Dear Wedgwood Enthusiast,
We at Alexis Antiques are excited to bring you another issue of our newly resurrected newsletter! With the exciting and fast growth of Internet use and sophistication have come some downsides like SPAM! Too many things, and rightfully so, end up in the electronic trashcan rendering our own mailing list unmanageable. We have contracted with a service to provide us with the means to send out information we hope you will welcome, enjoy and find helpful without having our efforts end up in your spamtrash. PLEASE know that if you opt out using the links at the bottom of this email, our software WILL remove you from our emailing list. It will not remove your request from our "WANT LIST", however. We have worked long and hard to legally and ethically collect our mailing list names and we guard it ferociously. We will not lend, sell or otherwise give it to anyone! And you can bank on that! Please just email any time you wish to add a product to your WANT LIST.
Hints of things to Come
50th Anniversary Wedgwood International Seminar returns to Philadelphia.
From May 25 to 29 the WIS will be meeting in Philadelphia to celebrate Wedgwood and America: Wedgwood in America, through programs, presentations, lectures, museum visits, tours of private residences and a 50th anniversary banquet that promises to be full of fun and surprises, along with great Wedgwood nostalgia. Watch for our next newsletter where we'll let you know what you missed if you weren't there. To learn more, go to the link on our website! I'll be giving a talk on Wedgwood and the Mayflower illustrated with many pieces of our inventory which you can see in the Historic China and Memorabilia category.
Familiarize yourself with WWW.ALEXISANTIQUES.COM -
Much has changed!
We hope you have looked recently because in the past year we have made vast improvements in content and ease of use. The layout is similar to eBay! The search/browse tool is fun and easy. Type in words such as tea, teapot, plate, landscape, Barnard, Cooper, shell or lustre and you will find all our related items. Many common misspellings will even return results! Or search by categories or by an item name and category, or by price range or by mark (but beware due to inconsistencies in Wedgwood marks and our data entry, it's not absolute!). Start with reading our abbreviations, become familiar with them to help you more quickly and smartly navigate and to understand the results returned. All our items are listed in an Access database leaving us sometimes little flexibility. But the next most important feature, NEW AND FEATURED ITEMS, will help with that. It is here we can expound on the details of products and give hints and helps on navigating the site. This is where you will see the list of newly-added items and specifics about particular items or things like gift certificates and other services we offer. All navigation is so simple, just pick the choice from the dark blue bar on the lefthand side of home page and many other pages. It's so fast and easy!
Use these simple tools to familiarize yourself with how it all works, then email if you have any questions! We're always happy to help! But most of all, have fun!
Non-Wedgwood Inventory
We currently have a great selection of historical china in stock by potters other than Wedgwood. Click the American Historical China and Memorabilia category to see them.
WEDGWOOD in the NEWS
The Magazine ANTIQUES, May, 2005 has a very well illustrated article beginning on page 106 about Federal style decorating where you will spot several well placed pieces of Jasperware, and can easily see how well they fit with this style of interior decoration.
The International Ceramics Fair & Seminar takes place 16-19 June at the Park Lane Hotel, Piccadilly, London. For information, www.haughton.com.
BBB Home & Antiques, May, 2005 - a British interior magazine sold in many bookstores and newsstands in the US has a fabulously illustrated article on Caneware. You'll see Alexis Antiques listed as a source! Check our inventory and look for more caneware to be listed over the summer!
If you are an early American furniture hobbyist or collector, there is a book published in about 1966 entitled FURNITURE OF Pine, Poplar, and Maple by Franklin H. Gottshall which we recently discovered. It's not a huge book but it contains plans for a wall cabinet, a Windsor chair and a great Boston rocker. The fun part of the book is that the front cover of the dust jacket shows a hearthside scene with bookshelves and a table set for a meal, with none other than a lovely set of Queen's Ware! If the subject is of interest, the book might be found at some of the internet book seller sites.
For those of you who collect and love all things Egyptian, to include Wedgwood Egyptian revival designs we hope, be making travel plans to visit the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from June 16 to November 15th for the Return of The King, Tut's treasures are making a return visit to our soil. They travel to Ft. Lauderdale in December '05 and the Field Museum in Chicago, May 2006. Last stop will be the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, February through September 2007.
For those of you who collect magazines, or who are willing to search for back-issues, and who are interested in the Greek vases which served as design inspiration for Josiah, you need to see the well-illustrated December, 1995 issue of The Magazine ANTIQUES. It would be worth the price and effort just to have the issue lying about the house if you decorate in the neo-classical style. The article is entitled "Women on Classical Greek Vases" by Carol Benson, and has 17 full color photos to dazzle your fancy!
The November, 2004 issue of House Beautiful contains a lovely design article "The Lauren Look" which uses blue and white china as well as creamware to off-set beautiful wall-paper and fabrics. Loads of ideas for those of us who love blues, Wedgwood Jasper or not!
Another back issue of The Magazine ANTIQUES which is probably a must-have just for the cover is January, 1991. Be prepared to pay a bit for shipping if you have to order it as it's very heavy. There is a book review about a book on Trade Catalogs, mentioning of course Josiah Wedgwood. The illustration used for it is one of an argand lamp, another subject we've seen discussed lately. There are several ads too which illustrate nice Wedgwood, among them an antique Nautilus dessert service. And while we're talking about this publication, find June, 2004 the annual England issue. There is a great article by John Sandon on English blue and white porcelain, extremely well-illustrated and not to be missed.
We collect back issues of The Antiques Journal and found the cover of the July, 1952 shows a small drabware teapot which you'll probably recognize. The featured article is entitled "Josiah Wedgwood-Master Potter" by Leo Albert Buskey. Issues of this publication turn up on eBay pretty frequently in our experience. Those of you who collect Kate Greenaway items will find the cover article in the February, 1969 issue of this same publication interesting. There are other ceramic and glass articles in this issue as well. In the September, 1968 issue there is a short article about Thomas Whieldon.
Staffordshire figure art is the topic of an article in the Antiques Journal, June 1970. One finds illustrated Josiah Wedgwood's Mercury, dating to 1780. There is a good amount of information about Staffordshire figures, and the following article is about another endearing subject, TEA and its customs.
Traditional Home of March, 2005, contains a great travel article on Birmingham, Alabama with a photo of one of my personal favorite pieces of Wedgwood Jasper, the blue and white on yellow vase in the Beeson Collection housed at the Birmingham Museum of Art. Every Wedgwood collector should plan a trip around the BMA. This article will whet your appetite. Be sure to buy the definitive catalog of the Collection too, it's an invaluable Wedgwood collecting tool for everyone from beginners to connossieurs. And speaking of March, 2005, check out that month's HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. There isn't a piece of Wedgwood in it, but when you finish reading through it, you will swear there must have been! The interiors all lend themselves to neoclassical accoutrements beautifully!
Horchow Fine Linens catalog # P105 not too long ago (www.horchow.com) showed a fabulous set of pillows, comforter and bed skirt in a neoclassical pattern that would be smashing in a home filled with Wedgwood. It's called the "Fresco" line -
Before you do your spring cleaning and get rid of last winter's magazines, grab December/January 2005 Elle Decor to see some great seashells, real and Wedgwood. Turns out Robert Lighton, founder of British Khaki, is a collector and there are some very recognizable pieces in an article about his home, check out page 190 also.
October, '04, The Magazine ANTIQUES has a great half page ad for Leo Kaplan Ltd. showing a particularly colorful grouping of 18th and 19th century Wedgwood.
And not to be missed is the December, 2004 issue of Art & Antiques, carrying a great article on Fairlyland Lustre, again well-illustrated.
One more for the interior decorators out there, House & Garden, December, 2004, has an article on page 124 with a gorgeous fireplace screen that jasper collectors might just love to copy. It wouldn't be difficult to do!
I can't imagine how this article missed our last newsletter. The December issue of Traditional Home features an article on Waterford Wedgwood executive Moira Gavin and her home. You'll spot lots of blue decorating ideas, but also a bevy of pieces of Wedgwood of varying descriptions all around her home. The article shows quite a few photos, closeups and information.
WEDGWOOD SERENDIPITY
Wherein we shall share with you fun happenings that occur
when we are not even thinking about Wedgwood
In April I was able to spend a few days in Washington, DC to attend some functions of a couple of patriotic societies to which I belong. Then on Friday I stepped from that world into the Wedgwood world as guest of Alan and Adele Barnett, founders and inspiration behind the Wedgwood Society of Washington DC. Their beautiful home is an amazing collection of collections, mostly Wedgwood. It takes a weekend to just do the first go-round; to really study would require moving in! Adele treated me and a couple other "girls" to a fun day in the city, starting with the Wedgwood in the DAR Museum. There are quite a number of pieces there, and the Museum is open to the public, so take it in sometime when you are near 1776 D Street NW. And no, the Wedgwood doesn't wear hats or gloves!
Here is a little quote I stumbled upon in a 1986 Wedgwood Collector's Society newsletter recently:
It appears that the Titanic's captain, Edward John Smith, was a native of Stoke-on-Trent. This most British of British quotes amused me: "Smith went down with his ship (after having advised his passengers to 'Stay calm; be British') and has since been the target of all sorts of charges and countercharges."
Be sure to visit our Web site this month; we have a couple of good sales going on through memorial day weeking. And don't forget, we now list all newly added merchandise in a "New Merchandise" featured item -- and we have added a lot this month!
That's it for today. We do hope you will let us continue to drop into your email inbox and stay! We welcome your visits to our websites for purchase or information (we're always adding new informational links) or even just a fun browse through the wonderful production of our favorite potter!
Thank you for reading and visiting!
Leslie, Matt, Kathlyn, John, Ron and all of us at Alexis Antiques and CollegePlates.com.
