Thomas Birch "Philadelphia from the Delaware River," circa 1840. Courtesy of Arader Galleries.

The 2016 Philadelphia Antiques Show will kick off with a Preview Party on Thursday, April 14, on the Marine Parade Grounds at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and will remain open to the public through Sunday, April 17. One of the longest running antiques shows in the country, the fate of the seminal event was unclear after the 2015 iteration was cancelled earlier this year.

The 2016 show will be held in a stunning structured tent with steel beams that, according to Diana Bittel, who will manage the show alongside Karen and Ralph DiSaia, “will be floored, rugged, and heated.  It will be staked into the field and there will be no center poles to deal with. It will be gorgeous. There will be free parking and a jitney that will go back and forth to town if people don’t want to drive.” The Antiques Dealers’ Association of America’s Award of Merit Dinner, the loan exhibition, and lectures will also be held under the spacious tent. The Navy Yard, a 1,200-acre dynamic urban development that includes hotels, retail spaces, and restaurants, is currently one of the most booming areas in the city. “We’re thrilled to be there now,” said Bittel. “If this is successful, which we expect it will be, this will be our new home.”

The show will be co-chaired by Anne Hamilton and Nancy Kneeland, both of whom were involved with the 2014 Philadelphia Antiques Show (Kneeland served as the Chair, while Hamilton co-chaired the Preview Party). “They both know what they’re doing,” said Bittel.  “And Anne gets people to the party.” The 2016 Philadelphia Antiques Show team hopes that a shorter run will keep attendance up. “We’re not going to have the Monday and Tuesday days when attendance tended to lag,” said Bittel. “Hopefully this will keep things packed the days that we are open.”  

The group began notifying dealers the morning of Monday, June 1. Bittel said that after the 2015 show was cancelled, they touched base with everybody to make sure that a 2016 show was viable. “The response was overwhelmingly positive,” she said. Bittel expects that next year’s show will feature around sixty dealers of furniture, folk art, and decorative and fine art from antiquity through the twentieth century. Bittel said, “We’re excited and feeling very positive about starting off with a clean slate. A year off has been put to great use.” 

Founded in 1962, the Philadelphia Antiques Show premiered under the direction of its founder, Ali Brown, as the "University Hospital Antiques Show at the 33rd Street Armory in West Philadelphia." Since the beginning, the Show's committee, which, as of 2014, featured more than 200 dedicated volunteers, has worked tirelessly to organize, develop and produce one of the finest shows of Americana.

For a sneak peek of some of the wonderful items that will available, click HERE.