Date: Fri 13-Nov-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: LAURAB

Quick Words:

lockwood

Full Text:

Lockwood Mathews Mansion Museum Antiques Show

(with cuts)

NORWALK, CONN.-- Distinctive, imaginative, tasteful -- with a decided point of

view.

It's hard to overpraise the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum Antiques Show. Now

it its 22nd season, the show benefiting the Victorian summer home of LeGrand

Lockwood has improved substantially in recent years.

The change may be credited to manager Alison Hawthorn-Wood and an invigorated

committee headed by co-chairmen Meri Stevens Kulina and Mary Staples-Weber.

Hawthorn-Wood, a Norwalk-based show manager and sometimes dealer/decorator,

has taken what was once a wannabee and transformed it into a 29-dealer

original.

Hawthorn-Wood used the 1860s mansion to best advantage to display antiques in

room settings. Appropriately, there is garden statuary in the sunny

conservatory and upholstered furniture in the drawing room. The manager

focuses on a merchandise mix that, while decorative and formal, is fresh,

choice, and tailored to area taste.

A lively series of events accompanied this year's show, which opened on

Friday, October 23, with a gala preview party sponsored by US Trust Company of

Connecticut. Kravet Fabrics & Furnishings underwrote the fair that continued

through the weekend. There were walking tours and lectures by designers Albert

Hadley and Mario Buatta; William Doyle Galleries provided appraisals; and

Katonah, N.Y., dealer Barbara Israel loaned garden antiques for a tent show on

museum grounds.

"The preliminary report is in. The show exceeded net profits for last year and

I think some of the dealers did extraordinarily well," Hawthorn-Wood said of

the museum's biggest fundraiser of the year. "The attendance was about the

same. It was a glorious, warm fall weekend. That may have hurt us."

Each year, museum director Zach Studenroth carves out a little more space for

exhibitors. Cunha/St John filled a landing and several stairs on the mansion's

grand staircase. Elegant newcomers, the Charlestown, Mass., dealers arrayed a

colorful assortment of Sandwich glass, creamware, and a Derby porcelain dinner

service, $16,500. Complementing an English figural walnut double pedestal

desk, $6,500, was a Regency rosewood canterbury, $5,200, and Austrian

Biedermeier cabinet, $5,800. Four Seventeenth Century pages of music on vellum

were marked $2,795.

"About 70 percent of our business is in upholstered furniture," said Richard

LaVigne of Knollwood. In addition to its base in Lovell Village, Me., the

partnership now has a showroom on East 60th Street in Manhattan. "When we're

in New York, we're working 18 hours a day," says the dealer who doubles as

decorator. Knollwood's emphasis on late Nineteenth Century seating furniture,

particularly Aesthetic designs, perfectly suited the mansion's interior.

Patricia Funt of New Canaan, Conn., occupied a nearby stand, offering

collectors a fascinating selection of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century

smalls. Readymade collections included choice assortments of Black Forest

carvings and ABC plates and mugs.

In addition to Funt, several others specialized in jewelry and objets d'art.

Some fine examples were on offer at Richard Jenkins of Canton, Conn. Walking

sticks with elaborately carved handles were featured at J.D. Querry of

Martinsburg, Penn., and Ferndale Antiques, Westport, Conn.

Brad Reh of Southampton, N.Y., arranged several cases of sparkling estate

jewelry. Art Deco adornments are big sellers right now. "It's phenomenal. If

you can find it, you can sell it," remarked the dealer, who tempted customers

with a dazzling platinum, diamond and emerald bracelet.

Across the way, Mary Stasik of Darien, Conn., combined Continental furniture

with delicate European and American paintings. A pair of gilded French

fauteuils, $3,000, joined works by Dutch and Flemish artists, and Felix

Kelly's gouache of the White House, $1,900.

Schuyler Field of New Canaan, Conn., achieved a delightfully old world

ambience with gently faded toiles and brocades, and small English and French

furniture. A diminutive English oak desk of circa 1880 was $2,700; a French

side chair, $350.

Classical furniture was a big draw at Gallagher & Zager. The North Norwich,

N.Y., dealers featured a Classical chest of drawers from Boston, $2,900. A

marble-top washstand was $1,675; a Philadelphia pier table of circa 1830,

$7,200; and a brass inlaid writing desk on stand, $1,200.

Rinehart Antiques of Katonah, N.Y., artfully combined a pair of Gothic back

English side chairs, $2,800, with an American Empire tilt-top table, $3,600, a

dressing table and Sheraton chest, both miniatures, $3,500 and $1,650, and a

pair of Staffordshire pugs.

Furniture and fine art at Deacon's Horse Antiques of Darien, Conn., included a

turn-of-the-century breakfast table marked Schmieg and Kotzian, New York,

$3,000, and "The Flying Cloud," a ship's portrait by Alexander Breede, $9,500.

Among other unusual pieces was an extravagantly carved French wedding armoire,

$10,000, at Oliver Fleury, West Chester, Penn. At Williamsport Antiques of

Darien, Conn., a Boston card table was $2,800.

DHS Designs of Annapolis and Queenstown, Md., offered shoppers a look at its

distinctive taste in garden and architectural items, and rustic antiques.

Dominating the center of the mansion's conservatory, a bronze statue of

Mercury, 72 inches tall, was $19,500. DHS marked a pair of Eighteenth Century

carved and painted Italian chairs $3,800.

"I've done the Lockwood Mathews Mansion Museum Antiques Show for 14 years.

I've moved around on the floor, but its always been quite good for me," said

Anne Piper of Keene, N.H. The silver dealer brought a rare find: an elaborate

English silverplate biscuit warmer, one of three such examples the dealer has

owned in her career.

At work on her first book, Garden Ornament: Two Centuries of American Taste,

Barbara Israel mounted an impressive display of furniture and statuary.

Appropriately for this fall show, a terra-cotta figure of Ceres, goddess of

the harvest, presided over the Katonah, N.Y., dealer's arrangement.