Thought you all might be interested in some high dollar fake/antique questions published in the NY Times today, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/22/garden/22hobbs.html. This guy Buggins must be a pretty good designer.
Pam
Pam
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Antique fakes
- Thread starter pampine
- Start date
dkeller_nc
Well-known member
In a way, I consider this a good thing.
Objects don't have a memory, the cachet is 100% an emotional response by the owner/dealer/collector, and the stratospheric prices that 18th and early 19th century antiques have reached in recent years are unacceptable, in my view, because it means that they are the purview of only the very wealthy.
The insistence of dealers trying to extract exhorbitant prices from clients on "orginal surface" as a measure of authenticity is a pretty good example. The "original surface" they're discussing is simply dirt, grime, deteriorated finish and chemical oxidation, all of which can be accumulated in 200 years or 1 month, depending on the application method.
If you make a colonial style tea table in your shop by period methods (i.e., hand tools), and set it beside one made 220 years ago in Philadelphia, what makes the "authentic" one worth 200 hundred thousand dollars, and the one you made a "fake" worth at most a couple of thousand? Most dealers'scholars might reply "history", but that's assinine - the Philadelphia tea table has no "history" - that's an entirely human concept that has no bearing on an inanimate object. The are both tea tables, both made with hand tools, and of the same wood.
Should you so choose, and assuming you have the knowledge to go about it, you could add the "patina" so prized by the antiques world in a couple of months, and in a manner that doesn't rely on artificial means such as aniline dyes and lye. In fact, if done correctly, the composition of the patina that is added to the new piece would be chemically and physically indistinguishable from the 220 year old antique.
This is why I shake my head at an 8 million dollar price tag for a John Goddard tea table - I would personally far rather have a superb reproduction for $12,000 by Jeffrey Greene or Alan Breed, and put the rest of the money up for a better cause. It would not surprise me in the least if it were possible to ask the original maker the same question and he gave the same answer.
Taken a bit further, consider Shaker furniture. Some of these pieces have gone for well over $200,000, when they were designed to be simple, utilitarian forms whose value was solely based on what they could do, not what they were or who made them. The original Shakers would have no doubt been APPALLED that something so honestly made and used could be marketed in such a manner. In fact, there's a short essay by one of the Shaker sisters in Christian Becksvoort's book that alludes to this idea - the sister laments that her order is most remembered for the furniture that it produced rather than their dedication to the service of God.
Objects don't have a memory, the cachet is 100% an emotional response by the owner/dealer/collector, and the stratospheric prices that 18th and early 19th century antiques have reached in recent years are unacceptable, in my view, because it means that they are the purview of only the very wealthy.
The insistence of dealers trying to extract exhorbitant prices from clients on "orginal surface" as a measure of authenticity is a pretty good example. The "original surface" they're discussing is simply dirt, grime, deteriorated finish and chemical oxidation, all of which can be accumulated in 200 years or 1 month, depending on the application method.
If you make a colonial style tea table in your shop by period methods (i.e., hand tools), and set it beside one made 220 years ago in Philadelphia, what makes the "authentic" one worth 200 hundred thousand dollars, and the one you made a "fake" worth at most a couple of thousand? Most dealers'scholars might reply "history", but that's assinine - the Philadelphia tea table has no "history" - that's an entirely human concept that has no bearing on an inanimate object. The are both tea tables, both made with hand tools, and of the same wood.
Should you so choose, and assuming you have the knowledge to go about it, you could add the "patina" so prized by the antiques world in a couple of months, and in a manner that doesn't rely on artificial means such as aniline dyes and lye. In fact, if done correctly, the composition of the patina that is added to the new piece would be chemically and physically indistinguishable from the 220 year old antique.
This is why I shake my head at an 8 million dollar price tag for a John Goddard tea table - I would personally far rather have a superb reproduction for $12,000 by Jeffrey Greene or Alan Breed, and put the rest of the money up for a better cause. It would not surprise me in the least if it were possible to ask the original maker the same question and he gave the same answer.
Taken a bit further, consider Shaker furniture. Some of these pieces have gone for well over $200,000, when they were designed to be simple, utilitarian forms whose value was solely based on what they could do, not what they were or who made them. The original Shakers would have no doubt been APPALLED that something so honestly made and used could be marketed in such a manner. In fact, there's a short essay by one of the Shaker sisters in Christian Becksvoort's book that alludes to this idea - the sister laments that her order is most remembered for the furniture that it produced rather than their dedication to the service of God.
Bob Mustain
Well-known member
I sometimes share your astonishment about prices and regret that some really classic pieces are entirely out of reach. But I think there are some other things to keep in mind. First, the market makes the prices. There has to be at least one, or actually more than one, person willing to pay a price for that to be the selling price of an object. The prices paid for objects and art works are often more about acquisitiveness and the pride of ownership (and bragging rights) than it is about the true value of an object.
And before we rant too much about the rich setting these prices, I think we need to remember that if it was not for rich customers with taste, most of these objects would never exist, in the 18th century or today. The best craftspeople today are working for wealthy clients, not the average wage earner. We should probably be happy that someone is willing to pay $8 million for an orginal Goddard piece, it makes an, almost, living wage for a current piece look more reasonable.
I do share your frustration with "original" surfaces, especially when they hide the real beauty of the pieces as they were originally intended to be seen. It seems ironic that in the fine art world restorers strip away old, discolored varnish and increase the value of the item while stripping away old varnish and dirt from a piece of American furniture diminishes the value. I've seen the Sistine Chapel ceiling both before and after it was cleaned and am very glad the cleaning was done. There should be a happy medium between the "gunk" we see here in the States and the "French polish glare" they like so much in Europe.
One final word, I read the article and find it impossible to believe the restorer did not know that his work was being sold as original and unrestored. I think pieces should be repaired and stabilized, surfaces should be cleaned, and I don't object to old wood being reused and refashioned into new objects. But the buyer should be told what is being sold. End of rant. Thanks for posting the link to the article.
And before we rant too much about the rich setting these prices, I think we need to remember that if it was not for rich customers with taste, most of these objects would never exist, in the 18th century or today. The best craftspeople today are working for wealthy clients, not the average wage earner. We should probably be happy that someone is willing to pay $8 million for an orginal Goddard piece, it makes an, almost, living wage for a current piece look more reasonable.
I do share your frustration with "original" surfaces, especially when they hide the real beauty of the pieces as they were originally intended to be seen. It seems ironic that in the fine art world restorers strip away old, discolored varnish and increase the value of the item while stripping away old varnish and dirt from a piece of American furniture diminishes the value. I've seen the Sistine Chapel ceiling both before and after it was cleaned and am very glad the cleaning was done. There should be a happy medium between the "gunk" we see here in the States and the "French polish glare" they like so much in Europe.
One final word, I read the article and find it impossible to believe the restorer did not know that his work was being sold as original and unrestored. I think pieces should be repaired and stabilized, surfaces should be cleaned, and I don't object to old wood being reused and refashioned into new objects. But the buyer should be told what is being sold. End of rant. Thanks for posting the link to the article.
dkeller_nc
Well-known member
While it is true that the 18th century furniture objects held in highest esteem today were indeed the purview of the rich in their day, there is a significant difference. There is no doubt that a fine secretary in an 18th century New England home was a status symbol, it wasn't only a status symbol - it had a purpose as an organizer and protector of books, papers, and other things that needed organizing in a day where kitchens didn't have scads of cabinets and drawers. Moreover, the 60 lbs sterling that John Goddard charged for a six-shell secretary in 18th century Newport is not the equivalent of $10 million today, which is probably a severe underestimate of what one would sell for should it come onto the market.
Tulips in 16th century Holland was one of the earliest well-documented examples of market over-heating based on status and aquisitiveness rather than cost of production - I rather strongly suspect that the high end of the American 18th century antiques market will suffer a similar fate, particularly as it becomes easier to replicate (exactly) the dirt, grime, oxidation and wear that constitutes a "patina". The one wild card here is pieces with "provenance" - thankfully, these histories are also often fabricated, which should further knock the wind out of the sales of antique dealers describing furniture brasses as "important" (how idiotic).
Don't get me wrong - it's not that I wouldn't own an early American antique - I'm writing this on a mahogany drop-leaf Sheraton pembroke table that serves as my computer desk. It's just that the price of this table 12 years ago from a deceased person's estate was far below the cost of reproducing it. And yeah, with apologies to the Antiques Roadshow and the Keno brothers, I cleaned it (and would do it again!).
And your last point is well-taken. No one that engages in reproducing never-before-seen "antique" forms out of old linen closets could possibly fail to see that they might be sold as the genuine article, particularly when done at the scale that the individual identified in the story occupied himself with over the last couple of decades. Perhaps he should have thought of that before "outing" his dealer - in the US, I suspect he'd be wearing stripes before too long.
Tulips in 16th century Holland was one of the earliest well-documented examples of market over-heating based on status and aquisitiveness rather than cost of production - I rather strongly suspect that the high end of the American 18th century antiques market will suffer a similar fate, particularly as it becomes easier to replicate (exactly) the dirt, grime, oxidation and wear that constitutes a "patina". The one wild card here is pieces with "provenance" - thankfully, these histories are also often fabricated, which should further knock the wind out of the sales of antique dealers describing furniture brasses as "important" (how idiotic).
Don't get me wrong - it's not that I wouldn't own an early American antique - I'm writing this on a mahogany drop-leaf Sheraton pembroke table that serves as my computer desk. It's just that the price of this table 12 years ago from a deceased person's estate was far below the cost of reproducing it. And yeah, with apologies to the Antiques Roadshow and the Keno brothers, I cleaned it (and would do it again!).
And your last point is well-taken. No one that engages in reproducing never-before-seen "antique" forms out of old linen closets could possibly fail to see that they might be sold as the genuine article, particularly when done at the scale that the individual identified in the story occupied himself with over the last couple of decades. Perhaps he should have thought of that before "outing" his dealer - in the US, I suspect he'd be wearing stripes before too long.
dkeller_nc
Well-known member
Pam - Indeed. It's hard to imagine the foolishness of the buyers in this circumstance. An expert examiner would very quickly uncover such a falsehood, and I'm a bit surprised that it had to be the fabricator that came out with the story. One would think that someone that's interested in paying $480,000 for a table would pay the extra $10,000 to have an expert examine it.
That said, it is quite possible, and very much within the means of, a determined individual to exactly replicate the condition and surface deposition of piece that's 200 years old, and that replication would stand up to x-ray analysis, fluorescent surface layer microscopic analysis, and many of the other scientific tools that are available and commonly used by authenticators and museums.
Even relatively simple fabrications would've succeeded were it not for the intentions of the fabricator to "show up" the antique world - the "Brewster" chair in the Henry Ford museum is a great example. The builder intentionally used a 19th-century Jennings-pattern auger bit instead of the historically accurate spoon bit so that x-ray analysis would provide easy verification of his story (as well as saving a couple of cut-offs from the chair so that the grain patterns could be exactly matched). Were it not for his intention to show that antiques could be rather easily faked, the Henry Ford museum would still have an authentic Brewster chair, one of only 2 known to exist.
That said, it is quite possible, and very much within the means of, a determined individual to exactly replicate the condition and surface deposition of piece that's 200 years old, and that replication would stand up to x-ray analysis, fluorescent surface layer microscopic analysis, and many of the other scientific tools that are available and commonly used by authenticators and museums.
Even relatively simple fabrications would've succeeded were it not for the intentions of the fabricator to "show up" the antique world - the "Brewster" chair in the Henry Ford museum is a great example. The builder intentionally used a 19th-century Jennings-pattern auger bit instead of the historically accurate spoon bit so that x-ray analysis would provide easy verification of his story (as well as saving a couple of cut-offs from the chair so that the grain patterns could be exactly matched). Were it not for his intention to show that antiques could be rather easily faked, the Henry Ford museum would still have an authentic Brewster chair, one of only 2 known to exist.
dkeller_nc
Well-known member
All - Late last week there was a discussion topic posted here on a London firm that was exposed for selling faked European pieces as genuine antiques. For whatever reason, the thread was deleted off of the SAPFM forum.
I thought it was a worthwhile topic, so I started a similar discussion on FWW's Knots forum. If you're a member, you can find it under the "General Discussion" folder under the topic "Furniture Fakes Exposed in London".
I thought it was a worthwhile topic, so I started a similar discussion on FWW's Knots forum. If you're a member, you can find it under the "General Discussion" folder under the topic "Furniture Fakes Exposed in London".
dkeller_nc
Well-known member
Ha - I'll take the hit for being an idiot (and probably on more than one account...). The FWW discussion did come up with some points that were interesting - one of which that apparently one of the Keno bros. was booted off of the Antiques Roadshow for questionable dealings - not sure if that's actually true, but if so, it's surprising.
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