January 25, 2017

Winter Antiques Show 2017

Feeling a little blue now that the holidays are really and truly over and it seems like an eternity before spring will arrive?  I know it's tempting to tuck up in a cosy apartment and read or watch Netflix, but you really will feel better if you get out and about.  Trust me.  And if you're in the New York this week, why not head over to the Park Avenue Armory and peruse the wonderful wares at the Winter Antiques Show?

Typically, the Winter Antiques Show is the first art fair in the calendar year and serves as the kick-off for the rest of the season.  To this end, the opening night party benefiting East Side House Settlement, is one of the most prominent events on the social agenda and with many famous faces from New York's haute monde in attendance.  Not being a member of the glitterati, I look forward to the quiet of a weekday afternoon when I can calmly look and ask questions and enjoy the beautifully decorated booths of the exhibitors.

This year I found the decor particularly fine with a focus on creating small stage sets that showcase the offerings rather than simply lining up the goods.  Like this presentation at Hyde Park Antiques, New York, with the lovely lavender/silver Chinoiserie wall covering setting off the fine Oriental inspired English furniture...

or this playful checkerboard of Chinese export porcelain at Cohen and Cohen, London...

the super-sized trompe l'oeuil clock face backdrop to the cabinet clocks on view at Bernard and S. Dean Levy, New York....

and the French antique wallpaper and Modernist furniture on the combined stand of Carolle Thibaut-Pomerantz, Paris, and David Gill, London...

Of course there were many wonderful individual items as well.  These ranged from the exquisite, like this Art Nouveau table clock by Eugène Feuillatre on the stand of Wartski, London

and this elaborately framed enamel on porcelain portrait miniature of Jane Seymour at Elle Shushan, Philadelphia...

to the odd but fascinating, like the Fabergé potato at A La Vieille Russie, New York...

the Indian/Portuguese embroidered wall hanging of monkeys, created circa 1900 in Bengal at Keshishian, London and New York...

and the Buffalo Bill hat made in the late 1800s of turkey feathers, fur, horse hair, textile, metal, glass tin tinklers and mirrors that was found in the South of France but authenticated by the Buffalo Bill Museum on the stand of Gemini Antiques in Oldwick, NJ...

The Winter Antiques Show's strong suit has always been Americana, so I leave you with this photo of what I thought was a marvelous example of the genre - these beautifully installed military drums next to a cigar store Indian on the stand of Kelly Kinzle, Pennsylvania.  It's one of the many reasons that this show is now in its 63rd year and stronger than ever!

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