We can’t wait for the new Sherlock Holmes movie to be released!
The film looks to promise the same action, adventure, and intrigue found in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s beloved tales, which total four novels and fifty-six short stories! The books are particularly special to us at Carlton Hobbs, and here are a couple of reasons why:
Carleton Hobbs as Sherlock Holmes
There are a few books that we recently added to the Carlton Hobbs library circulating around the office, with Post-It Notes already beginning to fill the margins!
The first is Moving Rooms: The Trade in Architectural Salvages by John Harris, Curator Emeritus of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects. It gives a great history on the removal and re-use of architectural interior elements including chimney pieces, wall paneling, and moldings. We are lucky to have in our collection the preserved Boiserie from the Dining Room of Schloss Herblingen, Switzerland.
We are pleased and excited to announce that Carlton Hobbs and Jean- Luc Baroni, one of the leading international fine art specialists, will be holding an exhibition of Master Works of Art and Furniture entitled “IN THE GRAND MANNER,” which will run from January 22 to February 2, 2010 at the Carlton Hobbs Gallery, 60 East 93rd Street, in New York. Baroni will present approximately thirty-five rare and highly important old master paintings and drawings, from the 16th to the early 20th centuries, some on view for the first time in the United States.
There’s a new addition to the Carlton Hobbs team–a recently rescued chicken!
Over the weekend, while driving past Pelham Bay Park, our managing director spotted an injured cormorant. She calmed the sea bird down with gentle whistling, while awaiting the rescue team from the Parks Department. Who would have expected the whistling would also have tempted a small chicken to come out of the woodwork? While the rangers were unsuccessful at rescuing the cormorant, they did capture the chicken, assuring us that it could be adopted. To our horror, however, the chicken was taken to a NYC kill shelter, who refused to let it go!
Don’t know the difference between a bergère and a fauteuil? Can’t remember what a particular style is called? Want to know more about the origins of Egyptomania? Let us know!
Each month we’re going to devote a few blog posts to answering your decorative arts questions and writing about topics recommended by our readers.
You can send your questions and blog suggestions to: blog@carltonhobbs.net
We look forward to hearing from you!
One of our pieces here at Carlton Hobbs is an attractive model of a French navy submarine, the Surcouf, bearing the maker’s name ‘P. Jouffroy’ and dated 1993. We decided to do some research into the vessel and uncovered a tale of treachery, diplomacy, violence and gold smuggling on the high seas during World War II, featuring one of the most unusual warships ever built.
Figure 1: 19th century French dueling target. Carlton Hobbs LLC.
This very rare full-length dueling target, probably French from around 1830, harks back to the golden age of formalized dueling in Europe and America which came to an end in the middle of the 19th Century (figure 1).
Most historians date the origins of the duel to 501 A.D., when Gundelbald, King of Burgundy, legally established the ‘trial by combat’ or ‘judicial duel,’ where it was reasoned that God would favor the cause of the just. This evolved into duels of chivalry and then of honor, which were practiced until they fell out of fashion in the 19th century.
For the last six months we’ve been pleased to bring you exciting discoveries and information, both scholarly and anecdotal, on items in the Carlton Hobbs LLC collection. We’d now like to introduce to you the owner of these fascinating pieces.
Carlton Hobbs has been acquiring, researching, conserving and selling museum quality objects and works of art for about 35 years. His career has been dedicated to the discovery and exploration of fine and decorative arts objects, with particular interest in their history and with a focus on pieces of exceptional merit, including specially commissioned items with royal or aristocratic provenance and pieces designed by architects. He has worked actively for many years towards furthering the scholarly interaction and exchange of research between public galleries and the decorative arts trade.
Figure 1
September has arrived and school is in session! What better way to mark the beginning of the academic year than with a little lesson on Arithmetic, one of the seven Liberal Arts.
The seven Liberal Arts— Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Geometry, Arithmetic, Music, and Astronomy— were introduced in classical antiquity as the fields of study appropriate for a freeman’s education. From the Middle Ages, the Liberal Arts constituted the curriculum at Western universities, their focus on intellectual discourse distinguishing them from the practical arts of craftsmen and laborers. Artistic depictions of the Liberal Arts were based on an allegory by the fifth-century writer Martianus Capella called On the Seven Disciplines or Satyricon, in which the seven Arts were personified as maids serving the bride Philology upon her marriage to Mercury.
Figure 1: Jacques Linard; Still Life with Shells and Coral, and a Box; 1640.
According to the Ancient Greeks, after Perseus cut off Medusa’s head, he wished to cleanse himself of the act by bathing in the sea. He placed the head on a bed of seaweed, which upon contact was petrified and turned red. Thus is the myth of the origin of coral described.
Figure 2: Cutting and Polishing Mediterranian Coral. Underwood & Underwood, 1906.