The quirks of a new venue seemed all but sorted out as the Philadelphia Antiques Show returned to the Navy Yard on April 17′1 for a second time.
It was all systems go at the picturesque waterside location near the city’s international airport and sports complexes. A newly tweaked floor plan addressed complaints of bottlenecking in the aisles as customers jostled to see their favorite dealers on opening night.
In all, 50 exhibitors took part in the 48th annual fundraiser benefiting Penn Medicine. While not immune to world economic woes, the show saw steady sales across all categories and left most exhibitors satisfied, if not ecstatic.
“It was all very positive,” said Chairman Lana M. McDonald. “The tempo was good, dealers were pleased and the weather was excellent.” Against several competing charity events on Friday, April 17, advance sales of opening night tickets were down 18 percent versus a year ago. The gate held through the weekend.
“From every view, we are thrilled. It’s not like the old days †buyers are more hesitant †but a lot of dealers sold well,” said show manager Josh Wainwright.
New exhibitors included Jan Whitlock Textiles & Interiors and Lillian Nassau LLC, replacing Debra Force Fine Art and Calderwood Gallery. Whitlock’s early sales included a 39-piece collection of wallpaper boxes. Nassau had interest in Tiffany lamps and bronzes by Paul Manship, Jonathan Scott Hartley and Edward Berge.
“It was a good first outing for us. We saw people from all over,” said Tiffany expert Arlie Sulka of Lillian Nassau.
The fair upheld its reputation for American furniture, painting and decorative arts. Allan and Penny Katz, Woodbridge, Conn., dealers known for dramatic displays of folk sculpture, generated enormous interest with a beautifully crafted swan sled with metal runners, 40 inches long. Priced $85,000, it sold, along with a boat sled; a 52-inch tall zinc horse, $95,000, used as a stable sign in Kingston, N.Y.; a shotgun trade sign; and a patriotic tramp art frame.
Leigh Keno, whose booth faced the entrance, ticketed an exquisite Philadelphia Chippendale side chair, $115,000, ex-collection of the Dietrich American Foundation. Winterthur owns two other chairs from this set.
A New York ball-footed dower chest, $45,000, illustrated in the revised edition of Long Island Is My Nation ; a small gate leg table, $65,000, shown in Nutting’s Furniture Treasury ; and a dated 1839 salt glaze stoneware water cooler, $115,000, decorated with a sailing ship and attributed to Abiel Price for the Congress Pottery in South Amboy, N.J., were other major sales.
Olde Hope Antiques parted with a circa 1788 Berks County, Penn., dower chest, $145,000, nearly identical to one in the Titus Geesey collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, plus a wonderful William Matthew Prior portrait, a cupboard, several chairs, baskets and carvings. “It’s not like ten years ago when the weathervane collectors came charging in. Buyers are more deliberate now, but we got a nice group coming over from Winterthur on Saturday. In the end it was very positive,” said Ed Hild.
H.L. Chalfant Antiques sold a Philadelphia Chippendale dish top candlestand, $125,000, illustrated in the April 2009 issue of Antiques Journal in an article by Scott Chalfant. “We sold about six paintings †some by Philadelphia Ten member Constance Cochrane, around eight pieces of furniture and some ceramics,” noted the dealer.
Early sales at Nathan Liverant and Son included a Joseph Goodhue Chandler portrait of a girl in pink, an oxbow bureau and a candlestand. “People are still deeply interested in American history and art,” said Colchester, Conn., dealer Arthur Liverant, who featured a Martin Cheney of Windsor, Vt., musical tall clock, $275,000, and a John Bailey II of New Bedford, Mass., dwarf clock, $145,000, along with portraits of a Martha’s Vineyard sea captain by F. Mayhew and six miniature portraits on paper by James Sanford Ellsworth.
Peter Eaton sold a Sheraton secretary desk with bellflower inlays, a New Hampshire tall case clock, a Salem serpentine front card table, a ball and claw foot side chair with shell-carved knees, a New Hampshire octagonal top one-drawer stand and the finest Federal candlestand he has owned. The inlaid, chip-carved example is from coastal Massachusetts.
His partner, American folk portraiture specialist Joan Brownstein, parted with a large watercolor portrait of a child in a garden by Henry Walton of Ithaca, N.Y. “What I notice is that I’m selling to people with whom I have well-developed relationships built over many years,” said Brownstein, who has also seen increased interest in her other line, mid-Twentieth Century ceramics.
“A lot of us were very pleasantly surprised. I sold well to an important sampler collector who came from way out of town,” said American needlework expert Amy Finkel, whose sales included a Dauphin County, Penn., house sampler, the Mary Benezit Wood sampler from an important Philadelphia Quaker family, a Philadelphia “castle lawn” sampler by Anne Roe and a rare Pekin Township piece from Tazewell County, Ill.
Philadelphia always offers much to admire. Our choices? Stephen and Carol Huber’s spectacular selection of early Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware samplers, including a 1736 Philadelphia band sampler by Mary Reeve, worked at Elizabeth Marsh’s school.
Arts of Pennsylvania, a big category here, included James Kilvington’s Philadelphia day bed with bold William and Mary turnings; a monumental Lancaster-Lebanon County kas dated 1771 and a towering figure of Rip Van Winkle attributed to Northampton, Penn., carver Noah Weiss at Greg K. Kramer & Co.; a snuff box decorated with a painting of the First Bank of the United States, Philadelphia, an early sale at Christopher T. Rebollo; and a covered presentation tankard by Joseph Lownes of Philadelphia, 1798‹9, at Hirschl & Adler. The New York City gallery also offered paintings of George Washington by Bass Otis and Gilbert Stuart.
Exceptional tall case clocks ranged from Philip Bradley’s circa 1715 Philadelphia example with an eight-day movement, $75,000, by Peter Stretch to Elliott and Grace Snyder’s folky Ohio clock by Luman Watson, ex-Lefkowitz collection, $35,000. Kelly Kinzle’s musical tall case clock, $185,000, was by George Long of Hanover, York County, Penn.
For high-style furniture buffs, there was C.L. Prickett’s Chippendale carved walnut blockfront bonnet-top chest-on-chest attributed to Benjamin Frothingham, $320,000; Samuel Herrup’s beautifully veneered bowfront chest of drawers, $18,000, probably from Maryland; and what Carswell Rush Berlin was calling “Rosetta Stone” chairs. The pair establishes Richard Parkin, known by a labeled chair at the Landis Valley Farm Museum, as the maker of a whole group of seats at Yale and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Also at Berlin was a rare set of 12 classical dining chairs attributed to Michael Bouvier of Philadelphia, circa 1830.
Diana Bittel, who spent summers as a child in Bermuda with her grandparents, brought two rare Bermudan cedar blanket chests. A large one with drawer was $22,500; a small one, $16,500.
Highlights of Southern decorative arts included a monumental carved and painted doorway from Edenton, N.C., circa 1810, sold by Joe Kindig Antiques; and a mid-Seventeenth Century Accomack County, Va., walnut desk and bookcase, $245,000, at Sumpter Priddy III.
Working on a fourth book Flying The Colors , on Nineteenth Century marine paintings †Janice Hyland and Alan Granby featured “New York Harbor from New York” by Frances Augustus Silva, $285,000, and a T.L. Albro scrimshaw whale tooth, $165,000.
A house portrait by Henry Dousa of Mechanicsburg, Ohio, 1879, was a highlight at David Good and Sam Forsythe. Brant Mackley, one of two tribal arts dealers in the show, offered an important silver-mounted presentation tomahawk, probably from a Mid-Atlantic state, Ohio or Indiana.
Working with miniatures expert Elle Shushan, Pennsylvania collectors Robert and Katharine Booth organized “Patriots and Presidents: Philadelphia Portrait Miniatures, 1760‱860,” a loan show impressively assembled from private collections and the holdings of 11 prominent institutions.
On Saturday, the Booths announced that a centerpiece of their exhibit, the recently rediscovered 1816 miniature portrait by Augustus Jones of Benjamin West before his 1815 painting “Christ Healing The Sick in The Temple,” would return to Pennsylvania Hospital, where it was first displayed.
As the Philadelphia Antiques Show wrapped up on Tuesday, the wish list for another year included more on-floor storage, an end to visibly seamed and buckled paper walls and perhaps (in the opinion of some exhibitors) a third show in town to draw greater numbers of buyers from around the country.
That the Philadelphia Antiques Show will remain at the Navy Yard home seems certain. “We’re here to stay,” said Chairman McDonald, confirming next year’s dates: April 17′0, with the preview opening planned for April 16. For information, 215-387-3500 or www.philaantiques.com .
