it and caring for it. Collections take shape over time and some collectors may lose sight of very important details involved in conserving their collections.”
Cunningham will also be bringing many paintings to the show, including two rare Boston School works, Wilton Lockwood’s Still Life of Peonies, and Frank Hector Tompkins’ The Young Mother.
Another dealer, Keith Funston, of Funston Antiques, also a Sudbury resident, will return this year as well, having had a great experience with the first show last spring.
“I’m really looking forward to this year’s show,” he said. “We drew a great crowd from all over the region last year, and with the economy picking up, we should do even better this year.”
Funston specializes in recreating wunderkammerns, or wonder chambers, also called Chambers of Curiosities. Such rooms were created in Europe during the Age of Discovery, circa 1500 to 1650, whereby collectors would display all sorts of items culled from the "New World" together with wonder-inspiring things made by local artists.
This year, Funston will be displaying a 17th Century table cabinet used in a wonder chamber collection, fossilized dinosaur bones, a Victorian bird egg collection, tribal antiquities and many other items. The idea, according to Funston, is to create a “sensation of juxtaposition” pleasing to a 21st Century eye. Funston noted that he has been seeing more interest in wonder chambers, as evidenced by a replication of them in Macy’s store windows in New York City this past Christmas season.
For further information please call 978-443-1776 or log on to www.thewaysideinnantiquesshow.org. For information on Presenting Sponsor Skinner Auctioneers & Appraisers, go to www.skinnerinc.com, for Walker-Cunningham Fine Art go to www.walkercunningham.com, and for Funston Antiques go to www.funstonantiques.com.
About the Wayside Inn Historic Site
The Wayside Inn Historic Site (WIHS) is an internationally recognized 125-acre campus which operates the colonial-era inn and tavern known as Longfellow's Wayside Inn. The WIHS offers educational tours of its village-like property to nearly 150,000 visitors annually, providing access to a water-powered grist mill, an early one-room schoolhouse, as well as the Wayside Inn homestead itself. A non-profit since 1945, the WIHS remains dedicated to the preservation and stewardship of its role as an important 18th-century stagecoach stop, using museum-room settings and display cases to exhibit objects related to the four generations of the Howe family who ran a well-known inn keeping business on this site from 1716 to 1861.
