The 2014 Baltimore Summer Antiques Show

August 21st, 2014


Sideboard, circa 1885, probably by Pottier and Stymus, with inset ceramic tiles by John Moyr Smith (1839-1912), $18,000 from John Orban of Cadiz, Ohio.


Large centerpiece silver bowl, Kalo Shop, Chicago, initial “G,” 1920s, $6900 from Spencer Marks, Southampton, Massachusetts.


David Brooker of Woodbury, Connecticut, brought Fag & Curly, 40" x 50", by Charles Augustus Henry Lutyens (British, 1829-1915), and he wanted $45,000 for it.


Road to the River by Edward Redfield (1869-1965), oil on canvas, signed lower right and dated on the back, 1917, 26" x 32", $595,000 from Carl David of David David Gallery, Philadelphia.


Bill Rau of M.S. Rau, New Orleans, Louisiana, asked $1.85 million for the circa 1920 cross of 18k gold with over 60 carats of diamonds and emeralds, 7" long x 4" wide, and a diamond and ruby ring. According to the provenance, Pope Pius XII gave it to Pope Paul VI before Paul VI was pope. In 1965 Paul VI was the first pope to address the U.N., and at that time he gave the cross and ring to the U.N. to sell with the profits going toward its work. Parke-Bernet Galleries published a separate catalog for its sale in November 1967. At the time a Chicago jeweler bought both pieces for $64,000. They have been bought and sold several times since 1967.


Shenandoah Valley walnut chest of drawers, three over three drawers, inlaid top edge, inlay on the drawer fronts, and ogee bracket feet, $16,500 from C. Duncan Connelly of Thirteenth Colony Arts, Atlanta, Georgia, one of the few dealers who had any Americana.


This Hermès runway bag was $47,500 from Virgil Rogers of Only Authentics, North Bergen, New Jersey. The red is ostrich, the emerald-green, alligator, the violet, ultra suede, and the black, box calf. It is a one-of-a-kind used once on a runway. Hermès made three other scaled-down versions. “It is abstract art,” said Rogers.


Bakelite horse pin, $225 from Diane Richardson of Gold Hatpin, Oak Park, Illinois.


A Washington collector made a find. He bought a historical blue Staffordshire transferware vegetable dish with a print of the Woodlands in Philadelphia for $500 from a generalist dealer who had only one piece of transferware. He thought he got a real bargain, paying about half what a specialist dealer might ask.

Baltimore, Maryland

The 34th Baltimore Summer Antiques Show filled the Baltimore Convention Center at the Inner Harbor with art, antiques, and jewelry August 21-24. It is the largest of the nine shows organized by the Palm Beach Show Group, whose flagship show is the Palm Beach Jewelry, Art and Antiques Show, held on Presidents’ Day weekend in February.

The Baltimore show was slightly smaller this year. Fewer than 250 dealers were listed on the Web site, but management said 501 dealers were on the floor, some sharing stands. Some of the perennial dealers were missing. (Some of them may have been planning on exhibiting at the New York Art, Antique and Jewelry Show held September 17-21, so there would be no need to do shows back to back, less than a month apart.) The book section was also down to about a third of its normal size.

Attendance was off on Thursday and Friday, but double the number of weekday shoppers arrived on Saturday, and serious buyers found their way back and bought treasures on Sunday. Dealers who have been showing in Baltimore for the last decade or longer said they have built a following and their customers return every year. They said it is worth the four- and five-figure price to do the show with walls or the $1000 or slightly more for a stand in the pipe-and-drape sections.

The show used to be on Labor Day weekend and was moved to the weekend before Labor Day several years ago, but dealers still said it is at the wrong time of the year. “Collectors are still on vacation or moving kids into college; the season does not begin until after Labor Day,” groused one of them. With the New York show scheduled for September 17, moving the dates of the Baltimore show to the week after Labor Day doesn’t seem to be in the cards, but who knows?

“The middle market is still recovering from the Great Recession that began in 2008, and Baltimore is a middle-market show. The advertising—and there is plenty of it—focuses on the top of the market rather than the full range of material which is there,” commented one dealer who said he bought well and made half a dozen sales.

A rainy Saturday in August was a perfect time to shop an antiques show, and the Saturday crowd was huge. Many used free tickets sent by dealers. Although the crowd on Saturday was twice that on Thursday and Friday, dealers said it was not a buying crowd.

The Palm Beach Show Group gave up the on-line lures it used to get collectors to the show last year. There was no app available this year. Last year one was available that listed dealers and gave them a chance to post what they were going to bring to the show. Scott Diament said few people took advantage of the app last year, and the dealers did not have time to post their stock or did not want to expose it before a show.

The small show catalog was available at the door on Thursday, but it was hard to read without a magnifier. The list of dealers and a floor plan was posted on the Web site. With a click on the business listing the dealer’s name, city, and e-mail popped up, but there were no booth numbers or phone numbers for call backs, and links to dealers’ Web sites were not always provided, which is a feature on dealer association Web sites.

Nevertheless, collectors and dealers came to this show to shop for treasures, and some were found. Some said they did not buy as much as in years past, and others who had not been to Baltimore before enjoyed the hunt, did considerable buying, and went home happy.

The pipe-and-drape section still has a flea market ambience. Dealers congregate there while those dealers are unpacking in hopes of making a find. “I had a great preshow,” said Fred Heintz of Bronxville, New York. “That bodes well for the market.” Others said they did not do much preshow business.

“Art Baltimore,” introduced last year, was featured again this year, but there were not more art dealers this year than last. Art dealers who came brought a broad range of 17th-, 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century paintings and sculpture. There were Russian icons, a watercolor by Victor Hugo, a collage by Joseph Cornell, and an oil by Edward Redfield. There were prints by Gustav Klimt, George Bellows, and Salvador Dali, and silhouettes by Auguste Edouart. A John Seward Johnson II painted bronze of a man on a park bench reading a newspaper was in the middle of the center aisle.

There was very little Americana. Doug and Bev Norwood of Timonium, Maryland, brought folk art; Michael Leslie of Port ’N Starboard, Falmouth, Maine, had marine art; and Heller Washam, Portland, Maine, offered 18th- and early 19th-century American furniture and accessories as did Ed Weissman of Naples, Florida. C. Duncan Connelly of Thirteenth Colony Arts, Atlanta, showed an inlaid Shenandoah Valley chest of drawers, and John Orban of Cadiz, Ohio, had an Aesthetic Movement cabinet attributed to Pottier and Stymus. There were a few other American tables, chests, and chairs on a few other stands.

There was much less silver this year. A mid-19th-century Tiffany Dolphin punch bowl and an 1880s Tiffany oval Viking bowl, both illustrated in John Loring’s book Magnificent Tiffany Silver, were sold by California dealer Conrad DeRosa to a collector, each for a six-figure price. Spencer Marks offered Arts and Crafts silver by Kalo. They sold an Elkington 1894 garniture suite, some modern silver, and a pair of Kalo candlesticks. There was not much Georg Jensen hollowware; the Danish dealers did not return, and Drucker Antiques, Mt. Kisco, New York, brought only jewelry, some of it Danish and some of it Bauhaus, and sold well.

There was French art glass, Austrian Loetz, Tiffany, English cameo glass, French Lalique, and Italian Murano. Glass, ceramics, and Asian arts are the show’s strong suits. Chinese was spoken on every aisle.

Some extraordinary Chinese works of art were for sale at Wen’s Antiques, Richmond, Virginia; TK Asian Antiquities, Williamsburg, Virginia; and Asiantiques, Winter Park, Florida. Mustafa Hassan of Imperial Oriental Art, New York City, and Alberto Santos of London offered fine Chinese export porcelain. There were collectors buying Japanese treasures in several booths.

English pottery was everywhere. Specialists such as A.J. Warren of Wilton, Connecticut; Malcolm Magruder of Millwood, Virginia; Mark Brown and Tim Sublette of Seekers Antiques, Columbus, Ohio; and Marsha Moylan and Jacqueline Smelkinson of The Spare Room, Baltimore, all had shelves full of china. A delft plate, transferware tureen, or a Meissen chocolate pot could be found either up front in the fancy part of the show or back in the pipe-and-drape section.

There were no specialist textile dealers this year, but Frank Shaia of Williamsburg, Virginia, had Oriental rugs.

The jewelers are a show within a show. They deal with each other during setup and have a following at the show. They sell dazzling estate jewelry by all the big names, a lot of it brand new, and undersell retail shops. They seemed happy.

Business was done. There was something for everyone. Bill Rau of M.S. Rau, New Orleans, whose stand is always over the top, said he had a good show. Among his many offerings were Pope Paul VI’s diamond and emerald-studded pectoral cross and 13-carat diamond ring for $1.85 million, a large KPM vase for $228,000, and a circa 1970 Patek Philippe digital clock used in a hospital in Sweden for $128,000. (That’s the price of two large Patek Philippe watches, and there are seven incorporated in its design.) Rau said he sold three paintings, three pieces of jewelry, porcelain, silver, Lalique perfumes, and more.

As at any show, some dealers sold well, and others did not. Some said they sold every day; others said they made few sales but bought well. Some signed up for next year before they packed out; others said because there was no discount incentive to sign up before leaving they would wait and see.

The Baltimore Summer Antiques Show is like no other, and it has a long history. Where else can one spend $475 on a sterling silver container for Silly Putty, $3500 for a vintage 1960s surfboard, $47,500 for an Hermès runway handbag, or $1.85 million for Pope Paul VI’s diamond cross and ring?

The pictures and captions show a small fraction of what was there. For more information, go to (www.baltimoresummerantiques.com).

Ed Weissman of Naples, Florida, asked $52,000 for this Italian bronze court jester, dated 1887, signed by the artistAchille Salata, who was active in Milan in the 1880s. It has two foundry marks, “A Pandiani” and “Milano 1887.” It may represent the court jester in the opera Rigoletto. It is 42" high x 48" wide, and it sold.


Originally published in the November 2014 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2014 Maine Antique Digest

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