Julia Opens Satellite Office In Woburn, Massachusetts

May 3, 2012

To better serve their clients in the greater Massachusetts area and further west, James D. Julia is proud to announce that they now have a satellite office located at the historic 1790 House at 827 Main St. Woburn, Massachusetts. The offices will be open six days a week (call ahead, an appointment is strongly advised). This new location will provide consignment and appraisal services and can serve as a drop off point for people who have already made arrangements for consignments to Julia’s via their home office. (Drop-off services will not extend to furniture or other large objects and modern firearms.)
Julia’s has been fortunate in acquiring two well-seasoned, highly experienced antique specialists to man their Massachusetts office.
James Callahan will serve as Julia’s Director of Asian Arts. Mr. Callahan is a long-time Boston-area antique dealer, appraiser and consultant. He became enthralled with Asian art at a very young age. By the time he was eleven years old, he was the youngest exhibiter at a Boston area antiques show. He has worked with auction houses since the 1970s and was director of Asian Arts at Skinner’s Auctioneers for 16 years and built the department from annual sales of $230,000 to $11 million annually.
As an appraiser, Mr. Callahan’s greatest expertise is in the area of Asian art, culture and customs, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Khmer, Thai, Burmese, Ottoman Turkish, Armenian, Arabic, Persian and Indian. He also has great experience and knowledge as a generalist appraiser with expertise in arms and armor, 19th-century European and American furniture and decorative arts, jewelry, fine silver from the 18th to the 20th century and paintings and prints.
Mr. Callahan has appeared regularly on the PBS “Antiques Roadshow” since 1996 and will continue to do so under the name of James D. Julia Auctioneers. He is a frequent lecturer and consultant to museums, historical societies and independent art groups. He worked with the Brooklyn Museum of Art to bring to auction a large collection of over 200 pieces of Southeast Asian art that had originated from the collection of Samuel Eilenberg.
Callahan also serves a consultant and over the years Mr. Callahan has conducted innumerable appraisals of major collections and estates. Via his private consulting service he will continue to provide independent appraisals and consultations for clients throughout North America. As a specialty consultant for Julia’s he will also provide catalog descriptions for future Asian arts auctions.
Martin Willis will also work out of the Woburn office as Director of Decorative Arts for the Greater Boston Area. Formerly of New Hampshire, Mr. Willis comes from a family of auctioneers. His dad, Morgan Willis, developed and ran the Seaboard Auction Gallery in Eliot, Maine for many years, which Martin eventually took over. Mr. Willis later worked for various auction companies in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Colorado. Eventually, he worked at Clars Auction Gallery in Oakland, California for over six years where he served as senior appraiser, cataloger and auctioneer. In this venue he consulted and did appraisals for various collectors and estates, including the estate of TV mogul Merv Griffin and talk show host Tom Snyder. In 1989, his auction company conducted the famous Josiah Bartlett Auction in New Hampshire. Bartlett was a signer of The Declaration of Independence and the estate was a veritable time capsule of extraordinary and historic antiquities, which descended from this famous family.
In 2009, Martin started the Online Antique Auction Forum, which is a biweekly informational podcast located on the web at antiqueauctionforum.com. This popular podcast has followers across North America and throughout the world. Over the years he has served on numerous boards and offered his services as benefit auctioneer for special events and organizations and has, and continues to lecture on antiques and auctions. He served as a columnist, writing for “What’s It Worth” as well as a blog writer on articles pertaining to the antiques trade. Marty has over 40 years in the auction business and is certainly a familiar figure here in New England.
The historic and elegant 1790 House is in the US National Registry of Historical Places and is referred to as the Joseph Bartlett House or the Bartlett-Wheeler House. “At this point in time,” say representatives of Julia’s, “we’re not sure, but it’s very possible that this Bartlett could have been related to the famous Josiah Bartlett, signor of the Declaration of Independence, the very famous estate from which Mr. Willis auctioned back in 1989.” This house was built in 1790 on the banks of the Middlesex Canal for Woburn lawyer, Joseph Bartlett.
The facilities serve as an appropriate and elegant facility for the Julia auction company in a convenient location of 827 Main Street just off Exit 35 off I-95/Route 128.
The offices have just been opened and are in the process of being set up with telephone, computers and other electronic systems. As soon as the formal telephone number is established, it will be advertised on the web. Prospective customers may contact their Fairfield offices at (207) 453-7125 until the Boston phone number is established when they’ll post the number on their website at www.jamesdjulia.com.

 

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