BOGOTA (AFP) – A Pablo Picasso etching valued at $65,000 was stolen from a museum in southwestern Colombia, the institution said Tuesday.
The painting, untitled and dated 1930, disappeared Friday afternoon from the wall where it was hanging at the Casa Museo Negret and MIAMP museum in Popayan, museum director Oscar Hernandez said.
Hernandez said that the engraving depicted the Greek god of wine Dionysus with a woman in his arms and was last seen before two foreigners entered the museum.
Popayan authorities offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to recovery of the work.
The engraving was donated to the museum in 2004 by Colombian sculptor Edgar Negret, who was born in Popayan in 1920.
Magnificent 29-inch size 13 ‘Triste bebe’ by Jumeau with luminous complexion. Image courtesy Frasher’s Doll Auctions.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Splendidly attired French bebes and poupees will make a fashion statement at Frasher’s auction Nov. 5, which is appropriately titled “A Shopping Spree – For Bebe & Me.” The event will be held at the KCI Expo Center at Kansas City International Airport.
Online live bidding for the 300-lot auction will be facilitated by LiveAuctioneers.com.
Although dolls dressed in the finest fashions of their era adorn the catalog pages, more luscious frocks, bonnets, parasols and finery are waiting to be purchased.
Preview for the sale will be Saturday, Nov. 5, from 9 until the start of the sale at 10:30 a.m. Central. On Sunday, Nov. 6, Frasher’s will conduct an uncataloged auction, for attending bidders only, featuring over 275 lots.
The auction is based on a fine private collection focused primarily on choice French dolls and fabulous doll clothing, bonnets, parasols and assorted accessories and miniatures, plus dolls from the Reber estate.
The luscious Bebe Bru Jne 7 with entrancing blue eyes and fitted French silk costume leads the French parade accompanied by bebes by Petit & Dumontier, Jumeau, Steiner, Delcroix and other French firms.
Jumeau is especially well represented throughout the catalog pages which include the rare size 1 bebe with cartouche mark, early portrait models, E.J. Bebe with earliest mark, lovely blue-eyed bebe with incised depose mark, and the delectable size 13 Bebe Triste, as well as other examples by Jumeau.
From Steiner is an impressive array of bebes beginning with the tiny size 1 “Series A” bebe as well as a grand 32-inch Figure A, and 28-inch Series C bebe, all with luxurious antique or couturier costuming.
French poupees are notable for quality and costuming, ranging from the petite 12-inch example by Bru to the superb 24-inch and 28-inch models attired in their most fashionable gowns. Rare models of note are the 14-inch poupee with blown leather body, 18-inch wood-bodied poupee by Barrious as well as 24-inch Barrois with Celment & Dehors neck articulation.
A fine group of 18th-century carved English wooden dolls include Queen Anne examples in sizes 13, 14 and 20 inches. From the 19th century are several Neapolitan figures with an especially fine 24-inch model in jeweled robe grabbing the spotlight.
German dolls are highlighted by an outstanding 38-inch Handwerck child coming from her original home, Kammer and Reinhardt character models #101 and #114, other cabinet-size dolly faces, plus French-type Belton and Sonneberg dolls, as well as character babies, and all-bisque dolls.
From the Reber estate is a collection of Schoenhut models, many from the earliest period, with the seldom-found model 106 carved-bonnet girl claiming the title of most rare. Other Schoenhuts include #100 girl with carved pageboy hairstyle, several examples of braided-hair girls #102, plus models, 101, 204, 308 and other desirable examples.
Collectors of cloth dolls will appreciate the circa 1930s Lenci dolls and the more than 30 models of the R. John Wright cloth characters beginning with his earliest works and continuing to the present era. There are dollhouses by Albin Schonherr and Gottschalck featuring colorful lithography, plus dollhouse miniatures, several items of French gilded bronze enamelware, Beidermeier furniture, assortment of French Brittany furnishings, Marklin doll carriage, three carved Swiss wooden dolls.
Collectors will marvel at the abundance of fine dresses, bonnets, parasols including Huret, purses, jewelry, vitrines, gloves, fans, muff, miniatures and other luxury items.
A color catalog for this auction is available with estimates and after-sale prices realized. The auction can also be viewed on liveauctioneers.com approximately three weeks prior to the auction. This will be a wonderful weekend for doll collectors plus an opportunity to view and acquire beautiful dolls and accessories.
A beautiful 80-page catalog is available for $43. For information or to order a catalog contact Frasher’s Doll Auctions, 2323 S. Mecklin School Road, Oak Grove, MO 64075; email Frasher@aol.co or phone 816-625-3786.
Jumeau Bebe known as ‘Portrait’ – early model with original boutique label in antique costume. Image courtesy Frasher’s Doll Auctions.
Twenty-four-inch French poupee with rare Dehors neck articulation by E. Barrios for Simmone. Image courtesy Frasher’s Doll Auctions.
Alluring 20-inch Bru Jne Bebe with pale bisque and deep blue paperweight eyes. Image courtesy Frasher’s Doll Auctions.
Size 1 Jumeau Bebe with cartouche incised mark in a red silk couturier costume and signed shoes stands aside a fine French glass dollhouse and ivory-handled parasol. Image courtesy Frasher’s Doll Auctions.
Thirty-two-inch grand size of the Steiner ‘Figure A’ bebe with wire-lever eyes and silk couturier frock. Image courtesy Frasher’s Doll Auctions.
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the moon, photographed by Apollo 11 mission commander Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
LOS ANGELES (AP) – The elaborate mission to recover a moon rock led NASA agents to one of the most down-to-earth places: a family restaurant in Southern California. But at the end of the sting operation, agents were left holding a speck of lunar dust smaller than a grain of rice and a 73-year-old suspect who was terrified by armed officials.
Five months after NASA investigators and local agents swooped into the restaurant and hailed their operation as a cautionary tale for anyone trying to sell national treasure, no charges have been filed, NASA isn’t talking and the case appears stalled.
The target, Joann Davis, a grandmother who says she was trying to raise money for her sick son, asserts the lunar material was rightfully hers, having been given to her space-engineer husband by Neil Armstrong in the 1970s.
“It’s a very upsetting thing,” Davis, now 74, told The Associated Press. “It’s very detrimental, very humiliating, all of it a lie.”
The strange case centers on a speck of authenticated moon rock encased in an acrylic-looking dome that appears to be a paperweight. For years, NASA has gone after anyone selling lunar material gathered on the Apollo missions because it is considered government property, so cannot be sold for profit.
Still, NASA has given hundreds of lunar samples to nations, states and high-profile individuals but only on the understanding they remain government property. NASA’s inspector general works to arrest anyone trying to sell them.
The case was triggered by Davis herself, according to a search warrant affidavit written by Norman Conley, an agent for the inspector general.
She emailed a NASA contractor May 10 trying to find a buyer for the rock, as well as a nickel-sized piece of the heat shield that protected the Apollo 11 space capsule as it returned to earth from the first successful manned mission to the moon in 1969.
“I’ve been searching the internet for months attempting to find a buyer,” Davis wrote. “If you have any thoughts as to how I can proceed with the sale of these two items, please call.”
Davis told AP the items were among many of the space-related heirlooms her husband left her when he died in 1986. She said she had worked as a lexicographer and he had worked as an engineer for North American Rockwell, which contracted for NASA during the Apollo era.
Davis claims Armstrong gave the items to her husband, though the affidavit says the first man on the moon has previously told investigators he never gave or sold lunar material to anyone.
In follow-up phone conversations with a NASA agent, Davis acknowledged the rock was not sellable on the open market and fretted about an agent knocking on her door and taking the material, which she was willing to sell for “big money underground.”
“She must know that this is a questionable transaction because she used the term ‘black market,’” Agent Conley states in the search warrant.
Curiously, though, Davis agreed to sell the sample to NASA for a stellar $1.7 million. She said she wanted to leave her three children an inheritance and take care of her sick son.
NASA investigators then arranged the sting, where Conley met with Davis and her current husband at the Denny’s restaurant at Lake Elsinore in Riverside County.
Soon after settling into a booth, Davis said, she pulled out the moon sample and about half a dozen sheriff’s deputies and NASA investigators rushed into the eatery.
When officers in flak vests took a hold of her, the 4-foot-11 woman said she was so scared she lost control of her bladder and was taken outside to a parking lot, where she was questioned and detained for about two hours.
“They grabbed me and pulled me out of the booth,” Davis claimed. “I had very, very deep bruises on my left side.”
Conley declined to comment and NASA Office of the Inspector General spokeswoman Renee Juhans said she could not talk about an ongoing investigation.
Davis was eventually allowed home, without the moon rock, and was never booked into a police station or charged.
The affidavit states authorities believed Davis was in possession of stolen government property but so far they have not publicly revealed any proof.
“This (is) abhorrent behavior by the federal government to steal something from a retiree that was given to her,” said Davis’s attorney, Peter Schlueter, who is planning legal action.
Joseph Gutheinz, a University of Phoenix instructor and former NASA investigator who has spent years tracking down missing moon rocks, said prosecuting Davis could prove tricky.
Gutheinz said he recently learned that NASA did not always take good care of lunar materials. In some instances, space suits were simply hosed off and any moon dust on them lost forever.
While bigger rocks such as those given to various countries and museums were carefully inventoried and tracked, it now appears there are unknown numbers of much smaller pieces circulating in the public. Some of these may have been turned into paperweights and informally given away by NASA engineers.
“I have a real moral problem with what’s happened here in California,” Gutheinz said. “I’ve always taken the position that no one should own an Apollo-era moon rock. They belong to the people. But if we did such a poor job of safeguarding (lunar samples,) I cannot fault that person.”
About 2,200 samples of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust – weighing about 840 pounds – were brought to Earth by NASA’s Apollo lunar landing missions from 1969 to 1972. A recent count showed 10 states and more than 90 countries could not account for their shares of the gray rocks.
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Watkins can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/thomaswatkins
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Memphis Belle B-17 during restoration. The famous Flying Fortress is now at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. U.S. Navy photo by Susan Hyback, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – War veteran Bill Jamison fought back tears during the Sunday dedication of a memorial honoring the Memphis Belle, the storied B-17 bomber that flew 25 crucial missions over German-occupied Europe in World War II.
Jamison and about 80 other people watched the unveiling of the monument depicting the 10-man crew standing in front of the historic airplane, which survived the war and spent 59 years in Memphis before being moved in 2005 for restoration at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
It sits with other military statues and memorials at Veterans Plaza in Overton Park and also features a statue of longtime Memphis resident Margaret Polk shielding her face as she looks up at the sky.
The airplane’s pilot, then-Lt. Robert Morgan, named the Memphis Belle after Polk, who was his sweetheart before he deployed for war.
Jamison, 80, and other members of the Memphis Belle Memorial Association spent years working to restore the bomber while it was in Memphis. Her symbolic return in the form of the monument drew emotions from some in attendance who fought to keep the Belle in Memphis.
“It’s a dream come true,” said Jamison, an Army veteran who served in the Korean War. “I cried when the plane left. In fact, I’ve got tears in my eyes, now.”
Built by Boeing, the Belle was one of the first B-17s to complete its 25 missions over German-occupied Europe. It flew at a time when heavy bombers often flew without fighter escorts.
The bomber had a painting of a leggy woman on its nose, in honor of Polk. Morgan chose the artwork from a 1941 illustration in Esquire magazine, according to the Air Force.
Polk, a lifelong Memphis resident, died in 1990. Morgan, of Asheville N.C., died in May 2004. The two split up shortly after Morgan’s return from Europe.
After the Belle’s final mission in May 1943, its crew came home for a nationwide bond-selling tour, cementing it as a wartime symbol of courage and sacrifice. Younger generations learned about the bomber from the 1990 movie Memphis Belle.
The Belle had been given over to an agency that disposed of surplus military equipment in 1946 when a group of private citizens, led by WWII veterans, managed to get it in flying condition and brought it to Memphis. But age, weather and vandalism took its toll. The Belle was in serious disrepair when the association was formed.
Restoration work continued until Oct. 5, 2005, when the Belle was transferred to the Air Force. The move disappointed volunteers who worked on the aircraft while it was in Memphis, said George Barnes, the association’s president.
“People were hurt that she was gone, but they realized the Memphis Belle in the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force would be seen by millions of people,” Barnes said. “In the long run, it’s better for the Belle to be where she is.”
Belle association members stay in touch with the Air Force and receive updates on the restoration, which could be finished in two years, said Andrew Pouncey, the group’s past president. Restorers are currently working to lower the bomber’s landing gear.
Speakers at Sunday’s unveiling said it’s important for people to remember the Memphis Belle as a tough, resilient aircraft that protected its young crewmen from air and ground fire while dropping its bombs on strategic targets in Germany and France.
“We need to recognize the sacrifice and educate the children that are coming along to the fact that we are a free nation partly because of what they did,” Barnes said.
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Online:
Memphis Belle Memorial Association: http://www.memphisbelle.com/
National Museum of the U.S. Air Force: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
This Rembrandt self portrait from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., is included in the exhibition. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – The North Carolina Museum of Art has curated an exhibit of 30 works by Rembrandt from American collectors, which is especially appropriate considering that the museum’s first director was partly responsible for authenticating many works as painted by the Dutch artist that turned out not to be actual Rembrandts.
“Rembrandt in America” opens Oct. 30 at the museum, then travels next year to Cleveland and Minneapolis.
The 30 paintings are from private collections and more than two dozen American art museums. The exhibit also includes works no longer attributed to Rembrandt, including two in the North Carolina museum’s own collection.
“Starting in the late 19th century, when wealth moved to America, Americans began buying Rembrandts in great numbers for great amounts of cash,” said Dennis Weller, curator of Northern European Art at the North Carolina museum.
People such as J. Paul Getty, Andrew Mellon and George Eastman were particularly attracted to Dutch and Flemish painters because their portraits and landscapes were more approachable than French or Italian works. And Rembrandt was the most desired by these collectors, who saw similarities between the rise of the Dutch republic and that of the United States, said Weller, a curator of the exhibit.
Their interest created nothing short of a frenzy among Rembrandt buyers. Enter William Valentiner, a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City before he became the first director of the North Carolina Museum of Art in 1955.
He accepted more than 700 paintings as being by Rembrandt. “At the very time that all of these new Rembrandts discoveries were coming onto the market, that’s when the American collectors were on the prowl,” Weller said.
Included are the two paintings at the North Carolina museum: The Feast of Esther, now attributed to Rembrandt colleague Jan Lieven; and Young Man with a Sword, attributed only to the circle of Rembrandt. Valentiner was among experts who authenticated both as being by Rembrandt.
Valentiner wasn’t authenticating works he knew were paintings by Rembrandt’s pupil’s or associates; works were coming out of private and museum collections in Europe for sale, and Valentiner used techniques far less high-tech than the ones available today.
After decades of research, experts agree Rembrandt painted about 320 works.
“He was what you call an expansionist,” said Walter Liedtke, curator of European paintings at the Met and a specialist in Flemish and Dutch paintings. In 1995, Liedtke curated a show titled “Rembrandt/Not Rembrandt: In the Metropolitan Museum,” which showed the Met’s 21 Rembrandts and 21 works previously attributed to the Dutch artist.
Valentiner was the first serious scholar of Dutch or Flemish paintings in the country, Liedtke said. “He had great merits,” he said. “But he represented the extreme of a common phenomenon at the time, which was to discover paintings in the Rembrandt style and call them Rembrandts. It’s not his personal fault, but he was optimistic.”
For example, Valentiner thought several of the subjects in portraits were Rembrandt’s family members and surmised that only Rembrandt would have painted portraits of those close to him. But later research showed that some of the sitters weren’t related to Rembrandt and that his family members might have sat for students.
Even today, it’s more an art rather than a science when it comes to attributing a painting to Rembrandt. Students used the same canvasses and brushes as the master, so materials don’t determine what constitutes an actual Rembrandt. “It’s just the quality of the execution – the intensity of the emotion expressed by the sitter, the quality of light,” Weller said. “It’s the way in which he defines the bone structure under the skin in the cheeks. He used color subtly. It’s just something when you face these paintings that’s very moving and timeless.”
Authentication also requires expert agreement.
“What makes a Rembrandt a Rembrandt now in the absence of documents that tell you … is consensus among the specialists,” Liedtke said.
A signature is meaningless as Rembrandt had the right to sign any painting from his workshop and often didn’t sign major works for churches, government or the powerful because everyone knew who created them. That wasn’t unusual – van Dyke and Rubens also didn’t sign their works, Liedtke said.
“Rembrandt in America” will be on view at the North Carolina museum through Jan. 22. It opens at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Feb. 19. It closes there May 28 and opens at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts on June 24.
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Online:
http://ncartmuseum.org/exhibitions/rembrandt/
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Steuben Glass engraved ‘Eagle and Globe’ crystal bowl, 10 3/4 inches high, engraved by Donald Pollard, design by Sidney Waugh, in a presentation box. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and DuMouchelles.
CORNING, N.Y. (AP) – In a memorable Hollywood scene from Risky Business, the 1983 comedy drama that launched Tom Cruise to stardom, a mother’s prized Steuben glass egg goes missing from the mantelpiece only to reappear – imperceptibly nicked – in the nick of time.
Steuben Glass, an American icon of handcrafted crystal for over a century, looks now as if it’s vanishing for good.
Its lone factory in Corning, a glassmaking company town flanked by Steuben County’s tree-topped mountain ridges in southwestern New York, is shutting down Nov. 29, the week after Thanksgiving. With profitability elusive at the best of times, the prospects of reviving the 108-year-old vanity brand seem every bit as slim.
While the matchlessly transparent glass is still acclaimed as the lodestar of lead crystal, Steuben has struggled to find its footing in old age – never more so than since 2008 when glass pioneer Corning Inc. sold the ailing business to Schottenstein Stores Corp., a retail-chain operator in Columbus, Ohio.
Topping the list of critics’ complaints: Uninspiring new designs, the addition of cheaper engraving methods and, for the first time in its history, a production shift overseas that squeezed the price of simpler ornaments and champagne glasses below an unheard-of $100 each.
“They totally lost their way,” said Jeff Purtell, a Steuben dealer in Portsmouth, N.H. “If your design department is pathetic, your costs are prohibitive, and your marketing – and vision for the future – is not successful, then you’re doomed whether you’re making Steuben glass or Twinkies.”
A generation-long slide in demand for fine crystal accelerated abruptly when the financial crisis hit Wall Street in September 2008, just weeks after Schottenstein bought 80 percent of Steuben for an undisclosed price.
The operator of budget-friendly Value City Furniture and DWS shoe stores scrambled to appeal to more economically diverse markets – just as other hard-pressed crystal titans like Baccarat, Orrefors and Waterford Glass have done in Europe – but Steuben never turned a profit, said company spokesman Ron Sykes.
“The economy collapsed, so there wasn’t great demand even from collectors,” Sykes said. “We studied others that tiered their product and had some moderate success. Bottom line is, it did not work for us.”
Most of the factory’s 60 workers will be axed, and Steuben’s flagship store in New York will close once its inventory is sold off, Sykes said. Corning, which is expected to rehire more than a dozen union employees, bought back the Steuben brand but held out little hope it might re-enter the crystal arena.
Since 1903, Steuben glass has been fashioned into everything from fruit bowls and decorative animal figurines to one-of-a-kind sculptures bestowed as official gifts of American presidents from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton. Art objects can cost tens of thousands of dollars, with classic pieces creeping into six figures.
“I often wondered why the last generation, maybe two, cut down on Steuben,” mused collector Thomas Dimitroff. “The young folks don’t want it. Same thing with silver. There’s a different attitude. Every year we’re getting further away from the Victorian love of clutter, quality or not.”
Hundreds of Steuben pieces swarm shelves, tables and cabinets throughout Dimitroff’s home. He traces his fascination to his teens in the 1950s when he accompanied his father, a doctor, on visits to company founder Frederick Carder’s home. Carder, who died in 1963 at age 100, never failed to show his gratitude to his physician.
“Every time Mr. Carder said to my dad, now take a piece of my glass, any glass you want. My dad would never take one, and now I wish I could yell at him!”
Like fine diamonds, clear-as-water Steuben (pronounced stew-‘BEN) seems almost to emanate light from within. Depending on how it’s worked, it can reflect or refract the entire spectrum of a ray of light.
Other hallmarks are its elegant, naturally flowing shapes – and eye-popping price tags. While largely confined to the wealthy, Steuben long lured up-and-comers willing to set aside a small fortune to possess a dining-room centerpiece or splurge on a wedding gift for a favorite niece.
Even before being sold by Corning, which was almost continuously steered from 1851 to 2005 by five generations of the highbrow Houghton family, historians worried Steuben’s uncompromising dedication to perfection of materials, craftsmanship and design might someday be sacrificed if profitmaking became primary.
“If you took away the understanding that it might never make money and sold it to somebody for whom it had to make money, that was the beginning of the end,” said Mary Jean Madigan, author of Steuben Glass: An American Tradition in Crystal.
“Little by little, Steuben changed over some decades,” Madigan said. “It began to change a lot right about the time of the centennial in 2003 when it became clear Corning would expect it to be run as a business and not so much as the historical purveyor of fine crystal it had been. What it is now is not what it used to be in terms of what is made, how it’s marketed and who’s buying it.”
Steuben got its start when Carder, an English designer, agreed to run a glass-engraving shop in exchange for the freedom of creating decorative glass. His richly hued creations turned him into a giant of the glass arts scene alongside Louis Comfort Tiffany and Rene Lalique.
The Houghtons, a dynasty of arts patrons, bought out Carder in 1918, but as popular taste turned less ornate, Steuben almost collapsed during the Great Depression.
Corning scientists came up with an exciting new formula – a colorless heavy-lead optical glass – and marketing maestro Arthur Houghton Jr. propelled Steuben into a name of distinction. He staged exhibitions by leading contemporary artists such as Henri Matisse, Georgia O’Keeffe and Salvador Dali, opened a retail store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue and advertised in all the best magazines.
As well as signature household items, the ads showcased limited-edition pieces such as an arctic fisherman poised on the ice, preparing to spear his catch.
Few enterprises demanded such a high rate of artistry. A stable of specialists employed both innovative and ancient techniques as the crystal moved from 2,500-degree Fahrenheit furnaces through blowing, grinding, polishing, etching and other precision processes.
While Steuben didn’t always contribute to profits, it burnished Corning’s reputation as an industrial glassmaker with an appreciation for ancient traditions of using glass as an art form. The business hit its peak a half-century ago when it employed nearly 300 people.
Old-timers like Max Erlacher, a master engraver who underwent a seven-year apprenticeship in his native Austria, are aghast at how a beloved company has fallen.
“When I first came here in 1957, it was just a shining star,” he said. “Other companies like Baccarat of France did fabulous glass and still do, but they never had that quality of engraving. But even they’re going downhill because they don’t have the clientele.”
In his studio near Corning, the 78-year-old carries on an 18th-century tradition that has few peers, using dozens of fine copper wheels attached to a lathe to create exquisite engravings.
After Houghton retired in 1973, “Steuben didn’t have the same spirit, the understanding of what it takes to create a piece of art, translate it into glass and market it the right way to discerning audiences.”
In the 1990s, as Corning moved out of consumer glassware into high-tech arenas like fiber optics and LCD television monitors, Steuben began to shrink. It lost money in 17 of its last 20 years under Corning, including $5.7 million in 2007. Sales dipped below $25 million a year. Corning outsourced stemware production to Germany around 2003 – and Schottenstein later turned for glassmaking help in Portugal.
Eric Hilton, a Steuben consultant for 35 years who designed elaborate sculptures given as U.S. tokens of friendship to queens, popes and heads of state worldwide, sees “a definite void with the passing of all that craft and skill” and remains puzzled by “the shift in the appreciation of beautiful objects.”
“Steuben fell down a bit when they started getting the stuff made abroad,” he said. “It didn’t come back quite right at times. Whereas if it was made totally in the Corning factory, it wouldn’t go out the door until it was utterly perfect. We used to think, ‘For goodness sakes, we’re whipping ourselves to death!’”
On a brighter note, dealers expect the vibrant aftermarket in Steuben collectibles to pick up pace. “Tiffany art glass hasn’t been made since the 1930s, and the desirability did not diminish, it’s increased,” Purtell said.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Sir Robert Ho Tung (left) and George Bernard Shaw in Hong Kong in 1933. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
HONG KONG (AFP) – The Hong Kong government said it intended to declare one of its last colonial-era mansions a heritage site, despite objections from the wealthy heiress who owns the property.
Built by and named after Sir Robert Ho Tung in 1927, the Ho Tung Gardens, sits on a 124,000-square-foot parcel on The Peak, a high-end residential neighborhood in the Chinese city of 7 million.
Ho Tung Gardens is the only remaining residence directly related to Ho, who was a prominent community leader and the first non-European to receive permission from the then Hong Kong government to reside on The Peak.
“Ho Tung Gardens is also an early example, and probably the earliest surviving example, of Chinese Renaissance architecture in Hong Kong,” the government said in a statement received Tuesday.
“It is a rare historic building worthy of preservation,” it said, adding that the city’s Antiquities Advisory Board has unanimously supported the intended declaration due to the property’s “significant heritage value.”
The owner of the site – the granddaughter of the late tycoon Ho – had reportedly wanted to redevelop the site and rejected a government offer of a land swap. She could go to court to seek compensation.
The site was made a “proposed monument” in January this year, when the Antiquities and Monuments Office was alerted to the owner’s plan to demolish the building and redevelop the site.
Top government officials have since then met with its owner and its representatives to explore options for preservation, amid their differences.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Ho Tung Gardens, built on The Peak in Hong Kong. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
A gallery at the Orsay Museum, which is housed in a former Paris railway station. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
PARIS (AFP) – The newly-revamped Orsay Museum remained closed to the public for a sixth day on Tuesday by a strike launched to demand extra manpower to staff the larger, renovated space, the museum said.
Workers were meeting Tuesday morning to decide whether to extend the protest launched on Thursday to demand 20 more staff at the museum, whose world-leading impressionist collection draws 3 million visitors each year.
Twenty-five years after its creation in a 200-year-old former railway station on the south bank of the Seine, Orsay has spruced up around half of its exhibition spaces at a cost of 20.1 million euros ($27.6 million).
Special attention has been paid to the impressionist gallery and the museum of 19th-century art was braced for a rush of visitors keen to see masterworks by Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir or Edgar Degas in their new setting.
Four new stories have also been built inside the museum’s Amont pavilion, a vast former machine room, creating 2,000 square meters of new hanging space devoted to putting more of its decorative arts collection on show.
Unions argue that they need the extra staff to welcome visitors adequately in the new setup.
Visitors can find the latest information at www.musee-orsay.fr/en.
