MRS. ASTOR'S THRONE

Since the death of doyenne Brooke Astor, the longtime queen of New York Society, those who care about such things have wondered and discussed who might be her successor on the throne---or if  New York society could even be ruled again by just one person.  About all this I know little, sitting up here in Down East Maine, where paying the oil bills or the declining price of lobster worry one far more than who will preside over the leaderless elite of Manhattan.  

This wonderful photograph pictures neither Mrs. Astor nor her throne, but is a scene captured  at another end-of-era auction, the effects of Miss Julia Berwind at 'The Elms' in Newport Rhode Island.  The photograph is by Nancy Sirkis from her marvelous book 'Newport, Pleasures and Palaces' (Viking/Studio, 1963) 

An auction of Mrs. Astor's lesser effects was held three weeks ago at Stair Galleries in Hudson, New York.  Her leftover possessions were typical  goods of a well placed lady of the second half of the 20th century---pretty and decorative, with a French accent. Several friends and acquaintances attended the auction, and depending on whom one asks, and what they hoped to buy, prices were either terribly high or terribly low.  My own observation is that the sale followed the current market---where style and eye appeal trump age or quality, or even provenance--- many of the pieces were chosen for her by Parish-Hadley.  I scratched my head at some of the prices---$5500 for a Metropolitan Museum reproduction of St. Gauden's iconic statue of Diana---available in the Met Gift shop for considerably less----down to a mere $15.00 for the Louis XV style Chaise Percée pictured below.

I was immediately reminded of another wonderful Sirkis photograph, of an elegant woman examining a chaise Percée in a bathroom at 'The Elms'.


And then, in a flash, it came to me.  Whoever paid that $15.00 for the chaise Percée now sits on Mrs. Astor's throne. All Hail.  Society need wonder no longer.

Speaking of Chairs---An Old Friend Reappears

The family antiques business has been going for 45 years, and I have been running it for 25 years now, a temporary gig until I figure out what I want to be when I grow up.  We've been in business long enough that we are beginning to see things we sold years ago coming back into the marketplace.

I discovered an old friend back on the market this evening as I was surfing the auction news over at the always entertaining Homer's Odd, Isn't He.  I realized with a frisson that the Weschler's auction that he was reviewing was  the estate of a beloved long time customer of our shop, a founder of the Washington Antiques Show who died last year at 103.  She was a marvelous woman who had  been a client of the fashionable decorator Mrs. Joseph Weller, who did many of Georgetown's best houses in the middle of the last century (and was the mother of another well-known decorator, Nancy Pierrepont).  The client had a marvelous eye, and the innate knack for placement that was so characteristic of certain ladies of that era.  I recognized a few things that I'd sold her, including this wonderful Regency chair with its swoon inducing painting of Turban clad figures sitting in a landscape,  I'd chased the chair for awhile.  It had been love from the moment I saw that delicious little painting on the back. The eight or nine of you who regularly visit this blog may even remember that I have a slight chair problem.  This one had belonged to friends who inherited it from their grandmother, who had owned a grand estate outside Albany (the chair can be seen in a photograph of the music room of that house in an article in Magazine Antiques, December 1967, should anyone care).

I remember the sale well.   I had brought the chair into the shop, absolutely delighted with it, and it was immediately spotted by my most tiresome customer, a surgeon's wife who summered in a nearby town whose collective denizens are considered by most of us in the pretty things business to be collectively the most annoying customers in the area.  Funny how different communities can take on different personalities.  At any rate, she put the chair on hold, as was her wont.  She then called too many times to beg a better price (for the record, the 1987 price was $325.00).  I turned a cold heart to her pleas, and she finally agreed to take it, but would not be in for several days to pay for it and pick it up (of course), blah blah blah, etc.  Then as was his wont, her husband--like his wife, a pain in the ass (in those gawd awful red trousers with a red gin nose to match)---told her she could absolutely not have the chair.  This was a typical transaction for this customer---hold, whine, renege.  Consider the foregoing to be the Dilettante's Dish on How NOT to be a Favored Customer.  Then, as this drama was winding to its inevitable tiresome conclusion, the favored customer came in, took one look at the chair, said she must have it, could I please put it in the car right now, and her man would bring the check by this afternoon.   And off it went, and the check was delivered by the faithful servant within the hour.  And now, here it is, 22 years later, back on the market.  Think, the dear lady was 81 when she bought it, still taking joy in the pursuit of beauty.  I'm tempted to call Weschler's and leave a bid.....I'm sentimental that way.

Also up at the sale is this Creil transfer ware tray and 4 matching pot de cremes.  I purchased them, along with many other pieces of Creil, my favorite china, at the estate sale of one Mary Meeker Cramer, a Chicago meat packing heiress, whose architect husband Ambrose had been an associate of the great David Adler.  The Cramers had just the sort of taste one would expect of associates of David Adler.  Stylish.  I'd love to see that sale come by again---but enough about the past.

The chair is not the only old item that I recognize going up at auction this week----a pair of swagged tables from the 30's, pictured in this post a few days ago, which I sold to another delightful customer a few years ago, are going up at Thomaston Place Auction Galleries this week.

Way Down East: The Two Windswepts

There are two Windswepts.  One is a best selling 1953 novel by Mary Ellen Chase, about a several generations of a family living in a remote house by the sea in Down East Maine.  The other is her summer home, a remote house by the sea in Down East Maine.

Born in Blue Hill in 1887, Chase is considered one of the heirs to the literary tradition of Sarah Orne Jewett, and indeed is one of the best of the Maine novelists.  She puchased Windswept, located near the end of the world between wild blueberry barrens and the ocean on Petit Manan Point at Steuben, Maine in 1940, and there wrote nine of her books.  Built in the 1920's, the simple cottage is classic Maine, low, shingled, with simple shutters, and many small paned windows to let in the light from the sea.  A big living room with fieldstone fireplace anchors two wings, one with kitchen, the other with bedrooms, forming a sheltered courtyard at the entrance.

When Windswept was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, the nomination read: 

She is considered by many literary critiques to be second only to Sarah Orne Jewett in her ability to capture the history and particular atmosphere of the coast of Maine and its people.  The isolated cottage provided Ms. Chase with the tranquility and isolation she needed to write, and in turn it also provided the inspiration for the setting of ‘Windswept’ (1941), her best-selling novel about immigration and integration in old settled Maine communities.”

“It is to the credit of the property owners since Ms. Chase that much of her former possessions, including furniture and books, and all the solitary ambiance of Windswept has been retained and preserved since her departure.”

Driftwood on mantel at Windswept 

Chase had to give up Windswept in 1956.  It went through several owners, who cherished the connection,  and the simple aesthetic of the place, before going on the market a couple of years ago.  The new owners did not desire any of Chase's furnishings or mementos, and last week, there was an auction, sparsely attended, and the accumulations of seventy years were sold, including a handwritten notebook about the house, written by Chase for the new owners when she sold the house.  It was a sad reflection of Chase's fallen literary status that even this manuscript failed to excite spirited bidding.  This writer, whose great-grandmother was a friend of Chase's,  purchased a round chair table, probably destined to be my new kitchen table,  and the piece of driftwood from above the living room mantel, where Chase's nephew remembered that she loved to always have a fire going in all weathers, for the pleasant scent.

 Windswept sold for 1.2 million, with 7.5 acres and 1100 feet of shorefront bordered by a preserve.  Imagine the same property in Montauk....

(Below), the final page of Chase's Windswept journal, wishing the new owners the same happiness she had experienced there.