Tag archives: antiques
ES has an 8.5” tall matte blue vase accented with a purple peony design that bears the “flame” mark for Rookwood Pottery, and the date stamp 1926. ES, your little vase was part of a worldwide rise of a new style of ceramics. Art Pottery began in the late 19th century, continued to evolve till […]
What single object personified KITSCH in a mid-century living room in the 1950s? Of course! Table lamps that made us roll our eyes – non-politically correct figural lamps that made us cringe. This article discusses those cringeworthy mid-century table lamps that skate on the edge of tastelessness out to the borderland of the unimaginable. Some […]
Two home renovations prepared Benjamin and Marlise Kast-Myers (’96) for the ambitious project of restoring the historic Betty Crocker Estate in Valley Center, California. Their mission: blessing people through their love for hospitality. The couple first transformed their home in Carlsbad. A full-time designer at an ad agency in Carlsbad Village, Benjamin scoured antique shops […]
DS has a set of Stanley Roberts International House of Design stainless flatware, accented with an insert of flat rosewood running down the handles. Very modern, and a hot item today, as American modern stainless and sterling flatware is sleek and simple – and desirable in the market. AND there’s plenty of 1950s and 1960s […]
DS sends me a 250-year-old English engraving titled The Sea fight off La Rochelle. The work is an image reproduced from Jean Froissart’s 14th century account of the Hundred Year’s War, Chronicles (1337-1410). The engraving itself is the portrayal of a naval battle from the Hundred Year’s War – 14th century sailors falling in droves into […]
I authored a little book prior to the Pandemic titled No Thanks Mom: The Top Ten Objects Your Kids Do Not Want – to my surprise it went viral. The heart of the book is my generational differences chart (I cover amusing and accurate differences in homeownership, design trends, and acquisition styles between the generations). […]
What are the value characteristics of Native American rugs? The most salient value is the profound symbolism in each rug, the meaning the rugs traditionally carry for the People. Since the early 20th century Tribal rugs have been available through regional Southwest trading posts which dealt directly with Native artists. Two such rugs were collected […]
Confession! I have a doll phobia, and there’s a name for that: “pediophobia,” an intense irrational fear of a humanoid form when appearing too realistic, seemingly too close to becoming one of US. In fact, the more realistic the doll, the more frightened I become. Thus, when JP sent me that shocking photo of a […]
HK sends me a matched pair of lamps. One is a table lamp, and the other a swag chandelier – both designed in a swirling compilation of many styles to create so much grandeur that they cannot be anything but the embodiment of the 1970s. Seeing the photos, I imagine these lamps’ ‘friends’ – objects […]
Among the best advice for discovering a hidden valuable is to go through the handbags in an older woman’s closet! I am often called to a home to appraise a specific object or group of valuables, but often I will discover something completely unrelated. Here are a few of these discovery stories: 1. A newspaper […]
BC in Carpinteria has an ornate lamp, and it was, in the late 19th century, considered an exquisite newel post gas lighting fixture. In its day (1860-1880) it was as beautiful as it is deadly. Firstly, let us talk about the symbolism of the design. Lighting in the late 19th century was novel and figural. […]
J has a German saltware pottery ewer that couldn’t be more German if it tried. That style of blue relief decoration on heavy stoneware with shiny surface dates to the 14th century in Rhineland. This is stoneware which bears a salt glaze. Stoneware was discovered in the 13th century when potters in Germany found that […]
JE sends me photos of two pieces of a five-piece set of covered dishes circa 1900 by Copeland Spode. Both the style and the form of the dishes – indicating the use to which they were put – point to the late 19th to early 20th century This is the British Edwardian period, so beloved […]
This object that was once the rage tells delectable stories: here is an 1880s cruet stand. HU sends me a round, swiveling carousel of silver plate inset with five crystal cruets, topped by an elaborate silver figural handle featuring a nude putto. By the late 1880s every upper-middle-class and most middle-class aspirational families of the […]
LW called me while her friend’s house in the Palisades was still smoldering. She asked me this important question: “Elizabeth, W didn’t have an appraisal for his contemporary lithography and modern art collection. He assumed the artwork was insured under the fine art category in his general homeowner’s policy, and he seems to recall the […]
The Boys and Girls Club Thrift Store in Ventura was an unlikely place to find a Kundalini yoga ‘sound bath’ practitioner’s quartz crystal singing bowl, but JE writes me that her “FIND” is a whopping 12” diameter 10” tall delicate blue bowl. She thought it was expensive at $75 (with rubber mallet); shoppers can find […]
My daughter-in-law Meredith asked for the gift of an early 20th century white Damask banqueting tablecloth that had been owned by my great-aunt. Perhaps your family set tables this past season using the “canvas” of a fine tablecloth for the “artwork” – the meal prepared at home. The history of the tablecloth involves art history, […]
RF has two exquisite Japanese woodcuts, and while she couldn’t quite make out the signature, I can. It is that of Hiroshi Yoshida (1876-1950), a leading artist of the Shin-hanga (“new print”) movement of the early 20th century in Japan, which focused on the techniques of traditional woodcut or watercolor, but borrowing from the Western […]
This article is about my early 19th century medal, an Order of Knighthood, which may be connected to my partner’s family history. When objects of history lie in a drawer for years (I don’t remember where I got this) and are rediscovered – the find is historically relevant to my partner! You see, my partner’s […]
PP has a 20” plaster casting of a Dromedary (Arabian) camel ‘after’ (reproduced from) a sculpture by Antoine-Louis Barye (1795-1875), the great bronze artist/animalier of the mid-19th century. Sculpture of this period, in which Barye was a leading figure, had a story to tell; and it was a monumental story. This is the period of […]
