If you've been to the Carnegie Museum of Art recently, you may have noticed some new items in the galleries. Among these is a painting by Asher B. Durand. This kind of landscape painting may be out of fashion, but the thing about Hudson River Paintings, you know a good one as soon as you see it. You also are greeted with an immediate sense of confidence the United States (or artists) hasn't known for some time. Few painters since have been this sure of themselves and the world or celebrated it with such clarity. At the time of creation, the United States was far from being a world power, hadn't known the civil war and could focus all of her energy on building the nation. Unfortunately this meant cutting down the trees and a changing landscape that made scenes like this one fade like passing frames in a film. Hudson River painters like Durand would celebrate nature, humans in nature, and the natural wildness as a feature which distinguished our continent from that of Europe.

...and there's still a week or so to make the trip to Washington DC to see Kindred Spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape More new items at the Carnegie

Coast of Capri, the only painting by Johan Christian Dahl exhibited by Carnegie Museum of Art seems out of place among paintings advocating grandeur and sublimity. The painting purveys mystic and meditative, as if there is an unknown force behind the scene that even its thoroughness goes beyond grand and sublime.

There is no wonder that Johan Christian Dahl always reminds me of Casper David Frederick. The two men once lived in the same house and exhibited together. Yet the Norwegian painter is more reticent in his words. Unlike Frederick, whose landscape paintings are disguise forms for life voyage and moral advancing, Dahl didn’t bring such austerity above the moody oil surface; instead he dug it into the landscape and let the viewer discover the deep intention that he planted.

While the life of Casper David Frederick has been studied thoroughly, Dahl, who is usually called Casper’s follower, didn’t receive enough attention nowadays. In the description note provided by Carnegie Museum of Art, it is said that Coast of Capri was the work following Dahl two-year’s stay in Italy. However, another source from Sotheby’s states that Dahl got married in June of 1820 and the very next day he left alone to Italy where he remained one year. Thus the two sources disagreed with how long Dahl stayed in Italy. The exact length of his stay in Italy is of great importance here because Dahl’s several most famous paintings were about scenes in Italy.

More than one house tour has left somewhat of an empty impression. So many of today’s old homes, restored to a new-like state on the outside are left without much of a trace of the old inside. Occasionally the staircase, or at least the newel post and railing is there, or a brick wall that never would have been exposed in its own time. Its often that most of the interior walls have been removed, bathrooms expanded into once bedrooms and recessed lights in the ceilings.

Its all for want of an urban space, which we now associate with the lofts retrofitted into old warehouse buildings. These became popular in the 1980s and today, when they are not available, we tend to rip apart an old townhouse to make a pseudo loft apartment.

These homes then are filled with contemporary furniture, sometimes with a Pottery Barn or even Ikea look, and once in a while with some higher-end modernistic furniture, with colorful blown glass, frameless paintings lacking any representation, leather, stiff-looking cushions and plenty of chrome.

Somewhere the value and attractiveness of the antique has been lost.

It could be that the country look of the antique which has been popular for some time just can’t fit into an urban space. Decorating with primitives, aside I long to see a town home filled with mahogany and brass.

It’s not necessary to fill a home exclusively with antiques. Some people who enjoy the look of antiques like to put old and new together, often using antique accents with new seating furniture.

Let’s take a look at this Almafi collection at Macy’s for example. It has a sophisticated modern look to it. It’s a look many urban homeowners might try to replicate or build upon. Now imagine taking away the chrome table and the ottoman.

Consider the look achieved when placing an empire sideboard on the wall behind it and a Caucasian rug that picks up some of the rust tomes from the sofa. Now place a Chinese table in the center where the ottoman or coffee table would be and a large fern where the chrome table had been. A real painting framed with significant size and depth (gold leaf is great) would add even more. You really don’t want that mirror above your sideboard!

Of course once you start buying antiques, your room will quickly fill and until it's time to part with the non-antiques, only unlike the antiques, you’ll find they’re worth a fraction of what you paid for them. Even as the antique furniture market has remained relatively flat in recent times, new furniture depreciates quickly.

Of course if you’re out to decorate a room, the right antiques aren’t at the mall or furniture store. You have to look for them and if there’s one thing modern people don’t have much of, it's time.

That unfortunately leads many who like the antique look to instead go for fake antiques—cheap imports made to look classic and old. Yet remember you’re probably going to be living with whatever you buy for a while, and while there’s no good cheap way around the time commitment it takes to learn about and find good antiques, having that kind of quality can be well worth the extra effort.

You also might think an empire sideboard would be outrageously expensive. Yet they are often less than what you might think and less than what you would pay for an item of comparable quality at a fine furniture retailer. Consider comparing a sideboard such as this one with this one sold recently at auction. Both are quality furniture, but one is the real antique. Now when you think how easy it is to spend that much on a big screen-television or computer, something you’ll never be able to get much of any money back out of, its becomes easy to convince yourself to spend the money.

(Photo, home circa 1950 decorated with antiques)

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to travel with a piano across the Alleghenies before the days of trucks, railroads or even canals? Yet an ad appearing in the Post-Gazette of July 20, 1813 suggests someone did just that.

The advertisement of 1813, published some sixteen years before the completion of the canal, informs readers only that a fine-toned piano forte was for sale. A maker is not identified and it is unknown where the instrument was manufactured. It could be that the piano traveled, somehow, from Baltimore or Philadelphia, but it could also have been made at home.

With advertisements appearing as early as 1814, Charles Rosenbaum was one known maker, and he seems to have worked in the city for five years. The quality of his work suggests a degree of cultural sophistication unexpected in a frontier town, and reinforces the complexities and cost of importing goods from the east.

Yet if Rosenbaum was the first manufacturer of piano fortes in Pittsburgh and he set up shop in 1814, then the piano advertised in 1813 could not have been made by him. If it had journeyed across the Alleghenies, it wouldn’t be the only piano to do so. Family history tells us that a Philadelphia-built piano forte owned by General Richard Butler was given to his daughter Mary in 1791, just before leaving on a fateful military expedition. In 1791, the piano forte somehow made it over Indian trails from Philadelphia to what is now Lawrenceville. It’s now located in the Heinz History Center.

(shown is a New York made piano forte now at the Westmoreland Museum of Art)

Getting to the Toldeo Museum of Art always had been put on the backburner, I had known there were great works there, but there never seemed to be time for it on trips along Interstate 80. An extra long trip (to Iowa) this past weekend had to be broken into two legs and finally stopping at the Toledo Museum of Art was in the cards.

On arrival the building appeared quite large and unfortunately a 4 pm Saturday close only left about an hour and a half. Had I known there was that much to see I would have left earlier. More, its well worth an extra trip with it as the only destination.

Starting in the American Galleries, I counted two works by Gilbert Stuart, a John Trumbull, three by George Inness, two by Thomas Cole, a stunning Winslow Homer and a Gifford that lured me to linger in its stead. There was also a cup by Paul Revere, an exceptional Copley, a pair of Duncan Phyfe chairs and a Seymour sideboard.

As you might imagine this took the bulk of the hour and a half. This left little time for the European galleries and none for the rest of the museum. I did get a good look at a bronze of Hercules and Antaeus, a pair of candlesticks by Robert Adam as well as works by La Pena, Manet, Gainsborough, David and more.

I'm not sure where the Toldedo Museum of Art ranks among America's finest, the Met, National Gallery, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Chicago, LACMA, Boston and others, but without completely exploring it, I'd put it almost in line with the Cleveland Museum of Art. Its clear the city of Toledo, a city that has somewhat faded from having any national prominence, has a museum of national importance and one a lot of larger cities could only dream about.