Fortunes To Be Found In The Finest Furniture
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday May 5, 1992
EXECUTIVES and their families could be sitting on a fortune and not realise it. Unless they follow the market they may not know what prices really old, beautiful and well-conserved chairs and other items of furniture are commanding overseas.
Christie's in London claims the first and second spot for furniture prices achieved at auction. The first, a mind-blowing Pound 8,580,000 ($20 million), including a 10 per cent buyer's premium (which obtains in most centres outside Sydney), went in July 1990 to an eighteenth-century Florentine pietra dura(mosaic) Badminton cabinet made for the third Duke of Beaufort.
The second, a mere Pound 935,000, went last December for a George III Thomas Chippendale mahogany commode from the Samuel Messer Collection.
Unfortunately, in Australia, most executives aren't likely to be sitting on such treasures, or anything like them. Overseas visitors often have noted that the owners of multi-million dollar waterfront properties may have open garages containing cars worth $500,000 and security-wired houses whose contents are practically worthless. Or, if they are worth another $500,000, the great bulk of this will be in paintings.
Yet for half a million you could furnish a whole house with fine 19th-century or modest 18th-century (and earlier) furniture, which would serve a dual function.
As Mr Andre Fink, a Sydney dealer in French antiques from the Renaissance to the First Empire, puts it, "collecting antiques is not only one of the most absorbing pastimes known to civilised man, but an internationally recognised investment for the wise and farseeing".
With furniture more than with most other acquisitions, the lifestyle aspect can't be ignored. You literally live with your mistakes. And you may find living in an antique shop repellent.
Still, another dealer, Mr Charles Aronson, a specialist in French, Dutch and English antiques, recalls how appreciation of antiques has broadened as knowledge has increased. Thirty years ago, predominantly Anglo-Irish Australians appreciated only Anglo-Irish antiques, if anything. Now, graceful and intricate French objets d'art are prized but no "florid" or "heavy" Dutch, German, Spanish, Italian or Oriental furniture - even though "English"furniture from the William and Mary period (late 17th century) was inspired and often executed by Dutch craftsmen, the seminal 18th-century "French"cabinetmakers were German, many pieces sold as "French" today were made in Spain for the South American market in the late 19th century, and all "modern"European furniture originated in the 15th century Italian Renaissance.
With understanding, generic prejudices disappear. Certain pieces will still strike you - and probably your contemporaries - as "florid" or "heavy", but it won't be because of their apparent country of origin.
At the same time, your pleasure in craftsmanship and the finished object will be enhanced: in the subtle irregularities of hand manufacture, in symmetry of form or inventiveness of decoration, in the palpable texture of different materials and in the lustrous warmth of original patination deriving from hours of hand polishing transmuted by decades or centuries of gracious aging.
Most Australian dealers have been slow to appreciate the last feature. Even today it's far too common to find furniture stripped back to the bare wood, planed to remove all scratches and lacquered to glitter like "new". Not only does this remove the charm and "status" of an antique, it may subtly change proportions.
It doesn't make the piece look virginal - merely like an overpainted harridan or a cheap imposter.
Obviously a piece looks better if wear-and-tear has been minimal, and will be priced accordingly.
Mr Fink says that if it's sound and usable, and not actually disfigured, it's best left untouched. You can preserve this state by good conservation; for, as in all aspects of life, prevention is better than cure.
Such measures include protection from damp, direct sunlight, extremes of temperature and the depredations of children and animals.
To preserve or enhance an object's value, restoration should be done by experts using, as far as possible, original materials such as horsehair instead of coconut fibre for upholstery. The older a piece, the more it's likely to have deteriorated. This is especially true of timbers prone to woodworm, notably walnut, which was dominant in England for most of the 17th and the early 18th century, and in France over a longer period. An old piece also will be handmade, including its nails and pegs and any replacements also should be handmade. Further, the older an upholstered chair, the more likely is it to have been re-upholstered several times, with mounting damage caused by new nail holes.
Mr Fink estimates the restoration of one 18th century fauteuil (open armchair) would entail 100 hours repairing, 10 hours waxing and 10 hours upholstering, all at $40 an hour, plus $300 for the brocade - $5,100 all up. To restore an 18th-century marquetry (inlaid) commode would cost $15,000. Restoration of later pieces should cost a fraction of these charges. These costs must be considered when buying a "bargain" in need of restoration.
Before deciding what you want to buy, not to mention what you ought to pay, you should be fully informed artistically and commercially. General and specialist encyclopedias and reference books are freely available (and may be collectables in their own right).
The monthly Carter's Antiques & Collectables Magazine is an excellent introduction. Most of the items offered for sale are at the lower end of the market, but there's a roundup of overseas news and useful articles on different types of furniture and cabinet timbers.
Mr Robert Bleakley, managing director of Sotheby's Australia, concedes that major pieces rarely appear in Australian sales, though he's pleased with a recent offering in Melbourne.
It would be worthwhile subscribing to overseas catalogues and visiting overseas auctions.
From Andrea Palladio in the 16th century to Charles Le Corbusier in the 20th, leading architects have believed the internal decoration and furnishing of buildings should be en suite with their architecture.
This is in conflict with the view that the best pieces of any culture or period will blend harmoniously.
While the latter view may be true of "smalls", furniture tends to look best in a sympathetic setting with kindred pieces and a naked tiled marble or polished timber floor highlighted with Oriental rugs. So it is that when a house is refurbished, professional decorators are often brought in to refurnish it. But think carefully before entrusting the purchase of all antiques to them, for you may not necessarily acquire the best pieces at the best prices.
You could prefer a more eclectic approach, and the choice is yours. But if you have an eye to eventual resale, whatever styles you choose should be mainstream. Classically proportioned and embellished furniture in familiar timbers and other materials has appreciated more or less steadily in value over the decades, while the "zany" in fantastic shapes and exotic materials -however brilliantly conceived and executed - has been notoriously subject to changing fashions.
In this category one thinks of "Egyptian" Regency, "Mexican" Art Deco and"rustic" Australiana.
Though often found in antique shops and always found at antique fairs, Art Nouveau (1895-1910) and Art Deco (1920-1940) aren't "antique" by the common 100-year yardstick, let alone the handmade hallmark, which is usually taken to be the end of William IV (1837) in England and the First Empire (1814) in France.
Whatever you choose to buy, the more expensive it is the more likely it is to be faked. Writing in Antiques in New South Wales, December-April 1992, the Melbourne dealer Mr John Wilson observes: "In reality, there are few examples of the out-and-out fake, that is, something made later, the sole objective of which is to pass it off as an original ... the more usual problems that crop up are with 'wrong' pieces of furniture. That is, that are pastiches and reproductions."
Veneers, stringing, carving or a famous maker's stamp may be added later to an otherwise genuine antique to make it more "desirable". But the greatest problem is reproductions.
These may be innocent replacements of lost older items or later originals in an older style ("revivals").
Hopefully, these can be detected by the timber used, method of construction, small stylistic differences and ageing. The important thing is to get a certificate stating precisely what you're buying and its approximate date, and to pay accordingly.
© 1992 Sydney Morning Herald