At first glance, Pablo Picasso's interpretation of The Blue Boy appears to belong entirely to the modern era. Yet beneath its simplified forms lies a lineage stretching back centuries. This article explores how Picasso's version connects to Thomas Gainsborough's famous portrait, Gainsborough's debt to Anthony van Dyck, and the broader continuity that links artists across generations. It also examines the pochoir process itself—an often-overlooked printmaking technique that offers collectors an accessible entry point into the world of fine art prints.
A concise introduction to Ammi Phillips, one of nineteenth-century America's most important folk portrait painters, based on Stacy C. Hollander's article "Revisiting Ammi Phillips" in the February 1994 issue of The Magazine Antiques. The article explains how Phillips's changing style, unsigned works, rural patrons, and scattered historical record made him one of the great attribution stories in American folk art.
A detailed look at whether a blue and white porcelain charger is Chinese or Japanese, using spur marks, glaze, decoration, form, paste, cobalt, and foot rim evidence to explain why the balance of evidence favors a Chinese attribution.
A surviving 1938 Boys' High School yearbook reveals a remarkable cross-section of prewar Atlanta through its students, faculty, advertisements, literary contributions, and personal ephemera. Centered on Edwin Kenny's preserved copy, the volume captures an institution that helped form Atlanta's future physicians, veterans, businessmen, writers, civic leaders, and public servants.
A concise historical overview of the Belleville asbestos shingle cutter, tracing its connection to early twentieth-century asbestos-cement construction technology, the Gundlach patent lineage, and surviving industrial tool examples.
A substantive guide to Bohemian glass that explains variation in quality, the role of decoration, and how to approach attribution—particularly regarding Moser. Written for anyone seriously interested in understanding the material.
Flight, Barr & Barr marks the period when Worcester porcelain moved from capable manufacture into deliberate luxury production. The firm secured royal patronage, sharpened its marks and identity through changing partnerships, and produced services and cabinet wares that could stand beside leading English competitors. Its best pieces reward close study because they combine technical control, ambitious decoration, and social prestige. The Hope Service, richly gilded armorial wares, and finely painted landscape pieces show why serious collectors rank the factory among the stronger English porcelain makers of the Regency period.
Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles did not invent porcelain in Europe, but his letters from Jingdezhen helped strip Chinese porcelain of its aura of mystery and recast it as an intelligible industrial process. That matters because Sèvres, English porcelain makers, and the broader European ceramics trade developed not in isolation but in the long shadow of Chinese achievement.
A collector-focused guide to English brass candlesticks from the medieval period through the years just before the First World War. It covers historical development, the anatomy of a candlestick, construction methods, cast versus spun work, hand-made versus machine-made characteristics, dating clues, reproductions, notable rarities, price-band thinking, and authoritative references.
Paul Berthon’s L’Ermitage (1897) is one of the most refined posters of the Art Nouveau era. Created for the Paris literary review L’Ermitage Revue Illustrée, the lithograph combines flowing organic line, symbolic imagery, and elegant decorative design characteristic of the Belle Époque poster movement. This article examines Berthon’s biography, his role within Art Nouveau graphic arts, the origins of the poster, and its artistic significance. It also discusses the various formats in which the image was issued—including the original poster and the Les Maîtres de l’Affiche plate—along with their dimensions, rarity, and collecting considerations.
