OCTOBER 2008

PERIOD DRAMA AT THE FALL ANTIQUES

Festival Pavilion

The San Francisco Bay Area’s most stylish and oldest antiques show brings grace and elegance to Fort Mason Center in late October 2008. More than 70 dealers from the US and Europe participate in the Fall Antiques Show, which benefits Enterprise For High School Students (EHSS), a citywide school-to-work youth development agency that helps students explore career interests.

Antique dealers from around the world exhibit an extraordinary range of fine and decorative arts representing all styles and periods, including American, English, Continental, and Asian furniture, silver, ceramics, glass, jewelry, rugs, textiles, paintings, prints, and photographs.

In addition to the exhibition and sale, the Fall Antiques Show provides a lecture series, a Loan Exhibition, and a gala benefit preview party for EHSS.

The theme of the 2008 lecture series is “In the Classic Style.” Five captivating lectures explore neoclassicism in architecture, furnishings, gardens, interiors, and lifestyles. Featured speakers include The J. Paul Getty Museum’s Assistant Curator of Antiquities, Kenneth Lapatin, who discusses “Lifestyles of the Rich and Roman: Luxury Arts in the Villas of Pompeii and Environs.”

The Loan Exhibition is “Building Small: Antique Architectural Models.” This display features remarkable miniature structures used for presentations and problem solving by architects and their clients.

Four well-known designers have also created compelling “Classic Chic” vignettes at the entrance to the antiques show. Michael Burg Interiors contributed a dining room concept, while the Wick Design Group put together a library. Other vignettes include a garden by Suzman and Cole and Martha Angus Inc.’s living room.

The Fall Antiques Show strives to present to the public a wide selection of furniture and objects in a broad range of prices and a diverse range of styles, tastes, and periods. The show regularly includes dealers specializing in books, documents, and manuscripts, as well as other uncommon objects.

Those who collect carpets, rugs, and textiles can also discover rare treasures at the show. Other specialties include clocks and scientific instruments, furniture, and folk and ethnographic art. Those who fancy European and American ceramics and glass and Chinese export porcelain objects often find much to admire at the fair. The fair’s metals collection includes brass, pewter, and silver objects.

For 20th century antiques enthusiasts, the fall fair is a cornucopia of Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Mid-Century Modern items. Other objects of interest include enamels, Fabergé pieces, miniatures, and vintage snuff boxes. The fine arts are not neglected thanks to an abundance of paintings, sculpture, photographs, prints, and antique maps at the fair.

The quality and variety of collectible items for sale promise to make this an antiques fair to remember. For more information, see October 22 in the calendar and www.ehss.org.

— Claudia Willen

Images top to bottom:
L-R: Louis XV period musical clock, Courtesy: Bernard Steinitz, Viennese Enamel Horn, Courtesy: Antique Enamel Company, 19th century Staffordshire Turks figures, Courtesy: Richard Gould Antiques

Torso of a Diety, Courtesy: Douglas Dawson

Baptistry Model, Pisa, Courtesy: Ace Architects, Photo: Douglas Sandberg

Tie-Dyed Panel, Peru, Courtesy: Douglas Dawson

Dovima with Elephants, Dress by Dior, by Richard Avedon, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery