Author: Michael Chappell

During our tenure in business, we’ve sold a lot of paintings, from our own stock and sourcing pictures for clients. We do this with some facility, as our background is in the fine arts. However, we had chosen some time ago to have our main area of specialization the decorative arts of the 18th century in England. Our present exhibition of art work from McColl Fine Art has reminded us of why we made this choice.

There are things generally a bit more matter of fact about the sale of 18th century furniture that makes it a bit- actually, a considerable bit- easier to shift than pictures. A Regency period dining table, for instance, naturally goes into a dining room. The client, whether interior design or private collector, tells us room dimensions, how many people they wish to seat, and their budget for such an item, and, well, there will doubtless be some palaver, but you get the general idea.

Not so with artwork. What we’ve found is that everyone, and I do mean everyone, is an art expert. While Keith and I bring the same sort of selection criteria to art as inventory- with price based on quality, condition, and rarity- people insist on waxing eloquent about pictures. As well as throwing out a bunch of adjectives, it is amazing the numbers of people who still try to achieve a site of meaning by examining the painter’s motive for painting. In that most of the painters whose work we represent are long dead, I am sometimes tempted to suggest a Ouija board, but have so far been able to restrain myself.

The adjectives  and the communing with the dead together form a methodology we always term ‘appreciationism’, referring to that long-practiced schools and museum education department pastime of art appreciation. I can still see troops of small children, and women and a few men of a certain age, making their way through the National Gallery, listening with rapt attention to the marginally informed docent spill some sort of palaver about the artist suffering from tuberculosis, or syphilis. One thing that is worth pointing out- TB and VD were major killers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries- that an artist was suffering from either or both does not, in itself, signify any more than that a grocer was likewise afflicted.

Moreover, the production of art was and is a way to make a living. Admittedly, a talent for painting, for instance, is certainly a help, but, at the end of the day, paintings were and are produced for sale with the artist using the money- wait for it- to pay rent, buy groceries, or straighten the childrens’ teeth. We’ve all seen the movies of van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec driving themselves crazy with drink, which drink is, presumably, a palliative consumed by the artist to assuage the pain of ripping out their souls and placing them in artistic form on a canvas. It is my understanding that, in truth, it is far more likely to be the artist’s childrens’ dentist who is so in need of a palliative.

We have just had our first phone call for 2009- from one of our cadre of restorers, telling us he’s finished a job and needs to be paid. Rent is due, of course, and he’s short of cash, but, frankly, he’s more than entitled, given that he worked over the New Year’s holiday to complete the task.

On the one hand, it disappointed me that the first telephone call was not from a client making an affirmative declaration to purchase, but, on the other hand, it is nice to consider that, what with his working over New Year’s Day, we might look forward to, for a change, one’s trading partners rendered a bit more accommodating. This would be refreshingly novel, would mark something of a change from how things have formerly worked. During our tenure in this business, it has seemed to Keith and me that, with a number of restorers, and other dealers whose materials we have sometimes sold, we were fairly often just made use of. Mind you, we do not tolerate and are disinclined to pay for inferior work, and usually use the power of the checkbook to make certain that we get what we want. As, however, we have always appreciated the fact that anyone wanted to spend their money in our galleries, and have made that appreciation known to our clients, we have found it is with, well, not irritating but certainly hurtful rarity that our trading partners have expressed their appreciation of Chappell & McCullar. On the occasions that we have sold other dealer’s stock- which we do with some frequency- we do not expect to receive thanks- which is a good thing, since we seldom do- but we find off-putting the frequently received oblique comment about what a favor they’ve done us, in allowing us to make a bit of cash from the sale of their otherwise unsold inventory. Mystifying… Although I realize that others somehow have a need to get their own back, our egos, while not completely in abeyance are at least not that deformed. Keith and I would be happy to have another dealer place our stock for us. Interestingly, this has, to date, yet to happen.

You might, my 20 or so readers, think you know where this is leading, and I have to tell you that, unlike the townspeople of Indianapolis in Booth Tarkington’s novel, I do not seek George Amberson Minafer’s comeuppance. We don’t want to see anyone in our business brought low or forced out- except shylocks of whom there are always a few. Not that we are particularly magnanimous, but we wish to see the trade healthy. My hope, apropos of our first phone call in the New Year, is that we do all of us have the time, and, lately, that is something we have in abundance, to meditate on what we formerly realized, but have in the last few years forgotten, was important- beyond just making money. Within the last few minutes, I also had a word with one of my closest friends, Anita Shanahan, whose wisdom exceeds her years. Since she’s well into her 9th decade, one can then imagine how wise she perforce must be. When I told her the subject of this blog, she asked me when it was that I had last entered a shop that had posted that formerly ubiquitous sign ‘We appreciate your business’ ? We both agreed that, times being the way they are, we might thankfully begin again to see such modest tokens of esteem. With all that, let me absent myself from you so that I can make certain our shop Maneki Neko is accurately pointed toward our gallery’s main entrance.

We all want to say goodbye and good riddance to 2008, but, then, for ages now, standard western iconography has depicted the year exiting as an infirm old man and the incoming new as a baby fresh with buoyant expectancy. As I think about it, one of the most tragic of all New Year’s parties was one we attended where the host, a man of a certain age, annually made a point of coming out at midnight dressed as the New Year’s baby. I had never seen either a diaper, or liver spots, that large. Horrible…

With all that, I also think about the trepidation, as a child, with which I faced the future. No optimism there- mostly fear that I would be unable to cope with things which, to my mind, I was ill prepared to face. New coursework in school, for instance, and what seemed like impossible social situations. The wonders of childhood? Malarkey.

My preference is the rationality of my own adulthood, which I think started about six months ago or so, because my own effort is to achieve calm perspective. Consequently, I am a bit more dispassionate in my own assessment of 2008. Not really a very deep insight, but, frankly, despite the economic vicissitudes of the year, we are still here and still in business. We have been lucky to make a few good sales and, possibly, contributed a bit of good management to our daily affairs. Mind you, we are thankful for the successes we enjoyed during the year and we will not, as my mother would put it, break our arms patting our own selves on the back.
But, in contrast with the trepidation I felt as a child when facing the future, I am now always optimistic about the year upcoming. In our industry, design projects either commence or those in hiatus resume in mid January, and the better antiques fairs begin by the end of the month. These are, of course, measures that are specific to our business, and pardon me that they are also a bit on the venal side. But, then, we are in business to make money, and our positive frame of mind is always helped along when we are making sales. My partner Keith McCullar, who my gentle readers may recall is the fellow in our organization who holds the keys to our checkbook, nearly locks up when the bank balance declines, as it always does this month, so his mood improves markedly in January.  Since the gentleman who dressed as the New Year’s baby is consigned to our former friendships, nothing then stands to get in the way of a positive start to 2009. It is only a few hours away, and we can all hold out until then.

The inevitable is now the actual- Christie’s has announced retrenchment in its sales activities, with staff and departmental reductions in its South Kensington salesrooms. Ostensibly a sign of the times, Christie’s South Ken had expanded its sales, if not its actual physical plant, in order to become a retail player in the antiques and decorative arts market. Christie’s website, redesigned a little less than a year ago, is, as well, retail oriented, in the manner of eBay- designed to track lots with an eye to eventual purchase. Between ourselves, the site has become a bear to use- slow to load and cumbersome to navigate. With all that, Christie’s had an eye toward the occasional retail buyer, offering auctions even on a Sunday for the ease of younger buyers.

It is difficult to tell how successful Christie’s has actually been, in that, with the global economic slowdown, their business overall has slowed. That both Christie’s and Sotheby’s have had significant cash drains the result of very high end guaranteed lots that did not perform to estimate is well known, but the lower end of their business has some very high direct selling costs, too, witness the production of frequently issued, magazine format catalogs, and doubtless significantly more staff to cover the extended opening hours. Also, I doubt that they formerly, on Saturdays and Sundays, kept all the lights burning. Sotheby’s faced the music nearly two years ago, closing their second tier London sales room at Olympia.

At almost the same time, a couple of the best antiques and art fair promoters have announced the cancellation of some very good fairs, possibly the most prominent being the Asian art fair organized for a number of years at the Park Avenue armory by Brian Haughton. A real loss, as this has been the eastern art equivalent of TEFAF Maastricht. But, 30 dealers- the paltry number committed- does not a show make, certainly in a venue as expensive as one on the Upper East Side. At the end of the day, though, dealers have to know they are going to make money at a fair, and, if the performance of the fair has been less than stellar, it is unlikely, times being the way they are, that a dealer is willing to roll the dice. A very good dealer whose name, since I haven’t asked his permission to use it shall therefore remain anonymous, conjectures that, to have it considered as a good fair, a dealer should sell in the range of 10 times the amount of his stand rental. Assuming the stand rental is in the range of $25,000- well, you can do the math, but the $250,000 goal in better times might be now rather hard to achieve during the run of a 4, 5, or even 6 day show.

From global to specific (Chappell & McCullar specific), the title references what we face during the month that always forces us into a panic. Tax payments, both property and income, holiday entertaining, Christmas gifts, and the usual cost of keeping the place open, very little of which is offset by any significant revenue. Even with our short tenure in business, we should be used to this phenomenon, as it visits us every year. Regardless of the broader market meltdown, our December has been about the same as always- gallery traffic, but no one willing to commit to a purchase. Mind you, we have made some terrific sales to people who stopped in during the holidays to browse, but the sale was always booked in January. With all that, we dutifully mind the shop during the month. As anxious as we are for custom, we do though have to remind ourselves, or at least Keith has to remind me, not to pounce on anyone who happens to darken our threshold. Despite none of our customers that I can think of could be described as timid, they still find it off-putting to be pounced upon.

The fact is, we do all of us run out of money in December, and, while one would assume that somehow we would reserve for this, it is difficult to, certainly for us. You may, my 20 or so devoted readers, feel a bit blah early in the new year, but for us, it is cause for celebration, as design projects resume and what private clients that are in line for bonuses receive at least a portion of them by mid-January, and, praise heaven, some of this money is directed toward purchases from Chappell & McCullar.