Tag archives: antiques
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 […]
Post election, we need deep relaxation, muscle regeneration, pain relief, digestive help, cure for migraine, improved circulation, a repaired immune system, elimination of toxins (too much wine), and better concentration. This may be just the time for an article on JF’s “singing” bowls from his home altar – a collection of Japanese standing “struck” bowls, […]
Kifwebe is a word meaning “mask” for the people of the Congo River basin, the Luba and Songye tribes. High-ranking, ruling elite men in a tribal secret brotherhood called Bwadi Bwa Kifwebe would wear these masks in a ritual dance, complete with a disguise of a woven, tight-fitting net-like costume, animal pelts, and long, thick, […]
HH was told by his grandmother from Boston that the table she left him was made by Duncan Phyfe. Almost everyone who has an East Coast Grandma runs the risk of being told that her family’s furniture was made by Phyfe. For years after his death, Phyfe’s furniture was NOT collected nor desired; it wasn’t […]
HH has a lovely 10” tall Panamanian basket made by indigenous Darién Rainforest artists in the Wounaan tradition; you will see a lifelike bat design woven into the fibers. I would like to tell you that these naturalistic designs have been part of the tradition for thousands of years, but that would be misleading. Not […]
EF, who receives my monthly “Stuff-Whisperer” newsletter, read that I spent the first two weeks of September in Malaga, Southern Spain, visiting my brother. She sent an oil on canvas of her Spanish Lady, as it is known to her family (dated 1887), because I have experienced Andalusian culture recently! EF’s grandparents purchased this work […]
JE has an elegant Art Deco green glass decanter trimmed with gold leaf and topped by an 11-inch clear glass stopper. It is likely of Italian or Czechoslovakian origin, because in the 1930s to 1940s Art Deco glass with gold was a signature of these two glass making centers. The shape is not the kind […]
Few illustrious tourist attractions in Ohio rank higher than the Reverend Paul Johnson’s Pencil Sharpener Museum located in the middle of the State, a menagerie donated by the Reverend’s wife after he collected approximately 4,000 sharpeners from 1989-2010. He left her holding the collection when he died in 2010. She had no one to blame […]
The house and the barn, built in 1901, was located on a dreary plain on a frontier homestead, 169 acres that her husband chose near Rosette, Wyoming; a work-filled ranch of crops and livestock on the American Prairie which stretched as far as Zertta’s 24-year-old eyes could see. Ten years lay ahead of her, living […]
A plump grotesque porcelain figure in the Asian style – the head nods, the hands bob up and down, and the tongue lolls in the smiling mouth – this is a magot, which is a late 17th century term for such seated ‘oriental’ figures. Many of these figures were said to be modeled after the […]
You know what you look like every morning because you have a bathroom mirror. But until the 15th century no European had a glass mirror, and if you wanted to see yourself, one looked into a lake, or a piece of bronze. When did wall mounted glass mirrors come into existence? HH, who has a […]
JE has a beautiful wrought iron Spanish Colonial Revival Torchiere floor lamp, hand wrought in a time frame from the 1920s to 1930s. When it was created, electricity for lighting the home was a relatively new invention. The first commercial application of the first electric lightbulb was in the 1870s; because of the brightness of […]
KT doesn’t know it, but she has a 1930s ladies evening bag in the tradition of 17th-century Viennese petit point, a style of needlework that originated with the early French Court as a pastime for Royal women. As the Chinese style of needlework was slowly being discovered during the 17th century, the Petit Point stitch […]
The ancient Olympic Games took place every four years between 776 BCE and 393 CE and ceased in the 3rd century because of “pagan” claims by a Christian Roman Emperor. The Games were reinvented and reinstated in 1896 by Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin; his vision was to create “modern” Games that celebrated excellence in body […]
HT sends me a photo of a sterling silver tulip-shaped engraved vase, won by her great-grandfather for ‘Best Dahlias’ in the 1904 Santa Barbara Flower Show. HT’s great-grandfather was quite adept at winning flower shows, as he was a Master Gardener trained in the fine mansion gardens of England. Relocating, he lived and worked in […]
In HT’s great grandfather’s day, he farmed citrus and avocados on his ranch on Shepard’s Mesa in Carpinteria. He was an early 20th century businessman and had a hacienda adobe in mind for the main house at the ranch. He hired artisans from Mexico, and the house was built with bedrooms opening to a center […]
A reader asks if restoring paintings or refinishing furniture devalues those objects. I hold onto objects that are damaged or need to be repaired; I call these objects “my orphan-things” and it has given me great satisfaction to breathe new life into them with restorations; but not all my efforts have worked. This newsletter discloses […]
When I opened that antique dresser drawer, a stiff, corpse-like doll stared up at 12-year-old me. I reeled back in horror, and I have never liked dolls from that day. So as fate would have it, I have an online reputation as a doll expert. A case in point is a photo sent to me […]
In the late 1920s, throughout California, towns and cities saw a boom in a certain symbolic style of architectural decoration; we will recognize the style when we visit San Diego’s Balboa Park, or San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts. Santa Barbara contributed to his style in perhaps the most distinctive sculptural work, located in the […]
What can D do with his fine porcelain dinnerware? This is a question I hear weekly. The market for ceramics has softened across the board due in part to the lack of young buyers. Think of those matched service pieces we Boomers/Gen X’ers requested on our wedding registries: so many sets out in the market […]
