The Magazine Antiques articles from August 2006

The Magazine Antiques archives from August 2006

Impressionism in Connecticut.(Current and coming)
August 1, 2006... Around the turn of the twentieth century, urban artists made a beeline for the country at the first hint of summer. Artists' colonies soon sprang up all over New England, both on the coast and inland on rivers, lakes, and ponds. The towns of...

Aquamaniles.(Current and coming)
August 1, 2006... In the hands of virtuoso metalsmiths during the Middle Ages, a simple vessel for pouring water to wash one's hands metamorphosed into an object of great beauty--in effect a small-scale sculpture. These vessels, known as aquamaniles, had a hole...

Silk.(silk textiles )
August 1, 2006... Eighteenth-century Europeans of means were the ultimate consumers, and they were particularly captivated by luxurious and exotic goods, including Chinese silks. Both the French and the British began trading with China starting in the late...

Museum accessions.(Benjamin Franklin's works Library Company of Philadelphia )
August 1, 2006... Benjamin Franklin's brainchild for providing eighteenth-century Philadelphians with access to books, the Library Company of Philadelphia today houses a vast and fascinating collection of printed volumes, manuscripts, and graphic, fine, and...

Bejeweled by Tiffany.(Charles Lewis Tiffany)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Tiffany and Company was founded as Tiffany and Young, a fancy goods store, in New York City in 1837. Charles Lewis Tiffany, one of the founders, combined a commitment to excellence in design, craftsmanship, and materials with business acumen....

Japanese summer in Amsterdam.(Vincent van Gogh National Museum )
August 1, 2006... The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has three exhibitions on view until October 22 that are devoted to aspects of nineteenth-century Japanese art. They can all be seen in the exhibition wing designed by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa. The...

Americans and Paris.(Musee du Louvre)
August 1, 2006... A different cross-fertilization--the development of artistic exchanges between France and the United States--is examined in an exhibition at the Musee du Louvre in Paris. Almost since the Louvre became a museum in 1793, it has held an annual...

Edinburgh festivities.(Report from Europe)(Adam Elsheimer's paintings at Edinburgh International Festival)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... To coincide with the Edinburgh International Festival, the museums of that city are staging major exhibitions in August. In the Royal Scottish Academy Building, a show devoted to the paintings of Adam Elsheimer is on view until September 3....

Help for the fixer upper.(Collins Period House)(Book review)
August 1, 2006... British how-to books assume a profound knowledge of everything they teach, which can be either intimidating or challenging depending on your abilities. Although the outside cover of Collins Period House claims it will tell you "how to repair,...

Calendar.(Calendar)
August 1, 2006... The arts here and abroad--a compendium of exhibitions, symposiums, and lectures California LONG BEACH Long Beach Museum of Art: "Greene & Greene in Long Beach: Furniture for the Homes of Jennie A. Reeve and Adelaide Tichenor"; to...

Antiques.(Benjamin Franklin)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... [The Library Company of Philadelphia] was the Mother of all the N American Subscription Libraries now so numerous. Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, ed. Leonard W. Labaree (1964) In the decades before 1776 Philadelphians fashioned a...

The history and collections of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
August 1, 2006... The Library Company of Philadelphia was a typically pragmatic Franklinian invention. It grew out of the Junto, a discussion group that the twenty-one-year-old Benjamin Franklin created in 1727 with like-minded aspiring artisans and tradesmen...

The presentable book: publishers' bindings.
August 1, 2006... In 1990 the Library Company of Philadelphia stimulated interest in American embossed leather bindings with the publication of From Gothic Windows to Peacocks: American Embossed Leather Bindings, 1825-1855, by the late eminent bibliographer and...

Colorplate books in the collection.
August 1, 2006... The ingenious heart of Benjamin Franklin's concept for the Library Company of Philadelphia was that its members collectively would have the use of a library far larger and richer than any of them could afford individually. In its early days,...

Highlights from the collection of paintings and sculpture.(Library Company of Philadelphia)
August 1, 2006... The Library Company of Philadelphia was founded in 1731, but it was not until 1791 that it acquired its own building. Designed by Dr. William Thornton (1759-1828), later the first architect of the United States Capitol, Library Hall was a brick...

The clocks in the collection.(Library Company of Phladelphia's case clocks resonate )
August 1, 2006... The Library Company of Phladelphia's five tall-case clocks resonate with the history of horology, the library, and Philadelphia. In order of acquisition, here are their stories. The "Cromwell Family Clock" by John Fromanteel of London, c....

Nineteenth-century Philadelphia advertising prints.
August 1, 2006... Lithographic advertisements depicting local storefronts and factories comprise the largest body of work visually documenting the commercial life of Philadelphia before the widespread use of photography. These lively images illustrate a wide...

John A. McAllister collects the Civil War.
August 1, 2006... Among the Library Company's most important donors was the enigmatic antiquarian and third-generation collector John A. McAllister (Fig. 1), who gave the library a voluminous and multifaceted accumulation of paper documenting more than a century...

American leisure in books and printed ephemera.
August 1, 2006... When Business and Diversion Inoffensive to God by Joseph Seccombe (1706-1760) appeared in 1743, it was the first sermon on leisure activities to be published in this country. (1) Written under the pseudonym Fluviatulis Piscator (River Fisher),...

The Lewis albums.(George Albert Lewis )
August 1, 2006... In 1900 George Albert Lewis (Fig. 1) of Philadelphia, who had long been interested in genealogy, produced a magnificent album filled with handwritten text, watercolors, textiles, photographs, and ephemera documenting his family's 120-year...

Calendar of shows.
August 1, 2006... August 6. Centreville, Mich. MICHIGAN'S MASSIVE ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES MARKET. Show hours: 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Upcoming show date: Oct. 1. Location: St. Joseph County, Grange Fairgrounds. For information: 715-526-9769, www.zurkopromotions.com....

The Florence Griswold House deconstructed.
August 1, 2006... The Florence Griswold House in Old Lyme, Connecticut, was a boardinghouse in the early twentieth century where many American impressionist painters spent time. It has recently been reopened following extensive renovation and reinterpretation...