Philadelphia Antiques Show 2016_

✷ 137 ✷ FROM THE COLLECTION OF… FROM THE COLLECTION OF… CHRISTOPHER T. REBOLLO CHRISTOPHER T. REBOLLO ANTIQUES, NORTHWALES, PA is small dessert plate was part of a service ordered by the Chew family of Cliveden. Its bold yellow ground, which was the Imperial color of the Chinese Emperor, was custom-ordered to “match my yellow sofa,” which remains at Cliveden to this day, along with some of the Chinese export porcelain. Not long after starting my business, I stumbled across more than 30 pieces of the service at a small auction. As it happens, my parents had taken me to Cliveden as a child and I remembered seeing this distinctive porcelain in the dining room cupboard. Fortunately, no one else recognized the signi cance of the china and I was able to win the lot. Unfortunately, like most antiques dealers, I could not a ord to keep such a valuable set for myself so up for sale it went! Except for one lone dessert plate, which I will never sell. SUMPTER PRIDDY SUMPTER PRIDDY III, INC., ALEXANDRIA, VA When people ask what I collect, I usually answer, “Small things that make me smile.” Most of them ll an open cabinet in my kitchen, within reach of the dinner table. One piece has stood front and center on the top shelf for 30 years—a blue-and-white Delft plate, made in Holland to celebrate the 1748 marriage between Edward and Sarah Brockett of England. I bought the plate in 1982, at the end of my fth year at Colonial Williamsburg. Dismayed by the scant time available for research, and desperate to nish my book American Fancy, I had saved just enough money to cover six months’ expenses, and determined to take time and write. I ratcheted up my courage and knocked on Chief Curator Graham Hood’s door. We sat down, and after ve minutes of talking I announced my intention. “Not so hasty” he continued, and then followed up, “Why don’t you come back tomorrow, and we’ll talk again.” When I returned he o ered a compromise—six months o [without a salary, of course] but with a small stipend if I stayed to teach two classes for the Foundation each week. Better yet, he o ered the option to return afterward full time. I was so delighted that I took o the remainder of the day, and made a bee-line for Yorktown, where antiquarian Frank Dickinson kept the best shop in eastern Virginia. Pieces that had just arrived from Britain covered every table in the shop, and I looked at every one of them with an eye toward rewarding myself. Delft had never attracted me, but one piece stood out—a marriage plate that was beautifully designed and con dently drawn. It was far from perfect, for it had a hairline crack; It began at the cusp of the heart, ran up past the arrow, and ended at the plate’s edge with a chip that was well worn by years. I purchased it, took it home, and placed it on the top shelf of the cabinet by my kitchen table. I spent the next six months writing American Fancy, which e Chipstone Foundation eventually published. I never returned to Williamsburg nor felt the need to repair the plate, but the latter still stands on my kitchen shelf, precisely as it has for over 30 years, celebrating a 1748 marriage and a momentous day in 1982.