{"id":81,"date":"2019-09-26T16:22:14","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T16:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiquemillennial.com\/?p=81"},"modified":"2019-09-27T15:50:28","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T15:50:28","slug":"the-ovington-brothers-importing-treasures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiquemillennial.com\/index.php\/2019\/09\/26\/the-ovington-brothers-importing-treasures\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ovington Brothers: Importing Treasures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I ran into some dinnerware pieces recently that had the original manufacture mark stamped on the underside, but also included an unfamiliar-to-me mark: &#8220;Ovington Bros NY&#8221;. This led me to do some online research and although I couldn&#8217;t find much information I decided to compile what I did find out here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the mid-1800s the Ovington brothers had trade in sculpture, ceramics, pottery, and table ware. They quickly expanded to a new two-story building which spanned several storefronts on Fulton Street, which was at the edge of the downtown shopping district. This fine store would stock some of the more refined examples of porcelain and china one could obtain, mostly imported from Europe by manufactures such as Sevres, Minton, Cauldon and more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tragedy did strike the store on one cold winter morning in 1883, however, when a fire broke out in the lower stories of the store just before the store was set to open for the day. Two employees were in the building and they evacuated the building and escaped the flames, pulling an alarm in the process to alert the local fire stations of the fire. Engines arrived on scene about 30 minutes after the fire broke out, which quickly spread to the upper floors, engulfing the entire building and threatening neighboring structures. The fire was brought under control after a long fight, but both the stock and structure of the Ovington Brothers store was a total ruin and  losses were estimated as upwards of $250,000, or $16 million in today&#8217;s dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.opednews.com\/populum\/visuals\/2016\/07\/2016-07-20762-416-Images-populum_uploaded_ovingtons-02016_07_31_09_32_16-0.jpg\" alt=\"Ovington Brothers Building, from an 1887 Ovington Brothers catalog.\" width=\"252\" height=\"208\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The company was determined to rebuild and they set up headquarters in a nearby church. Only 11 months after the disastrous fire in November 1884, a new six-story department store opened to much fanfare and excitement. The firm prospered in its new location, and soon opened a branch in Manhattan. This new location later became their flagship retail space on nearby Flatbush Avenue in the middle of the downtown Brooklyn shopping district. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Vintage Ovington Brothers Catalog<\/h2>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/embed\/artpotteri00ovin\" width=\"560\" height=\"384\" frameborder=\"0\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"true\" mozallowfullscreen=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This old catalog is found on the internet archive, which appears to be some sort of marketing material giving some history of the pieces sold in their fine stores. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Rough Time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p> It appears the brothers faced a rough time in the late 1800s, and their store was seized by the NY Sherrifs for a debt they owed to George Borgfeldt Co. for goods they had most likely sold in their stores. The amount owed ($20,127) amount to about $613,000 in 2018 dollars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"291\" height=\"212\" src=\"https:\/\/www.antiquemillennial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Capture.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-88\"\/><figcaption>Excerpt from the NY Times on  Aug. 21, 1896 (source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1896\/08\/21\/archives\/ovington-brothers-attached-their-brooklyn-and-newyork-stores-closed.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"nytimes.com (opens in a new tab)\">nytimes.com<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The china stores of Ovington Brothers, at 330 Fifth Avenue, this city, and 38 and 40 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, were seized yesterday by the Sheriffs of New-York and Kings Counties, on an attachment for $20,127, in favor of George Borgfeldt Co. of 18 Washington Place, for goods sold and delivered between March 5, 1895, and Aug 13, 1896.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">20th Century and Beyond<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The last of three brothers running the store passed away in 1909.\u00a0 Family took over and continued to sell fine china, bronzes, glassware and other treasures. Sometime after 1920 the name of the store was shortened to Ovingtons. (So any items with Ovington Brothers is prior to 1920.)  I can&#8217;t find any information on what happened to Ovingtons, but it appears it was either purchased or closed sometime in the 20th century. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I ran into some dinnerware pieces recently that had the original manufacture mark stamped on the underside, but also included an unfamiliar-to-me mark: &#8220;Ovington Bros NY&#8221;. This led me to do some online research and although I couldn&#8217;t find much information I decided to compile what I did find out here. In the mid-1800s the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":82,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dinnerware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquemillennial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquemillennial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquemillennial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquemillennial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquemillennial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquemillennial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquemillennial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquemillennial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquemillennial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquemillennial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiquemillennial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}