”Since 1973 the Maine Antique Digest has been the publication of record for the antiques market in America. Senior editor Lita Solis-Cohen opens the Digest's archives to present this vastly entertaining anthology of articles about the quirky personalities, amazing discoveries, major sales, auction dramas, and staggering scandals that have defined the $20 billion-a-year antiques industry.

Here are landmark sales of silver, tramp art, pottery, paintings, and furniture, and accounts of famous frauds, forgeries, and crimes of passion. Learn about the fake Brewster chair that effectively fooled the trade and museum curators until the maker revealed his identity, the discovery in France of an 18th-century desk and bookcase that sold for over $8 million despite missing feet, and the fate of the con man who foiled the antique toy world”. Softcover. 8.5”x11”, 448 pages, b/w illustrations. New. [95022]

Philanthropists Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert passionately amassed what was probably the finest private collection of goldsmiths' work in the world. Early on they concentrated on Georgian silver -in particular 18th and early 19th century works by English masters Paul de Lamerie and Paul Storr- and later broadened the collection to survey English and Continental goldsmith's work from the Renaissance to the Victorian era.

This 1988 volume is from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where pieces from the Gilbert Collection were displayed before Arthur donated them to his native Britain. It catalogs 175 exquisite items, from a very rare Tudor silver-gilt casting bottle, with tiny dragons holding its chain handle, to an enormous cup with scenes and figures commemorating the life of Lafayette, presented to his son George Washington Lafayette after his father's death. Here too are a collection of elegant German tankards; a cup carved from a coconut to look like a somewhat pudgy hawk, with jewels and silver wings; and a 17th-century wager cup shaped like a maiden, which was later fitted with a clockwork mechanism under her skirt so she could roll along the table.

Many are seen in color plates; all are shown in a large main view with smaller detail views of noteworthy features and the smith's marks, and their provenance and construction are thoroughly described. Hardcover. 9.5”x11”, 688 pages, filled with b/w and color illustrations, dj. New. [95023]