Philadelphia dressing tables, New England hutch tables and writing armchairs, decorated Pennsylvania dower chests, and life-size carousel animals were the order of the day at the Original 23rd Street Armory Antiques Show, turning up by the handful at the small but select fair that kicks off Antiques Week in Philadelphia.
Managed by Barn Star Production’s Frank Gaglio and his staff, the 44-exhibitor show got underway at 10 am on Friday, April 11, continuing through the weekend.
The show normally draws a good retail following on Saturday and Sunday. Attendance was down this year, however. Gaglio speculated that some buyers, having visited the Philadelphia Antiques Show in its new home at the Navy Yard, skipped Center City altogether.
Gaglio was pleased that, for the first time, the Original 23rd Street Armory Antiques Show and the Philadelphia Antiques Show shared the cost of providing shuttle transportation around the city. Philadelphia Antiques Show buses ferried customers from 30th Street Station to the Navy Yard and back. The 23rd Street Armory shuttles traveled in a loop, stopping at both shows and at 30th Street Station. Gaglio sent complimentary tickets to all 50 Philadelphia Antiques Show exhibitors and was pleased that many of them stopped by.
Gaglio managed to squeeze in a few new and returning exhibitors.
“I stand out in this setting,” said estate jewelry specialist Brad Reh, who joined the cast after a very successful outing at Barn Star’s Princeton Fall Antiques & Fine Arts Show, set to open this year on Friday, September 26. Reh’s dazzling display featured yellow gold gemstone jewelry. The Southampton, N.Y., dealer especially likes signed pieces by Van Cleef & Arpels and the meticulous craftsmanship of Oscar Heyman.
“If you come back, I’ll make you a booth,” Gaglio told Steve Corrigan and Doug Jackman of Stephen-Douglas Antiques. Their long, shallow booth was the smallest ever for the Vermont dealers, whose design talent was on full view in the well-appointed stand containing a mid-Eighteenth Century Hudson River shoe foot hutch table with a small round top, perfect for the compact space.
Roland and Marilyn Kemble also featured a chair table, a Massachusetts example, $7,200, with a 53-by-43-inch rectangular top, old blue gray paint and a scrubbed pine top. A full-bodied copper horse weathervane, $65,000, ex-collection of Barney Barenholtz, was another highlight.
A third hutch table †with a 43-inch top, rosehead nails and shoe feet †was $16,500 at Gloria M. Lonergan Antiques. The Mendham, N.J., dealer made a quick sale of a large geometric hooked rug and was holding a set of four painted chairs. Both deals involved shipping to out-of-town customers, evidence of the 23rd Street Armory Show’s national reputation.
Ed Weissman’s lively business combines wholesale and retail sales. The Portsmouth, N.H., dealer had a good show, writing up everything from a carousel horse to miniatures on ivory, furniture and an unusual Great Lakes Indian miniature quillwork decorated canoe of circa 1870. One interesting offering was an architectural painting on panel that old-time New Hampshire dealers Bob and Dick Wiggens got out of a house they restored many years ago. A painting by the same hand is illustrated in Nina Fletcher Little’s American Decorative Wall Painting .
A magnificent giraffe carousel, $65,000, carved by Gustav Dentzel, circa 1900, was front and center at Charles Wilson Antiques and Folk Art. “The giraffe is one of my favorite carousel forms. This one has great, dry, old surface,” said the West Chester, Penn., dealer, whose sales included a very fine half-hull model of The Columbia .
The first of two mid-Nineteenth Century blanket chests decorated by Joel Palmer of Fulton County, Penn., turned up at Thurston Nichols Antiques. In outstanding original condition, it was $29,500 and inscribed with the name of its owner, “G. Dishons.” The Breinigsville, Penn., dealer also featured a pair of Philadelphia terra cotta garden urns marked Gallaway, a Philadelphia Chippendale dressing table, and a Pennsylvania unicorn dower chest.
The second Joel Palmer-decorated blanket chest was at Frank Martin Antiques. The Mertztown, Penn., dealer’s early sales included a paint decorated dome top box.
McMurray, Penn., dealer Tom Brown featured a circa 1790 New England paint decorated Windsor writing armchair, a rare and desirable form. At the opposite end of the armory, Chadds Ford, Penn., dealer R.M. Worth sold his early Nineteenth Century decorated comb back Windsor writing armchair.
Dorset, Vt., dealer Judd Gregory sold a carved mahogany games table, probably Irish. It stood in handsome contrast to a circa 1760 Queen Anne mahogany dressing table of Mid-Atlantic origin in Gregory’s booth.
Formal American furniture at Roberto Freitas Antiques included a Boston mahogany reverse serpentine chest of drawers, $48,500, once owned by noted Michigan dealer Jess Pavey.
A Boston blockfront desk of circa 1760 was a highlight at James Grievo Antiques, Stockton, N.J.
Portsmouth, R.I., dealers Richard Costa and David Currier sold a small English mahogany bow front server with molded legs and fretwork, while Bearsville, N.Y., dealer Mario Pollo parted with a tap table and a weathervane.
With fruit trees in bloom, shoppers’ thoughts naturally turned to their gardens. Lebanon, Penn., dealer David Horst made a quick sale of a fine cast-iron and glass terrarium. His other sales included a signed Seltzer of Lebanon, Penn., blanket chest and lots of spatterware, gaudy Dutch and mocha pottery from his well-stocked case.
Stephen M. Foster, a paintings specialist from Washington, D.C., wrapped up the 1922 oil on canvas painting “The Church at Ceureste” by Raoul Camille van Maldere for Lewis Bechtold and Brant Mackley, exhibitors at the Philadelphia Antiques Show.
Two dealers †Aileen Minor of Centreville, Md., and Marcia Feinstein of Alexandria, Va. †said that, between shows and their websites, business had been good in 2008. Minor, who combines garden antiques with classical American furniture, lighting and accessories, featured a set of four New York mahogany side chairs with leafage carved stiles and cornucopia carved splats, $13,000.
Feinstein, a dealer in Chinese and English ceramics whose stock is on view in Sumpter Priddy’s Alexandria, Va., shop, displayed a handsome pair of famille verte bowls on carved and gilded eagle wall brackets.
“We sold well, but not as well as last year or as well as we would have anticipated,” said Ron and Joyce Bassin of A Bird In Hand Antiques. The perennial folk art favorites from Florham Park, N.J., sold a pair of cast stone garden dogs holding baskets with wire handles, a Grenfell Mission mat, two tables and two paintings. “The bottom line was that good stuff was selling when people were there to buy it.”
Colette Donovan, who combines primitive New England furniture with early textiles, sold a pine highchair in weathered black paint. A highlight of her display was an exquisitely appliquéd and embroidered table rug.
Toy and folk art specialists Gemini Antiques of Oldwick, N.J., wrote up a Joseph Whiting Stock portrait of a seated child and a paint decorated patriotic shield.
“Best In Show!,” a loan show featuring cats and dogs in American folk art, was a hit. “People loved it. We had considerable donations to the SPCA as a result,” said Barn Star promoter Gaglio.
Barn Star’s summer calendar includes the Bedford Pickers Market on Monday, August 4, and Mid*Week in Manchester on August 6 and 7, both at the Wayfarer Conference Center in Bedford, N.H.
For information, 845-876-0616 or www.barnstar.com .
