Here Be Old Things

Antiques Garage in Chelsea: the most authentic flea market left in New York City

Antiques Garage
112 West 25th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues
Saturday and Sunday 6:30 am to 5:00 pm

This is it, people: the most truly authentic flea market left in New York City is the Antiques Garage in Chelsea. It's exactly the type of market you can still find in Europe but that is fading fast from Manhattan.

Approximately 100 dealers set up their tables every weekend on two floors of a parking garage between 24th and 25th Streets. Sheltered inside from the weather, they sell eclectic antiques, decorative arts and vintage collectibles. There's silver. There's prints and paintings. There's furniture. There's all sorts of weird and interesting stuff plus the promise of haphazard luck that keeps people like us on the move and on the hunt. In short, there's old things–lots.

The craft and new jewelry makers that swell other fleas have tried their luck here, but with no success, because the crowd drawn to the Antiques Garage is too hardcore.

Clarke Auction Gallery to Antiques Roadshow: valuation day? We got your valuation day right here.

Clarke Auction Gallery is now offering free valuations on Wednesdays from 1 to 5 pm.

That mystery piece in the garage that you've always fantasized about hauling out to Antiques Roadshow? You'll be missing your chance to appear on television with one of the Keno brothers, but on the other hand, at Clarke there's no long lines, and no chance that you'll be that shame-faced sucker who just got told in front of millions of viewers that the cherished family heirloom is a worthless reproduction.

Clarke once identified a suite of shabby chic furniture as 18th- or early 19th-Century Venetian, and sold it for $70,000. Get this–the owner hadn't been able to interest any of Manhattan's larger auction houses in the furniture. Oops.

There's a limit of three items per person, and you can bring photos instead of the actual object. Contact them at 914-833-8336 or email [email protected]. If you're pleased with what you discover, you can sell it to Clarke directly (if they're interested) or consign your prize to auction. Or bring it home and brag a lot.

If you're not happy, however, you can just slink away, blissfully anonymous.

What the...?! Clarke identified this unwanted piece of glass as a Livio Seguso sculpture and sold it for $1900.

Related: Clarke Auction Gallery: deals on estate furniture and mid-century modern

 

New York City auctions: March 3–9, 2008

Lot 0141 Cai Guo Qiang "Alligator" at Christie's Interiors sale 

Tuesday March 4

• Christie's 10 am and 2 pm: Interiors

Wednesday March 5

• Christie's 10 am and 2 pm: Interiors
• Bloomsbury 10 am and 2 pm: Bibliophile Sale: Americana and Literature

Thursday March 6

• Sotheby's 2 pm: American Paintings
• Swann 10:30 am and 2:30 pm: 100 Fine Works on Paper; and 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings

Friday March 7

• Christie's 10 am: Fine American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture

Foreign auction lust: Bruun Rasmussen in Denmark

Yes, we're still in Denmark. Great coffee, marzipan desserts, wonderful antiques . . . why move on before we're ready?

Bruun Rasmussen is the big kid auction house in Copenhagen. Even though Lauritz claims to the be the largest, my sense is that with their internet-based rise, they're the upstart; Bruun Rasmussen, opened in 1948, is the more traditional, with sophistication equivalent to Christie's and Sotheby's. One of the top ten auction houses in the world (according to their site) they have four galleries in Denmark, hold over 40 auctions a year, and are represented in Sweden, France, Spain and the USA.

If you want Danish modern, go to the source. If you can't afford to have it shipped, Bruun Rasmussen has a nice website with several photos of each lot, and a zoom feature, so you can at least drool. Everything's in English, too, so you know what you're missing. I appreciate their search agent, which sends me updates if an artist I've listed for appears for sale.

Art theives: only cool and smart in the movies

photo from The New York Times

"Art is an exceedingly dumb thing to steal." That's the conclusion of the New York Times. While art thieves may have a sexy, sophisticated reputation:

The mundane reality is that many art thieves are simply not the sharpest grappling hooks in the toolbag; the smart ones choose to steal things that can be much more easily converted into money — or just money itself.

In other words, once the Van Gogh is in your possession, where in the world are you going to fence it? It's not like there are multiple copies of the same painting lying around. If you've got the painting that just disappeared from the famous museum, it's pretty glaring.

New York City Auctions February 25–March 2, 2008

Greene photo of Marilyn Monroe at Tepper Galleries

Monday February 25

• Sotheby's 6 pm: An Exceptional Private Cellar

Wednesday February 27

• Doyle 10 am: Doyle at Home: Fine Furniture, Decorations and Paintings
• R.A. Siegel 6 pm: The Tahoe Collection of Superb Used United States Stamps

Thursday February 28

• R.A. Siegel 1:30 pm: The Barry K. Schwartz Collection of the 1893 Columbian Issue
  

Saturday March 1

• Tepper Galleries 10 am: Fine & Decorative Arts Estates Auction

high/low auction prices: February 12th dog sales

Doyle: Dogs in Art

• hi: $193,000 lot 2078A Cassius Marcellus Coolidge "Only a Pair of Deuces"
• lo: $75 lot 2079 Linda Hackett "Pekingese - a Study"

The Pekingese study was actually the second lowest-priced lot (the very lowest lot was #2033, two books on dogs, for $63.) but I wanted to show it because every time I look at these pieces next to each other I think ... why? WHY?

Bonhams: The Dog Sale

• hi: $66,000 lot 225 John Emms "Foxhounds and a hunt terrier on a bench"
• lo: $108 lot No: 50 "Dogs Rough and Smooth" illustrated by Lucy Dawson

These pictures are details of the originals. Prices are inclusive of buyer's premium and, possibly, taxes.

 

Antique Trader hosts an amusing and informative blog

Have you checked out the Antique Trader Blog? Some of my favorite posts so far:

When Antiques Get Dangerous! a story about about a New Jersey flea market site that was a former firing range–live munitions may still be buried there;

Auction Dupe? Or the name of the game? a pretty sad tale about how a rogue Oregon auctioneer bilked a couple out of the rightful gains from their estate;

and a number of posts about the mess eBay is making of their business and the lengths sellers are going to to find other outlets, including: Online auctioneers divide eBay exodus booty.

The Antique Trader Blog pulls in many quick, informative, and amusing stories from around the country. My mother used to subscribe to the print version and it was a big event when it came in the mail. It's nice to see that the magazine is still relevant and moving gracefully into the digital world.

Clarke Auction Gallery: deals on estate furniture and mid-century modern

Clarke (C&C) Auction Gallery
20 North Avenue in Larchmont
(914) 833-8336

Bidders rest on one of the lots at Clarke.

New York City is almost cursed with a number of big name auction houses. Christie's, Sotheby's, Doyle . . . where's the fun of going to an auction if you have to worry about wearing the right designer shoes?

Luckily, there are still some "real world" auction houses in the area. Clarke Auction Gallery is one of these. Comfortable and unassuming, patronized by dealers looking for inventory, interior designers shopping for clients, and apartment self-decorators fleeing Pottery Barn, Clarke has some great finds.

Sotheby's rocks with Bono and (Auction) Red

Rock star Bono is hosting (Auction) Red at Sotheby's this Valentine's Day to benefit the charity.

If you're eager to bid against the likes of Michael Stipe, Moby, Josh Hartnett, Ed Burns, Dennis Hopper and Christy Turlington, don't hurry to register for a paddle. The audience of 700 is invite only.

(Red) benefits AIDS patients in Africa. A percentage of the sale of consumer products bearing the (Red) label goes to buy the two pills a day necessary to keep patients alive. Bono convinced Damien Hirst to petition many of the art world's top contemporary artists–Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Chuck Close and more–to donate pieces to the auction, the entire proceeds of which will benefit the charity. Many of the pieces were created specifically for the auction, and are donated directly by the artists.

It's refreshing to hear about an auction where the proceeds will go to real good. But the original sales estimate of $40 million has dropped recently to $21–29 million based on recession fears. Pump up the music, Bono! Shake those wallets, people!

Shelley's Art History Blog [About.com]
Sotheby's Cuts Estimate for Hirst, Bono-Backed Auction by 28% [Bloomberg.com]

New York City Auctions February 18–24

Lot 2136 Walter Williams, "Harvest," at Swann's African American Fine Art sale

Tuesday February 19

• Swann 1:30 pm: African American Fine Art

Wednesday February 20

• Cherrystone 11 am: The Salomon Rosenthal Collection of Mexican Maritime Mail
• Christie's 10 am and 2 pm: Photographs

Thursday February 21

• Swann 1:30 pm: Printed & Manuscript African Americana

Saturday February 23

• Morrell Wine Auctions 10:30 am and 2 pm

Coming up this weekend

Starting today, the New York Design Fair is at the Park Avenue Armory. And tomorrow, the Manhattan Vintage Clothing Show is back at the Metropolitan Pavilion. (See Shows + Fairs for details.)

The Clothing Show has someone who's a really good photographer cover the events and I always like looking through the highlight shots on their site. Here are a few from 2007.

Update: the new Brooklyn Flea is building its dealer list

I was wondering the other day if the Brownstoner's Brooklyn Flea had been able to recruit any sellers. Then I found their new blog. Check it out: they've included a list of all the vendors who have committed so far. Paul De Beer is one–Eric Demby says that he spotted Paul on Craig's List and called him up with an invite. It looks as if they already have a good selection, but I'm rooting for the flea's list of antiques, vintage and collectible dealers to grow (there's just way too many hand-made crafty things in the city markets these days, grumble grumble) so if you're that person, or if you have any advice on which sources Eric should use to spread the word to the antiques community, please contact him through the website.

Random news linkage

Just when we all got over the Elizabeth Gibson/"Tres Personajes" drama, another stolen painting has surfaced in Manhattan. Filched from the Martin Lawrence Gallery in 1998, one of Warhol's Dollar Sign portraits re-surfaced when a man named Jason Beltrez tried to consign it to Christie's. The auction house is holding the painting, which is on the Art Loss Register, while the gallery sues for its return. The register's general counsel remarked "It really was a textbook case for us. You had a seller who may not have been your typical Andy Warhol consigner and you have a major auction house that's doing the right thing."

OK, but who IS a typical Warhol consigner? Are they that easily recognizable?

On to the shows ... reading between the lines, it sounds as if attendance was off at the New York Ceramics Fair; they're blaming bad weather and football. If you want to get an idea of who showed what and what it sold for, check out these reports on the Winter Antiques Show and Antiques Manhattan. I'm wondering how Phyllis Sauter made out with Antiques Show Chelsea . . . Phyllis?

New York City auctions: February 11–17, 2008

Lot No: 252 Portrait of the Brussels Griffon 'Dearly' by Eugene van Gelder (Belgian, born  1856) at Bonhams Dog Sale.

Monday February 11

• C&C Auction Gallery 6 pm (Larchmont): Estate Auction

Tuesday February 12

• Bonhams 10 am: The Dog Sale
• Doyle 1 pm: Dogs in Art including Sporting Paintings

Wednesday February 13

• Doyle 10 am: Belle Epoque: 19th and 20th Century Decorative Arts
• Sotheby's 10 am: Impressionist and Modern Art including Russian and Latin American Art

Thursday February 14

• Christie's 10 am: Impressionist And Modern Art
• Sotheby's 7 pm: (Red)

Saturday February 16

• Tepper 10 am: Estates Auction

Generally, dealers leave the Winter Antiques Show because they've died

photo by stickerhelsinki

That's the gist of  this article about getting a spot at the Winter Antiques Show. Dealers wait up to THIRTY years to be asked to the show; they can apply, but in the end they have to get the nod in the form of a formal invite. To even have a prayer, their goods have to be top-notch and in original condition. Mirrors, for example, must be the original glass, not re-gilded, and the condition of the paint has to pass muster.

"We have a very low attrition rate,'' said the show's executive director, Catherine Sweeney Singer. "Of course you can be removed for not having show-worthy material, but that's very rare."

Besides New York socialites, the clientele at the show includes many museum curators. Let's see . . . limited access to high-rolling, high-profile customers, intense entry requirements, and possibly long-living dealers/rivals blocking access to the Big Show: sounds like the makings of a good murder mystery.

Cool curiosities; Dealers wait decades for a slot in the Winter Antiques Show [The Sault Star]