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| A Winterthur Primer: Acquiring and Researching Portraits |
American portraiture from the 1700s and 1800s is a ripe area for study and collecting. Over the last two decades scholars have undertaken important research that builds on over a century of interest in American art. I encourage you to look intently at.......
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| Investing in Antiques: Schoolgirl Needlework |
In the final chapter of her two-volume publication Girlhood Embroidery (1993), Betty Ring, the foremost authority on schoolgirl needlework, provides an in-depth history of collecting this art form, which she traces back to the 1860s.......
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| Self Image: Portraiture from Copley to Close |
Portraits -- visual representations of self -- are layered accounts of actuality, desire, and projection. Add the filter of time and historical portraits are granted a curious authority by modern viewers. Read as documents, they are taken at face value......
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| Andrew Wyeth: Helga on Paper |
Andrew Wyeth once described Helga Testorf as an image he couldn't get out of his mind. The 89-year-old artist is still often driven by what he calls the "white heat of inspiration." But in those early years of getting to know his then 31-year-old German.....
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| American ABC: Childhood in 19th-Century America |
Over the course of the nineteenth century, the United States grew from an infant republic to a powerful nation with a prominent place in world affairs. The exhibition American ABC: Childhood in 19th-Century America provides a window into the everyday......
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| Peace, Plenty, and Independence: Selections from a Collection of English Ceramics made for the American Market, 1770-1820 |
This year the Delaware Antique Show features a loan exhibition from the finest private collection of Liverpool jugs and other English pottery made for the American market. Made in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, the creamware jugs......
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| The Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington |
The major commemoration in the United States of the 250th anniversary of the birth of the Marquis de Lafayette will inaugurate Mount Vernon's new changing exhibitions gallery. A Son and his Adoptive Father: The Marquis de Lafayette and George......
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| Mount Vernon Ushers in a New Era |
After fifteen years of planning and a capital campaign that raised more than $110 million, Mount Vernon's Ford Orientation Center and Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center opens to the public on October 27, 2006. This marks a new era at......
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| Expressions of Innocence and Eloquence: Selections from the Jane Katcher Collection of Americana |
Several years ago Jane Katcher, a collector and longtime student of American folk art and Americana, was asked to prepare a magazine article about some of her favorite objects. As she discussed this project with David Schorsch, the folk art specialist......
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| Cotswold School Furniture |
The Arts and Crafts Movement in England was borne of two ideas: that utilitarian objects -- household furnishings fit for purpose -- would reflect the beauty inherent in such fitness; and that the manner in which these objects were produced would imbue......
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| The Story of the Saturday Evening Girls and their Paul Revere Pottery |
It is said that every object tells a story. A mug recently given to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, quite literally tells one (Fig. 1); inscribed on the side of the mug are the words: "In the forest must always be a nightingale and in the soul a faith......
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| The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890-1950 |
While the main storyline in American art has always emphasized the importance of urbanism -- especially machine-age technology -- a new exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, argues that the vast, rugged land of the American West has also left......
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| Lifestyle: French Island Elegance |
Much has been written about the French West Indian islands; about their botany, zoology, and their social and economic histories, but to date, little or no consideration has been given to the architecture and decorative furnishings of the islands......
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| How to Plan for the Best Pieces in Your Collection |
The important pieces in your collection are generally your finest once-in-a-lifetime purchases. Planning for the disposition of these pieces usually involves different considerations than the decisions required for other items. It's necessary to......
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| Fine Art as an Investment: John Marin (1870-1953) |
The importance of John Marin's contribution to American modernism gained increased validation with the saleroom figure of $1,248,000 paid for his Sailboat, Brooklyn Bridge, New York Skyline in December 2005. Fueled by the use of abstract lines......
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| Fine Art as an Investment: Jasper Francis Cropsey (1832-1900) |
Though best known for his resplendent autumn scenes (Fig. 1), Jasper Francis Cropsey pursued a wide range of subjects over the course of his long and productive career and was among the pioneers of the American watercolor movement. The steadily......
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| Historic Hotels: Historic Art in Boston Hotels |
Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and Institute of Contemporary Art are among the city's famous repositories of art. Unbeknownst to many visitors and residents is that several of the city's hotels also boast exceptional......
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| Biedermeier: The Invention of Simplicity |
Between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the series of revolutions that erupted in 1848, central and northern Europe enjoyed a period of relative stability and peace. The art associated with this period, and the culture that gave rise to it......
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| Highlights: Antiquing Weekends -- Two Excursions Across America |
Author Gladys Montgomery specializes in architecture, period interiors, historic preservation, travel, and here she sews them all together with informed details on where to look for antiques across America. Divided into regions; the Mid-Atlantic......
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| Highlights: British Satirical Prints |
Ranging from comic commentary on fashion to scathing political attacks, the exhibition includes works by some of the most celebrated artists of this genre; among them, William Hogarth (1697-1764), once paid a royal bribe not to depict King George III......
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| Highlights: George Inness -- A Catalogue Raisonne |
Michael Quick, former curator of American art at the LA County Museum of Art and one of the foremost George Inness authorities provides a detailed look at the artist's long career. Includes commentary on individual works, Inness's stylistic and......
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| Highlights: Luminist Horizons -- The Art and Collection of James A. Suydam |
Luminism, characterized by the effects of light on landscapes and the absence of visible brushstrokes, has tended to be described as an esthetic of solitary isolation, but this exhibit reveals that it was a gregarious experience for collector and......
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| Highlights: 2006 Baltimore Summer Antiques Show |
Record breaking crowds and high paced sales set the scene for the 26th annual Baltimore Summer Antiques Show. Held from Thursday, August 31 through Sunday, September 3, at the Baltimore Convention Center, over 500 exhibitors from around the world came......
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| Highlights: Country Living American Glassware -- What is it? What is it worth? |
Many people do not understand the value of glass. This book provides readers with historical and comparative information that will help them learn the difference between those objects that can have value and those that do not. Types of glass covered......
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| Highlights: 10th Annual Boston International Fine Art Show |
New England's showcase for contemporary and traditional fine art from the U.S., Europe, and Canada returns for its tenth year. The event brings together some of the country's leading specialists in American and European paintings, along with......
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| Highlights: 175th Anniversary of Mount Auburn Cemetery |
Bostonians founded Mount Auburn Cemetery in 1831 to solve the problem of the increasing number of burials in the city. Now a National Historic Landmark, a tour through Mount Auburns' rolling acres reveals some of the most distinguished names in......
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| Highlights: George Ohr, Art Potter -- The Apostle of Individuality |
Named the "the Mad Potter of Biloxi" for his eccentric personality and radical potting forms, George Ohr (1857-1918) from Biloxi, Alabama, anticipated abstract expressionism by at least fifty years. Earning only minor success in his lifetime and......
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| Highlights: Clement Massier -- Master of Iridescence |
The inspiration behind Louis Comfort Tiffany’s celebrated iridescent favrile glass, Clément Massier (1844–1917) belonged to a family of potters in the south of France dating back to his great-grandfather Pierre Massier in the eighteenth century.......
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| Highlights: Hyde Park Antiques Celebrates 40 Years |
Reflecting recently on his long career, gallery owner Bernard Karr had this to say, “Like most collectors, I had set out simply to furnish my own home with beautiful objects. But the more I looked and learned, the more......
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| Highlights: Collecting Modernism |
"To have the finest work of Mondrian, Picasso, Kandinsky, among others, on display at the Museum of Fine Arts is a dream come true," says curator Tim Rodgers. The works, representing significant examples from all the major European modernist movements.......
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| Highlights: Napoleon on the Nile -- Soldiers, Artists, and the Rediscovery of Egypt |
Described by the New York Times as “an engrossing exhibition” and included by the Village Voice in its “Best in Show” section, Napoleon on the Nile has proven so popular its end-date has been extended. The multi-volume Description de l’Egypte remains......
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| Highlights: Courbet and the Modern Landscape |
The landscapes of Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) are radically innovative, yet they have been largely overlooked for more than a hundred years. Today Courbet is best known for his monumental figurative works, but he also defied the traditions of European......
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| Highlights: Bejewelled by Tiffany, 1837-1987 |
Famous for its glamour, creative design, and fine craftsmanship, Tiffany & Co. began in New York in 1837 as a modest "fancy goods" store on Broadway. By mid-century its jewelry was stunning the world at the great international exhibitions of the......
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| Highlights: American Masterworks From the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute: Celebrating an Educational Alliance with Pratt Institute |
For six weeks beginning on November 16, Hirschl & Adler Galleries will host a significant number of American artworks from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute (MWPAI), Utica, New York. The opportunity arose for this special exhibition......
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| Highlights: Vincent Vallarino Fine Art, Ltd / Schiller & Bodo |
"Smaller, more client-oriented, and much more fun," is how Vincent Vallarino describes the new venture he initiated with longtime friends and sometime business collaborators, Lisa Schiller and Susan Bodo of Schiller & Bodo. In recent years, Vallarino.......
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| Highlights: Nancy Lancaster -- English Country House Style |
Swagged curtains, a blazing fire, and the family dog lolling on an impeccably upholstered couch; the studied carelessness of what we know as "English country house style" was in fact the brainchild of the Virginia-born Nancy Lancaster (1898-1994), who.......
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| Highlights: Newport -- A Lively Experiment, 1639-1969 |
Cities such as Boston and Philadelphia have eclipsed Newport in historical accounts of the American continent. But in the 1600s, the town of Newport, Rhode Island, played a dominant role in defining the future United States of America, according to.......
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| Highlights: John Long and John Boyer -- 19th-Century Craftsmen in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania |
The work of metal craftsman John Long of Sporting Hill and woodworker John Palmer Boyer of Brickerville, Lancaster County, exemplifies the skill and design of nineteenth-century Pennsylvania German craftsmen. The recent discovery of the identity of.......
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| Noteworthy Sale: C.L. Prickett American Antiques |
Todd Prickett of C.L. Prickett American Antiques broke the record for an American weathervane when he purchased this locomotive vane for a client at Northeast Auctions for $1,216,000. This sale also created another record: the first million dollar sale......
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| Noteworthy Sale: Copley Fine Art Auctions, LLC |
This July 27th marked the inaugural Sporting sale for Copley Fine Art Auctions, the new company founded by decoy and sporting art expert and dealer Stephen B. O'Brien, Jr. The top selling lot, Salmon Fishing, was by impressionist artist.......
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| Noteworthy Sale: Frank and Barbara Pollack American Antiques & Art |
These portraits achieve the highest standards of quality, beauty, and vitality, and include characteristics evident in Plummer's work: his use of bold color; precise outlining to his profiles; the delicate drawing of details in the faces, hair, and......
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| Noteworthy Sale: Thurston Nichols American Antiques |
Robert Wood and Company of Philadelphia was one of America's premier iron manufactories of the late nineteenth century specializing in decorative iron and bronze works. This rare life-size iron figure of a dog is cast in the form of a retriever.......
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| Noteworthy Sale: Hyland Granby Antiques |
This pair of tusks was engraved by Nathaniel S. Finney, considered by some to be the most technically proficient scrimshander to have plied his art. He is recognized as the first professional scrimshander, taking commissions from clients rather than.......
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| Vincent Van Gogh: Meiji Art from the Khalili Collection |
The artist Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) had a great regard for Japanese prints: ukiyoe colour woodcuts. Indeed, he wrote to his brother, Theo, that looking at them made him feel...
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| Historic Hotel: The Sagamore, Bolton Landing, New York |
Adirondack chairs; chandeliers made of antlers; walls lined with birchbark: All give a sense of where you are when you step inside The Sagamore. Set on an island just off the shores of Lake George at the base of the Adirondack Mountains in upstate......
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| Destination: Santa Fe, New Mexico |
New Mexico's stark, rocky scenery and gentle palette -- the earth tones of the ubiquitous adobe architecture and the silvery greens of its cottonwood trees -- made it irresistible to twentieth-century modernists seeking somewhere more exotic than.......
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| Highlights: The Warner House -- A Rich and Colorful History |
Built in 1716-1718, the Warner House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is a rare surviving example of an urban merchant's brick mansion. Occupied by the same extended family until 1930 when it became a house museum, the Colonial Revival dominated the......
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| Highlights: History in Bloom at Strawbery Banke Museum |
Recently voted among the "Top 10 Favorite Public Gardens" in a readers' survey by People, Places & Plants, Strawbery Banke Museum will host its annual History in Bloom festival with talks, tastes, and tours that celebrate four centuries of garden.......
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| Highlights: Olde Hope Antiques, Inc., Celebrates its 30th Anniversary |
When Patrick Bell and Edwin Hild established Olde Hope Antiques in New Hope, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1976, they had one of those lucky breaks that confirmed they had done the right thing. At a local auction Edwin bought a box lot of frames for $3.......
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| Highlights: Tom Veilleux Gallery Moves to Portland, ME |
After thirty years located in Farmington, Maine, Tom Veilleux Gallery has moved to Portland's historic district. The gallery will open in August with 20th Century American Masters, a show that will include works by George Bellows, Frank Benson......
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| Highlights: Adelson Galleries on Nantucket |
New York's Adelson Galleries will be a presence on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, for its third summer season. The gallery returns with two exhibitions. Wyeth Family, opening in July, includes paintings by N. C. Wyeth, Henriette, Andrew, and......
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| Highlights: Maritime Maverick -- The Collection of William I. Koch |
In the early 1980s collector Bill Koch took up sailing seriously and also began collecting maritime art and artifacts connected with the life of Captain James Lawrence, a distant ancestor of Koch's who had fought in the War of 1812. After winning the......
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| Highlights: Grandma Moses -- Grandmother to the Nation |
Anna Mary Robertson was born in Greenwich, New York, in 1860. After her marriage to Thomas Salmon Moses, she moved to Virginia, where she gave birth to ten children, five of whom died young. In 1930, at age 70, and now living in Eagle Bridge, New York......
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| Highlights: Tourism and the American Landscape |
In the nineteenth-century, romanticized views of Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and other scenic areas piqued national interest and contributed to a burgeoning tourist industry. As incomes grew and working people enjoyed more leisure time......
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| Noteworthy Sale: Roberto Freitas American Antiques and Decorative Arts |
These paintings are fine examples of Burttersworth's early work, circa 1880, shortly after the artist moved to New York. These complex and dramatic sailing scenes illustrate the artist’s great talent as a painter, depicting the intricacies of rigging......
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| Noteworthy Sale: Roger King Fine Art |
Antonio Jacobsen painted hundreds of ship portraits, sometimes painting the same vessel several times. The Mount Hope is one of three known versions by Jacobsen, and represents his work at its finest. Departing from his flattened...
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| Discovery: William Harnett (Irish-American, 1848-1892), A Royal Dessert |
Until recently, the whereabouts of this painting was unknown. Having survived a fire in 2001 in the Peterborough, NH, home of a family who had owned it for the past sixty years, it was donated to the Currier and the Harris Center in Hancock, NH; ......
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| Discovery: Simon Willard Family Record and Memorial |
This watercolor memorial illustrates the family of celebrated clockmaker Simon Willard (1753–-1848) of Roxbury, Massachusetts. Perhaps the best known of all American clockmakers, Willard was an innovator who changed the course of clock making with a......
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| Conservation of a Boulle Marquetry Bracket Clock |
The technique of veneering a combination of metal and horn, tortoiseshell, ivory, or mother-of-pearl onto a wood substrate was a highly refined method of surface decoration employed during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in Europe.......
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| Coming of Age on the Piscataqua: The Marine Paintings of John Blunt |
Perhaps because of his short life and the relative scarcity of work signed and dated by John Samuel Blunt (1798-1835) scholarship has been somewhat sparse on this artist. Since beginning a catalogue raisonné on Blunt in 2005, building on earlier......
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| Lesser Known Treasures of the The Moffatt-Ladd House and Garden, Portsmouth, New Hampshire |
The elegant Georgian mansion known as the Moffatt-Ladd House (Fig. 1) was built by merchant John Moffatt in 1763 for his only son, an aspiring young merchant. The house was occupied by six generations of the Moffatt and Ladd families, including......
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| Silhouettes in the Sky: The Art of the Weathervane |
Weathervanes and weathercocks are objects of admiration, affection, and awe. Used in America as rooftop decorations and wind direction indicators for hundreds of years, they have their roots in both religious and secular traditions.......
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| Intersections: Native American Art in a New Light |
The Peabody Essex Museum celebrates the opening of its new Native American gallery with Intersections, Native American Art in a New Light, an exhibition that crosses boundaries of time and geography, materials and techniques to explore meaning in......
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| The Connecticut River Valley and the China Trade |
Western merchants have always been attracted to the products of China and the profits of trade with the Orient. The earliest trade with the Chinese was in the second century B.C. across the "Silk Road," a network of trails named for the precious......
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| Paris and the Countryside: Modern Life in Late-19th-Century France |
Late-nineteenth-century France was witness to unprecedented social, economic, and technological change. In 1853, with the appointment of Baron Georges Haussmann as prefect by Napoleon III, Paris was transformed from a medieval city into a modern one.......
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| Coming of Age: American Art, 1850s to 1950s |
In a quick one hundred years, beginning around 1850 and ending in the mid-1950s, American art came of age. While a century may seem a long time, in reality the process moved incredibly quickly. If at the beginning of the nineteenth century the idea of......
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| Redwood Library and Athenaeum: Collections Spanning Centuries Secured for Future |
At the Redwood Library and Athenaeum in Newport, Rhode Island, rare books, portraiture, sculpture, furniture, and decorative arts representing almost three centuries of the collective interests of its founders and members are secure for the future with......
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| Investing in Antiques: Scrimshaw |
"The trickiest area of collecting in American folk or maritime art is scrimshaw." So say Janice Hyland and Alan Granby of Hyland Granby Antiques, scholars/dealers in maritime folk art based in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The reason for this, according to......
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| Fine Art as an Investment: James Edward Buttersworth (1817-1894) |
Considered among the finest painters of the sailing vessel, the English-born James Edward Buttersworth (1817-1894) is renowned for his ability to render maritime action with exacting detail. During the second half of the nineteenth century.......
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| Winterthur Primer: Underglaze Blue English Transfer-Printed Earthenware |
It is widely accepted that Josiah Spode (1733–1797) of Staffordshire, England, perfected underglaze transfer-printing in blue for English earthenware production in about 1784.1 The color blue maintained its hue under the intense heat of firing and also......
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| Upgrading Your Collection by Being a Savvy Seller |
Buying is a thrill. Naturally, therefore, I don't like to sell; I don't like to give up the art to which I've grown attached. But I do sell. And so should you. Selling is the key to growing and improving your collection. But when should you sell.......
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| Lifestyle: Beyond Tradition -- A Folk Art Collection in New Hampshire |
Tucked away in a former pasture amid the hills of New Hampshire a Bauhaus-inspired house is the repository of a couple’s carefully gathered American folk art collection. The soaring angles and planes of the structure provide a gorgeous counterpoint to.......
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| The East Brick, Nantucket |
When whaling merchant Joseph Starbuck (1774–1861) began the simultaneous construction of three imposing houses for his sons in 1837, little did he know that he was building architectural icons that would gradually become visual symbols of the......
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| Lifestyle: A Sailor's Life for Me -- Maritime Artifacts & Antiques in a Nantucket home |
After spending many hot summers in Bermuda with her family, our collector mentioned to her husband that she had heard Nantucket Island was cool in the summer and a great place for a favorite pastime of hers, gardening. They decided to spend the next........
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| Investing in Wine: Burgundy’s Golden Age |
Wine is a lot like art. There are periods in the history of specific regions when a synthesis of great winemaking and outstanding vintages results in a priceless collection. For Bordeaux, the glory days were from 1945 to 1961, and from 1982 to 1990.......
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| Fine Art as an Investment: Martha Walter (1875-1976) |
Following a retrospective exhibition in 2002 and a record-setting price at auction in 2004, activity has been brisk in the market for Martha Walter’s work. Walter, who worked in an impressionist and postimpressionist style over her long career, was one......
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| International TEFAF: Maastricht, The Netherlands, March 10-19, 2006 |
Walking the isles of The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) in Maastricht the comment most frequently heard was “Mooi”—the Dutch word for “beautiful.” This year’s sleek gray-scale color scheme punctuated with banks of orange tulips was the perfect backdrop......
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| Baltimore Stoneware |
The rarity of signed examples of Baltimore stoneware often results in the belief that production in this Maryland city was limited to the common, sometimes crude examples of late nineteenth-century manufacture. In fact, during the early to mid-nineteenth...
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| Winterthur Primer: Alight with Style, Candlesticks of the 17th & 18th Centuries |
Candlesticks provide evocative evidence of lives once illuminated only by flame. Their delightful forms add color and texture to a room, contributing to stylish decoration of interior spaces. Candlesticks were most popular during the seventeenth and......
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| Historic Hotels: The Merrion, Dublin, Ireland |
From royalty to the Rolling Stones, everyone wants to make The Merrion their home when in Dublin nowadays. Its charms are obvious. Although situated in the heart of Dublin, the hotel exudes the quiet ease of a fine old Irish country house; its......
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| The Pleasures of Collecting the Jewelry of Southeast Asia |
In 1989, after donating to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco 200 Thai ceramics dating from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, James and Elaine Connell began exploring a new area of collecting. In forming their ceramics collection, James,......
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| Discoveries from the Field: Epes Ellery -- A Rare Clockmaker's Label |
Last year I went to a home in the Back Bay of Boston, Massachusetts, to see an early nineteenth-century tall case clock (Fig. 1) that had been in the owner’s family for generations. She was considering donating it to our institution, Historic New England....
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| From Spain to California: The Life and Art of José Drudis-Biada |
History tends to run in cycles, and trends from the past often reemerge. Such is the case with the popularity of the California plein-air painters who were influenced by the principles of French Impressionism. Favoring strong color harmonies and the......
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| Bandbox Papers at the Shelburne Museum |
Over the course of two centuries, bandboxes evolved from repositories for delicate lace collar bands into the commodious chic carryalls of the nineteenth century. Akin to modern gift-wrapping, nineteenth-century bandbox papers—block-printed in chalky......
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| Investing in Antiques: For the Record |
Boston dealer Stephen Score set a world record in January at Christie’s, New York, when he purchased a goddess of liberty weathervane by William Henis for $1,050,000. With Stonington, Connecticut, dealer Marguerite Riordan as the underbidder, these two......
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| Art Focus: The Influence of Provincetown on American Art |
Formed by glacial deposits of rock and sand, Massachusetts’s Cape Cod extends nearly seventy miles into the Atlantic Ocean. Situated at its northern extreme, with water on three sides, is Provincetown, home to the oldest continuous artist colony......
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| Americans "At Home" in Paris |
The astute observer and novelist Henry James noted in 1887 that, “it sounds like a paradox, but it is a very simple truth, that when to-day we look for American art, we find it mainly in Paris. When we find it out of Paris, we at least find a great......
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| Lifestyle: Spanish Revival in Los Angeles |
This gracefully sprawling Spanish Colonial home could easily be one of Addison Mizner’s Palm Beach villas from the 1920s, or occupy a Spanish hillside, gently mellowing under the Andalusian sun. Instead, it was built in California in 1998 by......
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| Lifestyle: Sojourn on the Sound |
In an homage to their life on a lushly planted point overlooking Long Island Sound, not far from the American impressionist art colony of Cos Cob, a well-traveled couple have filled their stately neoclassical-style residence with New England furniture......
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| Fine Art as an Investment: Walter Launt Palmer (1854–1932) |
Since one of this artist’s atmospheric winter scenes sold for a record auction price of $131,200 in December 2004, interest has escalated in the works of Walter Launt Palmer, “the painter of American winter.” A recipient of prestigious prizes and......
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| Fine Art as an Investment: William Merritt Chase (1849–1916) |
With their recognizable boldly-brushed style, works by William Merritt Chase continue to be strongly pursued by collectors and museums alike. A leading light among American impressionist painters, Chase’s work is highly regarded for its technical......
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| Historic Hotels: Hotel Le Bristol, Paris |
Situated on fashionable rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and close by the Elysée presidential palace, Hotel Le Bristol has the winning charm of......
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| Investing in 20th Century Photography |
In the early 1990s I heard that Time-Life was introducing limited edition prints of photographs taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898–1995). Eisenstaedt began his career with Life magazine in 1936 having freelanced as a photojournalist in his native......
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| Investing in Wine |
After a five year hiatus, it looks as though Bordeaux has produced an extraordinary vintage in 2005. In fact, the early rumblings suggest that ‘05 might be at least as good as 2000, considered by wine guru Robert Parker to be Bordeaux’s greatest ever....
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| Art Sleuths: IFAR and its Director Dr. Sharon Flescher |
As the executive director of the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR)—the respected neutral voice for the art world—Dr. Sharon Flescher (Fig. 1) keeps tabs on the complicated and sometimes murky international art scene. About IFAR’s mission......
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| Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History |
This innovative exhibition of work by the 19th-century American artist, is the largest showing from the...
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| George Washington's Mt. Vernon |
When people think of Mount Vernon, the image that usually comes to mind is of our first president’s magnificent white home with its columnar east façade, distinctive red roof, and sweeping views of the Potomac River......
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| American Impressionism in a New York Townhouse |
I’m from Edinburgh, so Robert Adam is the gold standard for me,” says Rosalind Landis, recalling the day six years ago that she and her husband, Ken, happened upon a 1921 Manhattan townhouse whose neoclassical details instantly reminded her of......
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| Restraint and Abundance: Folk Art in a Manhattan Loft |
He is analytical, she is intuitive. He is rigorous, she is relaxed......
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| Fancy Figures: Boston Waxworks from the early 18th Century |
Wax materials have been used by sculptors, goldsmiths, and artists since ancient times. In the eighteenth century they became especially popular again with both professionals and amateurs. In England and her American colonies life-sized historical......
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| Lifestyle: A Tale of Two Cities on Philadelphia's Main Line |
"Ours was a typical Cambridge romance,” recalls the Radcliffe-educated wife, married to a Harvard-trained lawyer for the past fifty-six years. Their gracious home on Philadelphia’s Main Line reflects a tale of two cities—the colonial capitals of Boston......
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| Investing in Decorative Arts as an Asset Class |
When I was a trader on Wall Street I worked with a long list of brokers and agents upon whom I relied to...
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| Historic Hotels: The Greenbrier, West Virginia |
Situated on 6,500 acres in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, The Greenbrier's three championship golf courses, indoor and outdoor tennis...
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| Lifestyle: Bailey Island Idyll |
Every summer for seventeen years, Jim and Nancy Glazer, their son and daughter in tow, made the long trek from their nineteenth-century Philadelphia townhouse to a...
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| Scudder Smith: 2006 ADA Merit Award Recipient |
“It was an easy decision,” ADA president Skip Chalfant said of the Association’s choice of...
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| The 2006 Palm Beach Jewelry & Antique Show |
“I think it’s the most promising show in America,” said Ron Bourgeault, the New Hampshire auctioneer, walking through the 2006 Palm Beach Jewelry & Antique Show in...
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| If I had $1 Million |
The New York Winter Antiques Show is America’s most prestigious; and is also regarded as one of the important shows internationally. Its seventy-four...
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| Gainsborough to Turner: British Watercolors from the Spooner Collection |
Visitors to Somerset House will have a rare opportunity to see the remarkable Spooner collection of early British watercolors...
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| Expanded High Museum of Art Opens |
Three new buildings that more than double the High’s size are intended to create a vibrant “village for the arts” at the...
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| Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History |
This innovative exhibition of work by the 19th-century American artist, is the largest showing from the...
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| The Archetypal Landscapes of Rockwell kent |
American painter Rockwell Kent (1882–1971) reveled in the spiritual energy of remote wilderness. Grounded in the writings of the nineteenth-century American transcendentalists...
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| Lifestyle: Harmonious Arrangements |
This coastal New England residence, situated along a quiet estuary, provides the perfect setting for a collection of historic and contemporary...
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| Haughton International Art Fair in New York City |
For the twelfth year in a row, collectors and enthusiasts enjoyed one of the art world’s gems, the Haughton International Art Fair in New York City, renowned for...
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| Iriving Penn: Platinum Prints |
Widely celebrated for his iconic portraits, Irving Penn (born 1917) has experimented extensively with platinum/palladium printing since...
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| The New Wendy Fall Show |
Wendy Management announces The New Wendy Fall Show taking place September 21 through September 25, 2005. The Fall Show will feature...
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| Peter Finer's New Gallery in London |
No longer will you have to drive two hours north of London, or wait for one of the five shows at which Peter Finer exhibits, to see the finest...
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| Zimmerman House Garden |
Frank Lloyd Wright designed this house for Dr. Isadore J. and Mrs. Lucille Zimmerman in...
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| Highlights: Pioneering Modern Painting |
Pioneering Modern Painting: Cézanne and Pissarro 1865–1885, on view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from June 26...
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| Highlights: Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile |
Leader of the neoclassicist movement, Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) was the most celebrated painter...
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| Highlights: Maynard Dixon's House |
For over fifty years California-born modernist Maynard Dixon (1875-1946) painted in the...
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| Highlights: Rare and Recently Conserved Mughal Carpets |
Carpet production began in India during the reign of Mughal emperor Akbar (1556–1605) and reached its climax under Shah Jahan...
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| Highlights: Rembrandt's Late Religious Portraits |
Between the late 1650s and the early 1660s, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669) entered a phase of...
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| Noteworthy Sales: Grace and Elliott Snyder |
With its imitative combination of whimsical spirals, pinwheels, and floral appliqués, this table rug is a testament...
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| Noteworthy Sales: Hill Gallery |
Seated Nude is exquisite for its captivating subject, use of rich, saturated colors, and attention to detail. Skyllas, a Greek...
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| Noteworthy Sales: Allan Katz Americana |
This rare squirrel weathervane is one of only a few known examples. While weathervanes frequently took the form of animals, the majority...
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| The Museum of Modern Art Reopens its Doors and Celebrates its 75th Anniversary |
New York's MoMA reopened its Manhattan location on November 20, 2004, after the most extensive renovation project in......
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| Toulouse-Lautrec: Challenging the Myth |
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) is one of the most celebrated of the great French artists of the late nineteenth century, but often for the wrong reasons. While we may be aware......
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| The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts: Forty Wonderful Years |
Over the past forty years, the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has come to be recognized as the preeminent museum devoted to collecting, exhibiting, and studying......
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| Designer Style: Designing with Antiques & Fine Art |
In this issue, we feature Brown•Davis Interiors, the design team of Robert Sidney Brown and Todd Dyer Davis. Their projects have included President and Senator......
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| Design for the Modern World: The Arts and Crafts Movement |
At the end of the nineteenth century, many people felt that the world was changing at a tremendous, machine-powered pace, making it an artificial and anonymous......
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| Line & Berry Inlaid Spice Box |
Spice boxes, or chests, were popular among the Quakers of the Delaware Valley during the late seventeenth and throughout the eighteenth centuries, remaining fashionable in Pennsylvania long after falling out of style elsewhere. The boxes, fitted in the.....
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| Re-Introducing Helena |
Several years ago my wife Judy and I asked Stuart Feld, director of Hirschl and Adler Galleries in New York City,
to keep an eye open for pastels by Henrietta Johnston
(ca. 1674–1729). Johnston was a talented......
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| Museum of the Shenandoah Valley |
When the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (MSV) opens in Winchester, Virginia, on April 3, it will mark completion of the second phase of a significant regional history museum complex. The project was inaugurated in......
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| A Collection of the Valley |
Given its youth, some visitors might be surprised by the collection that greets them when the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (MSV) opens in Winchester, Virginia, in April. Begun in 1997......
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| Furniture in Maryland Life |
The Maryland Historical Society has recently installed a permanent exhibition that provides the first truly comprehensive and inclusive examination of one of the state’s most significant art forms. Furniture in Maryland Life explores......
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| The Sculpture Study Center at the Pennsylvania Museum of the Fine Arts |
On January 8, 2005, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts initiated its 200th Anniversary Celebration with the opening of its new Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building. One of the most exciting......
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| The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts at 200 |
Few public museums in the world can claim the longevity of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts: The nation’s oldest combined museum and school of fine art turns 200 this year......
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| Tea Tables and Coffee Tables |
In today’s age of ubiquitous Starbucks cafés and trendy tea houses, it is impossible to overlook the central role that hot caffeinated drinks play in our daily lives. Over the four......
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| Betty Ring: 2005 ADA Merit Award Recipient |
Scholar and Author Betty Ring Honored with ADA Award of Merit...
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| Quack, Quack, Quack |
The colorful history of the purveyors of patent and quack medicines over the past four centuries is brought to life in this exhibition with works by......
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| Robertson Kirtland Mygatt |
Robertson Kirtland Mygatt was a member of the late 19th century American tonalist movement. This exhibition of eighty-six oils and sixteen etchings is the largest...
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| Overbeck Pottery of the Arts and Crafts Movement |
The Overbeck sisters of Cambridge City, Ind., made an important contribution to the American arts and crafts movement through the.....
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| The Society of American Period Furniture Makers Mid-Year Conference |
This year’s conference theme, Regional Distinctions: Nuances of Newport, Boston, and Philadelphia Furniture, was selected in response......
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| Royal Goldsmiths: Rundell & Bridge |
An exhibition of Regency silver to benefit The Prince’s Trust, with loans from major museums and private collections, will include approximately sixty pieces of......
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| Palm Beach! |
-America’s International Fine Art & Antique Fair, met with great success once again. According to the Financial......
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| Palm Beach Jewelry & Antique Show |
The diversity and depth of jewelry, art, and antiques is the major attraction of the fair. Guests stated that they were impressed with the......
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| MESDA 2005 Summer Institute |
The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, N.C., are offering a graduate summer program that will focus on......
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| The Art of Stephen Huneck |
The carvings and artwork of Stephen Huneck are clever, witty, and fun. Like the pop artists of
the 1960s, Huneck manipulates elements of vernacular art and......
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| Picasso |
Picasso’s life and work are viewed through the lens of a superb private collection in this exhibition, which also includes......
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| Bill Traylor, William Edmondson, and the Modernist Impulse |
Although draftsman Bill Traylor and sculptor William Edmondson are often defined as folk or outsider artists, their work was originally viewed in......
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| Reynolda House: Museum of American Art |
Reynolda House was built in 1917 as the country seat of Richard J. Reynolds, founder of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. In 1965 it opened to the......
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| Small Masterpieces: Whistler Paintings from the 1880s |
The work of James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) changed dramatically in the 1880s when he stopped painting large landscapes and focused on smaller works in a wide variety of media, including......
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| Keeping Shadows: Masterworks of Photography |
This major exhibition displays one hundred images that span the history of photography, from its genesis in the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Included are works from......
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| May Night: Willard Metcalf at Old Lyme |
Willard Metcalf (1858–1925) was one of America’s premier landscape painters. His impact on the Lyme art colony, “America’s center of impressionism,” has, up until now......
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| Collection Catalogue |
Twenty years after their first collection catalogue was produced, the Memphis Brooks Museum has once again published their collection highlights. Arranged in......
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| N.C. Wyeth's Home Reopens |
In 1911, with the proceeds from his illustrations for Treasure Island, N. C. Wyeth purchased 18 acres on Rocky Hill in the village of Chadds Ford, where he built his home and studio. Wyeth lived there until......
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| The 1772 Philadelphia Furniture Price Book: A Facsimilie |
Colonial Philadelphia’s furniture trade is illuminated in this facsimile of the only surviving printed copy of......
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| Chanel |
One of the most recognized designers and couturiers of the 20th century, the almost mythical status of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (1883–1971) was the......
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| Surfing the Century: Twentieth-Century Art |
This exhibition presents an opportunity to view paintings from a vibrant period of artistic achievement. Works by Picasso, Hans Arp, Franz Kline, Edward Weston......
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| Noteworthy Sales: Franz Richard Unterberge, Schiavoni–Venice |
Unterberger’s best-known works are views of Venice and Naples depicted under a romantic haze. The present view depicts a hot, late afternoon along the historical Riva degli Schiavoni, once the most popular promenade in......
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| Noteworthy Sales: African-American Slave Pictorial |
Extant examples of appliquéd pictorials made by slaves are exceedingly rare. Much of the imagery and presentationof this pictorial—from the giraffe to......
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| Noteworthy Sales: Residence of C.F. Veil, Charles Frederick Veil |
Charles Frederick Veil was born in Germany in 1813. He immigrated to America where he became a tanner, living in Liberty (Tioga County), Pa. This fine folk watercolor picture of......
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| Noteworthy Sales: Schooners Racing off New York Harbor |
The painting depicts a yacht race in New York Harbor. The setting is the upper bay with Castle Garden on the tip of Manhattan on the left, and Castle William on Governors Island on the right; both favorite backgrounds for......
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| Noteworthy Sales: John Singer Sargent Drawings |
Genre drawings by Sargent are extremely rare, especially ones that have come directly from the artist, which were intended as gifts and not meant to be sold. These two works came from......
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| Noteworthy Sales: N.C. Wyeth, Painting of Lincoln |
This painting, which has been in a private collection until recently, was created as an illustration for America: A History of Our Country, a textbook......
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| The Wing Famiy Canvaswork Embroidery |
Early New England needlework is seldom found, especially in such pristine condition; this piece even......
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| The Rewards of Discipline |
An unassuming stone house belonging to a couple in the Mid-Atlantic region of the country contains a remarkable collection of American furniture, tribal rugs, and......
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| For What It's Worth: The Key to Insuring Your Collection |
In the mid-1980s, a tax law was changed that affected every collector in the United States. Previously, when collectors experienced the loss of a single object or...
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| Noteworthy Sales: Mary Cassatt |
Pennsylvania native Mary Cassatt was exhibiting to great acclaim in the Paris Salons from 1868 to the mid-1870s when...
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| Evergreen House |
Built in 1858 as a grand Italianate residence by the Broadbent family of Baltimore, Evergreen House was purchased twenty years later by Baltimore & Ohio Railroad president John Work Garrett for his son, T. Harrison Garrett...
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| Noteworthy Sales: Painted Leather Six-Panel Screen |
An in-depth study of leather screens in the journal of the Furniture Society of...
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| Noteworthy Sales: Sterling Silver Flatware Service |
Francis I is among the most highly sought-after of sterling silver flatware patterns. This awe-inspiring, 589-piece service for...
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| Noteworthy Sales: Pair of Dominique Armchairs |
In 1922, André Domin and Marcel Genevriere founded the furniture firm Dominique on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore in...
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| Noteworthy Sales: John Singer Sargent |
From a private collection, this charming work has only been exhibited publicly once in the last forty years, during a 1989 traveling exhibition in...
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| A Fancy for Color and Design: A Collection of Pennsylvania Folk Art |
Objects are identified with the region in which they were made. They reflect the cultural traditions and training of resident craftsmen and the aesthetic preferences of...
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| The 56th Annual Williamsburg Antiques Forum |
For the past fifty-six years, collectors, scholars, and dealers have congregated at Colonial Williamsburg’s annual Antiques Forum. Many attendees return every season to...
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| Through the Eye of the Camera |
An historic and aesthetic overview of American photography, this exhibition also provides a pictorial history of an expanding nation. The images follow America’s rise from its...
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| Palm Beach Jewelry & Antiques Show |
More than Palm Beach’s glitterati attended the well-publicized premiere of this vast show that featured 234 international jewelry, art, and antiques dealers in the new...
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| Cuban Elegance |
The largest island in the Caribbean Sea, with over five hundred years of written history, Cuba has the oldest colonial heritage in the Western Hemisphere. This spectacularly-illustrated volume...
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| George Cope: An Artist's Life |
George Cope (1855–1929) was an artist who stayed close to home. He began his career painting the lush Brandywine River Valley landscape in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and its wildlife and architecture. He later explored...
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| Evergreen House |
Built in 1858 as a grand Italianate residence by the Broadbent family of Baltimore, Evergreen House was purchased twenty years later by Baltimore & Ohio Railroad president...
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| Sampler by Liberated African Charlotte Turner |
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, American and English missionary movements intensified their activities in colonial outposts such as India and Africa. The tradition of sampler making was brought to these countries...
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| Sanford R. Gifford (American, 1823 - 1880) |
Sanford Gifford’s paintings are statements of light and atmosphere. Influenced by Thomas Cole and closely allied with artists of the Hudson River School, he is considered a highly original nineteenth-century landscape...
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| Pair of Eagle Wall Brackets |
This pair of elegant eagle wall brackets are illustrative of high style American taste after the Revolution, and are a testament to fashion and patriotism at the time of the new Republic. Stylistically, the carving...
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| Beaker Vase |
American homes and were generally placed for display on fireplace mantels. George Washington owned a set of Chinese porcelain blue and white garniture vases with gilt decoration, which included...
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| Different By Design |
“The height of style.” “In the neatest taste.” “The most popular fashion.” All of these phrases have been used in preceding periods to describe fashionable furniture. Yet pieces that were considered stylish in one location were not always in vogue in ano...
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| Birdbaths |
Leisure time was on the rise by the late nineteenth century, resulting in an increased interest in gardening, conservation, and spending time out-of-doors. The economic gains...
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| Bakst Theatre |
In the fall of 1922, Léon Bakst (1866–1924), the avant-garde Russian set and costume designer who made his name working with Serge Diaghilev for the world renowned Ballets Russes, arrived in Baltimore...
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| A Treasury of American Art |
When it received accreditation by the American Association of Museums in 1977, the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach, Florida, owned only three American works...
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| All in the Family: Joseph Richardson's Earliest Silver |
The fortuitous survival of some of Joseph’s account and letter books formed the basis of Martha Gandy Fales’s Joseph Richardson and Family...
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| American Fancy |
Collectors and curators alike have long been drawn to the colorful household furnishings of the early Republic....
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| American Impressionism and the Queen City |
Several of the leading artists associated with American Impressionism came from Cincinnati and enjoyed their first instruction in the Queen City. Most notable were John H. Twachtman (Fig. 1), Robert F. Blum, Joseph R. DeCamp (Fig. 2), and Edward H. Pottha...
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| Hands-On: The Elastic Chairs of Samuel Gragg |
On August 31, 1808, Boston chairmaker Samuel Gragg (1772-1855) patented a design for a remarkable piece of bentwood seating furniture he called an...
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| Hands-On: Peacock Feathers on Gragg Chairs |
The federal-era chairs made by Samuel Gragg (1772-1855) are decorated with popular motifs such as acanthus leaves, grasses, pinstriping, and even an occasional landscape. Of all the decorative elements that appear on his chairs, the triple peacock feather...
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| Curator's Choice: The Peabody Essex Museum and the Sea |
The Peabody Essex Museum has been collecting maritime art and objects from America, Europe, and around the world for over 200 years. Today, the museum holds a rich collection of paintings and prints, as well as ship models, navigational instruments, scrim...
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| Curator's Choice: The Peabody Essex Museum's New Asian Galleries |
As part of the recent transformation of the Peabody Essex Museum, a suite of galleries devoted to art and culture from India, China, Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia has been inaugurated. The new exhibition spaces will present these collections in an inno...
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| Museum Focus: The Peabody Essex Museum |
The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, is one of the oldest museums in the country and the first in New England. It was opened in 1799, just sixteen years after the founding of the nation, and nearly three quarters of a century before the estab...
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| Collectors' Corner: Mason Decoys |
In the early 1900s the Mason Decoy Factory (1896-1924) of Detroit, Michigan, advertised themselves as the...
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| Mermaids and More: The Whimsical Primitives of Ralph Cahoon |
Prominent collectors (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Paul Mellon, and the DuPonts, to name only a few) began to acquire the work of Ralph E. Cahoon, Jr. (1910-1982) in the 1950s. Josiah K. Lilly III, heir to a pharmaceutical fortune, prominent Cape Cod phila...
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| The McLellan House: New Approaches to Interpreting a Federal Mansion |
The Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine, recently completed the restoration and reinterpretation of the 1801 Hugh McLellan House (Figs. 1-2), one of three architecturally significant structures that form the museum. Rather than re-create an accurate...
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| Eagles in American Folk Art |
Our national bird, the American bald eagle, took flight in popular culture and decorative arts in the earliest days of the young Republic, enjoying a profusion of interpretations in the hands of idealistic American folk artists. As noted by Paul D'Ambrosi...
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| Destinations: Santa Fe |
Countless others have been as similarly smitten as Lawrence by Santa Fe's allure (Fig. 1). Moved by the beauty and clear light of this so-called "City Different,"2 painters, photographers, writers, and sculptors have responded to its mystique, returning t...
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| Art of the Needle: 100 Masterpiece Quilts from the Shelburne Museum |
One of the largest and highest-quality public collections of bedcovers in the United States is to be found at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont. The finest examples from a collection of 400 are showcased in Art of the Needle: 100 Masterpiece Quil...
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| Destinations: Coastal New England |
From the days when the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) gained a stronghold on this Massachusetts island, distinguishing their late eighteenth and early nineteenth century homes with deliberate simplicity and superb craftsmanship, Nantucket has been...
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| Dealer Profile: Gerard Graci and Richard LeBlanc |
Twenty years ago, Richard LeBlanc began traveling the world, becoming increasingly intoxicated by Renaissance art and Asian antiquities. What started as an aesthete's hobby gradually evolved into a business, and in the early 1990s he joined forces with Ge...
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| Dealer Profile: Sandra Lepore |
A single mother with no formal training in art, Sandra Lepore was determined to challenge the industry's norms. She bought her first painting, a William Merritt Post, in 1977 for $45, and for the past twenty years has owned a gallery in Newburyport, Massa...
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| Highlights: Summer News, Events, and Trends |
A slice of lemon cake, a row of bow ties, city asphalt. The mundane is made monumental in the paintings of contemporary California artist Wayne Thiebaud. Spanning half a century thus far, Thiebaud's career has been steeped in success culminating in the cu...
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| Wiener Werkstatte Vase |
This fanciful ceramic vase was designed around 1921 by Wiener Werkstatte artist Hilda Jesser. Begun in 1903, the Wiener Werkstatte (Vienna Workshop) was a progressive alliance of artists and designers founded by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser to establi...
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| A Silver Tureen |
This tureen is one of a very small group of English 18th-century silver objects for which there is complete documentation regarding their commissioning. Based on a design by William Kent, the tureen was made by London silversmith George Wickes, appointed...
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| A High Chest of Drawers |
From 1716 to 1861 Longfellow's Wayside Inn operated as Howe's Tavern, a successful...
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| Frank W. Benson--Flying Eddy |
Frank Benson was an avid outdoorsman and recorded many of his experiences in his paintings. He began actively using watercolor, a portable medium ideal for plein air work, in the early 1920s. During this period Benson frequented Canada's Gaspe Peninsula w...
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| Chippendale Carved Mahogany Secretary Bookcase |
This Queen Anne Newport secretary displays many of the hallmarks present on the finer furniture from this dynamic crafts community: elegant, slender proportions; paneled tympanum; fluted finial; and a distinctive shell-carved interior with a fitted well,...
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| Philip Little--Making Harbor |
While most artists of his day painted portraits as a means of supporting themselves, Philip Little had the financial independence to exclusively paint subjects of interest to him. His father's wealth came from ownership of the textile manufacturing compan...
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| Dodge MacKnight--Lantana Grounds, Somerset Parish, Bermuda |
Ranked with contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer as one of the top American watercolorists at the turn of the twentieth century, Dodge MacKnight was critically acclaimed for his vibrant Fauve-inspired color palette and lively brushwork. Hi...
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| Carved Giltwood Girandole Looking Glass |
This is a most unusual example of an English girandole mirror. It has the conventional elements of a convex plate set within an ebonized and reeded slip, surrounded by a cavetto molded circular frame carved with cross hatching and divided by four ring tur...
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| Racetrack Tout Trade Figure |
This racetrack tout is recognized as an icon of American folk sculpture. It is one of several figures attributed to Charles Parker Dowler, a woodworker first identified by Jane Lipman as the maker of a nearly identical figure illustrated in her pioneering...
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| Bordeaux, Boats, & Botero: The Passions of Collector William Koch |
The roll call is impressive: Degas, Modigliani, Rodin. This personal collection encompasses impressionist and postimpressionist masterpieces, western paintings and sculpture, antiquities, maritime art and antiques, and, most recently, Native American obje...
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| Hands On: Seventeenth-Century Carving Techniques |
Seventeenth-century oak furniture from both England and New England often features a variety of carved decoration. These elements are derived from a few basic formats incorporating a combination of floral work and architectural patterns. The only period w...
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| Picture Perfect: Landscape Tourism in Northwest Connecticut |
The northwest hills of Connecticut have inspired artists for more than two centuries. Nearly 250 professionally trained artists worked here before 1940 (Figs. 1 and 2). A great influx of artists arrived during the nineteenth century with the development o...
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| Museum Focus: Worshipful Company of Clockmakers |
The oldest clock and watch collection in the world devoted solely to timekeepers belongs to the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers of the City of London. The collection has recently been entirely re-displayed in the Clockmakers' Museum at the Guildhall Lib...
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| William Bradford: Sailing Ships & Arctic Seas |
William Bradford (1823-1892) recalled later in life, "I early felt a desire to paint, but had no idea I would ever do anything very special in this line or make it a life calling."1 How he came to do something very special in that line and make a career o...
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| Wallace Nutting: Antiquarian & Entrepreneur |
In the opening decades of the twentieth century, the hectic pace of life prompted many Americans to look to the colonial past as a peaceful, more harmonious time. Although antique collecting had long been a hobby of the well to do and the United States pr...
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| Longfellow National Historic Site: 30th Anniversary & Rededication, Cambridge, Massachusetts |
An enthusiastic recitation of the well-loved poem "Paul Revere's Ride," penned in 1860 by Henry W. Longfellow (1807-1882), inspired a congressional audience to allocate $1.64 million to historic restorations in 1998. The orator was Massachusetts Senator E...
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| A Watch of Intrigue |
A jewelled watch crafted by a London watchmaker in the late seventeenth century held the distinction for several hundred years as being the earliest surviving watch designed with a precious stone for a bearing....
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| Maurice Prendergast: Paintings of America |
This early modernist's images of ladies at leisure by the sea represent ideas about good health, the culture of democracy, and...
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| Trendy Wine Furniture |
In his Works In Architecture of 1778, Robert Adam expressed the opinion that his countrymen liked to partake of wine more so than the French.1 The considerable amount of wine indeed consumed by the English upper class, and their French and colonial Americ...
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| A Collector's Collector |
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a collector as someone who "collects or gathers together...specimens, works of art, curiosities...[and] items of interest because of [their] excellence, rarity, etc." It would be much more efficient to simply refer th...
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| Wallace Nutting Sudbury Cupboard |
The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) has recently acquired a significant piece of Wallace Nutting furniture--the Sudbury Cupboard of 1920–1930....
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| One of a Pair of Louis XV Frames |
This pair of exquisitely carved transitional Louis XV gilt double sweep frames are ornamented with shell centers, acanthus fan corners, and top crested with a ribbon-tied leaf and flower cluster above a cabochon....
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| Walnut Kidney-Shaped Pedestal Desk |
This exceptional 19th-century desk is unique and unusually featured. The top, with its tooled-leather writing surface and broad-bordered walnut and brass gallery, surmounts three frieze drawers, the right of which conceals a swivel mechanism enabling the...
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| Maude Drein Bryant Painting |
This recently discovered garden scene from the artist's estate is reminiscent of Maurice Prendergast (1850–1924) in its decorative surface patterning and bright fauvist palette....
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| Diminutive Walnut Chippendale Four-Drawer Chest |
This remarkably small chest remained in the Smith-Coleman family of Philadelphia from 1760 to the present. Bearing ogee feet and a molded overhanging top with notched corners, this piece is only 32 inches across. The average width for similar chests is 38...
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| Carved and Painted Figurehead of a Native American |
This figurehead is one of a very few known signed and dated American ship carvings. Much of its original paint has been retained as well as a greater amount of original features than most figureheads extant....
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| Paint-Decorated Tall Case Clock |
This exceptional paint-decorated clock retains its original wooden movement inside a pine case and is in extraordinary condition overall. The movement includes hours, minutes, seconds, and a calendar....
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| Antique Serapi Carpet |
Most carpets from the weaving center of Northwest Persia, present day Iran, are of geometric design, and Serapi carpets are best known for their large, bold geometric patterns....
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| Shaker Three-Slat Ladderback Armchair |
Shaker craftsmanship typically adhered to strict formulas. This possibly unique chair combines a classic Shaker style with innovative features. The unusual upward scroll of the arm along with a three slat back and applied rockers makes it atypical in Shak...
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| A Federal Washstand |
This washstand has vibrant panels of bird's-eye veneer applied to white pine laminated backing, a construction technique employed by federal-era Boston cabinetmaker John Seymour....
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| Charles Barque Painting |
One of the first in a series of important small genre oils on panel, this was Bargue's first orientalist work, no doubt inspired by J. L. Gerome, with whom he shared a studio at the time....
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| Mahogany Bracket Clock with Enamel Dials |
Royal clockmaker Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy invoiced St. James's Palace for this clock (on right) in 1814. He described it as "one of the best spring chime quarter clocks…in a neat mahogany case."...
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| Polychrome and Gilt Carving of an Eagle with American Flags and Shield |
The size of this wall plaque indicates that it was probably commissioned for a large public building, possibly to hang above an entrance, either on its exterior or interior....
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| Rare Pair of Restauration "Recamier" Couches in Grecian Plain Style |
These couches are outstanding examples of a style that became prevalent in the United States after 1830. This so-called "plain style" was inspired by the furniture forms of Greek antiquity and the Restauration period of the Bourbon monarchy in France....
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| Highlights: Early Summer News, Events, and Trends |
The current exhibition at the Fogg showcases what William W. Robinson, Maida and George Abrams Curator of Drawings at Harvard University Art Museums, describes as...
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| Dealer Profile: Jeffrey Tillou |
In an industry where some dealers are celebrating half a century or more in business, it is worth noting that younger individuals are making important contributions in their own right. One of these rising stars is Jeffrey Tillou....
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| Dealer Profile: Vincent Vallarino |
Vincent Vallarino is the real McCoy: an artist without ego, an intellectual, and a collector in whom the spirit of altruism runs deep. He is also a professional who successfully juggles a photography career with running an art gallery and a foundation (hi...
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| Dealer Dynasties: The Schwarz Gallery |
No art dealer is better known for historic Philadelphia painting than the Schwarz Gallery, which has gracefully inhabited a five-story townhouse a block from the city's famed Rittenhouse Square since 1942....
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| Dealer Profile: Philip W. Bradley |
Fresh from a Colorado ski trip where he ventured into the backcountry, Philip Bradley is back at his shop in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, surrounded by high chests, tall clocks, bureaus, seating furniture, and related decorative arts. Bradley, who handles f...
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| Dealer Profile: Elle Shushan |
Portrait miniature dealer Elle Shushan has relocated from New York to Philadelphia, where she pronounces herself exceptionally pleased with her new city. Nesting in a landmark Georgian Revival building that she confesses is still a little unfinished, Shus...
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| Dealer Profile: Patrick Bell and Edwin Hild |
It's more than a passing coincidence that Edwin Hild and Patrick Bell opened their shop Olde Hope Antiques on July 4, 1976. The firm is among the foremost resources for great American painted furniture and fine folk art. Even as children the two were prod...
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| Dealer Profile: Allan and Penny Katz |
Allan Katz feels that "a fine folk art object transcends time." He and his wife Penny are passionate about the pieces they represent, which covers all categories of period American folk art, with an accent on sculptural work. Their eye for design is first...
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| Elinor Gordon: 2003 ADA Merit Award Recipient |
The Antiques Dealers' Association of America, Inc. (ADA) 1 is pleased to honor noted Chinese export porcelain dealer Elinor Gordon of Villanova, Pennsylvania, with the second Award of Merit for distinguished contributions to the antiques industry. Celebra...
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| Know Your Antiques: Sampler Comparisons |
Samplers, silk embroideries, and canvaswork pictures are extraordinary examples of needlework skill wrought by girls and young ladies from the late-seventeenth into the mid-nineteenth centuries. When exhibiting at antiques shows, we observe visitors to ou...
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| Highlights: Spring News, Events, and Trends |
Even before Hollywood beauty Salma Hayek portrayed her in a popular recent film, Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) was a twentieth-century legend. Perhaps one of the best known Latin American artists, Kahlo led a lively, bohemian life that was also...
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| Monumental Carved Spoon Rack |
This wall box spoon rack is exceptional for its artistic conception, crisply carved decoration, and unusually large size. Spoon racks of this complexity were commissioned by the rural elite, and very few comparable American examples survive today. The spo...
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| Mahogany Compass-Seat Roundabout Chair |
This Boston roundabout chair, with its leaf-carved crest rail, pierced openwork splat, cupidÕs bow splat shoes, claw-and-ball front foot, and full-pad rear feet, is among the most sophisticated examples yet discovered. The design of the splat shoes, deepl...
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| John Singer Sargent Portrait |
Mrs. Peter Chardon Brooks, whose maiden name was Sarah Lawrence, lived from 1845 to 1915. She was the daughter of Sarah Elizabeth Appleton and noted manufacturer and philanthropist Amos Adams Lawrence, for whose family the Massachusetts city of Lawrence i...
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| Raymond Kanelba Portrait |
"Elegance will never dull the robust art of Kanelba. I repeat his color is never affected. His palette is composed of solid tones that he doesn't mind putting down almost as roughly as in the post-Cezanne days of pure Color," wrote the French poet Andre S...
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| Silver Rococo Pitcher |
Winterthur has recently acquired a significant piece of American silver -- a pitcher attributed to the Swiss-born silversmith Daniel Christian Fueter, who worked in New York from 1754 to 1769....
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| Dinner Plate with the Arms of Colim Campbell |
This large dinner plate painted in famille rose enamels bears the arms of Campbell and two mottoes: Memento and Dues Dabit Vela. Colin Campbell (1686-1757) was born in Edinburgh and served as an officer in the English navy during the war of the Spanish Su...
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| Gohar Carpet |
The Armenian religious text inscribed in this carpet was translated in 1908 by the eminent linguist Norayr de Byzance as: "I the sinful Gouhar have made this with my own hands, may anyone reading this pray for my obtaining grace. In the year 1129." The Ar...
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| Rare and Important Rig of Four Eskimo Curlew |
Charles F. Coffin was the son of prominent Nantucket citizens Henry Coffin (1807-1900) and Elisa Starbuck (1811-1903). Excerpts from Coffin's diary at the Nantucket....
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| Serab Runner |
Serab carpets are known for their warm, inviting appearance and runner format. This example is expansive in size and retains the full outer borders, which are often cut down to fit contemporary spaces....
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| Fine China Trade Silver Jug |
This exceptional jug was purchased in Canton, China, in 1854, by New York merchant Theodore Frelinghausen Lewis, who was traveling on the clipper ship, The N. B. Palmer....
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| Museum Focus: Pennsbury Manor |
When William Penn (1644-1718) began building Pennsbury Manor in 1683, he had high hopes for his personal estate. Situated on 8,400 acres of prime land along the Delaware River, he envisioned a stylish house surrounded by carefully tended gardens. The land...
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| Woodbury: Antiques Captial of Connecticutª |
Picture a quintessential New England village with miles of pristine period homes surrounded by gorgeous countryside and you get Woodbury, Connecticut, an area that has attracted settlers since 1675....
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| Lloyd Family Painted Furniture: Revisited |
The discovery of the painted window cornice and table corresponding to receipts in the papers of the Edward Lloyd family of Maryland from the venerable Baltimore fancy furniture painters John and Hugh Finlay...
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| Simon Edgell, Unalloyed |
Were it not for the quality of the small amount of pewter that survives with his marks, the role of Philadelphia craftsman Simon Edgell (16871742) in the history of American pewter would have been relegated to obscurity. Of the twelve known pieces wi...
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| Early Nineteenth Century American Blown Flint Glass: A Beginners Guide to Connoisseurship |
During the second quarter of the nineteenth century American glass factories reached a golden age in the production of fine free blown, molded, cut, and engraved flint (lead) glass. Prior to this time the domestic glass industry suffered from competition...
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| Lifestyle: Patria in Vermont |
American antiques have been a passion for Norman and Mary Gronning since their introduction to them in Buffalo, New York, in the 1960s. As newlyweds just beginning their careers as teachers, the couple sought a way to supplement their income and decided t...
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| Museum Focus: The Parry Mansion |
The Parry Mansion is located in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where the Old York Road that links Philadelphia and New York crosses the Delaware River. It is here that in the winter campaign of 1776 George Washington and his army crossed the river on Christmas...
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| Jacob Eicholtz Portrait Painter |
Jacob Eichholtz (1776-1842) inhabited several worlds, or so his letter to fellow artist and historian of early American art, William Dunlap would suggest. Trained as an artisan, he successfully entered the world of fine art (Fig. 1). Born and raised in t...
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| The Bayly Suite of Painted Furniture |
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation recently added significantly to its small collection of classical Baltimore painted furniture by acquiring a spectacular suite attributed to Hugh Finlay of Baltimore, Maryland....
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| Becoming a Nation: Americana from the Diplomatic Reception Rooms |
The Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the Department of State fulfill a vision first articulated a mere forty years ago: to provide U. S. secretaries of state with an environment of rare beauty and civility in which to host official diplomatic events. Today,...
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| Art Focus: Art Noir |
The art scene lights up with impressions of dark from Whistler's Nocturnes to Boston Japanning....
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| Partiotic Taste: Collecting Modern Art in Ancien Regime Paris |
In Paris, during the final decades of the Ancien Régime-between the start of the Seven Years' War in 1756 and the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789-a new type of collector emerged: one devoted to the art of his patrie (fatherland). Into the first...
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| Unraveling the Mystery behind the |
Although I have been collecting Anglo-American patriotic pottery for more than fifty years, I still become excited over new acquisitions, particularly personalized pieces displaying names of individuals, ships, and organizations. More often than not, the...
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| What's it Worth?: 19th Century Caucasian Village Rugs |
Woven in the Orient for thousands of years, handmade rugs have been coveted by everyone from European nobility to wealthy Boston matrons. Their appeal shows no signs of wearing out. Indeed, the market for antique Oriental rugs in this country has steadily...
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| Pride of Place: Architecture in American Textiles |
A charming and accessible way to appreciate American architectural history is to explore textile folk art that contains images of buildings. For centuries, folk artists have refined and elaborated on the nostalgic, iconic allure of our architectural past,...
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| A Culture Revealed: Pictures on Seventeenth-Century Chinese Ceramics |
Like the stories revealed on ancient Greek black and red pottery, the tales illustrated on Chinese porcelain wares produced in the seventeenth century provide insights into the culture from which they came. These ceramics, which bear scenes from Chinese c...
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| Best in Snow |
From polar ice floes by Frederic Church to wintry Manhattan streets by Guy Wiggins, snow scenes are heating up today's art market....
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| Travel: Discovering New York City Arts Clubs |
William Merritt Chase's palette, stained glass created by John La Farge and Louis Comfort Tiffany, and pages from a rare Gutenburg Bible, are a sampling of intriguing objects housed in some of New York City’s private arts clubs. Several of these historic...
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| Anton Zeleznik: the Coudersport Carver |
High atop a steeply terraced hillside just outside the town of Coudersport, Pennsylvania, sits a simple wooden alpine cross. Tucked under a tree and set some distance from all of the other graves in the St. Eulalia Cemetery, the cross marks the spot...
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| The Shelburne Museum: Selections from the |
Challenged to describe the unique and eclectic museum she had created, Shelburne Museum founder, Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888-1960), coined the phrase...
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| Furniture from Batavia and the Cape |
The exhibition Domestic Interiors at the Cape and in Batavia, 1602-1795 is the first to examine the domestic interiors and furniture of the Dutch adventurers and fortune seekers who settled in Batavia (today's Jakarta, Indonesia) and at the Cape...
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| Punch Bowls & Patriotism: The Rediscovery of the Varick Punch Bowl |
Described as...
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| The Washington Associtaion of New Jersey |
As Henry A. Ford (1793-1872), a Morristown, New Jersey, lawyer approached the end of his life, he faced a dilemma. What was to become of his ancestral home (Fig. 1), the place that had served as George Washington's military headquarters during the Contine...
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| The Charleston Double Chest |
The form that best epitomizes colonial Charleston, South Carolina furniture is the double chest (Fig. 1). The primary piece of case furniture in the homes of affluent Charlestonians, it was used for the storage and safekeeping of clothing, textiles, and v...
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| Lily of the Valley Inlay |
Inlay is the art of...
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| The Furniture of Charleston 1680-1820 |
While most books published in the decorative arts field consist of catalogues raisonnés of exhibitions or collections, The Furniture of Charleston, 1680-1820, constitutes the most in-depth study of the cabinetmaking trade of one American city...
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| A Diamond Within A Square |
A diamond within a square. What meaning should we derive from this quilt? As outsiders to the Amish community, probably none. Their use of geometric abstraction as symbolic form is intended for the understanding of only those who use this particular langu...
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| American Folk Art Museum |
It has been just over one year since the American Folk Art Museum opened the doors to its splendid new home at 45 West 53rd Street in New York City-forty years after its founding, the museum finally has a building of its own. As we enter 2003, we are able...
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| An Estate Worth Knowing |
If you have ever wondered about the person behind the nation’s two major design centers, and what his...
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| Through the Photographers Eyes |
It seems only natural for a professional photographer to collect prints of iconic images, which is precisely what Nathan Benn has done since 1972 when he started working for National Geographic Magazine.1...
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| Ceramic Craze in Minneapolis |
Over the past dozen years, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has been actively collecting ceramics that together relay the history of art and design. To this end......
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| Harvard's Mystery Seminar |
The study of decorative arts and the contexts within which they were made and used offers insight into how people......
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| Curator's Choice: Pan of Rohallion |
Pan of Rohallion is the First object seen when entering The Mount, Edith Wharton’s Berkshire home where she lived from 1902 until 1911......
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| Odd, Old & Unusual: Intriguing Forms in Delftware |
When most people think of delftware, the ubiquitous plate, pot, or punch bowl often comes to mind. Occasionally other pieces of delftware are encountered......
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| Hands-On: Replication of Historic Stained Glass |
When restoring historic stained glass windows, every effort is made to retain and mend the original glass. However, if a piece is missing or shattered beyond......
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| Boston's Trinity Church: Celebrating 125 Years |
Trinity Church, which annually draws over 100,000 visitors from around the world to Copley Square in the heart of Boston......
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| French Artists in California |
In the 1870s, burgeoning wealth from the flow of mined Comstock silver and the new transcontinental railroad turned San Francisco into a promised land for artists......
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| The Kenzan Style in Japanese Ceramics |
In Japan, potters have traditionally been professional artisans, passing skills down from generation to generation.......
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| Along The Hudson |
'One of the gems of the earth,' is how artist Thomas Cole (1800–1848) described a favorite forest haunt...
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| American Vernacular |
Scholarship, the marketplace, andmaturing tastes have all served to broaden the definitions of American folk......
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| Exotic Furniture from the English Islands |
In the epoch of Caribbean history when its economy flourished largely due to its sugar cane crops, the plantation great houses and urban......
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| Young Girl Holding Flowers |
In the booth of Nathan Liverant and Son at the 2002 Philadelphia Antiques Show, Metropolitan Museum of ......
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| Two Rare Waterfowl Carvings |
George Boyd (1873–1941) was a highly regarded waterfowl and songbird carver working......
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| Night Skaters |
In the 1930s and 1940s, Paul Sample was one of America’s most important and popular artists, ranking with......
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| Florence Nightingale at Scutari |
When Emanuel Leutze began painting his well-known Washington Crossing the Delaware (Metropolitan Museum of Art......
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| Bombardment of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor |
A recent museum acquistion, Bombardment of Fort Sumter ranks among the finest works by William Aiken Walker, a native......
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| Portrait of Mrs. Havemeyer and Her Daughter |
Three letters written by impressionist painter Mary Cassatt to Shelburne Museum-founder, Electra Havemeyer......
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| Painted Blanket Chest |
On initial inspection, a Pennsylvania origin might be associated with this blanket chest. The rounded bracket feet and methods of construction......
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| A Pictorial Survey of Collectible Decoys |
For over two thousand years, hunters have used decoys to attract a variety of waterfowl for food, for their......
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| Notes on Packing and Crating for the Collector |
Have you ever wondered how those blockbuster art shows are moved between museums across the......
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| The Quilts of Gee's Bend |
Since the mid-1920s a group of exceptional women from the small town of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, have created hundreds of quilt......
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| The History of an Heirloom |
In 1705, Maria Wendell Sanders (1677–1734) gave birth to a son that she and her husband, Barent Sanders (1678–1757), named Robert......
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| Chinese Ceramics In The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
The exhibition Earth Transformed: Chinese Ceramics in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has a focused mission to introduce the museum’s newly acquired......
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| A Pair of Art Nouveau Copper- Inlaid Silver Compotires |
A recent discovery in the Tiffany & Co. (1837–present) archives has led to information about......
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| Oui, Three Kings |
To the novice, the fine furniture of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France presents a bewildering array of stylistic variations that can be intimidating to attempt to identify. In particular, applying the......
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| Reinventing Childhood |
In the 1840s, Queen Victoria dressed her young sons in pint-size sailor suits, a notion of hers that set a fashion......
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| Curator's Choice: Ancient Bat Flute |
Music played an important role in ancient American art and thought before a.d. 1521–1534 when European conquest began......
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| Museum Focus: The Michael C. Carlos Museum |
The Michael C. Carlos Museum is often referred to as the “hidden jewel” in Atlanta’s cultural crown. Housing the oldest museum collection in......
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| Art Decodence |
Bostonian John Axelrod's Home is Chock-Full......
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| Pair of Side Chairs |
his pair of elegant mahogany side chairs epitomizes the graceful carving that is quintessential Chippendale......
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| Pair of Igbo Ugonachomma Display Figures |
When they were not being used for ritual purposes, ugonachomma adorned the homes of their owners, and......
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| Mount Vernon Envelope Table |
Crafted in England around 1750, this mahogany “envelope table” would have been......
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| Polychrome Baluster Vase |
Painted in vibrant colors, the imagery on this large polychrome chinoiserie vase depicts flowers and trees in an......
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| Floral Still Life |
Although she was originally from Boston, Elizabeth Lyman Boott spent much of her life in Italy. In 1879, she traveled......
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| A Chippendale Tall-Case Clock |
This clock is, as Todd Prickett notes, 'a true masterpiece produced by the combined efforts of two of Philadelphia’s leading artisans.'...
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| Rail Travel |
In 1938, The Pennsylvania Railroad Company decided to enhance their premium trains in anticipation of improving economic times......
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| Rosewood Overmantel |
This is the only known element to have survived the 1942 demolition of Rockwood Hall......
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| George III Royal Dinner Service |
The Gilbert Collection, Somerset House, recently unveiled the outstanding royal silver dinner service ordered in Paris by......
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| Portrait of a Man |
This painting serves as an important document for 19th-century lighting in America, specifically the Solar lamp, which is seen here on......
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| Needlework by youthful hands: not made to be sold |
hen young collectors have asked my advice on what to collect, my answer has always been samplers......
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| At Home with American Art: The Collection of Melinda and Howard Godel |
Twenty-five exquisite still lifes by American masters—Roesen, Ream, Prentice, Leavitt—line the walls......
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| Nantucket Getaway |
A favorite retreat for weekend getaways, the small island of Nantucket is a haven for those......
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| Kangxi Porcelain: In the Grand Chinese Porcelain Collecting Tradition |
In 1915, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., wrote a letter to his father requesting a loan of over $1 million......
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| Is it Genuine? A logical look at Antiques |
Identifying and authenticating antique English furniture is as much a matter of logical thinking as it is of......
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| Oriental Rug Collecting Today: What to Look For; What to |
oday’s budding oriental rug collector has a difficult task. Faced with a dwindling supply of top examples......
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| Charles H. Davis (1856-1933) |
As lovely a land as any on earth.” So Frances Davis, Charles Harold Davis’ wife, described the artist’s......
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| Alfred Stevens (1823 - 1906) |
One of the traditional roles of an art dealer is to take an independent view. Put another way, they buck the......
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| Nantucket: the History Behind the Artifacts |
In the mid-eighteenth century, J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur visited Nantucket during his tour of......
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| Miniature Furniture, Why? |
Years ago when I inherited a miniature Victorian tester bed complete with original bedding, once belonging to my great......
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| Queen Anne Walnut Furniture |
Some of the most beautiful and important English furniture of the 18th century was produced during......
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| American Watercolors at the Pennsylvania Academy |
American watercolors at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, on view in Philadelphia from October 14, 2000......
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| A Taste for High Art: Boston and the Boston Art Club, 1855-1950 |
The Boston Art Club, like the National Academy of Design in New York and the Pennsylvania Academy of......
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| Stitches of History: Art of the British Sailor |
She year is 1875. Joseph Lewney, a sailor with the screw schooner Lizzie, lounges on deck, his back......
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| The First Arts and Crafts Chair |
In 1853, art critic and social philosopher John Ruskin published The Stones of Venice......
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| Museum of American Folk Art; Building a Collection and Gifts |
Since its founding in 1961, the Museum of American Folk Art has built an outstanding collection of more......
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| The “Celebrated” William Matthew Prior (1806-1873) |
Folk painting, often called primitive or naive, is traditionally recognized as the body of works created by......
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| Fond Recollections: An Interview with Albert Sack |
This year has witnessed the passing of three giants in the world of antiques, Harold Sack......
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| Explore the Decorative Arts at Winterthur this Fall |
American decorative arts forms come in all shapes, sizes and media. This autumn at Winterthur, visitors can......
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| Frank W. Benson’s Works on Paper |
Few artists have experienced as much success in their own lifetime as frank w. benson (1862–1951)......
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| The Paper Connoisseur: an Introduction |
Even in the digital age, paper is ubiquitous. Subject to great variety and many uses, paper may be utilitarian......
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| Tiffany & Co. Beverage Service, 1879; Collection of the Museum |
On Christmas Eve, 1879, more than one thousand New York City public school teachers gave their former superintendent Henry Kiddle (1824–1891) this handsome beverage service......
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| 'The Ladies Amusement' as Inspiration for Ceramics Decoration |
In the second half of the eighteenth century, English ceramic manufacturers searching for appropriate decorative sources......
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| Frank von der Lancken; Artist and Educator |
A Brooklyn-born artist of exceptional talent, and an educator of great passion, Frank von der Lancken......
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| Allison Brothers: New York City Cabinetmakers |
In the early nineteenth century, new york city flourished, becoming the major cosmopolitan center that it is today......
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| The Museum of the City of New York, 1923–2001 |
Established in 1923, the Museum of the City of New York is a private, not-for-profit urban history museum, modeled after the Parisian......
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| The Role of the Dealer |
As a sixty-six year veteran of the antiques business I can say that I am proud to be a member of the profession......
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| The Art of High Living: Miniature Goldwork |
John Ramage (1748–1802), artist and goldsmith, was accused of many things, fast living and bigamy among......
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| George Washington in Bronze: A Survey of the Memorial Clocks |
Even if, in the two centuries since his death, the image of George Washington has been reduced to the likeness on the......
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| A Mystery Revealed: Unraveling the Story of a Hadley Chest |
Rarely does furniture that has survived several centuries of daily use retain its original surface. Over time, furniture is often covered with linseed oil......
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| Young Collectors at Home |
Young collectors want an environment that is comfortable and adaptable to their lifestyles. Whether hosting a large......
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| Primer on Prints |
Many collectors ask if there is an easy rule of thumb that will enable them to buy a print with confidence. alas......
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| The Artful Banker: Collectors Bebe and Crosby Kemper |
When pressed to choose a favorite artist, R. Crosby Kemper, Jr. (known to friends as Crosby) names Thomas Hart Benton. And that answer......
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| Today's Art Market...Trends...Forecasts...Exhibitions...Books... |
The often heard real estate mantra 'location, location, location' is fast applying to dealers these days. For now, the prized Manhattan......
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| As the Winter Show Goes So Goes the Market |
New York City—Dealers in top-quality art and antiques got decidedly good economic news at the january 19–28 Winter Antiques......
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| The BADA Antiques & Fine Art Fair |
From its elegant design to the quality of events offered—everything from wine tasting to fashion shows—the ninth annual British Antique......
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| California Finery |
A superb collection of vintage California paintings, assembled by San Franciscan Dr. C. Albert Shumate, are featured in the exhibition A Legacy of......
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| The European Fine Art Fair |
Even the downward Dow could not dim the masterful art on view at The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF), held in the small Dutch border town of Maastricht......
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| Folk Art Frenzy |
Traditional American folk art—described as 'extraordinary objects made by ordinary people'—has reached......
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| London Calling |
Those with Keats’s passion for beautiful objects and an eye for quality will already know why they should visit London, June 13–19......
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| Antiques Week in Philadelphia |
For lovers of American antiques, Philadelphia is a springtime mecca. The City of Brotherly Love welcomed......
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| Provence In New York |
in collaboration with The Cooley Gallery, is presenting The Lost Works of Luther Emerson Van Gorder......
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| A Return to the Classics |
Since antiquity, the artistic vocabulary developed by the Greeks and Romans has resonated in the works of painters, sculptors......
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| A Fine Line |
Only about a half century ago, a collector of drawings might find a Raphael, Durer, Holbein, or Poussin going for a mere few pounds......
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| London in June |
The 67th Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair, the flagship of London’s June fairs, was a grand event marked by change......
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| New Hampshire's Americana Marathon |
There are three major Americana events in the country—New York in mid-January, the Philadelphia......
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| With New Galleries, Milwaukee Becomes a Decorative Arts Hub |
With the May reopening of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s 13,000-square foot galleries for American arts, the Chipstone Foundation has......
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| Nantucket Notes |
As Nantucketers know, art and antiques reflecting a seafaring heritage bring home the spirit of the Faraway Island......
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| In New Hampshire |
Following the Americana extravaganza known as Antiques Week in New Hampshire......
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| New York Minutes |
This fall, Tom Devenish, purveyor of fine late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century English furniture, plans to move his New York gallery to a typical brownstone with an atypical......
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| Vermont Vignette |
If you’re taking the road less traveled this summer, wind your way to rural Vermont for a rustic showcase of period country......
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| Asian Art in London |
The pageantry and educational experience provided by a month-long celebration of Eastern works of......
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| Centennial Arts & Crafts Exhibition |
Rookwood pottery, Gorham silver, and a Sidney Burleigh carved chest starred in an influential Arts......
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| Autumn Exhibitions |
Ceramics specialists Fenichell-Basmajian present An Exhibition of 18th-Century Blue-&-English Porcelain in Homage to Dr. Bernard Watney......
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| Federal Masterpiece Re-Creation |
Although nearly 200 years separate the pieces, Thomas Seymour’s (1771–1848) demilune commode in the Museum......
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| Paul Revere and 1768 |
Generations of scholars had long surmised that John Singleton Copley’s portrait of silversmith and patriot Paul Revere......
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| Americana Week |
Americana Week has the largest gathering in the country of quality American antiques, major collectors, and knowledgeable exhibitors......
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| Chemistry vs. Nature |
In the past few years, the field of art conservation has taken giant leaps forward, and now possibly a step back. In the 1980s researchers realized that the widespread......
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| Boston's Ellis Show |
An upbeat air filled Boston’s Park Plaza Castle on October 30 when more than a thousand collectors gathered for the gala preview of the 42nd......
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| The Arts Rebuild New York |
In response to the September 11 tragedy, the cultural community at the center of the art world has joined together to provide a public service campaign called......
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| Seasonal Selections |
Movement: Marin at Richard York Gallery will feature over fifty works from the 1910s to the 1950s that convey the dynamic energy......
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| Americana Week in Review |
Americana Week in New York City is both serious business and immense entertainment. This year was no exception with show debuts, gallery openings......
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| Decoy Catalogue |
Russ and Karen Goldberger, RJG Antiques, celebrate twenty-five years of offering exceptional decoys such as......
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| Gallery Exhibitions |
Mao Zedong’s proclamation 'if you do not attack me, I will not attack you' is translated into an ink painting of opposing...
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| Historic Garden Events |
Historic Garden Events...
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| Amazing Gift |
Ranking in the top ten biggest individual gifts in 2001 was the substantial bequest of successful Wall Street stockbroker......
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| Leo Kaplan Moves |
Leo Kaplan, Ltd., purveyor of fine ceramics and glass ranging from English porcelain......
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| Museum Exhibitions |
Mention of the summer colony on Appledore Island, Maine, might bring to mind Childe Hassam’s bright watercolors and oils of the sea-bound spot......
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| Spring Symposiums |
A two-day symposium in conjunction with the exhibition Delicate Deception: Delftware at Historic Deerfield, 1600– 1800, will......
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| Highlights |
Summer 2002 Highlights...
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| Museum Calender |
The exhibition Matières de Rêves: Stuff of Dreams reveals important treasures from the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, on view in America for the first time while the......
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| Mystery Revealed The 'Finished' Chest |
This reproduction Hadley chest is the end result of a grant the Shelburne Museum received in 2000 to fund artisans to work before the public......
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| Historic Getaway |
It’s not often that you find a luxury desert resort that lets you relax among family heirlooms, including very fine antiques......
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| NHADA |
Members of the New Hampshire Antique Dealers’ Association are already tucking awayfinds so that Americana lovers......
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| January in NYC: Be a Part of It |
Take to the streets of Manhattan this January 16–27 when the city comes alive with the events of Americana Week (but don’t let the name......
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| Majolica, Faience, and Delftware |
Majolica, faience, and delftware are terms that describe glazed earthenware objects. Yet there are distinguishing factors among these products that are......
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| Bacchus and Ariadne by Giuseppe Cades (1750–1799) |
Born in Rome at the midpoint of the eighteenth century to a French father and an Italian mother, Giuseppe Cades (1750–1799) was a child......
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| An Introduction to Understanding Antique Delft |
Delftware was produced in most Western and Middle Eastern countries between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries......
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| The Philadelphia Museum of Art: 125 Years of Collecting |
he Philadelphia Museum of art is one of the largest and most important art museums in the united states. Its extensive collections......
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| Eighteenth-Century Sèvres in the Collection of Eleanore Elkins Rice |
Eleanore Elkins Rice was born in Philadelphia, the daughter of William L. Elkins, the prominent philadelphia businessman and philanthropist......
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| Samplers of Philadelphia and Southeastern Pennsylvania |
Many important American schoolgirl samplers were made in Philadelphia and its environs. This article provides details on some......
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| Collecting the Public Art of Bygone Days |
At the beginning of the twentieth century, early American tavern and inn signs still dotted the New England countryside. As a boy growing......
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| Softly the Evening Came: American Sunset Paintings, 1850–1900 |
To the nineteenth-century imagination, sunsets symbolized more than a simple transition from night to day. Sunsets mirrored a dramatic finale when, as Longfellow......
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| Celebrating the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s |
The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Department of Costume and Textiles houses one of the oldest and largest collections of its type in the......
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| Wine and Spirits of the Ancestors |
Wine has matured alongside human institutions such as religion and the arts, and, therefore, has been viewed to have......
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| 'Stars and Stripes Forever': Folk Art with Patriotic Imagery |
Some of the most beloved icons of American folk art exhibit patriotic imagery, but surprisingly few books or articles have been devoted exclusively to......
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| Cosway Bindings |
In the first decade of the twentieth century, the London bookselling firm of Henry Sotheran & company introduced a type of binding that was decorative......
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| The Importance of Scale in Framing Works of Art |
Edouard Manet (French, 1832–1883) said, 'Without the proper frame, the artist loses 100 percent.' Many noted artists......
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| Small Wonder: A Miniature Armor by E. Granger of Paris |
Among the holdings of the Higgins Armory Museum are miniature armors and elements. One of the finest is a suit that measures under......
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| The Windsor Side Chair in the Dining Room |
The introduction of Windsor side chairs at the close of the Revolutionary War opened a new chapter in the popularity of this vernacular seating style in America......
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| Comments on the Practice of Connoisseurship |
A connoisseur is 'one aesthetically versed in any subject, esp., one who understands the details, technique, or principles of a fine art; one competent to act as a......
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| Analysis of a Bible Box |
When learning about antiques, many people feel that some of the most useful lessons are gleaned from comparisons between two seemingly similar......
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| Vermeer and the Delft School |
Vermeer and the Delft School, the exhibition at The National Gallery, London, from June 20 to September 16, presents a rather different image of Delft’s most......
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| Museum Focus: Higgins Armory Museum |
The Higgins Armory Museum contains one of the largest collections of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance arms and armor......
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| American Folk Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
In terms of American art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is generally recognized for its plentiful holdings of high-style works encompassing furniture, paintings, and......
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| Anne Ramsdell Congdon |
In the early twentieth century, women artists and art patrons played a significant role in the establishment and growth of an art colony on the picturesque island of......
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| Bombé Furniture at Bayou Bend, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
While historical antecedents for bombé furniture can be identified as far back as ancient Rome, in eighteenth-century America the design’s inspiration......
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| Collecting Antique Native American Art |
Increased public exposure to the beauty of antique Native American art has inspired an ever-growing number of people to start collecting in this...
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| Curator's Choice: Wedgwood Fairyland Lustreware Bowl |
The Staffordshire-based ceramics factory established in 1759 by Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795)......
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| British and American Cast-Iron Garden Seats |
In the early nineteenth century, the decoration of landscaped public and private spaces became a fashionable component of the popular culture in......
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| The Gretchen Keller Glass Collection at Peabody Essex Museum |
The first half of the twentieth century will long be remembered as the golden age of collecting, when many of the most important collections of American decorative......
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| Museum Focus: Long Beach Museum of Art |
The first thing most people remark on when visiting the Long Beach Museum of Art is the magnificent location—a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean about twenty-five......
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| A Newly Discovered Bronzino |
The leading artist in Florence in the middle of the sixteenth century and court painter to the Medici ducal court throughout the 1540s and 1550s, Agnolo Bronzino......
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| Alterations, Repairs, or Colonial Revival? |
he Thomas Bailey Aldrich Memorial at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is a Colonial Revival restoration from 1908. The house......
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| Prized Possessions: The Story of Ceramics in Everyday Life |
For its 2001 season (May through October), Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is featuring......
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| Myer Myers: Jewish Silversmith in Colonial New York |
The leading silversmith in New York City during the late Colonial period, Myer Myers (1723–1795) produced some of the finest rococo......
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| Early Modern Glass in Minneapolis |
Through the major gift of the Modernism Collection from Norwest Bank Minnesota, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts expanded its collection of......
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| Curator's Choice—New Decorative and Fine Arts Displays at Winterthur |
The new exhibitions in the galleries at Winterthur showcase the collections in a way they have never before been seen. Focusing on specific media, displays......
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| Blue-and-White English Porcelain: Delicacies for the Table |
The fascination with blue-and-white porcelain imported from the Orient spurred manufacturers in England to produce their own white wares with......
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| Winterthur: Celebrating Fifty Years of Inspiration and Education |
Several years after turning his family home at Winterthur into a museum, Henry Francis du Pont mused on his vision for the future......
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| Surviving the Revolution: A Philadelphia Cabinetmaker's Struggle... |
On April 20, 1777, Philadelphia cabinetmaker David Evans (1748–1819) recorded in his daybook that his apprentice, Zachariah Brant...
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| A Studio of Her Own |
In 1889, a writer for the journal The Art Amateur declared, “There is nothing that men do that is not done by women now in Boston....
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| Chinese Ming Blue-and-White Porcelain: The Drs. A.M. Sengers Collection |
Connoisseurs have long collected Dutch blue-and-white tin-glazed earthenware, and therefore it is of little surprise that the original inspiration for......
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| The Loveliest Victorian Chair: A Couple's Journey of Discovery |
For three decades, my wife and I have been collecting antiques. Over time, we have increasingly focused on American Victorian furniture. Since......
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| Decorating the Avery Coonley House: Frank Lloyd Wright and George... |
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) was deeply committed to the idea that a house and its furnishings should be both an artwork in which to live and a living work of art inspired by nature. Genius though he......
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| Japanese Netsuke |
The term netsuke refers to a miniature sculpture, 6 inches in its largest dimension but usually nearer to 2 or 3 inches, that is carved......
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| Black- and Red-Figure Vases: The Lure of Ancient Greek Pottery |
In the ancient Greek world, a largely illiterate society sought to understand and explain unknown forces and the vicissitudes of daily life through mythological gods and the......
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| The Artist and the Laird: Alfred Jacob Miller & Sir William Drummond Stewart |
In New Orleans one early spring morning in 1837, Alfred Miller (1810–1874), a young artist recently returned from studying in Europe, was surprised by the appearance......
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| The Genuine Article?—Furniture Transformations |
Historic Deerfield is nationally known for its comprehensive collection of authentic early New England furniture......
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| Curator's Choice—Patriotism in Industry: A Lady's Riding Hat and Label |
'THE AMERICAN ARTS ONLY WANT ENCOURAGEMENT' are the words that embolden a flowing ribbon held firmly in the beak of an American eagle....
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| Know Your Antiques—Collecting American Antique Toys |
Prior to 1840, virtually all American toys were handcrafted. Examples of these early amusements include sock dolls, wooden jointed dolls, and whittled......
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| Albert Sack: 2002 ADA Merit Award Recipient |
This April 6 at the Philadelphia Antiques Show, the Antiques Dealers’ Association of America, Inc. (ADA) is hosting a dinner to honor Albert Sack. Mr. Sack will......
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| Thomas P. Moses: Artist, Musician & Poet of Portsmouth, New Hampshire |
Thomas Palmer Moses has long been recognized as a marine artist and folk painter, yet the facts about his life have often been confused. Most writers have misidentified his birth and......
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| Furniture Facts: William Savery As Chairmaker |
William Savery is one of the most recognized names associated with Philadelphia furniture of the colonial period. He earned the attention of then present-day scholars......
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| A Guide to Eighteenth-Century Windsor Chairs |
The Windsor chair originated in England during the early eighteenth century. Unlike other chairs of contemporary date, which have open seat frames to receive upholstery or a woven......
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| Curator's Choice: Henry Pratt's Account for Lemon Hill |
In 1962 a tin rainwater conductor head bearing the date 1800 was found in the attic of Lemon Hill. Thought to indicate......
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| Museum Focus: Lemon Hill & Its Gardens |
Along the banks of the Schuylkill River, a few miles from the center of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, stands a group......
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| What Is It Worth? Windsor Chairs |
Windsor chairs were once the seating of choice for many in Colonial and early Federal America. The market for these American icons......
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| Know Your Antiques: Ziegler and Their Carpets |
Zieglers are among the most sought-after antique carpets in today’s market. Their gracious size, subtle color combinations, and uncluttered patterns make......
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| New Discoveries in Baltimore Painted Furniture |
Baltimore painted furniture has excited the eyes of antiques collectors and museum curators since the early twentieth century. The first exhibition to feature examples......
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| Collectors' Corner: American Redware |
Much of redware’s appeal stems from its earthy, rustic appearance, attracting a broad range of collectors, from folk art enthusiasts to those interested in contemporary design. People are......
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| Franz Mayer: Collector of Talavera Poblana |
At the dawn of the twentieth century, adventurous foreigners were drawn to Mexico by travel accounts and railroad advertisements that promoted......
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| Hiawatha in Rome: Edmonia Lewis and Figures from Longfellow |
In November 2000, two pieces of nineteenth-century late-neoclassical sculpture, each a bit over one foot in height, sold at......
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| A Pennsylvania Clock Mystery |
With every good mystery there is the question of who done it. In the instance of a lavishly inlaid tall clock seemingly from Pennsylvania...
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| Distinguishing Real from Fake Peale's Museum Silhouette |
In the early decades of the twentieth century, fake silhouettes embossed with a stamp used at Charles Willson Peale’s (1741–1827) museums in Philadelphia and Baltimore over a century before......
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| Collectors' Corner: Sailors' Valentines |
With the recent publication of a creatively designed octagonal book devoted solely to sailors' valentines, it is evident that interest in these intricate......
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| What is it Worth?—Scrimshaw Teeth |
Sailors have long been associated with the art of storytelling. In the 1800s, during the height of American whaling, one remarkable group of sailors......
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| Portraiture in Early Connecticut |
Although native and foreign-born artists had been working as portraitists in New England since about 1670, Connecticut hosted no professional artist......
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| Know Your Antiques: Artists with an Eye Toward the Sea |
Dramatic naval engagements, bustling ports, and successful sea captains are maritime art subjects that have captivated collectors for centuries......
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| Reading the Evidence: The Challenge of Furniture Documentation |
Unlike buildings or gravestones, which for the most part remain fixed in position as their makers originally intended, furniture is by definition......
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| Mantelpieces in New England: An Introduction |
Until the widespread introduction in the 1830s of airtight cast-iron parlor stoves and kitchen cook stoves, fireplaces were essential for heating and......
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| Decorating with Antiques |
Be it a Nantucket cottage filled with nautical antiques or an elegant Manhattan townhouse appointed with Louis XV furniture, decorating a house can be......
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| George Jensen Hollowware: An Enduring Standard of 20th-Century Design |
Nearly a century after he opened his shop, few question why, in 1935, The New York Herald Tribune called Danish crafstman Georg Arthur Jensen......
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| Furniture Facts: The Loudon Connection |
When the Bachelder family possessions were auctioned off in a series of sales in 1988 and 1993, dealers, collectors, and scholars gathered in droves......
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| Pennsylvania's Mystery Preceptress |
In 1998, we purchased an eighteenth-century sampler wrought by a young girl identified as Phebe Harvey. We were impressed with the needlework's......
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| Curator's Choice: Thomas Cole's Mill Dam on Catskill Creek |
Among Henry Melville Fuller's recent bequest of sixty American paintings to the Currier Gallery of Art is Thomas Cole's Mill Dam on Catskill Creek, 1841......
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| Museum Focus: The Fuller Bequest to the Currier Gallery of Art |
On October 9, 1929, a few weeks before the stock market crash that sent a prosperous America plummeting into the Great Depression, the Currier......
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| The Art, Life and Legacy of Maria Martinez |
In the American Southwest, only arbitrary criteria separate...
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| Europe in March |
During one week in March, a visitor can cover just about every major style period and type of art at The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) in Maastricht......
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| The Appraisers' Registry: 22 Years and Still Going Strong |
When my wife and I came to the United States from England in 1948, we found we had to be self-employed to make ends meet. We started by making marmalade in Hamilton, Massachusetts......
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| Interior Designer Ralph Harvard |
Last August, Elle Shushan, a dealer in antique portrait miniatures, opened an envelope to find a swatch of damask. The letter was from Ralph O. Harvard......
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| Hands On—The Basics of Turning a Finia |
Turned wooden finials were often the crowning elements on fashionable furniture—such as high chests......
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| Winslow Homer's Rab and the Girls: A Riddle in Paint |
-Winslow Homer’s Rab and the Girls acquired its present title at some point between 1876, when it was exhibited as Over the Hills at the National Academy of Design, and 1879, when art critic Earl......
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| The Second Rediscovery of Cosmè Tura |
Although Cosmè Tura (ca. 1430–1495) was one of the great painters of the generation that included Botticelli, Mantegna, and Leonardo da Vinci, he is now far less well known than his contemporaries. A century...
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| What is it Worth?—Patriotic Quilts |
Symbols of national pride are a part of this country’s decorative heritage. Since the early nineteenth century, American women have been fashioning quilts with......
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| The Taste for Tiffany Lamps |
'Let those who arrogantly despise their parents’ tastes beware. Let those who ruthlessly sweep out their attics pay heed. Not only is the fickleness of......
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| Curator's Choice: The Winds of Fame |
Pheme, or Fame, exists beneath the clouds in the ether between earth and sky. Her eyes never close, she never sleeps, and she sounds her trumpet to herald news both......
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| Furniture Facts—Ernest Gimson & the Cotswolds School |
In reaction to the mass-produced goods and increasingly unskilled work force of the Industrial Revolution, John Ruskin (1819–1900) and William Morris (1834–1896)......
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| Know Your Antiques—A Primer of Silversmith Paul de Lamerie |
Ever since interest in collecting antique silver began in the early nineteenth century, Paul de Lamerie (1688–1751) has been recognized as England’s...
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| An Introduction to American Sporting Art |
By the mid-nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution had created an upwardly mobile middle class in America that enjoyed time for leisure pursuits such as hunting...
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| Exceptions to the Rule |
To become proficient in the evaluation of antique furniture, the student must understand the basic concepts of construction, methodology, and design. When learning......
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| Prayerful Art/Artful Prayer: The Book of Hours |
It is hardly surprising that the Book of Hours has been dubbed the late-medieval “best-seller.” Between the mid-thirteenth and mid sixteenth centuries, this devotional book......
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| The Genuine Article? Kangxi and Samson Cadogan Teapots—Compared |
Distinguishing between an original antique and a later copy, be it an innocent interpretation or an intentional fake, can present a challenge to collectors. After investing the time to examine numerous pieces and consult with experts, one can develop......
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| Museum Focus: American Folk Art Museum |
After many years of planning, the American Folk Art Museum opened its magnificent new building in December of 2001. Proudly standing at 45 West 53rd Street in the heart of Manhattan, the......
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| Eighteenth-Century English Enamels |
The English fashion for decorative painted enamels spanned nearly a century, from the 1750s into the 1840s. When first introduced from the Continent, their colors, sophisticated designs......
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| Baktiari Tree-of-Life Carpet |
This unusual wool foundation Baktiari was woven in southwest Persia in the late nineteenth century. A marvelous example of a weaver’s whimsy, it features a sturdy......
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| George III Chest of Drawers |
The rare serpentine sides of this Georgian chest of drawers are emulated and enhanced by the curvaceous serpentine shaping of the front. Additionally......
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| Architectural Shelf Clock with Movement by Daniel Balch, Sr. |
The architectural case of this shelf clock represents the best in American shelf clock design. There are only eight other recorded examples of clocks that share this style of case and similar engraved brass......
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| One Drawer Stand |
While numerous country one-drawer stands were made in the Federal era, their elaborate urban counterparts are more unusual, particularly in New Hampshire. This......
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| Flight, Barr & Barr Worcester Shell-Decorated Vase & Cover |
This vase features an unusual continual frieze of colorful shells, coral, and seaweed against a ground that shades from tan to brown. The shells appear to be three-dimensional—each painted with......
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| Federal Wall Clock |
The masterpiece of clockmaker David Brown, this clock is in astounding original condition. Of unusual form, it retains its finials, mirror, stamped pendulum, and eglomisé panels representing the New Republic......
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| The Buckeye Family |
The Buckeye Family is one of the most famous carvings in America as well as an icon in the field of American folk sculpture. Greengrocer Joe C. Lee of Overton......
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| Early Queen Anne High Chest and Matching Dressing Table |
Often separated through subsequent ownership, matching high chests and dressing tables are an unusual find in today’s antiques market. The rarity and early date of this......
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| Rare Walnut Hanging Wall Cupboard |
Wall cupboards were rarely owned in Pennsylvania, where patrons more frequently opted for less expensive corner shelves. The hanging cupboards were......
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| 'Matteson' Chest with Drawers |
Among the most desirable paint-decorated furniture from Vermont are 'Matteson' chests. The association of Thomas Matteson of South Shaftsbury, Vermont, with...
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| Set of Nesting Tables |
Made of teak, a wood rarely used by Nakashima, this set bears a unique design. With dovetail edges and gently canted sides, it is a classic modernist......
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| Urn and Cover, 'The Doctor's Visit' |
According to Jörg in Pronk Porcelain, 'The Doctor’s Visit to the Emperor' was drawn by Cornelius Pronk for the VOC (Dutch East India Company) in 1735 and......
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| Very Fine Silk Embroidered Coat of Arms |
Embroidered coats of arms are a unique New England form of needlework. Ambitious and sophisticated, these fine pieces were prestigious decorations for the home......
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| Chinoiserie-Decorated Black Japanned Cabinet on Chest |
This cabinet on chest is extraordinary as it retains virtually all of its original polychrome and gilt decoration on both the exterior and interior surfaces. A number of late-seventeenth-century pieces......
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| Pair of New York Chippendale Walnut Side Chairs |
These chairs, numbered XII and XIII, are part of a large set made for New York City banker and merchant Samuel Verplanck. The set was presumably commissioned between......
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| Folding Engraved Ivory Gameboard with Carved Ivory Chessmen |
The exterior of the gameboard is inlaid withalternating squares of sandalwood and ivory. The interior is configured for backgammon with ebony and sandalwood triangles......
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| Spectacular Pintail Drake Decoy |
This pristine pintail duck is a wonderful example of a working decoy that exhibits strong folk art qualities; this particular model is referred to as a “beaver tail” because of its broad tail. Brothers Lem and Steve Ward made their ducks in such......
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| Mahogany William and Mary Dining Table |
In June of 2000, our firm acquired one of the most important Southern dining tables still remaining in private hands. Until our primary inspection of the table, it was thought......
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| View of the Schuylkill County Almshouse Property, PA |
The nineteenth-century itinerant artist Charles Hofmann, was known to have been a frequent visitor and patient of almshouses, which served as shelter for the sick and destitute. According to Tom Armstrong, author of American Folk Painters......
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| Armorial Plate: Okeover Quarterly Impaling Nichol |
We are pleased to report the sale of a plate from the celebrated Chinese export porcelain service made for Leake Okeover, Esquire, and his wife, Mary Nichol......
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| Rare Set of Six George II Carved Walnut Side Chairs |
These chairs are in exceptional condition and strike a wonderful balance between form and ornament. Sets of English carved walnut chairs......
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| Polychrome Charger of a Figure on Horseback |
This rare polychrome charger was purchased from a private collection in Amsterdam. It depicts a boy on a spotted horse, supposedly representing William III as a child......
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| A Very Fine and Rare Sheraton Mahogany Server |
This table exhibits the elegant, slender proportions, tall stance, and serpentine-shaped top seen on the finest Federal furniture made in Portsmouth, New Hampshire......
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| Seated Woman with Flowers |
By far the most popular object in our booth at the Philadelphia Antiques Show, this life-size garden statuary of a seated woman was purchased by the end of opening night......
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| A Sichuan Pottery Figure of an Entertainer |
The Chinese shuochangyong (talking and singing figures) entertainers would have been part of an ensemble that included actors, musicians, and dancers......
|
| A Fine English Small-Sword by Matthew Boulton |
The hilt of cut steel pierced with open work and set with polished studs and beads. Mounted on the hilt are blue and white ceramic cameo plaques stamped Wedgwood......
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| A Fine Sword of Justice |
The cruciform hilt of cast gilt bronze, the original grip covered with ray-skin. The large pear-shaped pommel with facets and lobes. The superb broad double-edged blade is etched and gilded with foliage and strapwork......
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| The Quincy-Shaw Queen Anne Carved Walnut High Chest-of-Drawers |
Israel Sack, Inc., is pleased to report that this recently secured high chest sold within a week’s time in the high six figures. This sale was made as a part of our new consignment/brokering program......
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| A Magnificent Pair of Bronze Seated Dogs |
A recent discovery, these statues are
the only known examples of their type.
In virtually perfect condition, they sit upright......
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| A George II Giltwood and Chinese Reverse-Painted Overmantel Mirror |
Designed in the Chinese rococo style that was popularized in Thomas Chippendale’s The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director, first published in 1754......
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| An Exceptional Pair of Watercolor Portraits |
This pair of portraits exhibits the bold style evident in work associated with S. A. Shute in the poses, stylized hairdos, large hands, and sweeping horizontal brushstrokes used......
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| Birger Sandzen |
In pristine condition, this vibrant oil painting was found in an estate. The depiction of a river at sunset, as well as its rendering with thick......
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| Surimono woodblock print, Kurabiraki Yoshi |
One of the over sixty items we sold at
this year’s Winter Antiques Show was this surimono. Commissioned by poetry clubs and produced in limited editions, surimono were used to commemorate......
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| North Shore Inlaid Swell Front Bureau |
The drawer backs of this chest are stamped with the initials J & B, possibly the mark of John Baker, a cabinetmaker working in Ipswich,...
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| A Rare Flying Mallard Drake Decoy by Augustus Aaron Wilson |
This flying mallard drake was meant to be hung over a group of floating decoys as if it were about to land. It differs from most decoys in that it has a sense of movement, typical of those......
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| The Broad Way, The Narrow Way |
This outstanding folk art drawing, of large size, exceptional color, and fine condition, was drawn in Lancaster County. The artist has created a wonderful......
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| Daniel Garber, The Fairy Tale (Tanis Reading) |
Contemplative images of domestic life were tremendously popular during the turn of the twentieth century. In this tradition, Daniel Garber, a member of the......
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| Greek Bronze Warrior's Helmet |
This is a superb example of the Illyrian type of hammered bronze helmet, which is one of the earliest known Greek helmets. Illyrian helmets were used......
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| Interior Scene, Frontal Portrait of a Gentleman |
This portrait is a fine example of the supreme artistry of Jacob Maentel at the height of his talents and ranks among the finest, largest, and arguably the most important Maentel portraits that has ever come on the......
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| Lacquer Qin |
This extremely rare and finely decorated five-stringed qin zither illustrates both form and design found in Chu kingdom lacquer. The powerfully......
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| Atlantic Salmon Model |
This rare carving was sold in the six figures on the opening night of The American Antiques Show in New York (January 2002). Having recently......
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| Staffordshire Saltglaze Lobed 'Landskip' Teapot and Cover |
The Landskip pattern was produced in saltglaze, creamware, and green glaze. It features a recumbent lamb finial, beaded spout, and moulded house and farm animals......
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| Pottery Figure of a Striding Camel with Foreign Rider |
This splendid figure of a striding camel with head raised and mouth open as if to roar is well matched in power by the diminutive but forceful figure of......
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| Pair of Chippendale Walnut Side Chairs |
These chairs are superlative examples of Philadelphia craftsmanship, achieving a successful integration of form and decoration. The carving of......
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| Frank W. Benson - Resting on the Kedgwick, 1927 |
'This newly discovered watercolor is quintessential Benson,' notes Faith Andrews Bedford, author and expert on the artist. The location is Canada's......
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| Chippendale Mahogany Block-and-Shell Slant-Front Desk |
Combining regional ingenuity and urban design, this stately desk is a masterpiece of eighteenth-century Connecticut furniture. Its block-and-shell......
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| Tobacconist's Trade Figure |
This tobacconist's trade figure retains its completely original painted surface and undercoat; highly unusual considering these figures were usually......
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| Diminutive William and Mary Octagonal Gate-Leg Table |
This remarkable object has superb form, color, surface decoration, and is of a rare small size. The unusual treatment of the top features oval herringbone......
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| Susquehanna Valley Needlework |
This charming needlework by Frances Nisley, Middletown, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, circa 1810–1820, is a fine example from a well-documented......
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| Sculpture by Wheeler Williams |
This figure, possibly named 'Maya', was sculpted and cast during Wheeler Williams's last year in Paris and is rumored to have been created for......
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| Rare Malachite and Ormolu Circular Tripod Table |
The malachite top, carefully veneered to create a quasi-symmetrical pattern emanating from the center of the table, indicates by its deep green coloring......
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| George II Architectural Bureau Bookcase |
his magnificent George II burl-walnut architectural bureau bookcase features a partially fitted top, mirrored doors, and a desk section with a boxwood and ebony-inlaid...
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| Blockfront Chest of Drawers |
This chest, of successful visual proportion and scale, is in a wonderful state of preservation, retaining an old finish and original brass hardware. Though the......
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| A Yingqing Four-Handled Jar |
The body of this jar is of barrel shape, with a narrow shelf to mark off the shoulders, sloping up to the short-waisted neck with flat, everted rim......
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| Rare Double Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. William Vaughan of Aurora, Illinois |
This portrait is truly an icon of American painting and a masterpiece of Illinois folk art. It is one of only five known multiple full-length portraits by Peck, four of which are currently in...
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| Tavern Settle |
This settle is a rare form featuring a back that lowers and converts to a table. The construction of the settle suggests that it was......
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| Polly Thayer (Starr), Gladiola with Bee |
Polly Thayer (Starr), the only living artist represented in the exhibition A Studio of Her Own: Boston Women Artists 1870–1940 at the......
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| Sarah Moorhead Canvaswork Picture |
Very few early Boston canvas-work pictures can be linked to a particular teacher or maker since such work was rarely signed......
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| Ark |
An ark is a small chest used to store grain, flour or meal. The earliest arks date from the 14th century. Most are undecorated......
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| Ruth Light Braun, Klein's Dress Shop, Union Square |
At 95 years old, Ruth Light Braun, a Brooklyn-born artist, is herself a new discovery. With the exception of a small show decades......
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| Dennis Miller Bunker, Figures in a Cart |
Dennis Miller Bunker was one of the earliest American painters to adopt the new impressionist style......
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| Robert Scott Duncanson, A View of Asheville, North Carolina |
Robert Scott Duncanson was one of the most important nineteenth-century American landscape artists and the first......
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| A Unique Pair of Dutch Landscape Paintings |
Although one might argue that these paintings are less subtle than those of the great seventeenth-century landscape artists, one has to......
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| Dennis Miller Bunker, Figures in a Cart |
This classic Wethersfield, Connecticut, dressing table of elegant form has remained in the Hurlbut......
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| Chest by Aaron Miltimore |
This is the only known chest associated with the previously undocumented cabinetmaker Aaron Fitz Miltimore. Miltimore was born in Londonderry......
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| Tall Case Clock |
Relatively little is known of John Munro (1758–1810). According to period documentation, he was originally from Edinburgh, Scotland, and arrived in......
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| Cast-Iron Fireback |
This is a rare, early survival of a cast-iron fireback. It is dated 1697 and the design is superimposed with the initials of the then monarchs of England......
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| Jervis McEntee, Eastern Sky at Sunset |
Jervis McEntee was a painter of great intelligence, sensitivity, and complexity. His adaptability enabled him to endure when many of his Hudson River......
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| Coade Naiad |
This Coade-stone naiad (water nymph) was designed in the early 1770s by the celebrated sculptor, John Bacon (1740–1799), after a famous antique marble......
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| Important Calimanco Quilt |
Calimancos are glazed-wool quilts. The glazed surface is a result of starch, egg white, and/or heat and pressure application. The worsted cloth that comprises......
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| Rare Shaker Tall Case Clock |
This rare Shaker tall case clock was made in the early nineteenth century by Benjamin Youngs at......
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| Michel Corneille I, Cleopatra and the Asp |
A recently identified work by a French Royal Academy founder, Cleopatra and the Asp by......
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| Ottavio Leoni, Portrait of the Countess Cantalmaggio |
Ottavio Leoni, the son of medallist Ludovico Leoni (1542–1612), attended L’Accademia di San Luca in 1604 and was......
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| Elie Nadelman, The Four Seasons |
The New-York Historical Society recently acquired The Four Seasons, a stunning example of Elie......
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| Louisa Wainwright Sampler |
This exceptional sampler just recently surfaced and is the third known example from one of the most interesting groups......
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| Account Book of Artist Junius Brutus Stearn |
Under the careful hands of a paper conservator, the long-lost ledger of historical painter......
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| A Rare George Washington Pearlware Jug |
The jug with bands of painted blue decoration to the rim and neck is decorated with a black transfer-print portrait of a military officer with......
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| Maiolica Wine Cooler |
Sir Richard Wallace, husband of the Wallace Collection’s founder, acquired this Italian maiolica wine cooler......
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| Tobacco Box |
For many years, collectors of snuff tobacco boxes/rasps and collectors of nutmeg boxes......
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| Queen Anne Tray Top Tea Table |
This masterful and important table represents one of the earliest known examples......
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| Robert Knox Sneden, Civil War Diary |
On a fall afternoon in 1994, two men visited the Virginia Historical Society with a remarkable......
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| Still Life, Attributed to Severin Roesen |
Discovered in Pennsylvania in “attic” condition, this painting was found detached from its original......
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| A Pair of Porcelain Plaques |
This is an extremely rare pair of plaques painted in very high quality. The scenes on them are derived......
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| Rococo Looking Glass and Matching Sconces |
n 1763, Nathaniel Barrell (1732–1831) traveled to London, where he purchased several items......
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| Mahogany Dining Table |
At first glance it may appear that this table was made on the North Shore of Massachusetts......
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| Charles Burchfield, Untitled Lithograph |
Charles Burchfield’s distinct and often dreamlike renditions of the Old Western Reserve......
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| Arthur B. Carles, The Red Shawl |
A.B. Carles is considered one of America’s true pioneers of modern art. Between 1907 and 1911......
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| Portrait of Edmund Dickinson |
When Edmund Dickinson left Williamsburg in 1776 to fight in the American Revolution, he left behind......
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| Daniel Garber, Glen Road |
Although Daniel Garber is often thought to have painted his Bucks County, Pennsylvania, surroundings with...
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| Georgia O'Keeffe, Trees at Glorieta, New Mexico, 1929 |
The 1998 discovery of an exhibition list and other documents in the College of William and Mary’s archives......
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| Joined Hadley Settle |
This is the only known American joined settle originating from the Connecticut River Valley that is decorated in the manner......
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| Walter Gay, View from a London Window |
Expatriate artist Walter Gay, who resided mostly in France, was an avid collector of both antique......
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| Army Signalman Whirligig |
One of the treasures of American folk art in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is a large whirligig figure of an army......
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| John H. Twachtman, Niagara Falls |
John Henry Twachtman has long been considered one of America’s leading Impressionists. In the early 1890s, following a successful...
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| An Important Signed Colonial Indian Carved Pier Table |
Labeled examples of Colonial Indian furniture from this time period are virtually unknown. Records indicate that......
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| Sampler by Elizabeth Searles |
This recently rediscovered sampler belongs to a group of ten outstanding samplers worked under the instruction of Judith Hayle of Ipswich......
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| Miniature Portrait of Abigail Lopez Gomez |
When Abigail Lopez was born in 1771, her father, Aaron Lopez, was undoubtedly the richest man in Newport, Rhode Island......
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| Aelbert Cuyp, A Panoramic View of Dordrecht and the Maas |
Albert Cuyp was one of the greatest Dutch landscape painters of the seventeenth century. His success and popularity earned him the......
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| A Chinese Porcelain Blue-and-White Brushpot |
Over thirty years ago Dr. A. M. Sengers started collecting Chinese blue-and-white porcelain from......
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| Painting of a Stranded Whale on the Beach of Katwijk |
We have recently purchased a Dutch painting depicting a stranded whale on the beach......
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| Voysey in America: An Arts & Crafts Floor Tile Discovery |
The grand house of oil baron Lafayette Hughes was designed in the Mediterranean style by the prominent Denver...
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| Street Scene of Wall Street, Kingston, New York |
When I purchased this painting I knew nothing about its historical significance but was attracted by its appeal......
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| Capen Perkins Chest of Drawers |
This historical chest was the gift of Mrs. William Goedecke, Mrs. William Lamborn, and Mrs. Edwin Hooker, direct......
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| Monumental Stoneware Pitcher |
This pitcher has incised decoration of a woman’s bust surrounded by abstract floral and geometric motifs, all filled in with......
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| Alfred Thompson Bricher - White Island Lighthouse, Isle of Shoals |
Born in New Hampshire, A. T. Bricher grew up in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and in the 1850s studied art at the Lowell Institute in Lowell, Massachusetts......
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| A Carved Church Pulpit |
Recently reinstalled in the First Church of Bethlehem, Connecticut, after years in storage, is the carved pulpit of the Second Meeting House of Bethlem......
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| William Trost Richards, The Wood Path |
The most meticulous artist of his generation, William Trost Richards, along with some of his associates, so far transcended the draughtmanship......
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| An Important Rococo Mahogany |
In three sections: the upper section with removable scrolled pediment with elaborate ruffle, foliate carving, and carved rosette terminals with dependent......
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| Relief Portrait of Benjamin Franklin |
At 71 years of age, Benjamin Franklin embarked on the most important adventure of his long and illustrious career......
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| Chippendale Cherrywood Flat-Top Chest-On-Chest |
The cabinetmaker Bates How, born in Canaan (Litchfield County), Connecticut, in 1776, is best known......
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| The Largest Recorded Book Of Hours |
This hitherto unknown book was one of the major commissions of Dutch manuscript illumination in the second half of the fifteenth century......
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| The Paintings of C. Arnold Slade |
In the first quarter of the 20th century, Slade's landscapes, portraits, genre, and biblical scenes inspired similar accolades from......
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| An Applique Rug With A Star-Studded Menagerie Of Animal Silhouettes |
This applique rug is constructed of black wool cut-out animal shapes embroidered and outlined in bright wool stitches......
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| Queen Anne Walnut Bonnet-Top High Chest |
This high chest is related stylistically to a group of high chests with similar proportions and scooped drawers made in the Boston area......
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| George II Carved Giltwood Console Table |
As a student at the London College of Furniture in the early 1970s, I developed a friendship with a woodcarver......
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| Walnut Renaissance Revival Dining Chair |
One of the preeminent cabinetmakers in nineteenth-century America, Frenchman Leon Marcotte......
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| Town House of Treasures |
As a 5-year-old child growing up in New York, Jay often visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his mother......
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| A Haven in Hyannis |
Maritime antiques are hot, and that suits Alan Granby and Janice Hyland just fine. Dealers in nautical materials for nearly thirty years, Alan and Janice......
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| House with a Past: The Voses' Historic Seaside Home |
At Judi and Terry Vose’s eighteenth-century Duxbury residence, guests might find it convenient to hang their hats on a ship’s cleat......
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| The Alan and Simone Hartman Collection |
The Alan and Simone hartman collection, now installed at the museum of fine arts, boston......
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| My love affair with dealing and collecting |
ollecting was an early passion for me, which has lasted and brought me joy through my entire life......
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| A Short Biography of an Antiques Collector by Israel Sack |
We have reprinted this article that Israel Sack published in 1933 because the message it brings is as valid today as when Israel Sack published it......
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| Wood-Slat “Lattenstuhl” Armchair |
Wood-Slat “Lattenstuhl” Armchair. Hungarian, 1902–1981...
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| Two From An Unusual Harlequin Set Of Six Oak Single Chairs And... |
Two From An Unusual Harlequin Set Of Six Oak Single Chairs And Two Oak Carvers....
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| Rare Small Sized Oak Wainscott Chair |
Rare Small Sized Oak Wainscott Chair. English, circa 1660....
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| Queen Anne Maple And Tiger Maple Side Chair |
Queen Anne Maple And Tiger Maple Side Chair. Portsmouth, New Hampshire, circa 1740–1770....
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| Queen Anne Carved Walnut Stool |
Queen Anne Carved Walnut Stool. England, circa 1710....
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| Pair Of Painted And Gilded Wood Side Chairs |
Pair Of Painted And Gilded Wood Side Chairs. Spain, circa 1790......
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| A Pair Of William And Mary Carolean 17th Century Chairs |
A Pair o Of William And Mary Carolean 17th Century Chairs English, but with Dutch influence, circa 1690......
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| Banister-Back Armchair |
New England, Mid-18th century......
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| Asian Art in London by Jacqueline Simcox |
Asian Art in London was founded three years ago by London’s leading dealers and auction houses with the aim of creating an annual event......
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| Sixth Annual Los Angeles Art Show Lights Up the Fall Season |
This year’s LA Art Show boasts forty-eight top quality dealers from all over the United States, who pick their finest pieces......
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| A Proud History The Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair... |
Much has changed since 1934 when visitors paid a mere two shillings to visit The Grosvenor House Arta & Antiques Fair for the very first time......
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| Canton: Common & Unusual Views |
"Pray let them be neat and fashionable or send none," wrote 26-year-old George Washington to an English trader in 1758. The future general and......
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| Traditions in the Brandywine Valley |
From 1930 to 1950, a rebirth of the medieval and Renaissance technique of tempera painting took place in America. Prominent artists from New York......
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| Artist-Explorers |
Some artist-explorers are inspired by the concept of the unknown, by the notion of painting undocumented territory. Others may simply desire......
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| Artists after Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts |
An extraordinary number of America's greatest artists have taught or studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Since its founding......
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| California Impressionists |
The place itself...positioned Lyme, Connecticut, as a perfect setting for an art colony. The town, now called Old Lyme, is a former ship-building center......
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| Artists of Old Lyme |
The place itself...positioned Lyme, Connecticut, as a perfect setting for an art colony. The town, now called Old Lyme, is a former ship-building center......
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| Philadelphia Artists |
Philadelphia and its environs have played host to a rich tradition in the visual arts for nearly three centuries. The city lays claim to a wealth of renowned......
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| Italy on the Grand Tour |
“The Grand Tour was a socialized practice of travel that focused on the arts as a means of bestowing knowledge and moral virtue upon young men from...
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