ANTIQUES ROADSHOW
By Kim Devore/Entertainment Writer
When thousands of gallery owners, art dealers, art lovers, celebrities, florists and foodies descend on the Barker Hanger each May, you know the Los Angeles Antiques Show has rolled into town.
This year’s design showcase kicked off with a champagne gala that raised $900,000 for the Women’s Guild of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The airplane hanger was transformed into a flower-filled garden featuring every imaginable style of dcor, from Deco to Nouveau, Native American to Old English. The eclectic mix had African masks in one corner, Tiffany glass in the next. You’d find elaborately carved doors from the Spice Islands and rich fabrics from France as well as one-of-a kind wonders like a turn-of-the-century hobbyhorse and a dazzling vintage bracelet encrusted with semi-precious stones. The array was endless, but one of the show’s biggest delights was a charming collection of antique walking sticks that came from the famed Milanese shop Il Segno del Tempo (A Sign of the Times). As a longtime cane-collecting stick chick, I found the selection to be one of the best I’d seen in years.
“Every cane has a story. Every one is a piece of history,” noted Piero Luigi Carboni, picking up an exquisite slender piece of mahogany made in 1910. The cane had an intricately carved Bakelite lion’s head handle and a secret compartment for a small battery.
“A gentleman would use this when he wanted to hail a cab,” Carboni explained. “He’d just push the button and the lion’s head would light up.”
The most unusual cane came from the colonies.
“This one is very unique,” Carboni said, pulling up a weird rubbery-looking thing with a silver tip. “It’s the tail of a giant manta ray and the English officers used to use it to hit people.”
He then proved his point with a mild whack, which definitely got one’s attention. There was a gadget or “systems” cane for every imaginable purpose. Some concealed swords and daggers; others contained measuring tapes or oriental fans. There were canes that turned into compasses and canes that turned into telescopes. Musical canes included a flute made by Austria’s Imperial music maker, and even a Hawaiian ukulele. But probably the most beautiful-and expensive-item was an 1870 hand-painted violin cane, which could be had for $20 grand. In the end it was all too tempting. I finally surrendered and picked out two beauties for my modest collection-an 1870s cane that contained a pair of dice in its ivory handle and an 1890s walking stick with a mother of pearl perfume atomizer. After a bit of haggling, I wrote out my check and headed for home carrying a large L.A. Antique Show catalogue and a small piece of history.
