Author: Michael Chappell

The Maine Antiques Digest has announced today that one of the nation’s premier antiques shows, the Ellis Memorial Show in Boston, has been cancelled for 2009. This year would have been the 49th anniversary of the show.

While further details on the Ellis show will be forthcoming, what we do know is that internationally all shows are struggling. Interestingly, gates for many shows have lately been quite good, but the art and antiques dealers overall have fared poorly in their own galleries and, despite fair attendance, have fared poorly at shows, too. Consequently, fewer and fewer have the money to risk, and show participation even in the best of times is chancy- significant at-show sales, what every dealer hopes for, have never, ever been a sure thing.. For anyone that is involved in a cultural nonprofit, that a good gate is insufficient to guarantee success should come as no surprise. I was speaking today to my friend Anita Shanahan, whose 50 year participation in the arts in California makes her rather an expert in these matters, and she told me that, on average, any given museum, philharmonic orchestra, virtually any non-profit that charges for admission, even with maximum paid attendance, would still realize a shortfall of 40% to 50% of its operating budget. Don’t get me wrong- all antiques dealers at a show like to see plenty of attendees- so much so that we often pay for free admission for our better prospective buyers. But the attendees are not really show supporters- what they pay for, whether it is admission to a concert, an art museum, or a charity antiques show, is cheap entertainment.

In the arts, of course, donations and corporate underwriting have traditionally been considered the strongest basis for financial support. Well, you can guess where underwriting has gone just lately. Further, underwriters now more than ever, if they are offering any tangible support at all, wish to make ‘in-kind’ donations- donations of the underwriter’s own products, rather than cash, so all charities, including charity antiques shows, are increasingly strapped. With the gate providing only a modest amount of revenue and underwriting evaporating, it is the dealers upon whose backs charity shows seek to make ends meet. It is the booth rental and catalog ads, both paid by the dealers in cash, which are these days key to a charity show’s financial success.

It’s interesting, in the day and age of internet marketing, that the better antiques shows continue to be wedded to show catalogs. It would seem that, with the mountains of catalogs lately left over after shows conclude, show organizers would realize that no one wants them, and, times being the way they are, it is particularly unfair of organizers to force show dealers to subsidize an unwanted catalog. Our good friends at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago have, it seems to me, the best solution, with the production of a simple, albeit well-produced brochure that substitutes for a catalog, listing the dealers, the show floor plan, and show amenities. And, the Merchandise Mart creates a virtual catalog online, with information, including graphics and live links to websites, provided by the dealers themselves.

What becomes apparent with the cancellation of the Ellis show is that it is not just the dealers’ presence, but their financial participation that constitutes the critical component that makes the difference between a show’s financial success and continued existence- or the show’s failure. It certainly is worth the time of any charity that plans to benefit from an antiques show to rethink how they can earn money at the show, and not plan to have the antiques dealers shoulder the financial burden.

Tempus fugit, and my tempus is particularly fugit, because what I used to dismiss as just old furniture has become antique. Using the 100 year rule- and what is good enough for US Customs and Immigration is good enough for me- a piece created in 1909 is now, officially, antique.

Mind you, plenty of this material still does look like used furniture, but some rather venerable names were producing phenomenal furniture in the first few decades of this century. It is worth bearing in mind that Francois Linke and Paul Sormani are 20th century furniture names whose evocations of 18th century French antiques are, in terms of quality, at least as fine as the originals.

Quality is everything, and whether newly conceived Arts and Crafts pieces from Morris and Company or revivalist pieces by a French workshop, it is not just age that determines venerability- and value. Morris and Company, as Linke and Sormani, were self-consciously producing quality pieces. William Morris had made it, quite literally, a piece of social and economic theory that, when left to their own devices, craftsmen working in vernacular styles and utilizing traditional materials and methods, would, out of the sheer joy of creation, produce pieces of enduring quality. Morris, along with fellow Fabian socialists including George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, looked forward to an enlightened industrialism that enabled the working classes to achieve a dignity in their labor, along with a fair recompense. Sound familiar?

It is unfortunate that, at least in our experience, Morris is now known almost exclusively for the so-called ‘Morris chair’, an easy-armchair with an adjustable reclining back. A design not unique to Morris, it has nevertheless been applied to anything that roughly approximates the original model.

We seem to be in the midst of a revivalist episode as we speak, with interest in the English Regency period of roughly 1790 to 1830 spurred on by the Thomas Hope exhibition that originated at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Never really out of fashion, certainly on the coast the work of interior designers Tony Duquette and Billy Haines gave us the enduring phrase still favored by contemporary designers ‘Hollywood Regency.’ While we happily provide pieces of early 19th century furniture to festoon the Regency style villas of the 1930’s and late 1940’s that populate the landscape of Bel Air and Brentwood, the Regency revivalist movement of the second quarter of the last century saw the creation of carloads of reproduction furniture- some of it of pretty good quality, but most of it of the cheesiest order. It, too, will be, strictly speaking, ‘antique’ in a few decade’s time, but will it fall into the venerable category making it a worthy example of revivalism? Not likely. Save your cash for a good quality Regency piece.

Sitting as I am amidst a vortex of period mahogany furniture, the opportunity to recast it as green has a refreshing, if not downright salubrious effect. Sort of like mixing a bit of branch water with whiskey.

No question, the watchword in interior design is green, and the reuse of period material can be thought the greenest technique of all. Our discussion will avoid a consideration, naturally, of the deforestation that occurred in the first place to produce the then newly constructed pieces so prized in the 18th century. Well, we don’t wish to foster an anachronism. In the decades just following the voyages of discovery, who knew but to exploit what the explorers found- particularly if they could work to annihilation the local population to so do. Times, thank goodness, change. Mind you, I am not suggesting we build a memorial pyre and fuel it with mahogany, satinwood, and rosewood furniture, in expiation of the spoliation wrought in the 18th century- we just won’t make that mistake again.

While the use of the woods and their novel color and, in the case of satinwood and some mahoganies, near iridescence, are features that we can barely see to appreciate some 200 or more years on, the grains that were also an integral feature need be mentioned. Referred to in the trade as ‘figuring’, the grain of the wood is at least as important as its color. While reforestation and proper management have made some timbers accessible, what can’t be duplicated is the figuring found in the old growth timbers felled centuries ago. Most of my 20 or so devoted readers have heard of figured mahogany veneers descriptively named ‘flame,’ ‘plum-pudding’, and ‘fiddle-back’, but satinwood veneers, for instance, can be equally as complex. The mania for satinwood peaked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was used prodigiously in the production of Edwardian period ‘Sheraton revival’ furniture. Sadly, for all its use, the veneering patterns with their uniform striations betray a later growth satinwood, pretty but not as interesting as those timbers exploited a century or so earlier.

While period satinwood with its color and figuring should be considered a treasure worth preserving, its physical properties sometimes cause it to appear distressed when, in fact, it isn’t. It is worth bearing in mind that satinwood has always been in scarce supply and oftentimes, to accentuate its rarity and the preciosity of the furniture that utilized it as a primary timber, the secondary timber was frequently mahogany. Gillows, for instance, regularly veneered satinwood over mahogany. However, satinwood is much softer than mahogany- or nearly any other wood- and satinwood will often shrink and contract at a considerably greater rate than the secondary timber to which it is applied. Over time, veneers will lift and shrinkage cracks will appear in satinwood more than any other exotic wood. While lifting veneers can be flattened, shrinkage cracks cannot be repaired short of replacing the range of veneer- something I would not recommend. In fact, I generally look for shrinkage cracks in satinwood as an indication that the veneer is original.

With all the column inches dedicated to green design, there should be pretty general agreement that the use of period furniture is of benefit to the planet. A bit of connoisseurship might be engendered, as well, with the realization by contemporary generation of acquisitors that new furniture while it might be able to replicate the outline of period pieces, cannot duplicate their color and figuring.

It’s rainy in San Francisco, and has been through this past weekend. This presents a wonderful opportunity to read, or in my case, reread for the umpteenth time, Brideshead Revisited. What’s put me in mind of it was a recent photo spread in World of Interiors of Madresfield, a stately home in Worcestershire that was Waugh’s inspiration, both in character and locus.

What of course cannot be pictured are Lord Flyte’s fictional Oxonian digs, but Waugh doesn’t let us down, describing with exquisite detail the medieval paneling and disparate collection of objects that litter the interior. Litter is a poor choice of words, because one assumes the collection is, therefore, rubbish. Possibly to Sebastian Flyte, but clearly middleclass Charles Ryder was as taken with the novelty of this eccentric display of unrelated though each in themselves interesting objects as he was with the edible offerings that included lobster Newburgh- doubtless served in an antique silver tureen- and plover’s eggs in a moss-covered basket. This is unlike lunches I had whilst in college, but, then, not many of my friends were members of the traditional aristocracy. I thought I did pretty well offering spaghetti Bolognese.

What, of course, Waugh chronicled with some particular perspicacity was the phenomenon of short-lived aristocratic enthusiasms paired with sufficient money to indulge them. The collection of objects and their accumulation on any flat surface betokens sufficient means to indulge enthusiasm, and that the objects may be disparate in nature might signal, to those of us without the same mindset, as notable and eccentric.

But, of course, this notion of eccentricity has been endlessly aped by those not born to the purple, in the sometimes bizarre pairing of objects of disparate style and period in interior settings. When this works, as it so often does, it is termed ‘eclecticism’. When it doesn’t, we term it ‘interesting’ and politely look away.

The irony is the eclecticism that is the byproduct of aristocratic indifference is achieved with studious effort by interior designers. John Fowler’s ‘country house’ look was not automatic. What it sought to imitate, of course, was an upper class effect that was achieved through a generational organicism that is nearly impossible to replicate. I remember not so very long ago seeing a stately home interior, with one of the decorative elements a child’s model airplane. As it happened, though, this particular model airplane was a 1/25th scale model of the Wright Brother’s ‘Flyer’, purchased in the first decade of the last century and, following its brief service in the nursery, was confined for nearly a century to the attic store from whence discovered/recovered. In interior decoration, nothing substitutes for generation upon generation of habitation. Inherited wealth comes in handy, too.

No question, the results of the Yves St-Laurent- Pierre Bergé sales this past week cheer the heart of everyone in the arts and antiques trade. I’m not aware that the vaunted pair had as much as a stick of English antique furniture, but, as the saying goes, a rising tide raises all boats, and one hopes it might even raise mine.

And, of course, it is the hope of all in the trade that this does betoken a rising tide. But, another aphorism, one swallow does not a summer make, but, bleak as things are, the one swallow is none the less cheering. Moreover, the three day round of sales promises to be the largest in terms of turnover of any in history. Certainly a talking point over the next few weeks with the client who may be brave enough to darken the doors of our galleries.

Who made these purchases? If you haven’t heard, you are not alone, because, it seems, few of the big collectors whose names would hit the media were much in evidence. Buyers seemed to be drawn from the ranks of a class of people who we see in the trade- the very high end ‘affiliation’ buyer. By ‘affiliation’ I mean someone who will make a purchase in a high profile environment, apparently motivated in large measure by the desire to be seen making such a purchase. Mind you, the St-Laurent-Bergé sales had some extremely fine things but it was the gilded associations that seemed to have more to do with haute-couture than a finely honed collecting aesthetic that drove prices. In terms of auction sales, this is not an unknown phenomenon. Sotheby’s Bill Blass sale of a few years ago had the same thing occur. More within my ambit, the Regency antiques Blass had utilized to exquisite effect in his apartment were sold for stratospheric prices. While of excellent quality, the prices realized clearly had tremendous value-added based on their association with Blass. When, as so often happens, some of the Blass pieces came back on the market, their cachet had evaporated, and they sold for a fraction of what they had formerly- in the unique setting and amidst the febrile competition of other fashionistas- commanded.

Within this context, it is interesting to note how much material purchased at these sorts of auctions does come back on the market within a year or two. My suspicion is that a fair amount of it is never even unpacked, if it even makes it out of the warehouse. Even people of some considerable means have enthusiasms, which enthusiasms oftentimes do not extend beyond the joy of seeing something knocked down to them. That damnable illness beloved of the salesrooms, ‘auction fever’ is no respecter of social class.

The last couple of paragraphs sound like the naked denigration of the occasional buyer of art and antiques. Frankly, times being the way they are, I am not in the financial position to run anyone down and consequently away from my front door. All our businesses are composed of a variety of clients- ranging from the serious collector who makes a few significant purchases every year, to the spot buyer who makes one purchase and then is never again seen. One person’s money- and motivation- is as good as anyone else’s. Don’t let anyone tell you any different- even me.