Author: Michael Chappell

Twice in as many days, we’ve had browsers in our galleries who, before even requesting specifics about the pieces for which they’d evinced interest, inquired about a discount. Frankly, when this sort of thing happens, and mercifully it happens now with ever less frequency, I know that a sale is definitely not in the offing. There was a time that outlets for designer type inputs- furniture, fabrics, plumbing fixtures- almost invariably offered some kind of discount, that basically functioned to provide a margin between a wholesale and a retail price. That said, I never felt our galleries functioned as a warehouse distribution center, so the notion of a wholesale discount always perplexed me. Lately, though, times being the way they are even wholesale merchants are happy to sell retail.

But this isn’t just a sign of hard, albeit ameliorating, times. The internet, and the ease with which a virtual shop can serve the needs of customers, makes shopping so simple that, where formerly designers and others shopped for their clients, now their clients shop for themselves. Additionally, in the art and antiques world, the proliferation of online databases makes it imperative that any retail gallery be price competitive. To mark something up in price, just to mark it down in order to provide a discount, will now result in a lost sale. Before my better collector clients reprove me for implying that price is what sells the better quality material, I have to say that not all our sales are to my loyal cadre of collectors. We do have the frequent one-off sale, and that buyer is invariably price sensitive. And before my loyal clients become too high breasted, I will remind them that they are, too. Bottom line- whatever you have, no matter how rare or fine the quality, it better be priced to sell.

Mind you, when we do have pricing discussions with clients, when the discount becomes the primary focus, Keith McCullar and I move toward, shall we say, palaver truncation. When the client, though, discusses with some degree of familiarity prices of similar pieces sold over the course of the last several years, that is a horse of a different, and very pleasing, color. This signifies that we have a knowledgeable collector who, along with price, will happily discuss the relative merits of pieces recently sold compared to a piece under consideration. For that buyer we have oodles of time. Note I said ‘buyer’, because that is what the astute collector is very likely to become.

National publications can be a bit more pointed than a poor dealer trying to earn his daily crust. As a follow-on from my last two blog entries describing the strange and mystical relationship between Chinese buyers and the major auction houses, herewith an article in this week’s Newsweek:

“Chinese bidders are offering record sums at international auctions–but sellers complain that getting payment is an imperial pain.”

Click to read the entire article

Just recently, more than any other topic, buyers and browsers in our galleries have wanted to chat about the now legendary sale of the Qianlong reticulated vase that set the world record price for a Chinese work of art. Though far eastern material is not our primary stock in trade, we do a fair old business in it, and, more than anything, with the numbers of dealers internationally becoming rather thinner on the ground with each passing day, we necessarily find ourselves the recipients of waves of information, some of it occasionally accurate.

What we had heard rumoured, but now confirmed, is that the still unnamed buyer for the vase has not, five months on from the sale, actually paid for the piece. The auction house reputedly is confident payment will be forthcoming in the fullness of time, and that, in the course of business, five months is not an unreasonable length of time for settlement. Presumably they must have not only a different class of trading partners than we do, but also a different banking relationship. Moreover, the occasional auction purchases that we make, if not settled within a (very limited) window, will immediately bring on some rather strident dunning notices from the salesroom.

The flip side of this is, auction houses, even in the best of times have a fair cadre of erstwhile buyers who renege on purchases. The why of this is not surprising, given the frequent incidence of so-called auction fever, where the novice and not so novice buyers get carried away in a pitch of bidding, only to find that, after the hammer has fallen to them, they’ve spent more than they can afford, or, on leaving the salesroom, are stricken with buyer’s remorse, and decide, once the invoice arrives, to DK.

Specific to the famed vase, however, I’ve heard an interesting notion explaining the non, or at least yet to materialize, payment. That is, with a Chinese art market still on the rise, it could be the erstwhile buyer is speculating on a rise in price over and above what he paid in November. Could be that the auction house is functioning, albeit reluctantly, as a clearing house, with settlement to come when the piece is ultimately resold. Let’s watch and see, shall we?

A brief Facebook exchange about the coronation portrait of Elizabeth I put me in mind of the importance of brand identification- hardly a new phenomenon and something that was used effectively by the woman who was happy to be lauded as Gloriana. That she was also known as the virgin queen was certainly reinforced, along with its attended benefits, by rigorously controlled visual imagery.

It’s been assumed with the absence of realism in Tudor portraiture that Renaissance painting techniques were late in arriving in England. Frankly, as pictures of Elizabeth had nothing to do with the real, but everything to do with the image, realism could at best only function to diminish a personage whose attributes were required to be superhuman. Not just her court, but Parliament itself drafted a resolution that only authorized images of the queen could be allowed- and, of course, all of them portraying virtuously favorable, if not photo realistic, aspects of the monarch. One portrait from the 1570’s includes as a major iconographic feature a sieve held by the queen- it was proof of the chastity of the vestal virgins who tended the sacred flame in Rome, to carry water in a sieve from the Tiber. And so it was, in this sieve portrait so-called, with the sanctity of the British state directly linked with the virginity of the monarch, just as the sanctity of the vestals was integral to the stability of the Roman Empire.

Not that images of Elizabeth are all politically inward looking, with the ‘Armada’ portrait clearly international and imperial. With the victory over the Spanish fleet grimly depicted in the background, an Elizabeth reduced almost to caricature has her hand placed on a globe. That it covers Spanish dominions in the Americas, of course, is no accident. Moreover, she is festooned with elaborate ropes of pearls- the jewel of the sea- indicating that her sovereignty has displaced that of Spain in the oceans as well as on land. Also, pearls were a symbol of purity- yet again, a reference to Elizabeth’s chastity, clearly linking her own virginity with not only a successful reign, but success in the defense of the realm from an aggressor- and portending an imperial future for England.

From caricature to the fantastic, the Ditchley portrait was commissioned by Sir Henry Lee in anticipation of Elizabeth’s visit to his Oxfordshire seat of Ditchley.  This portrait of the 1590’s- late in the queen’s reign- places her image on a map of England, with her foot, coincidentally, roughly atop Oxfordshire. She is linked thereby as the human embodiment of the nation, with the sun over her right shoulder signifying her glory, and the thunderstorm over her left signifying her power. Here, again, the ropes of pearls around her neck- never is she without a symbol of the virtue in her virginity. It has often been noted that the queen was vain of her appearance, and sought, witness her continual succession of often substantially younger favorites, to seem sexually desirable. Though doubtless Henry Lee sought to curry favor with his sovereign, the Ditchley portrait nevertheless depicts a woman whose face at least is somewhat withered and lined with age.