Velvet: an interior design favorite that never went away

/in , /by
A pair of circa-1954 Gio Ponti lounge chairs, model 803, upholstered in blue velvet, achieved $15,000 plus the buyer’s premium in June 2022. Image courtesy of Los Angeles Modern Auctions and LiveAuctioneers


A pair of circa-1954 Gio Ponti lounge chairs, model 803, upholstered in blue velvet, achieved $15,000 plus the buyer’s premium in June 2022. Image courtesy of Los Angeles Modern Auctions and LiveAuctioneers

NEW YORK – (AP) It was all over the fashion runways. Women’s Wear Daily raved about Armani dresses in this material. Harper’s Bazaar called it one of 2022’s biggest trends. At Britain’s film awards, celebrities partied in Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren and Gucci versions. It’s even found its way down to casual wear, in jeans, T-shirts and slouchy overshirts. Once the luxurious material of nobility, velvet’s now a fashion favorite at both the private-label and mass-market level. And as often happens, what rides high in fashion ends up doing the same in home decor.

Read more

Pictorial trays helped Coca-Cola build a powerful soda brand

/in , /by

An original 1897 Coca-Cola tray with painted cola leaves and nuts decorating its rim, achieved $50,000 plus the buyer’s premium in February 2019. Image courtesy of Michaan’s and LiveAuctioneers

NEW YORK – Far and away, Coca-Cola is the world’s bestselling soft drink. The company claims that nearly two billion eight-ounce servings are consumed every day. So, exactly how does a sugary soda dominate all others for more than 100 years? The answer is marketing and then more marketing. Coca-Cola trays were key to building the beverage’s brand.

Read more

Detail of a 19th-century Continental macro-mosaic of a prominently haloed St. John Bosco, which realized $1,600 plus the buyer’s premium in April 2021. Image courtesy of Akiba Antiques and LiveAuctioneers

Ring of reverence: a history of the halo in art

/in , /by
Detail of a 19th-century Continental macro-mosaic of a prominently haloed St. John Bosco, which realized $1,600 plus the buyer’s premium in April 2021. Image courtesy of Akiba Antiques and LiveAuctioneers

Detail of a 19th-century Continental macro-mosaic of a prominently haloed St. John Bosco, which realized $1,600 plus the buyer’s premium in April 2021. Image courtesy of Akiba Antiques and LiveAuctioneers

NEW YORK – “And God said, let there be light and then there was light,” according to the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible. Many would insist that God didn’t create light so much as he is light. Before literacy was widespread, the ideas of light representing good and darkness symbolizing evil had to be communicated to the faithful visually, through works of art. By the Middle Ages, artists had adopted the convention of painting a halo of light around the head of a deity or a saint to mark who should be respected and revered.

Read more

This set of German-made American Revolutionary War toy soldiers, hand-painted and having engraved features, sold for $375 plus the buyer’s premium in September 2020. Image courtesy of Old Toy Soldier Auctions USA and LiveAuctioneers

For centuries, toy soldiers have carried on the fight

/in , /by
This set of German-made American Revolutionary War toy soldiers, hand-painted and having engraved features, sold for $375 plus the buyer’s premium in September 2020. Image courtesy of Old Toy Soldier Auctions USA and LiveAuctioneers

This set of German-made American Revolutionary War toy soldiers, hand-painted and having engraved features, sold for $375 plus the buyer’s premium in September 2020. Image courtesy of Old Toy Soldier Auctions USA and LiveAuctioneers

NEW YORK – Depicting fighting soldiers as tiny, easy-to-move figures has been a mainstay of military planning since medieval times. What started as a serious strategy-building tool ultimately evolved into the icon of childhood now known as the toy soldier.

Read more

In this December 2022 photo, collector Dwight Cleveland holds a lobby card from his extensive collection. He has entered an agreement with Dartmouth College to digitize his silent movie-era lobby cards for preservation and publication. Image courtesy of Dwight Cleveland.

Silent films to encore in Dartmouth-backed lobby card project

/in , /by
In this December 2022 photo, collector Dwight Cleveland holds a lobby card from his extensive collection. He has entered an agreement with Dartmouth College to digitize his silent movie-era lobby cards for preservation and publication. Image courtesy of Dwight Cleveland.

In this December 2022 photo, collector Dwight Cleveland holds a silent movie-era lobby card from his extensive collection. He has entered an agreement with Dartmouth College to digitize his lobby cards for preservation and publication. Image courtesy of Dwight Cleveland.

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Missing Millions is a 1922 silent film with a darkly prescient title – like the vast majority from that era, the movie all but vanished in the ensuing century, survived mostly by lobby cards. Scarcely bigger than letter paper, the cards promoted the cinematic romances, comedies and adventures of early Hollywood. More than 10,000 of the images that once hung in movie theater foyers are now being digitized for preservation and publication, thanks to an agreement between Chicago-based collector Dwight Cleveland and Dartmouth College that all started when he ran into a film professor at an academic conference in New York.

Read more

A Mughal Empire gold pendant inlaid with kundan-set green glass, white topaz and rubies sold for $2,500 plus the buyer’s premium in December 2021. Image courtesy of Artemis Gallery and LiveAuctioneers

Mughal Empire artisans raised arts of Asia to new heights

/in , /by
A Mughal Empire gold pendant inlaid with kundan-set green glass, white topaz and rubies sold for $2,500 plus the buyer’s premium in December 2021. Image courtesy of Artemis Gallery and LiveAuctioneers

A Mughal Empire gold pendant inlaid with kundan-set green glass, white topaz and rubies sold for $2,500 plus the buyer’s premium in December 2021. Image courtesy of Artemis Gallery and LiveAuctioneers

NEW YORK – In 1526, the Mughals, descendants of the Mongol leaders Tamerlane and Genghis Khan, created an empire stretching from the Indus Valley and northern Afghanistan to sub-continental India. The empire endured until the 19th century, and flourishing trade sparked Mughal artisans to innovate within a wide range of arts and crafts, from textiles to painting to jewelry to beautifully decorated weapons.

Read more

Exhibits honor Peanuts creator Charles Schulz’s centenary

/in , /by
Charles M. Schulz, Self-caricature. © Schulz Family Intellectual Property Trust. Mark J. Cohen and Rose Marie McDaniel Collection, The Ohio State University, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum

Charles M. Schulz, Self-caricature. © Schulz Family Intellectual Property Trust. Mark J. Cohen and Rose Marie McDaniel Collection, The Ohio State University, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – In a series of Peanuts comic strips that ran in mid-April of 1956, Charlie Brown grasps the string of his kite, which was stuck in what came to be known in the long-running strip as the “kite-eating tree.” In one episode that week, a frustrated Charlie Brown declines an offer from nemesis Lucy for her to yell at the tree. “If I had a kite caught up in a tree, I’d yell at it,” Lucy responds in the last panel.

Read more

Phil and Joan Castle made the discovery of their lives in October 2018, when they swept their metal detectors over what proved to be a so-called “purse hoard” of 14th-century British gold coins. Image courtesy of Noonans

British metal detectorists make the find of their lives: medieval gold coins

/in , /by
Phil and Joan Castle made the discovery of their lives in October 2018, when they swept their metal detectors over what proved to be a so-called “purse hoard” of 14th-century British gold coins. Image courtesy of Noonans

Phil and Joan Castle made the find of their lives in October 2018, when they swept their metal detectors over what proved to be a so-called “purse hoard” of 14th-century British gold coins. Image courtesy of Noonans

LONDON – Phil and Joan Castle, who live in New Romney in Kent, England, have been hunting treasure with metal detectors for more than 30 years. It was in October 2018, while searching one of their favorite plowed fields at nearby Romney Marsh that Joan, using her XP gold max metal detector, found a broken gold coin on the surface. Another signal beside it in the soil revealed a medieval brass purse bar at eight inches down. Phil came over to help and immediately found a gold coin. During the next two hours, the married couple uncovered four more gold coins in an area of five meters, with Joan finding two herself. The purse bar and the coins, which are estimated at £12,000-£15,000, will be offered for sale by specialist coin, medal, banknote and jewelry auctioneers Noonans (previously Dix Noonan Webb) on Tuesday, May 24.

Read more

Colonial Williamsburg exhibition to reveal secrets of restoration

/in /by
Etched Belle Farm board, Gloucester County, Va., ca.1775-1780, AF-VA22560.1.1. Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg

Etched Belle Farm board, Gloucester County, Va., ca.1775-1780, AF-VA22560.1.1. Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — Decades ago a simple wooden board in use as a shelf was discovered in Belle Farm, an 18th-century house in Gloucester County, Virginia. It turned out to be much more interesting than an untrained eye would notice at first glance: etched into the surface was the original design for two arches that are still to be seen in the house today. This extraordinary artifact provided Colonial Williamsburg’s architectural historians with valuable information on design development and layout in the last half of the 1700s. The design was later used as the model for the arches in the southwest dining room of the reconstructed King’s Arms Tavern on Colonial Williamsburg’s Duke of Gloucester Street.

Read more

A circa-1820s original Kill Devil fishing lure, the only known surviving example, will be auctioned on March 25 in England. Described as the most important antique fishing lure to come to auction, it is estimated at £4,000-£6,000. Image courtesy of Mullock’s Specialist Auctioneers & Valuers

What makes the ‘Kill Devil’ the world’s most important fishing lure?

/in , /by
A circa-1820s original Kill Devil fishing lure, the only known surviving example, will be auctioned on March 25 in England. Described as the most important antique fishing lure to come to auction, it is estimated at £4,000-£6,000. Image courtesy of Mullock’s Specialist Auctioneers & Valuers

A circa-1820s original Kill Devil fishing lure, the only known surviving example, will be auctioned on March 23 in England. Described as the most important antique fishing lure to come to auction, it is estimated at £4,000-£6,000. Image courtesy of Mullock’s Specialist Auctioneers & Valuers

CHURCH STRETTON, UK – The most important antique fishing lure that has ever been consigned for sale, an original circa-1820s “Kill Devil,” will make a rare appearance at auction in Mullock’s auction on March 23. Specialists in antique and modern fishing tackle, Mullocks says the lure is the only known survivor of its type. It will be offered with a £4,000-£6,000 (US$5,230-$7,840).

Read more