Research on Antiques & Collectibles

Silver was the chief status symbol of the Victorian era. There was nothing new in this: gold and silver had long been used as the expression of power and wealth of those in high places, and from the beginning of the eighteenth century at least, they had become important to people lower down the social scale. In the earlier part of the century, members of middle-class families often had their portraits painted grouped around a table on which the family's silver tea service was displayed. From the 1760's onwards, the invention of Sheffield plate and methods of mass production, made silver items available to an increasing number of people. This process was accentuated during the nineteenth century. The discovery of ....   Read Full Story

It is impossible to arrest decay on antiques completely: all one can do is to delay it for as long as possible. As in any other form of antique a moderate even temperature is required, and it is necessary to avoid extreme cold or damp. These are in effect the main essentials of what is known in an antiques museum as 'conservation'. What techniques and practices you use and how you tackle the work depends largely on....   Read Full Story

The manufacture of plated goods was also carried on in Birmingham and at the beginning of Victoria's reign, Sheffield plate was being....   Read Full Story

As the corseted and crinoline Victorian era gave way to the age of the flapper, the changing status of women revealed itself in curious ways. Among them was the unspoken right of liberated ladies to smoke and to powder their noses in public. Out would come the powder compact - often enameled, sometimes even bejeweled - from the beaded, velvet or silver-mesh bag. In its myriad shapes, materials and designs, the compact was more than a fashionable accessory, more, even, than "the weapon of a fantastic coquetry," as Vogue magazine put it in a 1923 issue. It was often an object of impeccable period beauty, and that period, more often than not, was Art Deco. Today these little relics of social history are being snapped up in increasing numbers at....   Read Full Story

Jean Despres is a unique case in the history of French metalwork between the two world wars. He belongs to a group of artists who were strongly displeased with the first major international exposition of decorative arts – the huge Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes - which was held in Paris in 1925. It was this exposition that gave Art Deco its name. Among Despres's cohorts were the architects Le Corbusier and Robert Mallet-Stevens, the silver designer Jean Puiforcat, the sculptor Gustave Miklos and others. Despite differences, they had one common fascination:....   Read Full Story

Imagine it is 1928 and you are a young man, perhaps home from school, sitting under the clock at New York's Biltmore Hotel. You are waiting for a girl. After smoothing your hair, you check your flannel pants for puffs of lint and pull your camel coat close. Everything's just swell. But where is that girl? You pull up your sleeve and look at your new Bulova wristwatch. She is ten minutes late. Maybe I should leave, you think, with a touch of irritation. But then you soften and press the little button on your watch. Up pops the watch face, and there, nestled against your wrist and framed in the gold watchband, is her picture. You smile, sigh and decide to wait. That moment, she floats through the revolving doors. In the twenties, the wristwatch was all the rage....   Read Full Story

Snapping gold terriers. Roaring tigers with sparkling gems in their jaws. Greek goddesses, minutely carved in crystal. These are all antique stickpins, and they are also - as dealers will happily tell you - very much in fashion. While prices for antique jewelry have soared in recent years, old stickpins of every variety - from a classic pearl tiepin to a whimsical platinum-and-diamond winged elephant - can still please the collector without emptying his wallet. And for those seeking the truly fine piece to add to their collections, there is the occasional stickpin by such notable firms as Tiffany, Lalique or Faberge, or by a master craftsman whose personal signature can greatly enhance its value. Stickpins found nowadays in antiques stores generally date....   Read Full Story

MOSES MICHAEL HAYS, a merchant who lived in New York, Newport, and Boston in the stirring years of the second half of the eighteenth century, is of interest to us today primarily because he was a link between two outstanding figures of his time - Paul Revere the patriot, and Myer Myers the New York silversmith. He was, however, an interesting figure in his own right. Hays was born in New York on May 9, 1739, and died on the same day sixty-six years later. His father, Judah, was a merchant; his paternal grandfather was born in Holland. By 1769 Moses had been made a freeman of New York, and sometime later the family moved to Newport, Rhode Island. His commercial...   Read Full Story

The fondness of the Pennsylvania Germans for ornamenting even the simplest of their handicrafts is proverbial, and the piercing or punching of the sheet tin used for household objects as a means of enhancing their beauty seems to have been particularly popular. True, pierced tin performed both a utilitarian and a decorative function in the familiar "Paul Revere" lantern, and in the more or less ubiquitous footwarmers, both of which tare of eastern seaboard rather than purely local provenance. But it remained for the Pennsylvania German craftsman to turn a merely convenient practice into something of an art. Tinware, pierced or punched, seems to be almost entirely a...   Read Full Story