Barbara Frelinghuysen Israel

Barbara always had an affinity for gardens, having spent hours as a child in the gardens of her grandmothers. Garden ornament made an impression early on, too, and to this day Barbara possesses a pair of foo dogs long ago salvaged from the far reaches of her parents’ rural New Jersey property. So, in a way, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that in 1985, Barbara made a spontaneous decision to purchase a large collection of estate statuary. This fortuitous acquisition sparked an enthusiasm for antique garden ornament that would launch her career and ultimately change the course of her life. More than three decades and hundreds of exquisite objects later, Barbara is recognized as an authority on the subject and her book, Antique Garden Ornament: Two Centuries of American Taste (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1999), is the definitive work in the field.

Barbara has served as a consultant to both The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution for their collections of nineteenth-century cast iron, and has sold pieces to the Winterthur Museum, the Smithsonian, Mt. Vernon, and the Baltimore Museum of Art, as well as to many important private collectors. Barbara works toward preserving landmark properties and their antique garden ornaments, and is particularly devoted to the restoration efforts of the Untermyer Gardens Conservancy.

Barbara Israel Garden Antiques has been featured in The New York Times, House & Garden, The Robb Report, The Baltimore Sun, and Martha Stewart Living, among others, and has appeared on Good Morning America, Sunday Morning Today, A&E’s The Incurable Collector, and Antiques Roadshow FYI.