In my former career in the banking business, ‘disintermediation’ was the term we used to describe the dwindling of the cash the bank held on deposit for customers, flowing as it would from time to time from bank directed investments- usually money market accounts- toward customer-directed investments. Hardly exclusive to banking, in simple terms the phenomenon would accurately be described as cutting out the middleman, and in these days of internet trading, disintermediation is an occurrence every retail merchant must be able to cope with.

I suppose the most immediate effect has been the shrinking bricks and mortar environment, with those merchants who represent a variety of product lines finding that their stores are used largely for display, with the shopper making the eventual purchase online and frequently directly from the manufacturer. For the rest of us, particularly in the art and antiques world, where our stock in trade is not just distinctive but in most cases unique, one would presume this wouldn’t happen. However, as a friend and colleague whose speciality is decorative boxes pointed out, his competition for sales can come from bizarre places, Target being one of them. Although we wish it were otherwise, not all of our prospective customers are of shall we say a connoisseurial bent. Say for instance one sought a Regency period decorative box to use to discreetly store the TV remote- this is a common contemporary use!- highly likely one will come up with something in period style and, viewed on the screen- or more frequently these days the iphone- the style example for $26 will look just the ticket, and the $2,600 period example, albeit fairly priced for what it is, will be given the go by. But more than that, when searching online, the browser will be met with a panoply of different items, far removed from what might have been the focus of their search, and like as not their ultimate purchase itself equally as removed as the apple is from the orange.

That’s a lot of the problem the trade faces, with internet shopping largely determined by the key words merchants include to describe their products. Nothing governs this, and the result is a fragmentation of the customer’s online search, carrying them very far afield from what it is that they originally had in mind when the search was contemplated. But even when the search remains relatively focused- using the Regency box example- price shopping becomes the order of the day, and the independent merchant in the antiques trade finds himself competing head to head with mass market merchandisers. And the result? The better capitalized merchant will survive, and the independent merchant will go the way of the buggy whip.

With the struggle the trade continues to undergo despite the improving worldwide economy, the general presumption- or at least the opinion we’ve heard most often- is that tastes have changed, and there’s less of a passion for period material. We tend to discount this, as our buyer demographic has remained basically constant since we established our retail gallery nearly 12 years ago- the buyers are basically the same age, in the same lines of work, and in the same geographic areas. What has changed is the increase we’ve experienced in the online, price driven ‘spot’ buyer of less expensive material- people who are unlikely to ever darken our gallery threshold.
What all this leads me to believe is that the online sales phenomenon that is quickly displacing bricks and mortar, is also fragmenting the dollars normally spent on antiques. The disintermediation that is an inherent feature of online purchases also exposes the buyer to a dizzying panoply of items to purchase. What might be assumed to be, with an improved economy, more money to spend on antiques, is, to the detriment of the antiques trade, hugely fragmented by a disproportionately larger number of items to spend that money on.

We’re just back from participating in the 61st annual Theta Charity Antiques Show in Houston- the nation’s longest running fine art and antiques fair, and, for us, one of the best to participate in. Let me say at the outset that a very large part of this is due to the kindness and professionalism of the Theta ladies who, year in and year out, work to make this a stellar event. Behind the scenes, participating dealers are never so well fed and watered as they are by the Theta ladies. And to the wider world, no other fair is as widely promoted. We saw no fewer than 20 TV ads for the show, and countless print and billboard ads. The preview party is an event of the first order, and for this year, not another soul could have been accommodated, it was that full.

For those venal few amongst my handful of readers, you may ask about the proof of the pudding. So, if you must know, we brought home substantially less gear than we took.
But as happy as we are with the spot sales at the show, Houston has become for us nearly like home, given the numbers of collector relationships we’ve been fortunate to establish. Keith and I arrived several days in advance of the show and tarried for two days after its conclusion to meet with clients. High touch, and we like it that way. Collectors ourselves, we happily engage with those who wish to engage with us.

And I suppose, to reflect on the show itself, that’s what’s crucial to remember- engagement. A number of our clients visited the show several times during its run, attending one or more of the lectures from an impressive roster of speakers, and also taking the time to really look at the material that the dealers had on show. Mind you, we did see a fair old number of interior designers- including show speaker and New York based super designer Elissa Cullman  but what we’ve really begun to notice are the increasing numbers of collectors making at-show purchases. This is a happy throwback to an earlier time, with the collecting public establishing, as they did in the old days, relationships with their favorite dealers. We’re happy for the spot sales and the designer driven sales, but it is the relationships that pay the bills year in and year out.

An engaged crowd of attendees may not necessarily make a show successful for dealers in the short term, but I’d venture to say it will in the long term, which is, I hope, how dealers involved with the show would gauge success, and gauge thereby their interest in returning the following year. And so, too, the Theta ladies. Engagement, within the context of certainly the Theta fair involves the dealer and both domestic partners whenever a significant purchase decision is in the offing. When we have both wife and husband in our stand, I know we will have a much, much greater opportunity to sell than if we have either just the wife or just the husband. While the Theta preview is certainly a couples function, we didn’t see husbands in great numbers until the Sunday, the last day of the show. Perhaps next year, the Theta ladies might want to add to their playbook further functions to consistently bring in both sexes during the entire run of the show.

The Theta Charity Antiques Show, held annually at Houston’s George R Brown Convention Center

http://thetacharityantiquesshow.com

A letter floated in to the galleries the other day from another dealer, who by way of representing the quality of her inventory, cited its ‘provenance’. Within the context of the letter, it appeared that she didn’t really understand the meaning of the word. But then it occurred to me that this term, so often used in the trade, and on ‘Antiques Roadshow’, is probably not completely understood. Perhaps, then, a brief discussion and the implications when applied to a piece of furniture might be of some use to all ten of my readers.

As a working definition, ‘provenance’ simply means who owned the piece before. Clearly, with a number of pieces in our inventory as much as 300 years old, everything has been owned by very many people before, but we don’t often cite provenance. Mostly, the prior ownership is either unknown or insufficiently significant to be worth noting. When provenance is cited, it is for several different reasons. Firstly, provenance when it can assist in attributing the piece to a known workshop. In the 18th century heyday of stately homebuilding in England, Thomas Chippendale, Mayhew and Ince, Thomas Cobb, William Vile, and a number of prominent craftsmen completed vast suites of movables to furnish these massive new piles. Chances are, if the piece has remained in the home and with the family for whom it was originally commissioned, the original invoice, prepared and issued by Chippendale or the like, survives. With English furniture in particular, rarely labelled or marked by its maker, provenance often plays a critial role in attribution.

More recent provenance, absent knowing its original owner, might not be helpful in attribution, but can argue for the quality of the piece. For instance, a mid 18th century serving table in our inventory was part of a collection assembled in the early part of the 20th century by the furniture historian R.W.Symonds, one of the leading intellectual lights in the English furniture field. We always include this when citing the piece’s provenance. Although of a Chippendale design in the Chinese taste, it is unlikely that Symonds chose this piece for that reason. Rather, it is more likely that the selection was based on timber quality and color, and the fact that the blind fret carving to the legs and the frieze is original. Since very many pieces of this basic design were ‘enhanced’ by recarving in the Chippendale revival period of the late 19th century, original carving was, and still is, an extremely desirable feature.

Finally, provenance can sometimes be a value-added feature on its own, regardless of the quality of the piece, if the prior owner was or is a person of particular celebrity. Immediately I think of the collection of the late Bill Blass, auctioned off at Sotheby’s a few years ago. Some of the Regency furniture was of excellent quality, some was not, but everything sold for a lot of money. Interestingly, although very much a factor in the trade in America in the early part of the last century, aristocratic provenance seems lately to be more of a selling feature in Europe. Although nearly all European countries are long since republics, presumably buyers there still encounter enough aristos wandering around that it makes the notion of aristocratic provenance more meaningful.

One of the highlights of this week, or of any other week in my recent experience, was going down to City Hall to apply for a marriage license. Does the expression ‘positive vibe’ mark me indelibly as a child of the sixties? I can describe the atmosphere in the city clerk’s office in no other way. We were there with a number of other couples, mostly men no longer in the first blush of youth, who were, like us, excited almost to the point of euphoria about doing something that seemed would never happen. Most were moving directly to having their civil ceremony performed in City Hall following the issuance of their license. Although we hadn’t planned to do that, I told Keith, with all the excitement, I would have no objection to a ceremony there. He then went all Cher on me, and loosely parroting her character in ‘Moonstruck’, said something about bad luck with a civil ceremony with only strangers looking on. Maybe, I thought, loosely parroting Vincent Gardenia. In any event, Keith is seldom emphatic so in the event he is, I seldom argue. Venue to be determined.

Still and all, filling out the application for the license begged some interesting questions. On the one hand, equal treatment results in one size fits all, and the questions about name changes (Keith I believe seriously considered this) and who’s the bride and who’s the groom (to so designate was optional on the form, so we both opted out) also begs some consideration of how we from now on will publically designate one another.

Interestingly, this has been an issue for decades, and to my mind, never satisfactorily resolved. When Keith and I began our life together 33 years ago, two men who cohabited in a romantic relationship were generally referred to each other as lovers. Well, of course, but in the parlance of the time, and considerably earlier, that connoted two people of any combination of sexes who were having sex with each other on a frequent basis. We were, for those of you prurient enough to wonder, but that wasn’t the only basis of our relationship. ‘Lover’ seemed incomplete and has gradually grown out of fashion, and, if anything, has reverted to its earlier, more limited meaning. We have from time to time had friends, always gay men, who referred to Keith as my boyfriend, which I suppose he was at one point- in the one month period before we became fairly firmly committed to one another- so again, not a very acceptable or enduring term.

Not during my adult life but for a number of years, outside the gay community, the other half was referred to as someone’s ‘friend’. This was always said rather archly, clearly with inverted commas insinuated, to make certain the hearer knew that something more than friend in the usual sense of the word (now I’m sounding like Norma Desmond) was meant. ‘Partner’, though, is another term that has gained more recent currency, and seems fairly popular, so much so that two otherwise straight men in business together now frequently will designate one another as ‘business partners’ to dissuade anyone from thinking that the relationship might be otherwise. Between ourselves, we often see ‘business partners’ used in this sense when we actually know that the relationship is, shall we say, otherwise, but that’s a subject for another time.

What both of us have a hard time with is the use of the words ‘husband’ or ‘wife’. This always implies role play that, while perhaps applicable in some relationships, always seems mawkish and a poor attempt to mimic the marriage between a man and a woman. That said, I rarely hear straight couples refer to each other as husband and wife and in a very real way, that’s a good thing, marking as it does progress forward from stereotypes that imprisoned particularly women in subordinate ‘wifely’ roles.

So for the time being, how we will refer to each other in company will remain an open question, as it has been for the 33 years we’ve been together. Frankly, though, this is at best a niggling issue and largely suitable only for what I hope is thought a fairly clever blog. In point of fact, in all the years and in all the times Keith and I have introduced one another to someone new in our acquaintance, no one has ever really been in doubt about what our relationship with each other was.