notes

With my parents on the train homeward and the dishwasher laboring, I’ve a brief opportunity to review the day’s events. And I can happily say that Christmas Day was gloriously uneventful. The roast duck was everything it should be- moist and flavorful on the inside, with crispy skin without. The braised cabbage was about the tastiest I’ve ever had, and all of this preceded by my favorite starter, potted shrimps. Mind you, these might have been improved with brown shrimps from Morecombe Bay, but what we had was pretty damn fine, to quote a transplanted Yorkshireman- he knows who he is. All of this was served upon a Regency period mahogany dining table, of course I had to work that in, with the iridescent timber of the table articulating perfectly with the silver cutlery and china service.

Frankly, getting out the serving pieces that hadn’t seen the light of day for a year, the Irish linen likewise hidden away, and employing them to add to the enjoyment of our yuletide feast was about as much fun as I’ve had in a long while. What happens, and maybe this is a side benefit of getting older, was that I could muse on the other times these items have been used, earlier Christmases, fabulous dinner parties that were events in themselves, and, as my silver and Irish linen are heirlooms, the enjoyment my grandparents and their friends got out of them. This may be overstating things, but I don’t think so, that objects, precious though inanimate, do become iconic in the possession of those who can feel their iconic properties.

And, of course, my own use adds to their spiritual energy. That’s by way of saying the more beloved objects are used, the more they are enjoyed. With all that, one of my wishes this holiday season is that next year sees the silver out of its canteen with much, much greater frequency, and the dining table functions not just as an adjunct of the dining room, but becomes as it should be the center of all-occasion conviviality.

What has cyber Monday wrought? Hard to know, exactly, with the crowds crowding Union Square belying any notion that people are staying at home and browsing online. We took a few hours off yesterday and did a bit of shopping, and found the suburban shopping centre that we had gifted with our custom every bit as busy as I can ever remember. That said, Christmas 2008 is still a part of my memory, and things were not so good. Trust me, things are better, even in our world of English antiques, with Keith and I delivering a Christmas purchase to one of our better clients this afternoon. Not a dining table or a breakfront, but maybe when the bonuses kick in early next year.

And well they might. We do see the occasional hedge fund type nosing around and know that bonuses will be paid. Although it has not been without a significant amount of weeping and gnashing of teeth, that does not completely occlude the overall performance of financial and commodities markets this year. Cash flow? Not so strong. Portfolio appreciation? Significant, and that’s what the bonus is paid on.

So, with all that, we are cautiously merry, or at least to the extent we went to brunch yesterday. It is Dungeness crab season along the northern California coast, and both of us enjoyed superb crab omelettes. No Bloody Marys or Ramos Fizzes- I said we are cautiously merry.

Gore Vidal tells a story on himself about his reaction when Truman Capote, as Vidal put it ‘rode on ahead and crossed the shining river’. Or died, for those literalists of you out there. As Vidal has it, he thought a moment, and then said ‘That’s a good career move for Tru.’ Classic Vidal, and I would expect no less from the man whose favorite aphorism is ‘It is not sufficient that I win- someone else must lose.’ I’m put in mind of these bits of sour humor as it appears, as pointed out in an email this morning, that judging from the content of this month’s entries my mood is more than a bit tart during the month of December, which mood, I’d wager, is universally shared by dealers in fine art and English antiques. A significant amount of sincere interest is always shown in our stock in trade during the last few weeks of the year- but the purchases are put off in favor of cash used in tax planning. How draconian all governmental jurisdictions must be, that people fearsomely manipulate their personal liquidity in preference to trading with us.

For those of you who visit us with some frequency, you’ll note we’ve changed our home page introduction. More than that, perhaps you have actually read the text, citing English antiques as classic design. With anything designated ‘classic’, these are objects that have moved from the currently fashionable to the always fashionable. So it goes, too, with Old Master paintings and drawings with some record setting prices realized this last week.

At last, Old Master paintings and drawings are emerging from the shadows, or should I say reemerging, the result of waning interest in contemporary art. These things do happen, with Old Master works repeatedly over the last several centuries becoming penumbral denizens, overshadowed by, in order, history paintings of the academic variety, sentimental paintings of the Victorian variety, Impressionism, Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, and, lately, Damien Hirst. Let’s revisit this discussion in 10 years time, and see how Hirst’s sectioned livestock in formaldehyde have held up, literally and critically.

Still, masterworks continue to assert themselves because they are just that- masterworks. The stages, each many years long, of artistic development that begin with rank apprentice to master make themselves exquisitely apparent in the deft modeling of figures and the precise application of paint.

In the encyclopedia of one-hit wonders, The Buggles can find themselves in the volume under ‘B’, with an exception, however, that forms a nice footnote in musical history- the video of their one hit, ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ was, if memory serves, the very first ever shown on the infant MTV. Check my facts before you repeat this in seeking to amaze your friends and stupefy your enemies. The segue to English antiques and what follows is more the heart of the matter and, because all my own opinion, requires no fact checking.

As with The Buggles’ lyrically describing the waning fortunes of a radio performer  the result of the burgeoning popularity of TV, in the antiques and art trade we see antiques and fine art fairs that were for years wildly popular now in, shall we say, a state of flux. Fine art fairs, antiques fairs, modernism fairs, ceramics fairs, and on and on, all have had a struggle, with dealers finding it tough sledding, with spotty fair attendance, making either at-show or follow-on sales. Just as the radio star found his fortunes affected by changing technology, my earlier blogs have linked the trouble with fairs to the internet, with shopping online constituting an all-day, everyday virtual antiques fair. I am nothing if not opinionated.

And opinionated my analysis has been, because it fails to take into account the manifold, should I say myriad, or should I say nearly infinite factors associated with the present albeit slowly abating economic malaise. Everyone in the world who is a part of the money economy has been impacted, and I don’t just mean impacted in the sense that they have seen less money flowing through their hands. People have been frightened in a behavior altering way that no one I know has ever experienced, making it nigh unto impossible for clients to decide to purchase something they would really like to have. The flip side of this is, clients do not seem to want to say ‘no’, either. Optimistically, it seems to us that prospective buyers themselves wish to remain so, and not foreclose any notion that they might make a purchase when they are feeling sunnier about things.

‘Optimistic’ I say in calm reflection, but frustrating in the daily experience, as clients up in the air about purchases leave dealers there, too. Still, this is the time of year, every year, when people run out of money, for many prepaying expenses in December for tax purposes and deferring income into next year for the same reason. Design projects are on hiatus, as no one wants to be painting the living room during the time the family might just be assembled in it.

If we can, let’s enjoy the season. The fine and decorative art trade typically emerges phoenix-like from the ashes of the holidays. Ask me toward the end of next month if video has killed the radio star.