Over the course of those years, there have clearly been changes the most profound of which seem singularly contradictory. The growth in real estate development- and a visit to the forest of high rises that is Honolulu is testimony to this- is contrasted with the marked growth and appreciation of endemic, traditional Hawaiian culture, and its concomitant and often expressed respect for the land. Tragically, Hawaii’s strategic geographic position made it, since its discovery, a coveted possession by governments in both Europe and America. That it was a crossroads, as well as grappling for political hegemony, made an inordinate number of people aware of its beauty and it inexorably became the nexus of global mass tourism.

In spite of all this, its natural charm has survived pretty well, as well as the spirit of aloha maintained by its resident population. This last week, we enjoyed a morning’s hike to Manoa Falls, astonishing in its verdant beauty, and all the more so given its position in the Koolaus so close to the teeming population of Honolulu. Once there, we found the pool at the base of the fall predominated by a gentleman of a certain age and his blowsy girlfriend, who had stripped off and were intent on taking photos of one another. To say that this was inconstant with the natural setting is an understatement. Let’s say that this jarring mise en scene scared the birds away. While Keith and I stood there palely loitering, averting our eyes and hoping to outwait the lady and gentleman, we were joined by another couple who had hiked up with their two mid-teen daughters. The second gentleman, while not absolutely appalled, was nevertheless irritated by the way two others exhibited such an uncomprehendingly dominating presence, and he shouted out to them ‘How long are you going to be?’ To which the stripped off man replied ‘Come on in- there’s plenty of room.’

Really? Thank goodness not all of us think the natural world is a mere backdrop automatically trumped when graced by our presence. I suppose that, once upon a time not so very long ago, the preponderance of the natural world and an abundance that seemed inexhaustible made our exploitation of it seem incidental, when it was considered at all. Still and all, in Hawaii with both its limited land area and strongly rooted tradition of respect for the natural world makes its exploitation seem at best schizy and it has wrought some bizarre effects.

This may come as a surprise to my gentle readers who have visited there, but that intense enclave of the built environment that Waikiki has become was historically one of the most hallowed places anywhere, the precinct of kings and shrines that in their number would rival the Acropolis. My beloved Royal Hawaiian Hotel takes its name from the royal cocoanut grove, vestiges of which remain in the hotel grounds, enjoyed by the Hawaiian ali’i from the earliest days. The grove and its precinct were named Helumoa. Favored with ample fresh water naturally drained from the Manoa and Palolo valleys a few miles inland, Waikiki, and the area of Helumoa specifically was replete with abundant natural beauty and food stocks from taro patches and fish ponds. Nothing of this remains, with the area drained with the construction of the Ala Wai Canal in the 1920’s, and the spoils from the canal used as fill aiding a construction boom in Waikiki that has yet to abate.  Sacred sites known as heiau were dismantled. One of the most revered was only recently rediscovered when its topside development as a bowling alley was demolished, revealing the sacred alter of Kapaemahu underneath, incorporated into the building’s foundation.

While none of us could guarantee the future value of anything- even cash- I will venture out on a fairly sturdy limb and promise that, when it comes time to sell the furniture purchased from one of the prominently advertising pseudo-chic chains, the value will be less than that for an equivalent avoirdupois of firewood. It mystifies me why and how the ability to purchase a roomful of strictly color and style coordinated cack so captivates prospective punters.

With all that, despite the prospect of getting better value from any member of the accredited antiques trade, making a purchase of a period article does have aspects that tend to, if not perplex, than to give the first time buyer a degree of pause. For example, using my favored exemplary Pembroke tables, we always have several on the floor. Always good representatives of what they are, but at varying prices. This sometimes begs question, as we would expect it might, and we cheerfully explain that it has everything to do with quality, condition, and rarity. We have a pretty good quality early 19^th century example that is fairly priced at $2,500  but near at hand is an earlier example for $12,000. When one understands that the earlier piece, when new, represented a ground breaking design, that it is possessed of its original leather-wheeled casters, and has solid matched timbers to its top and leaves, the pricing difference is a bit easier to understand.

For us, and those dealers who survive in business, pricing is critical and, unless one wants to pursue this business as an expensive hobby, everything needs to be priced to sell. The dealer who upon pricing an acquisition using some kind of keystone formula with no consideration of reasonableness is what we would term in the trade ‘now defunct.’

The why of this may mark us as inordinately cautious, but as with physicians, our aim is to do no harm. While we might in the short term satisfy an inquiry with a recommendation, we would rather risk an immediate disappointment by declining to provide information than risk the possibility of a larger one when the restored piece fails to satisfy the punter.

The simple truth is, ‘restoration’ in the antiques trade is at best an amorphous term. There exists no standard protocol, so what is meant, and in fact what we mean when we discuss restoration in describing our own stock varies with virtually every piece of furniture or period artwork we’ve ever handled- and the accomplishment of the restoration is always preceded by a considerable amount of palaver with the restorer(s). We have a number of people who work for us on projects, but the young man who is primarily responsible for putting our furniture pieces in good nick is a graduate cabinet maker, trained at the North Bennett Street School in Boston. He’s a talented carver, wood turner, and can do pretty fair marquetry. That said, we have never, ever just turned him loose on a project, nor would he want us to. As with my meeting with him this morning, we had to discuss the level of distress on a table top, whether to leave it as is or to ameliorate it, and if so, how much.

Our overriding restoration principle on period pieces is just enough to make it visually appealing, but not so much to occlude its age. Easy to say, but hard to accomplish given the myriad circumstances- with at least one new one arising with each piece we acquire- that make a standardized restoration regimen impossible.

With a consistent lukewarm response from peers, we’ve relied on our own website and seen, for a few years, roughly the same result- the occasional spot sale, usually for not very much money. What we have seen ongoing, though, is the phenomenon of any actual darkening of the gallery door preceded by a browse on our website. This, coupled with follow-on sales through our website related to an initial gallery visit has made our website a useful tool. While the virtual hasn’t replaced the actual, our website has, in the ten years we’ve maintained it, consistently been an excellent adjunct to our bricks and mortar.

That is, until recently. Markedly over the course of the last year, we are achieving a significant and growing proportion of our sales from website activity unaccompanied by an in-store visit. We always assume that the buyer of traditional material will continue to utilize a traditional method of making a purchase, with four if not five of the senses- not all of them internet accessible- informing the punter’s decision to buy.

In all this, I am reminded of a phenomenon of the ‘60’s, with the American public, largely unused to wine, suddenly exposed to it in greater volume. While it was assumed that the glass of tawny port consumed at Christmas had irrevocably shaped the American palate, sage oenophiles knew that consumers would over time achieve a comfortability with more sophisticated wines. The fortunes of the wine industry in California have certainly borne this out. Similarly, it seems that the internet has exposed so many prospective buyers to art and antiques that, over time, the purchase of items of increasingly better quality using the same method with which their exposure is ineluctably linked appears now to be a natural adjunct.

Though we had assumed that the nature of our internet sales would inevitably be dry and arid, as opposed to the intimate conviviality of our face to face client relationships, we’ve found that the internet is anymore the growing entre to interaction that is just as rewarding as before. Moreover, whatever it is that disposes a client to establish a relationship with a particular dealer seems, for Chappell & McCullar at any rate, to transcend our galleries, somehow infusing our website and those who browse it. I am possibly penning this blog entry too late, as we’ve renewed our lease and we’ll be ‘actual’ for a few more years yet. I suppose I might have got better terms from our landlord had this blog entry appeared a few weeks ago. Still and all, we cannot deny that in the fullness of time the virtual may make the actual gallery if not obsolete then the adjunct that the internet was formerly- even in what we have always steadfastly maintained is the highest of high touch businesses.

We met Mr. Hadley in his own Nashville in January, 2003, at the Nashville Antiques and Garden Show he long supported.  Unassuming, he walked into our stand, directly to a particular piece and inquired about it. As is our wont, I tried to show him some other pieces, but his focus was on the one and, finding out what he needed to, he left. It was not until sometime later that one of the ladies organizing the show told us that it was Mr. Hadley.

A short time later, Mr. Hadley purchased the piece and, when he was in San Francisco a few months later, visited our gallery. Again, he went to a particular piece, asked specifics, but did not browse. As it happened, this piece was purchased, too. While my venal soul always is disappointed when I’m not able to cross sell a purchaser, it was not until some time later it dawned on me that Mr. Hadley had an efficient, focused way of working that, while modestly frustrating to me, doubtless endeared him to his clients.

Interestingly, although his body of work had a modern edge to it somewhat distinct from that of his long time business partner Sister Parrish, the material acquired from us was rather traditional in appearance. Sadly, we were never able to see either piece placed in situ. I would safely imagine, though, that their ultimate use was in the manner of all other pieces acquired by Mr. Hadley, to achieve a lasting resonance that spoke not only to him, but loudly to his clients. Certainly this was a successful approach, as Mr. Hadley’s client base only swelled over the years. Presumably the focused, professional method we experienced in our limited dealings with him was also manifest in his dealings with clients, most of whom used him again and again.

As my readers have surmised, the enduring memory that I have of Mr. Hadley was of his professionalism. I imagine all who dealt with him- clients, suppliers, and colleagues would agree. He was direct, decisive, and, implicitly efficient. Whether these qualities were inborn or acquired, they were nevertheless pervasive and influential. Witness those designers we’ve dealt with who were protégés of Mr. Hadley: all have been virtually identical to their mentor in their manner of doing business. With luck, then, those of us in the trade, while missing the man, will appreciate Mr. Hadley’s legacy for many years to come.

Although pundits have all described the work as iconic, citing the illustrated presence of any one of Cezanne’s Card Players in virtually every art history survey text, the fact of its inclusion either avoids or at best abbreviates any consideration of why it might be. It’s been a few years, but my own experience in a foundation course in art history began with an examination of the function the discipline serves, specifically to determine how an artwork came to be created, and why it looks the way it does. Within the context of material culture, art historians, using a variety of methodologies, attempt to achieve when considering a work of art a site of meaning. That Cezanne created five similar depictions of peasants playing cards in  Aix-en-Provence would seem a prima facie argument for some considerable degree of significance, but anything associated with an art historical consideration of the work will now forever be occluded by the fact of its acquisition for a record setting amount of cash.

The fact of this is neither unique nor surprising. One wonders, for instance, the expense involved in the transportation by the Romans of huge Egyptian obelisks for display. Cultural swag, of course, in the same way that national art galleries to this very day serve less to showcase native born talent than to display the masterworks produced in distant and disparate- and declining- cultures. The work of Cezanne now on view in Qatar is no less unusual than Cleopatra’s Needle on the Thames Embankment in London. As many times as I’ve passed Cleopatra’s Needle on my way to Somerset House and the Courtauld Institute- itself an enormous repository of foreign art- I’ve never thought of the obelisk as anything other than an expression of 19^th century British political, and concomitantly cultural, hegemony. As much as I enjoy visiting the National Gallery in Washington, I’m never there without knowledge that the leading lights responsible for its creation in the early years of the last century did so because they thought that it was something that was an appropriate accoutrement for the world power the United States had become.

Certainly, with its huge oil reserves Qatar’s rapid acquisition of the trappings of western culture is done because it can. Does its acquisition also portend a culture on the decline? Arguable, I suppose. For the immediate future, it seems a shame, though, that in the case of The Card Players, site of meaning  will certainly be bound up with $5/gallon gasoline.

That we had something of a leg up, with exposure in our early lives to art, antiques, and the world of collecting, we nevertheless were decades into our adult lives before the penny really dropped, and we stopped as merely acquisitors and moved toward discernment, a movement, I must say, that continues to this very day and will stretch, I hope, inexorably to the future.

The point of all this is, collecting and connoisseurship, while it can be achieved and fostered, the disposition for it must be arrived at on one’s own, at one’s own pace. The young collector who arrives at our doorstep or who we meet at a fair, by the very fact of his arrival implies he’s predisposed to collect. And, inevitably, the expensive car and expansive home have already been acquired. More often than not, the home with its interior frequently the expression of an interior designer, the young proto-collector finds vapid and seeks, ultimately, to build his own connoisseurship as a comfortable expression of something ineffable that resides within himself. That, of course, is what all of us do. Yes, the ultimate vision is within, but the ability to achieve that inner vision is helped, certainly in my case, by surrounding myself with beautiful objects with which I feel an almost ethereal connection.

All this I say to remind and abstract myself and our business from the focus on youth culture and the sad, pervasive, albeit specious, notion that period material might not be finding favor with the young and wealthy. Fortunately, we found early on as we began to integrate into our inventory 20th century pieces, it was the self same collectors who purchased our period material that were buying those darlings of contemporary design, mid century modern furniture. Moreover, we’ve found that, in our years in business, the age demographic amongst our buyer/collectors has stayed constant. It is not growing younger, but neither is it aging.

I suppose what I mean by this is, the so-called youth market in the art and antiques trade, is our equivalent of the mythical El Dorado. It exists, of course, but not in any way that can be quantified or captured. Marketing has changed, though, with the internet functioning as the virtual fair or gallery, and this, sadly, gives erroneous credence to the notion that it is the young that are out there buying. Bear this in mind, though- my 79 year old mother shops on the internet, and I’d venture to say she’s hardly exceptional.

In the trade, our primary job is to maintain our own connoisseurship and if reinvention is necessary, it should be to the extent that we make ourselves technologically accessible and responsive, and be gracious and welcoming when the younger collector seeks to engage us in developing their connoisseurship.

You’ll notice how carefully I’m couching all this, as we’ve no enmity toward either camp, but the fact of this fracas points to something that we see more and more in the closely allied art, antiques and design trades. Specifically, that things are in such a state of flux that within the world of fairs, galleries, show houses- all the things that in former times worked well to promote everything in the fine and decorative arts- we’ve all consequently become so defensive about maintaining and puffing our portion of inexorably shrinking turf that we’re unwilling to take anything on the chin anymore. In this regard, I am reminded of my own concern, expressed to one of my neighbors on Jackson Square, about the closing of a well-established gallery. My rather narrow-minded neighbor disputed this, and thought it a good thing, as, in his opinion, loosing one gallery meant more business for those of us who remained. Well, of course not- we all of us depend on each other for support. None of us does exactly the same thing- each designer has their own look, each writer has their own style, each art and antiques gallery has its own collecting aesthetic, and each finds consonance with its own likeminded cadre. A gallery closing on the street does not mean that, even in the short term, those of us who remain will see a bump up in sales. What it does mean is that what was once a venue becomes less of one, with a consequent decline in foot fall.

Though trying to avoid this spate of bitchy cynicism, it all does seem to be exacerbated by an inordinate number of people who, because the numbers of colleagues decline, are thrust forward within all the trades to positions of prominence, somehow managing to survive where others have not. The result of merit? Well, arguably, but I think it’s oftentimes more like Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper. The feuding Hollywood gossip columnists were reduced to one, Hopper, who as the younger of the two, would expect to physically survive her rival. It is said that Hopper always promised to prevail because she would, in Hedda’s own words, ‘Outlast the old bag.’ The upshot was, though, that Hopper survived in print only, dying some six years before Parsons, by which time Hopper herself became a journalistic anachronism.

I don’t suppose anyone in the larger design and antiques world really wants to achieve such a pyrrhic victory, so it behooves anyone who presently holds a position of influence to do some introspection to determine how their position was achieved. Times being the way they are, thankfulness and humility should be concomitant with survival. Moreover, it should always go without saying that a position of leadership, regardless of how it was gained, betokens a tremendous degree of responsibility for promoting the trade, much easier accomplished, wouldn’t we all agree?, through collegial promotion, rather than wiping out seeming competitors or those of differing points of view.

Not really… In fact, what the Kenos are trying to communicate is that original condition means that a furniture item has not been either altered or improperly restored. Pardon my Anglo-Saxon, but the vernacular term we use for bad restoration is ‘buggered’. This can mean, variously, a poor use of materials with, say, a plastic varnish applied over a proper shellac and wax finish, or a piece that has been completely stripped by chemical and mechanical means down to the raw wood, or ‘improved’ with the addition of marquetry and inlay where none existed before- or, tragically and too often seen, a combination of all of the above.

Frankly, our mantra is the littlest possible restoration is the best restoration. Certainly for English furniture, the quality pieces were meant by their makers to be shiny and brightly colored. Two or three hundred years of use and natural oxidation always do their work, and nothing, even under optimum conditions, will look exactly as it did when it first entered the dwelling of the original purchaser. We are, as we speak, working on the paint finish of a wonderful Regency period chair, whose original decoration is still largely intact- together with 200 years worth of furniture wax, soot, and poor retouchings. Even with painted furniture, the term ‘patination’ is frequently used, a catch-all meant to lionize rather than apologize for the effects of age. As I think about it, Keith McCullar’s birthday is coming up- I think I’ll tell him, by way of compliment on his natal day, that he’s becoming nicely patinated.

The point of all this is, despite the frequency of the query ‘Is it in original condition?’ the question rarely indicates what the buyer really wants to know- nor does it imply particular criteria for a buyer’s purchase. While we like minimal restoration, we also like pieces that show well. For an antiques dealer, there is just the slightest commercial imperative- we do have to sell something from time to time and pieces with a tired, ‘original’ appearance do not have much commercial appeal. This is the irony, of course- a prospective buyer might ask about original condition, but then actually find more appealing, to the point of purchasing, something with some restoration. There is nothing wrong with this because, when asking about original condition, what they really mean to ask is ‘Is this piece in serviceable condition, and how close is it to how it originally looked?’ When we acquire items for inventory, condition is critical as we want to accomplish any required restoration to put it in saleable condition without having to reinvent the appearance of the piece in our workshop. Consequently, when asked about original condition, we nearly always are able to respond- ‘We’ve had to do very little to it.’ This has proven to be a satisfactory response. In fact, our own rules about condition and restoration pretty generally accord with the vetting guidelines of the better antiques fairs: a piece must be substantially the same as when new- very little restoration, but not necessarily in unrestored ‘original’ condition. Further, a piece must also be ‘show worthy’, that is, of pleasing, saleable appearance. Maybe that’s what I’ll tell Keith on his birthday- that he’s passed vetting and is of show worthy appearance.