Author: Michael Chappell

We’ve a break in the action just for the moment, allowing us time to sit and watch TV. The benefit of modern TV watching is the access to 1,000’s of programs, and one of which is ‘The Art Detectives’. I must say, host and researcher Bendor Grosvenor I have a soft spot for, and not just because of his aquiline nose. A bit more personally than that, he did not so long ago on a programme featuring the series of portraits by Peter Lely known as the Windsor Beauties interview my great and good friend and old thesis supervisor at UCL Diana Dethloff, who’s special study the beauties are.

In the outing we’ve just watched, Dr Grosvenor examines a Rembrandt self portrait at a National Trust property, and after some in-depth scholarly and scientific research concludes that the portrait and its variants in Germany and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam are at the very least linked to the artist’s workshop, even if not definitely by his hand. In the course of his examination, Grosvenor did interview the chap in the Netherlands who is now considered the world’s leading authority on Rembrandt. When asked about considering the portraits in light of connoisseurship that begged their comparison, the expert rejected this out of hand, saying that he never applies any connoisseurship to a consideration of artwork, relying entirely on scientific analysis.

Well- there you have it. The practiced eye that can sometimes with merely a glance suss out what might otherwise be occluded, the ability to discriminate between what’s good and shall we say what’s less good we toss aside in favour of the aridity of scientific analysis. Or should I say, the flair and judgement and confidence of the art historian must needs be replaced by machines. A human examination and contextualization of what is arguably the most glorious production of human material culture is to be removed from that other glory of humanity- critical thinking.

It is I suppose one of many darkening episodes in this modern age that machines have invaded everything and their production exalted and in the case of the Rembrandt expert, it is I suppose easier to use some kind of objective calibration than to employ the little grey cells to intellectualize the meanings that might be divined from some objective measure.

Not so long ago, I enjoyed an evening out with an excellent violinist who in addition to her performing schedule regularly teaches a master class for budding musicians and musicologists. She expressed her frustration that in the main her students were unaware of critical thinking and when asked questions that required some kind of gathering of facts and the drawing of conclusions- the simplest sort of Aristotelianism- she would get brief what she termed ‘factoids’- simple conclusive bits of information gleaned from the internet that while perhaps related to whatever question she might have posed did not in themselves provide any sort of answer. She wondered whether her students, in the aggregation of factoids, hadn’t themselves thought that they might magically coalesce into some kind of coherent explanation and conclusion.

Critical thinking is the boon companion of connoisseurship, while naked empiricism should be its servant. I have to admit, in the discipline of art history over the course of the last few decades, the connoisseur has got something of a bad rap. One thinks immediately of the uber connoisseur of the last century, Bernard Berenson who early on made his reputation by using his practiced eye to systematize the work of Italian artists of the early renaissance. Of course, all that happened at a time when even photography was in its infancy, and Berenson’s work was largely accomplished the result of his personal examination of innumerable works, often times in less than optimal conditions. Sadly, his earlier contributions to the history of art were occluded by what has been seen as his too cozy relationship with the likes of dealers like Joseph Duveen. It has long been rumoured that Duveen would pay Berenson as much as 25% of the retail price of a work Duveen sought to sell, just for a letter of attribution from Berenson. As Robertson Davies put it in ‘What’s Bred in the Bone’, his novel about the art world of the early 20th century, it might have been difficult for Berenson to hear the ring of probity when considering an artwork above the ring of the cash register.

For those of my gentle readers who may consider any sort of defense of the connoisseur tempered by their having seen me on hands and knees looking underneath a piece of furniture to determine if the use of glue blocks and mortise and tenon construction argue for its being the genuine article, or have witnessed my moving a painting into a darkened room so I could examine the design layer under blacklight, I would remind them that any sort of practical, technical examination isn’t the first thing I do. The first thing is- I look at the object. It is the looking that develops the practiced eye that is the basis of connoisseurship. As I have always heard it said, Anthony Blunt always exhorted his students to look at the pictures.

Oh, my goodness- I see my two chosen exemplars, Berenson and Blunt, both of shall we say tarnished reputation perhaps argue less than what I had hoped in favor of connoisseurship. Well, for the time being, I happily look to Bendor Grosvenor who will I hope on TV and otherwise carry on looking at paintings in the same manner as he has, and will across his aquiline nose continue to cast a connoisseurial eye.

One of several crises in the trade the last few weeks is the huge increase in fees now charged by 1st dibs, one of the major online platforms for art and antiques. In response to the complaints of the dealers who maintain a virtual storefront on this platform, Antiques Trade Gazette reports 1st dibs claims the move is necessary to maintain its advertising, fraud protection, website optimization, and social media presence. All this to court, as mentioned obliquely by 1st dibs in its communication to dealers, ‘the sophisticated online customer.’

Well, maybe. But the more likely explanation is the simpler one- a naked move to quickly increase revenue for the owners of the platform. I had some time ago formed the opinion, or should I say joined the chorus of opinion, that this same platform sought to be the overarching presence in the trade, doing its level best to become a clearing house for all manner of luxury goods by occluding as best it could the dealers whose virtual storefronts provide the subscription revenue that provides the lion’s share of the site’s income. In so doing, prospective buyers, who might prefer to trade directly with the dealer, are then forced to deal directly with the platform when making a purchase. The platform itself can then charge the dealer a commission on the sale, on top of the monthly subscription fee charged the dealer for its online storefront. Frankly, we did at one time have a storefront on this platform, but when it became obvious they sought to make every effort to come between us and the buyer, we left. For Chappell & McCullar, indeed for nearly every dealer in the accredited trade, the art and antiques business remains a relationship one- even with so much of our trade now through our own website, the Chappell & McCullar ‘look’ is like that of no one else. The same can be said for any other dealer- as has become my mantra, it is the dealer’s taste, expertise and reputation that the buyer is purchasing, not just its stock in trade.

And of course, that is what 1st dibs sought to extinguish- substituting its own self as less the keeper than an aggregator of relationships while making the dealers who’ve maintained virtual storefronts almost entirely anonymous. In all honesty, had we been selling well on the platform, we’d probably, venal folk that we are, continued to subscribe. But we didn’t, and found ourselves paying more and more in fees, and the only occasional sale when it happened was for lower priced material that barely covered the cost of listing the item. And, and a very important and, whatever sales we had were of the one-off, spot sale variety- buyers with whom we never established any sort of relationship and beyond the single sale, never saw again.

Any business is entitled to make money and the bigger and more predominant it is within its industry, the more predacious its practices might seem. But 1st dibs has long sought to marshal the selling of items, taking advantage of a trade made up of innumerable small players who in their fearful desire to stay in business felt they had no choice but to add a virtual storefront to their bag of tricks. Traditional sales outlets of the bricks and mortar variety and the occasional fairs have not been enough for years. Indeed, the online platform has generally subsumed the traditional venues. Fairs, for decades the traditional buying opportunity in locations around the world exist in dwindling numbers, and bricks and mortar venues find themselves bereft of dealers, particularly those of period material. Indeed, our old Jackson Square neighborhood in San Francisco, once the home of nearly 30 dealers within a couple of blocks of one another, now has nary a one. At one time, 1st dibs itself was a sponsor of very many of the major fairs, particularly in the US. That, though, hasn’t happened for some years. It must consider fair advertising and promotion unnecessary, as it has itself become the country’s major, albeit virtual, fair.

Now, though, all manner of platforms have become ubiquitous. We get invites to list on a different one several times a week- tempting to take a flyer, as the introductory listing fees are always quite low. And indeed, most of the trade associations maintain platforms- not for free, but at least a dealer feels as a member of the association one is, to an extent, paying a listing or subscription fee at least partly to oneself. Even some of the online auction websites are offering dealers virtual storefronts, and as I mention it, adding online auctions into the mix, there now exists a bewildering plethora of platforms on which a prospective buyer may make purchases.

But here’s the problem for 1st dibs- the diffusion of online platforms has become so great, and the comparative ease of establishing a platform and the cost to do so so low, platforms themselves once online are hard at it to make money. And this phenomenon does not even begin to address the attrition of dealers, witness their thinness on the ground in traditional venues, that also functions to shrink platforms’ subscription fees. 1st dibs far more than any other platform is investor heavy- investors include Christie’s parent company Group Artemis- with round after round of capitalization in order to finance the building of a business that sought to dominate the industry. But clearly, as investors do, they want a payoff. That payoff is apparently to be backbreakingly borne by their remaining cadre of subscriber dealers. Where formerly 1st dibs would introduce new fees, seek to occlude dealers in order to increase its direct commission on sales, and, a traditional tactic, increase subscription and listing fees for storefronts once a dealer’s introductory rate had expired, it now feels compelled in one fell swoop to hugely raise subscriptions across the board.

One of my gentle readers forwarded something he’d read in the online edition of House Beautiful entitled ‘Please Stop Saying Millennials Killed Antiques’ penned by a millennial, one Hadley Keller. Just reading the title, all I can say is good on her. She touches on themes about which I’ve railed for years, one of which is that the use- or should I say ‘reuse’- of period furniture is about as green as anything a body can do, and a way, as I think about it, to ameliorate one’s carbon footprint when one receives so much of one’s basic necessities delivered to the door in a fibreboard box, its materials wrenched from a denuded forest and that will shortly find its way to an overburdened, methane emitting landfill.

Miss Keller also hints at how one can achieve an updating of period furnishings by the use of a contemporary fabric, implying that antiques as found have a fustiness that millennials might find not precisely distasteful, but yet not, pardon me for saying this, cool. I have to say, I have never in my life thought about anything as ‘cool’, nor ever yet described anything as such. You’re read it here first. Still, the trade in traditional art and antiques hasn’t typically done itself any favors by massing brown furniture in dark shops that seem some kind of throwback to an age of high Victoriana. I recall what one old time dealer had told me, of how happy he was to look across his shop floor, and saw all this shiny wood, and all of it brown.

With all that, for those of us in the trade, we do all of us maintain certain specialisms. We have to, frankly, as so much of our clientele comes to us shopping for items in which they know we are expert. If we maintain a disparate array of types of gear and of different periods we limit our ability to reach both collectors and designers. It must be borne in mind that, as dealers, what we sell is an adjunct to the inspiration of our clients and not always its source. For myself, what I offer is primarily 18th century English furniture, to which, I say modestly, I attempt to bring a certain degree of connoisseurship that the client can then deploy in an interior space that appeals to their own aesthetic.

As I’ve written this, I realize that we’ve often consulted about that aesthetic and have from time to time moderated the views of particularly our millennial visitors. That is to say, we try to tell our shoppers that while we are a repository of traditional material, the notion that any interior should be replete with period material is specious. ‘Period style’ often has less to do with historic precedent than the imaginings of influential designers like John Fowler, Sister Parrish, and Mario Buatta.

But as I’ve read Miss Keller’s article, what’s apparent is she has something very definitely in common with the likes of Mario Buatta, even if she and her running buddies perhaps do not share his aesthetic. They are all of them New Yorkers and one would be yet spot on to say that New York is a style center, and part of that perennial triangle of art and design that includes London and Paris. And while it might be considered a hothouse, or as modern tech parlance has it an incubator, for the localized development, invention, and deployment of taste and trends, one might hope that, more broadly, Hadley’s on to something. Although she cites those who say that they buy online as live auctions and dealer premises are intimidating, I’d say that that would constitute a toe in the water, precedent, one hopes, to taking the collecting plunge

The art and financial worlds coincided this week with the news that Patrick Drahi, the new owner of Sotheby’s, has brought in art world ingenue Charles Stewart as CEO. Stewart replaces Tad Smith who after just a few years on the job was himself still considered an ingenue. It is not surprising that Drahi would bring in his own management team, with Stewart for the preceding few years the CEO of a media company also owned by Drahi. According to a news release issued by Sotheby’s, Tad Smith will stay on as ‘senior adviser’ to Charles Stewart.

In her New York Times article, Robin Pogrebin cites an analysis of Sotheby’s sale and management changes by Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s America. Per Porter, given the $3.7 billion Drahi paid for Sotheby’s and the placement of a telecommunications executive as its new CEO, Drahi must be positioning management strategically in an attempt to achieve a return on investment more commensurate with a tech company (read ‘higher than’) what would be expected from a fine art auction house. Well, yes, but as the company is now privately held, one can only assume.

Drahi himself is a collector and at the time the sale of Sotheby’s was announced, there was some expression of opinion that in some oblique way, ownership of Sotheby’s would enhance his collecting activities. A number of years ago, something similar was said when Bernie Osher, a wealthy collector of American paintings, purchased old line San Francisco auction house Butterfield’s. That didn’t prevent Osher from selling at a premium a few years later to eBay. I think there’s very little doubt that Drahi with his appointment of Charles Stewart expects a significant amount of value added to his Sotheby’s purchase. What changes and how profitability and the inherent value of the company is enhanced are at this point a matter of speculation. Suffice to say, given the premium price paid by Drahi, Stewart has his work cut out for him.

And that work must be herculean. When Drahi offered $57 per share on June 17, Sotheby’s share closing price the day before was $35.39. Drahi’s offer of a 61% premium becomes mystifying when one considers the company’s dramatic swings in income and revenue. Indeed, along with Christie’s, it has for years been dependent on the next big auction sale. And along with Christie’s, has offered enormous blandishments to prospective consigners including inordinately optimistic presale estimates, cut rate buyer’s premiums, and huge advances against the sale of consigned lots. At the time of Drahi’s offer, Sotheby’s had just posted a loss for the preceding quarter and an overall decline in revenue compared to the same period the preceding year. According to The Art Newspaper, a significant portion of the loss was thought to be related to the failure of two consigned lots- Modigliani’s Nu couche and Picasso’s Buste de femme– to cover the amount of the minimum consignor payout guaranteed by Sotheby’s.

Sotheby’s under Tad Smith has cast about for sources of revenue, presumably to even out the peaks and valleys of its financial performance. Along with Christie’s, it increased its number of online only sales, and it also launched an online retail platform for the sale of vintage merchandise. And, along with Christie’s, and Bonhams, too, shed a number of departmental positions within the auction house.

With all that, Sotheby’s core auction house business is under tremendous competitive pressure, and not just from traditional rival Christie’s. Bonhams, itself purchased by a private equity firm earlier in the year, has ramped up its online and marketing presence, and worldwide, every little hamlet and crossroads that was home to a local auction house now has a worldwide reach. To name one of a number, Jersey-based technology company Webreality does a burgeoning business solely to design and support the online presence of fine arts auctioneers. As well, a number of auction platforms, including The Saleroom, Invaluable, and LiveAuctioneers provide a global presence for even the smallest auction houses. While Christie’s and Sotheby’s and smaller rival Bonhams have long offered sales through their own online platforms, now Bonhams feels the need to broaden its reach, just announcing it will offer sales through The Saleroom. Given the stampede toward online sales, paradoxically Sotheby’s spent a reported $55 million earlier this year to enhance the physical plant of its New York saleroom.

Everything about Sotheby’s financially checkered recent past does now beg innumerable questions about its prospects for the future, to say nothing about the why of its acquisition. But, as the press release issued at the time of Drahi’s offer in June makes clear, taking the company private provides greater opportunity for flexibility and change, without public disclosure to shareholders. So, privately held as it now is, I suppose we’ll only have to wait and see.

I’ve got to say, watching the movie ‘Downton Abbey’ was akin to seeing at long last an old friend from whom one has been reluctantly parted and too long separated. Happy to see, and happy to see them rather unchanged. ‘Rather’ I say, as the movie itself was not quite so compelling as the episodic series which even in the course of one hour and the occasional two was not shy of incident. The movie though bringing back all the familiar characters was a little overlong given the (lack of) incident involved, and without spoiling it for you of my gentle readers who haven’t seen the movie, the subplots and asides seemed almost as throw-ins- a love interest, and some socio-political commentary, both of which, though germane, were not really essential to a fairly lightweight main plot. Two crypto-spoiler alerts- there are actually two love interests, one straight and one gay, and the movie itself is a set-up for a sequel. And why not?

But with all that, the movie has been well-received, though not universally well reviewed, and as often occurred during the run of the TV series, has for us engendered a begging of questions we have fielded from many quarters if the lush settings in a number of English country houses has thereby spawned an increased interest in period art and antiques.

The short answer is a resounding- well, maybe. I have to say, this year rumblings have emerged that perhaps there is a greater interest in what is our main stock in trade, and we’ve also noted an increase in the amount of editorial in the shelter publications given over to warmer interiors with period material much more in evidence, and markedly fewer pages featuring contemporary design of the stark and spare variety. Is this the marking of a ground swelling of a change in aesthetic? Or is it, well, not life imitating art, but the shelters imitating ‘Downton…’ the movie- art, as it were, imitating art.

Still, in the old friend department, it was pleasing to see a Downton Abbey apostrophe, or should we say subplotlet, involving Princess Mary, the princess royal, given that now in our own collection we have an exquisite bonheur du jour that was once hers. This brings alive the notion of provenance, and makes one realize that though one may be possessed of the object itself, the spirit of one of its prior owners always remains present and forever imbues the piece.

Not everything in our stock has an illustrious provenance, but that’s not to say that at some time something of the sort might not declare itself. We did not so long ago acquire a William and Mary period cabinet on stand, unprovenanced and purchased in a provincial saleroom that, in the fulness of time, determined was disbursed in the 1930’s in a country house sale and acquired by decorating legend John Fowler- and sold to, wait for it, Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier for their country home Notley Abbey.

Still, absent provenance, it was of considerable fun while watching ‘Downton Abbey’ on both the big and small screens and seeing items similar to those in our stock. In one of the closing scenes of the movie, Lady Mary Talbot nee Crawley has a tete-a-tete with the Dowager Countess of Grantham, whilst seated on a Regency period settee. I nearly missed the dialogue, though, thinking as I did how similar the settee was to our exquisite example. Shameless as I am, I have to tell you that ours is better. And ever more shameless and venal to boot, I’ll tell you that, for the right price, ours could be yours.