Enfilade

Coinciding with New York’s Winter Antiques Week is the city’s Ceramics Fair, which will feature approximately “36 galleries offering all things ‘fired’—porcelain, pottery, glass, cloisonné and enamels, in a setting perfect for the exhibition and sale of important small objects.” A press release outlines programming, which will include an exhibition combining historic and contemporary pieces:

The Bacchanalistas: Passions + Pleasures
15th New York Ceramics Fair, Bohemian National Hall, New York, 22–26 January 2014

Curated by Leslie Ferrin

Large English Delftware Adam & Eve Dish, Bristol, ca. 1700–20
(Photo: Earle Vandekar of Knightsbridge)

The fifteenth edition of New York Ceramics Fair promises not only a dazzling array of traditional and contemporary treasures to entice the eye, but also thought-provoking lectures, panel discussions with top interior designers, and an exhibition called The Bacchanalistas: Passions + Pleasures, curated by Leslie Ferrin, the contemporary ceramics specialist.

The Bacchanalistas: Passions + Pleasures will present an overview of contemporary ceramics by living artists whose art draws inspiration from ceramic history. Themes of passion, eroticism, sexuality, abundance and excess of food and wine will be shown through figural sculpture, animated painted vessels and still life from the 16th century through today. To convey her theme, Ms. Ferrin invited the participating dealers at the New York Ceramics Fair to submit historic objects to juxtapose with the contemporary artists.

“Bacchanalia, the Roman festival of Bacchus, the Greco-Roman god of wine, freedom, intoxication and ecstasy were attended by a secret society and became legendary,” says Ms. Ferrin. “Ancient ceramic objects were in use during these parties and then later created to commemorate such events. Today a generation of artists is inspired by those objects and create their own for celebratory experiences. Decorative arts and fine art worlds collide with references to feast, sexuality and over the top pleasures. While not exactly a mystery cult, our contemporary art scene appears to some to operate today as the Bacchanalia did during Roman times, wild parties and excess in the name of pleasure and culture.”

The fair has designated Friday as their Designer Day featuring Alexa Hampton, Kitty Hawks, and David Scott on a panel called “Porcelain Perfect: How Top Decorators Accessorize with Ceramics,” in cooperation with the New York School of Interior Design, and moderated by Judith Gura, noted author and member NYSID. Mario Buatta, the highly acclaimed interior designer, will entertain his audience with “If You Can’t Hide It, Decorate It” followed by a book-signing of his best-seller Mario Buatta: 50 Years of American Style and Decoration, published by Rizzoli.

W E D N E S D A Y ,  2 2  J A N U A R Y

12:00  “Tortoise Shell Ware Made in This Town: A Re-examination of the Benjamin Leigh and John Allman Partnership in Boston” Angelika Kuettner, Associate Registrar for Imaging and Assistant Curator of Ceramics, Colonial Williamsburg.
2:00  “English and Continental Glassware in Early America” Leslie B. Grigsby, Winterthur’s Curator of Ceramics and Glass.
4:00  “Perfected in New York City: Jean-Pierre Colné and the Origins of Mechanized Glass Cutting,” Ian Simmonds, antiques dealer and researcher.

F R I D A Y ,  2 4  J A N U A R Y

12:00  “Porcelain Perfect: How Top Decorators Accessorize with Ceramics,” prominent interior decorators Alexa Hampton, David Scott and Kitty Hawks will discuss the importance of ceramics in decorating. Sponsored in co-operation with The New York School of Interior Design, the discussion will be moderated by Judith Gura, author and NYSID member and area co-ordinator.
2:00  “If You Can’t Hide It, Decorate It,” Mario Buatta, the internationally acclaimed interior designer. Mr. Buatta will sign copies of his new book, Mario Buatta: Fifty Years of American Style and Decoration.

S A T U R D A Y ,  2 5  J A N U A R Y

12:00  “Making Pottery Tell Its Own Story: Royal Worcester’s Vases with Scenes of Chinese Porcelain Production,” Ron Fuchs II, Curator of the Reeves Collections at Washington and Lee University.
2:00  “Angels and Demons: The Pleasures of Pottery and Porcelain” Robert Hunter, the editor of Ceramics in America.
4:00  “The Bacchanalistas: Passions + Pleasure,” Leslie Ferrin, Director, Ferrin Contemporary. Coinciding with the exhibition, Ms. Ferrin’s lecture will present an overview of contemporary ceramics by living artists whose art practice draws inspiration from ceramic history. Themes of passion, eroticism, sexuality, abundance and excess of food and wine will be shown through figural sculpture, animated painted vessels, and still life.

All the lectures are free with show admission and are sponsored by the Chipstone Foundation.

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The New York Ceramics Fair, which takes place in the Grand Ballroom of the Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues), opens with a private preview on Tuesday evening, from 5 to 8:30 PM. Tickets are $90 each. The show opens to the public on Wednesday, January 22 and runs through Sunday, January 26. Hours are 11 AM–7 PM and on Sunday, 11 AM–4 PM. Ticket price with catalogue is $20 per person and can be used throughout the duration of the fair.

The New York Ceramics Fair is produced by Meg Wendy/MCG Events LLC and Liz Lees/Caskey Lees Inc.
In addition to the New York CeramicsFair, Caskey-Lees currently produces the San Francisco Tribal & Textile Arts Show in San Francisco.

Regular readers may recall my irrationally exuberant affection for puzzle jugs. -CH

As noted at Art Daily (4 January 2014)

Delft Puzzle Jugs from Aronson Antiquairs of Amsterdam
60th Winter Antiques Show, Park Avenue Armory, New York, 24 January — 2 February 2014

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At the 60th Annual Winter Antiques Show in New York, January 23 – February 2, 2014, Aronson Antiquairs of Amsterdam will showcase an amusing collection of Suijgkannen or Delft Puzzle Jugs. “Delft Puzzle Jugs from the 17th and 18th centuries are among the most prized examples of the amusing novelty, but Delft examples were seen as early as 1650. The style gained popularity throughout Europe. Puzzle Jugs were designed with hollow rims and handles and diverting spouts and tubes. They challenged and entertained guests at both homes and taverns. You never knew if a dinner party would be a success and whether your guests would like the food and wine and have a good time. But with a variety of Puzzle Jugs on hand you could get a good laugh out of those trying their dexterity and luck by making a game of it,” says Robert Aronson, fifth generation Dutch Delft dealer of Aronson Antiquairs of Amsterdam.

Puzzle Jugs got their name from their ingenious design which could include a perforated neck, and hollow handle and rim. Sometimes as many as five or six concealed tubes or pipes were incorporated into the jug, making it even more difficult to imbibe the liquid, most often ale or wine. The trick was to drink the liquid without spilling the jug’s contents all over your shirt. It was common for tavern-keepers to offer these jugs in various drinking games, with guests wagering on who would master the puzzle. It helped to be highly dexterous and clever—itself a challenge during a night of merriment.

The oldest known, the Exeter Puzzle Jug, was produced in western France around 1300 and discovered in England in 1899. It was given to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, Devon. Many Puzzle Jugs had inscriptions on the body of the jug that ranged from simple to poetic, typically something along the lines of “Here gentlemen, come try your skill. I’ll hold a wager, if you will, that you don’t drink this liquid all without your spill or let some fall.”. . .

Highlights at the Aronson Antiquairs stand will include nine outstanding Delft Puzzle Jugs from a private collection including a Blue and White Delft Puzzle Jug from the Ten Tooren-Smith Collection, The Netherlands, which dates to 1760 and portrays an elegant couple on the body. The gallant gentleman is doffing his hat and approaching his sweetheart who holds a fan. The 22.8cm puzzle jug features a baluster-form body and panels of trellis diaperwork beneath the floral and foliate-pierced neck. The puzzle is in the tubular rim affixed with three nozzles which interrupts a flowering vine border continuing onto a hollow loop handle.

A second Blue and White Ring-Form Delft Jug dates to 1725–35 and features a circular body painted with a Chinese pheasant perched on a c-scroll forming the stem of a flowering leafy peony branch. It is pierced with three roundels, each centering a six petal flowerhead below three teardrop-shaped nozzles issuing from the tubular neck (24.4cm).

A third Delft Blue and White Puzzle Jug (23.4cm high) is from an earlier period, 1688–92, and was in Dr Gunther Grethe’s Hamburg Collection. Aronson says, “This jug has a GV mark in blue, probably is from Gijsbrecht Claesz, Verhaast. The spherical body is painted with a large insect and birds in flight above a chrysanthemum border. The cylindrical neck is pierced with three four-petal blossoms and eight dots against a foliate-patterned blue ground between floral borders, and affixed beneath the rim with a tubular device molded with seven blossoms, one of them pierced, and continuing into the flower and scroll-patterned hollow loop handle.”

Aronson says that the whimsical characteristics of Delft Puzzle Jugs appeal to collectors now because, “These are novelty pieces with amusing stories to tell that reveal how people lived centuries ago. Those who enjoy having a peek at what brought a smile to the face of our ancestors collect Delft Puzzle Jugs now. We are lucky to have acquired this collection of nine examples.” Prices range from $16,000 to $25,000.

From Bonhams:

A major work by the 18th-century French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Portrait of François-Henri d’Harcourt, sold for £17,106,500 this evening (5 December) setting a world record price for the artist at auction [Bonhams, Auction 21413, Lot 85]. The previous record was £5,300,000 for a painting sold in London in 1999. It is also the highest price for an Old Master Painting sold at auction anywhere in the world this year. The painting was the leading work in the sale of paintings and sculpture from the renowned collection of the German philanthropist, the late Dr Gustav Rau which raised more than £19 million. The proceeds will be used to benefit the Foundation of the German Committee for UNICEF—for the children of the world.

Bonhams Director of Old Master Paintings, Andrew McKenzie, said, “The portrait of François-Henri d’Harcourt is one of the paintings on which Fragonard’s reputation as an artistic genius rests. It is impossible to overstate its cultural and artistic significance. Handling this great painting for sale was a huge privilege and a landmark in the history of the art market.” . . .

One of Fragonard’s famous fifteen fantasy portraits, The Portrait of François-Henri d’Harcourt was the most significant of the artist’s works to have appeared on the market for many years. Only two other fantasy portraits remain in private hands making this painting rarer than portraits by Frans Hals, Joshua Reynolds or even Rembrandt.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806) was a master of genre painting and a leading exponent of the Rococo style of which The Swing in the Wallace Collection in London is probably the best known example. In great demand as a portraitist in the dying days of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard fell on hard times after the French Revolution, and although he continued to live in France, he died in obscurity and poverty. Fragonard’s fantasy portraits—often depicting friends and acquaintances—were painted quickly with bold, fluid brush work which anticipated the Impressionists in bravura and technique. This style was referred to by some contemporaries as the artist’s, “swordplay of the brush.” The portrait of François-Henri d’Harcourt is unusual among Fragonard’s fantasy portraits because the subject is identified. Many of the other portraits are personifications of the arts rather than representations of named individuals.

The story of this recently discovered manuscript was featured at The Antiques Trade Gazette back in September and then at the BBC in October; but it has received lots of attention over the past few days after being featured in The Daily Mail and The Independent. It’s estimated to fetch between between £100,000 and £150,000.

Update (added 24 November): As reported by the Manchester Evening News, the Haggadah fetched £210,000.

Silver, Judaica, Jewellery, and Watches Sale
Adam Patridge Auctioneers, Macclesfield, 22 November 2014

In July 2013 this important Haggadah was found in a routine house contents valuation. It will be offered for auction on the 22nd November at The Cheshire Saleroom as part of a specialist one day auction of Judaica, Silver, Jewellery & Watches.

A rare and important 18th-century Passover Seder Haggadah, written and illuminated on vellum by Aaron Wolff Shreiber Herlingen of Gewitsch, Pressberg, 5486 [1726 CE]. The pictorial title border depicts Aaron and Moses and is inscribed in Hebrew “Written by Aaron son of Benjamin Wolff 1726 for Mendel Oppenheimer. This Aaron was a friend of Moses Mendelsohn.” Aaron Wolff Herlingen was active 1721–1755 and held the position of official scribe at the Imperial Library in Vienna.

Original Viennese red-dyed vellum binding over pasteboard, 20-leaf, each 242mm x 162mm, containing 45 coloured vignettes of 27mm x 45mm and 11 coloured vignettes of 77mm x 120mm. Slight food and wine staining throughout.

It is thought that the manuscript was commissioned to mark the birth of Emanuel Mendel Oppenheimer (1726–80), the first child of Samuel Emanuel Oppenheimer of Vienna and a close descendant of the great banker and imperial court diplomat Samuel Oppenheimer (1630–1703).

Provenance: This was inherited by the current vendor in 2007. It has been in the family for over 100 years.

Press release (5 November 2013) from Christie’s:

Centuries of Style: Silver, European Ceramics, Portrait Miniatures and Gold Boxes (#1162)
Christie’s, London, 26–27 November 2013

Christie’s announced the forthcoming bi-annual sale of Centuries of Style: Silver, European Ceramics, Portrait Miniatures and Gold Boxes (Sale 1162) that will be held over two consecutive days in London on Tuesday, 26 and Wednesday, 27 November 2013. This sale offers collectors a superb opportunity to add to their collections with a wide-range of important, rare and unique treasures.

Silver

The silver section of the sale presents exemplary pieces of extraordinary quality from the 16th century to the 21st century, it is expected to realise in the region of £1.5 million. The auction is led by two very important private collections of Georg Jensen silver, which contain many outstanding pieces by the maker and the largest collection to be offered in London in recent years. Among the stars is a rare and important Danish fish dish, cover and mazarine, designed by Harald Nielsen (1892–1977). This beautifully crafted silver displays the greatest originality of design and is amongst the largest items made by the Jensen workshop, measuring 65 centimetres wide. This work is expected to realise between £80,000 and £120,000. Further examples of the highest quality of European silver include a pair of Danish five-light candelabra (estimate: £40,000–60,000), which is one the most spectacular piece of Jensen silver to be offered. A further highlight is a magnificent Danish jug designed by Henning Koppel (1918–1981) (estimate: £25,000–35,000). Known as the ‘African Girl’, due to its elegant handle stacked with ‘necklaces’, this pitcher was the first in the series that was designed in 1948 and has become an icon of Scandinavian modern design.

Gold Boxes and Objects of Vertu

This sale presents a varied and interesting array of gold boxes and objects of vertu, displaying examples of the many techniques employed by European goldsmiths during the 18th and 19th centuries. This section of the sale is led by a highly important and incredibly rare Louis XV enamelled gold snuff-box, by Louis Charonnat (Lot 298, estimate: £150,000–200,000). This striking piece displays outstanding enamelling extract, which has been attributed to Charles-Jacques de Mailly, who worked in Paris during the 1760s and 1770s and later in St Petersburg. De Mailly is known for his grisaille allegorical scenes which are surrounded by brightly coloured flower garlands.

A French jewelled enamelled gold presentation snuff-box, circa 1860, by Louis Tronquoy, a highly-sought after name in the world of gold boxes, is another important example (estimate: £40,000–60,000). The striking box is set with diamonds that form the initials of Isma’il Pasha (1830–1895) Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. A presentation box, it was given by Isma’il to a Dutch contractor who was working for him in Egypt during the late 19th century. Further highlights include an important private Greek collection belonging to the Late Mrs. Melas (1908–1983), comprising twenty-five boxes with estimates ranging from £2,000 up to £60,000. This outstanding collection started in 1954 when Mrs. Melas purchased a boîte-à-miniatures set with miniatures by the 18th-century engraver Jacques-Joseph de Gault, from the auction of the King Farouk Collection, The Palace Collections of Egypt, in Cairo. A leading example is an exquisite Louis XVI goldlined boîte-à-miniatures, by Adrien Vachette (estimate: £20,000–30,000).

Portrait Miniatures

Charming British portrait miniatures are a notable part of the sale, they are offered alongside an array of rare and important Continental sitters and artists. A remarkable group of royal sitters is led by two exceptional examples by Nicholas Hilliard (1547–1619), King James I of England and VI of Scotland (1566–1625) (estimate: £15,000–20,000) and King Charles I (1600–1649) when Duke of York (estimate: £15,000–25,000). Further highlights from this group include an exquisitely detailed miniature of King James II of England and VII of Scotland (1633–1701) by Samuel Cooper, the second son of Charles I, who ascended to the throne upon the death of his brother, Charles II (estimate: £40,000–60,000).

Members of the German royal families of Bavaria, Hesse-Cassel and Prussia are well represented by a portrait of Queen Louise of Prussia (1776–1810) (estimate: £6,000–8,000) and two remarkable miniatures by Anton König (1722–1787) and Daniel Chodowiecki (1726–1801) depicting the German Emperor Frederick the Great, King of Prussia during the 1740s through to the 1780s. Both König’s Frederick the Great (estimate: £6,000–8,000) and Chodowiecki’s Frederick the Great on Horseback (estimate: £20,000–30,000) depict the King planning his military movements in battle. Frederick the Great remains one of the most renowned German rulers of all time for his military successes and his domestic reforms that made Prussia one of the leading European nations. Further highlights include exemplary works by Heinrich Füger (1751–1818), led by an impressive miniature of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor (1747–1792) (estimate: £30,000–50,000).

European Ceramics

One of the many spectacular and unusual offerings in the European ceramics section is a striking pair of hispano-moresque copper lustre and blue drug-jars from the mid-15th century (estimate: £35,000–40,000). These boldly decorated pieces have not been on the market for over fifty years; they are very rare examples, remarkably large in size and in exceptionally good condition. A further rare piece is a Staffordshire salt glaze Stoneware ‘scratch-blue’ Jacobite loving-cup (estimate: £7,000–10,000). The cup depicts Charles Edward Stuart (1720–1788), known as the ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’. He instigated the unsuccessful Jacobite uprising of 1745 in which he attempted to restore the Stuarts to the throne of the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Meissen section of the sale is led by an important private collection of good early pieces decorated with Chinoiserie and European subjects, comprising sixteen lots with estimates ranging from £2,000 up to £12,000.

Press release (22 July 2013) from PADA (a CAA affiliate society, incidentally). . .

Private Goes Public (Private Art Dealers Association)
13 East 69th Street, New York, 1–16 November 2013

The Private Art Dealers Association (PADA), the first trade association to represent private art dealers, is celebrating its 25th anniversary with its first-ever public exhibition, Private Goes Public, 1–16 November 2013. Over thirty members of the 50-member strong PADA organization will exhibit a full range of fine art from the 17th to the 21st centuries at 13 East 69th Street, where galleries of three PADA members are located. European and American paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and sculpture will be offered, all available for sale. An illustrated catalog will provide details on each of the dealers exhibiting at this show. (more…)