The Magazine Antiques articles from October 2003

The Magazine Antiques archives from October 2003

Saint Petersburg at three hundred.(Current and coming/"Russia Engages the World, 1453-1825" at the New York Public Library, New York, New York)
October 1, 2003... Three hundred years ago, Peter I (the Great) and his military forces sought refuge at a swampy site in the delta of the Neva River in Russia. At war with Sweden, he needed a stronghold on the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea from which to...

An American Indian collection.(Current and coming/"The Responsive Eye: Ralph T. Coe and the Collecting of American Indian Art" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York)
October 1, 2003... Many collectors of American Indian artifacts got their start in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but the first Indian piece that caught the eye of Ralph T. Coe was a Northwest Coast totem pole model he encountered in a shop on Third Avenue in New York...

A first lady and furniture.(Current and coming/Eleanor Roosevelt and "Val-Kill Industries: From Ideal to New Deal" at Stone Cottage, Hyde Park, New York)
October 1, 2003... The style widely known as colonial revival has recently been the subject of exhibitions, books, and other writings. Viewed as an outgrowth of the nostalgia for earlier times that swept the nation starting with the Centennial in 1876 and...

Streamlined silver in Vienna.(Current and coming/"Viennese Silver: Modern Design, 1780-1918" at Neue Galerie, New York, New York)
October 1, 2003... With hindsight the sleek unadorned silver produced in Europe in the early twentieth century is generally accepted as radical because its pared-down aesthetic seems like such an enormous departure from what preceded it. Now, an exhibition that...

The ormolu of Matthew Boulton.(Mathew Boulton: Ormolu by Nicholas Goodison)(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, by, Nicholas Goodison (Christie's Books, distributed by Antique Collectors' Club 800-252-5231), $140.00 (hardcovers). Matthew Boulton is best known for collaborating with James Watt on a steam engine and for...

Saved for the nation.(Report from Europe/National Art Collections Fund, United Kingdom)
October 1, 2003... About half a million works of art have been saved for the United Kingdom by the National Art Collections Fund, now known as the Art Fund, since its inception a century ago. Its four founders were alarmed at the rate at which works of art from...

A Turner autumn.(Report from Europe/"Turner and Venice" at Tate Britain, London, England)
October 1, 2003... Joseph Mallord William Turner went to Venice, in 1819, 1833, and 1840, spending only a total of about four weeks there. Even in that brief time the city cast its spell over him as it has over many artists before and since. While in Venice he...

Gauguin and Tahiti.(Report from Europe/"Gauguin-Tahiti: The Tropical Studio" at the Grand Palais, Paris, France)
October 1, 2003... One hundred years ago Paul Gauguin died at the age of fifty-five on Atuona in the Marquesa Islands after a peripatetic life. Born in France, he spent his childhood in Peru, made numerous journeys as a merchant seaman, sojourned in southern...

Rossetti.(Report from Europe/Dante Gabriel Rossetti retrospective at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, England)
October 1, 2003... Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, has not been the subject of a retrospective in Britain lot some thirty years. This is being corrected by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, one of the first...

Below stairs.(Report from Europe/"Below Stairs: 400 Years of Servants' Portraits" at the National Portrait Gallery, London, England)
October 1, 2003... Understandably, most portraits have been of the famous, the powerful, and the wealthy. After all, they could afford to commission these works and use them for political or dynastic purposes. To redress the balance, the National Portrait Gallery...

Hidden treasures.(Collector's notes/Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, England)
October 1, 2003... Baron Ferdinand Rothschild filled Waddesdon Manor, his estate near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, with extraordinary works of art. Later, member of the family added still more objects to the collections, and of necessity many were put in storage...

Calendar: the arts here and abroad--a compendium of exhibitions, symposiums, and lectures.(Calendar)
October 1, 2003... Arizona TUCSON Tucson Museum of Art: "Painted Devotions: Retablos from the TMA Collection"; to February 8, 2004. California FRESNO Fresno Metropolitan Museum: "Becoming a Nation: Americana from the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U....

Antiques.("The Birds of America (1827-1838)" by John James Audubon)(Biography)
October 1, 2003... When I think of these times, and call back to my mind the grandeur and beauty of those almost uninhabited shores; when I picture to myself the dense and lofty summits of the forest... unmolested by the axe of the settler... when I see that no...

Cutting up Audubon for science and art.("The Birds of America" by John James Audubon)
October 1, 2003... In 1826 John James Audubon left his adopted homeland and traveled to Great Britain with the intention of publishing a book on the birds of America. For the next twenty years, he devoted his attention to completing the paintings for, and...

The Waddesdon Manor nautilus shell and triton: a masterpiece from the William Beckford Collection.(Buckinghamshire, England)
October 1, 2003... An object that has posed something of a mystery for more than a hundred years was recently identified as one of the fine pieces acquired by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild for Waddesdon Manor, his estate near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. It is a...

Picturing ancient Greek childhood.(antique nursery equipment, "Coming of age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past" at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire)
October 1, 2003... In 1947 fragments of a curious ceramic object discarded in an old well were found by American archaeologists excavating the ancient marketplace of Athens, known as the Agora. (1) When glued back together by conservators, the shards resembled a...

Living with antiques: French furnishings in a New York City apartment.(Louis XIV, XV and XVI)
October 1, 2003... Many people would be daunted by the idea of living on a daily basis with outstanding examples of French eighteenth-century fine and decorative arts, but not the collectors whose New York City apartment is the subject of this article. Over the...

James Giles's decorations on glass.(London porcelain decorator)(Illustration)
October 1, 2003... The work of the London porcelain decorator James Giles is typified by a range of gilded and enameled motifs spanning the fashions for rococo and neoclassical ornament. The identification and understanding of his work was greatly enhanced in...

Fabled beasts: Augustus the strong's Meissen menagerie.(Augustus II, King of Poland)(Illustration)
October 1, 2003... The next curiosity is the CHINESE palace, so called from the taste of the building, and the intention of furnishing it with porcelain.... Here are a great number of porcelain figures of dogs, squirrels, monkeys, wolves, bears, leopards, Etc....

Calendar of shows.(Calendar)
October 1, 2003... Calendar of Shows for July 2003 October 9-12. Chicago, IL. METROPOLITAN ANTIQUES SHOW at the 3 ARTS CLUB, 1300 N. Dearborn (at Goethe). 24 top dealers from across the country invite you to see a fine variety of furniture from many periods,...

Clearing house.(The Magazine Antiques)(Directory)
October 1, 2003... Rates: $130.00 per single insertion for 25 words. $115.00 per issue under contract for 6 months per year. $100.00 per issue under contract for 12 consecutive months. $3.50 per additional word. Deadline for the December issue is October 22,...

New life for breakables.(Design notes/www.restorationservices.com)
October 1, 2003... Some of the most beautiful antiques are "also the most fragile, and even collectors with the steadiest "hands have had their share of accidents. Not all that long ago when a porcelain platter broke into three or four pieces it could only be...