Author: Michael Chappell

With the Chippendale tercentenary nearly over, it’s about time I put in my oar. For my gentle readers, all of whom are paragons of erudition, none will be surprised to find that, for the less cultured, if any name is familiar in the field of the decorative arts, that name has to be Chippendale. For myself, too, with my sainted grandmother from whom I doubtless acquired whatever appreciation I have for art and antiques, two of her proudest possessions were a pair of 19^th century luncheon plates she kept hung on the wall in a pattern that said on the reverse ‘Old English Chippendale’.

Georgian armchair, to a Chippendale design

What I mean to say in this context is that the name of Thomas Chippendale has over time been applied to virtually anything vaguely 18^th century in appearance not just in the English but also in the decorative arts of America. Why this has been so will be the subject, I can’t really say of any focused study, but certainly of my musings over the coming few days. If nothing else, these series of blog posts give me a happy excuse of revisiting the work of the late Christopher Gilbert, whose compendious The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, though originally published in 1978, is still regarded as the reigning authority, and characterized recently by the eminent furniture historian Adam Bowett as ‘magisterial’. Giving Dr Bowett his due, I will look at new Chippendale scholarship he’s compiled, contained in the catalog prepared for ‘Thomas Chippendale 1718-1779: A Celebration of British Craftsmanship and Design’.

It seemed appropriate at the time, though now seems mawkish, but Keith McCullar and I were excited to offer, nearly 20 years ago now, an armchair to a Chippendale design, and in our excitement, felt we were obliged to illustrate the pattern in Chippendale’s Gentleman’s and Cabinet-Maker’s Director in our trade cards. A bit jejune? Possibly, but now 20 years on, we still link our trade style with the master’s design. I will, though, try to be shall we say temperate in my remarks.

The highlight of my year, indeed for anyone in the accredited trade, is the running of the two fairs that cap the London season. Olympia is the elder of the two, with Masterpiece the grander, carrying on as it does the Grosvenor House fair of blessed memory. For those few of my gentle readers who are not in the know, the London season was, in earlier times, the general social hubbub of dances, levees, and teas involving coming of age young ladies of the upper crust and their families, culminating in their presentation to the reigning monarch. In a nod to changing times, Elizabeth II abolished these presentation courts in the late 1950’s, much no doubt to the consternation of debutantes in waiting, but then again, the abolition of this custom was inevitable. Even in England, the 20^th century was generally accorded the century of the common man, and it was the royal acknowledgment of that hegemonic ascendance that resulted in the throwing out of many aristocratic customs.

Still and all, vestiges of the London season survive, with the fairs arguably the most prominent survival, scheduled as they were at the tail end of the season, very late spring allowing thereby an opportunity for the great and the good still in London to browse and buy before they then decamped for the summer to country estates. While all this sounds like something from one of the earlier seasons of ‘Downton Abbey’, the fairs still operated this way and for this reason certainly in my living memory. The massive Olympia exhibition centre in the fair’s glory years was heaving with hundreds of dealers on two floors, who fought for premier stand placement to get their gear in front of the 50,000 punters who annually made their way into the show. Special trains were laid on to get one to Olympia- and they were crowded with fair-bound riders.

The Grosvenor House fair that was had its run overlap for a few days toward the end of the Olympia fair, allowing foreign visitors- mainly Americans- to make their way across the herring pond and take in both fairs at once. Grosvenor House for all its nearly 80 year history offered the ne plus ultra in the fine and decorative arts, all of it strictly vetted, and with a charity gala to kick it off that must for a few have seemed a fond reminder of the London season of an earlier day. Indeed, for very many years, the fair’s patroness was Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Masterpiece sought to take the place of Grosvenor House, and in many respects it does, but the dealer mix is not what it was, and now, the fair markets itself as an emporium for luxury goods, with not just traditional fine and decorative arts, but also contemporary material, jewelry, expensive autos, and at one point, wine and wine futures. The rationale seems to have been to broaden the appeal of the fair, thereby increasing the footfall of well-heeled buyers, who then might become ‘cross-over’ buyers exposed to a wider variety of pretty things upon which to spend their money.

For 2018, it doesn’t appear things went all that well. For Olympia, over the last few years, the size of the fair has shrunk to about 25% of formerly, with it too introducing contemporary material, and the run of the fair has been reduced. And, in its outing just concluded the fair was linked with another event, The House & Garden Festival- a promotion of House & Garden magazine- all of which an effort to increase footfall that has seen a number of years of decline.

And the effect of all this effort? As The Antiques Trade Gazette has it, ‘a number of satisfied dealers, but also a sense of gloom’. While a few dealers felt that the linkup with the other event might have brought in a few new buyers, footfall was light, continuing the decline it sought to stanch, and of those dealers who sold well, a very many of them sold well at the very bottom price point levels- one dealer cited brisk sales in the £300 to £800 range. With a minimum cost to show in the low 5 figure range, one can’t imagine one could ever sell enough 3 figure items to even cover one’s cost.

Masterpiece ostensibly fared better, with sales of items in the 6 and 7 figures reported, bearing in mind of course that with the average run of stock priced at many times that of a typical Olympia offering, any reported sales would have an impressive price tag. The fair though has expanded over the years, with this year’s 160 dealers representing a high point- but with a few dealers former Olympia stalwarts, the increase possibly cannibalizing the older fair. As well, with the fair’s expansion, the cost of the stand has been made a little bit more affordable, attracting dealers of some different disciplines, most notably contemporary art. Indeed, one dealer in contemporary art, new to the fair, was quoted as saying the fair was nearly as frenetic as the art fairs they usually participate in. Good news, but moderated in my view with the knowledge that their participation was limited to sharing a stand with a dealer in traditional furniture and decorative arts. In former, more prosperous times, sharing a stand would never be allowed by fair organizers, simply because the organizer would seek to sell, and could sell, two stands, and not just one if sharing by two dealers were allowed.

So it appears the fairs this year did not perform shall we say robustly overall, and with Olympia’s future direction, even its very future, very much in question. Sad irony, as I read the article in The Antiques Trade Gazette about the recent Olympia, the adjacent article was a profile of a contemporary art dealer in our old stomping grounds of Islington, who spoke of the internet and particularly Instagram as a boon to his business. Though he works hard to properly exhibit the stock he represents, doubtless the internet and social media is the virtual foot in the omnipresent virtual door.

And of course it is this virtual omnipresence that however much dealers and fair organizers may dislike it that continues to scoop the guts out of the success of even the most venerable fair. While we might think of the presently unsettled state of the world, exacerbated it seems by the almost demented actions of certain people in the American capitol, it is the ability through the internet to offer even the casual browser any day and at any time day or night a virtual fair custom designed to the browser’s own preferences that will render at the least problematic the success of any actual non-virtual fair in times to come. If my gentle readers had hoped for any particular new insight into the fate of fairs and any real suggestions about a way forward, I’m sorry to disappoint. It has seemed to me for a good long while now the only hope for the trade is to try to soldier on, with the hope that, in the fulness of time, fairs will once more become a lively outing for more people. In the near term, however, as with the Islington dealer cited above, at best the fair has now become just another, albeit sadly less important, item in the dealer’s bag of tricks, and most prominently an adjunct to one’s online presence.

A prominent Texas jurist that I know is fond of repeating an aphorism that goes as follows- ‘if you don’t know your jewels then you had better know your jeweler.’ As this judge is also an astute collector of period furniture, within this context what he means is, if you don’t really know what you’re looking at, rely on the advice of a dealer who does. Sage, and I have often cited this in very many blog entries by way of explaining how collectors from the novice to the experienced are well served by dealing only with members of the accredited trade in art and antiques.

It has then taken some time to bring myself to blog about the more recent round in the continuing vicissitudes of Galerie Kraemer, the redoubtable Parisian family firm now embroiled in controversy over the sale of a number of pieces claimed to be fudged up. One recent claim has resulted in a lawsuit brought by an Italian collector who purchased 13 pieces for a reputed €13,500million.

I say that it has taken me a long time to blog, warring as I am with thoughts and emotions specific to this dealer and the trade generally and not easily dissembled. Kraemer heretofore has a spotless reputation wrought over centuries and my direct knowledge of them is of the highest probity. Indeed, a man of my long acquaintance who is one of the preeminent scholars in the furniture field, and whose reputation is likewise above reproach, often consults with them, and occasionally works in their fair stands at TEFAF Maastricht and elsewhere. It is very, very hard for me to believe that they would be involved in something as nefarious, duping not only the public on such a large scale, but also the heritage industry, and in a manner that requires the complicity of so many other dealers and restorers and scholars. With all that, the notion of an involved and long-time conspiracy is in itself suspect, for as the saying goes, three people can keep a secret so long as two of them are dead.

Vincent Noce in The Art Newspaper recently quotes Laurent Kraemer who believes that not only is the controversy overblown and lacking in any firm technical analysis that would support the claims the disputed pieces were other than as represented- but also thinks the matter a ‘settling of accounts’ amongst dealers and is at least partly aimed at undermining the gallery’s reputation.

Perhaps so. I have to say, in this toughest of tough times for those in the trade- retail dealers and salesrooms- there is an appalling and enduring lack of esprit de corps amongst those for whom the trade is their livelihood. We were reminded of this sad fact just this week, looking at a piece of fine quality that had been damned fairly recently by two dealers well known in both London and New York. While they both hinted to a client who had purchased the piece that it might not be authentic, they had failed to note to the client that they themselves had prior to his ownership eagerly sought to acquire it. We’ve also seen this same sort of thing happen on many occasions at some of the most famous fairs, where a fine quality piece was criticized within the vetting process, only to discover that one of the experts vetting the piece had something similar to sell.

Savaging a dealer and the dealer’s stock, whether openly or more generally with sub-rosa hints, might seem an easy way to eliminate the competition but at what cost? The high-profile troubles of one dealer negatively impacts all of us. If there were ever a time for those of us in the accredited trade to behave with some collegiality, it is now.

Claude Monet- $85 million at Christie’s

To no one’s surprise, the big news in the art world is the successful result of the round of sales from the estate of David and Peggy Rockefeller. With fine quality artwork and fairly good quality furniture and decorative arts, most of it acquired in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s as the couple furnished their homes in New York City and nearby country, it was not only equipped with excellent provenance, but for purposes of the trade, fresh to the market.

Not, mind you, that the trade was in evidence other than in body at the salesroom- very nearly everything was knocked down to private buyers who found a Rockefeller provenance enough reason to pay shall we say a handsome price for very nearly every lot in this compendious sale. With all that, the trade press has been replete with arguments about the favor period material is now finding, witness the success of same at this recent series.

From their lips to God’s ears. I am reminded of so many sales over the years, with burgeoning collections that made huge prices at auction, only to have very many of those pieces then finding their way sooner rather than later back into the salesrooms, and commanding on resale a bare fraction of what had been paid sometimes as little as 6 months before. Buying frenzy, enhanced by the successful marketing efforts of the long purses of the major salesrooms, renders after a very short time very many cases of buyer’s remorse.

Still, anything that raises the profile of the fine and decorative arts- particularly those periods though well-established in the canon but overlooked by the shelter publications in favor of looks like and may have come from the local Target store- is of course a good thing.

Our own ‘Contemporary Classics’ proudly made in the US

It is so much of what we’ve heard over the last couple of years, that manufacturing jobs long lost to the Far East would return to this country. I don’t think flipping burgers at McDonald’s down the road from me is what would be counted as a manufacturing job. It would be interesting, within the nearby McDonald’s, to see what of their interior fittings, even their kitchen equipment, is manufactured in the US.  Not much if anything, I’d wager. Where from and the why? You already know, gentle reader- overwhelmingly, the where from is China, and the why is an acquisition cost fractionally what it is to buy from a US manufacturer. For myself, I would happily pay more for a burger made not just with domestic ingredients, but also prepared using domestically made cookers and afterward to sit on domestically manufactured stools and lean on domestically made counters.  In this, I suspect, I am in the distinct minority.

I mention this by way of introducing something closer to what it is we do, selling period material, and how much has been made over the last couple of years about how changing tastes have been detrimental to the trade. I saw an ad this morning on TV for the company Home Goods, which along with a number of other retailers sells job lot and end of season decorating material for home use- throw cushions, bath towels, decorative flower pots and mirrors- you know it, and you name it, they’ve got it. What you would have trouble naming, though, are the items in stock that are made in the US. Overwhelmingly, the items on offer at any of these retailers were made in low wage countries. Now mind you, nothing is very expensive, but everything is, as an old colleague of mine in the trade used to say when trying to avoid using an opprobrious term to describe third rate material, cheap and cheerful.

Not expensive, and cheap enough to be thrown away, but not very good quality, either. Hopefully biodegradable, too, as so much of it is destined in the not too distant future for the landfill. That sounds sour, and I apologize to my gentle readers, but I ask you- can you say it isn’t so? And while pundits decry the change in taste that seems to now grace the pages of the shelter publications, the internet and HGTV, bear in mind that we’ve a huge number of Chinese manufacturers that are laughing all the way to the bank. The cheap schlock that younger buyers seem so eager to acquire is likewise extremely cheap for low wage countries to produce.

Are you looking for quality and durability? Well, you won’t find it. A few months ago, we sought to replace some Fieldcrest toweling, worn out after some thirty years of use. We were able to find a local outlet that sells Fieldcrest bath linens, but although 100% cotton was clearly of an inferior manufacture. While the towels we were replacing were produced with domestic cotton and spun in a mill in North Carolina, the same brand toweling available now was made in India. A year on, and it’s worn out. Let me see- we got thirty years worth of wear out of the first set of towels that were domestically made and a year’s worth of wear out of the towels made in India. Were the domestically made towels thirty times more expensive than those made in India? Not hardly. Cheaper to acquire, yes- cheaper to own? Not hardly.

Can China, can India produce goods that are of excellent and enduring quality? Of course they can, and have a tradition of doing so that stretches back millennia. Will they do so? And that begs the question- why should they, when we want to price shop and buy looks-like- but- isn’t. For me, of course, when I see what’s on offer at Home Goods, or what graces the pages of most shelters and is broadcast on very many HGTV programs, I know that the typical viewer has never had to replace 30 year old Fieldcrest towels. In more direct terms, our own buyers these days are not only price driven, but don’t actually know domestic quality, because they’ve never seen it.