Displaying items by tag: silver

George Bailey, the Chairman of Business Development at Sotheby’s London has partnered with fellow Sotheby’s employee, Lucinda Blythe, to launch an independent online auction site. The Auction Room (www.theauctionroom.com) specializes in “middle market” works of art that fall just under the minimum value criteria that many big name auction houses such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s enforce.

The Auction Room’s inaugural sale of Middle Eastern Contemporary Art will take place on June 24, 2013. An accompanying exhibition will held in London so that prospective buyers can view the works in person before the online sale begins. All of the lots offered will also be available for browsing two weeks before the sale on The Auction Room’s website.

The Auction Room will also specialize in the sale of jewelry, watches, silver, ceramics, and paintings. While the website is a bold new venture, Bailey will maintain his post at Sotheby’s.

A Grand Tour: Trade Winds of Influence
16th Annual Charleston Art & Antiques Forum
March 13–17, 2013
Old Courtroom, 23 Chalmers Street, Charleston, S.C.
For information visit www.CharlestonAntiquesForum.org or call 800.926.2520

The forum will bring together an impressive group of speakers from the US and Europe who will demonstrate the influence of the Grand Tours of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries on the architecture, furniture, silver, art, and gardens of Americans and Europeans alike. Dame Rosalind Savill, Director Emeritus of the Wallace Collection, London, England, will deliver the keynote address, focusing on her experience with French decorative arts. The mission of the Charleston Art & Antiques  Forum is to present the best fine and decorative arts scholarship, and to benefit arts education and preservation. Sponsors of the 2013 Forum are Charlton Hall Auctions, PDI, and the Florence Museum.

10th Annual Charleston Antiques Show
March 22–24, 2013; preview March 21
Memminger Auditorium, 56 Beaufain Street, Charleston, S.C.
66th Annual Spring Festival of Houses and Gardens
March 21–April 20, 2013
For information visit www.historiccharleston.org or call 843.723.1623

Inspired by the rich historical, architectural, and cultural heritage of Charleston, the 10th annual Charleston Antiques Show is a premier destination for collectors and enthusiasts who enjoy seeing and learning about incorporating antiques into modern-day décor. Attendees will find English, European, and American period furnishings, decorative arts, and fine art, architectural elements, garden furniture, vintage jewelry, and silver. In addition to attending the show, visitors can sign up for special events such as a luncheon lecture with the award-winning classical architect Gil Schafer, behind-the-scenes tours with experts, and study tours. While in Charleston, enjoy walking tours through the city’s historic district showcasing Charleston’s distinctive architecture, history, and gardens during the 66th Annual Festival of Houses and Gardens and experience the intimate charm and elegance found within private gardens and historic homes.

March 9–10, 2013 Auction

93 Pleasant Street, Portsmouth, NH
www.northeastauctions.com; 603.433.8400; or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This March, Northeast Auctions will offer collections from an all-star cast of consignors. Selections include American furniture deaccessioned from the Museum of Fine Arts-Boston; Historical Blue Staffordshire deaccessioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Rhode Island furniture from the estate of an Isham family member; and furniture from a Boston estate, among which is a Salem chest by John Chipman. Property of various owners includes two pieces of New York silver: a Peter Van Dyke caster (1730–1740) and a George Ridout salver (ca. 1745) with presentation inscription from Peter and Sarah Van Brugh to their grand-daughter Sarah Livingston.

Despite its stellar reputation, the Detroit Institute of Arts’ collection of early American silver has spent the past ten years in storage. Much to the public’s satisfaction, the museum recently decided to put 59 of its most important works back on view.

The Detroit Institute’s silver collection was placed in storage in 2002 while the museum’s historic building was undergoing renovations, which lead to the closure of the American colonial galleries. When the revamped museum reopened in 2007, depleted funds rendered the institution unable to buy new exhibition cases for the silver collection. It wasn’t until 2011 when the Michigan-based Americana Foundation awarded the Detroit Institute a grant that the museum was able to obtain state-of-the-art exhibition cases for their silver collection. The Americana Foundation’s grant also supported new research on the museum’s silver collection.

The Detroit Institute of the Art’s new installation includes American silver as well as two important pieces of late 18^th century Chinese export bowls. Highlights include a tankard made in Boston by Edward Winslow (1669-1753) in approximately 1695; a sugar bowl with cover made in New York by Myer Myers (1723-1795), the preeminent Jewish silversmith in colonial America; and a sugar basket made by silversmith and patriot Paul Revere (173-1818) in 1780.

The New-York Historical Society holds one of the finest collections of early American silver in the nation. A trove of nearly three thousand objects, it is remarkable for being composed almost entirely of silver donated by descendants of the original owners, who preserved their inherited tankards and teapots as tangible links to New York’s past. Appreciated today for their workmanship, aesthetic qualities, or rarity, these pieces have additional layers of meaning conferred by the patina of successive generations of use. The richly documented objects open a window onto silver’s symbolic meanings, its role in sustaining kinship ties, and its ability to convey the ambitions and achievements of its owners.

Christie’s announced that Americana Week 2013 will be held from January 24-25 and on the 28^th in New York. The week will include a series of public viewings and auctions focusing on American craftsmanship and artistry. An Important American Silver sale will be held on the 24^th, an Important American Furniture, Folk Art, and Prints auction will take place on January 25^th, and on the 28^th, Christie’s will hold English Pottery and Chinese Export Art sales. The Americana Week auctions will present over 400 lots, many of which are from the 18^th and 19^th centuries and have never been offered at auction until now.

Highlights from the American Silver auction include a drum-form teapot by Paul Revere (1734-1818), a Japanesesque mixed-metal and hardstone style tea service by Tiffany & Co., and a set of silver casters by Simeon Soumaine (circa 1685-circa 1750) from 1740.

Leading the American Furniture, Folk Art, and Prints sale is a Chippendale carved mahogany block-and-shell bureau table signed by John Townsend (1733-1809). The bureau table will be offered alongside a Queen Anne carved maple armchair attributed to John Gaines III (1704-1743), an Edward Hicks (1780-1849) painting depicting William Penn’s treaty with Delaware tribal chiefs, a number of early needlework samplers from The Stonington Collection, and much more.

The English Pottery auction presents over 50 lots including early salt glazed stoneware, redware and creamware formed by William Burton Goodwin, and a London delft polychrome dish, which is painted with the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac.

Highlighting the Chinese Export Art sale are a Chinese export ‘orange Fitzhugh’ armorial dinner service from the early 19^th century, a pair of Chinese export famille rose fishbowls, and a Chinese export ‘Lady Washington States China’ dish, which was presented to Martha Washington by Andreas van Braam (1739-1801), the director of the Dutch East India Company, in 1796. Van Braam designed the dish as an introductory gift for the First Lady.

The renovated Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art opened to the public yesterday. The inaugural exhibition, Gods and Glamour, features 150 loans from both private collections and public institution as well as pieces from the museum’s collection. Objects such as marble sculptures, paintings, Greek pottery, jewelry, and silver come together to illustrate what life in the ancient and medieval Mediterranean world was like. A second inaugural exhibition of late Roman and early Byzantine art loaned by the British Museum is also on view through August 25, 2013.

Designed by the architectural firm, Why, the $10 million renovation was made possible by a gift from the Jaharis Family Foundation with some funds going to acquisitions and educational programs. The new 13,707 square-foot galleries include state-of-the-art display cases by Goppian Museum Workshop in Milan.

The updated Greek, Roman, and Byzantine galleries represent the final phase of the complete reinstallation of the Institute, which began in 2008 after the then new modern wing was constructed.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, unveiled on September 8 its newly renovated William I. Koch Gallery, one of the Museum's grandest spaces, evocative of a great hall in a European palace. Masterpieces from the 16th- and 17th-century Italy, France, Spain, and Flanders hang on walls covered in red damask, complemented by a spectacular display of German silver and four tapestries from the Palazzo Barberini in Rome.

"The Koch Gallery is the most majestic architectural space in the MFA, and the new installation enhances this effort, with an astonishing display of European paintings and silver, virtually unparalleled in America," said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director of the MFA, who is overseeing the project and a team of Art of Europe curators and designers.

The iconic Koch Gallery features masterpieces drawn from the Museum's renowned European collection. Among the approximately 40 paintings on view are Nicolas Poussin's Mars and Venus (about 1630), Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez's Don Baltasar Carlos and Dwarf (1632), Peter Paul Rubens's Head of Cyrus Brought to Queen Tomyris (about 1622-23), and Guercino's Semiramis Receiving Word of the Revolt of Babylon (1624). A major conservation effort was undertaking to treat Anthony van Dyck's Isabella, Lady de la Warr (about 1638), which was acquired by the MFA in 1930. It was recently rediscovered in storage, badly in need of attention and a new frame. Also featured in the gallery are select loans, including Frans Francken's Allegory of Man's Choice between Virtue and Vice (Private Collection, 1635).