Reproduction floorcloths Allison Eckardt Ledes The canvases from which these floor coverings were made (in widths that are not available today) were painted four to seven times on each side before the freehand or stenciled design was applied. As early as 1739 John Carwitham, an Englishman, published Various kinds of Floor Decorations represented both in […]
Living with antiques: the Crane and the Ware houses united Roderic H. Blackburn If rivers are the arteries of continents, it was the connecticut River that brought European life to the interior of New England. It was explored by the Dutchman Adrian Block in 1614, and its fertile lands were first settled by Walloons, who […]
A new service for dating English furniture – Design Notes Allison Eckardt Ledes Account books for English furniture makers and their patrons survive, but primarily only for the grandest and most prolific makers who were commissioned to supply affluent owners with furniture for their palatial houses in London and the country These documents are replete […]
Lalique and the artistic jewel – Rene Lalique Joan T. Rosasco In 1944, during the dark years of the German occupation of Paris in World War II, the seventy-year-old Collete wrote Gigi, a delicious evocation of the city during her youth, when it was the brilliant capital of luxury and pleasure. In this worldly fairy […]
Trompe l’oeil painting Allison Eckardt Ledes Trompe l’oeil painting reached the height of its popularity in this country around the turn of the twentieth century. Because these works often feature dead game, hunting tools, and smoking paraphernalia, they are frequently considered works painted by male artists for male patrons, which many were. Indeed, at the […]
An expansion in Baltimore – exhibits to celebrate reopening of Walters Art Gallery – Brief Article Allison Eckardt Ledes In the great era of collecting at the beginning of the twentieth century, titans such as John Pierpont Morgan amassed enormous and important art collections. More than a few achieved this by buying entire collections that […]
Garden containers Allison Eckardt Ledes Toward the end of her long and productive life, the landscape architect Beatrix Farrand (nee Jones; 1872-1959) spent her time cultivating her own garden, called Reef Point, in Bar Harbor, Maine. She had made provision in her will for it to become a center for horticultural studies, making use of […]
Early Golf Clubs And Balls Robert G. Gowland FORE! A version of the Royal and Ancient Game, as golf is officially known, appears to have been played in Britain as early as the fourteenth century (see P1. IV), but it developed into its recognizable form in Scotland probably in the middle of the sixteenth century. […]
Watercolors: Sargent’s pictorial diary – watercolor painter John Singer Sargent Carol Troyen Late in 1911, Arthur Fairbanks, the director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, heard that John Singer Sargent was preparing a group of watercolors for exhibition and sale at M. Knoedler and Company in New York City. He was interested immediately, for […]
East and West meet Miriam Kramer The voyages of discovery launched at the end of the fifteenth century greatly extended Europeans’ horizons. The most famous of the explorations was undertaken by Christopher Columbus in 1492, with the unfulfilled goal of finding a safe easterly route to Asia. Six years later the Portuguese explorer Vasco da […]