The American 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 important moot 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 on _Chisel 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. 3682 _et 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.
————
† 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 represent the 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 his New 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. Rapp and 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 Everard Kilgallen, 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 that many
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 himself _en rapport_ with 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 like furniture: that
is to say, he must _think_ like 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 counting kitchen 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, FLORIDA
_September 30, 1923_