Displaying items by tag: Ceramics

During a recent taping of the hit television series, ‘Antiques Roadshow,’ a woman brought a plate that she had acquired in 1970 for $100 to be appraised. For years, the work had hung in her kitchen alongside the rest of her plate collection accumulating layers of grease. The buyer had no idea that she had a modern masterpiece on her hands until five years ago when she visited a gallery and saw a similar plate by Pablo Picasso on display.

As it turns out, the plate was an authentic work created by Picasso in 1955 for France’s Madoura Studio. Stuart Slavid, an expert in European furniture, silver and fine ceramics at Skinner Inc. in Boston, estimated the plate to be worth between $10,000 and $15,000. Although the plate has a small but visible chip, it is still in remarkable condition.

Picasso is a commanding force in the art market and over the past four or five years the prices paid for his works have continued to skyrocket.

On October 24, 2013 Sotheby’s will auction off a collection of centuries old furniture and artwork belonging to former Lehman Brothers President Joseph Gregory and his wife Niki. Before Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in 2008, Gregory often commuted to work by helicopter and was rumored to have a personal spending budget of more than $15 million a year.

The sale at Sotheby’s will include works by important cabinetmakers such as Thomas Chippendale, English and Continental furniture as well as ceramics and other decorations. A selection of Old Master paintings belonging to the Gregorys will be offered at Sotheby’s in January 2014. The auctions follow the sale of the couple’s home in Lloyd Harbor, New York in June 2013.

Works from the Gregory auction will be on display at Sotheby’s New York’s galleries beginning October 18, 2013.

The Croydon Council, a local authority in south London, will sell 24 antique Chinese ceramic vases, bowls and bottles to benefit the redevelopment of Fairfield Halls, a 50-year-old arts center in the area. Local businessman Raymond Riesco gifted the valuable objects to the Council in 1959 as part of a 230-piece collection of artifacts that included Ming dynasty bowls. The 206 objects retained by the Council will remain on view for the public.

The decision to break up the collection has drawn criticism from the museum sector. David Anderson, president of the Museum Association, told the BBC, “Croydon’s decision to sell valuable Chinese ceramics threatens not just its own reputation, but that of the museum sector as a whole. It would undermine the widespread public trust in museums and I strongly urge them to reconsider.”

Arts Council England has also voiced opposition to the sale and penned a letter to the Croydon Council earlier this month warning them that their decision was not in line with English museum standards.

The fourth edition of Art Antiques London will open on June 13, 2013 at Kensington Gardens in London. The show attracts collectors, curators, and exhibitors from across the globe and presents everything from furniture, paintings, and jewelry to sculpture, ceramics, and silver. This year, Art Antiques London is happy to welcome a number of new international exhibitors including Roell Fine Art (The Netherlands), Sabbadini (Italy), and Christopher Perles (France).

The fair, which is held through June 19, 2013, includes a private viewing on June 12, a collectors’ dinner on June 13, and a lecture series, which will feature a talk on Russian Imperial porcelain and sculptures led by Dr. Ekaterina Khmelnitskaya, the curator of Russian porcelain at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg Russia.  

Art Antiques London is organized by Haughton International Fairs. For more information visit http://www.haughton.com/international-fairs/19/fair_pages/art-antiques-london.

A California couple has gifted the Minneapolis Institute of Arts a collection of Japanese Art worth $25 million. The gift is one of the largest in the museum’s history and includes around 1,700 objects such as paintings, sculptures, ceramics, woodblock prints, and bamboo baskets and spans more than 1,000 years. Together with a pending bequest of 500 Japanese objects from a New York-based collector, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts will become one of the most comprehensive venues for viewing Japanese Art.

The donors, Libby and Bill Clark, have been acquainted with the museum’s director, Kaywin Feldman, since the mid-1990s when she ran an art museum in Fresno, CA. The Clarks had set up a small museum and study center devoted to Japanese art at their home in central California. Bill Clark’s love of Japanese culture was sparked during tours of Japan while serving in the U.S. Navy. He began collecting seriously in the 1970s and launched the nonprofit Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture in 1995. The Clarks often loaned works from their collection to art museums and helped organize traveling exhibitions. In addition to the Clarks’ gift, the MIA is purchasing other works from their collection using $5 million from a special endowment for art purchases.

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has been devoted to showcasing Japanese Art since it opened in 1915. Currently, 15 galleries are devoted to its collection of 50,000 Japanese art objects. The exhibition, The Audacious Eye, will present a portion of the Clarks’ gift and will be on view from October 6, 2013 to January 12, 2014.

The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) at Old Salem Museums & Gardens have embarked on a five-year collaboration that will involve extended reciprocal loans. The institutions got a head start on their agreement with the joint exhibition Painters and Paintings in the Early American South, which is currently on view at the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. Nine major paintings from MESDA’s collection are part of the exhibition while several objects from the Art Museums of Williamsburg’s holdings are already on view at MESDA.

The objects involved in the reciprocal loan agreement include clocks, high chests, paintings, silver coffee pots, and much more. Many of the objects from MESDA’s collection on loan to Colonial Williamsburg will be presented as part of the long-term exhibition A Rich and Varied Culture: The Material World of the Early South, which is expected to go on view at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, one of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, in January 2014. The show will present a range of furniture, silver, ceramics, textiles, tools, machines, and architectural elements.

Ronald L. Hurst, Colonial Williamsburg’s vice president for collections, conservation, and museums and the Carlisle H. Humelsine chief curator, said, “This is the age of partnerships. With partnerships everyone wins: the institutions, the public, the scholarly world…so why not do it? Both [the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg and MESDA] have some remarkable objects temporarily off view. Why not show them at a sister institution?”

On May 8, 2013, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston unveiled a number of transformed galleries including a new Dutch and Flemish gallery, which has opened to the public after almost a year of renovations. The Art of the Netherlands in the 17^th Century Gallery features seven paintings by Rembrandt (1606-1669) and other works by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), and Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682). There are approximately thirty paintings in the gallery including landscapes, genre scenes, portraits, and religious works. The paintings are accompanied by a collection of Dutch furniture, decorative art objects, silver, and Delft pottery.

A companion gallery of 30 works, the Leo and Phyllis Beranek Gallery, also opened this week. Besides their respective collections, the Beranek and the Art of the Netherlands galleries highlight loans from important collections such as the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo collection, a renowned grouping of Dutch and Flemish paintings.

Two 18^th century rooms from Great Britain have been reinstalled at the MFA as part of the Alan and Simone Hartman Galleries. A gallery for British Art, 1560-1830 complements the Newland House Drawing Room, which has been on view at the MFA since the 1970s, and the Hamilton Palace Dining Room, which features the Hartman Collection’s silver holdings. The Hartman Galleries feature British paintings, furniture, silver, ceramics, and works on paper.    

The 2013 Spring Show NYC opened to the public on Thursday, May 2, 2013 at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan. Organized by the Art and Antique Dealers League of America, this is the third edition of the Spring Show NYC, which features furniture, paintings, drawings, sculpture, ceramics, glass, decorative arts, and much more.

This year’s show includes over 60 international galleries. Highlights from the fair include Ammi Phillips’ (1788-1865) Portrait of a Child from Jeffrey Tillou Antiques, French landscape painter Eugene Louis Boudin’s (1824-1898) Village aux Environs de Dunkerque from Rehs Galleries, and a set of eight George II carved mahogany dining chairs from Clinton Howell Antiques.

The Spring Show NYC will be ongoing at the Armory through May 5, 2013. Tonight, the fair will host Arts Night Out, allowing 30 young patron groups from New York ‘s top cultural institutions to visit the show. Proceeds from the event will benefit the ASPCA.

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 Chinese bowl dating back to the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) sold for $2.2 million on March 19, 2013 at Sotheby’s in New York. London dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi bought the bowl at the auction of Chinese ceramics and other works of art. The piece soared past its estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. The sellers were a New York-based family that purchased the bowl at a garage sale in 2007 for three dollars.

The bowl, which measures 5 inches in diameter, is an example of the rare “Ding” ware, which is known for its thin potting and ivory color. The bowl features interior and exterior carvings as well as ivory-hued glaze. Only one other bowl of the same form and size is known and it is part of the British Museum’s collection in London.