Clinton Howell Antiques

The 18th century was the platform from which the Industrial Revolution took off. The impetus was the wealth of knowledge that was found about the natural world by "philosophers" whose intense interest in everything including meteorology, botany, physics or mechanics and every other natural science that you can think of was like a crusade for understanding just why the world was the way it is. Jenny Uglow's book, "The Lunar Men", is about a small group fo these philosophers in the Midlands of England and it details some of the spectacular achievements this one group had. Their group was known as the Lunar Club and icnluded such notables, at least in the decorative arts world, as Josiah Wedgwood and Matthew Boulton. These men would meet once a month, preferably when the moon was out--hence the name---so that their journey home after dark was less perilous than in pitch dark. Their efforts were tireless and many of their discoveries without reward.

Boulton in particular understood that power would be the essential ingredient to make many tasks both simpler and more effective. He helped to design an engine with Joseph Watt for a brewery that would grind wheat at a faster rate than the horse powered grinding wheels could. He had to come up with an equivalence between the two and in turn came up with the term horsepower to determine the capacity of an engine.

What was the furniture like at this time? Inevitably, as power became more attainable, custom furniture became more costly as manufacturing techniques adapted to a ready power source. Custom furniture could only become more expensive given competition that understood how to use cheap power making custom work ever more expensive. The correlation is that progress in one world does not necessarily make for progress in another.

The dining table that I talked about yesterday had a few more clues to offer. The timber of the top was quite good which isn't much of a clue, but what was even more interesting was that the underside of the top was chamfered around the edge on the pieces that were mounted on the pedestals. The leaves were not chamfered. This tells us that the overall thickness of the top was greater than the standard English three pedestal table.

What was a great help to me in figuring out the table was that I had owned a three pedestal Irish table several years ago. There was a maker of Irish tables that made them out of 7/8" timber and then added a second piece under the outside edges of the top to give the appearance that the top was actually 1 3/4" thick. This gave stability to the top and more wieight to the table overall making it less likely to move lest there was an overactive eater pouncing on their food. In any case, the the two pieces were shaped to make a double reed. The tops were inevitably made of two pieces, ie they were two board tops because the dimension of each pedestal along the length of the table was 48". It was clear to me when I measured the table that the table had been trimmed, inaccurately as it turned out which was a clue in itself, in order to make the table appear more English. Finally, I might add that the Irish tended to use very good timber in their table tops. What a pity that it had been messed with in the first place!

The decisions that I make when I buy an antique are quite simple. What makes them opaque, at least to the public at large, is the amount of experience that I can draw on when assessing something. You have to have seen a great deal before you can understand certain things. For example, I was in a sale room recently that had a nice three pedestal dining table up for auction. The table looked like your standard English table made in 1780 with a top that was three quarters of an inch thick with a moulded, reeded edge. The pedestals were almost brutishly large, but they were sturdy and quite good looking in a masculine way. However, when I walked across the room to look more closely at the table, the first thing I noticed was that the top of each pedestal was made from two boards of mahogany, what is known as a "two board" top. Most English tables from this time period would have a "one board" top, at least thirty six inches or wider. When I measured the tops of the two end pedestals, one was 44" and the other was 44 1/4". At that point, I knew not only where the table was made but just what had been done to it. Do you have any idea?

Antique furniture has suffered at the hands of people that endow it with attributes it doesn't and will never have. One that is often bruited about is that great antiques are art. I don't think so. I lookat the Carlo Bugatti secreatire on my website and it aches to be considered as art. The shell on the walnut console table is so beguilingly carved that I regret that I can't say that it is art. It is certainly exceptional craft and there is art in great craft. But somehow I expect the frisson of intellectual clarity that comes when I look at a Vermeer or a wonderful Henry Moore sculpture. There is one piece, however, that does move me in this way. It is the state bed at Houghton Hall in Norfolk, England. If you can't bring it to mind, let me refresh your memory. It is a bed with four testers--nothing unusual in that, but the headboard, if you can call it that, is a huge carved double shell covered in green Genoese silk velvet that fills the space between the bed and the testers. It is an extraordinary visual experience for anyone wanting to make the trek to Norfolk. I recommend it wholehheartedly.

Of course, furniture, particularly since the mid 19th century Arts and Crafts movement has wanted to be considered art. Mackintosh, Burgess, Hoffman, Bugatti, Gray, I know a handful of these practitioners who strove to break the word "decorative" of its pejorative power. I just hope someone is trying to do it still.

I was stuck in a Marriott Hotel the other day and was interested to find that the furniture they use for, at least this one lobby and perhaps many more, was loosely based on design of the first half of the 18th century--a sort of hybrid of French, English and Italian. Marble topped console tables were everywhere with a few bergeres for weary feet. The thought occurred to me that one of the reasons that the antique business is suffering is because of the debasement of 18th century style. The desire to make furniture that  looks like it has some gravitas has rebounded against the desire to find things that are beautiful and which evoke the spirit of age, design and beauty that antiques have. If you ponder on the subject, you will realize that there are a lot of grand houses, some say McMansions but no matter how you slice it a seven million dollar house is pretty grand, that need filling. Many of the houses are classically based and many of the occupants neither have the time, inclination or pocket book to fill them with stylish, period furniture. The result is that they buy one step up from what is in the Marriott. Any person in his right mind is not going to want to come home to what looks like an hotel and so there is a reaction against the real thing through no fault save for crappy imitations. If you don't believe me, I can relate a recent adventure where I was called to see a house full of furniture that was for sale. The house was full of antiques at least, but mediocre things, the kind of things that might be in an upscale hotel lobby. The owner professed to being "sick of brown" meaning that English mahogany furniture was boring to him. If you saw his furniture, you could see why he was sick of brown. It was, save for about five pieces, about as interesting as three week old white bread. Not even a duck would have wanted it. He had bought all the furniture in the last fifteen years and was going "moderne" that is moe-dairn should you want to know the correct pornunciation, not moe-durn. Ten to one his moderne will be about as interesting as his brown.