d-vers NEWS

d-vers.com Online Gallery Mission Statement, Site Updates, & Editorials

D-Vers Online Gallery - A Growing Resource For Antiques, Decorative Arts, Antique Silver, Fine Art, Ethnographic Art, Haute Couture, and More

At D-vers.Com Online Gallery, one may browse or search pieces listed by prestigious New York City galleries, as well as from private collections. Offering both auctions and fixed-price listings, D-vers.com is the premier marketplace for finer items, selling to clients worldwide.

A great resource for designers and interior decorators, consumers, and art, fashion, and antiques enthusiasts alike.

D-vers.com Online Gallery was created with consideration for the buyer as a foremost aim. We wished to present a site that is a pleasure to peruse, an ease to search, and a place where secure purchases are fast and easy. In sum, a virtual experience, of sorts, of actually touring various galleries and having the opportunity to view pieces closely, and with great attention.

And, all from the privacy of one's own study, office, or any place else web browsing at leisure is likely to occur. Thus, our interface is aimed at transparency, reliability, functionality, and ease-of-use.

D-vers.com Online Gallery features listings in both fixed-price and auction-style formats. Browse by gallery or by type of item, search using pre-defined quick-search queries, or conduct advanced searches allowing refined results sorted by region, style, period, and more.

----------------------------------------------------------

d-vers.com Online Gallery Updates: 15 July, 2010

New additions for the week include pieces from Abe's Antiques, located just south of Union Square, NYC. Please subscribe to our newsletter when creating an account for a full e-mail update of new arrivals to d-vers.com Online Gallery.

D-vers.com Online Gallery may also be followed on Twitter, and our Myspace, FaceBook, WordPress, and Blogspot entries provide substantially the same information, if you'd rather not receive e-mail.

Newly added pieces, artists, and galleries are highlighted, providing a summary of new additions, as well as background information on newly added works and creators.

You will also find interesting and lively interviews, editorials, and discussion, focusing on antiques and decorative arts, fine and ethnographic art, fine silver, and haute couture.

We Hope You're Enjoying the Summer!

D-vers Gallery Site News January 15 July, 2010

New security measures are in place. We would like to keep our record of being a trusted, secure Internet merchant. Therefore, more resources have been invested in server security. This is not due to any past issue or problem, but rather a proactive reinvestment of company funds to keep our clean record intact.

All orders must now be verified by D-vers.Com Online Gallery, over the phone. Such measures, along with our newly installed anti-hacking software, help to keep those with intent to defraud from having an easy time.

All this ensures that your shopping experience at D-vers will be safe, secure, and worthy of your trust. Talking with our clients also helps us all feel the human element involved in sales; we are finding that clients actually appreciate the additional safeguard of receiving a phone call.

Remember, we may be reached at 877-839-1573. Please leave a messsage. Any time. You need not wait for a purchase to talk with one of us! : )

NEW NEW NEW Exciting Site changes are in store. Acutally, more like additionally funcrtionality rather than changes. In any event, we seek to make D-vers increasingly fun and functional with each passing month.

-D-vers.Com Online Gallery Directors

The ‘Online Gallery' - An Oxymoron Prior to the Creation of D-vers Gallery

The term ‘Online Gallery' has always been somewhat of an oxymoron.

That is, a gallery, by its very nature, is a place where one views pieces. However, viewing art and antiques on web sites has always been quite disappointing, for a variety of sound reasons.

That is, until now.

D-vers.com Online Gallery's interface is pleasing to use, easy to learn, and features advanced search options that are extremely useful for the serious visitor seeking a particular piece. This contrasts sharply with annoying and frustratingly ill-conceived interfaces, as some other antiques and art sites clearly are, which lack features, have other features that don't work reliably or predictably, and offer yet other features that do not make sense. At all.

We have chosen to focus on D-vers Gallery as an aesthetic visual experience, providing numerous extra-large photographs of pieces from nearly every angle, as well as movies (for selected pieces). Buyers now have the opportunity for a better appreciation of a piece without actually inspecting in-person.

D-vers.com is best viewed in HD, on a larger monitor.

Each gallery (or collection) is presented in its own design here on D-vers, usually in keeping with the gallery's ‘real life' style and decor. Consequently, users can get a ‘feel' for each seller, and what each gallery is like.

Most photos of antiques and decorative arts pieces are taken with great care by our own gallery photographer. Backgrounds are always retained, whether they are a deeply colored linen, a 17thCentury bench, or the walls and floor of the gallery itself. Such visual components aid in presenting each gallery as a virtual ‘space', with it's own ambiance and uniqueness.

Unlike some of the other leading antiques sites that employ cheap contract workers overseas to ‘strip' the items from their backgrounds, and then add a false shadow that does not correspond to actual lighting, at D-vers we leave the photographic images intact.

Taking away the background results in blurry edges, or (often!) worse, even when performed by the best of Photoshop professionals. It's far more than the edges becoming distorted and losing their crispness (though this is a significant issue; find a site that does such and see!); the figure- background relationship is key to a beautiful image.

As far as the lighting issue is concerned, any beginning student of photography (or anyone with a ‘good eye' for visual design and arts, for that matter) will find the false shadows deeply disturbing.

Certainly not the ideal conditions for viewing a piece! The results are an image that appears as though it is floating in space, or maybe more accurately a sterile clean-room at a nano-bot fabrication center, or some other equally unlikely place. (We do acknowledge that a very few number of D-vers users' own home / office / nano-bot fabrication facilities may look as such, however, for most this is not the case, and not anything like where the purchased piece will ultimately be placed.)

When one views a piece in-person in a gallery, one is viewing against the background of the gallery itself. The piece, once placed into its new environment, will be juxtaposed against the background elements at that new location. Therefore, viewing pieces against a ‘real' background is necessary, and retaining the actual lighting is essential, even if the piece is intended for a setting quite alien from the gallery, with different lighting and other attributes.

The eminent essayist, novelist, and thinker Aldous Huxley expounded on the topic of figure- background relationships extensively. Interestingly, Huxley's even wrote of the specific significance of the drapery that a figure is presented against, arguing that the rich textures present the artist more opportunity to render expertly than the work on the figure-foreground itself. An extreme position, granted, however one well-presented by this esteemed author- philosopher, from a family of note when considering intellectual and creative achievements.
(C) Copyright 2009 D F A l b a n o
D-vers.Com Online Gallery