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I was asked to write a short essay on being a dealer as a my contribution to the AADLA "League Journal" (herewith, https://issuu.com/kapoorgalleries/docs/aadla_issue_01_051524) which (if you would like to receive it please let me know and I will put you on the list) had me scratching my head for ideas--how to see what I see so that everyone else can see it as well. Basically, it is what every writer tries to do in their work, but this is a little different. English furniture is a specialization--I'm not talking about something that is newsworthy, I'm trying to gin up interest in seeing what you think you know in a different way. The problem is, as everyone knows, furniture from the 18th century was made of wood--big deal, what else is new? Furthermore, it's brown and if you say brown in a particular fashion, you can make it sound quite unsavory. I've heard that a thousand times.
Like the sapphire case, Hublot, "Unico" camo watch I referenced in a recent blog, however, a great many 18th century pieces of furniture have a story attached to them. Some of those stories are more interesting than others. I have tried to tell a few over the years that I have written this blog, but without, at the least, detailed photos, or even better, the piece sitting in front of you, those stories can be hard to follow. Furthermore, the familiarity that I have with different grades of mahogany, for example, is meaningless in the telling without multiple pieces in front of you to touch, heft and learn about. (This is the least satisfying part about the museum experience--I would love to be able to show the wide variety of mahoganies, and other woods, that were used in the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. You would be amazed.) Craftsmanship is equally hard to judge if you have never looked for how good it can be. These aspects are part of the story, just not the whole story, as there is often a lot more to tell.
My essay, therefore, focused on a piece that I owned with another dealer (and sold) by Thomas Chippendale, made for Paxton House a Scottish house on the border of England. (It's back at Paxton as the dealer, Yew Tree House Antiques, and I gave them a phenomenal deal.) This is a short recap of what I wrote in case you don't turn to the Journal. Chippendale is a notable name, but I suspect few people understand that Chippendale is famous not so much for his furniture, which is exceptional--there are a number of makers who created extraordinary furniture in the same era (and before and after) as Chippendale, so the quality he worked to is just one aspect of what makes his name great. We know so much about Chippendale because of the extraordinary work of the former Keeper of Temple Newsam Museum near Leeds, Christopher Gilbert and his two volume work on the man and his business. Chippendale was a very popular maker, despite never making anything for the monarchy. It is his design books, three of them spaced over roughly ten years, that continue to amaze us. Design books were not uncommon, but Chippendale had subscribers, enabling those subscribers to go to a local maker to get what they wanted made. In essence it is a pattern book and sales catalogue all in one. Chippendale's inherent understanding that a catalogue of designs could encourage his business was a leap of faith, no less than the one Sears Roebuck made with their mail order catalogues in the early 20th century. Only Chippendale did it in 1752. In my opinion, that's a great story.
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