notes

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.

What’s the old saw, something about life’s uncertainly compelling one to eat dessert. I suppose that explains why it is that I am beginning this squib in conclusive fashion- I eagerly anticipate the 2014 outing of Masterpiece. This, of course, with the more than positive signs for positive movement in the trade enhanced by the 2013 fair just concluded.

The fact is, this year’s fair made a singular effort to emphasize a more traditional focus- on art and antiques. That seems an obvious move, but it marks a significant shift away from its original raison d’être, as a luxury goods fair, offering wine futures and new cars in the 7 figure price range in an attempt to broaden the base, and numbers of, grandee attendees. Bravo for their bravery in trying this format, and kudos for, shall we say, returning to the roots of a world class art and antiques fair. And bravery, too, for ‘traditional’ seems in this age where even the word ‘yesterday’ has a pejorative connotation. While a number of dealers over the last few years voted with their feet- dealer turnover has been significant- I suspect that there may be a volte-face amongst the trade, with this year’s increased attendance, and significant sales of collector material of the highest quality, and much of it period material, auguring very well both for the fair and its success, and the boost it’s given the accredited trade.

We’ve lost a good friend, one of our best and oldest, with the death a few weeks ago of Joe Nye.

Keith and I first met Joe in Los Angeles, in the first hour of the first night of the first Los Angeles Antiques Show we ever participated in. He liked our material and he liked us, and this, through Joe’s good offices, led to a client purchase that was, up to that time, the largest sale we’d ever enjoyed. It also set a benchmark for our relationship not just with interior designers, but with clients generally. Joe, for the tenure of our relationship, did what he said he was going to do when he said he was going to do it.

I suppose that’s what I really want to say in this brief squib- that Joe was always a gentleman and a man of his word. His talent preceded him, but didn’t dominate the person he was. We saw each other regularly over the years, personally as well as professionally, and we were complimented by the fact that Joe purchased a number of things from us for his own collection. But the personal was ever present, with innumerable calls and visits from Joe, apropos of nothing, and I can’t think of any meals out with anyone we ever enjoyed more.

Joe struggled with some personal demons that threatened to get the better of him, but through all that, Joe was always Joe, and always a joy to be around. Keith and I will miss him for the rest of our lives. A memorial service for Joe is planned for later this month in Los Angeles.

Of the things in my life that has given me lasting pride and pleasure, nothing can compare with my 33 year relationship with Keith McCullar. As we’ve quietly got on with our lives, we’ve reluctantly borne the brunt of the discriminatory treatment all gay men endure, including that heretofore sanctioned by the federal government. It makes me sick to hear those who bleat about the sanctity of ‘traditional’ marriage, a mindset, it appears, framed by having watched ‘Father of the Bride’- the 1950 version, with Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett and a radiantly beautiful Elizabeth Taylor. What all of this ignores, of course, is the fact that institutional marriage in the United States is not much more than 200 years old, and has much, much more to do with preserving property rights than it does anything to do with a supposed adherence to some scriptural precept. With all that, we needn’t go down the road of biblical literalism on any subject, as those who make strenuous arguments citing chapter and verse can only do so whilst ignoring some of the other Levitican admonitions and truly horrific proscriptions also contained therein.

After word came down yesterday, both Keith and I received a number of phone calls from friends asking what it was we planned to do. The fact is, anything we can do to ameliorate the financial hardship wrought by the discriminatory treatment we’ve experienced during the tenure of our relationship we will do as soon as the courts allow. We’ve been fortunate, the two of us, both with backgrounds in finance to have the knowledge and experience to so order our financial as well as our personal lives- for instance funding life insurances to pay estate taxes on jointly acquired property that in marriage would be within a spousal exemption and always maintaining an up-to-date durable power of attorney for healthcare- mindful, though, these and many other maneuverings cost us lots of time and money.

But that’s been the easy part. The harder portion has been the sense of being looked at down the nose by the larger world we inhabit, including one’s own family, and being relegated to the role of the favorite uncle- or more likely, the rich uncle, that takes everyone out to dinner and pays the bill- he has more money, you see, because he has no children to support, and anyway, his questionable moral status obliges him to pay, and pay again and again, in some sort of vague expiation. And Keith? Well, of course, his status is never really defined, though he’s been a constant fixture for decades. It’s interesting- we attended a family wedding not so long ago, and Keith astutely observed that the new ‘traditional’ marital partner would, after a 30 minute ceremony, be immediately embraced within the bosom of the family, where he, after 3 decades, was still only just tolerated. It might be no surprise, then, that neither of our families said anything to us about the Supreme Court decisions yesterday.

Because we’ve been able to get along with our lives, and overall life has been good to us- a wonderful quality of life, and spared the horrors of HIV that decimated our circle of friends- we’ve not become radicalized. Perhaps we should have done, but for the moment, the prospect of being less victimized is emotionally nearly euphoric. I hope, though, with sanctions lifting and huge queues forming outside registry offices, will come an eventual understanding that, like everyone else, we’re trying to get on in life with a partner we love.