 There are definitely cross purposes between what a restorer is doing and what a client needs to know. Restorers, by definition, do not wish for their work to be noticed. On the pembroke table I worked on (where I made a new flap) I worked as diligently getting the underside of the flap to look old and a match to the opposite flap as I did to matching the top. The morality of trying to fool people is contradictory in this case--you would not be doing a good job if your work wasn't invisible and yet you may be fooling someone into paying for something that they think they are getting but which they aren't.. I strongly believe that restoration is part of the life of a piece of furniture and that to imagine otherwise is willful ignorance. I also believe that major restorations should be made evident to the buyer. Further, however, I will say, almost categorically, that almost all restoration will reveal itself in time, particularly on the best made furniture of an era. Restorers may think their work is definitive, but I don't ascribe to that notion.
The ethics of restoration, a slightly different point than the one above, were often talked about in the London College of Furniture. The discussion was usually focused on two aspects of what we did. The first was in doing the least possible in order not to alter originality of the piece and the second was on what constituted an over restored piece? These are both tricky questions. What do you do with a chair that has worm eaten rails and will not support people sitting in it, for example? Or, should you patch original gilding that will continue to crumble or should you strip it and re-gild? I can assure you that the questions never really stop even though, in this case, there are good answers to both.. (Call me if you are interested.) As the antiques market has cooled somewhat, the issue of value has somewhat subsided, but the moral dilemma of how much to restore will always plague all restorers.
To all my subscribers, I would like to offer tickets to either the San Francisco Fall Art and Antiques Show being held at Fort Mason from Oct.26-29. I am also doing the AADLA Fair in Wallace Hall located at St. Ignatius Loyola, located between 83rd and 84th Streets on Park Avenue, running from Oct. 27-30. I will be taking the red eye back from San Francisco in order to be at the AADLA Fair final day. Both shows should be really superb.
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