notes

What we call a centre table the French refer to as a table de milieu. The prosaic English, or Park Avenue American,  term describing a round or oval table placed in the centre of an entry hall and displaying, say, an outsize floral arrangement, is far less intriguing than the French, intimating as it does the foyer of a Parisian hôtel particulier, with the table a useful surface for, well, a milieu, the gaggle of objects, sometimes linked by a common theme or purpose- or interesting in their accumulation precisely because there is no apparent linkage.

What put me in mind of this was a conversation I had with Diane Dorrans Saeks, whose new blog will explore disparate influences in style and design. That, of course, was the primary focus of our discussion yesterday, with Diane pointing out that the fact of disparate influences is the essential defining element of style. As usual, Diane hits the nail directly atop its obvious head.

With the decline in interest in so-called mid-century modern design, it becomes apparent that what might masquerade as style is more often an adherence to an aggregate of clearly recognizable period motifs. While the Aristotelian phenomenon of mimesis makes the recognizable initially pleasurable, its repetition without variation ultimately yields an aridity that results in the desirable quickly becoming passé. This is hardly a modern phenomenon, with Winkelmann arguing furiously in the middle of the 18th century for the abandonment of the international rococo style, and a return to the aesthetic purity of classical antiquity. Of course, Winkelmann’s well-reasoned, archeologically accurate neoclassicism itself survived in popular culture for only a couple of decades.

Style that is less trapped in time is paradoxically astylar. ‘Eclecticism’ we typically call this collection of motifs culturally and temporally disparate. I would maintain that, by and large, those whose outward expressions of style match their personal experience tend to provide us with the aesthetic equivalent of the table de milieu. Let me develop this notion over my next few blog entries. Diane, your experience is certainly broader than mine and I look forward to your wading in.

A market note this morning, with shares in Bed, Bath and Beyond rising on increased revenue, a function of increased sales following the demise last year of its major competitor, Linens N’ Things. (Did I get the apostrophe in the right place? Please note, brand identifiers- erratic punctuation, though it might look cute on the signboard, does not in itself guarantee revenue.)

With the winnowing out of English antiques dealers over the course of the last couple of years- with Hotspur, Jeremy, Norman Adams, and Dillingham and Company now of blessed memory- one might expect the slack would be taken up by those of us who survive, albeit holding on by a thread. As the poor performance of furniture at the recently completed Olympia and Grosvenor House shows demonstrates, in the present climate, short of giving things away, the retail dealer is still experiencing tough sledding. It might at first face seem a surprise that auction sales have done alright- some have- although no record setting prices this year compared to those realized the middle of last year. The same can be said of contemporary art, and we will see, following the conclusion of Old Master’s Week in London how that segment of the market is fairing. A sidebar, we do from time to time buy at auction for clients, and with some frequency for one particular client. Interestingly, we often see a number of people who will pay through the nose for a piece at auction, usually in the mistaken apprehension that auctions are a wholesale resource. Wrong…

Still, the fact of consolidation within any consumer market segment might in the short-term result in a sales bounce for the surviving retailer, we know from the numbers and locations of our website browsers, we are dealing in a global marketplace. Retail outlets have not for some years now required convenient locations, like gas stations, to encourage customer traffic. With all that, our 18th century English antiques are inherently tactile and, so far as I know, what Bernard Berenson in art critical terms used to describe as ‘tactile values’ still requires physical inspection for validation. With all that, it is rarely that we do not have a first time visitor walk through our front door that has not already perused our website.

We had a word this morning with Ellie Cullman, year in and year out an AD 100 designer and, pleased to say, a good client of ours. With her speciality the use of not just English antiques, but the best quality period pieces of any stripe, our telephone conversation with her this morning put me in mind of one piece she purchased from us several years ago. Although small, it speaks of a presence established less by size than by iconic design.

This George III painted and gilt settee, though slightly less than six feet in length, achieves a presence that far exceeds its mass. With its original paintwork, the gilding picks out features including the Greek fret motif on the arms that distinguish it as the quintessence of neoclassical design.

We were able to pair the settee with a contemporary Colony silk blend fabric, with a sage green colorway that nicely accented the white distemper and gilding of the frame.  Frankly, the effect of the piece when it was delivered to Ellie’s client was almost lyrical, causing the client to literally dance for joy. Someone often in the public eye, we have seen the client in TV interviews, seated on this settee. If that isn’t presence, then what is?

As something of a sidebar to my blog entry yesterday, our stay in West Hollywood was at a new hotel near Beverly Center. Boutique hotels must sprout up like fairy rings following a spring rain. The present generation includes a number that we’ve enjoyed, including the London on San Vicente, formerly the Belage, which we also used to enjoy. By the way, despite usually running the other direction at any mention of culinary badboy Gordon Ramsey, I have to say the restaurant Gordon Ramsey at the London provided us not so long ago with one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time. Coupled with the ambience and the service, the overall dining experience, pardon the cliché, was superb.

Given enough ointment, however, and there’s bound to be a fly. It was our misfortune to find it last week. The hotel we stayed at sought to be chic in the way that was pioneered by the W chain a decade ago, and a number of European hotels 2 decades ago. In the 2 decade category, my memory runs to my first trip to Spain. As much as I enjoyed my stay at the Condes de Barcelona in 1987, I was 22 years younger then, and the angst of the difficult to figure out taps and temperature controls not being within reach of the oddly shaped soaking tub were compensated for by their novelty of design. Apparently, however, this no-longer novel design someone feels necessary to foist on the not so cognoscenti of southern California. Another clichéd phrase- been there, done that, so now any hotel anywhere in the world that is long on design concept has to provide an at least compensatory level of comfort. Returning to our recent concept hotel experience, the tub filling from a spout placed in the ceiling above it is, well, noisy as the water hits the tub from a height of nearly 8 feet, and tub sides of nearly 3’- that’s right, 36”- require something akin to running the hurdles to get into.

It might be age, but it might also be experience as a function of age that results in Keith and me avoiding concept in favor of comfort. A large room with large beds and good quality bedding, comfy, large chairs, plenty of closet space with plenty of wooden hangers (shades of ‘Mommie Dearest’), and a double-sided desk with reliable internet access. Mind you, as English antiques dealers, our hotel experiences certainly as regards to bathrooms are heavily influenced by places we stayed in our early days in England. Actually, one of the first to enter our own ambit remains one of the best. The Park Lane, although on Piccadilly, is a marvelously comfortable, purpose built hotel from the late 1920’s. By the way, it still has one of the best set teas of any London hotel. The bathrooms are still a wonder of one luxuriant bathing- one of those things the British, when they are of a mind, still do really well. The long, deep soaking tubs are equipped with those oversize Czech and Speake taps that fill the tub quickly, as though from a fire hydrant.

As much business as we do in Los Angeles, it is surprising how little time we spend there. Although we stay in a single stretch a week and a half annually, including the set up and vetting, at the Los Angeles Antiques Show, the majority of that time is spent inside Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, the show venue. I can tell you intimately about the commute to and from, and can describe in tedious detail the inside of the Hangar. By the time the show is over and we’ve made one or two house calls on clients, we are bagged out and ready to return to San Francisco. Our trade in English antiques, as my 20 or so devoted readers will have by now divined, is not terribly glamorous.

But, then, what is? Our time on and proximity to a number of red carpets over the years made us realize early on that a place in the sun is always brief, with hard work in preparation before followed by a long period of dénouement. This may sound by turns both jaded and spoiled, and so, I suppose, we are. What, then, is the linkage between overall world-weariness, Los Angeles, and the road trip of today’s title? Simply that we drove to Los Angeles this last Thursday to deliver a couple of sold pieces to two designers in West Hollywood, with the 6 hour drive down Interstate 5 something I looked forward to, giving me a good long time to meditate. Times being what they are, meditation is a good counter to what one is tempted to do otherwise, which is to become overwhelmed with worry and anxiety. Fruitless pastimes, with worry tantamount to second-guessing God. Maybe not ‘simple’ in terms of linkage- how does ‘synchronic’ strike you?

I don’t know whether I was mentally in, as they say, a ‘good place’ once we arrived in LA, but traversing as we did the design district in West Hollywood I can say that, overall, the commercial activity would give rise to some distress. Vacant storefronts abound, with only a fraction of what had been long established antiques dealers now surviving. Moreover, long stretches of Melrose, Robertson, and La Cienaga that had formerly been the nearly exclusive province of the decorative arts have been taken over by apparel, with some, but by no means all of it, high style and/or couture.

We see this over and over, with established fine art and antiques venues displaced by fashion, with ‘why?’ the obvious question. Bond Street and Mount Street in London have experienced this blitz, as has Madison Avenue.

All this is a surprise to me, with so many fashion boutiques in San Francisco closing. Of course, fashion/couture has gone mass-market, and one has to assume that San Francisco is not the glam capital that LA is. Those red carpet shots at the Academy Awards must give fashion retail a considerable shot in the arm. Keith and I need to hoick ourselves up and move back onto the red carpet. I wonder if we could bring a Pembroke table with us?