notes

Poor auction performance in all categories from contemporary to period, art and antiques dealers shutting down right and left, and those few surviving dealers that can still afford to do shows, finding their show participation more of an exercise in giving their stock in trade a weekend outing- rather than finding their gear a good, permanent home.

Of course, some of the blame for this must rest with the money that isn’t there anymore that a year ago might have been spent on art and antiques. As well, those that do still have change to jingle in their pockets are psychologically precluded from spending it on much of anything, apparently. So much of our business, and everyone else’s, is dependent on perception of wealth. The very rich tend to read the newspapers, watch television, and browse the internet and they, too, see reports on ‘toxic assets’ (I would like to shoot the pundit who first coined that moronic phrase), and, as a consequence, no matter how much of the ready they may have, no matter how strongly their own portfolio has fared, their perception is that they are not as wealthy as they might formerly have been. The final consequence is that money is kept in the bank, rather than in the circulation that would result in the purchase of a painting- or a new car, a dishwasher, or an electric can opener for that matter.

With all that, in spite of what Eli Broad said about Sotheby’s recent contemporary auctions as a ‘half-price sale’, the same cannot be said about Georgian antiques. If there are any significant auction bargains in period furniture, I haven’t seen them. Ordinary furniture, perhaps, but why- ever- buy ordinary? This brings me, finally, to what I want to say about the notion of market meltdown, at least in the art and antiques market. What constitutes meltdown, anyway? Over the course of the last two years, the market for contemporary art, for instance, has skyrocketed. Fad or fashion? Or, manipulated? For contemporary material that has not established itself in the art historical canon, investment in contemporary art has to be at best something of a crap shoot. Who can say how well this material will weather changes in taste? One presumes, then, that the price escalation so much of this material has experienced in the last couple of years has had at least something to do with its promotion by tastemakers, and those who sought to be. The salesrooms, with the huge guarantees they offered consignors, sought to be, if not taste, then market makers. At the end of the day, though, someone must buy the material and, regardless of general economic conditions, everything has an upper price limit. Let’s plan to revisit Basquiat, Bacon, and Hirst material in ten years time, shall we?, and we’ll see if some of the hot names might not have become the 21st century equivalent of that most popular of late 19th century artists, Luke Fildes. ‘Luke who?’ you ask. My point exactly.

To be fair, canonical material has struggled, too. Witness the sale at Christie’s of the remaining stock of venerable dealers in 18th century antiques Hotspur and Jeremy. Against a low estimate of £4 million, the sale achieved only £3.6 million, and most of that to private buyers. The Antiques Trade Gazette was spot on when it noted that the trade shied away from the material because it was too expensive- not more money than anyone could spend, but just flatly more than the material was worth. The private buyer, who makes the occasional purchase, might be willing to overpay, but the trade buyer can’t and expect to stay in business. And, well, Hotspur and Jeremy overpaid for quite a bit of this material, and, clearly, they haven’t been able to stay in business. Most of what was at Christie’s was acquired by these dealers in the last couple of years, and was sold at the recent sale for less than the price formerly paid. One can only imagine what these dealer’s retail prices must have been. The upper price limit had been reached, but, unfortunately for Hotspur and Jeremy, they had themselves established that upper price limit a couple of year’s ago in the Christie’s and Sotheby’s salesrooms.

A gentleman who browses our premises occasionally wandered in earlier in the week to take a look at a couple of paintings. He commented on the poor performance of the auctions of late 19th and early 20th century European paintings held by Christie’s and Sotheby’s two weeks ago, by which he sought, I’m certain, to stampede us into lowering the price on the paintings in our inventory he was interested in. Perhaps my Nordic heritage has given me a fair quantity of ice water in my veins. Consequently, I don’t panic so easily. If you are reading this, my late browser, you may wish to bear this in mind.

Nor, frankly, do we consider the salesrooms as any more than one of many factors in the development of a market price in the fine and decorative arts. There is a fiction abroad in the land that most dealer’s stock was purchased at auction, is then marked up by a given factor, and then offered for sale to the retail buyer. While some dealers may do this, no dealer that I know does this exclusively. A fair percentage of dealer’s stock consists of items that are sourced privately. The smart dealer takes on only material that he knows he can sell, and knows how quickly he can sell it. Consequently, he is also knowledgeable not only about what similar items have sold for at auction, but also what other dealers have in stock, and what other dealers have sold similar items for. My loyal cadre of readers, all twenty of you- maybe twenty-one if we include my earlier noted browser- will find this discussion familiar from earlier blogs, as this sounds like my oft-repeated consideration of both the fine and decorative arts as a fungible commodity. It is at times difficult to discern, and some dealers may try to occlude the fact, but the fine and decorative arts are market-priced commodities.

With all that, one can hardly ignore the turmoil in the global financial markets and its effect on Christie’s and Sotheby’s 19th and 20th century sales of two weeks ago, and its contemporary sales last week. The Antiques Trade Gazette reports that Sotheby’s contemporary sale on November 11 saw a hammer total of $108.9 million- nearly half the total low estimate for of $202.4 million. Christie’s fared worse, with a $98.5 million hammer total- only 43% of the pre-sale low estimate for all lots of $227 million. This of course still sounds rarefied, and the big hitters in the contemporary market, including LACMA benefactor Eli Broad, are frequently in the billionaire category. But what is more significant for the present discussion is the lots that were offered by the salesrooms in which they had a financial interest. Sotheby’s had already announced in their third quarter earnings results that they expected to lose some $17 million on sale lots where they had offered consignor’s a guaranteed minimum price. The performance of Christie’s guaranteed lots is speculative, as Christie’s is privately owned, but it is unlikely they fared any better than Sotheby’s.

And, of course, this is the point- salesroom performance on star lots has less to do with market forces than it does with competition between the two houses. There is some profound irony here- the type of bidding war known as ‘auction fever’ so dear to the heart of the auctioneer clearly also infects the houses themselves when they go after the top lots.

A decline in net worth of 86% within the course of one year begs question, doesn’t it? That is precisely what has happened at Sotheby’s, whose 52 week stock price has declined from $52.40 a year ago to $7.61 at the end of last month. A decline in profit and a loss of $46.2m in the third quarter, coupled with some poor results in some major sales just completed have all militated to drive the company’s share price down. Some of what occurred was clearly on the horizon, as Sotheby’s has long since stopped providing rather bold guarantees to certain consignors, and had already axed the prospect of any bonus payments to senior staffers. Merry Christmas.

As it is privately held, it is impossible to know for certain how Christie’s has fared. Both houses have, over the past several years, matched each other in offering liberal guarantees to lure the best lots for sale- they have also matched each other in pushing up premium rates for the less desirable lots, and, while ostensibly courting the business of the retail art and antiques buyer, they have both significantly increased buyer’s premiums, as well. What is also known is that, a few weeks ago, Christies abruptly and without notice withdrew the credit terms it has for years offered to its best buyers. Maybe Christie’s needs the cash. Do you think?

While we all focus on the stellar consignments offered by the major houses, not every auction is going to contain the likes of the Rothko and Bacon paintings offered in the last year or so. The houses knew this, too, so their expansion has been in the direction of the retail buyers who were formerly the primary source of custom for the retail art and antiques trade. It is fascinating to take a look at Christie’s redesigned website. It is clearly aimed at the retail buyer, and bears a similarity in function- and complexity- to not only eBay but also to Amazon.com Doubtless you’ve heard, but there is something of an economic slowdown abroad in the world, and these retail buyers are, well, not buying- at least not as much. Christie’s and Sotheby’s could certainly use support from their traditional mainstay- art and antiques dealers- but, cruel irony, the houses having taken most dealers’ business away, what dealers that survive are in a perilous state. Of course, the houses have had the dubious pleasure of then selling the remaining stock of defunct dealers- Christie’s will sell the stock of venerable London dealers Jeremy and Hotspur later this month. It has doubtless occurred to the management of both Christie’s and Sotheby’s that, over the course of the last few years, they have succeeded in nearly sawing through the tree limb upon which they, as well as most of the rest of the art and antiques trade, were seated. As my English colleagues say with the archest of sarcasm, well done you.

We are back from Chicago, and plan to spend the next 30 days or so in strict diet mode, trying to shed the end product of all the Chicago hospitality we enjoyed. The Merchandise Mart International Antiques Fair is, if nothing else, a test of the gall bladder and liver. With all that, though, we love it. A Dunkin Donut never tastes as good as it does in Chicago, and believe me, I am topped up on them until I return.

In typical fashion, the Mart made a tremendous effort to promote the show. The way I’ve just put it, this kind of sounds blasé, business as usual, and I  don’t really mean it that way. Frankly, that someone makes such a profound effort to promote an antiques fair is unusual these days. Further, the Mart, one of my favorite buildings anywhere, but more about that some other time, has now given over the entire 12th floor to a permanent venue for art and antiques fairs. As huge an area as that encompasses, the booth size for each dealer, consequently, is fairly large. The result of all this is that even ordinary material, spread across a larger area, is necessarily showcased. What we heard from show visitors, over and over, was what a great looking show it was. Certainly. The flip side of this expansive show is, naturally enough, it is so large that it is hard to get around. And it is. Further, with the show so large, it is difficult for us to gauge attendance. As well, the attendees, having to cover so much ground, tend to get worn out and, horror of horrors, leave the fair before they’ve seen all the dealers.

Some of this, certainly about the negative aspects of the size of the fair, are to some extent speculative. Frankly, Keith McCullar and I market the hell out of our fair attendance, regardless of the venue. It pays off, and certainly it did in Chicago. Private clients and interior designers of our acquaintance came en masse, with a number of them returning two or three times during the run of the show. While we appreciate all the Mart does in terms of marketing, we can’t expect them to market directly to our customers. Idiotically, a number of the dealers- the majority of them, frankly- do expect that the marketing should be done exclusively by the show organizer, and the dealer should be able then, to sit on his haunches and wait for the business to roll in over the counter. We term these sorts of dealers ‘losers’, or, more politely, ‘soon to be out of business dealers’.

The phrase ‘boring brown furniture’ is usually used by those with an experience of interior movables limited to what one’s grandmother had in the parlor. Frankly, our modern opinions about muted color and patination are not unlike those Sir Joshua Reynolds had about the Italian quattrocento painters- the old masters of  his day- whose work, several centuries on, caused Reynolds to mistake the depredations of age with the artists’ original intent. The restoration of the Sistine Chapel would have shown Reynolds, as it shows us, that people have always loved color. The 18th century was no exception. While brilliance was possible with exotic wood furniture- figured mahoganies, satinwood, calamander, rosewood- the list goes on- the effect could likewise be achieved to dazzling effect with painted furniture.

It is difficult to know how much painted furniture existed in fashionable 18th century interiors, because comparatively little survives. The why of this is difficult to know precisely, but changing fashion had something to do with it. The rarity of exotic wood furniture in 18th century England made it available to the few. Improved transportation and the use of machine tools for mass production made exotic wood furniture more available, and consequently cheaper, with the fashion in Victorian times moving toward, almost exclusively, wood finishes. As well, painted finishes are, well, painted on, and easy to damage, and, rather than repair, painted furniture was generally discarded. Since the paint application was on common woods- beech and coniferous woods, generally- once scruffy, the pieces were easy to throw out, or use as firewood. Gilded pieces were the exception.  Something to bear in mind, though- pieces we see as completely gilded today were often originally painted, with gilt sparingly applied to accent certain portions of the decoration.

One of the most popular painting methods was ‘japanning’- the generic term for the  European manner of using painting techniques to try and imitate Oriental lacquer. Ironically, japanned pieces are frequently more exotically decorated than the Oriental pieces they sought to imitate, and certainly use a broader range of colors. For an 18th century tradesman whose knowledge of the exotic east was limited to what he found in the shop’s pattern books, an Indian was an Indian, whether south Asian or North American, and Indians of any geographic locale could reasonably share the same decorative space as Mandarins.

Paint effects for their own sake could become quite sophisticated, as witness the Regency armchair pictured. The antiques trade uses the term ‘ebonised’ frequently, but inaccurately, to indicate that a piece is painted black. Of course, ebony is not black, but a deep brownish gray, often with lighter brown striations. This chair is painted precisely this way, suggesting fine quality macassar ebony.