For over three decades, museums and moguls alike have sought out Philip Hewat-Jaboor’s discerning eye.  When billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg wanted only the finest antiques for his New York mansion, it was to Hewat-Jaboor he turned. Currently, it's his own notable collections, which is in the spotlight. 

It was in the mid 1980’s that Hewat-Jaboor bought the first piece in what is now the largest collection of works related to the important Regency aesthete and designer Thomas Hope.  “It was a bronze-mounted sang-de-boeuf vase.  I found it in a Sotheby’s sale where it had been turned into a lamp.  Nobody really knew about Hope at the time.”  If Hope’s recognition has grown since then, it is greatly due to Hewat-Jaboor’s enduring interest.  “Unlike the other wealthy aristocrats of the day, Thomas Hope went one step more and designed his own furniture and objects with a view to improving the taste of the day."  

Besides a passion for classical design, Hewat-Jaboor also follows Hope’s precedent of mixing the old with the new.  “You have to present things in a fabulous and exciting way, and that means there has to be a mixture of the very best – new and antique.  People say there are no craftsmen, and that’s nonsense.  Well, some craftsmen may be making awful things, but they always have done.  Just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s good!”  The key, says Hewat-Jaboor, is to be involved.  “You can’t just let these things on the whole happen.  But there are fantastic craftsmen and it is possible to get almost anything made at an astonishing high standard.”

After moving full-time to Jersey in the Channel Islands five years ago, the collection languished in storage, prompting the decision to find it a new home.  Instead of consigning the works to an unknown fate at auction, Hewat-Jaboor is commemorating them with a final valentine.  Currently the pieces are the cornerstone of the selling exhibition “Inspired by Antiquity: Classical influences on 18^th and 19^th Century Furniture and Works of Art” at the Carlton Hobbs gallery in New York City, perhaps the last opportunity to see all these items publicly before they slip back into private hands.    

(Exhibition runs January 20^th – February 18^th, 2011 and is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue. Carlton Hobbs, 60 East 93^rd Street, New York, NY www.carltonhobbs.com)

Carlton Hobbs is grateful to Emily Eerdmans for writing this article.

Press Contact: Marilyn White, MWhitePR@aol.com, 973-783-3649