One of life's greatest pleasure, for me as great as fall morning tete-a-tete with my 91 year old mom in a Venetian cafe and solitary hikes in the remaining wilds of the bay area, are hours spent in auction houses. The local Bonham's has taken a good deal more of my money than I care to relate publicly but I've been rewarded with lovely pieces of mid-18th century furniture, silver, etchings as well as a painting or two. The flowering of the reign of the House of Hanover is gloriously celebrated in my house both by one of a kind hallmarked silver, tables, chairs, tall caseclocks, each and every piece as chic and strong 260 years on, as the day they first decorated a Georgian home, but also in stylish 20th and 21st century copies.
The discipline I exercise in collecting is simple. Once the real deal item is found, bid upon, won, shipped and set-up, the copy is removed to a bedroom or secondary sitting room. That time honored route, hall, drawing, dining room to bedroom, back parlor. attic or junior family member, play's out with good copies too. As long as the "of the style" piece is well made and still serviceable it's use is encouraged. Inexpensive has never been a bar to style. Much like a perfect literary salon, a cleverly edited and resulting delightful mix of pedigree's and provenance is a superbly effortless way of showing each in a flattering light. Think of homespun Mr. Franklin besting many an elegantly silken clad noble, his foil, both verbal and sartorial set against and within the bursting decadent splendor that was ancien regime Paris. That deliberate plain foil carried the rightness of the American rebels cause, to to the hearts of salon society restive under the never ending personal rule of Bourbons.
I'm all for, in fact rather celebrate the look of a reasonably priced, exclusive to Gump's 2007, copy of an 18th century japonesque red/gold/black tin tea table in my living room. It stands slightly to the left of a pristine Chippendale ladder back chair circa. 1787, London, both set in front of a handcrafted white damask 6 pillow sofa circa 1984, North Carolina the sofa and chair have a half dozen silk cover down filled pillows The color of the striped silk contrasts with the custom made silk tablecloth on the round end table which poodles in over abundant decadence on the floor . The resulting look is charming, expensive and unpretentious.
My love affair with Christies, Sotheby's, Bonham's, Dortheum's rooms devoted to the Hanoverian period (i.e. George One through Sailor Bill Four) is very 21st century, in that all of my bidding and the majority of time spent reviewing the pieces is done online. It's simply an unbeatable way of maintaining a pokerface and sticking to budget. The end reward of a winning bid is the glory of stewarding for future owners magnificent antiques from the triumphant age of Revolution and Empire. Stewarding for my lifetime one of kind items, handmade centuries ago by long dead artisians, sold to long gone gentry and nobles leads to a delightful guessing game of who has owned the items, what houses did they decorate, are the houses still in existence? It's a great deal of fun. It is also, relative to the purchase of a like item in antique stores, a value. The how you use it, the colors, materials, type and amount of art, is the mix up which gives a room unique spin, its timeless chic. As point of contrast, what I call barbarian design, that attempt so pathetic, a failed effort to copy the rare is vulgarity akin to calling a garden gnome a folly.
Mass produced, massive sized assaults on the worlds carbon footprint, barbarian design! Huge bad copies of "found' treasures. The utter sadness of it all. My GOD the fun of found treasures is in the hunt, mixing it up, of placing a worn Edwardian leather sofa in a room with a massive spotlight from a Hollywood sound-stage, played off a French train station sign is the story's about the journey, the find. the hagaling and the arrival. The timing, the time, the work of the hunt, the fun of discovery and the resulting triumphant feeling of having created a one of a kind look, is for me, the whole point of it. It needs to be authentic. These massive fakes, poorly made, expensive as only a fraud, or a clap free, uptown hooker at a sailor's bar would dare be, are like said hooker, attempting to roll the client. They are too deadingly dreadful to look at let alone own. The absurdity in its essence is that the real pieces are on market at same price or less. This season's current attempt at a LOOK is, now follow along, is grey beige, expensive, poorly made and as result rendered uninteresting, dreadful copies pieces found in British or Irish stately home attic's, mixed with fake left bank cafe, mixed with made lat week in Vietnam inter war European train station, mixed with, Hollywood sound stage. The real deal of those pieces would be delightful. As reference,I think of the superbly curated items recently auctioned off by Christies at The Althrop Attic sale. They were joyous in variety and age.
The saddest thing occurs when, if you happen to observe it is the sad look on crest fallen faces reading price sheets left on the barbarian design copies. Sadness? Causing sadness.in what should be frivolous fun is barbarian design's mortal sin. Ownership of this stuff, real deal or poorly made crap, is not a requirement to live a full, happy, loving life and so the empathetic let down one feels watching gay payotes covet this horribly made, poorly designed, absurdly overpriced, destined for 21st century landfills, DREK, than realizing they can't afford it, is a very sobering moment not for the weak of heart.
I suppose the drek merchants serve a purpose, they do siphon off the fools with money who might otherwise inflate bidding for the devotee's of other ages. It's the madness of buying a poorly made copy when the original is available that is so profoundly disturbing, but than barbarians and drek are a niche market unto themselves.
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