Four of Europe’s top antiquities dealers recently decided that their frustration had reached a boiling point. These exclusive dealers are also longtime friends who spent their childhoods frolicking among their parents’ treasures. After a decade of watching Americans invest millions and millions of dollars in contemporary art, they’re hoping that now is the time to change the indifference that’s grown toward antiques and antiquities. They believe that even though contemporary art is more flashy, it also has the capacity to “fall off the face of the earth” entirely – unlike antiques.
It’s hard to blame Americans, as they aren’t constantly surrounded by history as many Europeans are. All you have to do is step outside your city apartment in Rome, Brussels or Madrid to be engulfed by historical buildings and “outdoor museums”. The hope is to attract a new audience with the knowledge that you are investing in a piece of history. This first of its kind American exhibition spanned 2-weeks last autumn and showcased over 300 items ranging from Ancient Rome to the 19th century. One dealer believes that Americans will indeed appreciate and understand the exhibition, he’s quoted as saying, “They are very passionate and self-taught,” say Nicolas Kugel. “Given the chance, they become better experts than anybody.
The exhibition, Brimo, Di Castro, Kugel, ran from Oct. 14 to Oct. 30, 2015 at the Academy Mansion, 2 East 63rd Street in Manhattan.
The dealers: Marie-Amelie Carlier (Paris), Alessandra Di Castro (Rome) and Alexis and Nicolas Kugel (whose grandfather founded the business in Russia in the early 19th century to specialize in clocks and watches).
Image courtesy of: The New York Times Style Magazine, photographed by: Thibault Montamat
From left: objects from the 12th to 17th century in the gallery; under a 1794 bronze portrait of Linnaeus by Johan Tobias Sergel, an 18th-century commode by Martin Carlin from the Rothschild collection topped with a 17th-century Roman candlestick, a 14th-century marble head of the Virgin, a bronze head of Emperor Decius circa 250 and a stone head of St. Peter circa 1280-1300.
Image courtesy of: The New York Times Magazine, photographed by: Thibault Montamat
The interior of the pop-up shop in Manhattan’s Upper East Side Academy Mansion.
Image courtesy of: Town and Country Magazine
