Date: Fri 02-Apr-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: LAURAB

Quick Words:

Wilton

Full Text:

Wilton Antiques Show

with cuts

By Laura Beach

WILTON, CONN. -- Even the classics evolve with the times. Over the years,

Chanel and Mercedes Benz have subtly redrafted their sleek lines. The Wilton

Antiques Show, meanwhile, has steadily increased both the breadth of its

offerings and its profile among collectors.

Many changes were evident at the 32nd Wilton Historical Society Antiques Show,

which convened at the Field House on March 20 and 21. Manager Marilyn Gould

has enhanced every aspect of the fair. Its appearance has been improved by

better lighting, carpeting on the floor, more flowers and potted trees, plus

upgraded walls, fascia boards and papering.

Gould, who is among the most ambitious promoters in the industry, has steadily

beefed up her advertising, this time buying a page in the weekend section of

the New York Times. She has improved her signage, added new banners, even

vetted cafe offerings.

The improvements have produced results, also complaints. Apprehensive about

rising costs, some exhibitors are hoping that Wilton now is "as good as it

gets," a top-quality fair with legions of qualified buyers in still somewhat

casual setting.

To the few protests that reach the manager's ear, Gould notes, "I give

exhibitors a New York-quality show for one-fifth the price. I'm not doing a

nice, little show. I'm trying to do a big show: big in the numbers and quality

of exhibitors, big in the breadth of its merchandise, big in amenities and

presentation. That's what customers want. Costs increase every year, but I've

made most of the improvements I want to."

Gould's efforts resulted in attendance of about 4,500. "We were up for early

buying and for regular hours on both Saturday and Sunday versus a year ago,"

the manager said. Nevertheless, she was disappointed that this year's turnout

was not a record gate.

Some of the most stimulating changes have been in the array of merchandise

offered. Once a show specializing in American country furniture and folk art,

Wilton now offers fine art, formal furnishings, and Arts & Crafts furniture,

pottery, metalware and jewelry.

One of the most interesting trends has been the exploration of cross-cultural

parallels. Old surfaces and graceful shapes that fit easily into antique

interiors were shown by two imaginative dealers from Massachusetts.

Stephen Score of Boston brought a little Back Bay to Wilton, featured a French

walnut armchair, a circa 1890 English chinoiserie tea table ending in the most

delicate hoofed feet, and four Eighteenth Century Continental portraits of the

four seasons personified.

Herrup, a Sheffield dealer, showed sculptural Chinese furniture, including an

armchair, $4,500, and a pair of Nineteenth Century tables, $3,800. As

arresting as a set of single-image Warhol silkcreens was a series of nine

Chinese watercolors depicting different masks worn to the Peking Opera,

$28,000. "I opened a shop in Litchfield, Conn., with Jeff Tillou," Herrup

explained. "I'm offering more European and Oriental things there."

Fun and Games

Shoppers couldn't miss With All Due Ceremony, which filled the first booth

inside the door with colorful flags and trade signs. Ken Kohn of Elkins Park,

Penn., featured Nineteenth Century shaped signs for a shoemaker, $950, and a

contractor, $4,500.

Just for fun, Jane McClafferty offered a mid-Nineteenth Century gaming table

with folded base and reversible top, $1,295. Last year, the New Canaan, Conn.

dealer sold a bagatelle table on the spot.

Animal Magnetism

The ultimate political gift, a mechanical cigar box in the form of a carved

and painted donkey, $1,800, was for sale at Hill Gallery of Bloomfield Hills,

Mich. Pull on the donkey's ear and a cigar comes out from beneath his tail.

Reminiscent of Edward Hicks's many round-faced lions was a large carved and

painted bust of a feline. "I'm waiting for someone to come along and tell me

what it was," Erwinna, Penn. dealer Jim Hirsheimer confessed. The fragment,

which had an iron hook drilled into its neck, may have once been a carousel

figure. American Primitive Gallery of New York City had its own great pair of

cats -- a pair of oversized iron door knockers, $5,000.

Newly settled into the historic Robertson House in Sheffield, Mass., John

Sideli offered a horse and sulky weathervane with impeccable patina, $29,500;

a huge, arched firehouse sign for the Yale Engine Co. in South Reading, Mass.,

$3,900; and a exceptionally large and well-carved pair of finials, circa 1830,

$3,600.

Garden Delights

With the rage for garden antiques has come a sophisticated interest in marked

American pieces. Catering to the developing taste is Princess Anne, Md.,

dealer Aileen Minor, who offered a rare pair of labeled Portland Stoneware

Company urns on original tree-trunk plinths. Dating to the last quarter of the

Nineteenth Century, they were $3,900.

At Heller-Washam, Portland, Me. graceful zinc figures of Flora and Persephone

by J.W. Fiske of New York were $19,000. An attractive copper lattice trellis,

circa 1900, was $2,800 at Pam and Gene Martine, Greenwich, Conn.

Resembling an old-fashioned well pump, an architectural fountain retaining its

old painted surface had simple charm. Steven J. Rowe, Newton, N.H. asked

$2,400 for the cast iron example.

Furniture Fair

Over time, Gould has substantially broadened the choice of furniture at

Wilton. Now collectors can and do have their pick of country and formal

designs, of American, European or Asian origin.

Show highlights included a diminutive flat-top Portsmouth secretary, $38,000

at Harold Cole Antiques of Woodbury, Conn. The piece in old surface boasted a

sprung crown and dentil molding and a fitted interior.

Tables were on tap at Newsom and Berdan. The Hallowell, Me., dealers showed a

tilt-top Pennsylvania bench table of circa 1820, $18,500, and a Maine

decorated chair table, $10,500.

An Eighteenth Century bottle-green Windsor armchair with palette writing arm

and an old strap-hinge repair, $8,750, was one of the delights at Colette

Donovan, Merrimac Port, Mass.

Of note to connoisseurs was a small chest of drawers, $24,500, with

overhanging top and fluted columns, offered by Peter Eaton Antiques,

Newburyport, Mass. Eaton found the circa 1790 chest in the rough in Minnesota.

Five years later, the discovery of an identical chest confirmed that the two

were a pair, made in Litchfield County, Conn., around 1790. The mate to

Eaton's chest is in a private Connecticut collection.

Pam and Martha Boynton of Groton, Mass., unveiled a small Maine Hepplewhite

slant-front desk in old red paint, $11,000. In flamboyant contrast was another

Maine chest at Rich and Betty Ann Rasso. The Chatham, N.Y., dealers offered a

circa 1840 Empire chest with vivid red and black graining and green and yellow

striping, $3,850. A Fiske horse and jockey vane in the Rasso booth was

$14,500.

Ohio dealer Roland Kemble served up sofa tables, $19,500. Of Baltimore or New

York origin and made of cherry, the circa 1790 pair had tapered legs and

subtle, well-executed inlays.

Woodbury, Conn., dealer Wayne Pratt gave collectors their choice of a labeled

Boston card table, 1815, $9,800, and a Dunlap School Queen Anne flattop

highboy, Merrimack Valley, 1766, $110,000.

American Classical furniture is now well represented at Wilton. According to

Woodbury, Conn., dealer Rebekah Clark, "People are glad to see something

different, and a little mahogany is appreciated. We had a lot of interest and

hope to have some good follow-up. We sold Parian and sent a dining table out

on approval."

The Clarks chose shell imagery for their light and lovely display. Four

Eighteenth Century Dutch engravings enclosed in shellwork frames were shown

with mother-of-pearl encrusted papier mache chairs, $12,500. Nearby gleamed a

French Empire mantel clock conceived as a cupid drawing a shell.

In the booth of Newton, N.H. dealer Steven Rowe, a set of eight sabre-leg

dining chairs were $4,100 and a glazed, double door New York secretary was

$4,300. Demonstrating that "brown furniture" can be vivid and of the moment,

Artemis Gallery's colorful gold and orchid display included a Sheraton

mahogany server and two New York card tables possibly made by Duncan Phyfe.

Attributed to Anthony Quervelle, a robustly conceived dolphin-base side chair

was $9,500.

Fiber Finds

Nina Hellman, a marine arts dealer who keeps a shop on busy Nantucket, brought

with her some of the island's most avidly collected artifacts: four Nantucket

lightship baskets and an ivory embellished Jose Reyes pocketbook of 1970. The

later was $4,500.

A Lancaster Amish quilt occupied center stage at American Primitive Gallery of

New York City. The textile dating to 1920 was $7,500. Other quilts included a

brilliantly colored velvet example in the Snail's Trail With Dresden Plates

pattern, $2,250 at Stella Rubin, Potomac, Md. Happily obsessive in its

colorful detail was an extensively embroidered Victorian crazy quilt, $7,500

at Kelter-Malce, New York City.

M. Finkel & Daughter boasted a circa 1820 Burlington County, New Jersey

sampler of large size, unfaded color and fine stuffed-work detail by Edith

Hanes. Said Amy Finkel, "Our show was terrific. On Saturday, we didn't stop to

eat between 8 am and 5 pm." M. Finkel & Daughter is hosting noted English

needlework dealers Witney Antiques at its Pine Street shop from April 8-14.

"We had a very good show," said needlework specialist Carol Huber of Old

Saybrook, Conn. "Our biggest sale was a canvaswork Boston fishing lady scene,

and most of our sales were to new clients."

Art Stars

By all accounts, the Arts & Crafts market has made a dramatic resurgence in

the past year. Asked what of his inventory was selling, Aram Berberian of Ark

Antiques replied, "Jewelry." Top on his list were four Boston artisans: Edward

Oakes, Frank G. Hale, Margaret Rogers and Josephine Snow. All members of

Boston Society of Arts and Crafts, their elegant work dates mainly from 1905

to the Depression and ranges from $2,500 to $10,000. "These are not household

names yet, but these artists are finding their ways into the collections of

the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Chicago Art Institute; Yale and some

great private collections."

JMW Gallery of Boston represented Provincetown painter Blanche Lazzell with a

progressive series of five framed graphite studies for a Modernist block print

she later made. The drawings date to her 1927 Paris sojourn.

The intersection of art and craft was obliquely touched upon by The Cooley

Gallery, where a striking 1879 view of New York Harbor by Willard Metcalf was

$75,000. "It's almost tile format," noted Old Lyme, Conn., dealer Jeffrey

Cooley, explaining that the painting dated from the period when Metcalf

associated with members of The Tile Club.

Another colonist, Mina Fonda Ochtman of Cos Cob, wife of painter Leonard

Ochtman, was represented by the "The Orchard By Moonlight" at Frederick Thaler

of Cornwall, Conn.

A hand-forged iron Orrery at Frank Gaglio's was elegant in its detail. The

Rhinebeck, N.Y. dealer priced the early Nineteenth Century sculpture at

$8,500. At Judy and James Milne, a large barn star in old red and white paint

dating to 1890 was $4,800. The dealers sold a charming folk art sled of wood

and tin.

"Washington, Baltimore and Wilmington are big areas for collecting ceramics,"

noted Peter Warren. The Southport, Conn., dealer showcased a choice array of

English pottery, including a Landskip teapot with raised molded and enameled

decoration.

"It must have been made for a child," Jack Geishen of Chesterfield Antiques

said of a miniature blanket chest in mint condition that sold to collectors.

The Civil War era piece was decopaged with lithographed figures. On a larger

scale, the Massachusetts dealer had a Woodbury, Conn., chest on bandy legs,

$25,000.

Rustic furnishings expert Bert Savage of Larch Lodge, N.H., was off to a brisk

start on Saturday, having sold a beautiful two-piece desk set, circa 1938. The

set was attributed to Charles Shaffer, who worked on the border of

Pennsylvania and Ohio.

"I thought it was the best line up of dealers Wilton has ever had," Savage

said afterwards. "I did miss some of my regular customers. Collectors who live

in New York City just have so many shows to choose from."

Other exhibitors also fared well. "On Sunday we sold like a house afire. Paul

was loading furniture and we had customers," confessed New Hampshire dealer

Cheryl Scott.

"I sold very nice things, including all of my red, unglazed English stoneware

dating to circa 1760-70," said Maine dealer Rufus Foshee. "Until 1994, I never

had more than one piece of this red stoneware at a time. The reason I had it

now is that I just bought back the group from one collector."

"I had a record Wilton," reported Massachusetts dealer Victor Weinblatt. "I

hadn't done a show since December. I've cut back to eight shows from twelve

and am finding that my shows are stronger and I have more time for buying. I

had an incredible preshow and a wonderful Saturday. In fact, I sent my

assistant home for more stock." Noted Weinblatt, "I'm selling to people from

California and Arizona. They are coming to Wilton. That's pretty impressive."

"I sold some very interesting garden items," said Aileen Minor of Princess

Anne, Md., "including a wonderful double-griffin bootscraper and some

Philadelphia cast-stone garden pots."

"It was a great show. It was all smalls, but good smalls and a piece of folk

art," said Howard Graff. The Vermont dealer parted with an Ethan Allen

weathervane and had a lot of interest in iron.

Middleboro, Mass., dealer Charles Adams noted, "It was probably the best

Wilton we have ever had. It was super strong in all areas. Every item but one

pictured in the show section sold. Marilyn is such a good business woman. She

has done so much to make that show what it is." Adams added that he would like

to see collectors from Boston and Cape Cod regularly making the trip to

Wilton.

Gould says creating a well-balanced, varied show of exceptional quality and

interest to collectors is her goal. "I don't want Wilton to be thought of as a

country show. I want March to have a more polished look than the one-day

shows. I am constantly working to benefit the dealers, customers and the

Wilton Historical Society. We achieve good balance among those three, but its

a cooperative venture."