DoneMay 06, 2021 7:03 PM EDT
Hudson, NY, United States
Auction Details
The Neoclassicist: Niall Smith
Stair Galleries is pleased the present a single-owner sale ?The Neoclassicist: Niall Smith? on May 6th 2021. Legendary for his gimlet eye, Smith has been a fixture in New York City?s antiques trade for nearly five decades. For many years in the 1990s, he traded from three locations simultaneously including his original Greenwich Village premises on Bleecker Street, a larger showroom in Soho on Grand Street, and a vast warehouse in Long Island City. Admission to the latter was by invitation and strictly to the trade, creating a coveted source for designers and decorators who flocked from far afield.
Irish by birth, Smith has always been loyal to his heritage and stocked fine examples of 18thand 19th century Irish furniture and decorative arts. He has close ties to the Irish Antiques Dealers Association, The Irish Georgian Society and has long been an avid international auction house sleuth. For decades, buying trips to England and Ireland typically occurred several times a year, with less frequent forays to Germany, Italy and France. At the start of his career in the 1970s, Smith?s name became synonymous with Biedermeier furniture. In 1979, following the successful exhibition at London?s Victoria & Albert Museum ?Vienna in the Age of Schubert? Niall Smith Antiques kindled a taste for Neoclassical interiors filled with pedimented fruitwood secretaires, armoires with ebonized columns, and the architectural order and restraint of a classically inspired interior. His distinct style caught eye of what he calls, ?The Carriage Trade? and he has enjoyed a certain notoriety with tremendously loyal patrons, as well as leading decorators and collectors for over forty years.
Stair?s sale is reminiscent of an aristocratic Englishman?s penchant for Grand Tour souvenirs, and is brimful of obelisks, columns, architectural ruins and busts made from porphyry, marble, bronze and blue john. There are gouaches of The Bay of Naples and Vesuvius, 18thcentury colored engravings based on a
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Founder and President
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Director of Decorative Arts
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