The Man with the Van - The Critic October 2021

October 27, 2021

This article is taken from the October 2021 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issue for just £10.

Simon Pugh is a runner. It is a familiar term within the antiques business but one that needs some explanation outside it. After all, when my son, Vladimir, was asked at school what his father did, he replied that he was dealer. In a South London primary school that only meant one thing and it wasn’t to do with antiques.

If a runner has a piece for more than a few days he has failed and he is either stuck with it or has to return it

So I will clarify briefly that a runner is someone who runs an object from one dealer to another. Sometimes they have bought it but often they have borrowed it — as the saying goes they have it “on the elbow”.

The business of being a runner is therefore very fluid and speedy. If a runner has a piece for more than a few days he has failed and he is either stuck with it or has to return it. Feast or famine, in fact it is usually a case of a meal or famine as the margins for runners are generally very tight or they are dealing in very low values — which for our business means under £750.

As you might expect, runners function out of vans — everything is done by popping open their doors and making their pitch to the prospective buyer on the street. You have to be rhino-hide tough, because you have to be prepared for shop owners treating you with disdain, keeping you waiting and speaking superciliously. Your goods are rejected time after time until they find a home. All of this happens over a few hours. It is intense and can take its toll, but those that survive in this incandescence can do well.

Runners tend to be slender cats rather than fat ones, but they can flourish. They get to know a few favoured dealers well, to understand their taste and can rise to “preferred” supplier status. But while in the heyday of the antique trade runners abounded, we are now reduced to a few hardy survivors.

The first thing I notice about Simon Pugh, as he enters the pub where we are having lunch — the fabulous Michelin-listed Canton Arms in South Lambeth Road — is his broad cheerful smile. He is a good-looking fellow with swept back silver hair and relaxed, slightly hippyish attire.

He has had one hell of a life. He sits before me as buoyant as anything, happily married, offspring and twenty years of robust trading behind him — but his journey here has been a picaresque Odyssey. He has coped with tragedy and come through all the tempting addictive demons that modern life puts before us. As we say in this business he is in “good country house condition”.

Following adventures in punk fashion and selling jeans on the Kings Road he had a university length stint at Christies South Ken. Graduating with a huge amount of knowledge in a wide range of subjects, he turned to running.

As we say in this business he is in “good country house condition”

After many travails, including a brief stint as a Portobello Road stall holder, Simon sold showroom props to many of the fashion brands, among them, Diesel and Paul Smith. From there he has built up his business over the last 15 years and now has a regular round of dealers and decorators in London; on average he sells two or three things a week. He keeps as little stock as possible and tries to only own things for a matter of weeks.

Simon Pugh is in many ways the archetypal runner; he has led a maverick life, an office job would be an absurdity, he is constantly on the move, running to keep up with the ever-changing antiques trade. Currently he is gestating his next business idea and he has all the fire of a new man to get it going. Avuncular now at the age of 63, he wants to pass on what he has learnt and is keen to share his knowledge of furniture construction, timber and history.

He says that he has never liked the idea of acting but he is a bit of a showman. He likes to wear a sort of cowboy hat and is always positive and blithe even when having his goods rejected. In other words, he has been performing all his working life.

Poop poor Purchases The Critic August/September 2021

October 27, 2021

Poop poop purchases

Thomas Woodham-Smith goes shopping for the dealer’s friend, a whale on wheels

DEALING

Thomas Woodham-Smith

August/September 2021

This article is taken from the August/September 2021 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issue for just £10.

I often remind myself of Mr Toad. As his beautiful caravan is swept from the road he is found in the ditch uttering in a trance-like state the mantra “poop-poop!” The motor car has not only destroyed his dream but in that instant created a new one.

In art and in life I live by the philosophy that every loss is a shopping opportunity in disguise. So it is with Mr Toad — he rushes out shopping and cars are all that he desires. For me every sale I make opens up the opportunity to buy something else. I never think of banking the profit; instead I rush headlong into the next purchase.

A month ago I sold a pair of commodes I had owned for more than six years. Instead of thinking how lucky I was finally to be shot of them, I threw myself into a mad search to find something else. In place of a sensible Art Deco pair of commodes I now have some porcelain polar bears, a folding simulated bamboo settee and a grey marble elephant. The pattern is established.

My next big “poop-poop!” moment comes in October when I have to dispense with my beloved whale on wheels

My next big “poop-poop!” moment comes in October when I have to dispense with my beloved whale on wheels, the Renault Grand Espace because the ultra low emission zone (ULEZ) becomes London-wide. We have to have a petrol car or be prepared for massive daily expenses.

Since my first company car, I have loved the Saab motor company. Their big 9000s and subsequently 95s seemed to be able to take any size of chest of drawers or pair of chairs, but following the arrival of the twins — and a foolish diversion into a Subaru — I have found safe haven in the Renault.

Once a year for the antique dealers’ Swap Shop in Stow-on-the-Wold I used to rent a van, but now I clear out the seats and load up the Grand Espace. As October approaches, my potential loss is triggering a frenzied shopping project. But what should I buy?

Somehow every antique dealer has a different opinion. The most popular dealer’s car is the Mercedes estate. I don’t really understand why. I guess there is a perceived prestige to having a “Merc” and they are capacious, but they are the European taxi of choice and essentially designed to be diesel.

The next most popular cars are the Land and Range Rovers, but equally I have never seen the point. They look like you can get a lot stowed but it is an optical illusion. Pragmatists who want to come across as such eschew all obvious pretence and go for crypto-vans, the most favoured of which is the VW Transporter. They will take a good house clearance as well as the family.

Most dealers like a good and spacious car — such as a Volvo estate — but they often fall into one of two types: there are those want to show off, including a handful who drive Ferraris, and those that want to look unconventional. I have to concede my Renault falls on the side of the unconventional — apart from anything else, there aren’t that many of them left.

Without doubt the best car a dealer can secure is one that he is able to procure through a swap

Without doubt the best car a dealer can secure is one that he is able to procure through a swap. My friend Pearse in Norfolk once swapped a vanload of old stock for an extremely swish 60s sports car.

He did drive it around for a while but it smelt headily of petrol and before too long it had moved on in exchange for another vanload. Another dealer friend managed to swap a new Land Rover Discovery for a very grand George III chest of drawers. These deals mark their exponents out as real masters in the art of the deal, and they are very rare.

We are all supposed to be interested in buying and selling antiques. But no dealer I have met is without a car story. These range from explosions through lucky chances into straightforward depressing expense. I am royally entertained by these tales as I ask around for advice, but no satisfying answer to my needs emerges. And thus it looks like I will end up buying a Ford Galaxy. “Poop” flat toot “poop.”

Cool Beans - Talking Coffee with Jack Coleman (The open Art Fair Food Philes 1)

August 6, 2021

These days a cup of coffee isn’t just a cup of coffee, many like to take the experience to another level. It isn’t unusual to hear the taste and character of what for some is merely a ‘cup of Joe’ talked about as if it were a fine wine. In the world of coffee it is no longer rare or even peculiar to be talking about flavour ‘notes’, fruitiness, nuttiness, even strawberries and cream.

Back in the day there was instant coffee and coffee served from vast samovars in cafes. A tap at the bottom would supply endless indeterminate hot black liquid, described on the menu as coffee. This drink can still be found and it can be delicious in its way but it isn’t really coffee.

In days of yore, craftsmen served an apprenticeship. They provided master craftsmen with labourers for the cost of room and board. This time-honoured practice has nearly disappeared, and for many good reasons as exploitation was rife, but the experience of learning on the job rather than through books or classroom tuition is not without value.

Jack Coleman is a coffee bean roaster and retailer; very much a man of our times but in an inadvertent and idiosyncratic way steeped in the ancient apprenticeship tradition. He buys the beans, coaxes them to the perfect colour and then bags them up to go to shops, cafes and homes. Legend has it he got the bug for coffee at the age of 10 when he was living above the Monmouth Coffee House in Covent Garden. Shortly after he moved with his mother to the wilds of the Black Mountains where she, a founding partner of Neal’s Yard Dairy, set up a biodynamic farm, Fern Verrow. There he was immersed in the world of looking at produce in a detailed and holistic manner. Allowing the food to express itself rather than coercing it into some sort of spurious flavour. This attitude of nurturing without forcing is also relevant to Jack himself who has eschewed formal education for a life of physical, practical study where you learn by doing or making, not completing a course. Amazingly, though this journey began many years ago, Jack is only 34.

He started his money-earning life early. At 12, in Herefordshire, he was working in his local pub pulling pints. Perhaps his first watershed moment was serving his headmaster? He then returned to London aged 16 where he honed his barista skills back at Monmouth Coffee running their coffee stall in Borough market. But he did not just sell, he could not resist burrowing into the machine and fiddling with the temperature gauges and analysing the impact on the coffee taste. He took no notes, he just remembered, creating a taste album in his head. He decided to cross over from skilled server to manager/entrepreneur. I think this was not because he was particularly driven, it is more because he saw what was needed to make the ideal coffee and he wanted to do it. This is an artisan’s ambition. He wants excellence more than an empire. The timing could not have been better too, London had a burgeoning coffee scene springing from the influx of Antipodeans. Jack cites the Flat White in Berwick Street as being particularly influential.

From running the stall he moved to working with startup Fernandez and Wells and taking control of their coffee. His job title for them was one word - coffee. He then bought from a friend, who was living on a barge, a broken coffee roaster. He was offered it for free but he insisted on paying for it because he did not want the gift to become an obligation or worse he might have to give it back. The machine was an Austrian 1950s machine romantically named an Otto Swadlo V3; a classic of its age and a perfect machine to roast experimental 3 and 4 kg batches. Asking Jack what his secret is makes him cagey and guarded. He justifies himself by saying all roasters are like this. It is the big secret, the cunning mystery, how you reach your flavour goal. I guess, jokingly, that he sets the timer and turns the temperature to the right degrees and off he goes. He laughs darkly at my naïveté.

The Otto Swadlo V3.

Image courtesy of Coleman Coffee Roasters.

In 2010 he took the plunge of setting up on his own with a stall at the foodie paradise set under the arches at Spa Terminus and later he took on and sensitively restored a 1950s shop in Lower Marsh. Coleman Coffee Roasters was born.

Currently he is passing lockdown at his mother’s farm. We chat as he smokes a quantity of deftly constructed spindly cigarettes. His dog makes an occasional visit in front of the camera. His shop is shut and his cohort, the very charming Rakan, is quietly overseeing roasting in London; he is the only other one inducted into that precious secret. Business continues but business life is tough at the moment.

The choice of beans is interesting, he does not believe in Fair Trade for its own sake, he avows that food should taste ‘right’. This is the biodynamism speaking. His analogy is to cheese where he says a good full flavoured cheese won’t taste right if the animals and the workers are not being treated properly and fairly.

It has to be admitted at this stage that I drink Jack’s coffee. I have done so since 2014. I live for coffee and have invested in grinders and espresso machines. It is money well spent. As Jack puts it, the machine is the camera and the grinder is the lens. He only produces four coffees, a Brazil, a Guatemala, an Espresso blend of the previous two and a decaffeinated. His coffee for me tastes of coffee, freshly ground it offers up an intense aroma and my machine makes a thick coffee with a rich pale brown crema. I only drink the Brazilian, which is not at all bitter and when I drink it it seems to magically conjure up a feeling of ‘home’ or even ‘safe’. Jack manages to fashion a consistent flavour from bag to bag but he changes the supplier of the beans two to three times a year.

If you ask Jack if he would like to be considered as an artist or part of a lifestyle movement, he will say that you have missed the point. I initially assumed he would wax grandiloquent on the subject of his beans and his roast but actually he would rather not. He wants no fuss, no essay, no pretentiousness - he just wants coffee to be food and really delicious.

Only Collect - The Critic June 2021

August 6, 2021

Ihave devoted the last 30 years to antiques. I can buy them in any environment, art or design, from all periods, styles and countries. I bought a piece of furniture from a pub where I was drinking and I also bought the tables from a greasy spoon where I was having coffee.

But dealing is not just buying. It is also selling. Unfortunately, I have no equivalent obsession with selling. Objects accumulate in my storage and at home. Our shelves and rooms groan under the weight of furniture and objects. But selling does happen and I am not alone in wanting it to be easier.

We need clients and, better still, collectors

Every dealer yearns for a seamless link between an object’s arrival and departure, with not enough time to grow attached and not too long to grow depressed. We need clients and, better still, collectors. A client will make a purchase, or maybe two, and then disappears. A lovely call or email comes out of the blue and an object is winging its way somewhere else. That is appetizing, but intrinsically uncertain.

Every dealer’s dream is to nourish and develop a collector. Someone with whom you have a direct connection and who has enough room, money and understanding to be able to buy within their field but with a certain greedy gusto and a sense of needy insecurity. Someone who will buy regularly over a number of years but who will always ask you first.

I have a dealing friend who inherited his best collector from his father, handed on like a precious chalice. This is the dream, he is an American who buys when the inspiration touches him and that happens all the time.

He accumulates great things and from time to time makes a generous donation from his collection to a grateful museum; thus freeing more space for further acquisition. The commitment is that he speaks to my friend every single day, and sometimes several times.

I once had a collector of chess sets. He would come to London every three months or so to see what I had found. When something excited him he would begin to gently whistle, if interest matured to acquisitiveness he would burst into song or even do a little dance. Sadly, he does not travel anymore and is too antique for the internet. He was quite an eccentric and the American is more typical. No boon comes without its burden.

Collectors are sufficiently rare that they can sometimes be fought over. I remember a very intense time in Paris in the lobby of the Ritz. There was an American lady, a voracious collector, who always travelled with her pack of Pekingese dogs. Her habit was to choose a dealer for ten years and then trade them in. She was in transition, running in a new one, when we all bumped into each other and the dogs got into an unfeasible knot.

My boss at the time stepped in and heroically untangled the yapping hounds. His reward was broad smiles and an invitation for drinks later.

Both the best and the worst sort of collector is the one that becomes a friend

A few minutes later when the bustle had died down the new man took my boss by the scruff of the neck and pinned him to the wall, some very ungentlemanly threats were uttered, and we were all left a bit shaken. A lot was at stake for him and our seeming to muscle in was not welcome at all.

If my current best collector wants something, he needs it to happen in a blink. I sold him a chair once and he wanted me to make a copy of it. Even though this required a sequential chain of services; a chair maker, a painter, an upholsterer and a specialist fabric-maker we nearly hit the buffers over how long it took to achieve. But I embrace the impatience and the caprice because there is a more than commercial satisfaction in providing the service and overcoming the challenges, both artistic and human.

Both the best and the worst sort of collector is the one that becomes a friend. The fundamental drawback of friendship with collectors is that they slowly and inexorably cease to be customers. You begin with the enthusiasm and shared connoisseurship, then you travel, discuss and buy together and you find yourself advising, sharing or sacrificing profit. The fundamental capitalist principle goes out of the window. You end up having a lot of fun and you help build an interesting collection. But there is no commerce.

Trophy Cabinets - The Critic May 2021

August 6, 2021

Sipping a double espresso in his pine-panelled Mayfair office in Bruton Street, it is hard to think of Simon Phillips as a survivor. The big guy in English antique furniture, his shop is on two floors and if you are looking to acquire furniture this is where you come to buy the best. It won’t be cheap — there are no bargains here — but if you have deep pockets and seek trophies, this is the one-stop shop.

Before Simon joined, the business of Ronald Phillips was firmly established as one among the many art and antique dealers in Mayfair. In those days, there were numerous famous names in and around Bond Street: Mallett, Partridge, Colnaghi, The Fine Art Society, Agnews, and many more. Simon’s father ran a tidy, mainly trade, business which he had started in 1952.

If you have deep pockets and seek trophies, this is the one-stop shop

The traders were local and collegiate and they visited each other buying and selling for low margins in a convivial manner. The ensuing decades wrought a significant change to the West End. The fashion world moved in and the art and antique dealers either closed or moved off the high street. Ronald Phillips, selling the best English eighteenth century furniture, is the last one, a bloom in the desert.

At the tender age of 6, Simon went on buying trips with his father. Those long hours in the back of the car clearly sparked something because in 1979 at the age of 18 he asked if he could join the family business rather than heading off to university. His two older siblings were amazed that he sought such a fate, convinced that their father would be hard to work for, but it proved to be the ideal role for him.

Over an extended apprenticeship of nearly 20 years Simon encouraged, cajoled and even bullied his father into moving away from a dealer-focussed business in favour of working almost exclusively with private clients and museums. He recalls that his first acts on joining were to insist that his father got a second telephone, and to extract him from behind the antediluvian typewriter where he laboriously processed invoices by employing — much against his father’s wishes — a secretary.

He pushed for the firm to exhibit regularly at the Grosvenor House Antique Fair (in 2009 he was one of the founding partners of the Masterpiece fair) and to produce catalogues. These days catalogues are such a familiar marketing device that it is hard to appreciate how innovative this was — and expensive. The business has produced a hardback one every year since 1997 that currently costs around £75,000 to produce.

By 1995 Simon was already the key buyer and salesman and got together the funds to buy out control of the company from his father. Over the ensuing years, the firm of Ronald Phillips has traded its way to pre-eminence. When I ask him, Simon puts it down to working a seven-day week, buying bravely (spending a lot more money than anyone else to secure things) and meticulous cataloguing.

Though Ronald Phillips sells almost nothing made since 1820 there is a recognition of modern times and taste

But a lot of people work hard and don’t even survive in the art world. I think that Simon’s secret weapon is his ability to connect with people. He loves fine wine and restaurants and is almost obsessive about paying. He lavishes generosity on his clients and provides a support service that other dealers could not even imagine.

Close relationships besides, at the core of his business is the stock. Though Ronald Phillips sells almost nothing made since 1820 there is a recognition of modern times and taste.

Simon observes that a Chippendale tripod table is now more desirable and consequently valuable than a Chippendale bookcase; sideboards are unsellable, and satinwood furniture, once a darling of the trade, has become comparatively “worthless”. He buys great desks — “every great man needs a great desk” — and has made a speciality of spectacular mirrors.The business has not been impervious to the vicissitudes of the Covid pandemic and Simon has lately put the brakes on buying. But he still has a stock of over 1,000 items, costing somewhere significantly in excess of £10 million.

Many of his finest purchases he keeps tucked away, waiting for the perfect moment to reveal them, or for the possibility of building up sets or making pairs through cunning buying. Thinking of the future he wonders whether his teenage children will enter the business but ruefully concludes that they will more likely orientate towards art and sculpture. But one thing is certain, if he is to survive, the seven-day weeks will have to continue.

Shock of the new - The Critic April 2021

August 6, 2021

As we emerge blinking like moles into the bright light of in-person shopping, we find that it is a new world. Once again, our hair is trimmed, our bellies are full of freshly-pulled beer and in the slightly chilly spring weather we brave alfresco dining. As we survey the fallout from our year of absence it is apparent that the antique world has suffered during this period of neglect.

The normal inertia is currently replaced by a strange tension. If a customer arrives how will they behave?

Not only have the shops been shut but the art fairs have been silent. Consequently fair organisers and exhibitors are suffering too. If that wasn’t enough, foreign travel is out of the window for the moment, so they cannot travel to buy. Spread that across the canvas and you have a picture of the trade that is arguably in its worst condition ever.

Yet the boundless enthusiasm of dealers cannot be crushed and there is good news. Some trade dealers have really cracked selling on Instagram. There are dealers out there who schedule a run of photo releases for a certain time each day. They have followers who sit by their phones at the crucial hour and then send direct messages as fast as they can. Fresh goods sell in a few minutes only.

I watch a couple of these and whilst I don’t buy much, I gape slack-jawed in awe as the red dots pepper the screen. I spoke to one dealer who used to have a shop in Lewes. Now it is just storage and he spends his time photographing and measuring and lining up his Instagrams to drop at the right moment and in the right order.

Not just on the internet, but also amongst traditional shopkeepers there is a festive and positive atmosphere. The normal inertia is currently replaced by a strange tension. If a customer arrives how will they behave? Will they come in head to toe in PPE or will they insouciantly breeze in with their mouths visible?

Many shops have used the quiet time to repaint or remodel and now they have the chance to present their wares in an ideal setting.

It is early days yet in the removal of barriers. All goods now look bright, cheerful and fresh to the market. Sometimes an object will look completely different by being simply moved across the room. Now, “for a limited time only”, everything is new and exciting.

The biggest hurdle to overcome is the international one. Visitors from the USA and Europe have historically accounted for a significant proportion of business. Furthermore, those foreign nationals who have homes in England used to like to buy for them and they too are not around — many got out in the early stages of the pandemic. For the moment, the UK trade will have to survive on its domestic community. But it is not just Covid-19 which stands in the way of business revival. We are all suffering from the complexities created by Brexit.

Moving goods between the UK and Europe has become a nightmare with many transporters going out of business or simply giving up on Europe as the paperwork is Byzantine, changing and expensive. It is no longer possible for me to buy something in France and simply go and get it.

The biggest hurdle to overcome is the international one

The additional issues to do with transport particularly hit the small traders who used to buy at the big open air markets that take place every month or so. Dealers would arrive and bustle around buying sometimes 20 or 30 items, often spending only a modest sum on each item.

These would be gathered up and brought back to England, again for only a few pounds per item. The system provided stock for what is called the “decorative” end of the business.

But that has now been Brexited away. As I write a £500 object will cost £500 or more to bring to England. Stating the obvious, that object is now twice as expensive and consequently harder to justify and harder to sell.

The hope is that over time things will get simpler — maybe we can negotiate a better arrangement with Europe. But currently Covid is stopping people travelling to buy and Brexit is stopping goods travelling to be sold.

We blinking moles might be better off burrowing back under ground, or possibly we need to find a new route into the light.

Busy doing nothing - The Critic March 2021 →

August 6, 2021

My favourite Portobello Road joke goes like this: at a porcelain stall an American lady is peering very intently at a plate. The dealer, sensing a sale, tries to tempt her with a morsel of information: “It’s the famous Meissen bird pattern.” The woman nods approvingly and continues to scrutinise the plate. The dealer is sure that a sale is imminent. After a considerable wait she looks up from the plate and says, “I can see the bird, but where are the mice?”

That joke is itself an antique. I first heard it around 1990, recounted by Henry Brownrigg. From his arcade on Westbourne Grove, he dealt in Indian artefacts but he specialised in gruesome iron flagellant flails and canoe prows. Arcane, I grant you, but he had a loyal following. Some years passed and he had an almost perfect dealer’s funeral when his sister brought a few representative items of his stock to the wake and we all squabbled over who would buy what. I bought two small bronze Ganesha figures.

Clothes shops, cafes and other food outlets have, like a fungus, taken over and depleted the street

I also miss “Jim the Knife”, who sold wonderful period blades from across the centuries; the chess set specialist, Gary; and my old friend Edric who owned an arcade and lived above. On Saturdays he had an open house and we eagerly rang his bell in the expectation of coffee, lemon cake and even some shopping. His beautiful flat was adorned with solid porphyry shelves and exotic hard stone drawer handles.

That was Portobello 30 years ago and whilst clothes shops, cafes and other food outlets have, like a fungus, taken over and depleted the street, it is easy to forget that robust trade still continues. Tourists pour down the street from about 10.30am, but if you get there earlyish and you head for the handful of remaining dealing arcades you will still find interesting things.

I don’t buy silver but that market is well represented. Many moons ago I inherited some modest pieces of silver which Christie’s and Phillips told me were worthless. My then wife and I decided to have a home clear-out and we borrowed a stall for a Saturday. I sold the rejected silver before 6.30am and the rest of our junk to tourists by 1.30pm, spending the takings at an Italian restaurant around the corner.

An echo of the old Portobello remains at the Admiral Vernon Arcade

The silver dealers continue to prowl the street earlier than most. Jewellery is a stalwart of Portobello. If you are searching for classic stones and settings or for something unusual, there is plenty to look at. I am particularly fond of Pat Novissimo, who runs Lowther Antiques and has been “stalling out” in Portobello for more than 50 years.

An echo of the old Portobello remains at the Admiral Vernon Arcade. It is huge and rambling with a series of narrow corridors on both the ground floor and the basement.

In the doorway to the road sits David Levi, who epitomises the eclectic dealer of yesteryear. He is as likely to have a pair of modern plastic dice as a life-size nineteenth-century lead dog or a pair of seventeenth-century turned wooden goblets. His area is no more than a metre wide and yet he manages to preside over a precarious mountain of unpredictable treasures.

Downstairs is an Aladdin’s den where almost anything can be found. Specialists in a myriad of subjects discuss their stock, their lives and their aspirations in a loud, cheerful group. To the uninitiated it is a bit like walking into a bar in a Western. The piano stops and everyone turns round and stares, but they soon go back to their business and you can browse.

To the uninitiated it is a bit like walking into a bar in a Western

Portobello has one last secret. Parking is a nightmare anywhere in London but is particularly grim around Portobello on a Saturday. I find I can usually park in Ledbury Road and walk along. This means that when I have completed my shopping I can visit Robin Martin, which is now owned and run by Paul Martin, the son. It is one of London’s last shops dealing in continental decorative arts.

Paul has an intense addiction to eighteenth-century porcelain, gilt bronze and Boulle marquetry. Like many dealers he likes to present himself as struggling to survive and whilst it is may be truer today than ever before, he still manages to have new things to offer nearly every week. He therefore represents a very pleasant calm cup of coffee after the turbulence of a meal on Portobello.

Secrets of Portobello - The Critic February 2021

August 6, 2021

Clothes shops, cafes and other food outlets have, like a fungus, taken over and depleted the street

An echo of the old Portobello remains at the Admiral Vernon Arcade

An echo of the old Portobello remains at the Admiral Vernon Arcade. It is huge and rambling with a series of narrow corridors on both the ground floor and the basement.

To the uninitiated it is a bit like walking into a bar in a Western

Friends old and New - the Critic January 2021

August 6, 2021

Once upon a time we used to go out to dinner and see friends and even strangers. For me, those gatherings could be fraught with difficulty.

My neighbour at the table usually asks what I do. Learning that I hold body and soul together by trading in the past, they ask what I collect or whether I have a speciality. Kind questions meet with disappointing answers: I have no speciality, buying and selling objects from ancient antiquity through to the freshly made, from the Far East and from around the corner.

I keep as much as my wife can tolerate at the house

In many ways I wish I did have a speciality, but my magpie nature means I seem to accumulate rather than collect. My collection is my stock; the same misnomer is used by many others. It is an auction-house trick to dub a dealer’s stock “the so-and-so collection”, thereby transmuting what a dealer has left at the end of his or her career into a carefully chosen and curated group of pieces.

The next hurdle at dinner is the host asking if you wouldn’t mind valuing something they own. The problem here is that most people don’t have valuable things, and if you say that their beloved grandmother’s much-prized Victorian armchair, which is also in a poor state of repair, is not worth anything — even as firewood — it tends to go down badly.

Flummoxed as to what value to give, I often venture “a hundred pounds” — only to hear back later from a third party that I have said this, and then I have another Pooh trap to extricate myself from. My latest ploy has been to say I can’t do anything without my glasses and certainly not in the evening gloom. Dinner parties are tricky for us in the trade.

My own collection is like a personal lending library. I have a storage unit and I have a home. I keep as much as my wife can tolerate at the house. I enjoy swapping chairs, tables and pictures around as the mood changes or when something is sold or arrives as fresh stock.

At first, my wife could be quite shocked when a pair of chairs or our hall table disappears at a moment’s notice, and that the objects on the mantelpiece change with the moon phases, but she has got patiently used to it. There are some items that I suspect will never leave; they cost too much, or have become “old friends” as we say in the business because of their style (no one would want them whatever the price).

Whenever I buy a chair I say to myself, like a gambling addict, that this will be the last time

Many is the thing that I bought, certain I had acquired a treasure at a bargain price only to discover that what I had was both common and available widely at a fraction of what I paid. Then there are the items I bought convinced that someone would share my eccentric enthusiasm to the extent of taking them off my hands. Thus I am the owner of quite a few much-loved white elephants and overpriced doodahs.

I have a particular weakness for chairs. Whenever I buy a chair I say to myself, like a drunkard or a gambling addict, that this will be the last time. If I manage to sell a chair or two, I rush out and buy four more, persuading myself that the tide has turned.

Chairs are magical things though: they offer infinite variety in design and execution. They are crypto-human in that they sit with you and keep you company, enfolding you in their arms and supporting you on their legs — sometimes delicate and sometimes sturdy. My storage bursts with chairs that I wish I could accommodate at home, and I do from season to season.

My first boss was equally obsessed with chairs. We used to shop on Saturday mornings in the King’s Road near World’s End. Back in the 1980s there were no “design” shops — they were all antique dealers, and shops seemed to be around every corner too. My boss never liked buying single chairs; he always bought pairs or larger numbers — though never an odd number. At one time we had more than 150 chairs in stock. Back then people wanted chairs for their hallways, sitting rooms and even their dining rooms. For the most part that market has evaporated.

The current trend is for people to gather in the kitchen, sit on large squashy sofas and dine seated on modern chairs. All the chairs he bought flew off to new homes, leaving me behind with my chair addiction. Maybe one day we will sit around eating and drinking and “support bubbles” will mean something else entirely.

On Nodding terms - The critic December 2020

August 6, 2021

Being an antique dealer is a wonderful job. Every day you wake up and think about acquiring new pieces and better understanding what you have already acquired. You can visit other dealers and talk about buying, you can go online, you can telephone or email, and there are even dealers who write letters. This shopping is a great joy.

The second greatest joy is talking about things you have already sold. Some dealers seem to expound endlessly about what they have sold and how clever they were. For others it simply affords a certain quiet satisfaction. Unfortunately, to get from shopping to reminiscing, an antique dealer must go through the process of selling to customers.

My biggest problem with selling is when people don’t like your stuff

Selling is a pleasure for some. I used to work with a man who lived to sell. He did not particularly like antiques but he came alight when there was a punter to hand.

At the European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht he enjoyed a very lush dinner, entertaining us by drinking red wine, white wine and beer simultaneously, slugging from each goblet with every mouthful. He was the life and soul.

The next day he lay on the floor in the storage room at the back of our stand. I called the paramedics over and they gave him a couple of paracetamol. I have never seen anyone looking so green. One of his best customers appeared on the stand and I offered to show them round. He bounded Lazarus-like from the floor. A true salesman.

Overweight and florid of face, he was like a semi-dormant volcano. Always emotionally up and down, he erupted small burps with nearly every word he uttered; some came out and some were swallowed, but there was a constant sense that he was about to explode. His interior rumbled incessantly.

Sadly, I cannot emulate his dedication and focus. I would prefer the treasures that I buy to sell themselves. I don’t feel comfortable persuading and cajoling, but it has to be done. Some customers loved my forceful colleague, but some feared being pushed into buying something they did not want.

A couple once rang the doorbell and pressed a small games table into my hands. “We are so sorry,” they whispered, “don’t tell x that we returned it — please.” Others were useless without his advice. One client flew him to Chicago to arrange the objects on a coffee table because the cleaner had moved everything.

My biggest problem with selling is when people don’t like your stuff. I listen while people say, “That is the most hideous thing I have ever seen.” They feel not only entitled to say so, but that it is to my benefit to hear it.

Or they want to share why a table is exactly like one they have, except for a few minor details like size, material, age and design — and furthermore they bought their one for a fraction of the ridiculous price they see before them.

What can you do? Grin and bear it. The two things you hear most are “Is it antique?” and “Is it for sale?” But time and experience do give you a certain thickness of rhino hide.

A peculiarity of selling is the more people speak the less they are likely to buy, and the more they move the less they buy. No one who turns over a chair or examines the underside of a table is ever going to buy it. Those who buy don’t chat and they don’t bend down.

Often selling can be virtually silent. In San Francisco on the opening night of the fair we were reaching the end of the evening, I had enjoyed perhaps rather too many vodka shots and canapés and was yearning to head back to the hotel.

A couple approached the stand and started whispering. After what seemed an age, they asked if the pair of mirrors on the stand were still available. I replied very carefully, “yes”.

They backed away and muttered quietly for a further period, before politely asking if they could buy them. Again, carefully, I replied “yes”. The woman thanked me, gave me her card and said she would call about shipping in the morning. That was definitely the most perfect sale.

The internet has made things easier for unnatural salesmen like me, but personal contact still matters, and it can be fun with a few customers, even when they don’t buy.

Wheeling and Spieling - The Critic November 2020

August 6, 2021

There is a lot of sound in the antique world. Some might even add that there is also a lot of fury, and together they don’t signify very much. Certainly, if you rub two antique dealers together you will quickly be warm with words. Dealers have an irrepressible urge to embellish their object descriptions with endless adjectives indicating facets of specialness that distinguish their blob from the next dealer’s blob.

In addition to that noise you can add the sound of a restoration workshop. Then listen to the various delivery vans and traffic noises as art is shifted around. Perhaps if you are very lucky you can even hear the rare occasional sound of the till ringing as a sale is concluded.

When considering a chest of drawers there is the jaded old test of opening and closing the drawers

But for me, away from this hurly-burly, some of the best sounds of the antique trade are the silences. Back in the 1980s at Mallett we had a wonderful client called Sir John Gooch. He built a superb collection at his family home of Benacre Hall in Suffolk; after his death it was sadly dispersed at auction. He had a passion for gesso furniture and would come to London regularly on the hunt. The real skill of looking after Sir John was that he did not like talking and yet you had to engage him. If he really liked an object he would become totally catatonic.

As salesmen, normally we achieve success by finding the right words to move someone from admiration to the urge to own, all of which takes a mixture of jolliness and scholarship. But with Sir John you had to be silent, but not awkward or bored. Sometimes the silences lasted 10 minutes. You could not look round, or rearrange the furniture: you just had to stand still looking fascinated by the object and not lose focus.

If you succumbed to talking he would walk away — no sale. If you managed to almost hold your breath and keep concentration he would utter the magic phrase, almost inaudibly, “Thank you very much,” which was his way of saying he would buy it. He never discussed the price or hardly even asked for it. I have sold many things over the years but sales to Sir John were the most testing and the most satisfying.

When considering a chest of drawers there is the jaded old test of opening and closing the drawers. Some stick, some slide easily, but it is something people always do.

Then again there was once a pair of collectors’ cabinets, French and by the great ébéniste Molitor. We bought them from a dealer called Rossi in Milan. Their shop was a mysterious emporium as it was a block of flats and each flat had a family name on the door. Old Miss Rossi, who was very short and crumpled, took you round. The keys
were numerous and always the wrong with things, all of which were exceptional.

The difficulty was that nearly everything was not for sale. You walked round admiring and she would gratefully receive praise. At the end of the tour you would meet her brother, who was tremendously fat and always sat at a table. In five years of visits I never saw him move an inch. In sotto voce Italian they would discuss what we had admired and then Miss Rossi would lead us back to something and say we could buy x or y and give us a huge price.

However, each time there was something we thought we could afford. This time it was these cabinets. Essentially they were boxes on square legs with a door which opened to reveal two columns of shallow drawers. Opening a drawer made the most subtle of air sucking noises and the most satisfying slide you have ever encountered. One could repeat the action 100 times and nothing but a gentle susurration would you hear.

Once they were back in the London shop, every client who came by was wowed by this inaudible whisper. Eventually, they were sold. They came to a tragic end, incinerated in a huge fire at a shipper’s storage. The Rossis have gone too; their wonderful stock was all sold at Sotheby’s in London.

The last silence I want to share is one that lasts only fractions of a second but is filled with anticipation and fear. In an auction, right at the end of the lot, the auctioneer will ask the room for “any more bids”. The gavel is raised and hovers, a long look to the phones and an equally long look to the internet and then a seemingly endless look to the, probably, empty saleroom: this tense moment is always milked in order to try to extract just one more bid.

Then down it comes with a bang. It is yours. Now you have to pay for it, restore it, research and market it. But for a moment before the work starts there is a blink of pure, silent joy.

Lovely legs, madam - The critic October 2020

August 6, 2021

Many antique dealers yearn to be James Bond, not because they want to be spies and shoot people but because they want to be considered sexy. It is a peculiar thing the number of times dealers have said to me without irony, “People do say I am the James Bond of the antique trade.”

The real trouble with buying and selling a mahogany George III chest of drawers is that it is hard, nigh on impossible, to make it into a sexy experience. There are also innumerable aspects of an antique dealer’s life which are very not sexy: early-morning markets, carrying heavy furniture to a top-floor flat and back down again when the client has decided against it, VAT, getting your van serviced. All of these things James Bond does not do. But that is the dream. In Dr No, Bond’s flat is full of antiques. It wouldn’t be now, but it made an indelible imprint in dealers’ minds.

There is equally a tendency for dealers in their early sixties to wear their hair long and their shirts out, display a lush chest of grey hair, and be supported on flamboyant trainers. This is faded rock star rather than our man from MI6, but the ultimate direction of travel is the same: the dealer wants to appear gorgeous.

Another problem is the language of furniture. There are a lot of body part names: legs, arms, backs, knees. This is a notorious trap for the antique dealer. These parts can be described to potential buyers as being sexy. Cor — look at the shape of the legs on that side table — isn’t it sexy! This tendency was particularly prevalent in the 1980s, when antiques were at the apex of their popularity.

These days, when antiques are significantly less popular, the term sounds ever more ridiculous but you still hear it. The replacement vogue is to lay claim to an object’s modernity. Objects from centuries past are described as being modern or contemporary-looking. I have often succumbed to this nonsense myself.

Some dealers actually are sexy. There are people in this business who have made it their life’s work to charm and seduce. The ability to persuade people to buy a piece is not enough: they want to be personally and physically adored themselves. Then there is the sexual crackle of an Art Fair, especially abroad where the restraints are off. A lot of dealers go a bit nuts chasing and being happily chased. The confluence of dealers seems to engender a sort of crowd friskiness.

We were exhibiting at the antique show in San Francisco. After dinner we were walking back to the hotel when one of my colleagues announced that he was not very sleepy and fancied popping into town for a nightcap. We did not see him until the next day; he was looking a little the worse for wear.

The next night it was the same story, and the next. In the end I had to tell him that he should get some sleep and freshen up. He said he felt in some way he was living his dream as an antique dealer.

But there are times and moments when somehow the S-word does seem appropriate: you might even call it love. It is not always obvious, such as when a piece is exaggeratedly curvaceous or eye-wateringly expensive. It is a strange and indescribable moment when a piece is just totally perfect and at the same time unusual and rare. When you see it, you know.

Of course, tastes vary but the feeling is one that all dealers have experienced. I met a client for a drink at his New York apartment. He had a small tripod table on the coffee table in front of him. He sat admiring it with a glass of whisky in hand. As we chatted, every few minutes he would rotate the table a tiny bit.

He explained that he had bought the table a few days earlier after chasing it for nearly a year. He was trying to see if it had any flaws, an awkwardness from any angle. He had been looking at it all day. He had taken the day off work. He had yet to find a fault. You could well gasp at the pretentiousness of it. But it was desire fulfilled and, as I saw it, a love that was totally sincere.

Swap til you drop - The Critic September 2020

August 6, 2021

The best day of the dealing year comes in early September. It isn’t a day when people make a lot of money, but it is a day of trade. It takes place at the cricket ground outside Stow-on-the-Wold and it is called the Swap Shop.

The day actually begins earlier in your own storage as you peruse and evaluate those items that you have ceased to love. Every purchase begins with enthusiasm and optimism but as the years pass and the storage and restoration bills mount so in equal proportion the adoration fades — sometimes to the point of odium. You make a list of the worst offenders and then book your hotel room. On the eve of the big day you load your van or car to the gunnels and head off for the legendary pre-swap dinner and drinks.

Old friends gather and some who you only see at the Swap Shop, many pints are consumed as stories are traded and the beer is fussed over and analysed for quality and flaws.

From there a short but erratic walk to an Indian restaurant more renowned for their ever-patient staff than the cuisine. More beer, a little shouting, some off-key but heartfelt singing and some food later, we roll off to our cots.

The next day, early but not very bright, we convene in the car park of the cricket ground. Goods are unpacked and the prowl begins. Everyone walks up and down several times. After a while someone says I like x and you say what have you got, and you go over and look at their pile of rejects.

If you are lucky there is something there of charm and interest and if it looks viable you swap. The rule is that you never discuss or mention money.

Very often, either you don’t have something they want or vice versa and you need to engage in what’s called a “long swap”. This is when maybe six or seven dealers swap in turn for things they do not directly want but that they know someone else does.

It all has to happen at once and can take a good hour to tee up but a good long swap is a thing of great beauty. In the end everyone gets what they want.

There are several masters of the long swap but Tony Fell from Norfolk is most people’s idea of The Compleat Swapper. Others have skill, such as Max Rollitt or Edward Hurst, but Tony is hard to beat.

The Clarke brothers run the day and are the world experts in campaign furniture

There are some people who want to sell their things for money but they are in a minority, and they are patiently tolerated. Most people will end up swapping all or nearly all of their erstwhile loves and come home with vehicles crammed with fresh meat. Some pieces make a regular appearance but in a different van every year. The thrill of getting rid of something and acquiring a new object of affection is hard to beat. The whole event takes only a few hours: by 12.30 everyone is swapped out.

But the fun continues as lunch is provided by the Clarke family. Second-generation dealers, they run the day and are the world experts in campaign furniture. Lunch is robust, straightforward and delicious, seconds are available and there are always large slabs of local cheese to hack a chunk off. Wine is available for those in the mood and Diet Coke for the rest.

The final act for me is the legendary cricket match, while for the real hard core there is a further pub and supper event. The match is a very special treat. Avid cricketers beware. The players rarely wear white and the shoes are a long way from regulation or even safety. It is another moment for Tony Fell, who corrals everyone into teams and makes sure there are enough bats and pads to go round.

Tony’s rule is that everyone has to bowl at least two overs. Now there are some players who come with their own kit and clearly know what they are doing, but most, including yours truly, are quite atrocious. My overs are traditionally the most humiliating minutes of my year. The worst was in front of my son Inigo when I bowled a catastrophic series of wides, one of which went for four runs.

Everyone had a good laugh and I did my best to hide my tears. Inigo is a very useful sidekick at this event as he can drink beer, which I cannot, in unfeasible quantities. He can also hit a cricket ball and on this occasion made some valuable runs and took a catch.

The only comfort is that nearly everyone else is hopeless too. The winners celebrate uproariously even if their victory is by some astonishing concatenation of good luck.

It is a grand day and one that feels as if it is from another age. Long may it continue.

Closing the Books - The Critic June 2020

August 6, 2021

There is a road to Damascus moment when things either just fade away or come sharply into view. For me the internet came alive in a blinding, but depressing, flash.

I pillaged the shelves of second-hand-book shops and spent my meagre salary acquiring more and more

When I look at my art books I can trace my history in the antique trade. In the beginning I was voracious and bought any decorative arts book I could find. I pillaged the shelves of second-hand-book shops and spent a significant portion of my meagre salary acquiring more and more.

The biggest thrill was finding something illustrated that we had in the shop. It appeared to add value and prestige to the object even if the book itself was not very good. Many dealers even commissioned books on a given subject just so that their piece could be illustrated in it. When we packed for art fairs we would always gather up heaps of reference books and spend hours arranging them on the display — open, as if by chance, at the key page.

About 10 years into the business I started to find my accumulation of books to be rather a burden. Instead of buying just about anything that had loads of illustrations I started to focus on certain areas of research.

This was a very dangerous phase because I was now slipping away from the world of cheap/bargain books into the world of expensive ones. This change forced itself on me as I was perusing an auction sale catalogue and noticed an Italian lacquered commode from an American museum. It was catalogued as being pretty terrible. The decoration was all wrong and the carcass was a hybrid of two or more pieces cobbled together.

But in my venerable lacquer book this piece was illustrated and described as the archetype of Roman lacquer. I was shocked. I realised that books from the 1930s or 50s were not mini-bibles. They got things wrong, and to be as authoritative as possible one needed the latest volume.

My old book cost £1. When the new lacquer book arrived it cost £125. It was a whole new and expensive world. I became a boss rather than a minion, with minions of my own. They were more keyboard than index friendly.

Ihad known Walter for many years. He was a genius carver, specialising in musical instruments and — the now reviled — ivory. He was a raffish but rather crumbly figure with a ragged beard who invariably wore shorts. He drove a dashing but decrepit red Jaguar softtop whose rattling exhaust and uncomfortable gears gave his arrival away from quite a distance.

After a few years he invited me to his house and we would spend many a long day and many cups of tea (he didn’t drink alcohol) discussing deals he had done and glamorous women who had slipped through his fingers but cost him a fortune.

One day, he ushered me in and after a long pause told me he had terminal cancer. He had no children; there was a niece he wanted to leave everything to but she was not interested in art or antiques. We discussed how long he thought he had. He concluded by asking me to buy all his ivory including his collection of chess sets. It had been one of his specialities. He had English, Chinese, Indian and a few Islamic sets, which are fascinating because they are abstract, having to be non-figurative for obvious reasons.

I have shelves of books that I rarely open now as the keyboard and screen so often deliver a more convenient bowl of delight

He also had a wardrobe full of spare parts, which I had to buy too. He had a habit of picking fights with people which turned into feuds, and the result was that there were a few half chess sets because his enemy had the other half. I had to promise him to resolve the fights if I bought the stuff.

I found myself with an ivory workshop and about 45 chess sets. I had a thoroughly modern young man working for me called Nick and I gave him the task of cataloguing them. I had invested in what I thought were the two key texts on chess sets.

When he had finished, I asked him which book he had found the more helpful as I saw that they were both on the shelf above his desk. He looked blank. He had done all his research on the internet. He had done a great job too; my books lay untouched.

That was my Damascus moment. At home I have shelves and shelves of books that I love but rarely open now as the keyboard and screen so often deliver a more convenient bowl of delight.

Walter died only a month after I bought his stock, and I did manage to reunite most of his chess sets.

Crowded House - Lockdown working.

May 27, 2020

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/june-2020/crowded-house/

Size matters: Inches or cm?

Crowded House

Thomas Woodham-Smith juggles his work-life balance

DEALING

June 2020

Thomas Woodham-Smith

Back in the 1980s it was an accepted euphemism when members of staff announced that they would work from home.

It was understood to be a way of taking a day’s holiday without having to do it officially. Folk worked from home mainly on a Friday or a Monday. This was in the days before emails and mobile phones and consequently not being able to reach someone when they were so-called “working from home” was not anomalous or surprising.

It was understood to be a way of taking a day’s holiday without having to do it officially

My first boss would often arrive at work on Thursday wearing tweeds rather than a suit and leave shortly after lunch for the country telling us that he was going to work from home the next day. At the appropriate time of year he would have his shotgun in the back of the car. He also used another shorthand, which was when he left the office in the middle of the day to go to the bank. It took me many years to realise that his bank was a cosy wine bar in Avery Row.

Now it seems the world works from home, indeed for the last couple of months it has been compulsory. Under normal circumstances I live a hybrid life. My antique dealing I run from home and that job is predicated on going out, touring the country or abroad, roaming far and wide to find choice morsels to tease and delight existing or prospective clients.

I have no target or schedule; I just have to try and earn a living. So I am not much at home. My other life is as an Antique Fair organiser. This is run from an office with all its concomitant non-family ramifications. The peculiarity of my dealing life is that earning money is very “lumpy” — a sale can happen in a couple of minutes. Just find the right object at the right price and off you go, or it can take months of emails and photographs. So the function of the business puts one off regular hourly industry. The other life needs it. I must pay close attention to myriad functions and sources. Consequently, I have a strange push-me-pull-you approach to work.

Though it is crucial to current business the internet often does not work for me, but for some it does magnificently. I have a friend who is a successful carpet dealer based in darkest Wales. He buys and sells totally remotely, using intermediaries to collect, restore, photograph and deliver his purchases and sales. He makes a solid living and he will go many months without actually physically handling a rug. He has had 25 years of experience and he knows how to look at a photograph in the right way.

But I am not someone who can buy like that. Though it is an obvious canard, I often seem to get the measurements wrong; only too often a package arrives of minuscule proportions that I anticipated being huge.

So enforced confinement and a reliance on the internet is a bit of a liability. It can be a friend sometimes: I get emails from kind people requesting details and prices of items from my website and that can work quite well. But the random nature of the business makes a sale seem more like a lottery win than the product of hard work.

For the last two and half years I have had a further impediment to industry — the dynamic duo of chaos, Theodore and Joshua. Not only do these small boys generate mayhem but they also offer serious distractions apart from direct care. When I should be emailing someone about an object I find myself making apple and pear compote.

When I should be updating my website I clear out the nappy bin or tidy away their cars. Instead of writing my monthly newsletter I am making Bolognese sauce, for them randomly to spurn or consume with gusto. While I sit at my desk perusing auction rooms in rural France, Joshua will climb up behind me and drive his car over my head, snagging the wheels in my hair to some considerable discomfort.

Under normal circumstances they would be at nursery long enough for me to give the impression of work for around six hours a day, but given the current absence of nursery care they are my problem in the afternoon and my wife’s in the morning. I have given up taking calls, as they love the telephone and feel the need to contribute. If I move away from them to take the call they will be at each other’s throats within seconds. There is a particular truck that is an hourly battleground. I work in fits and starts, entering the world of art and antiques like an amateur.

In the square where we live there are people who sit in their cars for hours on end, sleeping, smoking and chatting, but primarily seeking solitary refuge from their home life. I have not quite resorted to that yet. I now yearn for the office and its acoustic backdrop of fingers on keyboards, like cicadas in tropical climes. I yearn for a meditative cup of coffee whilst a creative thought percolates. I dream of driving through Belgium with a car laden with potential.

Reflecting on Lockdown

May 12, 2020

The lockdown at 29 Hanover gardens has afforded me the opportunity to watch a few animation films again and again and again with my 2 1/2 year old boy twins. I could probably go on Mastermind and answer questions on the Cars trilogy, Moana or The frog and the Princess. Alongside this relentless repetition are the triumvirate of tidying, cleaning and cooking. But in contrast to our ever more gleaming home I have to admit that yours truly looks worse than ever. My wife, Esther, had a go at cutting my hair and it is now quite charmingly uneven. Neither of us feel the urge to get into ironing which means I slob about in t-shirts and as I rarely leave the house I mainly wear pyjamas and slippers. To add to the glamour I have reduced my shaving to a couple of slices a week so consequently I am quite grizzled. If you put the whole package together you will come up with someone who does not welcome or seek after long self-contemplation in the mirror. This is particularly ironic as I have quite a few mirrors and I love buying them.

If you go back in history there was a crucial moment when the mirror plate ceased to be more valuable than the frame around it. This turning point is much more recent than you might think. Mirror plate truly became available to the masses only after the mid 19th century when sheets of mirrored glass could pour out of factories. Before then a mirror had to be made from a bubble of blown glass that was flattened out and then later silvered using mercury paint. One of the curiosities of mercury is that it’s fluid nature survives metamorphosis into a paint and with very old mirror you can see where at the bottom of the plate the mercury has become thicker and sparkles brightly as it has flowed over centuries slowly down to the bottom of the plate.

The earliest mirrors very often have an over scale frame to compensate for the smallness of the mirror plate. You can see this with my Dutch bolection ebony and ebonised ripple mirrors. These extraordinary examples of lathe turning capture the spirit of the late 17th century perfectly. The smart black can conjure up the Puritans in England and the age of Rembrandt in the Low Countries. Black was the smart colour for every aspect of life. The two mirrors I have are identical in size and date but differ in their finish. One is the famous chequer board pattern and the other is a more familiar type of turning. The plainer example however retains its original bevelled mirror plate. This mirror is quite aged but is a miracle survival. The other mirror is rarer but does not retain its original glass.

It is a comfort that I cannot see myself in the early mirrors, nor can I see myself in the Queen Anne giltwood mirror. That too retains an absolutely wonderful original mirror plate. I live in South London and it is a nice thought to consider that I live a short walk from where this mirror was possibly produced. The most prestigious glass works at the time were in Vauxhall and we now tend to speak when we encounter a superb period mirror plate of it being a Vauxhall plate. We look for a really soft bevel, thin glass and a warm Mercury silvering. This giltwood mirror has it all. In addition it also benefits from its simple but rich design and its original gilding. You can nearly also tell original gilding when looking at so-called Gesso mirrors because the punch work decoration which is so distinctive of the style does not overlap. All the little punched circles are distinct from each other. This is an example of how the craftsmen of the 18th century just had more time to carry out their work than those of later eras. A slipshod approach emerges the more the time and concomitant financial pressure to complete the work is piled on.

In Italy, perhaps in Venice, in the mid 18th century the normal material for mirrors was in this case eschewed in order to create something that could be gilt wood but is in fact gilt bronze. This marvellously fluid rococo design is just delightful to roam round with the eye. There are so many delightful curves and shapes. This is a mirror I can look at myself in because I am never looking at myself I just look at the frame and revel in its shape. In addition I love looking at the nature of the gilding. A master craftsman has burnished it and the surface has been pushed into a sublime subtle ripple which flows over the surface giving it a rich lustre and glitter.

Moving on to the early 19th century I have a very unusual Regency over mantel mirror. It has a wonderful label on the back trumpeting its Norfolk makers. It is an articulated mirror that tips forward or back depending on whether you are looking to admire yourself or reflect candle light back into the room. By repute a mirror such as this one was supplied for every bedroom mantelpiece at the great Norfolk house Gunton Park. For me I am equally grateful currently that it resides at a height where it is almost impossible to admire oneself.

Not to forget the 20th century and the revival come celebration of simplicity that came via Italian design in the post war era. By the front door we have this simple circle of wood suspended from a rope. There is nothing to it except that of course it is the culmination of centuries of mirror making and it is one end of the search. It is as pared down as a design could get.