PREFACE
TheAmerican Academy for the Popularization of Antiquities was formed on February 14, 1911, by Eben S. Twitchett, B.B.S., Cornelius Obenchain Van Loot, D.A., C.O.J., Raymond L. Pry, A.B., A.M., S.I.W., and Professor Milton Kilgallen, F.R.S., of Balliol College. The present volume is largely made up of the papers delivered by these distinguished pedants before their equally distinguished society.
The 14th of February is a red-letter day in the history of antiques and antiqueing; for the exhaustive researches and diligent labors of the members of the Academy have not only awakened untold numbers of people to the refining value of something really old, but have cleared up those highly importantmoot points; that is, when does a thing cease to be merely old and become an antique; and when is an antique not an antique?
One of the finest contributions to the literature of antiques, for example, was Dr. Pry’s masterly monograph onChisel Markings and Screw-Driver Scratches of the Lower Connecticut Valley(Bulletin of the American Academy for the Popularization of Antiquities, Vol. IV, No. 7, pp. 3682et seq.). In this monograph Dr. Pry pointed out that an old Colonial frying-pan was a genuine antique, worthy of being used as the central object in a modern mantel-ornament grouping. The workmanship, the artistry, the incomparable grace of a genuine De Ruyter frying-pan puts it in the same class with a great painting or a great ruin. A De Ruyter frying-pan in first-class shape is, in fact, infinitely preferable to some great ruins, especially if the ruins come under the head of third-class ruins.† On the other hand, a genuine Oppendink frying-pan, carefully made during the same year that, say, the De Ruyter frying-pan was produced, is worthless as an antique. Both are antiques,yet one is not an antique. There are some who persist in buying Oppendink frying-pans and hanging them on the walls of their living-rooms, alongside a beautiful old Colonial hack-saw and a rare Colonial egg-beater; but their numbers, thanks to the magnificent, careful, and far-reaching work of the American Academy for the Popularization of Antiquities, are gradually becoming fewer.
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† Grasswink, H. Q.,Ruins: Brick, Stone, and Human; Their Classification and Idiosyncrasies.
This is only an isolated example of the Academy’s efforts. Its field agents have collected, collated, segregated, documented, annotated, and filed over seventy-three hundred pounds (August 28, 1922) of reports on American-owned antiques alone. Some of them have undergone the most severe dangers; while two have even made the supreme sacrifice in their pursuit of duty. This tragedy cast a shadow over the entire Academy; for among its members there were no more ardent or well-informed students of antiques than Judson F. Rapp, Litt.D., and Herman Hymen Heller, of Cracow University. The beautiful Rapp-Heller monument, soon to be erected either in Washington, D.C., or in the lonely spot in Northern Maine where Dr. Rapp dug up the first known specimen of folding iron Colonial camping-stool, will representthe Spirit of Antiqueing in a most dignified and touching way. Sketches for this monument have already been prepared by Mrs. Claudia Gaines Gumme, the distinguished sculptress; and the accepted sketch shows a stern-visaged New-England housewife refusing to accept seven dollars from Professor Heller for a beautiful Colonial cradle, while Dr. Rapp surreptitiously examines the bottom of a ladder-back chair in the shadow of a convenient highboy.
The details of the tragedy are probably still fresh in the minds of all antique-lovers. Dr. Rapp and Professor Heller, it will be remembered, had secured for the society a flawless specimen of early well-sweep with bucket attached. They took the well-sweep and bucket to their rooms and prepared to study their treasures with the painstaking care which characterized all their efforts. Dr. Rapp was a native of Calais, Maine, and therefore had developed his New England conscience to a high degree. Professor Heller, though born in Kishinew and educated in Cracow, had thoroughly absorbed the New England traditions and ideals in the nine years he had lived in America. He often laughingly remarked that hisNew England conscience had become so acute that he was thinking of changing his name to Lowell or Fitzgerald.
In making a careful examination of the well-sweep with their magnifying glasses, Dr. Rapp and Professor Heller reached markedly different conclusions as to its age. Dr. Rapp, as shown by the hasty notes which he jotted down at the time, was of the opinion that it dated back to 1683. Dr. Heller, on the other hand, basing his conclusions on the moss-layers at the end of the pole, was firmly convinced that it could not have been made prior to 1765. Each scientist labored for hours in the effort to win over the other to his views. The arguments finally became bitter, and eventually they attacked each other with their magnifying glasses, which were unusually large and heavy. The noise of the struggle was heard by several neighbors; but it was not investigated, as Professor Heller had long been accustomed to distil alcohol, sampling the results as he went along, and frequently becoming rather noisy. The neighbors, unfortunately, thought he was sampling a new batch. On the following morning, when an attendant came to clean the Professor’s apartments, both Dr. Rappand Professor Heller were dead. This is a beautiful example of the devotion to a cause which characterizes the work of all the members of the American Academy for the Popularization of Antiquities.
The finest fruit of the work of the Academy, however, came when it commissioned Professor Milton Kilgallen, F.R.S., of Balliol College, to collate and edit the notes, papers, and reports of America’s greatest antique-collectors for the benefit of the present and future generations. The monumental labors of Professor Kilgallen, which have extended over a period of seven years, cannot, of course, be included in any book weighing less than seventeen pounds. The ensuing work is merely a sketch or bird’s-eye view of the Professor’s toil, published in the present form by the Academy in order that antique-lovers may, in a few hours’ reading, obtain an idea of the vast amount of material suitable for individual research work which has been collected in the Academy’s files through the indefatigable energy and enthusiasm of Professor Kilgallen.
The Kilgallen family has long been distinguished in the realm of Arts and Sciences. Colonel EverardKilgallen, father of Professor Milton Kilgallen, became celebrated at the age of twenty-two for his exhaustive treatise on “The Seasonal Movements of the Potato Bug.” His wife, the beautiful Sheila Catherwood-Trapp, daughter of Sir Almeric Catherwood-Trapp, D.S.O., K.C.B., F.R.G.S., was noted for her bird studies, and particularly for her inimitable paintings of the lesser flycatcher, on which she specialized. So realistic were her paintings of the lesser flycatcher that flies have actually been observed hurriedly leaving a room in which one of these works of art was hung.
This accomplished couple had two sons, Morton and Milton Kilgallen. Both, curiously, were educated at Balliol; and both became full Professors during the evening of the same day—June 21, 1906. Both sons inherited from their gifted parents the love of science and research. Professor Morton Kilgallen devoted his life to ichthyology.
Professor Milton Kilgallen had planned to devote his life to entomology. Fortunately for all antique-lovers, his first researches were made among the borers. This chance brought him in close contact with antiques; since it is among the antiques thatmany of the wood-borers seem best able to function and to express their individuality. Although he has never lost interest in the borers, his early love for entomology has been abandoned in favor of his second love, antiques. He has devoted himself to the study of antiques with the enthusiasm which has always characterized the activities of the Kilgallen family. His tall, somewhat wooden figure and his rich mahogany-colored features—due, probably, to his somewhat eccentric but constant use of furniture polish as a face lotion—are familiar to antique-dealers from Odessa to Otaru and from Edinburgh to Eski-Shehir. His knowledge of antiques verges on the supernatural. Other antique-collectors cannot account for it; but he himself ascribes it to a trimonthly subcutaneous injection of the special furniture polish from his own laboratory. With the charming simplicity that always characterizes his speech and acts, he declares that if one wishes to place himselfen rapportwith an Indian, one lives like an Indian; if one wishes to familiarize himself with the gorilla, one lives the life of a gorilla as nearly as possible. If, therefore, one wishes to become thoroughly familiar with furniture, one must live likefurniture: that is to say, he mustthinklike furniture. The whimsical directness and incontrovertibility of this suggestion is typical of the man; and if we are to believe him, it accounts for his penetrating knowledge of all sorts of furniture. Other collectors have tried the same system, but most of them either went blind or lost their reason.
Professor Milton Kilgallen has the largest collection of worm-holes (in furniture, of course, not in the earth or other substances) in the world. In his beautiful residence on the Maine coast is one room devoted entirely to these little miracles of patience. Some of them are plain, without edging, while others are cross-sections. It is almost impossible for Professor Kilgallen to state from day to day how many he has in his possession; but at the lowest estimate there are more than twelve thousand. Professor Kilgallen is also an ardent collector of samples of patina, or the polish which comes on ancient articles from constant handling and rubbing. These samples range all the way from an arm of a desk-chair once used by Savonarola to the elbow of a frock coat worn for several years by the Honorable William J. Bryan, which last he obtained with great difficulty. Not countingkitchen utensils and garments patinated by the Professor himself, he has more than 1178 specimens of patina, which establishes a world’s record for a single collection.
The American Academy for the Popularization of Antiquities counts itself fortunate to have secured the services of the world’s greatest expert on antiques in the preparation of this book and in the collecting of the enormous mass of data which is always open to any member of the Academy or to any antique-collector in good and regular standing. If this book shall further the cause of antique-hunting and somewhat lighten the arduous labors of those whose lives are dedicated to finding something old to put in the house, then the American Academy for the Popularization of Antiquities shall not have come into existence in vain.
Cornelius Obenchain Van Loot, D.A., C.O.J.President, A.A.P.A.
Floral Park City, FloridaSeptember 30, 1923