The fair season, 2011

We’re fairly far along the fair season that traditionally begins with the Winter Antiques Show in New York, and for decades culminated with the London fairs in June, for decades the Grosvenor House fair, now sadly only of fond memory.

Other fairs have sprung up, but no venue seems to be doing much business. Attendance, save for the gala previews, is typically off. But galas do not very often engender sales, because galas are precisely that- parties with an elaborate backdrop provided courtesy of the art and antiques dealers. Mind you, was a time that the relationship between gala and dealer was, as it was originally conceived to be, a symbiotic one, with the partygoer almost invariably also a collector and, sufficiently fed and watered during the course of the gala, feeling good enough about his surroundings to splash out and make a purchase or three. This, for us, is the stuff of legend, as it all happened long before we came on the scene. In fact, we have only ever made one- count it- one sale at a gala preview.

Traditionally, shows were collector driven, but in the late 1980’s and through the first few years of this last decade, interior designers supplanted collectors. Consequently, when we entered this business, our marketing focus preshow was always to let the better designers know what material we planned to bring. A designer pack was always sent to them, replete with tearsheets detailing our better offerings, and sufficient passes to allow the designer, and such of their clients that might be interested, to attend gratis. Nothing magical in this, but astonishing the few numbers of other dealers that ever did this. And, frankly, it often paid off for us, as designers would shop the show, with clients in tow, and, if they didn’t actually make an at-show purchase, we almost invariably enjoyed some after-show business.

All this, however, is in the past. Of course, the financial meltdown of 2008 and the slow economic recovery haven’t helped the fairs, but one has to be honest and realize that fairs were very much on the decline prior to that. Our own success through 2008 was at best spasmodic, but generally the good fairs compensated for the bad ones. And, too, they are fun to do- the travel, the set up, the socializing with clients, and kibitzing with other dealers- it’s all great fun. But unless backed up with some sales, extremely expensive fun. We’ve never done a fair that, with all expenses totaled including personal travel, goods transport, stand rental and amenities, was ever less than $30,000, and some cost us considerably more.

What will rejuvenate the fair scene? That’s an open question and, to date, none of the new fairs seem to be anything other than the old fairs redux. A gala preview with a benefit charity, a lecture series, and attractive stands populated with good quality dealers- it’s a standard formula and lately, not a very successful one.

The Royal Wedding

A bit bleary eyed, arising at 2:30 to watch the royal wedding. Very quickly, let me just say that, to my mind, the wedding itself wasn’t particularly noteworthy, but the coverage of it was. Technology may have its detractors, but watching it all on my flatscreen TV, with the detail so crisp that one could count the paving tiles in the Cosmati mosaic of the chancel- or more distractingly the wild hairs in the eyebrows of the Archbishop of Canterbury- made this, for me, a wedding to remember. I happened to watch it uninterrupted on NBC’s ‘Today’, and the producers had a brain wave in adding former BBC commentator Martin Bashir to the panel. It was Bashir’s ‘there were three of us in this marriage’ interview with Princess Diana that was, for all intents and purposes, the end of the line for Charles and Diana. I don’t recall that Bashir had anything particularly noteworthy to say about the proceedings this morning, but his very presence gave weight and legitimacy to whatever anyone else on the panel had to say.

With all that, and looking beyond the interesting headgear of some of the ladies present, that the wedding was not particularly noteworthy is probably a good thing. I have to say, considering being constantly in the spotlight and despite the, shall we say, complicated domestic arrangements of his parents and the early death of his mother, Prince William seems a remarkably uncomplicated young man. And a young man who seems keenly aware of his role and responsibility. The 20th century hasn’t been easy for monarchs, with modernity at cross purposes with kings, leaving them these days rather thin on the ground.

The House of Windsor endures, though, as they’ve maintained just the right balance of regality and democracy, distance and personality, to keep them popular with their subjects. Something that Martin Bashir did say this morning, a recent poll indicated that 89% of the British public are, if not ardent royalists, then at least strongly supportive of the monarchy. For all the pomp and splendour, the royal family is not particularly costly, with the per person tariff to keep the family going running to only about £1 annually for each person in the UK. By the way, this is another Bashir statistic.

Yesterday on NPR, a British commentator mentioned how the royal wedding would be watched by so many people the result of our fascination with reality TV, with in her words, the royal wedding representing the ‘acme’ of the genre. I don’t think so, and not just because I find most reality TV shows, to put not to fine a point on it, repellant. The royal wedding, indeed the royal family, are popular because a fair bit of what they do conserves tradition- note that I said conserve, not preserve. Consequently, enough of what they are and what they do has a contemporary resonance. More important, though, is their service to tradition that forms a common touchstone, a reminder that what is arguably the best in all of us has been formed gradually and when and if modern life seems confusing, a remembrance of tradition allows us to regain our bearings.

So there it is, for me, and I suspect for most of us who got up at 2 this morning, a unique blend of the best of today, with the best of the past.

The Discount

Twice in as many days, we’ve had browsers in our galleries who, before even requesting specifics about the pieces for which they’d evinced interest, inquired about a discount. Frankly, when this sort of thing happens, and mercifully it happens now with ever less frequency, I know that a sale is definitely not in the offing. There was a time that outlets for designer type inputs- furniture, fabrics, plumbing fixtures- almost invariably offered some kind of discount, that basically functioned to provide a margin between a wholesale and a retail price. That said, I never felt our galleries functioned as a warehouse distribution center, so the notion of a wholesale discount always perplexed me. Lately, though, times being the way they are even wholesale merchants are happy to sell retail.

But this isn’t just a sign of hard, albeit ameliorating, times. The internet, and the ease with which a virtual shop can serve the needs of customers, makes shopping so simple that, where formerly designers and others shopped for their clients, now their clients shop for themselves. Additionally, in the art and antiques world, the proliferation of online databases makes it imperative that any retail gallery be price competitive. To mark something up in price, just to mark it down in order to provide a discount, will now result in a lost sale. Before my better collector clients reprove me for implying that price is what sells the better quality material, I have to say that not all our sales are to my loyal cadre of collectors. We do have the frequent one-off sale, and that buyer is invariably price sensitive. And before my loyal clients become too high breasted, I will remind them that they are, too. Bottom line- whatever you have, no matter how rare or fine the quality, it better be priced to sell.

Mind you, when we do have pricing discussions with clients, when the discount becomes the primary focus, Keith McCullar and I move toward, shall we say, palaver truncation. When the client, though, discusses with some degree of familiarity prices of similar pieces sold over the course of the last several years, that is a horse of a different, and very pleasing, color. This signifies that we have a knowledgeable collector who, along with price, will happily discuss the relative merits of pieces recently sold compared to a piece under consideration. For that buyer we have oodles of time. Note I said ‘buyer’, because that is what the astute collector is very likely to become.

Art Auction Delinquents

National publications can be a bit more pointed than a poor dealer trying to earn his daily crust. As a follow-on from my last two blog entries describing the strange and mystical relationship between Chinese buyers and the major auction houses, herewith an article in this week’s Newsweek:

“Chinese bidders are offering record sums at international auctions–but sellers complain that getting payment is an imperial pain.”

Click to read the entire article


The rogue buyer

A trade publication is reporting, in response to the high numbers of buyers failing to complete on purchases, a number of continental auction houses are requiring significant albeit refundable deposits in advance of accepting bids. Worthy of note, this action has been so far limited to items of specific interest to Chinese buyers. It appears that the Chinese rogue buyer of the reticulated vase, formerly famous and now infamous and the subject of my last blog, must have some friends, or at least shares questionable business practices with others of the same collecting bent.

Of the many interesting facets of the high profile Chinese activity in the trade has been that its effects both good and ill have been felt largely in the salesrooms. The best private dealers have so far certainly not benefited from any of this, witness their numbers shrinking by the day in the world’s art cities. It has seemed to me that the received wisdom amongst Chinese collectors is that the best source at the lowest price has been the salesrooms. With so many moneyed new, still wet behind the ears collectors coming out of China, it is little surprise that they’ve not cottoned on to how fraught with difficulty buying at auction really is. I am reminded of attending several sales in London over the course of a week or so several years back. Every one of them was attended by the same woman, notable for her, shall we say, large appearance. Any piece of better quality English furniture with a bit of gilding on it, she tried to buy. And, she did, but every last one acquired at a huge premium. As any trade purchaser knows, the salesrooms always provide the novice with a baptism of fire, and this poor lady, though doubtless unaware, was well and truly burned. Everyone has a budget, and it serves trade buyers well to get rid of competitive buyers by exhausting their resources early. As a consequence, certain salesroom habitués will intentionally bid up a piece that someone is feverishly seeking to acquire. Then, when a piece has reached unreasonable levels of price, the unscrupulous underbidder will stop, and the fevered bidder will find themselves the owner of something inordinately expensive- and their wallets flattened. This is what’s known as having a piece dropped on your toes. Our large lady in London certainly must have had all her metaphoric toes broken. Has this happened to any of the redoubtable Chinese grandees? Unquestionably. Are a few of them now aware of this? With the recent defensive maneuvering of the salesrooms lately, I’d venture to say yes.

Mind you, most auction houses are able to withstand the predations of the rogue buyer. Rarely does an item leave the salesroom without its having been paid for, and if something remains unpaid and uncollected, the worst thing that happens is that a consignor is disappointed and the piece is reoffered for sale. Better luck next time, I suppose. In this day and age of huge and exhaustive price databases, private dealers all now know that, to stay in business they are obliged to be price competitive. Soon, the new collector pool that China represents will realize that dealers are just as good a resource as the salesrooms. Better, of course, because nearly all specialist dealers will have a much broader base of knowledge, and can spend considerably more time in working for the individual collector- assessing the quality of the requirements of the collector and putting good quality pieces before them, prior to being offered for sale to the general public. Times being the way they are, though, most dealers are pretty hungry, so it is my hope that, in an effort to cash in on the inevitable migration from the salesrooms to the dealer’s galleries, a lesson is learned from the experience of others, and that conservative trading practices prevail. By which I mean, taking a line from a well known film, ‘Show me the money.’