Stories for November '14
(Fragment)New Show for Sturbridge
The inaugural Central Massachusetts Antique Show at Sturbridge will be held on December 31 and January 1, 2015, at the Sturbridge Host Hotel and Conference Center in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Over 75 dealers are expected to exhibit.
On Wednesday, December 31, there will be evening hors d’oeuvres, a reception with entertainment, and ... (Read More)
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(Auction)The Lodge Estate Sale
One of the “Twin Greeks” on Main Street, Nantucket, the former residence of Katherine and John Lodge, and one of two of the last houses built on the island by a whaleman.
A 15" x 9" sampler wrought in 1766 by Elisabeth Hadwen (1755-1842) in her 12th year sold for $8260. ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)On-Line Exhibition of Printed British Pottery and Porcelain
A comprehensive on-line exhibition of Printed British Pottery and Porcelain will be launched on October 17. This joint project of the Northern Ceramic Society and the Transferware Collectors Club relates the remarkable story of the production of printed pottery and porcelain in Great Britain from 1750 to 1900. Designed for ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)Exhibitions
Maine Antique Digest includes, as space permits, brief announcements of exhibitions planned by galleries, museums, or other venues. We need all press materials at least six weeks in advance of opening. We need to know the hours and dates of the exhibit, admission charges, and phone number and Web site ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Moving Company Adds Appraisals to Client Checklist
Aware that moving antiques, fine art, and collectibles requires special care, T-N-T Moving Systems, Charlotte, North Carolina, has upgraded its moving policy to include current appraisals in its client checklist.
T-N-T Moving Systems co-owner Todd Koepke said, “You see appraisal values change over time, so it’s important that when we do ... (Read More)
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(Computer Article)Cloud Computing
Painter of clouds John Constable (1776-1837) could not have known that 200 years later copies of his works could be purchased from a computer cloud.
Computer Column #311
John P. Reid, [email protected]
We have mentioned cloud computing in the past. Many large businesses prepare and store all their records and documents using programs ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Historic New England Awards Book Prize
Historic New England has awarded its 20th annual book prize to Curiosities of the Craft: Treasures from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts Collection by Aimee E. Newell, Hilary Anderson Stelling, and Catherine Compton Swanson, and “With Éclat”: The Boston Athenaeum and the Origin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ... (Read More)
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(Book Review)Books Received, November 2014
These are brief reviews of books recently sent to us. We have included ordering information for publishers that accept mail, phone, or on-line orders. For other publishers, your local bookstore or mail-order house is the place to look.
Bernard Langlais at the Colby College Museum of Artby Hannah W. Blunt (Colby ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)Letter from London, November 2014
Ian McKay, <[email protected]>
Now Showing and Coming Soon
I started out with every intention of including old master drawings from the London summer season in this month’s selection, but then having tackled the Russian pictures first, gone on to add the Ceres rings for something very rare and much more recent, and ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)What Price History?
Editorial
An off-the-cuff remark from Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman should be troubling to those in the antiques business. When asked about the cost of restoring almost 40 chairs original to the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln, the governor said there were better uses for the taxpayers’ money and that he would ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)Leslie Fliegel Lost and Found: His Work through the Lens of Time
Fig. 1. Cecil Crosley Bell (1906-1970), Subway, oil on canvas, whereabouts unknown. From the on-line blog by Bas van Houwelingen of the Netherlands.
Fig. 2. Leslie Fliegel’s Clothes Line Fantasy, a circa 1950 oil on canvas, 44" x 37", from a private collection, is currently on exhibit at Connoisseur Gallery, Bedminster, ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Mount Vernon Selects Senior Curator
Susan P. Schoelwer has been appointed the Robert H. Smith Senior Curator at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Schoelwer has served as Mount Vernon’s curator since 2010. In that capacity she has overseen the recent refurnishing and reinterpretation of George Washington’s “New Room,” the reinstallation of the greenhouse slave quarters, and ... (Read More)
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(Show)Michael Weinberg, West Pelham Antiques, Pelham, Massachusetts
Michael Weinberg with his miniature basket collection, some of which are for sale. “I do occasionally take one to a show,” he said. They range between $50 and $200.
A tea caddy with inset panels of sampler pieces, one of which is dated 1804. He thinks the caddy may be from ... (Read More)
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(The Art of Marketing)False Advertising
The Art of Marketing
It occurred to me the other night while reading a magazine and seeing an ad that I’ll classify as being very deceptive that it is very rare to see deceptive advertising in the antiques business, and so I say bravo! It’s so nice not to see ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Peter Tillou Gives Glass to Carnegie
From left: A pillar-molded celery glass of yellow glass, blown with eight ribs, tooled at the rim to produce a wavy effect, with an applied circular stem and foot, ground pontil mark, 1840-70, 9½" high x 5 3/8" diameter; pitcher of white, red, and blue glass, blown in white, trailed ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Vintage Marketplace and Grand Rapids Antiques Market Combine for Show in January
The Grand Rapids Antiques Market in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the popular Vintage Marketplace are joining forces this year, creating a bigger weekend of antiques shopping.
Vintage Promotions, producer of the Grand Rapids Antiques Market, will team up with Jenkins Management, producer of the Vintage Marketplace, which is held in Tennessee, ... (Read More)
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(Auction Law and Ethics)Prepare to Get Ready
Auction Law & Ethics
“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” Alexander Graham Bell—engineer, innovator, inventor, scientist, and inventor of the telephone—is credited with that chestnut, and truer words he never penned. An alternate version I was taught as a young lawyer is this: “Preparation is nine-tenths of the ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Owners of Garth's Auctions Buy Selkirk's Assets
Assets associated with Ivey-Selkirk Auctioneers, St. Louis, Missouri, including company names and other intellectual property, have been purchased by Legacy Group STL, Inc., which is owned by Jeff and Amelia Jeffers. The couple, who also own Garth’s Auctions, Delaware, Ohio, are revitalizing the longstanding Selkirk brand as Selkirk Auctioneers & ... (Read More)
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(Young Collectors)There and Back Again
The Young Collector
Sometimes, you need to repeat an experience, even a difficult one, just to be able to have the satisfaction of utilizing what you learned from the awkward, inefficient way you did it the first time. Sometimes, you need to repeat an experience because you’re Homer Simpson and you ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Collector Alleges He Was Sold Two Tiffany Fakes
Florida collector Alfred A. Turner Jr. spent $100,000 in 2012 to buy two Tiffany lamps from Buffalo, New York, dealer Lawrence Ludtka, who calls his shop Larry’s Antiques. After Turner was rebuffed when he tried to consign one of the lamps to auction, he had them both evaluated and became ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Biography of an Object Writing Contest
Garth’s third annual Biography of an Object writing contest kicked off on October 1. “The entries last year were tremendous,” said contest sponsor and founder Amelia Jeffers, president of Garth’s Auctioneers, Delaware, Ohio.
The idea grabbed the attention of Jeffers while assisting her daughter with a school assignment. “I remember entering ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Closet Safe Door Turns Up in York
The discovery of a closet safe door with the words “Henson’s Improv’d Closet Safe” punched in the tin on the bottom panel, a punched-tin portrait of George Washington in the middle panel, and a punched-tin star-in-circle design on the top panel was the biggest discovery at Melvin Arion’s Original York ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Chinese Vase Brings $24,723,000
The Qianlong period imperial vase became the most expensive object sold at an auction in New England when it brought $24,723,000. Skinner, Inc. photo.
A monumental (38¾" x 10¾") Qing Dynasty, Qianlong period fencai vase became the highest-grossing object sold at auction in New England and achieved the highest price ever ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Collectors Sue over Missing Warhol "Shoes"
Amy Koler and Stephen Meyer, collectors from St. Petersburg, Florida, filed suit in Maricopa County Court in Arizona on September 10, claiming that an Andy Warhol screenprint they had left with a gallery for safekeeping was sold without their knowledge or approval. They are alleging fraud, conversion, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Massachusetts Court Sets Safeguard for Artist-Consigned Art
On September 9, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, the highest legal authority in the state, answered a question asked by 14 artists and their legal team. The question: to whom does the art belong when a gallery owner goes bankrupt—the owner of the gallery or the artist who created ... (Read More)
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(Show)The 2014 Baltimore Summer Antiques Show
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 ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)Jewelry Dealers at the Coastal Maine Antiques Show
Antique Jewelry & Gemology
The Maine Antiques Dealers Association (MADA) held its annual single-day show on August 20, a week earlier than in past years, in hopes that summer residents and vacationers would attend. The show benefits MADA and the Damariscotta River Association and is held at Round Top Farm in ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Four Days and $5.7 Million Later
Waldo Peirce’s oil on canvas of the Coast Guard at “the Silver Slipper,” Key West sold for $48,585, and Don Ernesto Con Una Bonito capped the Peirce artworks at $53,325.
A 24" x 20" oil on canvasboard by Marguerite Zorach (1887-1968) of a forest waterfall sold for $31,995. Julia photo.
This not-so-little ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Gamage Sale Marks the Beginning of the End of Summer
Connecticut silk embroidery by Emily Chandler, descending through the original family to the consignor, $27,600.
John McCoy (1910-1989) broke with his family’s business tradition to follow his passion for art. He married Andrew Wyeth’s sister Ann and often painted with Andrew in Maine and Pennsylvania. This roughly 24" x 18" ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Rare Revolutionary War Map Tops Portsmouth Auction
The top lot of the sale was the 16" x 30¼" hand-drawn map of the Battle of Monmouth by Michel Capitaine du Chesnoy (1746-1804), the cartographer and aide-de-camp of Marquis de Lafayette. It was estimated at $90,000/150,000, but a private collector, bidding by phone, had to pay $486,400 to own ... (Read More)
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(Show)Whitehawk Antique Indian and Ethnographic Art Show
Navajo rug specialist Eric Phillips of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was asking $48,000 for this 1910-20 large Zia jar, 17" tall x 22" diameter. “The show was well attended,” Phillips told M.A.D., “with a lot of interest in everything. I sold more historic jars than Navajo weaving.”
This circa 1900 Apache figural ... (Read More)
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(Show)The Crown Jewel of Maine Antiques Shows
A $10,000 American celestial globe stood prominently with show newcomer Michael Corbett of The Federalist Antiques, Kenilworth, Illinois. Standing on a tripod pedestal with paw feet and acanthus leaf carvings on the knees, it was made by T. M. Bardin of London in the early 19th century.
Robert Foley of Gray, ... (Read More)
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(Show)The 2014 Great Southwestern Antique Show
An anonymous buyer seemed entranced by the items in Susan Swift’s space. She and Erich Erdoes do business in Santa Fe under her name. That buffalo robe, circa 1890, was a magnificent $25,000. The beaded and quilled bags to the right were $7500 each.
John Durbin of Redding, California, displayed this ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Skinner Scores Big with Americana
A SkinnerLive! Internet buyer won this 57" high polychromed and carved figure of an Indian princess figure by Samuel Robb of New York City for $92,250. Skinner sold a quite similar Indian princess figure on October 20, 2011, for $71,000.
Polychrome painted carved “black dandy” tobacconist figure, wearing wildly painted clothes, ... (Read More)
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(Show)“Only the Good Ones Is Still Here!”
Not too long ago somebody paid $2200 at auction for one of these Johnson’s Peacemaker Coffee advertising tins in the form of a log cabin, so you better grab this one from Paul and Nancy Hahn of Country Things, Bowie, Maryland, for $1300. It was dated 1915. The Johnson-Layne Coffee ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Sale of Vintage Posters Skyrockets into Immortality
A 37" x 27" condition A recruitment poster by Howard Chandler Christy (1873-1952) that depicts a young woman in uniform, considered at the time of its design in 1915 to be a provocative and daring World War I image, went to an Internet bidder and set an auction record at ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)Quadricentennial of Captain John Smith's Landing, 1614-2014
Crowd at the top of Wharf Hill during the tercentennial celebration. The woman with dark sweater left of center is George Bellows’s wife, Emma. Jenney collection. Courtesy Monhegan Island Art and History Museum.
Monhegan Cornet Band, 1914. In the front row, left, is George Bellows. Courtesy Monhegan Island Art and History ... (Read More)
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(Auction)California and Western Art Summer Auction
A Normandy Farm (23¾" x 28¾") by Guy Rose sold for $275,000 (est. $300,000/500,000). The buyer, from northern California, is a longtime collector of Guy Rose and a longtime buyer at Levitt’s auctions. Even at this price—or especially at this price—Levitt called this a relative bargain. “A good buy for ... (Read More)
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(Show)Eldred's Americana and Paintings
What’s a summer sale on Cape Cod without a sprinkling of Ralph Cahoon (1910-1982) paintings? The dock scene, on the left, realized $29,500; the fishing scene on the top right, Sea Siren, 14" x 18", brought $11,800. At bottom right, Martha Cahoon’s (1905-1999) oil on masonite scene of sailors and ... (Read More)
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(Auction)When the Flock Landed in Hyannis
The widgeon drake by Joseph Whiting Lincoln, one of only two such examples by Lincoln in such fine original condition, brought a record $97,750.
A notation beneath the left breast of the proud preening widgeon by Crisfield, Maryland, carver Lem Ward revealed its title, “Sunbathing-Lem Ward-1969-1 of 50.” It fetched $18,400. ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Summer Auction 2014
The 18th-century spice cabinet on turned ball feet and in old green paint, 21¼" high x 19½" wide x 10½" deep, attracted much interest because it was believed to have local origins. It sold for $33,925.
This Provincetown, Massachusetts, street scene by Henry Hensche (1899-1992), oil on canvas, 23" x 27", ... (Read More)
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(Show)The 2014 Newport Antiques Show
This 100- to 120-year-old horizontal wool rug from the north of China was on display by Karen and Ralph DiSaia of Oriental Rugs Ltd., Old Lyme, Connecticut. It measures 3'9" x 5'10" and was priced at $2800. A security guard at the show walked by the booth and asked the ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Garth’s Branches Out
Three-piece silver tea set, monogrammed and with applied birds and trees, Chinese, early 20th century, “T & C” hallmark, dents, $3240.
Steuben glass vase with an etched abstract and geometric decoration over “F. Leger,” signed, New York, circa 1939, 11½" high, the original presentation and shipping boxes with Steuben labels, minor ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Case Antiques July Auction: Two Major Sales a Year Proves a Winning Formula
Many people grew up with the distinctive views of New England life painted by Charles Wysocki (1928-2002), who began his career as a commercial artist working in the advertising field. Among the lots drawn from the 20th-century art collection of Stephen and Lisa Steiner Small of Nashville was this Wysocki ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)The 18th Dish Camp at Eastfield Village
Odd things of ceramic interest show up on the tables in the 1836 church where lectures are held.
This shows a mix of pottery wasters from a pit in Burslem, Staffordshire, England with extant examples and some re-created examples made by Don Carpentier to match, using his one-of-a-kind rose and crown ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Appellate Court Rules in Case about Thomas Cole's "Portage Falls on the Genesee"
A June 28, 2013, decree of the Surrogate’s Court, Cayuga County, New York, denied the motion of the Fred L. Emerson Foundation, Inc. to dismiss the petition for appointment of an administrator, and granted “Letters of Administration” to the petitioner, limited to enforcement of a charitable gift under the last ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Collector-Friendly Southern Pottery Sale
At $25,300, this rare Salem, North Carolina, cast redware fish flask was the top-priced lot in this sale. In the society’s over 40 sales and 20 years of auctions, this is only the fifth such example offered. Extremely detailed scales, fins, gills, and eyes are protected by a generously applied ... (Read More)
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