Displaying items by tag: Craftsmen

On Thursday, April 2, 2015, at 4PM, Jay Robert Stiefel, a lawyer and well-known collector and historian of American decorative arts, will give a lecture entitled “Leather Apron Men: Benjamin Franklin & Philadelphia’s Artisans” at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The event, which is under the auspices of Yale's History Department, is free and open to the public.

The illustrated talk will center on Benjamin Franklin’s work as an artisan as well as his role in fostering the public appreciation of his fellow craftsmen. One of America’s foremost founding fathers and the country’s first printing magnate, Franklin tended toward self-deprecation, writing in a 1740 issue of his “Pennsylvania Gazette” that he was no more than “a poor ordinary mechanick of this City.” But Franklin, who crafted witty editorial that promoted and encouraged his fellow artisans and founded such enduring cultural institutions as the Library Company of Philadelphia and the American Philosophical Society, served as a role model for his peers. In addition to encouraging many Philadelphia artisans to elevate themselves, Franklin provided them with opportunities for education that had previously been reserved for the privileged. Stiefel will illustrate Franklin’s profound influence with pieces of furniture and fine art, including “Handiworks” made by Franklin and other admired Philadelphia artisans.

During the early twentieth-century, mass-production dominated how products were manufactured in the United States. Automated factories churned out huge amounts of standardized products, including everything from automobiles to furniture. In response to this widespread conformity, many American designers began creating works grounded in historic traditions, favoring the handcrafted over the machine-made, the unique over the commonplace.

The Delaware Valley and Pennsylvania’s bucolic Bucks County became centers for the production of these thoughtfully-made works. In the 1940s, the Japanese-American woodworker George Nakashima settled in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where he established a studio and a reputation as a leading member of the first generation of American Studio furnituremakers. Nakashima was joined by a swathe of iconic craftsmen, including Phillip Lloyd Powell, Paul Evans, and Robert Whitley, all of whom produced custom-designed functional furniture that blurred the lines between craft, sculpture, and design.

Bonhams is set to auction a rare pair of Brescian flintlock holster pistols, circa 1660–70, on November 26. The pistols, which will be sold in the antique arms and armor sale in Knightsbridge, London, are estimated to sell for £60,000–80,000 ($97,000–130,000).

Pietro Manani, who is listed by Brescian firearms expert Nolfo di Carpegna as “one of the most active craftsmen of his time," made the pistols. The length of his working life is unknown, and some speculate that the thirty-eight known examples of Manani's work may be the work of a father-son duo.

The art of French lacquer developed in the late 17th century in response to the rising popularity of Japanese and Chinese lacquerware and quickly led to concentration of gilder-varnisher workshops in the Saint-Antoine quarter in Paris where the cabinetmakers and joiners were already established. The French even developed their own technique, Vernis Martin — as recently retraced in an exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris — that enabled the craftsmen to generate blues, greens, and yellows, in addition to Asian reds and blacks. Vernis Martin was soon used to cover all kinds of materials and decorative objects, from woodwork paneling to musical instruments and even horse-drawn carriages.

While lacquering is most traditionally associated with wood and bamboo, it can also be applied on metal, and it is this technique that the skilled craftsmen and women at Hermès have applied in miniature to a new limited edition collection of three new watches under the Arceau Cheval d’Orient name.

Prominently situated on the shore of Newport Harbor in the historic Easton’s Point neighborhood, Hunter House (circa 1748) (Fig. 1) exhibits the work of craftsmen practicing in eighteenth-century Newport, Rhode Island. The collection demonstrates the quality and breadth of Rhode Island-made furniture, silver, and pewter, among other decorative and fine arts. The northeast parlor of the house and its interior woodwork, rich in classical details, serves as a backdrop for the collection. Here, locally made wares appear in their appropriate domestic context: within an eighteenth-century structure, its original interiors, and in constellation with the objects used alongside them. Newport’s distinct design tradition is evidenced in the decorative arts and architecture of the house, which reveal the variety of artisans working in close proximity to one another and to Hunter House in the second half of the eighteenth century.