Clinton Howell Antiques

The sublime qualities of a great painting reveal themselves in many ways be it the brush strokes (Van Gogh's are insanely patterned) the subject (the "Mona Lisa" continues to draw publicity) the psychology (Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" inspired a novel) or the time period in which the painting was created (Picasso in all his periods). I find it difficult to look at a great many paintings because there is just so much to see.

Objects, and I am thinking primarily of furniture, have two basic premises, function and beauty. The furniture trade, which had thousands of practitioners in the 18th century in England was capable of fulfilling those premises and as early as 1720 was out-exporting furniture to every European country save for France by a minimum of at least five times. In other words, for every five chairs that were exported, they only imported one. it is an impressive testament to art as craft and craft as art.

It is the survival of objects that helps make them something other than just functional items. Objects get loved and they get ignored, but when they survive, they say something. I have been told about good furniture that has been thrown in the trash. It almost never stays there because people walking by it just can't leave it there. The same has happened to paintings and I even though I suspect some masterpieces have been destroyed, it is a testimony to mankind that we seldom let that happen. 

I would like to think of myself as a thinker, but I am not certain that I fully qualify. In reading, "The Great Influenza" by John M. Barry, it is clear to me that great thinking requires a dedication to the re-thinking of those things you consider well thought out. The battling of the 1918 flu pandemic was a battle not just to save lives, but to re-cast medicine and the science of medicine to cope with such extraordinary crises and to jettison those methods, despite their current approval, that were unsustainable in figuring out the underlying causes of the pandemic.

The nature of thought and thinking in 18th century England looks insubstantial given that a large part of the population was illiterate and barely educated. Given that the 18th century was the platform from which the Industrial Revolution arose, it almost seems like a contradiction that such a society could yield such dynamism in so short a time. The population might have been uneducated, but the country was far from ignorant. The questioning of how things worked might in fact be the motto of 18th century England. That is what laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution.

The struggles that the 21st century world faces have a lot less to do with ideology, differences in society or politics than we would like to think. It should not matter where you are from, what your religion might be or whether you are a liberal or conservative provided you choose to re-think that which you hold as sacrosanct. The life blood of all living things is compromise as without compromise no organism will survive. That is what scientists do when searching for solutions. Fortunately they did it in the early 20th century. Let's hope it can happen in the early 21st.  

Alistair Bradley Martin died several weeks ago at the age of 94. He remains one of the few collectors I have met whose visceral understanding of objects could guide him unfailingly. And yet he was as cerebral about the things he bought as any curator. Those of us expert in a field were awed by his ready grasp of the intrinsic nature of the objects that he purchased.

Around 25 years ago, I bought a scarlet japanned, lobe top table circa 1845 that had penwork drawings of medieval type characters in each lobe. Alistair saw the table in my shop about a half hour after I purchased it and bought it within minutes. I never had a chance. To him, he was looking at history, even if he did not know about the brief medieval revival that was happening in England in the 1840's. 

Alistair's ready understanding of the place that culture has in history made him a unique individual. His business was collecting and he did it superbly. The Guennol lion that made fifty-seven million dollars at auction was, to him, just a footnote. It was the object, this early Assyrian lion that told about a culture that was the cradle of civilization. Alistair really knew his stuff, all right. I can only wish the world will see more like him.

The NY Times had an article yesterday where the author said the photo of the bankers in front of the Congressional Committee reminded him of the tobacco executives in front of their Congressional Committee fifteen or so years ago. The similarity was in that their right hands were raised and they were wearing suits, but that is where it stopped. This rage against the bankers is absurd. The rage should be pointed at the politicians who so blithely eviscerated government regulations that might have prevented the financial debacle in the first place.The tobacco executives, furthermore, were lying about their product. They said that they did not believe that it was unsafe. Hmmmm.....,

These bankers are extremely smart. I could think of a whole bunch of ways to use their intelligence. For example, I might suggest that anyone earning a bonus of over ten million dollars be enrolled in a program that aid our public schools, not necessarily from a teaching perspective (although good teachers should get bonuses) but from buses to playgrounds to buildings to lunch and health programs. Our educational system is our life blood and if it fails, and it seems to be as very few people seem incapable of naming our first president, this country doesn't have a chance. These bankers and businessmen would be given generous tax credits for both time and money they lavished on a school system, but I would make it hard on them and give them the worst performing schools in the nation. It might just make a big difference.

The banks have been raked over the coals this week by Congress, a pointless exercise from my point of view. When the proscriptions to prevent economic catastrophe are eviscerated, why should anyone be surprised when those people that know how to take advantage of the situation take that advantage? If you want to get angry, get angry that they want to prevent reform, not that they knew how to take advantage of a wide open situation. That is their job.

Essentially, there is an ethical problem in a great many service businesses. Who are the businesses serving? In the auction world, they say they serve both the buyer and the seller. Who is kidding whom? What about insurance companies who are allegedly, fearful of huge settlements against doctors, who are actually controlling the costs of health care through their policies serving doctors and hospitals? Clear conflicts of interest. There are endless examples in endless industries of such conflicts.

This is the nature of the capitalist system and it can and will survive if there is a strong moral core to those people who understand the conflict of interest and because there are laws to prevent people from taking advantage of the system. Those laws are, unfortunately, necessary because the single most difficult challenge to the moral core is called short term profit. This is the dangerous side to our system and it needs to be addressed. Those bankers could be quite useful people after all. 

I finished the book on the Goldman Sachs partnership and am greatly impressed with the company. The tone of the book is a little over the top, gilding the lily as it were, but the point is that it is an extremely tightly run business. More power to them. If I have concerns about anything, it is about their understanding of toxic assets such as derivative credit swaps which undermined many of their competitors. Would it not be prudent for the banks to prevent such assets from reaching the market in the first place? In a turn around, I noticed in an article in the NY Times today that homeowners are walking away from houses that are valued at less than what they paid. The banks are crying foul. Don't they do the same thing with bad assets or is the public supposed to step in and pick up the tab?

The South Sea Bubble was Britain's first major business scandal. Set up in 1711 with an exclusive charter to develop trade with the South Seas (South America), the company actually made very little in its first years of business. However, to promote the company, shares were given to politicians and people who could "talk up" the riches of the South Seas. These people sold their shares back to the company for huge profits at no risk. It was a pre-Ponzi scheme. By late 1720 when the bubble had burst and the shares were selling for one tenth their value from the high, there was a major scandal and Robert Walpole was enlisted as England's first prime minister to re-establish confidence in the  government. 

Clearly, the removal of restrictions on banks such as the Glass-Steagall Act, has created the term "too big to fail". Goldman Sachs clearly saw the dangers in the market and acted to protect themselves. I applaud their savvy, but why were these derivative credit swaps allowed to exist in the first place. Aren't there economic models that will show just how dangerous they can be? How did Goldman Sachs know and no one else? I have to say that the antiques market has a fair number of items in it that are passed off as real which are either fakes, re-makes, improvements, etc., basically not kosher original antiques. When I wrote for "Art & Auction", I used to point out anomalies in descriptions and attributions, in essence trying to warn people that the market was more complicated than the auction houses were making it seem. Little good it did. I guess Goldman Sachs understands that as well. 

Listening to Michael Pollan being interviewed about his new book, "Food Rules", is a little bit like listening to the suicide prevention expert talking someone down off a high ledge. His straightforward delivery is soothing and elemental. He is a relentless critic of industrialized food and government subsidized monoculture which creates moutains of high fructose corn syrup that ends up in just about everything we eat. His lessons are very simple and "Food Rules" is short and might take all of an hour to read.

The English relationship to food in the 18th century was about having enough to eat which is aptly displayed in William Hogarth's painting, "The Gate of Calais" which shows a huge side of beef being delivered to the English inn on the shoreline while emaciated Frenchmen look on in envy. The French called the English, "roast-boeufs", a name the English adored. Today, 250 years later, the English countryside is dotted with "carveries" restaurants devoted to meat eaters and principally, roast beef. My own first memory of British food goes back to August of 1962 when my mother told my brother and me in Brown's Hotel restaurant, "Boys, you don't have to eat the vegetables in this country."

My sister-in-law, Susan Allport wrote a book called, "The Queen of Fats", which is about the dearth of Omega-3 fatty acids in our diets. Omega-3's are the good fatty acids which are proven to have multiple health benefits. Her and Pollan's book(s) are, I believe, the necessary forays against government subsidized agriculture which will probably never cease to be. However, if people can be encouraged to eat wisely, maybe all that high fructose corn syrup can be left to wither on the vine. 

My son gave me a book about his employer, Goldman Sachs, that details the history of that noted firm. "The Partnership" is by Charles D. Ellis and is seven hundred pages of anecdotes of the sort that my father, an executive recruiter and the man for whom the term "head hunter" was coined, used to tell me. I have a sense of nostalgia about what I am reading and I am certain he would have known many of the people mentioned in the book.

Business was different in 18th century England. There were certainly innovators who figured out how to make money (Boulton, Watt and Wedgewood to name a few) but England was not a meritocracy. Lower class people could not make a fortune no matter how hard they worked although, assuredly, some did, they just weren't noticed. Bill collecting for successful entrepreneurs such as Thomas Chippendale, was onerous, people often not paying for a year or more. Nevertheless, the entrepreneurial spirit was lit at this time and very quickly came to a flame in America.

Goldman Sachs has reaped some very bad publicity of recent, but I would say that whatever they do is extremely representative of who and what the United States as a nation is. This country knows how to work hard and when we work well we can outstrip anyone. Just think of the moon landing. Because of our abilities and our far ranging interests, the U.S. has been a major world economic driver for the last 60 years and that has angered a great many people across the world. Western society may be profligate and need reform, but at least it has the mechanisms in place to do so. Goldman Sachs, if their history is accurate, has figured this out and made a strength of that ability.

It used to be that the buses in London, after the rush was over, would have plenty of older women going to do their shopping. They would sit across from each other at the back of the bus, facing one another and yet not knowing their interlocutors and talk about the weather. It is something that doesn't happen anymore as the seat arrangement on the driver only buses is different and the lack of a conductor has somehow diminished the chit chat. I guess this is progress but I miss them.

A friend I met on the street this morning said he thought there was status in having a heated home. He even thought that status extended, at least in the minds of those people owning homes in hot places, to vacation homes where the weather was warmer. I think he has a point, particularly when you think about the power that wearing less clothes has (for younger men and women) which is not socio-economic based to the diminished power of a winterized yacht which is socio-economic based. In other words, why have the yacht if it is in mothballs when you should be showing it off?

I am skewing his reference slightly and on purpose as I know he meant the warmth one has indoors. The absence of warmth is a serious problem for those that do not have it. In medieval times, the people who had it still did not have it that much as rooms were draughty and the science of insulation was, as yet, unborn. Wearing lots of layers was understood, but hygiene was not, so being warm also meant being dirty. Medieval times must have been the golden age of the flea, louse and bedbug. I hear they are all making strong comebacks. 

Frankly, I like the winter. I know that the best way to keep warm is to keep moving which I try to do. It isn't so easy in a small apartment. I get cold when I sit in one spot for a long time so bed has a particular attraction in winter. But it is far worse being too warm and I don't really like air conditioning. It used to be that we would have two heat waves of roughly ten days to two weeks. That, like my ladies on the bus, seems to have changed. I don't mind that either--the sooner winter comes the better--but then my status is not imperiled by the cold weather, nor is my hygiene. Thank goodness for hot water!

Holiday wishes are sort of corny. Yes, you want people to enjoy themselves, take some time off and relax, but it is also a time to reflect, not so much on one's religion, but on the renewal that is necessary for all of us at some point in the year. Might as well be now as any other time as the daylight starts its annual resurgence in the northern hemisphere. But it is also a time to reconnect with people, perhaps through a gift, a card, a short note or even a phone call. I get to do it through my blog.

I would like to thank a number of people. Most recently, I went to "The Tales of Hoffman" at the Metropolitan Opera at the invitation of John Werwaiss. It was spectacular. There is Robert Morrissey of Clark Graves Antiques in St. Louis, MO who embodies the intellectual curiosity of great dealers. He recently re-dsicovered the work of Stan Masters, an American painter of skill and vision. At the other side of the state is Todd Miller of Charlecote Antiques who has given heart and soul to the Antique Dealers League. A better, kinder, gentler and more generous person would be hard to find. Gaylord Dilliingham who closed his shop this last April whose eye is magnificent and who ran a shop for close on to forty years is another open hearted and generous dealer. Michael Hughes of London embodies generosity in his dealings and in his approach to life. He also likes Halloween in San Francisco. Johnny Coulborn of Sutton Coldfield near Birmingham and Richard Coles of London are two more dealers I enjoy for their great taste, warm hearts and special feel for antiques which reminds me that the dealers I have mentioned are in the business for the love of the antiques, not for the love of business. Their good customers know the truth of that.

There are many others on my list but their omission from this list does not signal an omission in my regard. There are some extraordinary people in my business and they are worth getting to know. May they all prosper in the New Year and may many more people get turned on to the love of this field of antiques. It has a lot to offer. 

Lawmakers who say they have to vote their conscience intrigue me. What part does their conscience play in their life? Do they usually do things contrary to their conscience? Are they moral people to begin with or are they merely cogs in a political machine? And what about the people they represent? In reading about Robert George in the NY Times Sunday Magazine, I recognized someone who is willing to be my (and America's)  conscience. No thank you.

Politics in England towards the end of the 18th century are a lesson in how playing politics can backfire on you. James Fox, the prominent and talented Whig politician of a decidedly humanistic bent (he was anti-slavery and pro America) spent his political life supporting the heir apparent, a man with little moral turpitude. Getting in bed with the Prince stymied Fox's career and did not cover him with glory as the Prince thought of little but himself. You could say the two men were polar opposites. Fox put his conscience on hold to his detriment.

The dilemma that all of us face is our own moral compass. Hamlet certainly expressed this clearly and Iago made it clear that he had none. Evil, evidently, does not equivocate whereas goodness has degrees or perhaps levels. What may be good now might not be so later and vice versa. This is too equivocal for some who can site the Ten Commandments as their moral compass. But what makes a war a good one? This is a question of conscience perhaps, but whose, yours mine or someone else's?

That history holds lessons for us is undeniable. The real question is whether we want to listen to them. Clearly, the low moments of history have been foreshadowed, perhaps in a slightly altered fashion, time and again. If there truly is romance in history, it is that it repeats itself and we have the chance, as in the movie Ground Hog Day, to renew our approach to calamitous circumstances leading to calamitous consequences.

Years ago, I decided to rip saw a dogwood log. It was about ten inches in diameter and three feet long. It was work even though I was young and the saw was sharp. It made me realize the immense amount of labor that went into sawing a log into planks, let alone dressing it for use. There is a reason why single board mahogany dining table tops over thirty inches in width are so highly valued. They were valued then for their labor and they are valued now for their scarcity.

I flew into the new Montreal airport in 1973 or 74 to visit a friend. The airport was supposed to be the latest in technologically advanced airports. What I remember is the acres of what I called Rio Rosewood plywood used on almost every wall. What has happened to all that beautiful plywood now that the airport is closed? Rio Rosewood was extremely rare in England at that time and the airport's interior made me realize why. There is a lesson, perhaps more than one, in all that exuberant extravagance. 

I found myself preoccupied with Nostradamus walking to work. It might have been the photograph of the vanishing lake in Bolivia on the front of the NY Times which is an essential water source to many Bolivians. The glaciers that feed the lake are virtually gone. Global warming, I figured, may not have been part of Nostradmus' calculations concerning the end of the world, but they could have been. Our natural resources, water in particular, are vanishing. A more scary scenario need hardly be envisioned.

The boy scout motto, "Be Prepared" does have a ring to it. The naysayers of global warming should take note of it. After all, we are prepared for all sorts of eventualities that we hope will never come about, most of them wrapped up in any American Defense Department budget of the last 70 years. Most of us entreat some form of god to have mercy on us and that is certainly a defensive posture. So why not global warming as well?

In the end, almost all of us are waiting for some sort of savior, not necessarily a spiritual one, but that too. We look to our doctors, lawyers, bankers or the New York State lottery to pull us out of some kind of mess or other. Such wishful thinking may be a constituent of hope, but real hope is within ourselves. To have any success on this planet, you must know yourself which is why I segued from Nostradamus to the Delphic Oracle. You can't be prepared without it.

When Mick Jagger sang the line, "it's the singer, not the song," he may have had a point, but when it comes to art, it isn't the owner of the art that matters. It is about the art, nothing more or less. There have been collectors noted for their taste, ability and general acquisitiveness, but those aspects reveal only a facet of their lives. Art, on the other hand, is art, it doesn't change with who owns it.

But collectors, as a rule, are interesting people. They are, and this is true whether they collect milk bottles, Rembrandts or stamps or anything else for that matter, a society unto themselves. Their passion has put them into a society that has a pecking order and their behavior is, to some extent, predictable. There are big money collectors, their are shrewd collectors, there are purists, boasters, the list is endless. I would say that a majority of collectors don't see their obsession. They know its there, but they don't see it. Collecting, as much as they breathe and pump blood, is a part of them. God bless them.

Dealers have always lived outside of the collecting world. Since dealers do not hold onto things, unless it is as investment, their presence is almost like a chaperone at a teenage date. And yet collectors know that dealers find things and, if they are competent, they know how and where something should be restored. Dealers are a necessary evil who stand between object and obsession. The auction houses have tried to minimize the dealer's importance and they have had some success. But the smartest collectors know that the dealers know what they want and need to know and that they, even obsessed, can't know everything. God bless them for that as well!

Determining what is art according to what has been collected over the years, as the Frick is doing in its Center for the History of American Collecting, is extremely tricky. Almost everyone is a collector of some sort or another. Why should one person's collection of shoes, for example, be considered "art" while another's collection of bottle caps not be so considered? Is there a line that eventually gets drawn about what is collected that qualifies as art and who draws the line?

Frankly, what is considered art boils down to taste. Furniture offers a very real test of what is good taste, partly by its survival and partly by how well it was made. This is not to say that solid pieces of furniture are all in good taste, but it does mean that they have one quality by which "good" furniture is measured. But "good" does not guarantee taste. There has to be an aesthetic hook or otherwise, like all those well made Victorian wardrobes, they will be cut up and used to make something else.

Which is the point about what is good taste. The decision about what is good taste will be made by ensuing generations. The shark in formaldehyde will eventually disintegrate (as it has already once) and a new shark will be needed. How long will that maintenance continue? All things in this world require maintenance and those works of art that need a lot of it will suffer the fate of the shark if there isn't someone to foot that bill. Time, it seems, not only weeds out survivors and shapes our view of what is art, but it does so in a willy-nilly fashion. Frankly, if I had my money in a lot of conceptual art, I would dump it now. I would be worried about those ensuing generations.