ANTIQUE FURNITURE BUYING AND SELLING
COLLECTORS whose habit it is to look with suspicion on every dealer in old furniture with whom they may be tempted to do business would be better advised, on the whole, to transfer their misgivings from the tradesman to his wares. Antique dealers are no more dishonest than any other class, but their business is a peculiar one, and the public almost begs to be deceived. It is not satisfied with the ordinary article, the commonplace piece of furniture made for a definite purpose and for nothing eise. It wants to show its cleverness in making a find, i Whatever is the use,” apparently asks the well-informed collect or, ” of my having ail this knowledge of historie art at my finger-ends, if I cannot show it by adding to my collection valuable old curios unrecognised by the thoughtless and ignorant I This represents the attitude of mind of hundreds of collectors of old furniture. They seek and the dealer takes care they shall find. A little incident one of many of similar kind occurred in the experience of the writer which illustrates this point. A dealer in Yorkshire had a nice, plain mahogany
wardrobe. He had bought it at a sale in his neigh-
bourhood. It dated from about the third quarter of the eighteenth centurv and was a well-made piece of furniture without applied decoration except the row of dentils under the cornice. This piece of furniture would not sell. Now the dealer had to get his living, and he adopted what he knew by experience would be the method most likely to result in business. He simply took the doors off and inlaid in the middle of each fine plain mahogany panel one of those shell ornaments used so much by the brothers Adam and Sheraton. The wardrobe was sold within a few days of this piece of vandalism, and the buyer was by no means a dupe. He knew all about style. He recognised the inlaid ornament as a bit of decoration frequently seen in furniture of the latter end of the eighteenth century. He talked quite learnedly about it, discussed it, called to mind something he had at home where a similar ornament occurred in each of the four corners, not in the middle as in this most interesting specimen. He even went so far as to doubt whether the inlay had not been put in at a ” later date,” wondered if after all it was not a ” transitional ” piece, then decided that it must be so, but finally bought it.
Now the experience the dealer had had with this piece of furniture was that no one ever took any notice of it at all before it had the inlay put in. He dare not call anyone’s attention to it because in the minds of so many timid buyers the rule appears to be that if a quiet, inoffensive looking salesman points out some particular article as being worth buying it is proof that the dealer wants to get rid of it, and if so then it cannot be any good. This dealer said that he never succeeded in selling an article if he introduced it first to the customer, unless indeed he was dealing with someone to whom he was very well known. Even then the chances of a sale were less than if the collector made the first advance. The psychology of the matter seems to be that the customer wanders into the dealer’s shop to see what he can find, and if he can find something he may buy it. But he does not want to have anything sold him.
This makes the dealer stock articles which are likely to be remarked upon, things which as he puts it sell themselves.
Most dealers do not consciously set out to deceive people, any more than their customers seek to over-reach them. It is a much more difficult thing to carry on a business by fraud and deception than to live by honest trade. It requires more executive skill in the first place, extraordinary effrontery, and a very pro-found knowledge of human nature. Now it is absurd to credit dealers in old furniture with possessing these qualifies in a greater degree than other members of the Community. Some do possess them, of course. On the other hand some collectors are not devoid of craft, by any means. It should also be remembered that many collectors are themselves amateur dealers.
A case came to the notice of the writer of a dealer who bought in France a carved oak wardrobe of the period of Louis XV. It was not an extraordinary
piece of furniture, probably worth15 to20. But the fact that it was not extraordinary was against it. There it stood for years in the shop utterly unremarked. It was in beautiful condition. The wood had been regularly cleaned, no added polish had ever touched it, and a good colour and ” patina 1 was the result. The dealer offered it over and over again. He could induce no one seriously to consider it. And if he adopted the policy of silence then no one ever appeared to see it. So one day the bright idea occurred to him of making two wardrobes out of it. He took off the two big doors and made each the front of a separate hanging cupboard, rejecting the original interior and substituting ” carcase work ” of his own. Then he put one in the shop and kept the other out of sight. Both were quickly sold, one after the other, of course. Exactly the same thing happened as in the case of the inlaid piece already referred to. A man came in and glancing round remarked that he had never seen a late eighteenth-century French wardrobe like that before. It should be explained that in the original piece the carving on each door was unsymmetrical, but the two doors together made a symmetrical front. One was practically the reverse of the other. That is quite common in French furniture.
One would have thought that the very slightest acquaintance with the style would have shown in an instant that something was wrong. The buyer, indeed, stumbled almost immediately on the fact, and said that it looked as if ” some time or other ” there had occurred to one door and the owner had no alternative but to use the piece which was intact for making a fresh piece of furniture. He thought it was very interesting, had never known such a thing to have been done before, and after a most instructive chat with the dealer he became the purchaser.
The two wardrobes were sold for 15 each instead of the 20 which might possibly have been realised by the original piece. Old furniture in a shop must advertise itself in some way, and the dealer must find out the best means to make it do so.
Still another case was that of an old oak ” refectory table so called because the name is picturesque and suggests a time previous to the dissolution of the monasteries and for no other reason whateverwhich would not sell in the place where it was because it was too plain. The dealer took it out and introduced small perforated brackets in the angles between the upper parts of the legs and the top rails. The resuit in the eyes of the seller justified the proceeding. Someone I found it.
The psychology of buying is full of the most extra-ordinary turns and twists. The writer bought from a gipsy fifteen years ago six country-made chairs of the Sheraton period. The price given was for the six. They may be worth to-day about double. While the owner of the caravan was busy bringing out the chairs his wife quietly cautioned him not to shew ” the one with the claw feet.” So it was not brought out. But the remark had the desired effect up to a point.
No one could possibly resist the temptation to insist upon seeing ” the one with the claw feet.” It proved to be a poor and most clumsy copy of a bad design of the time of Chippendale. But the loud upbraidings of his wife when she saw how her husband, notwith-standing the caution, had shown the precious chair, sounded most genuine. Hadn’t she told him not to bring it out He knew quite well it wasn’t for sale. Then why trouble the gentleman with it And a whole pantomime of mysterious nods, winks, and dark looks went on to induce the gipsy to put the wretched thing out of sight for fear it should be purchased under her very eyes. It is quite possible the woman believed it to be particularly good, and merely adopted this crafty but rather overrated diplomacy to stimulate desire for possession.
A well-known expert who was asked by a friend what course he would suggest to enable him to get a sound knowledge of old furniture replied briefly : ! Buy some.” That was not altogether sarcasm. After a cabinet or table is purchased and brought home it has then to stand not only daily scrutinising from the owner, who likes to think he has got hold of some-thing really good, but frequent examination from friends who may or may not know anything about old furniture. Whether they know much or little does not matter. Out of politeness they must look at the precious find and make remarks. And even fools have been known occasionally to say something very illuminating. I can see in my mind’s eye now a set of chairs which once stood in a public museum where
they were on loan and catalogued as ” late Sheraton.” A lady who was exceedingly bored at the Exhibition
and knew nothing whatever about the subject remarked in an off-hand manner that they looked too small to be sat upon. She had unconsciously detected the fault which even experts had failed to see. Good old furniture never looks ” skimpy.” It never exhibits cheeseparing in the use of material. It does not look mean and small. Economy in the use of wood is for the most part a modem idea born of the factory system. When a man made an oak dresser in the seventeenth or eighteenth century his view was limited to the construction of that one piece of furniture. Of course there must have been a good deal of waste, and it is perfectly obvious to anyone that in many instances far more wood was used than the actual necessities of the case demanded. But a modem maker knows how to make two pieces of furniture out of material which in former times would have been regarded as no more than sufficient for one.
In factories, of course, economical manufacture is an important point, particularly where articles are tumed out by the score instead of one or two at a time. The chairs alluded to had been made from Sheraton designs probably a few years prior to the 1851 exhibition. They were old enough to look time-worn, and as the pattern was ail right they were regarded as genuinely of the eighteenth century. Sheraton furniture was always light and elegant. It was never thin and poor looking in proportion, though it seems some-times almost too light in construction. But Sheraton was a great master of construction and succeeded in combining strength and grace better than any other designer of furniture.
A quaint sidelight upon the use of material is the very common explanation of a dealer who is questioned as to the use of deal inside drawers with solid mahogany fronts. I That is always a sign,” he will say, ” that the piece is old and that the mahogany has been specially selected, because the latter was rare and consequently very dear in the old days. They could not afford to put anything better inside the drawers when the fronts were of such exceptionally fine material as these.” The same dealer will, however, point in triumph to the oak linings of another chest and remark : ” They always did things well in those days. Never skimped a job. Always made it of good throughout, either mahogany or more usually good oak,” which as a matter of fact is true.
Old oak linings are very useful to the faker. They are of thin seasoned wood and can be used with safety almost anywhere without fear. But if a piece of thick English oak, even though it be hundreds of years old, is eut into two thin boards there is no guarantee whatever that it will not warp or split.
The fact that a piece of furniture is in bad condition is, of course, no proof that it is old, though there still exist people who seem to be attracted by old oak which looks knocked about.” They have the idea that it is in an untouched condition. A case came to the notice of the writer of two abominably made cabinets, the ends and backs of which never had been
neatly joined. ” You cannot possibly seil these as they are/’ the dealer was advised. ” I certainry could not seil them if I put the m into reasonably decent condition,” he replied. ” People would suspect them at once. As they are, anyone can see they are old with the naked eye ! ”
The word ” patina ” is worth a brief explanation, as it is used so glibly and seems to have so profound an effect upon collectors, who casually pass on the word to friends when shewing the most recent find. The dictionary will tell you that it is ” a green film forme on copper and bronze by long exposure to a moist atmosphere or by treatment with acids.” It is only by extension of the meaning that the word is used in describing the appearance of the surface of old wood, and tins extension is justified by the fact that patina on furniture does assume a distinctly metallic appearance. Collectors should realise that it is not produced by applied varnish or polish. Wood which had neither of these preparations applied to it will assume a patina in time. The desired effect comes by generations of careful cleaning and rubbing, and it will be found that as a rule the upper surfaces or those which catch the dust have the finest patina. A familiar example of the creation of patina on wood is the handle of a regularly used Walking stick. With constant swinging in the hand it will gradually assume a polish. N0 preparation has been applied, but the polish is there all the same. In Paris the patina of old Louis XV. carved and gilt chairs has been obtained on new furniture by the employaient of army pensioners who are willing to sit for so many hours a day gently rubbing the arms of the chairs with their hands.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England some preparation for darkening oak was used, but the secret of its composition has been lost. As far as we can tell it was not of the nature of varnish, but more probably a stain afterwards polished with some simple preparation such as beeswax and turpen-tine, or wax alone. Mahogany in the eighteenth Century was undoubtedly stained and polished, but not French polished to produce the meretricious glittering effect seen on cheap modern furniture. Patina on old furniture, once recognised, cannot possibly be mistaken. It never looks sticky, and it cannot easily be removed, though of course it may be covered with paint or varnish. The writer is acquainted with a chimney piece carved by Grinling Gibbons which has been utterly ruined by a mistaken application of varnish. Whatever patina may have been on the wood has, of course, been hidden and would almost certainly be destroyed by any attempt to remove the varnish. In the days of the Restoration carvings by Gibbons and his followers were left un-touched in the soft white lime in which they were executed, and it is dimcult to see how they could have been cleaned thoroughly except by brushing, so delicate were the details. Unlike early Jacobean carving the elaborately executed birds, rlowers, and fruits were built up to the required relief and applied to the background.
Although tricks of fakers and dealers should be known to the collector they can only be regarded as
mere warnings. Directly a dodge is discovered and talked about it is no longer of much use. The artful dodger of the antique furniture trade must think of something eise, and to do him credit if credit it be he is usually just a trick or two ahead of the buyer. He is an inventor, an original mind, exploring regions of duplicity and guile into which the private collector can only penetrate by slow and uncertain steps, for ever losing his way and falling into unsuspected snares. Of course every time he is caught he is so much the wiser, but no complete knowledge is to be had of trickery. It progresses and develops like other branches of human effort. No one nowadays not -even the most foolish of fakers would stand in his shop and fire a blunderbuss full of shot into his collection of old oak in the hope of producing convincing worm-holes. The dodge is played out, and the probability is it never was of very much use. But it has been an entertaining thing to talk about and write about, and the method by which simple souls may detect the fraud has been so easily appreciated. All one has to do, it appears, is to obtain a hat-pin, thrust it into the suspected worm-holes and draw out the little leaden pellets which lie at the bottom.
But in any case worm-eaten furniture is not at all desirable, even if it be genuinely old. The disease is likely to spread and is very hard to get rid of. Peroxide of hydrogen is employed and a fine spray used to inject it into the holes, after which beeswax coloured with analine dye is pressed in and smoothed down.
The dealer of to-day would much rather hide worm-holes that exist than create artificial ones, which is an illustration of the development in the arts of faking noted above. At one time there may have been people who, anxious as to the age of a piece of furniture, would look upon the worm-holes pointed out as evidence of great antiquity and would contentedly buy. But people do not like worm-holes nowadays. So instead of making any the faker fills up what there are.
The spectacle of an otherwise intellectual individual engaged in trying to plumb the depths of duplicity to which dealers can descend in faking old furniture is like that of the donkey pressing eagerly forward after the dangling carrot. It would indeed be very pleasant to possess the carrot of complete knowledge, but the conditions render it impossible.
Not so many years ago amateurs could not recognise and scarcely suspected fine carved wood under the many coats of paint with which it was frequently covered. They would live in an old Jacobean or Georgian house and give orders time after time for the panelling to be repainted and made to look clean and cheerful, in complete ignorance of there being any-thing good on the walls. A dealer might suggest a change of style altogether, buy the panelling for next to nothing, and replace by a pretty wall-paper. Thou-sands of square feet of fine panelling have been bought in this way from old houses.
The buyer would take the wood away, put it in pickle ” to get the paint off, finally revealing it in excellent condition, for the paint had often been a great protection. Even if the wood had hidden blemishes and patches the dealer would be ready with bits of old material with which to make it perfect. The panelling would then be very saleable. After a time, however, the public became educated and refused to part with old painted woodwork, which began to be regarded as something worth keeping. The donkey had moved up apparently nearer the carrot. Automatic-ally, however, painted wood became interesting. Recog-nising this, the dealer obtained new carved panelling, painted that and left it in his shop for the collector to find. Proud of his knowledge the buyer would perceive possibilities in the ancient looking fittings, and he and the dealer would compare notes on the folly of early Victorian householders persisting in covering up fine carved panelling with layers of paint. Of course it is a protection,” the collector would remark, “and the wood may possibly be in excellent condition underneath.” And when the deal was effected his remark was justified, for the carving would appear in a marvellous state of preservation, so clean in its cutting, so crisp and fresh in the detail that it might really have left the bench only yesterday. So the donkey was as far off the carrot as ever.
It may never have occurred to collects to carry a foot rule in their pockets. The simple appliance is quite useful in various ways. Stools and chairs in the early seventeenth century and before were often higher in the seat than they are to-day, not because people were taller then, but on account of the fact that a convenient rail on which to put the feet was usually handy. For instance, at meals people put their feet on the stout rail which ran ail round the table from leg to leg an inch or two from the ground. If they were seated in a chair there might be a footstool handy, or if on a settle there would be a rail in the same position as those in the stools. There were no carpets on the floors of the houses in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Such fine textiles were used as covers for the tables and court cupboards. A stone flagged floor was cold and a boarded floor was not much better. So that people were well content to have their feet well off the ground. Hence the height of the seats. Another case in which the foot rule comes in useful is in measuring lengths. The English joiner measured his work in inches, and although in old furniture standard measurements do not occur as in modem work to-day, when the bed, for instance, increases in width by six inches at a time from two feet six inches up to five feet, the tendency was for the work to be planned without fractional divisions of inches.
Now some reproductions of old English furniture are made to-day in Holland and Belgium where the metrical system of measurement is in use. The tendency there is for the sizes to run in divisions of the metre, which is, to be exact, 39.37 inches. Taken in conjunction with other circumstances, the fact that an oak dresser, for instance, measured exactly two metres in length instead of six feet would be suspicious. A good reproduction made abroad is not necessarily intended for the dealer in old furniture here. It may
be sold honestly through the ordinary retail furnishing trade as a copy, but once sold there is no telling what its subsequent history will be, and when it turns up in the dark corner of some antique dealer’s shop it may easily be regarded as old by very expert buyers. Continental reproductions of old English furniture are so often artistically copied, not merely reproduced as to style, but rubbed down, artificially patinated and coloured in a way which is almost too well done. The metrical system of measurement itself is not very old, for it only originated in France at the close of the eighteenth Century.
One is bound to attach some importance, upon a piece of furniture in a shop, to the price asked for it. This quite apart from the question as to whether we can afford to buy it or not. It is common to see pieces of furniture, particularly of the latter end of the eighteenth Century when joinery and cabinet-making had arrived at such a high degree of executive perfection, marked at prices which could not possibly be approached under modem conditions for the same class of work. Old dressing tables, neatly fitted with mirrors, drawers, little cupboards, covered wells, and other receptacles are to be found priced at anything up to about 8 apiece, which if made to-day in the same quality of wood and workmanship would certainly cost a great deal more. Clever cabinet-makers earn more to-day than they did a hundred years ago, and although by the help of machinery some time is saved, this consideration is not so important in the case of the pieces of furniture referred to which must be put together
entirely by hand. It is the fitting which costs the money, not the cutting and planing of the parts. So the inference would seem to be that if a nicely designed, well-made piece of furniture having a good deal of detailed work about it is low in price it is probably old. Such an article would not be very exceptional in character. It would have been made in the first instance to fulfil a legitimate useful purpose, not to create a work of art. Many old bureaux and chests of drawers come into this category. One cannot, of course, rely upon price as a final determining factor, but it is worth bearing in mind. Well-made modem furniture will fall sometimes extraordinarily in price when it is sold second-hand. Fashion plays a part here. The writer knows of magnificent pieces of furniture, made towards the end of the Victorian period, which can be bought to-day at certainly half the price of making. These specimens are not the vulgar monstrosities commonly known as Victorian, but well-designed pieces of furniture in styles not now thought of much account, particularly work adapted from Italian sources, with classical detail, highly ornate, carved and inlaid with astonishing skill. Such pieces deserve more than passing attention from the collect or whenever they are discovered. The common work of this period was abominable and will never be worth anything, but the good late Victorian furniture will surely be valuable in time.
When the present fashion for furnishing houses with eighteenth-century reproductions comes to an end, and the thousands of copies of Chippendale, Heppelwhite, and Sheraton made in this generation begin gradually to slip into the second-hand market, it will be exceedingly hard to tell the new from the old. The weight of mahogany will help a little, for in the eighteenth Century fine chairs were made of fine wood. The best Cuban mahogany is double the weight of most of that used nowadays for cheap reproductions. It is also much harder and takes a finer surface and patina. But fine mahogany can be obtained to-day and the best reproductions are made of it.
Fashion in collecting furniture will undoubtedly change the period of its interest as knowledge spreads and reproductions multiply. Already the late eighteenth-century styles are beginning to be left alone in favour of those of William and Mary and Queen Anne. Old Stuart lacquered furniture is appearing more frequently in response to the demand for it. Silvered stands, rich in carving, with Chinese cabinets above are being brought out of old houses in numbers sufnciently adequate to cope with the demand. Exact copies are being made and sold the first instance as such. After half a dozen changes of ownership have been made and the fashion for collecting old lacquer increases the copies will become so like the originals as to deceive even those who want to sell them at a profit.
No method of detecting new work passing as old is infallible. The collector must increase his knowledge of the subject in as many directions as possible so that he may be able to pronounce judgment after taking all circumstances into consideration. Old furniture shews no signatures of makers, and documentary evidence of its genuineness is very rare indeed. Great experts rely almost entirely upon instinctive judgment, and it is undoubtedly true that some people are born with more innate perception than others. But a more valuable quality even than instinct is interest. Those who are continually interested are continually even unconsciously gaining experience. They become familiarised in an astonishing degree with their subject. They can pronounce judgment instantly in cases where they can offer no easily understood reason for their views. It has been remarked that Europeans unused to the facial characteristics of the Chinaman have a difficulty in distinguishing one Chinaman from another. They all look more or less alike. Familiarity, of course, soon reveals as much variety in the Mongolian face as in the European. Probably nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand in England to-day are utterly incapable of distinguishing a very bad Japanese print from a masterpiece, simply because they are unfamiliar with the art of the East. The Japanese themselves are probably in the same case with regard to Western art. Appreciation of all art is a matter of perception, which, apart from natural gifts, must come
by experience. No ignorant individual who wants to buy old furniture can commit to memory a number of characteristics, then walk into a dealer’s shop and separate the sheep from the goats. The best advice to anyone who aspires to become a connoisseur is to examine carefully ail specimens with which he is brought in contact, and to preserve as far as possible an open mind. Confidence will corner in time, and it is surprising how many qualities reveal themselves to the observer as soon as the A B C of the subject is no longer a stumbling-block. When all is said and done, the reason why an expert, in his own mind, will say a piece of furniture is not a genuine production is simply because to him it does not look like one. He uses his experience, his instinct, his judgment, and speaks accordingly.