Heard it through the
Grapevine
Earliest Image of an Antique Bottle Collection? This image was submitted by AB&GC reader, glass historian and writer, Ian Simmonds. It is believed to be one of the earliest known images of an antique bottle collection. Ian writes: Please find attached one of the earliest photos of a bottle collection that I am aware of. It is from the March 5, 1913 sale of Part 1 of the Alexander W. Drake collection at Anderson Galleries in New York. Anderson Galleries became Parke-Bernet before being bought by Sothebys. The image is from the catalog for the auction. There are a few other images that show parts of the collection. It would be fun to see who can come up with the earliest image of a collection of American bottles, or containing American bottles. The Drake collection contained a mix. Ian adds: Many bottles were literally hanging from threads! Editor’s note: Thank you Ian. It is a very interesting image. It is a fascinating mix of early bottles, flasks and blown glass.
Accidents Happen … But let’s hope not to glass collectors By Ralph Finch So, you are going to buy something from an auction house? Or sell something through an auction house? Cross your fingers. The big U.S. glass auction houses treat their consignments with kid gloves, but, hey, things happen. In more than fifty years of collecting I have only sent two pieces of glass out for cleaning. One was a rare pint fruit jar with a little stain, and it came back looking like it had been sand-blasted! The other was a Bust of Columbia Liberty Cap Eagle flask with a tiny spot of haze behind Columbia’s face. (And the flask was one of the few items I ever bought as a real bargain, when a Detroit auction house sold it for $30 after marking it as a repro, when it was the real McCoy.) It came back from the cleaner in a body
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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector
bag. For years I kept the dozen pieces as a souvenir that bad things can happen. And it can happen with the bigger names, too. We were going to bid on an incredible demijohn with a massive sea battle painted on it. It had a crack, we knew, but its beauty still made it very desirable. However, by the time it came up for auction it looked like someone had kicked in the side. Those ships painted may have survived a fiery sea battle, but not a clumsy auction house staffer. Things happen. A famous accident known as the ‘Lucian Freud’s Untitled Oil Painting’ incident happened in 2010, when a small still life created by Lucian Freud in the 1960s arrived at Sotheby’s London. However, this work never made it to the auction block. Its crate was accidentally placed with others that were meant to be thrown away, and it was put into a crushing machine. The artwork was valued at over $100,000.
If you are a *glutten for punishment, you can go on the internet (www.widewalls or YouTube) and, since most museums have cameras, watch clumsy (or stupid) people, out-of-control children, anarchists or religious zealots destroy expensive antiques. (*That’s the same headline the Detroit News put over a story I wrote about rating really cheap hamburgers, aka greasebombs or sliders.) FYI: Lucian Michael Freud, 1922-2011, was a British painter and draughtsman, specializing in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century portraitists. Some of his works have been valued into the millions. (Which is really strange, since he seemed to have a passion for painting really homely women.) Editor’s note: Have you condemned a collectible to the trash (or, as the British say, a “dustbin”)? Please share the sad stories with our readers. Send them to me at rfinch@twmi.rr.com
