“Stand right here, look all the way down the carpeted aisle to the large urn of flowers at the end, and that is 900 feet, three football fields in length, with booth after booth of dealers on both sides,” Kris Charamonde said proudly just prior to the opening of the Baltimore Summer Antiques Show. This huge event, now in its 28th annual season, opened on Thursday, August 28, and continued through Sunday, August 31.
The Baltimore Convention Center, downtown at the Inner Harbor, has never shone brighter than it did over those four days with dealers offering display upon display of jewelry, china and glassware, enough formal furniture to fill a castle, and silver, including a sterling silver tea caddy once owned by the famed English poet Lord Byron, complete with his authentic coat of arms. In addition to the United States, dealers came from France, England, Italy, Canada and Argentina, and offered paintings in all price ranges, from a few hundred dollars to a Monet and two Rockwells, filled the booths with well-polished furniture and displayed sculpture that ranged in size from a few inches to 6 to 8 feet.
A good number of booths featured Asian furniture, fabrics and paintings; a small number of pieces of real country antiques had crept onto the floor; and a 50-dealer antiquarian book fair dominated the center of the hall.
A breakfront bookcase in mahogany, labeled J&J Meeks Makers, Vesey Street, New York City, measured 110 inches high, 88 inches wide and 25 inches deep in the booth of Butte’s Antiques, Thomasville, N.C. Also shown was an Eighteenth Century masterpiece of German cabinetry, a kas with parquetry inlay of flowers and soldiers on the inside of the two doors. It was 91 inches high, 84 inches wide and 35 inches deep. Three English tall case clocks were also offered.
Asian antiquities dealer Michael Teller of T.K. Asian, with sales in the seven figures, sold 14 wall art murals made from rare Dali marble, a gold crown from the Silla Kingdom of Korea dating from the Fifth to the Sixth Century, and a one-of-a-kind gold plaque depicting the head of the mythological monster Medusa from the Second Century BC, among other pieces.
Warren N. Baggett of Franklin, Tenn., offered a set of six engravings of German knights by Mair, 1661, each measuring 16 by 19½ inches, as well as an engraving from the French edition of work titled le Antichita Romane by G.B. Piranesi, published in 1805, and measuring 25 by 30½ inches.
English furniture filled the booth of David P. Neligan Antiques, Essex, Mass., including a circa 1680 Jacobean oak chest, a circa 1700 child’s oak high chair and a George III rent table, circa 1790. Joseph M. Hayes Antiques, Bexley, Ohio, offered a pair of leather armchairs, beech, circa 1880‱900, and an American center table, carved and decorated mahogany, on pedestal with paw feet on casters. It dated circa 1830‱840.
Arlie Sulka of Lillian Nassau LLC made a significant sale of a dogwood-border Tiffany lamp with an unusual background of green-mottled glass, circa 1905, and Charles L. Washburne offered a rare pair of Worcester majolica dolphin candlesticks, a pair of Minton cream bowls, and a George Jones cobalt monkey teapot.
“I am showing about 600 canes here and there are lots more at home,” Gary Durow of the Wooden Skate, Okemos, Mich., said. He added that “people find canes that hide something most interesting, and they sell well.” With that he produced several canes, one concealing a violin, others with hidden guns and knives, and several microscope examples.
LR Antiques, Houston, offered an American ebonized commode, attributed to Hart & Ware Co., Philadelphia, dating from the mid-Nineteenth Century, and an occasional table, French or Italian, with mother-of-pearl and retro duro top, gilded accents, dating from the Nineteenth Century.
Bridges Over Time, Walden, N.Y., showed an Italian chest with ornate brass, six drawers and 5 feet long, circa 1950s; a Paul McCobb chest with travertine top, Calvin furniture, circa 1960s, and an English chest on frame with Oriental decoration on the drawer fronts, dating from the Eighteenth Century.
From Acworth, Ga., Historical Americana had a nice selection of eagles in different forms and materials, including a folk art tin eagle that was once on the top of a flagpole, a circa 1900 copper eagle that started life as a decoration on a Federal building and a colorful Federal eagle, silk on fabric, dating from the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century.
Mark J. West, international glass dealer, had sales that included a set of monogrammed French, crystal polygonal tumblers dating to 1820. The tumblers were part of a service made for the French emperor Napoleon. An identical set of champagne flutes from the same service are currently on view in the museum of the Chateau de Malmaison.
The Needle’s Work Antiques, Morton, Ill., offered an Ohio sampler executed by Sarah Jane Green, Clinton County, dated 1849; a Waterman embroidery, circa 1820; and a sampler by Mary Robinson, dated 1820, with alphabet, flowers, a pair of owls and a foliage border.
A colorful fall landscape with two buildings near a pond, oil on canvas, the work of Charles A. Ricciardi (1892‱973), 24 by 36 inches and signed lower right, hung in the booth of Robert Jackson / Ann Gillooly Inc, Doylestown, Penn. Also shown was “The Old Mill Wheel at Britton’s Mill, Staten Island, N.Y.,” an oil on canvas, signed lower left, 20 by 16 inches, by William Rickarby Miller. He was born in 1818 in Durham, England, and moved to New York City in 1844, where he died in 1893.
Examples of art glass in the booth of Philip Chasen Antiques, Oyster Bay, N.Y., included Galle, Loetz, Lalique and Rookwood, and Whitley Fossils of Doral, Fla., offered a number of natural stone fossil murals, the center example 74 by 48 inches, Eocene epoch, about 50 million years old.
A pair of Old Sheffield plate candlesticks, English, circa 1830, was shown on a Federal inlaid mahogany card table with serpentine single board top, Boston, circa 1810, in the booth of James Wilhoit Antiques of Alexandria, Va. Other case pieces included a Hepplewhite Federal bowfront chest of drawers in cherrywood, bowed top with inlaid edge, of Connecticut origin, circa 1790. It rested on high splayed French feet and retained the original brasses.
A ship portrait of The Shackamaxon , an oil on board by Antonio Jacobson, 18 by 30 inches, signed and dated 1916, was among the works of art in the booth of Robert Slack Fine Art, Ocala, Fla. Also shown was “Hunting in the Marshes,” an oil on canvas by Eugene Petit (French, 1838‱886), that measured 26 by 37 inches. It was signed “B. Roussel” as he painted under several pseudonyms.
In addition to a display of red, white and blue through a large number of early flags, shields, paper fans, pins, etc, Jeff Bridgman of Dillsburg, Penn., offered some nice painted and decorated furniture and a large folk painting that he had just obtained. It came as the result of a phone call about flags from a Florida estate, was large in size, and had many things happening in it. Mountains and trees filled much of the background, with fishermen and rowers making use of the water in the foreground. There were swans and other birds, a number of animals, a rider being thrown from a horse and a classical building with large columns.
Ernest Ludwig Ipsen (1869‱951) was one of the artists represented in the booth of Walker-Cunningham Fine Art, Boston, with a large full-length portrait of Eleanor Fiegenspan titled “A Lady and Her Companion,” 82 by 40 inches, an oil on canvas painted in 1912. A view of Mount Mansfield, Vermont, by Aldro T. Hibbard (1886‱972), oil on canvas, measured 36¼ by 48 inches.
A set of four American folk art Indian chairs, circa 1890, was in the booth of From Here to Antiquity, which has just opened at another location, 101 Fair Street and Route 1, Guilford, Conn. A bronze by the well-listed French artist Henri Leucsseur was titled “At Rest.”
An English bench-made secretary in the George III style, walnut with gilded detail, was shown by Boston dealer Christopher Anthony, Ltd, along with an American flip top table in figured walnut, circa 1930, that measured 48 inches long, 29¾ inches high, and 21 inches deep. A Louis Philippe brass inlay revolving bookcase in mahogany, 48 inches high, French, dated circa 1875.
D&R International Antiques offered an Austrian musical clock with marble pedestals, Nineteenth Century, all original, and a secretaire abattant, rosewood veneers, green marble plateau, Greek key borders on the sides, of French origin.
“I have to go see these gates they are all talking about,” one dealer was heard saying during setup as he headed across the convention floor. He was headed to the booth of Antique Legacy where a five-piece set of double doors in bronze, circa 1850, had been installed with great care. The doors measured 7 feet 7 inches wide, 11 feet tall, with a jamb width of 12 feet. These door were cast in the allegorical style, the set appears to have never been used, and they weighed in at between 3,000 and 4,000 pounds.
As if walking the convention center to take in the 550 exhibitors was not enough, the show also sponsored a full schedule of lectures beginning on the first day, Thursday, with Jay Jenkins of Jenkins/Baer Associates speaking on “Antiques: The New Recyclables.” On Friday, Matthew Baer, Ivory Tower Antiques, addressed the subject of “Japanese Imari Porcelain †East Meets West,” and later in the day, Gus Davis, Camilla Dietz Bergeron, Ltd, spoke of “A Journey of Artistic Splendor: Twentieth Century Jewelry Design.”
At 1 pm on Saturday Spencer Gordon and Mark McHugh, Spencer Marks Ltd, offered “Collecting Rarities in Silver: Every Treasure Tells a Story,” and at 3 pm, Eric Silver, Lillian Nassau LLC, spoke on “Antiques, A Family Affair.” The final lecture of the series was on Sunday with Ian Kahn, Lux Mentis Booksellers, “Biblio Esoterica: The Hunt for Forbidden Fruit.”
“Americana is very popular in this part of the country and we do not have much of it in the show at this time,” Kris Charamonde said. “We are planning to change that in years to come, adding about 65 exhibitors in Americana to the show in a special section, much as we have done with the book fair,” he said. He also indicated he was seeking more high-level painting dealers for Baltimore, and considers the Baltimore Show as “the finest display of silver in the world.”
The Palm Beach Show Group, which owns and operates the Baltimore Show, is run by three partners, Kris Charamonde, Scott Diament and Rob Samuels. Next year they will be running four shows, starting with the Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show, February 13‱7, followed by the D.C. Spring Antiques Show, March 6‹, and then the Baltimore Summer Antiques Show, September 3‶.
“We will be running a new show the first weekend in November in Dallas,” Kris Charamonde said, “and it will have world-class dealers and be on the same caliber as Palm Beach.” It will be a large show and will take place at the Dallas Convention Center.
As far as the 2008 Baltimore Show is concerned, “It was the smoothest running show we have ever done and we see very few things we have to change before 2009,” Kris said. He added that 90 percent of the dealers have already signed up for the show next September, “a positive indication that the show is working well.”
For more information about the Palm Beach Show Group and its shows, 561-822-5440 or www.palmbeachshow.com .
