Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:22:52 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Antiques :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/antiques istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us CLARE HENRY http://www.nysun.com/antiques/silver-medals/86458/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Sinclair and Raye Heather Chen acquired their first piece of antique silver soon after they married. "We were in Hong Kong, strolling hand in hand, when we saw this beautiful silver box for sale. We loved it, so we bought it," Mrs. Chen said. They did not plan to make a collection, but gradually their silver treasures grew. "We both love the arts: museums, history, culture. Collecting silver was something new that we did together." The Chen Collection, now numbering 500 pieces, focuses on... TOM TEODORCZUK http://www.nysun.com/antiques/shes-one-good-egg/86457/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Mitzi Perdue only moved to New York City in the spring, but since that time, as befits an accomplished social hostess, 640 people have flocked to her apartment at 800 Fifth Ave. for charity fund-raisers and literary launches. It's not just the causes that have proved the attraction. Mrs. Perdue's home contains a global trove of treasures, comprising European, Russian, and Chinese antiques. To attend Mrs. Perdue's social occasions is akin to attending an antiques fair with a party to boot. Yet... JAY AKASIE http://www.nysun.com/antiques/all-hail-americana/86459/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Several pieces of exceptional American antiques will hit the auction block here at the end of this week. Sotheby's holds a Friday morning sale of a collection of Americana belonging to the late Rear Admiral Edward Peerman Moore. The admiral and his wife were avid collectors whose friendship with the furniture dealer Israel Sack helped form one of the 20th century's highest-quality collections. Among the Moore items up for sale is a Chippendale cherrywood block-front chest of drawers probably... MEGHAN KEANE http://www.nysun.com/antiques/the-peoples-house/86030/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Gracie Mansion has seen its share of ups and downs. The site of the mayor's official residence has been bombed, foreclosed on, and used as an ice cream parlor. Mayor Bloomberg has never lived in the space. He refers to the building that overlooks Hell Gate, where the Harlem and East rivers meet, as "The People's House," and has increased accessibility to the public and to city agencies. Fittingly, the contents of the house reflect the varied history of the building — and the city. One of the... ALEX TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/antiques/beauty-of-the-artful-dodgers/86026/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Can an imitation ever beat the real thing? That's the question 4,000 vintage car collectors and fans will be asking this weekend when they travel to the Fairfield County Concours d'Elegance in Westport, Conn. In addition to rare and expensive Duesenbergs, Delahayes, and Horches, they can also expect to see, if maybe not notice, a display of "artful dodgers," or cars that are acknowledged to be reproductions: replicas, kit-cars, and out-and-out copies of classic car models. Some of the "artful... CLARE HENRY http://www.nysun.com/travel/upstate-treasure-hunting/85977/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Antiques have been the impetus for the upstate town of Hudson's renaissance from dereliction to flourishing weekend destination. Located just two hours north of Manhattan, it is home to shops that cater to weekend browsers and serious collectors. The 60 storefronts on Hudson's Warren Street sell everything from Americana to Biedermeier, Edwardian to Eames — in just seven blocks. When dealer Alain Pioton — who specializes in French antiques — arrived in 1982, he opened Hudson Antiques Center... ALEX TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/antiques/a-studio-craft-going-glam/85521/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Anyone who thinks that all the major figures of postwar American furniture have been accounted for should think again, and think hard about the American Studio Furniture movement. Rizzoli in November will publish "Modern Americana: Studio Furniture from High Craft to High Glam," an ambitious survey of 26 furniture makers, designers, and decorators. Edited by Todd Merrill, a well-known dealer in postwar American furniture, and Julie V. Iovine, editor of the Architect's Newspaper, "Modern... JAY AKASIE http://www.nysun.com/antiques/jerusalems-hip-historic-hood/85522/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST JERUSALEM — In an age when people spend more time in front of their computer screens than they do interacting face-to-face, a noted architect has skillfully drawn on his knowledge of history and antiques to design one of the most striking and beautiful urban spaces in the world. Most of the Mamila-Alrov Quarter opened this season in Jerusalem, capping off a 35-year quest of the Canadian-Israeli architect Moshe Safdie to create a thoroughly modern shopping and dining destination just outside the... NELL GLUCKMAN http://www.nysun.com/antiques/paris-set-for-24th-biennale-des-antiquaires/85058/ Wed, 3 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Perhaps the mostly highly anticipated international antiques and fine arts fair, the 24th Biennale des Antiquaires, will open in Paris on September 11 and run through the 21st. The fair is housed at the Grand Palais — a grand open space with Art Nouveau ironwork and glass-topped ceilings — located just off the Champs-Elysées. This year, the Biennale, organized by the Syndicat National des Antiquaires, will showcase 8,000 objects in every decorative style from the seventh century to the 1970s... ALEX TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/antiques/shipping-precious-loot-locally/85059/ Wed, 3 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Shopping for antiques can be as easy as opening your wallet. But after you score a great deal on that mahogany drop-leaf table in Brooklyn, how do you get it home to the Upper East Side? Enter the antiques handlers. They are the movers — if not shakers — of New York's antiques market. But the people who pack, ship, and truck all manner of old and breathtakingly expensive things through the city's nexus of galleries, auction houses, private homes, and museums need more than muscle. Lugging is... SHIRA LEVINE http://www.nysun.com/antiques/bringing-it-back-intact/85060/ Wed, 3 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Global shoppers looking to adorn their homes with found treasures such as Victorian crystoleums and Barbolla mirrors stroll London's Portobello Road. Across the channel, the Biennale des Antiquaires (whose Web site is bdafrance.eu) comes to the Grand Palais in Paris September 11-21. Artworks dating from the Middle Ages, prized manuscripts, and modern designs by Prouvé, Le Corbusier, and Ettore Sottsass are yours for the taking. But the hard work isn't just the acquisition of, say, a fabulous... JAY AKASIE http://www.nysun.com/antiques/teaching-children-the-benefits-of-restoration/84677/ Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST One of the most desirable features of antique furniture is the patina that comes with age — so much so that an aggressive refinishing job will often diminish the market value of a piece. Dirt and grime aren't as glamorous, however, when the antique in question is a prominent work of public, outdoor art. That's why the area around Grant's Tomb in Morningside Heights is once again home to hundreds of busy volunteers as they restore "The Rolling Bench," a 35-year-old, multicolor mosaic sculpture... ALEX TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/antiques/vintage-automobiles-in-the-litchfield-hills/84678/ Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Antique car enthusiasts from the Northeast and beyond will travel to Lime Rock Park this weekend for the annual Rolex Vintage Festival of historic car races, car shows, and coveting thy neighbor's car. The hilly, winding, recently repaved racetrack, which sits at the foot of the Berkshires in Connecticut's rural Litchfield Hills, occupies a sacred place in American motor sports. Built by the son of a local farmer who laid out the course with a bulldozer, the 1.54-mile track opened in 1957... JAY AKASIE http://www.nysun.com/antiques/sothebys-to-sell-british-guns/84200/ Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Every serious sportsman knows that by late August, the Scottish Highlands offer an array of riches. Grouse season is a couple weeks under way. Deer stalking is at its peak, and the fly-fishing doesn't get any better. Sotheby's annual sale of antique sporting guns at the Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland is popular this time of year because winning bidders can walk out the door and take to the field with their elegantly engraved rifles and shotguns. City bankers and sundry members of the English... ALEX TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/antiques/williamsburg-now-rising-on-the-antiques-map/84204/ Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Williamsburg, Brooklyn, may be known for its edge-pushing art and music scenes, but when it comes to antiques, the neighborhood watchword is "used." Home to innumerable thrift, vintage, and secondhand stores, Williamsburg has comparatively little in the way of antiques. But that may be changing. Where there's money, there's a market for antiques. And that scene is taking shape along Grand Street, running west from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to the East River. Portmanteau (81 Grand St., near... JAY AKASIE http://www.nysun.com/antiques/masks-jade-more/83790/ Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST While all eyes are on the athletes at the Olympic Games in Beijing, collectors of Chinese art and antiques will have a chance to flex their competitive muscles, too. On August 24, the I.M. Chait Gallery's International Fine Arts Auction in Beverly Hills, Calif., will feature sculpture, porcelains, and a substantial cache of jade carvings. The Chait Gallery customarily holds the majority of its sales in New York City, but this month's sale is located on the West Coast to accommodate the growing... ALEX TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/antiques/shopping-for-art-deco-in-manhattan/83739/ Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST If there's a genre of antiques that suits New York best, it is Art Deco. Even today, the city still dreams in the Deco style, which reached its peak between the mid-1920s and World War II. Manhattan is dotted with first-rate examples of the streamlined, machine-age, and, above all, elegant style, from the Chrysler Building to the Sherry Netherland Hotel. "Deco represented modernity," historian David Garrard Lowe said. Mr. Lowe, who is the author of "Art Deco New York," said that while the style... ALEX TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/antiques/key-moments-in-art-deco/83740/ Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST 1925 The Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes takes place in Paris from April to October. It is believed that the name "Art Deco" originated at this fair, where major designers Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Jules LeLeu showed their work. 1928 Construction begins on New York's Chrysler Building on September 19. Designed by William Van Alen, the building was one of the first clad with a stainless steel façade. Its terraced crescent shapes and automobile motifs make... PIA CATTON http://www.nysun.com/antiques/antique-rugs-with-stripes-and-stars/83247/ Wed, 6 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Though antique rugs are functional, they're also works of art. In appreciation of this duality, ABC Carpet & Home is organizing an exhibition and sale of rugs with a shared design motif: stars and stripes. On view — and available for purchase — this Friday, the rugs are far from symbols of American patriotism. Used in disparate nomadic cultures, the stripe designs come in every length and shape. And though stars may be thought of as religious imagery, they are more likely to have been inspired... ALEX TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/antiques/wallpaper-lives/83248/ Wed, 6 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Wallpaper makes the background, rather than the main attraction of a room. But at Secondhand Rose, the reverse is true: wallpaper is front and center. The store, which bills itself as the largest seller of antique wallpaper in the world, occupies the first two floors of a cast-iron storefront on Duane Street in TriBeCa. Though it also trades in antiques and furniture, Secondhand Rose's specialty is wallpaper — 50,000 rolls of it, lining the back of the store and filling a second-story attic... KATE TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/antiques/rooms-preserved-in-watercolor-paintings/83256/ Wed, 6 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Henry James described his novel "The Spoils of Poynton" — in which a mother and a son fall out concerning the fate of the contents of the family home — as nothing less than a tragedy about furniture. It is "a story of cabinets and chairs and tables," he wrote in the preface to the 1908 edition, and of the "passions, the faculties, the forces [that] their beauty ... like that of antique Helen of Troy, set[s] in motion." If this sounds extreme, it was an extremism characteristic of the age. In... JAY AKASIE http://www.nysun.com/antiques/antiques-the-hells-kitchen-way/82833/ Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST While the new flea market in Fort Greene has shoppers and churchgoers at odds, things are relatively peaceful at the Hell's Kitchen flea market. Dealers from all around the Northeast come to this stretch of pavement on 39th Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues. When the "Garage," the market's two-floor annex in an indoor parking garage on West 25th Street, closes this fall, the former garage-based dealers will join the gang on 39th Street. But even that is likely to be a smooth transition... ALEX TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/antiques/staten-island-has-antiques-too/82834/ Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Staten Island is far removed from Manhattan's antiques and auction scene, but where there is supply and demand, there is a market. And Richmond Galleries, Staten Island's only auction house, serves that market. Founded in 1888 by Clare Brown, the business was originally a carriage and storage company. The Brown family has operated the company for 120 years, but the stock has shifted with the times. Today, Richmond Galleries sells a variety of merchandise, much of which comes from lawyers... MARISA KABAS http://www.nysun.com/antiques/shopping-the-bridgehampton-fair/82835/ Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST If the drive from Manhattan to Montauk gets you down, there will a pleasant diversion along the way later this month: the Antiques & Design in the Hamptons show from August 15 to 17. A benefit for the Bridgehampton Historical Society, this four-year-old event includes 50 dealers under sprawling white tents on the grounds of the historical society's Corwith House. Located in the heart of Bridgehampton, the fair is orchestrated by Stella Show Management Company, a Manhattan-based firm that... JAMES GARDNER http://www.nysun.com/antiques/colors-that-last-forever/82464/ Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST This Friday, the Enamels Room at the Frick Collection will reopen to the public, after several months of refurbishing. Included among its bronzes, Limoges dishes, and paintings by Duccio, Piero della Francesca, and others will be an entirely new addition: a splendid majolica charger that once belonged to Baron Adolphe de Rothschild and that has now been donated to the museum by Dianne Modestini, in memory of her late husband, Mario. To an eminent degree, this work exhibits one of the great... ALEX TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/antiques/selling-prints-for-generations/82427/ Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST If you have an interest in 19th-century American prints, chances are good that you will one day find yourself at the Old Print Shop. The gallery is crammed with wooden cases containing maps and prints of every possible subject. The walls are hung with Currier & Ives scenes, Audubon birds, and the occasional Winslow Homer print. The warm, crowded shop has occupied the same first-floor storefront on Lexington Avenue, between 29th and 30th streets, since the 1920s. And after 110 years in business... MARISA KABAS http://www.nysun.com/antiques/castle-howard-revisited/82428/ Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST When the new film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel "Brideshead Revisited" opens Friday, audiences will see an estate of unparalleled splendor: Castle Howard, the palatial 18th-century home and gardens where the movie was filmed. Located in the northern English town of York, the home was also used as the setting for the television miniseries adaptation of the same novel that ran in the early 1980s. When the team behind the new feature film scouted a location for the cinematic version, they... ALEX TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/antiques/a-designing-gentleman/81979/ Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST The late 18th century and early 19th century was an active era for English collectors of art, furniture, and objects. Men such as architect Sir John Soane — who filled his London townhouse to the roof with curiosities — led the way. But one collector of the period, Thomas Hope (1769-1831), can also claim to have designed his own furniture for popular consumption. The dual sides of Hope's achievement — as a collector and a designer — will be on display at the Bard Graduate Center's exhibit... JAY AKASIE http://www.nysun.com/antiques/cathedral-restoration-courtesy-of-magna-carta/81980/ Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST To embark on the mother of all restoration projects, it's good to have the mother of all historical documents to help with the fund-raising efforts. An original 1215 version of the Magna Carta, which sat lost and forgotten in the archives of England's medieval Lincoln Cathedral for six centuries, is coming to Manhattan this fall. The visit is part of an aggressive fund-raising campaign aimed at restoring the cathedral, which conservators and architectural consultants estimate will have to come... PIA CATTON http://www.nysun.com/antiques/wine-sun-shopping/81981/ Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST EAST HAMPTON — The East Hampton Antiques Show is only in its second year, but its benefit preview last weekend suggested that it is poised for success. Presented by the East Hampton Historical Society, the show included 60 dealers selected for their understanding of East End tastes. "We chose dealers who are based out here or who have a lot of clients here," the society's executive director, Richard Barons, said. "It's not Americana. We wanted something different. It had to be worth the trouble... ALEX TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/antiques/summer-antiques-fairs-and-finds/81467/ Wed, 9 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST During the dog days of summer, the New York City antiques scene disperses. Dealers take Friday afternoons off. Collectors go on vacation, taking their appetites for acquisition with them. Even so, July and August offer fairs to attend, objects to discover, and bargains to be found. You need only know where to look. And that means a trip outside of New York City — maybe to the Hamptons, where collectors and dealers companionably cohabitate in vacation settings, or Rhinebeck, a small town in... MARISA KABAS http://www.nysun.com/antiques/paint-it-black-zang-tois-antiques-transformed/81468/ Wed, 9 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST The antiques that line the Upper East Side home of the fashion designer Zang Toi appear a bit puzzling at first. The classic shapes suggest an 18th-century French décor, but there is no sign of the dark brown wood or gilded accents that one might expect. That doesn't mean they're not there. When Mr. Toi decided to redecorate, he wanted an entirely black-and-white color scheme. But to achieve a mix of the classic and the modern, he had to change the look of several pieces of furniture. In some...