Maine Antique Digest April 2015

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16-B Maine Antique Digest, April 2015
- SHOW -
a steady stream of people have come to the gallery and
bought.”
Todd Prickett of C.L. Prickett, Yardley, Pennsylvania,
sold a small four-drawer Philadelphia chest of drawers
with a dark old surface and a Connecticut desk-and-book-
case before the first weekend was over. Windsor furniture
sold, too. David Schorsch sold a large Philadelphia comb-
back Windsor attributed to Thomas Gilpin; the price was
$125,000. Grace and Elliott Snyder of South Egremont,
Massachusetts, sold a continuous-arm New England
Windsor, and Barbara Pollack of Highland Park, Illinois,
sold a Windsor settee made in Maryland and branded by
the maker, D. How. Kelly Kinzle sold a Johannes Spitler
painted blanket chest with sensational graphics made in
the Shenandoah Valley. Kinzle bought it at Freeman’s a
year ago in partnership with two other dealers. The asking
price was $675,000. It was the most expensive piece of
American furniture at the show.
Kinzle also had the most expensive piece of Ameri-
cana (not counting paintings). He asked $1.2 million
for an exceptional tomahawk made of iron, steel, silver,
pewter, wood, and porcupine quills that is inscribed “R.
Butler” and “Lt. McClellan.” It was made by R. Butler,
an armorer in Carlisle and Fort Pitt, Pennsylvania. Rich-
ard McClellan carried it en route to Quebec in 1775 but
died on the journey. His brother, Daniel, also a rifleman
in the company, was captured in the Battle of Quebec.
The tomahawk was picked up by the British, taken back
to Britain, and entered the collection at Warwick Castle
as a war souvenir. It was later in the collection of the
legendary American collectors Clare and Eugene Thaw.
There were some extraordinary textiles at the fair, but
not many sold. Olde Hope Antiques, New Hope, Penn-
sylvania, sold a 20th-century quilt with appliquéd and
embroidered elephants on a red ground. Stephen and
Carol Huber of Old Saybrook, Connecticut, sold a few
schoolgirl embroideries.
There were not many sales of naïve portraits. Tillou
Gallery, Litchfield, Connecticut, sold a large full-length
portrait of a boy by Joseph Whiting Stock (1815-1855)
and a pair of portraits by Ammi Phillips (1788-1865) as
well as a fine Thomas Chambers (1808-1869) oil paint-
ing after a print of the battle between the Constitution
and the Guerrière.
There were sales of expensive smalls. A monumental
Iroquois burl bowl was sold as a piece of sculpture by
Barbara Pollack. A small valuables chest painted green
was sold by Grace and Elliott Snyder, who also sold
a pair of engraved pipe tongs and a rare pair of circa
1660 English trumpet-form pewter taper sticks. David
Schorsch and Eileen Smiles sold a painted paper box that
sold at the Sotheby Parke Bernet Garbisch sale at Pokety
Farms in 1980 for $7975. It was priced at $35,000 at the
show. Schorsch and Smiles also sold a Shaker sconce from
the Andrewses’ collection, and a pair of miniature figure-
heads from the Little and Esmerian collections. The Win-
ter show is where icons of American folk art get recycled.
Two pig weathervanes made by L.W. Cushing and
Sons in Waltham, Massachusetts, left the Schorsch and
Smiles stand for a new home. Allan Katz of Woodbridge,
Connecticut, sold a large early carved and painted wood
full-bodied cock weathervane, 1800-25, and he sold
most of what was on his stand: a monkey bar diorama,
made in a prison, out of of wood, peach pits, fabric, and
plastic; the Bingham family Civil War secretary, a trib-
ute to a hero of the battle of Antietam; a German Noah’s
ark, from the Erzgebirge region, with eight figures and
173 pairs of animals, birds, and insects; a stoneware bulb
pot with incised cobalt decoration; and William “Willie”
Howard’s plantation desk made in Madison County, Mis-
sissippi. Only two other examples of Willie Howard’s
work are known; one is at the Wadsworth Atheneum and
the other at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
Lori Cohen of Arader Galleries, New York City
and Philadelphia, said they had a fabulous show, sell-
ing across the board, including maps, botanical prints,
watercolors, and a color-plate book.
Interest at the show led to sales at the
galleries.
Ahead of the Curve, the loan exhi-
bition from the Newark Museum,
demonstrated that the museum
acquired some of the finest ancient,
American, Asian, African, and
American Indian art long before
those categories of collecting were
fashionable. The museum has had
its Georgia O’Keeffe white flower
painting of the Jimson Weed since
1946. It is similar to the one sold at
Sotheby’s on November 20, 2014, for
$44,405,000 to Alice Walton for the
Crystal Bridges Museum of Amer-
ican Art. The one at Newark is the
first in the series and was acquired
from An American Place, the Madi-
son Avenue gallery that Alfred Stieg-
litz ran from 1929 until his death in
1946.
The Winter Antiques Show continues to be a breeding
ground for new collectors and a comfortable place for
sophisticated collectors to find good things at a vetted
show in a marketplace where it is difficult for dealers
to make a profit. The weather is always part of the Win-
ter show. It is January in New York, not Palm Beach.
On a snowy day when museums and major highways
were closed, people in the neighborhood flocked to the
show even though the caterer could not get food to the
armory until 4 p.m. “Chubb night” was changed from
Tuesday to Wednesday, and 1300 people came since the
show stayed open until 8 p.m. The last weekend the show
was crowded. The Winter show seems like the last of the
old-time vetted antiques and art shows that attract a large
buying crowd.
The show is carefully tuned each year by an experienced
team led by cochairs Arie L. Kopelman, Lucinda Ballard,
and Michael Lynch and its executive director, Catherine
Sweeney Singer. They work all year to create a show that
produces nearly 25% of the budget that supports the pro-
grams at the East Side House Settlement in the South Bronx;
8000 individuals benefit from its programs that include lit-
eracy and other educational programs. Of the 300 graduates
of the high school programs last year, 75% went to college.
For more information, check the Web site (www.
The circa 1772 cherry tall-
case clock by Benjamin Wil-
lard (1743-1803), the oldest of
the four clockmaking Willard
brothers, was numbered 135
and priced at $38,500 from
Delaney Antique Clocks,
West Townsend, Massachu-
setts, which is celebrating its
50th year in business.
William Hunt Diederich (1884-1953),
Playing Horses fire screen, circa 1925,
wrought iron, sheet metal, mesh, 43¼"
x 47¾" x 9¼", $125,000 from Con-
ner-Rosenkranz, New York City.
Ammi Phillips portrait of a child
in pink with a dog, 1830-35, oil on
canvas, 31" x 25", $450,000 from
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New
York City.
Hirschl & Adler Galleries asked $125,000 for
this Gothic Revival armoire, New York, 1835-40,
mahogany with brass hardware, 164" high x 73"
wide.
This red and black pieced, quilted, and embroidered
quilt with elephants, 1910-40, Pennsylvania or Mary-
land, 90" x 77", was $18,500; the George Washington
and Columbia iron stove figures, each 61½" tall, painted
white, designed and patented by Alonzo Blanchard
(1799-1864), Albany, New York, 1843-50, were $42,000
from Olde Hope Antiques, New Hope, Pennsylvania.
This circa 1890 fireman’s hat and
trumpet molded copper weathervane,
attributed to J.W. Fiske, New York,
from the HYC Hose No. 2 Unadilla,
New York, 30" high x 33" long, with
verdigris patina and traces of gild-
ing, was $650,000 from Olde Hope
Antiques.
The ten chairs hanging on the back wall are by Richard Parkin of Phil-
adelphia, 1830-60. The set was $62,500 from Carswell Rush Berlin, New
York City. They are identical to a chair labeled by Parkin at the Landis
Valley Museum in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The verd antique, rose-
wood, and satinwood table by Cook and Parkin is similar to a labeled
one made in Philadelphia 1819-33. The faux grain painting is so good
that it is hard to detect. It has four drawers and was $65,000. The Phila-
delphia secretary bookcase (right) is by John Aitken, who made one like
it for George Washington, which is at Mount Vernon and is documented
by a bill in Washington’s account book. It was $165,000. The plain-style
Duncan Phyfe sofa was $19,500. The cellaret is by Duncan Phyfe, 1815-
17, with lion monopodia, and was $200,000. The pier table on the back
wall is by Duncan Phyfe. It is plate 39 in the Phyfe catalog published by
the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2011) and was $190,000. The giran-
dole above it, English or American, 1825, was $49,000. The lamps on it
are by Messenger & Phipson, Birmingham, England. The wallpaper is
French from Carolle Thibaut-Pomerantz, Paris and New York.