Paul Howle Madden, 70, prominent antiques dealer

PAUL H. MADDEN

A trained artist who designed department store displays, Paul Howle Madden was new to the antiques business when he packed up his young family and moved to Nantucket in 1967.

He proved to be a natural for the industry. Over a career that spanned four decades, Mr. Madden became a premier dealer, appraiser, and lecturer who specialized in scrimshaw and other marine collectibles and built a vast inventory and elite clientele.

Despite his stature, Mr. Madden maintained an endearing joviality and approachability, relatives and friends said.

"In the antiques business, most people who are at the level that Paul was at tend to be a little standoffish, a little less generous with their time, and especially less generous with their knowledge," said Peter Smith, owner of the Sandwich Antiques Center.

With Mr. Madden, "even though he was one of the most respected people in the country as far as antiques, we felt like he was a family member," Smith said.

Mr. Madden, owner of Paul Madden Antiques in Sandwich, died Sept. 30 at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of complications as he rehabilitated from a severe leg infection. He was 70, and a resident of Sandwich.

He was born in Manchester, Conn., to Henry Madden, a Sealtest executive, and his wife Virginia, a well-known antiques dealer in Glastonbury, Conn., and Kennebunkport, Maine.

Acquiring his mother's eye for creativity, Mr. Madden studied art at the University of Connecticut. After graduating in the late 1950s, he was drafted by the Army, where he served in intelligence until his discharge in 1963.

Upon his return, he designed retail displays at the G. Fox & Co. department store in Hartford, said his son, Parke Madden of Sandwich. Mr. Madden met Diane (Chase) there during the 1964 Christmas season, and within the year they were married in Kennebunkport.

It was a logical transition in careers when he opened his first antique store on Nantucket, his son said.

"He could see the artistic quality in things and just had a great eye for making something right in terms of layout or setting," he said. "He could find pieces that had a great beauty and a real form and purpose."

That reputation quickly earned him clients such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the clothing line Ralph Lauren, which when it came to Nantucket in the late-1970s for a photo shoot sought Mr. Madden's guidance for props and locations. He allowed them into his family's home, an 18th century house that he and his wife had painstakingly restored and decorated.

Home restoration became a lifelong passion for the couple, and both their Nantucket home and later their Sandwich house being highlighted in magazines, books, and television programs; recently, they were featured on HGTV, his son said. The family moved to Sandwich in 1986, and for a while maintained shops in both locations before closing the Nantucket store.

Mr. Madden's early interest in Nantucket lightship baskets, cane-woven baskets first produced on the island in the early 19th century, helped to "popularize and develop the market" for those antiques, his son said.

"He was selling an awful lot of them when they were still reasonable," he said.

In 1998, Rafael Osona, a Nantucket antiques auctioneer and friend, asked Mr. Madden to join the advisory board of the Nantucket Lightship Basket Museum, which Osona had founded.

"He had a beautiful collection, and certainly helped the market and awareness," Osona said. "But even more so we lost a great scrimshaw mind. He represented some of the best collectors in the nation. . . . When the money got serious, that's when he was called in."

During his career, Mr. Madden was active in the formation of the Kennedy Collection of Antique Scrimshaw and a permanent whaling exhibit in the Berlin Technological Museum in Germany. He also vetted marine antiques for the prestigious New York Winter Antiques Show.

In the last decade, Mr. Madden developed an extensive website inventory of his collection, which allowed him to expand the reach of his business and effectively open his store only to those with appointments.

"That was one of the funniest things about Paul," said Paul Smith, who recalled that Mr. Madden would be as thrilled with a $20 find as a $10,000 purchase when he shopped in his store. "He wasn't an antiques snob . . . but however approachable he was, he had a real disdain for the general public browsing through his store."

A large man with a deep voice and an attention-attracting presence, Mr. Madden also loved to entertain, whether "holding court" in Smith's antique store or hosting a holiday gathering in his home, and was in several senses like a king, Smith said.

Mr. Madden's business will continue under Parke Madden, who also operates The Weather Store, a weather instrument store in Sandwich that his father helped him open more than 20 years ago, he said.

In addition to his wife and son, Mr. Madden leaves a granddaughter and a grandson.

A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. Oct. 26 at the First Church of Christ in Sandwich.