Innholdsfortegnelse for August 1, 2022 i Kovels Antique Trader

NEW YORK — For the first time since the watershed sale of Sue the T-Rex in 1997, Sotheby’s New York will auction a finished dinosaur on July 28, with the first ever Gorgosaurus skeleton to be offered at auction. Measuring nearly 10 feet tall and 22 feet long, it will be a highlight of Sotheby’s live Natural History sale with an estimate of $5 to $8 million, making it one of the most valuable dinosaurs to ever appear on the market. A member of the Tyrannosaurid family, whose name translates as “fierce” or “terrifying” lizard, the Gorgosaurus was a fearsome apex carnivore that reigned during the Late Cretaceous period, roaming the earth approximately 77 million years ago. Native to what is now Western North America, this specimen was discovered in…

NEW YORK - Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov’s selfless decision to sell his 2021 Nobel Peace Prize medal to help Ukrainian refugees has raised $103.5 million in humanitarian aid. The medal sold at auction June 20 for nearly $100 million more than the previous highest selling Nobel Prize. Heritage Auctions, which facilitated the sale, said the Nobel medal sold to an anonymous buyer. The funds have been remitted to UNICEF to aid Ukrainian children and their families displaced by Russia’s invasion of their country. “Several months ago, we at Novaya Gazeta asked ourselves what we could do to stop the war and help these civilians get their lives back,” Muratov, the editorin-chief of the independent paper he established in Russia in 1993, said. “We decided to sell our Nobel Peace Prize…

I suppose it all started while searching for deep blue glassware. Tall and short vases, bowls and goblets, enough to decorate and draw all eyes to the center of crisp white tablecloths for my niece’s wedding reception. What an elegant idea! So, we were on a quest. We had seen a thousand different glasses and teacups over the last four antique stores, as well as patterned plates, old tools, worn cookbooks and Bibles, and to my inner teenage girlie delight, Barbie Christmas ornaments and scads of Nancy Drew mysteries. My sister-in-law was simply on the lookout for her beautiful blue glassware, but unbeknownst to her, I was being introduced to a new side of myself. A new world of possibilities was entering my heart and opening up my mind to…

Smack in the middle of Tinsel Town, and butting right up against Paramount Studios, Hollywood Forever is the final resting place for the likes of voice legend Mel Blanc, legendary director Cecil B. DeMille, early stars such as Douglas Fairbanks and Tyrone Power, Judy Garland, the infamous Vampira, and many, many more. Overwhelming? Don’t worry, every Saturday there is a tour to help you find these stars that still shine bright from the great beyond, and if you’re luck you’ll have a black cat as your co-host! On a misty Saturday morning that cleared up to provide the classic California sunshine that I’ve grown accustomed to, tour guide Karie Bible took us on a winding and informative walk around the sixty-acre property. Bible has been enchanted by old Hollywood since…

In 1948, after years as a lumberjack in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, Fred Smith (1886-1976) retired to his 120-acre homestead just outside of the small town of Phillips. But retirement didn’t take. Despite being in his 60s and nearly crippled with arthritis, Smith embarked on one of the most improbable and fantastical art careers imaginable, creating 237 life-size and larger-than-life sculptures of people, animals and events from history, from local lore, and from Smith’s fertile imagination. The concrete sculptures, embellished with colored glass, fill the land around his home and the Rock Garden Tavern, a bar he built and operated on his property. Smith dubbed his mind-boggling and wondrously whimsical collection of self-taught art the Wisconsin Concrete Park. Today, nearly fifty years after his death, the park remains a masterwork…

More than sixty historical musical instruments from The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s collection will go on view in the landmark exhibition "Making Music in Early America" in the Mark M. and Rosemary W. Leckie Gallery at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, Williamsburg, Virginia. The exhibition, which runs from July 30 through December 2025, includes harps, organs, string instruments, fifes, flutes, drums, horns, pianos and this reproduction banjo. Internationally known banjo maker and scholar Peter Ross made the banjo based on the watercolor, Music and Dancing in Beaufort County, attributed to John Rose (1752-1820), which is also in the Foundation’s collection. The banjo features a cypress neck, gut strings, gourd body and goat-skin head. The banjo was a material link that sustained African culture in the colonies and was played by…