WINTER ANTIQUES SHOW CELEBRATES ITS 56TH YEAR WITH A LOAN EXHIBITION FROM HISTORIC NEW ENGLAND

Colonial to Modern: A Century of Collecting at Historic New England exhibition celebrates
Historic New England’s centennial year

The Winter Antiques Show announces that Historic New England, the oldest, largest, and most comprehensive regional heritage organization in the nation, will display fine, decorative and applied arts from its 36 historically and architecturally significant properties in the featured loan exhibition at this year’s Show from January 22 -31, 2010 at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. Colonial to Modern: A Century of Collecting at Historic New England, which celebrates Historic New England’s centennial, showcases some of the finest items from its collection of more than 110,000 objects. The exhibition is sponsored by Chubb Personal Insurance, which has sponsored the loan exhibition for 14 consecutive years.  Whom You Know just loves New England and Connecticut is our favorite state.  Peachy Deegan has been a resident of Connecticut and Massachusetts and of course has been to all six New England states.  She even studied history in college in Boston.

Arie L. Kopelman, Winter Antiques Show Committee Chairman, notes, ―We are honored to showcase these outstanding pieces from Historic New England as this year’s loan exhibition. The breadth of the works on display—from 18th century furniture to Bauhaus design— complements the variety of great material that our exhibitors bring each year. Colonial to Modern features objects from the 18th to the 20th centuries, including furniture,paintings by academic and provincial artists, ceramics made in New England and abroad, and personal accessories from diamond brooches to silk brocade shoes. The emphasis is on superb objects with great stories, such as the Quincy family’s Boston-made Japanned high chest, tour de force of 18th century furniture, which belonged to one of New England’s most influential families.

Jeff Daly, who recently retired as senior design advisor to the director at The Metropolitan
Museum of Art and now heads his own design firm, will create the installation for the Winter Antiques Show. A series of lectures at the Winter Antiques Show will complement the exhibition. Topics explore different aspects of Historic New England, from the architecture of its properties to jewelry in its collection.

Highlights of the exhibition:

High Chest, decoration possibly by Robert Davis or Stephen Whiting, Boston, 1735-45, red
maple, red oak, white pine. This high chest, richly decorated with pagodas and fanciful
creatures in a technique known as ―japanning,‖ was rescued twice from fires before 1770. It still resides in the Quincy House in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Needlework Picture, Boston, Massachusetts, 1745-1750, wool on linen, silk, glass beads.
This exquisite needlework is the largest of a group of remarkable needlework scenes called
―Fishing Lady‖ pictures. It descended in the Lowell family and hung at author James Russell Lowell’s house, Elmwood, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the nineteenth century.
 

Shoes, Jonathan Hose and Son, London, ca. 1770, silk brocade. Buckles, probably
Birmingham, England, 1770-78, colorless paste, silver, steel. These brocade shoes, like most shoes of the period, have no right or left but were made to be interchangeable. Buckles could be set with diamonds for the wealthiest wearers, or, like these, made of paste. Prudence Jenkins wore these buckles at her wedding in 1778.

Art Pottery Vase and Bowl, Paul Revere Pottery, Boston, glazed stoneware, Vase:
Attributed to Lily Shapiro, 1915, Bowl: Sarah Galner, 1917. This vase and bowl in the Arts
and Crafts style are products of a remarkable experiment in social engineering, carried out by and for women. The Paul Revere Pottery was both a literary club for immigrant girls and a pottery studio that taught marketable skills and enabled them to earn a living.
 

Wallpaper, probably designed by Joseph Laurent Malaine (1745-1809), probably printed by
Hartmann, Risler and Cie (1795-1802), Rixhiem, France 1795-1802. Block-printed wove
paper. Wallpapers were the wall finish of choice after the American Revolution. This
example, from Massachusetts home, displays Medusa heads and Neo-Classical palmettes.
 

Psyche, Hiram Powers (1805-1873), Florence, Italy, 1849. After he saw this bust in the
artist’s studio in Italy, Nathaniel Hawthorne rhapsodized: ―A light…seems to shine from the interior of the marble, and beam forth from the features.‖ Powers’ sculpture evoked classical ideals of female beauty and had great appeal in the nineteenth century.

Sewing Kit, England, 1765-90, silver. This silver fish conceals a utilitarian purpose—a small
knife and scissors for sewing. It belonged to Abigail, patriot Josiah Quincy’s wife, and
reflects both the useful work required of everyone in New England—in this case an endless
round of sewing and mending—as well as the relative comfort in which Mrs. Quincy lived.
 

TAC 1 Tea Set, The Architects Collaborative, manufactured by Rosenthal, Selb, Germany,
1969. Porcelain. The tea set, known as TAC 1 and introduced in 1969, was the result of a
collaboration between Walter Gropius and modeler Katherine De Sousa. Its simple geometric form and suitability to mass production aptly reflect Bauhaus ideals.
 

Susan Buttrick, Sade Lowe, Anne Buttrick, Sarah Wilson Oliver, and Elizabeth Lowe,
Lorenzo, G. Chase (working 1844-1856), Boston, 1848-49. This is a fine example of an early
half-plate daguerreotype taken in Boston, Massachusetts, an early center for the new art of
photography. This example appears to commemorate a special occasion.

To complement the exhibition and offer a deeper context for the objects on view, Historic
New England staff will present a series of lectures during the show. Lectures are held in the
―Tiffany‖ Room at the Park Avenue Armory. Seating is on a first-come basis and is
complimentary with admission:

The Meaning of Things: Historic New England’s Collections
Nancy Carlisle, Curator
Sunday, January 24, 2010, 2:30 p.m.

Heritage from the Home: Do House Museums Still Matter?
Carl R. Nold, President and CEO
Monday, January 25, 2010, 2:30 p.m.

Drawing Toward Home: Designs for Domestic Architecture from Historic New
England
Lorna Condon, Curator of Library and Archives
Tuesday, January 26, 2010, 2:30 p.m.

Glittering Narratives: Jewelry at Historic New England
Sarah Sherman, Collections Cataloguer
Thursday, January 28, 2010, 2:30 p.m.

Furniture Forensics
John Childs, Conservator
Friday, January 29, 2010, 2:30 p.m.

America’s Kitchens
Lecture & book signing
Nancy Carlisle, Curator
Saturday, January 30, 2010, 2:30 p.m.

About the Winter Antiques Show
The Winter Antiques Show celebrates its 56th year as America’s most prestigious antiques show, featuring 75 renowned experts in American, English, European, and Asian fine and decorative arts in a fully vetted Show. The Show was established in 1955 by East Side House Settlement, a social services institution located in the South Bronx. All net proceeds from the Show benefit East Side House Settlement and its new initiative, the Winter   Antiques Show Education Fund, proudly supported by Bank of America. The 2010 Show sponsor is The Magazine Antiques, with Peter Brant as Honorary Chairman. The Winter Antiques Show will run from January 22-31, 2010 at the Park Avenue Armory, 67th Street and Park Avenue, New York City. Show hours are from 12:00 to 8:00 p.m. daily, except Sundays and Thursday, 12:00 to 6:00 p.m. To purchase tickets for the Opening Night Party on Thursday, January 21, or the Young Collectors’ Night on Thursday, January 28, please call (718) 292-7392 or visit the Show’s website at www.winterantiquesshow.com. General
admission to the Show is $20, which includes the Show’s award winning catalogue.

About East Side House Settlement
East Side House Settlement was founded in 1891 to help immigrants and lower income families on the East Side of Manhattan. In 1962, it moved to the South Bronx where it serves 8,000 residents annually within one of America’s poorest congressional districts, the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx. Among the initiatives that focus on educational attainment as the gateway out of poverty is the innovative and highly acclaimed Mott Haven Village Preparatory School, a national model profiled in Business Week. For more information, please visit www.eastsidehouse.org.

About Historic New England
Historic New England is the oldest, largest, and most comprehensive regional heritage organization in the nation. Historic New England brings history to life while preserving the past for everyone interested in exploring the authentic New England experience from the seventeenth century to today. The organization owns and operates thirty-six historic homes and landscapes spanning five states. Historic New England shares the region’s history through vast collections, publications, public programs, museum properties, archives, and family stories that document more than 400 years of life in New England. Visit www.HistoricNewEngland.org.