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Maine Antique Digest, April 2015 15-B
- SHOW -
☞
W
AS was. The New
York Winter Antiques
Show, held January 23-
February 1, was rebranded THE
WAS. The golden phoenix, its logo
for 60 years, was consumed into
the gold letters “WAS” incorporat-
ing the word “THE” and a white
snowflake, all on a red ground. The
gold initials were on all the banners
on Park Avenue, in the entrance to
the armory, and on the show cat-
alog. Everyone asked, “WAS the
Winter show a thing of the past?”
No!
The change in logo was designed
to mark a modern incarnation for
the 61st edition of the show, a major
fund-raiser for the East Side House
Settlement in the South Bronx. The
message “WAS is NOW” was sup-
posed to prove that antiques are
relevant in the modern world and
announce a new level of excellence
for the show; it is a message hard to
sum up in a logo. No one liked it.
It was supposed to signal that there
was modern design at the show as
well as traditional antiques. There
was, but modern design was not
a big draw. It did not get much
advance publicity; all the publicity
was late, dealers complained.
There were nine dealers new
to the show. British dealers Apter
Fredericks, Ronald Phillips, H.
Blairman & Sons, and Thomas
Coulborn & Sons offered English
furniture at a level of quality not
seen at this show in years. They
sold well and will be back. Dan-
iel Crouch Rare Books, founded
by two young dealers in Oxford
in 2010 and now in London,
brought youth and high-quality
maps, globes, and books. Bow-
man Sculpture, London, and Con-
ner•Rosenkranz, New York City,
made sculpture a stronger category,
not just part of a stand of Ameri-
can paintings. Kelly Kinzle of New
Oxford, Pennsylvania, and Frank
Levy of Bernard and S. Dean Levy,
New York City, added more Amer-
icana to the show. Americana has
always been a draw in New York
in January.
Although Americana dealers
filled just a quarter of the stands,
Americana sales were brisk, and
the fact that more American fur-
niture sold at the preview than
any other category was the talk
of the town during the first week-
end. Because
M.A.D.
is the “The
Marketplace for Americana,” this
review will cover mostly Ameri-
cana with only a brief mention of
American paintings—and there
were some very good ones; it is not
a survey of the entire show.
The American furniture that sold
was sculptural—classic examples
that seemed to appeal to a modern
aesthetic. Some pieces had old sur-
faces, and some were refinished;
form mattered most. Some sold
at prices that seemed reasonable,
down from a decade ago, and some
were offered at new high levels and
sold. “It seems that American furni-
ture has bounced back,” said dealer
David Schorsch ofWoodbury, Con-
necticut. “When in recent years has
a dealer had to send a truck back to
restock his stand as Arthur Liver-
ant did after he sold highboys, low-
boys, a chest-on-chest, paintings,
and weathervanes?”
Peter Eaton of Newbury, Mas-
sachusetts, sold 11 pieces of fur-
niture. Among them was a mahog-
any serpentine-front chest with a
molded-edge top, beaded draw-
ers, canted corners, four dramatic
ogee feet, and a molding below
the base of a carved shell flanked
by C-scrolls. It has an old surface,
original brasses, and a label on the
back that reads “Made and Sold
by W. King/ Salem.” One of only
three pieces labeled by King, it was
featured in September 1927 in
The
Magazine Antiques
where it was
discussed in a three-page article.
At that time it was in the collection
of pioneer collector Mrs. J. Insley
Blair. It sold at the landmark Blair
sale at Christie’s in January 2006
for $36,000 to Leigh Keno and
then went to a private collection.
It appeared on Peter Eaton’s stand
priced for less. A collector who
was surprised to see an “old friend”
he had always admired bought it,
saying, “It is of museum quality!”
Other collectors were just as
thrilled to buy some earlier Amer-
ican furniture. Eaton sold a butter-
fly table, circa 1740, with an undis-
turbed surface, that he said was
the best he had owned in over 40
years in business. Grace and Elliott
Snyder sold a Long Island gate-leg
table, circa 1750, similar to one pic-
tured in Dean Failey’s book
Long
Island Is My Nation
. Nathan Liv-
erant and Son sold a rare flat-top
maple high chest made in Preston,
Connecticut, circa 1760, featuring
fan-carved drawers, freestanding
twisted columns, and ball-and-claw
feet. Tillou Gallery, Litchfield,
Connecticut, sold a sculptural Phil-
adelphia scalloped-top tea table,
refinished, circa 1760, reasonably
priced at $75,000. Frank Levy of
Bernard and S. Dean Levy, New
York City, showing for the first
time, sold a slant-lid maple desk,
a Salem worktable, and a lot more
from his shop on 84th Street during
the week of the show and after. “I
wish I had done shows sooner,”
said Levy. “The follow-up from
the show has been tremendous;
New York City
The 2015 Winter Antiques Show
by Lita Solis-Cohen
The very rare New York gate-leg table in untouched condition
with original butterfly hinges, old finish, and no restoration, red
gum, 27¾" high, 52" wide open, 43½" deep, was from Queens
County, Long Island. An identical table from the same workshop
is pictured in Dean Failey’s
Long Island Is My Nation.
It is in the
Nassau County Museum. Another table is pictured in Wallace
Nutting’s
Furniture Treasury
(fig. 943). It was $85,000, and it was
sold by Elliott and Grace Snyder of South Egremont, Massachu-
setts. The very large folk hooked rug, first quarter 19th century,
about 8' square, was marked $95,000. It was found folded up in a
closet in a house in Rensselaer, New York, near Albany. The Chi-
nese boy figural hitching post is signed “J.L. Mott Iron Works
NY” and is in the 1890 Mott catalog. It was tagged $17,500. The
continuous-arm Windsor sold. The rush-seat chairs with pad
feet, Hudson Valley, are two from a set of four.
The Danielson family fireboard,
attributed to Winthrop Chandler,
1788-89, recently discovered in Kill-
ingly, Connecticut, may be among
the last works created by Winthrop
Chandler (1747-1790). It is oil on
board, 33¾" x 48", and was $165,000
from Elliott and Grace Snyder. It
was painted for the Danielson fam-
ily, friends of the Chandlers, and the
iconography and figures may refer to
the passing of William Danielson’s
son and father.
Pipe tomahawk, inscribed “R. Butler”
(1743-1791) and “Lt. McClellan,” circa
1770, iron, cherry, steel, silver, pewter, and
porcupine quills, end cap replaced. Kelly
Kinzle of New Oxford, Pennsylvania, called
it the finest 18th-century pipe tomahawk
accompanied by a Revolutionary War
history. It is the work of one of the finest
armorers of the period, Richard Butler of
Carlisle and Fort Pitt, Pennsylvania. It was
carried on the march to Quebec during the
American Revolution by the McClellan
brothers, Richard and Daniel, and was cap-
tured by the British. It was in the collection
of the Earls of Warwick and displayed at
Warwick Castle, and then was in the col-
lection of Eugene and Clare Thaw. Kinzle
asked $1,200,000 for it.
Ralph Harvard designed Kelly Kinzle’s stand. Kinzle sold a
Johannes Spitler chest on opening night to a collector on the phone
who said he could not get to the show but had seen the picture
of it in
M.A.D.
and wanted to buy it. The price on the tag was
$675,000. The Compass Artist box on top was $38,000. The Lan-
caster schrank was $67,000; the painting of a Seminole Indian, to
the left of the schrank, by an unknown artist, sold. A Pennsylvania
ladder-back chair is under it. The marine painting is by Antonio
Jacobsen. Some of the rarest Philadelphia fire marks known came
from a single-owner collection assembled over 50 years. Kinzle said
he sold one with an eagle on it to a woman who collects eagles.
W. Graham Arader of Arader Galleries, New York City and
Philadelphia, said Johannes Vingboons’s watercolor bird’s-eye
view of Mexico City, on two sheets joined, 20½" x 29", is the
first image to describe the city accurately, showing its topog-
raphy, geography, and cultural landmarks. After a drawing by
Mexican architect Juan Gomez de Trasmonte in 1628, it shows
the cathedral under construction and an intricate system of
dikes. There are four examples of this watercolor known; three
are bound in atlases in libraries in the Vatican, Florence, and
Vienna. Arader said it is the first example of Vingboons’s work
to come on the market in 70 years. He asked “a punishing price”
of more than $2 million. Arader Galleries photo.
Although
Americana
dealers filled
just a quarter
of the stands,
Americana
sales were
brisk.