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We got this lovely early 19th century Sheraton dining table from the estate of a prominent family in Greenwich CT. It consists of a center drop leaf and two "D" end tables making it a most versatile piece of furniture. It is 9 feet long and 4 feet wide which means that it could seat 10. The condition of the piece is excellent. Here in Maine business such as ours are blessed by having a competitive advantage over our our big city cousins because our overhead is so very much lower. In fact we live in our store. This edge entered into our thoughts about pricing. Here's our thinking. In New York a table of comparable quality and form would be $32,000. In a smaller city like Boston it would be $22,000. Here in mid-coast Maine we can fairly sell it at $12,000 and everybody wins.
There was a tombstone carver in Deer Island, Maine who was a very fine whittler. Quite a while after he died one of his heirs sold his whittling work to a local antique dealer who then passed them along to us. Most of the work we got consisted of traditional whittling forms, ball in a cage, lovers knots and the like. In addition to the usual forms there is a bible, praying hands, the right hand of the carver (he was missing one finger) plus various animals and Masonic symbols. Looking at all that work one could easily assume the carver led a quiet, ordered, untroubled life except that is for the peach pits.
Tucked away in a little bag among all the usual carved forms were 14 peach pits carved front and back with male and female figures in all kinds of sexual positions and attitudes. They resemble as much as anything scenes from Dante's Gates of Hell. The quiet tombstone carver from Deer Island was portraying an inner life that most certainly was anything but conventional. These peach pits are fantastic.
We have added 14 carrot gold loops so they can be worn as a pendant. Hanging from a gold choker necklace against a black velvet blouse they are stunning.
Our current show is of the latest work of Brian White. For those of you who don't know Brian's work, he is a local artist who burst upon the scene 4 years ago with a show that featured full scale women's dresses made out of sea shells. That show, his first ever, resulted in two museums getting his work, something almost unheard of in the art world.
The show that is now going on has a marvelously diverse collection of things in it. Among the items on exhibit is a full scale wedding ensemble of dress, veil and shoes all out of shells. This piece is scheduled to be on display at the Peabody-Essex Museum in 2008. There are two lobster men's shell shirts, an American flag out of antique mirror glass, a wedding dress in a big blue Tiffany box and a suite of English pear sculptures the artist took from a old book of botanical prints.
It is hard to adequately describe the scope and diversity of such a show, suffice it to say that those who see it will go away knowing why Brian White is such a popular attraction in these parts.
