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30-B Maine Antique Digest, December 2016
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30-B
The Rabbit, like the State in Schuylkill, is a social eating
and drinking club for Philadelphia blue bloods. Not as old
as State in Schuylkill, it was incorporated in 1866. The name
Rabbit comes from the original clubhouse that was on Rabbit
Lane on the Main Line in Philadelphia. The present club is a
building on the Bala Golf Course. The club brews a famous
hot punch, but the recipe remains a secret. James Kilvington
of Greenville, Delaware, offered this engraved map along
with a picture of the house on Rabbit Lane (not shown)
from an edition of 100 that was given to members in 1932.
They were priced at $950 for both.
Sweet Tooth,
this bronze sculpture signed by
Walt Horton (1949-2010) of Beaver Creek,
Colorado, circa 2000, number 78 of an edition
of 150, was $5900 from Ron and Joyce Bassin of
A Bird In Hand Antiques, Florham Park, New
Jersey.
This John Thomson (1837-1921) albumen photograph
showing the inside of the shop of Wah Lang & Cummo,
Canton dealer in silks, Hong Kong, 60 Queen’s Road,
1868, was $1150 from Sabina A. Wood Art and Antiques,
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
There were three stands with jewelry that seemed busy. This is Johanna
Antiques, Kingsville (Baltimore), Maryland.
This Fukagawa vase, Japan, 1900,
painted with a carp, was $4500 from
The Ivory TowerAntiques, Ridgewood,
New Jersey.
This old master oil
on panel of a young
aristocrat, possibly
Spanish, was $8500 from
Framont, Greenwich,
Connecticut.
This Chester
County walnut tall
chest with original
brasses was $8500
from Wesley Sessa
of Pottstown,
Pennsylvania.
The Berks county
cherrywood box on
top was $750. The
English delft plates
were $350 to $500
each, and the brass
candlesticks, $800.
Wrapped Oranges
by Alberta Binford
McCloskey (1863-1911), 20" x 12", in
its original frame, was $1750 from Mal-
colm Magruder of Millwood, Virginia.
Alberta Binford was the wife of William
McCloskey, whose paintings of oranges
wrapped in tissue paper on lustrous table-
tops are considered successors to still life
paintings by Raphaelle Peale, according to
Mark D. Mitchell in
The Art of American
Still Life: Audubon to Warhol
, the catalog for the October 2015 to January 2016 exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of
Art. According to Mitchell, McCloskey attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he studied drapery with
Christian Schussele and may have heard Thomas Eakins tell novice painters, “Take an egg or an orange, a piece of black
cloth, and a piece of white paper, and try to get the light and color.” McCloskey moved to Los Angeles with his wife, whose
work is almost indistinguishable from his own. In the 1880s these paintings of oranges “became an icon of the California
citrus industry’s advertising….” The McCloskeys moved back to New York City in 1889. William J. McCloskey’s paintings
of oranges have sold for as much as $782,500 for one at Sotheby’s in 2011.
Wrapped Lemons on a Tabletop
sold for $216,000
at Clars Auction Gallery in California in July. Another
Wrapped Oranges
, signed “C. Welch,” was offered by Paul Polce of
Ponzi Antiques, Trumansburg, New York, for $1250, at the Original Semi-Annual York Antiques Show and Sale in York,
Pennsylvania, September 23-25, 2016.
A.J. Warren of Peter and Maria
Warren, Sandy Hook, Connecticut,
shared a stand with Malcolm
Magruder of Millwood, Virginia.
Both offered 18th-century English
pottery. The creamware Whieldon-
type fruit plates were Warren’s and
priced at $1400 each; her pineapple
teapot was $9500. The squirrel was
Malcolm Magruder’s and like one
in the Henry Weldon collection. It
was $9750. The small yellow teapot
with applied sprigged decoration,
circa 1770, was $3200.