A Reggie Road Trip: Houston

Well, not exactly a Road Trip, more of a stolen afternoon, really.

A month or so ago I found myself, much to my surprise, in Houston, Texas, where I was a last minute addition to a client meeting one morning.  The meeting took place, coincidentally, at the same time as one of the city's largest annual conventions, and every hotel, rental car, and flight in and out of the city was either booked or jammed.  Although my meeting was over before noon, the first flight I could get back to New York that day was at six thirty in the evening.

So I had the afternoon to kill in Houston.

And I was thrilled that I did.

I have been meaning to visit Houston for some time now, as a tourist.  Houston, you may ask?  What does Houston have to offer a person such as Reggie?

Rather a lot, as it turns out.  And I just scratched the surface of it.  I would very much like to go back there again and spend several more days checking out the city's sights and pleasures.

Mr first stop in Houston: the MFAH's new Audrey Jones Beck Building

My favorite hotel to stay in when I visit Houston is the Four Seasons, but it was fully booked during my visit, and the only hotel option available to me when my assistant booked my travel plans was the Marriott at the airport, so that's where I stayed.  Although Reggie doesn't usually care to find himself in such places as a Marriott, particularly when traveling on business, he was perfectly fine with it on this trip, and he didn't kick up a fuss that he wasn't staying in the best hotel in town (unlike some of his colleagues he was traveling with).  The room I stayed in at the Houston Airport Marriott was perfectly clean and quiet, the bed was more than comfortable, and the water pressure in the shower was excellent.  So who needs Frette sheets?

The original, neoclassical MFAH building

The next morning, after my meeting was finished, I happily waved goodbye to my BlackBerry-mad colleagues as they stampeded back to the airport to spend the afternoon waiting and working in the Presidents Club lounge, hoping to catch an earlier flight to New York.  Recognizing that I had the rare opportunity (and excuse) to spend a free afternoon in Houston, I had asked my assistant to book me a car and driver to ferry me about during the afternoon I was there, in order to maximize my efficiency in seeing as much as possible of the city in the few short hours I had available to me.

I was more than pleased when up drove a brand new Lincoln Town Car to meet me, with an excellent and good-humored driver behind the wheel improbably—and delightfully—named Satchmo.  And yes, he was named after the great (if not the greatest) jazz horn player.  Satchmo and I got on very well, and enjoyed each other's company during our time together.

The facade of the MFAH's Audrey Jones Beck Building

With but little time to plan for my visit to Houston and only a short time there to see its sights, I decided to take a surgical strike approach when planning my afternoon's itinerary, and I confined my activities to only a few places within a relatively close proximity.

Oath of the Horatii, Jacques-Louis David, 1786
Collection Toledo Museum of Art
Featured in the MFAH's Antiquity Revived exhibition

As readers of this blog well know, Reggie's first port of call in most of the cities he visits is the primary fine arts museum.  And that's where I headed—to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, also known as the MFAH.  The museum has recently undergone a mammoth, and mostly successful, expansion, and is now comprised of a campus of buildings covering several acres, built in styles ranging from the neoclassical to the modern.  Walking around the MFAH one appreciates the city's extraordinary wealth and philanthropy, which has not only funded such a lovely museum, but endowed it with a superb collection of art.

Venus, Ernst Mattäz (after Bertel Thorvaldsen), 1816-1820
Collection of the MFAH

I usually prefer to spend the bulk of my time when visiting a museum touring its permanent collections, instead of the traveling blockbuster exhibitions from other museums often on display.  In this case I enjoyed touring the MFAH's excellent collections, but I was also more than happy to spend time touring a splendid show there co-organized by the MFAH and the Musée du Louvre.  Titled Antiquity Revived: Neoclassical Art in the Eighteenth Century, it was a thrilling (for Reggie, at least) jaw-dropper of gorgeous objects, statues, paintings, drawings, and furniture all in the neoclassical taste and styles of the latter eighteenth century.  In other words, right up Reggie's alley.  And on top of that, it was full of depictions of the most beautiful nudes imaginable!  I had a lovely time.

Academic Nude, Pompeo Battoni, 1765
Collection of the MFAH

Afterwards I ate lunch at the museum's very pleasant Cafe Express restaurant of a very satisfying, generously scaled turkey club sandwich and an icy-cold bottle of Heineken, where I sat at a table on a sunny outdoor terrace beside a fountain in which birds fetchingly and amusingly bathed.

Rienzi, the former residence of Mr. and Mrs. Harris Masterson, III
John F. Staub, architect

Satchmo was waiting for me in front of the museum and drove me into Houston's River Oaks neighborhood—which to this New Yorker's eyes looks to be as rich and manicured as Beverly Hills—and dropped me off at Rienzi, a house museum owned and operated by the MFAH.  Given to the museum a dozen or so years ago by the family of Mr. and Mrs. Harris Masterson, III, who built and lived in it for many years, Rienzi contains an impressive collection of European paintings and decorative arts assembled by the Mastersons (and added to by the Museum).  Today it operates as the MFAH's center for European decorative arts.

The ball room at Rienzi

Rienzi is, I must admit, a bit of a mess.  Large and eclectically decorated in the very personal, and at times, dubious taste of the Mastersons, it is a hodge-podge of decorative styles and objects.  Although I enjoyed visiting Rienzi (and was pleased to be the only visitor there when I toured it), I think the MFAH would be better served if it sold the house and moved the collection to the main campus of the museum (and deaccessioned some of the less noteworthy objects in the process) where it could be better displayed.  Don't get me wrong, Reggie loves a good house museum, but the dual purpose of Rienzi as both a house museum and the MFAH's center for European arts isn't very successful.  I was—nonetheless—more than happy to visit it.

My next and final stop was the one museum in Houston that I have wanted to visit for over thirty five years, and which the opportunity of seeing was the primary reason for why I chose to spend the afternoon in Houston, rather than scurrying back to New York at the first opportunity.

Bayou Bend, the former residence of Miss Ima Hogg
John F. Staub, architect

For those of us who are students of the American decorative arts, as Reggie is, Bayou Bend is one of the most iconic collections of eighteenth and nineteenth century American decorative arts in this country.  Assembled by the unfortunately named Ima Hogg (what a cross that must have been to bear) in the middle twentieth century, it is displayed in a large Regency style mansion (in Houston they appropriately call their big houses mansions) built and lived in by the immensely rich, antique-collecting-mad, Miss Hogg.  Donated to the MFAH in 1965, the house has been reconfigured as a museum of period style rooms containing American furniture and decorative arts dating from the earliest Pilgrim settlers up though the latter nineteenth century.  The collection is most noteworthy for its late eighteenth and early nineteenth century furniture and objects, and it also has a substantial collection of decorative arts with a Texas connection.

The Boston Parlor at Bayou Bend

I was escorted through Bayou Bend by a charming and highly knowledgable Houston lady docent, whose passion for the museum and its founder was admirable, and infectious.  In Reggie's view, these Texas gals can teach their northern cousins a thing or two.  Not only was my docent smart as a whip and had an amusing, sharp sense of humor, but she was dressed to the nines, fully made up, and was wearing an impressive array of jewelry (this was Texas after all) and her hair was done up in a marvelous, upswept blonde bouffant hairdo.  I loved her!

Pair of Baltimore side chairs in the Bayou Bend collection, 1808
Designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe and made by George Bridport

At one point during the tour, my docent showed me into a Federal period style dining room and asked me to look at a large display of Chinese Export porcelain on the table.  As I was doing so, she explained that the service had only recently been given to the museum by the Bayou Bend Ladies Auxilliary Committee, on which she sat, in honor of the fifty-fifth anniversary of the museum's opening to the public.  Imagine my astonishment when I realized that the service on display was of the very same Thomas Willing service of Chinese Export porcelain that I had bought three plates of at the New York Ceramics Fair back in January, and which I posted about here on Reggie Darling!  Needless to say the docent was as surprised as I was at this news, since not only did I know exactly what I was looking at, but I also owned examples from the same service.  We practically fell into each others arms with joy!

The Thomas Willing Chinese Export porcelain plates
in our collection at Darlington House

After that excitement the rest of my visit to Bayou Bend was a bit of a blur, and we had to race through the remainder of the collection so I could meet Satchmo out front in time to make my flight back to New York. With that I bid my docent and Bayou Bend a fond farewell, and hurried on my way.

What a day I had!

All images, except for the Houston postcard and theThomas Willing plates, courtesy of the MFAH.  Image of Houston postcard courtesy of Cafe Press; photograph of the Willing plates by Boy Fenwick

Is She Really Who and What She Is Purported To Be?

I have been interested in collecting antiques my entire life, but it was not until I graduated from college and was earning a decent salary that I was able to afford to indulge in such predilections.  One of the first antiques that I bought of any consequence was a miniature painting on ivory, dating from the 1830s and purported to be of the Empress Maria Anna of Austria.

Kaiserin Mariane von Oesterreich, ca. 1830s
School of (?) Moritz Michael Daffinger

I found the little painting almost thirty years ago while browsing in an antiques shop in suburban Washington, D.C., where I was looking for a wedding present for one of my college roommates.  I thought the picture was appealling, and its subject was pretty, and the price was right.  So I bought it.

The reverse of the miniature, showing
pencil inscription in German

The painting, in an ivory frame measuring 4 ½ by 5 ½ inches, depicts a young lady wearing a rose colored dress, an embroidered shawl, and a pretty bonnet decorated with flowers and lace typical of the 1830s.  It is signed "m. Daffinger."  On the reverse of the frame, written in pencil, is "Kaiserin Mariane v. Oesterreich."

Maria Anna, Empress and Archduchess consort of Austria
Queen consort of Hungary, Bohemia,
Lombardia and Venetia, ca. 1830s
by Johann Nepomuk Ender (1793-1854)
Collection Museo di Roma

Up until now I've never bothered to do any research on my little portrait.  I've always assumed it was a nice piece of tourist or commemorative art, depicting a young Queen of Austria.

When it came time for me to write this essay, however, I decided to see if I could find anything out about my picture.  After spending several hours browsing around the Internet, I learned rather a lot.  The painting is very probably of the young Empress Maria Anna (or Mariane) of Austria (1803-1884) and was possibly painted by an Austrian miniaturist named Moritz Michael Daffinger (1790-1849).

Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia and Family, ca. 1815
by Luigi Bernero (1775-1848)
Collection Royal Castle of Recconigi
Piedmont, Italy

Maria Anna Ricarda Carlotta Margherita Pia of Savoy, the likely subject of my miniature, was Empress and Archduchess consort of Austria, and Queen consort of Hungary, Bohemia, Lombardia, and Venetia.  She was born in 1803 in Rome and was the daughter of King Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia (1759-1824) and the Archduchess Maria-Teresa of Austria-Este (1773-1832).

The hapless Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria
in ceremonial robes of the
Order of the Golden Fleece, 1847
by Leopold Kupelwieser (1796-1892)
Collection Schönbrunn Palace
Vienna, Austria

In 1831 Maria Anna married King Ferdinand V of Hungary (1793-1875), who later became Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria.  Ferdinand was apparently severely epileptic, subject to as many as twenty fits a day, and was widely considered to be rather dim-witted.  Nonetheless, he ruled Austria as Emperor from 1836 until his forced abdication in 1848, when he was succeeded by his far more capable and far longer reigning nephew Franz Joseph (1830-1916).  Although Maria Anna and Ferdinand were supposedly devoted to each other, it is thought that Ferdinand was incapable of consummating their marriage, and no little princes or princesses were produced from their union.

A close-up of the painting

I suspect my miniature of the Empress was painted around the time of Ferdinand's ascension to the throne of Austria in 1836.

After Ferdinand's abdication, the royal couple remained in Austria until Ferdinand's death in 1875.  Maria Anna died in Prague in 1884 and is buried in Vienna, next to her husband.

Detail of the signature of m. Daffinger

Moritz Michael Daffinger (1790-1849), whose signature appears on my little portrait of Maria Anna, was an Austrian miniature painter and sculptor and is considered by those in the know to have been the leading miniaturist of the Biedermeier period.  According to what I've read, Daffinger was influenced by the English painter Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), with whom he studied during Lawrence's visit to Vienna in 1815.  Daffinger is known to have produced more than a thousand portraits, mostly miniatures, of members of the Austrian aristocracy.

A pre-Euro Austrian 20 schilling note
featuring Moritz Michael Daffinger

Revered in his native Austria, Daffinger's likeness appeared on the obverse of the Austrian twenty schilling banknote that circulated until the introduction of the Euro.  He also appeared on a stamp.

An Austrian stamp
featuring Moritz Michael Daffinger

In searching through images of Daffinger's work, I am not absolutely convinced that my little portrait was actually painted by him, even though it bears his signature.  I don't rule it out that he might have painted it, but—even though my miniature of the Empress is very skillfully painted—it isn't as technically refined as many of the works of Daffinger that I came across when researching this essay.

Countess Ferdinandine Karolyi,
née Princesse Kaunitz-Rietberg, ca. 1830
by Moritz Michael Daffinger
location unknown

It is possible that my miniature was painted by Daffinger.  It could also have been painted by a student of his, and he signed it.  It could also be a copy by someone of a miniature of the Empress that Daffinger painted.  It could even be an outright forgery.  I'd have to show it to an expert who is knowledgeable of Daffinger's work in order to determine whether or not he painted it.

Leutnant Botha, ca. 1830s
by Moritz Michael Daffinger
location unknown

Regardless of whether Herr Daffinger actually painted my little portrait or not, it is exceedingly well and finely painted, and I'm very happy to have it.  I appreciate it both for its prettiness and also because of my sentimental attachment to it as one of the first antiques I bought, many years ago.

An Austrian artillery officer
by Moritz Michael Daffinger
Collection of Elle Shushan

At least several dozen miniatures and little paintings by Daffinger have sold at auction in recent years, most of them in Europe but also some here in America, too.  Hammer prices realized range from a low of $750 to as much as $50,000, depending on the picture's quality, attribution, and subject matter.

Princess Melanie Metternich, ca. 1830s
by Moritz Michael Daffinger
sold at Christie's in 2007

Tell me, do you think my little portrait of the Empress Maria Anna was likely painted by Daffinger?

Photographs of Reggie's miniature by Boy Fenwick

Mr. Travers, I Presume?

Continuing my series on miniatures, today I am posting about a recent addition to my collection.  It is a miniature portrait of an Englishman, painted on ivory.  Based on the sitter's clothing and the frame, which I believe is original, I date it to the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

The subject of the portrait is identified on the reverse as a "Mr. Travers," but that is all I know of him.  It is unsigned.  I found it in an antiques shop owned by a family of pickers in the town near Darlington.  We've had good luck with these dealers before, as they were the source of the painting of Robert Burns that I posted about last year, among other things that we now own.

I was attracted to the miniature of Mr. Travers because I thought it was exceedingly well painted.  I also liked the fact that the sitter is posed in an attenuated, three-quarter pose, and he is staring at us with deep blue eyes and with what appears to be an intelligent and clever expression.  His features are refined.  I encourage you, Dear Reader, to double click on the image to get a better view of how well he is painted.  I particularly like the artist's handling of Mr. Travers' stylishly tousled hair and rakish sideburns, so favored in the Regency.  He is dressed fashionably in the severe style favored by Beau Brummel.  The painting is framed in a black papier-mâché frame similar to the one on the miniature portrait of the China Trade merchant that I posted about in February, when I inaugurated this series.

For now I am displaying my miniature portrait of Mr. Travers on a simple easel on my bedroom chest of drawers at Darlington House, where I am pleased to see him watching me as I go about my daily routines.

Next: Is She Really Who and What She Is Purported To Be?

Photograph by Boy Fenwick

Reggie Out & About: "Rooms With A View" Opening at the Metropolitan Museum

The other evening Reggie and Boy had what I consider to be the type of New York evening that I fantasized about having one day, back when I was a young and callow lad, before I moved to this glittering city more than thirty years ago.  It included a generous mix of cocktails, a gallery opening at the city's most magnificent museum, dining in an impossibly smart restaurant, and meeting new, interesting, and noteworthy people.  And it all took place in the most beautiful and fashionable part of the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Reggie was livin' the dream that night.  Well, at least his dream at this stage of his life . . .

Sitting Room, ca. 1820, by Johann Erdmann Hummel
Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin

Okay, Hipsters, you can have your Meat Packing Districts, your Nolitas, your Chelseas, and your Williamsburgs.  Reggie truffled his way through those gritty parts of town when he was younger, too.  Now he is quite happy to be a boring, middle-aged investment banker living and frollicking in what you might consider to be the stuffy and dull old UES.  And he's quite happy if you should feel that way, too, since that means there's more room for him and his kind right where he wants to be.

But I digress . . .

The Family Circle, ca. 1830, by Emilius Bærentzen
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Our evening began with attending an opening cocktail party for a new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where we were the fortunate guests of one of the museum's curators.  It was for Rooms With a View: The Open Window in the 19th Century, a charming show of early nineteenth-century European paintings and drawings of interiors with views through windows.  Most were painted by German, Scandinavian, and Baltic artists during the neo-classical and Biedermeier periods, and many are on loan from museums and collections in central Europe.

View of Dresden, 1824, by Karl Gottfried Traugott Faber
Staatliche Kunstsammlunger
Dresden, Galerie Neue Meister

The paintings are intimately scaled and precisely and skillfully executed, and quite lovely to look at.  They are a fascinating record of interiors and furnishings of early nineteenth-century continental Europe, including many of the artists' own studios or homes, and are well worth studying at length.  This is not a show that one should breeze through—it merits close and careful observation.  I plan on returning to see it again soon.  I have already spent several hours reading its well-written, highly informative, and profusely illustrated catalogue so that I will be better informed when I return to see the paintings again.  The curator of the show, Sabine Rewald of the Metropolitan, did a superb job.  I highly recommend that you make plans to see the show, Dear Reader, as it is a not-to-be-missed, absolute gem.

Interior from Amaliegade with the Artist's Brothers, ca. 1829
by Wilhelm Bendz
The Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen

Afterwards, in need of more sustenance than visual stimulation, vodka, and cheese balls, we headed over to Swifty's, where Robert Caravaggi was kind enough to give us a table on the spur of the moment and without a reservation.  The place was packed!  As one often does at Swifty's, during dinner we fell into a pleasant conversation with a couple sitting at the next table to ours (the tables are very close together at the restaurant, so one is rather cheek-to-jowel with one's neighbors).  They were quite jolly and chatty, and we had a delightful time speaking with them.

Interior with Young Woman Tracing a Flower, ca. 1820-1822
by Louise-Adéone Drolling
Saint Louis Art Museum

Looking around the room, I noticed that David Patrick Columbia of New York Social Diary was also there, so I stopped by his table and said hello to him and his guest.  On our way out we passed James Andrew of What Is James Wearing?, whose blog I am a regular reader of and who is a sometime commenter on mine.  We stopped and introduced ourselves to him and his dining companion, and they couldn't have been nicer.

We had a lovely evening!

View from the Artist's Studio in the Alservorstadt
toward Dernbach, 1836, by Jakob Alt
Albertina, Vienna

And to top it off, the next morning we were invited to a cocktail party by the couple we sat next to at dinner at Swifty's, and with whom we exchanged contact information at the end of the evening.  We were delighted that they invited us to their party and that we were able to attend it, and we had an absolutely marvelous time at it.

One does so adore living the life in New York . . .

The exhibition's catalogue

Rooms With A View: The Open Window in the 19th Century
April 5 through July 4
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10028

All images taken from the show's catalogue, except for the final photograph, by Boy Fenwick

A Fine and Pleasing Silhouette

Over the years I have collected a fair number of silhouettes.  I like the way they look, they are readily available at antiques stores and fairs, and they are generally well priced.

For the possibly lone person reading this blog who is not familiar with the term, "silhouette" is the name for a type of highly graphic, representational image, most often (but not always) a portrait of a person in profile, where the subject is featureless and usually done in black (most often cut from paper or card) and mounted on a lighter background.  Silhouettes were a quick and inexpensive means of taking a sitter's likeness before the advent of photography, and were popular in America from the late-eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth century.

I first started collecting silhouettes shortly after we acquired Darlington House, in the late 1990s.  Initially I was fairly indiscriminate in the silhouettes I bought, driven more by impulse than connoisseurship.  Over time, though, as I became more knowledgeable I also became more selective, focusing my buying on unusual and skillfully executed ones, in interesting period frames.

Although I still stop and admire silhouettes when I am out and about visiting dealers and shows, I only rarely buy them anymore.  I realized a number of years ago that I was on the verge of having more silhouettes than I knew what to do with.  As in all collecting, it is possible to find oneself with too much of a good thing if one isn't disciplined in one's buying.  So I put on the brakes and diverted my collecting attentions elsewhere.

One of the last silhouettes I bought is, I believe, the best in my collection.  If I had to choose only one of the silhouettes I own, this is the one I would reach for.  It is a beautifully and artistically done likeness of a young man that sits in an unusual and rare Federal-era frame.

I don't know who the artist was who cut the likeness (it is unsigned), but they were exceedingly skillfull at their craft, and the quality of their scissor-work is far superior to any other in my collection.  Whoever did it was a master (or mistress) at their art.  I bought the silhouette from an antiques dealer in western Massachusetts who said that he had bought it at a local auction.  That's all I know about its history or provenance.

Judging from the sitter's clothes and the style of the frame, I suspect that the silhouette was done in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the heyday of silhouettes' popularity.

A detail of the frame

The frame is an unusual one.  Most silhouettes that I see are framed in lacquered papier-mâché frames, similar to the frame of the miniature painting of what I suspect is a China Trade merchant that I posted about recently.  I've also seen silhouettes that are framed more conventionally, in square or rectangular wood or metal gilt frames.  I'm not aware of seeing one framed as this young man is, though, in an entirely wood, flat frame made of mahogany and decorated with an inlay border around the perimeter.  Given its quality I suspect the frame was made by a cabinetmaker, which would explain why it has a particularly fine hanging hook on it as opposed to a more conventional and plainer hanging ring seen on picture frames of this period.  The frame appears to be in its original, untouched finish.  Although I think it would look better if I had it refinished—the surface has darkened and dulled considerably over time—I am going to leave it just the way it is, for reasons that are well known to those of us who watch Antiques Road Show with any regularity.

All in all I am quite pleased to have this little silhouette, and I feel most fortunate to own it.

Tell me, do you own any silhouettes?

Photographs by Boy Fenwick

Reggie Out & About: The Charles Plante Exhibit and Sale at Mallett New York

Last evening Boy and I attended an opening reception at Mallett, Inc., in New York for an exhibition and sale of neoclassical period drawings and watercolors assembled by Charles Plante Fine Arts of London.  For those of my readers who may not be familiar with Mallett, it is a London-based dealer of very fine English antiques and decorative arts of the 18th century and Regency periods.  Founded in 1865 and with showrooms in London and NewYork, Mallett is one of the oldest and most illustrious of such dealers and is patronized by wealthy collectors, royals, and museums.  It doesn't get any richer, exquisite, or more fabulous than Mallett.

The front of the invitation to the Charles Plante Fine Arts
exhibit at Mallett New York

Charles Plante is a London-based specialist dealer in European and American watercolors and drawings of architecture, gardens, interiors, and design of the neoclassical period, circa 1760-1840.  He has brought several hundred of his works to Mallett's gallery in New York, where they are displayed beautifully throughout the gallery's first-floor rooms, hung salon style.

Mr. Plante standing amongst his delightful
framed pictures on exhibit at Mallett New York
Photograph by Boy Fenwick

Mr. Plante specializes in dealing in diminutively scaled works featuring a wide variety of subjects, and his pictures are beautifully framed using period or period-reproduction frames as well as period-appropriate, beautifully done French and eglomise matting.

As readers of this blog well know, Reggie has a weakness for little things, and so he was delighted to find himself at Mr. Plante's opening reception at Mallett.  While there I had the chance to meet and speak with Mr. Plante and learned that he is an American by birth, educated both here and in England, and has made his home and career in England since 1988.  He is passionate about his profession and the works he deals in and was quite jolly and pleasant when we spoke with him.

The interior of the Charles Plante Fine Arts gallery in London
Image courtesy of same

Works on display at the Plante exhibit at Mallett are priced very attractively, starting as low as $875 for a tiny picture and ranging up to $32,000 for the generously scaled watercolor featured on the exhibit's invitation, shown at the top of this post.  Most of what is on display at the show is very reasonably priced (as these things go) in the $1,000-$3,000 range.  Tempting, indeed!

The invitation resting on the base of a
marble and gilt bronze candlestick
at Mallett New York
Photograph by Boy Fenwick

Reggie recommends that you, Dear Reader, consider visiting Mallett during the show of Charles Plante's pictures, which runs through March 31st.  He is confident that you will be enchanted by it, as he was.  Be forewarned, however: given how charming and attractively priced Mr. Plante's pictures are, you may well feel compelled to buy something if you go, as Reggie was sorely tempted to last evening.

But you'd better get there soon, as the exhibit will likely sell out quickly.

Charles Plante Fine Arts at
Mallett, Inc.
929 Madison Avenue
New York, New York 10021
(212) 249-8783
www.mallettantiques.com

Please note: Reggie has received nothing in return for writing this review (except several glasses of champagne and a nibble or two at the reception), nor does he expect to.  He is writing it solely for the edification and pleasure of his readers.

A Pleasing Portrait in Miniature

Reggie has always had a weakness for little things.  By that he means that he is drawn to diminutively scaled versions of what one usually sees on a larger, or life-size scale.  It can be a painting, a piece of furniture, a topiary, or a book—pretty much anything, really.  It could be something that was made "in little" as a keepsake, or as a toy for a child, or just because.  And Reggie is not alone in having a fondness for such things, either, at least in his own immediate family where he and his sisters, Hermione and Camilla, share a similar propensity.

Over the next several months I plan on posting examples of some of the diminutively scaled pieces that we have at Darlington House.  Initially I will concentrate on paintings, other works of art, and objets de vertu, and then I'll see where it goes from there.

The subject of today's post is a miniature oval portrait of a young man painted sometime during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, a period where I focus much of my collecting.  I came across the portrait at an antiques show in Rhinebeck, New York, eight or nine years ago.  I was immediately drawn to it and had one of those visceral, I must have it reactions that you, Dear Reader, will be familiar with if you read a recent post I wrote about my acquisition of several Chinese export porcelain plates at this year's New York Ceramics Fair.

The subject of the portrait is unidentified—just as the young lady was in the photograph that I recently posted of a forgotten ancestress of mine.  While I have always assumed that the portrait I own is American in origin, in studying it while writing this essay I now think that it might well have been painted in China by a Chinese artist and that the sitter may well be an American merchant who was engaged in the China Trade.  Whoever painted it was clearly trained in his craft and extremely talented at it.  The likeness is painted with delicate, nearly microscopic brush strokes on ivory in an attenuated, almost Mannerist style.  Over the years the painting's red pigment, the most transitory of all pigments, has faded, and the picture now has an ethereally blue cast to it, reminiscent of Picasso's blue period or certain Medieval paintings.  Well, not really, but you get the references I'm sure.

The frame measures 5" high and 4¼" wide

The painting is framed in its original black lacquered papier-mâché frame, with a gilt brass hanging ring at the top and a small spray of cast oak leaves and an acorn.  Just as the frame is severely and plainly black, so is the sitter's jacket and hair, which is styled in a jaunty pompadour hairstyle fashionable at the time.  He wears a high-necked white collar encircled by an expertly tied neckerchief, and his black jacket and white shirting sets off his pale, refined features perfectly, as does the painting's gray background.

The miniature portrait is, indeed, a most pleasing one and portrays an interesting and attractive subject, beautifully and subtly executed.  I am most fortunate to have it.

Photography by Boy Fenwick

Winning Bid: Pretty Little Pictures

Several weeks ago, Reggie was the winning bidder at a country auction of two charming guaches of romantic landscapes.  Of diminutive size, they were painted in the first half of the nineteenth century and are likely French, at least to his eye.  If not French, they are most certainly Continental.

Pretty little pictures on easels on a table
in the drawing room at Darlington House

The two paintings Reggie acquired are shown in the foreground of the above photograph.  Although sold as a single lot, the pictures are not associated--not a pair, not by the same hand, and so on.  Reggie bought them because they are attractive, decorative, and nicely framed.  And he got them at a very reasonable price--less than the cost of a dinner for two in a nice restaurant in Manhattan.

The first--and larger--of the two paintings is really quite well done.  It is a romantic landscape with picturesque tumbledown cottages, a castle with flags flying from its towers, and a body of water in the distance.  The painting includes rustic figures and a little dog joyously frisking about.  The artist (unsigned) deftly depicts the scene at the height of summer, with trees and climbing roses embracing the cottages.  It is a pleasing little picture, and I am glad to have it.  I also like the frame, which I suspect is original.  I date the painting to the mid-nineteenth century.

The painting has some minor losses to its surface, but I do not mind.  I'm not planning on sending it to a restorer, as I think it looks just fine as it is.

The second--and smaller--painting Reggie bought is also a romantic landscape.  It shows two figures in a garden overlooking a body of water, with a classical building (or is it a ruin?) and several boats at sail.  Judging by the clothing depicted, Reggie thinka the scene was painted in the 1820s or 30s, at the latest.

Not as finely executed as the other landscape, this little painting is still skillfully done.  It is clearly old and retains its original frame, and it is signed on the back by the artist (I suspect).

Claire Charlotte Coynart was a better painter than she was a calligrapher, given the crudenes of her signature.  Reggie suspects that she was Mademoiselle Coynart when she painted this pretty little picture, as he believes it is what many of us in America call "school-girl art," done by young ladies of refinement when still of a school age.  In the early nineteenth century in the United States, such young ladies as Mademoiselle Coynart were admired particularly for the needlework pictures they made--some of astonishing virtuosity--while students at the academies where they were educated.

We currently have these little pictures, along with the English eighteenth-century oil portrait in small shown in the first photograph of this post, on easels on an early nineteenth-century New York pembroke table in our drawing room.  Reggie likes small paintings put about in such a manner, and this is not the only table in his house with such an arrangement.  He is always on the lookout for useful easels for such purpose and buys them when he finds them and when his budget allows for it.

Tell me, do you also display paintings on easels in your house?

Photographs by Boy Fenwick