Tag archives: antiques
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 […]
This is an etching that captures the American spirit of the modern, growing metropolis that was New York City in 1926. The work, which shows the city from the shores of Governor’s Island, is by Anton Friedrich Josef Schütz, an artist and founder of the New York Graphic Society in 1925. He was born in […]
Forty years ago, in an antique shop, NH was intrigued by the somewhat sad face of the Prince of Wales engraved on a bullock’s horn, a pair of mated horns engraved with iconography of Australia in the scrimshaw technique. Engravings on horn, bone, or ivory, usually from a marine mammal, are classic material for scrimshaw, […]
BH has an Italian watercolor genre painting which features classic genre style figuration: a buxom peasant girl (wearing a very loose blouse) listens to a man who leads a burro; she has dropped her basket on the stones of a village street. The corridor of stone buildings shows us an onlooker, a young man in blue. […]
The audience waiting on the steps of the Lobero Theatre on the Sunday night of December 9, 1957, were hip jazz lovers, some from the College Jazz Club, sponsors of the concert, all eager for the night’s concert. The legendary master of the vibes and the bongos, Cal Tjader, would be performing “hot numbers” (as […]
TG sends me a lovely etching of Scarborough Harbor in England circa 1920 at 13”x5” and asks if I know the artist. I do; the artist is a maritime painter of Britain’s ships, ports, and rivers in the late 19th early 20th century, William Lionel Wyllie (1851-1931), who was known for his oils, etchings, and watercolors. […]
SB has a red and white American quilt, created in the late 19th century, which belonged to her great-grandmother. The motif features the star pattern known as the shooting star, the lucky star, or the falling stars. SB doesn’t say if her great-grandmother made the quilt, but having been born 150 years ago – in […]
BL sends me a fabulous yellow Steuben glass set, a barware service designed and created in the late 1920s by Frederick Carder (born England 1863, died Corning, NY, 1963) who was head of Steuben glass from 1903 – 1930. BL wonders about the color of his glassware set – and the history. The pattern is […]
SB sends me photos of a 19th c. ceramic figure; a relief-painted scullery maid holding a gold-gilded metal cookpot, and seated on a gold-gilded metal chair. Such an interesting combination of materials here: a pottery figure, glazed and painted, seated on a gilded metal chair. To produce such a piece in the 19th c. took […]
RH sends me a tin children’s ride-on rocking horse that has been living in his garage for years; he THINKS it belonged to his mom but he is not sure. I believe this horse was his mother’s mom’s or her dad’s, as I think this toy dates from the late 19th early 20th c. These […]
JJ has a wonderful goose-neck floor lamp, found at the Earl Warren flea market. The base is a naturalistic bronze – a round figure of a lily pad featuring a little crawfish with tiny minnows. The base is stamped R B and Co., with what appears to be two sets of numbers which likely indicate […]
RH has a Chinese style coffee table with a startling scene of ancient Chinese Court life, composed of applied carved semi-precious stone figures. Two of the six figures are battling: there’s a man wielding a bamboo stick and another kneeling, the other figures look on from an elegant pagoda. RH has always wondered about this […]
