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Treasures of the Winter Antiques Show, Part 1
31 Plays7 years ago
In this episode of Curious Objects & the stories behind them, part one of a special two-part series, Benjamin Miller speaks with nine dealers who exhibited this past January at the antiques world’s marquee event: the Winter Antiques Show.
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Transcript
Tiffany Peacock Window
00:00:05
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He estimates there are 150,000 individual pieces.
00:00:08
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It's not overworked, it's not overwrought with ornaments.
00:00:13
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There are multi layers of glass.
00:00:14
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The peacock eyes, they're green.
00:00:16
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And back then that would have bought you four or five cars.
00:00:18
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The emperor said, you know what, let's only produce for our own art.
00:00:23
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And for the weather, for the great, great light.
00:00:26
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I'm striking in the coil of the serpent.
00:00:29
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I'm absolutely amazed.
00:00:30
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Lucky you get it all back.
Introduction & Episode Focus
00:00:33
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Welcome back to Curious Objects and the Stories Behind Them, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:00:37
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I'm your host, Ben Miller.
00:00:39
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I'd like to thank our sponsor for this episode, America's oldest auction house, Freemans.
00:00:43
Speaker
Located in Center City, Philadelphia, Freemans has been telling the story of valued objects and collections since 1805.
00:00:48
Speaker
Today, Freemans believes in a unique standard of one-on-one service, and their tradition of excellence has benefited generations of private collectors, institutions, advisors, estates, and museums.
00:00:59
Speaker
Freeman's is always inviting consignments across all collecting categories.
00:01:03
Speaker
With furniture from Pennsylvania makers such as George Nakashima, Warren Escherich, and Paul Evans, and paintings of the idyllic Bucks County landscape by Pennsylvania Impressionists like Daniel Garber, Fern Isabel Coppage, and Edward Willis Redfield, their Spring 2018 sales will celebrate Pennsylvania as a center for antiques, fine art, craft, and design.
00:01:23
Speaker
Let Freeman's help tell your story.
00:01:24
Speaker
For more information or to set up a complimentary and confidential auction valuation, please visit Freeman's online at freemansauction.com.
00:01:33
Speaker
Now, fasten your seatbelts.
00:01:35
Speaker
So far, I've been talking with one expert per episode.
00:01:38
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Today's show has not one, not two, but nine different specialists.
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And there will be even more in the next episode.
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That's because I'm bringing you on a whirlwind tour of one of the greatest antique shows in America, the Winter Antique Show at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan.
Winter Antique Show Preview
00:01:54
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This is a show that draws together under one roof some of the best antiques dealers there are, and once a year in January they bring with them the most rare, fascinating, and beautiful pieces in the world.
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So I had this incredible opportunity to interview some of the greatest antiques dealers in the world about some of the most curious objects that exist.
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They range from imperial jewels to Tiffany glass to the finest American folk art and even a very political quilt.
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I'm so excited to share these stories with you.
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We're going to be moving pretty fast, and if one of these objects really speaks to you, go take a look at its picture at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast.
Listener Engagement
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I don't want to take any more time away from these experts, but don't forget to subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating on iTunes, and send me your feedback and suggestions at podcast at themagazineantiques.com.
00:02:41
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Without further ado, here's Patrick Bell with Old Hope Antiques.
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Well, we've been in business since July 4th of 1976.
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We're based out of New Hope, Pennsylvania, and now also maintain a location by appointment in New York City.
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And we've been dealing American painted furniture and folk art for that entire period of time.
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And we have been at the Winter Antique Show now for 22 years.
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That's a lot of years.
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It's a lot of years.
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It's aging.
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And you're back for more punishment.
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We are here for the duration.
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And one thing that you've brought with you this time around is a quilt.
Union Star Quilt Significance
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Yes.
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Tell me about this quilt.
00:03:17
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We have really quite an extraordinary quilt with us this year, both historically and graphically.
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It's called the Union Star Quilt.
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It has been published in a couple of books recently.
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on various topics of American folk art, but a number of things make this quilt special.
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First of all, it's not a pattern quilt, meaning it's not a log cabin or a flying geese or a quilt that you see in multiple examples.
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This is an individual effort, an individual design, and we also know who it was done by and when it was executed.
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because the quilt consists of 39 stars on a blue background.
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The stars are in white.
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It's bordered by white oak leaves and little red leaves and red flowers.
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And in the center, lower left, is a dove raising a deconstructed American flag with red and white stripes and a single star.
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And then she has cut out letters that read Abraham Lincoln, Grant P.R.
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for president, Colfax V.I.
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for vice president, and the Union Forever 1869, the Union Star.
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And then below that it says this quilt was made 1869 by Elizabeth Holmes in her 68th year.
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And Elizabeth Holmes was a Quaker lady living in Loudoun County, Virginia.
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So she would have been below the Mason-Dixon line and a part of the country that would have been torn apart by the Civil War.
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And she is expressing herself in the only way she was able to politically.
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The election of 1868 saw Grant and Colfax come into the White House.
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And she's, first of all, giving credit to Abraham Lincoln, then Grant and Colfax as president and vice president, at a time when there would still be a lot of division and hard feelings about the Civil War, obviously.
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So what would her motivation have been?
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Was this really a political poster or the equivalent of what we'd call a political poster?
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One can't help but think that she was making a political statement.
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It's just too bold and too obvious.
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So she is definitely making a statement about that.
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But I think even more so than the political angle, she's making a statement about America and the fact that the union stayed together because she says twice, the union star and the union forever.
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And I think that really is her statement.
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And then she's also making an artistic statement in her use of this beautiful combination of blue and white set off by the red and white stripes of the flag.
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It's really quite a magnificent piece.
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Now, I think of a quilt as being a private object.
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You use it in your bedroom.
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But it's making quite a public statement in this case.
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Is that a common occurrence or is that unusual?
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Generally, I believe quilts that were unique and really showed off the skill of the maker were used as adornments when there was company or guests in the house.
00:06:24
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And as I understand it, they were often used in guest rooms and laid out just for observation and appreciation and not for daily use.
00:06:32
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I have no doubt that this quilt was not used on a daily basis.
00:06:35
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It would never have survived like this.
00:06:37
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And sort of the piece de resistance of this quilt is in the very lower right-hand corner where it says, by Elizabeth Holmes in her 68th year, that's followed by a pair of hands that are done in stuffed work, which means that the hands were cut out of white cotton and they were sewn down and then left open at one end and stuffed with cotton.
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And so they're dimensional.
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They're a three-dimensional effect on this quilt, as is the dove.
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The dove is stuffed as well.
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So that's another technique that is found in this particular piece.
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Those elements really do pop out from the quilt.
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Yes.
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Well, it's a very impressive object.
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Thanks so much for telling me about it.
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Well, thank you for your interest.
00:07:19
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Okay, I know what you're thinking, and I promise, no more political talk.
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Let's travel back in time, from 1869 to 1680, and back to the old country.
Chinese Porcelain's Influence on Delftware
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This is Robert Aaronsen, the fifth generation owner of the Amsterdam firm Aaronsen Antiques.
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They specialize in Dutch Delftware, that is, ceramics produced in the Dutch city of Delft.
00:07:40
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This city was the home of Vermeer, the origin of Delph ware, and, well, what else do you need to know?
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I asked Robert about a pair of vases.
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They're a pair of pear-shaped vases.
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They were produced towards the end of the 17th century, around 1680.
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and where until that time most of the objects that we were looking at are simply blue and white.
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This has an added color of purple, a manganese color.
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We see on the vases a group of Chinese figures seated under a tree.
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The tree is blooming and that entire decoration is within beautiful bands that enclose the entire decoration.
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Now, Chinese figures on Dutch Delphware, we see that more often because the Dutch East India traders were bringing in Chinese porcelain from around 1600 and it was very much in fashion, not only in the Netherlands but all over Europe and it was traded through the Netherlands, through the ships that came into Holland and from there it was spread over Europe.
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In the middle of the 17th century, so around 1650, there were civil unrests in China.
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The end of the Ming era, beginning of the Qing era.
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And at that time the area where they were producing porcelain got part of the civil unrest.
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and part of it was burned down.
00:09:07
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So the production level, the amount of pieces that they could produce went down significantly and the emperor said, you know what, let's only produce for our home market and let's not produce anymore for export.
00:09:21
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So the trade lines to Europe dried up and the Dutch potters that were making ceramics until that time on a much simpler scale started to imitate the Chinese porcelain.
00:09:32
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And this is their necessity.
00:09:34
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Yes, exactly.
00:09:35
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So there was a demand in the market and they were supplying the demand with items that very much looked like Chinese porcelain, but it wasn't in fact, it wasn't porcelain at all.
00:09:44
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It was earthenware.
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And what's the significance of the added third color?
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Was that technically difficult to achieve?
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Right.
00:09:50
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That was very difficult, and it was produced by a gentleman called Van Einhorn.
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And Samuel Van Einhorn was a factory owner, and he introduced the third color.
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So he did quite a lot for the ceramics and for the production of ceramics, but he also meant a lot for the city of Delft.
00:10:06
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So actually, this pair of vases produced at the Greek A factory around 1680 were produced by a very important man who played an important role for...
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both the ceramics and the city.
00:10:18
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Just to explain a little bit more why he was so important for the city is that the king of England at that time saw how Delft was expanding and what the quality was of the products that came from Delft that he put out an embargo on anything painted from the Netherlands really meaning the Dutch Delftware.
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This was Charles II?
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This was, yeah, I think you're right.
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I think that was Charles II.
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And he said, well, you're not allowed to bring in any earthenware anymore from the Netherlands.
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We want to protect our own markets.
00:10:46
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Samuel van Eynhorn, together with two other people from Delft, traveled to the King of England the year before he died in 1685 and asked the King of England to lift the embargo.
00:10:56
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The embargo wasn't officially lifted, but a year later, the Greek A factory was selling quite a lot of pieces to England.
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So he did a good job.
00:11:04
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Well, a little mercantilism goes a long way, doesn't it?
00:11:07
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Absolutely.
00:11:08
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Really, in the blood of the Dutch.
00:11:09
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Well, Robert, thanks so much for talking to me.
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Ben, it's my pleasure.
00:11:16
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Now we're going to go from a Chinese-inspired Dutch piece to an English-inspired American piece.
00:11:21
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Next up is Peter Eaton of the creatively named firm Peter Eaton Antiques.
00:11:26
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Peter and I talked about a real monster of an object, a secretary bookcase.
00:11:30
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What is this, eight feet?
00:11:32
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It's exactly 8 feet tall to the top of the finial and exactly 6 feet wide at its widest.
00:11:39
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One drawer pulls out and is a desk and the two big doors are for file cabinets and then the entire top section is glazed for ledgers or books.
00:11:53
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And the doors in the upper section have a kind of a Gothic arch shape to them.
00:11:57
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Right, right.
00:11:59
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Some of the interesting points about this are what remains of its history.
00:12:05
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I have photos of the house that it was made for and then pictures of the house with the secretary in place.
00:12:14
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The house was built between 1804 and 1808 in a small town called New Braintree Mass, which is just south of Worcester.
00:12:24
Speaker
And the house stayed in the Peniman family until 1917 when it burned to the ground.
00:12:32
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And fortunately, this piece and some of the other pieces of furniture had been taken out just a couple of years ahead of that.
00:12:38
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:12:39
Speaker
A close shave.
00:12:40
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It was a close shave, yes.
00:12:42
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And then it stayed in the Penniman family until 1913 when it was sold to a collector from North Andover, Mass., a man named George Stevens, and he was the second owner.
00:12:54
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and the Stevens family kept it for three generations and then donated it to a museum on the North Shore and I purchased it from the museum when they deaccessioned it several years ago but we have the pictures of the house we have pictures of it in the house we have the bill of sale from 1913 the history of the house and the history of the Peniman family all included with it so
00:13:19
Speaker
How unusual is it to have that level of documentation for an early American piece
Secretary Bookcase History
00:13:23
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of furniture?
00:13:23
Speaker
It's very unusual.
00:13:25
Speaker
It's very unusual, yes.
00:13:26
Speaker
This was made probably about 1815 in Salem just for the Peneman family.
00:13:32
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So it's nice to know that something was made specifically for someone else and has survived intact that long.
00:13:40
Speaker
Has it attracted some attention at the show?
00:13:43
Speaker
It's attracted a lot of attention, most positive, although most people say, I wish I had a place to put it because it is pretty large.
00:13:53
Speaker
We are in Manhattan, after all.
00:13:54
Speaker
Well, that's what I thought.
00:13:56
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And there are a lot of buildings with high ceilings that I thought could perhaps fit it in.
00:14:02
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So we'll see.
00:14:03
Speaker
I'll see if I can squeeze it into my closet.
00:14:05
Speaker
Excellent idea.
00:14:06
Speaker
Peter Eden, thanks very much.
00:14:08
Speaker
Thank you very much.
00:14:09
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I have to report that this piece has been sold, but you'll find plenty of other fine pieces in his Newberry, Massachusetts shop.
00:14:18
Speaker
We all know the name Tiffany, but they make more than diamond engagement rings.
00:14:23
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And they used to make some of the finest stained glass in the world.
00:14:26
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My next guest is Arlie Sulca of the 70-year-old New York City firm Lillian Nassau.
00:14:32
Speaker
And also, I should mention, the Antiques Roadshow.
00:14:35
Speaker
I asked her about a flamboyant Tiffany stained glass window.
Discoveries of Tiffany Stained Glass
00:14:38
Speaker
Okay, well, we are looking at an early Tiffany window from the 1890s.
00:14:44
Speaker
And this piece, this window is about, what, three by five feet, give or take?
00:14:49
Speaker
I'm going to say, yes, that sounds pretty good.
00:14:52
Speaker
And it features a peacock.
00:14:53
Speaker
Yes, a peacock medallion, and it is floating over a balcony.
00:14:59
Speaker
And it's actually very architectural in spirit and actually, no, in design, I should say.
00:15:04
Speaker
And I wanted to say that we actually owned this window several years ago.
00:15:11
Speaker
And I didn't know much, as much about Tiffany windows back then as I do now.
00:15:17
Speaker
And since we have now gotten this window back, I have made some fabulous discoveries.
00:15:22
Speaker
What have you found out about it?
00:15:23
Speaker
Well, we never knew how this window was used and we got behind it when it came back into the gallery and discovered that there are two original frames on this window.
00:15:35
Speaker
The interior original frame on one side has three cutouts for hinges and on the other side there's a cutout for a latch.
00:15:46
Speaker
And behind that frame is another frame that has very old weatherproofing on it.
00:15:52
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:15:53
Speaker
Is there also a Declaration of Independence somewhere in here?
00:15:57
Speaker
No, no.
00:15:58
Speaker
But this is still very good.
00:16:00
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:01
Speaker
And the other thing, another thing that we learned about this beautiful piece is the plumage on this peacock is just absolutely amazing.
00:16:09
Speaker
The glass in it, there's rippled glass.
00:16:11
Speaker
There are multi layers of glass and the peacock eyes themselves, they're green, but there's also like a little heart shape of blue.
00:16:21
Speaker
And we had thought probably the first time that that was just one piece of glass.
00:16:26
Speaker
But when we examined it from behind, we realized that the little heart was acid etched.
00:16:34
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:16:34
Speaker
So there was another layer of glass over the green initially.
00:16:38
Speaker
And then with acid etching, they made it into the little heart.
00:16:42
Speaker
And that forms the peacock eyes.
00:16:44
Speaker
Great attention to detail.
00:16:45
Speaker
Beautiful and it's a technique that was used all the way through the window making.
00:16:51
Speaker
But this, in style alone, one of the reasons we also decided that this was made between 1890 and 1895 is because it has more of an aesthetic nature to it.
00:17:05
Speaker
It's not super Art Nouveau.
00:17:08
Speaker
It doesn't show a peacock in the style that you'll see in the later windows.
00:17:13
Speaker
Usually the peacock would be perched on a balustrade with this beautiful landscape behind it and with the tail flowing beneath the body of the peacock rather than having the fan of the peacock making up the majority of this roundel.
00:17:29
Speaker
Right.
00:17:30
Speaker
Well, it's a beautiful and a memorable piece.
00:17:32
Speaker
Thanks so much for telling me about it.
00:17:33
Speaker
Oh, you're welcome.
00:17:34
Speaker
Always excited to talk about it.
00:17:45
Speaker
Once again, this episode is possible because of our sponsor, America's oldest auction house, Freemans.
00:17:50
Speaker
In Center City, Philadelphia, Freemans has been telling the story of valued objects and collections since 1805.
00:17:56
Speaker
Today, Freemans believes in a unique standard of one-on-one service, and their tradition of excellence has benefited generations of private collectors, institutions, advisors, estates, and museums.
00:18:06
Speaker
Freemans holds more than two dozen auctions a year across all collecting categories, from American furniture and decorative arts to modern and contemporary art.
00:18:14
Speaker
With international experience and comprehensive knowledge of market conditions, the specialists at Freeman's work closely with consignors and collectors to offer unparalleled assistance in the sale and purchase of fine arts, furniture, decorative arts, jewelry, books, and more.
00:18:28
Speaker
All of Freeman's auctions and catalogs are published online.
00:18:31
Speaker
Their app, Freeman's Live, is a complimentary service that allows users to bid live in real time from any mobile device or desktop.
00:18:38
Speaker
Freeman's is currently inviting consignments for this spring 2018 auction season.
00:18:42
Speaker
For those clients outside the Philadelphia area, Freeman's regional representatives in the New England, Southeast, and West Coast areas are available to assist you with every step of the consignment process.
00:18:52
Speaker
Let Freeman's help tell your story.
00:18:54
Speaker
For more information, or to set up a complimentary and confidential auction valuation of a single object or an entire collection, please visit Freeman's online at freemansauction.com.
00:19:04
Speaker
If you've listened to Curious Objects before, you may remember my interview with Stuart Feld, president of the New York firm Herschel & Adler, about a Boston linen press.
00:19:12
Speaker
Well, at the Winter Antique Show, I got to talk with one of Stuart's colleagues, Eric Baumgartner, and we spoke about something completely
McCloskey's Still Life and Citrus Industry
00:19:19
Speaker
different.
00:19:19
Speaker
That's right.
00:19:20
Speaker
We're going to be talking about flat art as opposed to furniture or decorative arts that I'm sure that Stuart spoke with you about.
00:19:26
Speaker
And so what's this painting that we're looking at?
00:19:28
Speaker
It's a work by an artist named William McCloskey, who was an American still life painter active in the latter part of the 19th century.
00:19:38
Speaker
Our painting is a painting of Valencia oranges, and what is distinctive about these oranges is that some of them are wrapped in white waxy tissue.
00:19:48
Speaker
McCloskey in the early 1880s lived in Los Angeles right around the time that the citrus industry was beginning to take off.
00:19:57
Speaker
And part of its reason why it was doing so well was because the citrus growers were able to ship their product to the east by railroad.
00:20:07
Speaker
with the oranges being wrapped in this protective tissue.
00:20:10
Speaker
Oh, right.
00:20:11
Speaker
And McCloskey thought that it would make a great subject for a still life.
00:20:16
Speaker
So we did a series of still life paintings of oranges, lemons, many of them wrapped in this very dry, very tactile tissue.
00:20:25
Speaker
And it created, I think as a body of work, a very abstract type of still life that really is his signature subject.
00:20:33
Speaker
So this is really a very commercial subject.
00:20:36
Speaker
It is actually, yes.
00:20:38
Speaker
And McCloskey latched onto it at just the right time because the citrus growers started to ship the product to the east wrapped in this white tissue.
00:20:48
Speaker
But then about 10 years later, in the late 1890s, they discovered that why not print our advertising on the tissue?
00:20:56
Speaker
So instead of it being just plain white, it might say sun-kissed growers.
00:21:00
Speaker
And that would have changed the whole tenor of McCloskey's abstraction by having these words or colors or whatever on the white tissue instead of just plain white.
00:21:10
Speaker
Was he good at self-promotion?
00:21:11
Speaker
Was he popular during his life?
00:21:14
Speaker
He actually was relatively popular.
00:21:16
Speaker
He painted our painting and worked in New York City after living in Los Angeles for a few years.
00:21:24
Speaker
And his wife, Alberta McCloskey, was also an artist.
00:21:28
Speaker
They were good self-promoters, maybe not great self-promoters, but good.
00:21:32
Speaker
And paintings like the Oranges painting that we have in our booth were very attractive.
00:21:37
Speaker
to the kind of upper middle class buyer in late 19th century America.
00:21:42
Speaker
They're not big paintings generally, although this one is a little larger than most.
00:21:47
Speaker
So they appeal to people who had more modest, nice but modest homes, and they were great paintings for a dining room setting or parlor setting.
00:21:57
Speaker
They were sized for that.
00:21:59
Speaker
I don't think of late 19th century California as being a center of creative arts.
00:22:04
Speaker
Is that a misperception on my part?
00:22:06
Speaker
Were there other artists active?
00:22:08
Speaker
Well, there actually were, and a few of the others were still life painters, but as time went on, of course, it...
00:22:15
Speaker
And it became more and more populated and, I think, wealthier.
00:22:18
Speaker
I think a lot of artists went there for all the reasons that you can imagine today, for the weather, for the great, great light.
00:22:25
Speaker
And in McCloskey's case, he went there and discovered that he loved painting citrus fruits.
00:22:30
Speaker
And I assume eating them.
00:22:32
Speaker
And probably eating them as well.
00:22:34
Speaker
Thanks very much, Eric.
00:22:35
Speaker
My pleasure.
00:22:35
Speaker
There's an old Russian saying, it's not gods who make pots.
00:22:44
Speaker
But maybe it could be gods who make diamonds.
00:22:46
Speaker
Next I'm speaking with Peter Schaeffer of Olivier Roussy.
00:22:50
Speaker
Wait, let me try that with the proper accent.
00:22:52
Speaker
Olivier Roussy.
00:22:54
Speaker
My apologies.
00:22:55
Speaker
Anyway, I asked Peter about a very special piece of diamond jewelry.
00:22:59
Speaker
And this is not just any jewel.
00:23:00
Speaker
It has a hell of a provenance.
00:23:03
Speaker
It's not any jewelry at all.
00:23:07
Speaker
It's one of two that we know of from the Russian crown jewels.
00:23:11
Speaker
There's a slightly larger version, which is still in Russia.
Rare Russian Crown Jewel
00:23:15
Speaker
So give me a little bit of context here.
00:23:17
Speaker
When was it made and for which of the... It's late 18th century, so it would be the period of Catherine the Great.
00:23:26
Speaker
Most of the jewelry for the Russian crown jewels were made for Elizabeth, which was before Catherine.
00:23:35
Speaker
How many of the Russian crown jewels are in private hands now?
00:23:40
Speaker
You're asking me a question that I don't think I could answer, but quite a lot.
00:23:44
Speaker
Because in 1923, I think it was, they sold a whole bunch of them.
00:23:52
Speaker
And, no, I think it was 1926.
00:23:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:56
Speaker
Either way.
00:23:57
Speaker
Either way.
00:23:58
Speaker
Either way.
00:23:59
Speaker
And they sold some things.
00:24:02
Speaker
And also, I can't remember his first name, Kunz, who was the stone man for Tiffany.
00:24:10
Speaker
A quick note for listeners.
00:24:11
Speaker
Peter is talking about George Frederick Kunz, the great gemologist who traveled the world seeking out gemstones for Tiffany and company.
00:24:18
Speaker
I think it's in the archives in Washington.
00:24:21
Speaker
They have some things that he acquired at the time of the crown jewels, which didn't make it into the official book, but that they are official pieces.
00:24:31
Speaker
So this piece is predominantly diamonds, and it also has pearls, and it's in the form of leaves with the pearls serving as fruits dangling from the branches.
00:24:43
Speaker
Is that right?
00:24:46
Speaker
That's as good a description as anything.
00:24:48
Speaker
I think it's a floral spray, and this type of thing might have been originally worn as a hair ornament.
00:24:57
Speaker
Oh, I see.
00:24:58
Speaker
And it's very large.
00:24:59
Speaker
It's three or four inches high.
00:25:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:03
Speaker
And it has a lot of diamonds in it.
00:25:05
Speaker
It has a lot of diamonds in it.
00:25:08
Speaker
No, you've got to remember that Russia is very cold.
00:25:14
Speaker
And in the wintertime, they wore very heavy clothing.
00:25:17
Speaker
So they needed big jewelry because if they wore what a lot of people wear in this country, you wouldn't see it.
00:25:24
Speaker
I see.
00:25:24
Speaker
So this was merely a practical ornament.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:28
Speaker
Yeah, purely practical, big diamonds.
00:25:32
Speaker
Wow.
00:25:33
Speaker
And so was this actually worn and was it used by the royals?
00:25:38
Speaker
We don't know.
00:25:39
Speaker
We believe so.
00:25:40
Speaker
It's an amazing piece to look at.
00:25:42
Speaker
Thanks so much for talking to me, Peter.
00:25:44
Speaker
Thank you.
00:25:48
Speaker
I hope you're having as much fun as I am.
00:25:49
Speaker
We have three more to go for today's episode.
Spencer Marks' Silver Collection Debut
00:25:52
Speaker
My next guest is like me, a silver dealer.
00:25:55
Speaker
And while I've known the firm for years, this is their first time exhibiting at the Winter Antique Show.
00:25:58
Speaker
They brought an all-star cast for their debut.
00:26:01
Speaker
So I'm here with Spencer Gordon and you're in business with Mark McHugh and your company is named Spencer Marks.
00:26:11
Speaker
I don't know how I'm possibly going to remember that.
00:26:15
Speaker
And what are we looking at today?
00:26:17
Speaker
Well, I was going to show you what Gorm called a Japanese work tea set.
00:26:23
Speaker
There is a mistaken thinking amongst American decorative arts people that after the Japan craze in the 1870s, Japan went out of style.
00:26:33
Speaker
The truth is that people continued to be interested in Japan and Japanese arts.
00:26:39
Speaker
And Gorham did Japanese work silver, what they called Japanese work silver, in the 1890s and in the early 1900s.
00:26:48
Speaker
So this piece is a, it looks to be a six piece tea set on a tray, all made in silver with ivory insulators, gilt interiors.
00:26:58
Speaker
And it's decorated very elaborately with chasing, sorry, I'm a silver dealer too.
00:27:03
Speaker
So I hope we're not alienating our audience here, but I like to geek out a little over this stuff.
00:27:09
Speaker
So tell me, when did Gorham make this?
00:27:12
Speaker
They were based in Providence, right?
00:27:14
Speaker
Right, right.
00:27:14
Speaker
The remarkable thing about this is that Gorham hired a Japanese chaser to come to Providence and make a very, very special and rare line of silver that they called Japanese work.
00:27:28
Speaker
And this was chased by, and his American name is Subero Yamamoto,
00:27:35
Speaker
uh... and americans always mess up foreigners names so that i'm not interested in sat japan is named but he spent about eight hundred and fifty hours during the decoration on this on this uh... tea and coffee service that's roughly three months of the time that he spent a corny was there for about three years it's most important and impressive thing that he was involved in making uh... it is uh... encrusted with chrysanthemums in uh...
00:28:01
Speaker
in high relief and then there are these lovely low relief leaves in the background and that goes all over the tray and the teapot, the coffee pot, kettle, etc.
00:28:15
Speaker
The bodies were all hand raised before he did his chasing.
00:28:19
Speaker
It had a retail cost of $1800 or $1900 in 1906 when it was made and back then that would have bought you four or five cars.
00:28:29
Speaker
Wow.
00:28:30
Speaker
Yeah, a ton of money.
00:28:32
Speaker
So each one of these pieces is a Model T, more or less.
00:28:36
Speaker
More or less, yeah.
00:28:38
Speaker
Although, you know, they came in more than just black.
00:28:42
Speaker
Well, any color as long as it's silver.
00:28:44
Speaker
I'm Matthew Imberman.
00:28:50
Speaker
I'm co-owner of Kenshire along with my sister Carrie Imberman.
00:28:54
Speaker
And we're the third generation of the family to run the business.
00:28:57
Speaker
And we deal in antique and estate jewelry.
00:28:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:28:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:00
Speaker
I was going to let Matthew go ahead without an introduction, but do you remember your Shakespeare?
00:29:05
Speaker
All that glisters is not gold.
00:29:07
Speaker
I'm sure that's very wise, but well, this next piece is gold.
00:29:13
Speaker
Okay, sorry.
00:29:14
Speaker
Back to Matthew from Kenchhire.
00:29:16
Speaker
And you're located?
00:29:17
Speaker
We're located in Bergdorf Goodman on the seventh floor next to the restaurant, and then we have private offices in Rockefeller Center.
00:29:23
Speaker
And today we're talking about a bracelet by Pierret.
00:29:26
Speaker
It's by Ernesto Pierret.
00:29:28
Speaker
It dates to the last quarter of the 19th century, before his son Luigi took over, we think.
00:29:34
Speaker
And it's a really interesting sculptural snake bracelet.
00:29:37
Speaker
And obviously, the 19th century has a lot of different snake bracelets.
00:29:40
Speaker
This one is...
00:29:42
Speaker
entirely gold granulation and then has a lovely large diamond set into the head.
00:29:48
Speaker
But it's constructed in such a way, it's almost like it's two pieces that are fit together and coil around each other.
00:29:54
Speaker
So it seems almost perfectly seamless.
00:29:56
Speaker
And it's really kind of a marvel of construction from the time period, at least in our opinion.
00:30:01
Speaker
We've owned a lot of lovely, you know, antique, you know, archaeological revival pieces.
00:30:08
Speaker
For us, this is just a step above most things we see.
00:30:11
Speaker
And before we started, you were drawing a comparison between Piré and Castellani, who's a jeweler maybe more people are familiar with.
00:30:17
Speaker
Yeah, so Castellani, obviously, you know, that's one of the, let's say, blue-chip names from, you know, late 19th century jewelry.
00:30:23
Speaker
Piré was a native Frenchman but moved to Rome and...
00:30:27
Speaker
at some point apprenticed with Castellani or worked in his shop.
00:30:31
Speaker
Some people say maybe actually taught Castellani.
00:30:33
Speaker
There's a little bit of back and forth about the relationship, but we do know that he was working within the studio, then went off onto his own and ended up marrying the daughter of a papal lawyer, if my memory serves me correctly.
00:30:44
Speaker
So kind of came into money or married up, let's say, to the point where he was able to start producing on his own, have his own studios and live in quite a nice area.
00:30:54
Speaker
So
00:30:55
Speaker
When I look at Castellani jewelry, which is obviously such beautiful, let's say, reinterpretations of what you might find in some of the archaeological digs that were being done in that time.
00:31:04
Speaker
And there's general kind of grant or fascination with making things in the antique taste as accurately as you could.
00:31:12
Speaker
PRA, to my eye, tends to look a little bit more.
00:31:16
Speaker
as if he was trying to imagine what somebody would have made for people at the time, but that hadn't just been dug up.
00:31:21
Speaker
It's really, it's pared down.
00:31:23
Speaker
It's not overworked.
00:31:26
Speaker
It's not overwrought with ornament.
00:31:28
Speaker
And this bracelet to me is that.
00:31:30
Speaker
It's striking in that it's the coil of the serpent, the angle of it, and the verisimilitude to an actual snake that makes it so dynamic as opposed to just coiling a snake around your wrist and saying, look, this is in the ancient taste.
00:31:44
Speaker
It strikes me as maybe a little more wearable than some Castellani pieces.
00:31:48
Speaker
Yes, very much so.
00:31:48
Speaker
And it's not, I mean, it's an academic piece if you want it to be only because of Ernesto Pieri didn't have a huge output.
00:31:55
Speaker
The pieces tend to be for collectors, you know, a prized possession.
00:31:58
Speaker
They're rare.
00:31:59
Speaker
But also, I do, just having seen people try this on a number of times, it sits beautifully on the wrist.
00:32:05
Speaker
And it's real jewelry meant to be worn.
00:32:07
Speaker
Have people been looking at it at the show?
00:32:08
Speaker
Yeah, they have.
00:32:09
Speaker
We've been fortunate to have a few people who've been intrepid enough to try it on.
00:32:14
Speaker
I think people sometimes shy away from trying on pieces, especially antique ones.
00:32:17
Speaker
Obviously, they're old and they're worried about the condition.
00:32:20
Speaker
This one, it's crafted so beautifully that it goes on and off very well.
00:32:24
Speaker
And that's a sign of good jewelry in general, as you know.
00:32:25
Speaker
If it's meant to be worn, it shouldn't be so difficult to put on.
00:32:29
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:32:31
Speaker
Well, that's great to hear.
00:32:32
Speaker
Thanks for joining me.
00:32:33
Speaker
Thanks for coming by.
00:32:38
Speaker
One more to go today.
00:32:39
Speaker
And although it's dangerous for me to say it, this is maybe the most visually striking of them all.
00:32:45
Speaker
It's not the oldest or the flashiest or even the most valuable piece we've looked at, but the sheer intricacy of craftsmanship is hard to compare.
Harrison Weber's Intricate Sideboard
00:32:54
Speaker
I'm with Kelly Kinzel.
00:32:55
Speaker
You're up from Pennsylvania.
00:32:58
Speaker
And you've brought with you a very interesting piece of furniture, which I have to say is visually it's unlike anything I've ever seen before because of the incredible amount of inlay.
00:33:08
Speaker
So tell me a little bit about this piece and where it comes from.
00:33:12
Speaker
Well, this piece was made in Redding, Pennsylvania, and it was made by a man named Harrison Weber.
00:33:19
Speaker
And he spent 12 years making this inlaid sideboard.
00:33:24
Speaker
12 years?
00:33:25
Speaker
12 years.
00:33:26
Speaker
And he estimates there are 150,000 individual pieces inlaid into the entire piece.
00:33:35
Speaker
It has four American flags on it.
00:33:38
Speaker
And when he completed it, right around the period of 1900, he started in 1890.
00:33:48
Speaker
And he completed it just about, probably really, if you read his paperwork, 1902.
00:33:56
Speaker
And he then took it to the St.
00:33:57
Speaker
Louis Exposition and tried to sell it for $6,000.
00:34:01
Speaker
That doesn't sound like a lot of payoff for 12 years' work.
00:34:06
Speaker
No, but in 1904, $6,000 was a tremendous amount of money.
00:34:11
Speaker
And did he get $6,000?
00:34:13
Speaker
No, it remained in his family until the 1990s.
00:34:18
Speaker
Oh, my gosh.
00:34:18
Speaker
And he sold it.
00:34:20
Speaker
The family sold it, and a collector in Allentown bought it.
00:34:25
Speaker
And it remained in his collection until I bought it about six months ago.
00:34:30
Speaker
And it's an ideal piece for this New York show.
00:34:34
Speaker
So give me some context here.
00:34:36
Speaker
Is there anything like this in the world?
00:34:38
Speaker
There are no comparables to this piece.
00:34:42
Speaker
There are other pieces of...
00:34:44
Speaker
folk art inlaid furniture that have sold, that people collect tramp art and other lower quality things.
00:34:55
Speaker
But in a comparison of the execution, the detail, everything, this is a standalone object.
00:35:03
Speaker
So this brings new meaning to the idea of a singular work of art.
00:35:07
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:35:09
Speaker
And a piece that is just so, the cabinet makers that came through and looked at this piece were absolutely amazed at the execution and could not imagine how some of it was even done.
00:35:23
Speaker
Well, I have to encourage listeners to look at the picture of this online because it's really hard to describe how intricate it is, but it's an incredibly impressive piece of craftsmanship.
00:35:33
Speaker
Thanks so much for talking to me about it.
00:35:34
Speaker
Thank you.
00:35:43
Speaker
And that wraps up today's tour.
00:35:45
Speaker
I want to say a huge thank you to all the experts who took the time to talk with me.
00:35:48
Speaker
I hope you'll take a minute to look them up, because the objects you've heard about are just the tip of the iceberg as far as what they have to offer.
00:35:54
Speaker
Next episode, I'll have even more conversations with dealers from the Winter Antique Show, including, frighteningly for me, one with my own employer.
00:36:01
Speaker
So I hope you'll come back for that one.
00:36:03
Speaker
As always, look for pictures of all these objects at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast.
00:36:08
Speaker
Today's episode was produced and edited by Sammy Delati.
00:36:11
Speaker
Our music is by Trap Rabbit.
00:36:12
Speaker
And I'm your host, Ben Miller.
00:36:14
Speaker
Thanks for listening.