As I approached the box of ceramic cinnamon-colored dolls, a wave of déjà vu swept over me. It couldn’t be, I thought to myself. But there they were, nearly a dozen of the faceless Dominican…
My own menagerie of faceless dolls
Posted in Dolls
Tag: auction
I was at a reading this week by author Isabel Wilkerson on her new book about the Great Migration – that mighty flood of black people who left the South in the early part of…
Furniture that tells a story
Posted in furniture
I was about to walk right past the colorful needlepoint upholstered chair at the auction house when the people in the fabric willed me to stop. So I stopped, stood there and watched as they…
The inscription on the paper in the photo was pretty clear. The question, though, was whether it was historically correct: “Badge worn by Sahra Douglas, Born Sept. 19 – 1817 A Slave Dyed May 12…
A privy man who knows his outhouses
Posted in Books, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
The little gray book was only a handful lying there among some other papers and books in an open box on the auction table. I don’t know why I decided t0 pick that one up…
The first thing I noticed about the smooth ceramic dolls on the glass shelf at the auction house were their brown gingerbread color and their blank faces. And that they were beautifully spotless. The eight…
In the spring, I was at a New York auction where a purple and white felt banner denoting Father Divine’s ministry sold for a whopping $30,000. That was the first time I had come across…
The prints on the picture racks at the auction house had a decidedly 1960s look. They were intriguing, so I answered their call and drew closer for a better view. The images in some of the…
The man made the statement in jest, but it was oh-so-true. “This was when women had it tough,” he said to the two other people with him. He was walking towards a lovely yellow vintage…
Artist Hughie Lee-Smith would be smiling right now, I thought as I watched phone bidders wrangling over one of his paintings at the Swann Auction Galleries’ sale of African American fine art this week. It…