Philadelphia Antiques Show 2022

85 THE PH I LADE L PH I A SHOW 1994 • SPORTING TRADITION Borrowing its title from a poem by William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), the 1994 loan exhibit “Enter this Wild Wood” celebrated art of the outdoors. Specifically, it followed art of the 19th century and focused on the post Centennial era when Americans who were witnessing the benefits and extreme vices of the industrialization sought spiritual renewal from pursuing recreation in the outdoors. In retrospect, this was also the time when white people conquered the last of the open territories where America’s Indigenous People had thrived for centuries. Additionally, hundreds of animals were killed for sport, making several species extinct and just narrowly averting the extinction of the iconic American bison (or buffalo). Works of art on loan included Pennsylvania German redware plates with hunting scenes, a sheet iron turkey weathervane, paintings by William Tylee Ranney (1813-1857), furniture made for the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, and a chest made in the Mahantango Valley of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, in 1834 for Peter Braun (1811-1878) possibly by his father Michael Braun (1772-1851) and painted with a stag hunting scene. Like most, this chest (currently on loan to the PMA by the Dietrich American Foundation and on view in gallery 107) represented the coming of age of Peter, who would have been 23 when it was made, and was likely filled with blankets and other household textiles. Dishes from the White House china service of President Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893) and his reformer wife Lucy Ware Webb Hayes (1831-1889) were loaned by show (and museum) supporters Joan and Set Charles Momjian. The Hayes set was commissioned from Haviland & Co of Limoges, France, and adorned with images painted by Theodore Russell Davis (1840-1894) of America’s vast natural assets of unique flora, fauna, and sport, such as snowshoeing. Numerous pieces from the Hayes set were donated to the museum by Robert L. McNeil, Jr., and are on view in Gallery 106. Hunting paraphernalia was made by talented artisans who, at the encouragement of patrons, often treated the surfaces as decorative canvases. Delaware collector William Kemble du Pont (1938-2020) followed his father and several forebears in the tradition of collecting Americana and hunting—both of which he pursued with a passion. He loaned flintlock rifles, powder horns, and gunpowder flasks. An anonymous but highly talented gunsmith made this early flintlock rifle in the Lower Schuylkill Valley. The rifle is made of highly figured striped maple, with the stock ornamented in inlaid brass with a running deer who leaps forward while looking behind at, presumably, hounds and hunter in pursuit. Such iconography is reminiscent of the often-painted and inscribed scenes found on decorative redware made in Pennsylvania—several of which were also loaned to the 1994 loan exhibit. “Running Deer” Flintlock Rifle Lower Schuylkill Valley, circa 1760-1770 Maple, brass, steel and iron. 52 caliber, 44¼ inch octagon barrel Courtesy of Kelly Kinzle