Once again it is time (or was) to check out American Antiques in New York. I wasn't as involved this year, but I went to a few auctions, shows, and events. (My) highlights include:

A bit of the Christie's auction. Notable stool sold. Apparently its mate sold for 5 million last year-ish?


The American Antiques Show. Got to see Skip and his booth, and get a hug.


Society of Winterthur Fellows meeting. Soon to have new website. Once again was reminded that I did not get a class trip to London.


Winter Antiques Show wasn't that great until I got to sit in the most amazing chair at the Associated Artists LLC booth. The guy was so nice! Oh, and we saw Yoko Ono.

A Tale of Two Tea Tables

Last week there were two tea tables (well, more than two, but two major ones) up for sale at Christie's and Sotheby's (the one with Mr. Keno). The Christie's table had a low estimate, and brought over $4 million, while the Sotheby's table was estimated to bring $2-6 million, and only took in $1.6 million. The Christie's table was sold first, on Friday, and the other table sold on Saturday. Perhaps this had an effect on the prices. Some people felt that the Sotheby's table's surface ended up hurting it (refinished too recently). I was not completely shocked at the outcome (I just liked the Christie's one better anyway), but there was so much hype about the Sotheby's table, it even had its very own catalogue, so I feel a little bad for it. Yes, I just said I feel bad for a table... I hope it goes to a loving home.

Auction weekend

I'm pretty excited for this weekend, because the Pook & Pook auction is going to be awesome. I'm going tomorrow for the preview, and will hopefully get to handle some things. I'm on the lookout for boxes like the one in the last post. I won't find one painted in the same manner, but there are some similarly shaped versions in the catalogue that I want to get a good look at. I'm going with the curator I'm working on the project with, so I'll have her expert eyes in addition to my eyes-in-training.

On Friday night I'll be going to the first half the the auction. I've been to one auction at P&P, and they had some nice stuff, but this one is of interest to me because of the people I'm going with and the projects I'm working on. The last time I was there was for a class assignment. We had to argue/explain why pieces sold for what they did. It was a great learning experience, especially because it reminded all of us that the market is a big part of our lives, even if we are academics.