As the cityscape fades into the chilly gray of a new year, everyone in postholiday Gotham may need a shot of adrenaline. Collectors of Colonial secretaries and Shaker hatboxes are sure to get one, courtesy of Americana Week, marked most notably by the annual sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, held this year January 18 and 19, and the Winter Antiques Show, the 54th edition of which is taking place January 18 through 27 at the Park Avenue Armory.

The week’s superstar is a circa 1755 Philadelphia Chippendale tilt-top piecrust tea table in carved and figured mahogany, estimated at $2 million to $6 million, which Sotheby’s plans to auction on January 19. A similar piece by the same craftsman, known as the Garvan Carver, sold at Christie’s New York in October 2007 for $6.8 million, an unprecedented sum for Philadelphia furniture. Whether that record will still stand after January is anyone’s guess, but Connecticut dealer Arthur Liverant, who has seen both examples, says they are “equally fine.”

Christie’s American decorative arts sales span two days, opening on the 18th with a single-owner auction of the collection of famed Americana dealer Marguerite Riordan, of Stonington, Connecticut, estimated to bring about $2 million. Highlights include an 1858 paddle-wheeler weather vane (est. $60–90,000) and six 18th- and 19th-century Windsor chairs with estimates ranging from $5,000 to $25,000.

The Winter Antiques Show, which started Americana Week a half-century ago, promises to be particularly exciting this year. That’s due in part to the presence of several new dealers, including Elliott & Grace Snyder Antiques, of South Egremont, Massachusetts, which is bringing a circa 1760 carved wooden Hudson Valley armoire with an asking price of $125,000. As an example of the museum-quality caliber of the fair’s offerings, Frank & Barbara Pollack American Antiques & Art, of Highland Park, Illinois, is featuring Portrait of a Young Boy Holding a Dog—signed “W M Prior 1841” and shown at the Museum of American Folk Art in 1970—which is priced at about $95,000.

"Old New World" originally appeared in the January 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's January 2008 Table of Contents.