Transcript
Speaker: You have to see it, you have to feel it, you have to sit in it, and that's one of the glories of an auction.
Speaker: You can come and touch.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
Speaker: I'm your host, Ben Miller.
Speaker: This is a really exciting episode for me for two reasons.
Speaker: First, it was a live podcast event hosted by our sponsor, Freeman's Auction in Philadelphia.
Speaker: Freeman's has been a longtime supporter of Curious Objects, and I think they were as excited as I was when we came up with the idea of doing a live podcast recording at their auction house.
Speaker: They have an Americana sale happening on Tuesday, April 30th.
Speaker: If you're listening right when this is published, that's tomorrow, so get on their website.
Speaker: As you know if you've been listening to recent episodes, Freeman's is the oldest auction house in America.
Speaker: And in today's episode, you'll have the chance to hear some great stories and insights from one of their specialists.
Speaker: We'll get to that in a second.
Speaker: The second reason this is an especially exciting episode for me...
Speaker: is that I get to make an announcement.
Speaker: I am thrilled, along with the magazine Antiques, to welcome a new voice to the podcast, Michael Diaz Griffith.
Speaker: Okay, it's not a completely new voice.
Speaker: You've heard him back in January when we devoted an episode to the New Antiquarians.
Speaker: That's the group Michael and I are organizing to encourage fresh interest in old objects.
Speaker: You also heard him in August of last year when he was one of the contributors to the My Curious Object episode with his wonderful 18th century folk watercolor.
Speaker: But Michael is a dear friend of mine and an important voice in the world of antiques and decorative arts.
Speaker: In addition to the new antiquarians, he has started a promising new consultancy called Material Cult.
Speaker: He has a wonderful Instagram account at Michael Diaz Griffith.
Speaker: And I am so excited that he is officially joining Curious Objects.
Speaker: you're going to be hearing a lot more from him going forward.
Speaker: Michael joined me at Freeman's for this episode, and starting in the next episode, Michael and I are going to kick off each episode with our own conversation.
Speaker: We are going to talk about what's on our minds about art and antiques, and Michael is going to help me talk through what's exciting and intriguing about each upcoming guest and their curious object.
Speaker: I know you're going to love Michael if you don't already, and again, I'm absolutely thrilled to have him on board.
Speaker: Okay, with that said, for today, Michael and I went to Freeman's where we had a conversation in front of a live audience with Linda Cain.
Speaker: Linda is vice president of Freeman's and she heads up their American Furniture Folk and Decorative Arts Department.
Speaker: She also organized the Americana sale happening on April 30th.
Speaker: Michael and I took the chance to ask Linda about a few of her favorite objects from the sale.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Michael, why don't you pick a piece for us to start with?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I'd actually like to talk about this object right behind us.
Speaker: I think that's a great place to begin.
Speaker: Well, this is a very special piece of furniture.
Speaker: It is the Tillman family Chippendale marble top and mahogany pier table.
Speaker: For the sake of our podcast listeners, can you tell us what it looks like?
Speaker: Oh yes, yes, well it's a wonderful, it has a gray and white King of Prussia marble top that has a molded edge and it echoes the shape of a serpentine apron.
Speaker: It has four cabriol legs on ball and claw feet and each knee is carved with a beautiful acanthus leaf ornament.
Speaker: And when this came to us quite late in the property getting game, every auction we were about to go to Lotha Sale and this came from a local estate.
Speaker: So, and I recognized they sent a few pictures of the property that they were going to offer and it, you know, rings a bell.
Speaker: You've seen things before.
Speaker: So anyway, we dashed over there, we made arrangements, it came to the sale.
Speaker: And this table initially came to the public's awareness in an ad in the Antiques Magazine in 1956.
Speaker: It was David Stockwell had Wilmington, Delaware had acquired it from a Tillman family relative in in Maryland.
Speaker: I just want to note for our listeners that Linda is recounting all of this without notes.
Speaker: She does not have a genealogical tree in front of her.
Speaker: She does not have a list of auction records.
Speaker: Well, the interesting thing is, though, when something has a history like this and it has been in catalogs, you kind of take the history for granted.
Speaker: You think that someone has checked this out.
Speaker: And this is a flaw in our, this is an error in our, in mine.
Speaker: I will accept total responsibility for this.
Speaker: You should always, that awful expression, trust but verify.
Speaker: So this had been associated with Tench Tillman.
Speaker: for 60 years.
Speaker: But the history of it was that it came from Talbot County, Maryland, and from an estate heritage.
Speaker: Well, there is no estate or plantation by the name of heritage.
Speaker: But there was several plantations by the name of Hermitage.
Speaker: So I think this is a typo that just kept on going on.
Speaker: And it definitely probably is Tillman, but probably Matthew.
Speaker: There were two Matthew Tillmans who were a little older than Tench Tillman.
Speaker: and had grand houses.
Speaker: So a table like this could have been used.
Speaker: It makes much more sense that it was one of the Matthew Tillmans from Talbot or Queens County, Maryland of Philadelphia origin.
Speaker: They did a lot of business in Philadelphia.
Speaker: One of the Stillmans was married to a Lloyd family who had Philadelphia relations.
Speaker: And it's just so we've tried to correct that history.
Speaker: But so it's still a great piece.
Speaker: It's a rare piece.
Speaker: These pieces, when they were made originally, they were called...
Speaker: frames for marble slabs.
Speaker: They were only available in mahogany, not walnut.
Speaker: They were very expensive.
Speaker: They were for entertaining.
Speaker: They were to put your refreshments on your food.
Speaker: And they were often sold in pairs.
Speaker: But they're a very rare form.
Speaker: They were extremely expensive.
Speaker: So let's talk turkey.
Speaker: This was offered at Sotheby's for a telephone number.
Speaker: What are you putting it in for now?
Speaker: We have it in at $80,000 to $120,000 too.
Speaker: It's a very rare piece and it's also, you know, at auction one has to deal with consignors and one has to deal, in this case, with family members.
Speaker: And it was purchased not all that long ago by their mother.
Speaker: So we had to come into some sort of a range that is some sort of equivalent to 90,000.
Speaker: To being honest.
Speaker: We're tabulating the numbers and we understand.
Speaker: It's so interesting to me because I think there's a widespread misperception about the auction world and the world of art and antiques generally, that there is some kind of objective price or value for an object.
Speaker: But you're saying there's really more of a negotiation process.
Speaker: There is always a negotiation.
Speaker: And, you know, we all long for the great old days when you didn't have to put an estimate.
Speaker: And I think that was, I love looking at those old catalogs where it's just a description.
Speaker: But that's gone.
Speaker: When did that change?
Speaker: Oh, I think it's quite late.
Speaker: I think it's in the 80s when that comes about.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: We do have an idea.
Speaker: We do check the various auction websites.
Speaker: We do maintain records on what things bring.
Speaker: You always have something in the back of your mind.
Speaker: But it's always prudent to be conservative because you want to inspire interest in something.
Speaker: You want to inspire...
Speaker: bidding, spirited bidding.
Speaker: And it doesn't mean, an estimate doesn't determine what an item will actually bring.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: A technical question.
Speaker: So when you determined that there's no plantation called Heritage, what did you do?
Speaker: Then we publish an addendum, an agenda with our, and we've told people that are interested in the table, this is what we think now.
Speaker: This is not, I mean, it's not a fact, but I just think this is much more accurate.
Speaker: And I think, so we try to make people aware of it.
Speaker: It goes immediately online, correction, and then addenda are printed and they're offered to anyone who comes to look.
Speaker: And these things happen.
Speaker: You know, you just...
Speaker: you know, you just make, you know, auctions, you move fast, you do the best job you can, and you, but oftentimes, we, you know, you're the one who finds out these wonderful things about something, but this one, we,
Speaker: I let it go.
Speaker: You know, I just took for granted what was it.
Speaker: Well, but you then caught it.
Speaker: Well, well.
Speaker: And I think, you know, you don't spend very much time with these objects.
Speaker: It's a brief interval.
Speaker: Well, it is a brief interval.
Speaker: We don't, you know, I'd love to say we had, you know, months to deal with all these things.
Speaker: But, and we have two, I have two sales annually.
Speaker: So you have sort of six months to put.
Speaker: And you do what you can.
Speaker: I wish we were, you know, we try very hard to do the best we can.
Speaker: As a dealer, I have to hope that you miss things once in a while because that's where we might be able to make a profit.
Speaker: Well, but that's one of the glories of the internets, too.
Speaker: You know, you can't miss a lot in this era.
Speaker: So we're talking about all of the factors that are relative, like value.
Speaker: Could you talk a little bit about the features on this object that make it exceptional?
Speaker: And I might even say objectively exceptional, the carving,
Speaker: Oh, I think, well, it's just, number one, it's a rare form.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, I think when you look at something at auction, you sort of put it in context of its fellow objects or other things like it.
Speaker: Where does it fall?
Speaker: Is it the best?
Speaker: Is it the medium?
Speaker: Is it, you know, what is the condition?
Speaker: What is the, what is the history of the, you know, there are many factors.
Speaker: But this form is so rare, it's so unusual that it's hard to characterize that.
Speaker: But it is, it maintains, it seems to have its original top, which is rather rare.
Speaker: It appears to be as such.
Speaker: It has replaced glue blocks or blocks, some blocking in the base.
Speaker: It has been, I mean, it's in good shape.
Speaker: It's in good shape.
Speaker: So I think, you know, a rare form, original elements primarily.
Speaker: Well, and it fits into modern life in a seamless way.
Speaker: Can we talk about another object?
Speaker: Are we ready for that?
Speaker: Sure, sure, sure.
Speaker: Well, I have one.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: Well, we have a couple things, but I'll, let's.
Speaker: So this is a scene of Noah's Ark done in watercolor and ink by the publisher John Landis.
Speaker: And you've put it in for sale at an estimate of $5,000 to $10,000.
Speaker: He was a publisher, he ran lotteries, he went to law school, he painted.
Speaker: And the most, I think, remarkable thing is that he traveled.
Speaker: He was a world traveler.
Speaker: And he was very proud of this.
Speaker: He went several times and traveled to the Middle East.
Speaker: And I think it's so interesting when you look at this Noah's Ark, the story of Noah's Ark is as old as man and every culture has Noah's Ark.
Speaker: It's even Mesopotamian.
Speaker: It's the survival of civilization and animal life due to the horrible wrath of God or something.
Speaker: But anyway, so he is, if you look at this carefully,
Speaker: he's really been inspired I think by some of the Middle Eastern experiences that he's had.
Speaker: It's almost the character of Noah and his wife and the animals and it's an extraordinary piece.
Speaker: But he was well known in Philadelphia.
Speaker: He was a
Speaker: by all standards a religious zealot.
Speaker: He published screeds on religion and all sorts of other things, but he was an outrageous dandy.
Speaker: So he was velvet outfits and elaborate canes.
Speaker: But at the same time, always declaring himself a genius.
Speaker: But he... But anyway, he did historical portraiture that he offered to, you know, museums for $30,000.
Speaker: You know, and this is in 1840.
Speaker: I mean, he was totally... But anyway, I think this is absolutely charming.
Speaker: I want to note that the Ark looks sort of like a barn, right?
Speaker: Well, you know, it's traditional.
Speaker: I mean, you can see the arc in many, you know, engravings and medieval engravings and everything.
Speaker: And it often is sort of like that.
Speaker: But the appeal of this, the color is brilliant.
Speaker: The animals are charming.
Speaker: What are the curious figures climbing up the tree?
Speaker: Those are monkeys, but they're very much like people.
Speaker: If you look at these, they're kind of frightening.
Speaker: With very clearly defined abdomens on their backs.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Curious.
Speaker: I just think it's just so compelling.
Speaker: It's charming.
Speaker: It's a little bizarre, but it's just the color's brilliant.
Speaker: I just think it's a wonderful, wonderful piece.
Speaker: Brilliant.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Onward and upward?
Speaker: Onward and upward.
Speaker: I think that there are two objects...
Speaker: Oh, these were just fun.
Speaker: So this is actually a pair of objects, two ceramic lamps in the form of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Speaker: These are not necessarily Americana, but Americans have always been interested in British royalty and especially, I think, timely with the miniseries on Victoria and Albert.
Speaker: And these were lamps in the Gachot House, but on the back of them, they give the name of the wine merchant in London who had these made to commemorate about 1840.
Speaker: They're made, they're English made, but they're in great condition.
Speaker: They haven't been, they've been mounted as lamps, but they haven't been drilled or anything.
Speaker: And I just think that they're very, they're compelling.
Speaker: They're wonderful.
Speaker: We know who made them.
Speaker: And these probably are 1840, 1845.
Speaker: And these have a remarkably low estimate of $400 to $600.
Speaker: Just said, come and get me.
Speaker: Come and buy me.
Speaker: I have to say, I mean, they're diminutive.
Speaker: Would that not be a little insulting to Victoria and Helbert?
Speaker: No, but see, they were wine bottles.
Speaker: These are bottles.
Speaker: So you can see the holes in their heads.
Speaker: Well, that's not insulting.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: You know, in both the Noah's Ark picture and in these lamps, I think there's a kind of global history enfolded in an American story.
Speaker: And I think that's an important thing to remind ourselves about.
Speaker: You know, an Americana sale isn't, quote, just about...
Speaker: American makers, objects that were produced here.
Speaker: Almost everything in this room bears a relationship to Europe, to England, to the Middle East.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Well, so much of, you know, furniture is based on pattern books that came from England that were inspired by.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely true.
Speaker: Absolutely true.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: So we've looked at three objects that are each one of a kind.
Speaker: And each of them is in good condition.
Speaker: And each of them tells a very interesting story.
Speaker: And one of them seems to be worth somewhere in the range of six figures.
Speaker: And one of them seems to be worth somewhere in the range of five figures.
Speaker: And one of them seems to be worth somewhere in the range of three figures.
Speaker: So as someone who comes to Freeman's and looks around the showroom is thinking about what might be interesting to me, what might be worth looking at, what might be worth paying attention to and bidding on and buying and owning.
Speaker: How do I decide where to put my efforts?
Speaker: How do I find what's going to speak to me?
Speaker: You have to see it.
Speaker: You have to feel it.
Speaker: You have to sit in it.
Speaker: And that's one of the glories of an auction.
Speaker: You can come and touch and turn it over, and we'll assist you in that, and we'll do condition reports, and we do condition reports.
Speaker: and send photographs.
Speaker: So that's what auction houses do.
Speaker: I mean, we're here to do the best we can for our consigner.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That is our goal, and we tried it very hard here, and I think you can see by the display that we want to set things off to their best advantage.
Speaker: So that's what our goal is.
Speaker: Do you have any advice for younger collectors or would-be collectors who might be attending tonight's event and looking at the objects, thinking about how to begin collecting?
Speaker: Oh, I think so.
Speaker: Again, ask questions.
Speaker: Look at things.
Speaker: I think so many, we were speaking earlier, how many early American things look fabulous in a contemporary setting, if that's what one likes.
Speaker: A great wing chair, a great pair of Windsors against a contemporary, a white wall with contemporary setting, a great quilt.
Speaker: These are modern arrangements.
Speaker: They're modern, you know, almost...
Speaker: I just think people should, you have to learn, you have to be aware, and I think that's one of the sad things about our time, and I eagerly look at the design magazine every time it's published in the New York Times.
Speaker: And I love to see there's more and more of the eclectic rooms are coming back.
Speaker: Certainly.
Speaker: So I just think it's exposure.
Speaker: When this building was built and when magazine antiques was established in the 1920s, antiques, American antiques, were everywhere.
Speaker: You know, important exhibitions, antique dealers that were established started selling Americana.
Speaker: There was just, there was this great, there was, you know, academia, there was interest in folk and all these things.
Speaker: And it has to be, it's got to start again.
Speaker: We're almost 100 years, so I think we're getting there.
Speaker: It's time for the pendulum to swing back toward us.
Speaker: Yes, the cyclical view of history.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And we're confident that it is doing so even now.
Speaker: I think Michael and I are very confident about that.
Speaker: And on that note, I want to turn a question to you, Michael.
Speaker: We have spent a little bit of time walking around the show floor and looking at the sale catalog.
Speaker: There's an enormous range of material here.
Speaker: And you and I are interested in antiques and art and design.
Speaker: There are certain things we collect, but we are by no means experts in much of the material that's on display here.
Speaker: So give me your amateur eye, your amateur perspective.
Speaker: Happily.
Speaker: As you walk around the floor here, how do you approach an object and how do you relate to it?
Speaker: What's your entry point?
Speaker: Because sometimes it can be intimidating to approach an object when you don't have Linda standing next to you.
Speaker: I would prefer to have Linda by my side.
Speaker: That's so sweet.
Speaker: I do two things.
Speaker: I try to look at the very best examples, at the objects that are agreed upon as best examples.
Speaker: Established.
Speaker: Established examples.
Speaker: To learn from them, to understand the sort of traditional standards of good, better, best.
Speaker: I want to know what fits into those categories so that there are some parameters around my looking.
Speaker: And I love looking at, you know, this table and understanding its history, the craftsmanship that produced it and where it exists in the market today.
Speaker: All of that is important.
Speaker: When I walk into this room, I'm also looking for objects that I can collect.
Speaker: That means I'm looking at objects that are estimated in the hundreds of dollars, not the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Speaker: And as someone with a very eclectic sensibility, I, right now, am looking at quilts and works on paper.
Speaker: And I've spoken to you, Ben, about works on paper on curious objects.
Speaker: I love watercolors.
Speaker: So do I.
Speaker: I love them.
Speaker: And I think that they're so expressive, you can really feel not just the hand of the artist as an oil painting, but something about the spirit or the character of the artist.
Speaker: They're fresher.
Speaker: They're fresh.
Speaker: and unmediated by... You can't overwork it.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: And so there are two lots here that contain, I think, four or five works on paper each.
Speaker: I think those are a fabulous find because you may only be drawn initially to one of the objects in that lot, and you may get three or four surprises or things that you weren't going after.
Speaker: And then you have a little family of objects...
Speaker: and you know maybe only one of them is an object that you're seriously interested in keeping you could give the other ones as gifts you could you could you could create a grouping that just looks great as a grouping and I'm interested in how you know we as young collectors can build can begin building collections that kind of fill our spaces and fill our lives with
Speaker: interest, character, the histories that these objects can contain, even while we're saving up to begin collecting some of the objects at the best level.
Speaker: And I really do think, I've said this before, that we're exiting the minimalist phase.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think you're very wise to be looking at the design magazines to see what is going to be popular among those who care about such things.
Speaker: The interiors that are in vogue today are full of color and pattern.
Speaker: Younger people, I think, love narrative.
Speaker: They love the kinds of stories that you tell, Linda.
Speaker: And we're in a room surrounded by all of those things.
Speaker: I want to turn to the audience for some questions now before we turn ourselves loose on the wine and cheese in the showroom.
Speaker: If anyone is interested in asking a question, Sammy here has a mic so that we can capture you for the podcast.
Speaker: If you don't mind having your voice preserved for eternity on the Internet.
Speaker: It's sort of a trick question.
Speaker: What would be your dream consignment?
Speaker: Oh, boy.
Speaker: Oh, I should be able to answer this.
Speaker: My dream can sign one.
Speaker: You can have two.
Speaker: Well, there are a couple of museum storages I'd like to sell.
Speaker: I've been in a few of those.
Speaker: Hard to argue with that.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Any other questions from the audience?
Speaker: perhaps about material that you collect that may be represented in this room?
Speaker: Any... We could do an antiques roadshow set up right here.
Speaker: I was curious that you said the table, how do we identify this table, the table of this auction, that it
Speaker: these tables were often done in pairs.
Speaker: They were done in pairs, yeah.
Speaker: And I was wondering what you think the prospects are that this might have been one of a pair.
Speaker: Well, I think it could have been.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: They were often offered in pairs, as were card tables.
Speaker: You often got two card tables because I suppose if you were entertaining, you had a group, you might like two.
Speaker: I think there's a possibility it may have been.
Speaker: We don't know that.
Speaker: I just think that we know that they sometimes were and that they were used in pairs in grand houses elsewhere in England and things like that.
Speaker: To maintain classical order in those symmetrical rooms.
Speaker: Yeah, and...
Speaker: And if there were a pair to it, of course, it could have been lost over time.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Or the provenance could have been forgotten.
Speaker: Or just, yeah, or destroyed in some way.
Speaker: Or, you know, many times things are split up, you know, in descendants.
Speaker: We often find that with sets of chairs.
Speaker: You know, they give, I've never understood, you know, there might have been a huge set of chairs and they give each person three chairs or something.
Speaker: So it's all so odd, you know.
Speaker: Equally useless to everyone.
Speaker: Yeah, it's such a curious thing.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Anyone else or shall we run to the bar?
Speaker: I think we have.
Speaker: We've got a couple more.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I think that maybe the sort of epiphany of Philadelphia furniture might be the Cadwallader furniture.
Speaker: Do you think there's, I know that some of the pieces have interesting stories, came from Ireland, found in Ireland.
Speaker: Do you think there's any more pieces out there?
Speaker: I bet there are.
Speaker: And that, I'm glad you brought that up because I totally forgot that in the past that was my dream consignment, finding a chair, Cadwallader chair, or one of the lost sofas.
Speaker: I'm glad you brought that up.
Speaker: They don't know.
Speaker: I think, you know, who knows?
Speaker: I mean, they have shown up.
Speaker: Never say never.
Speaker: You know, I think that you always think we've seen the last of something and then something appears.
Speaker: So I think there's a good chance.
Speaker: I think there's a very good chance.
Speaker: So with something extraordinary like that, you know, it'd be tough to just throw it out in the ash bin or, you know, just destroy it.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: So if you think you have a Cadwallader sofa out there, call Linda Cain.
Speaker: Give us a ring.
Speaker: Give us a ring.
Speaker: Any more questions?
Speaker: No?
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, thank you, everyone.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you so much to you, Linda, for guiding us through this.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you, everyone.
Speaker: That wraps up today's live episode from Freeman's Auction in Center City, Philadelphia.
Speaker: Go to freemansauction.com to explore and bid.
Speaker: And remember, the sale is happening tomorrow, so don't wait.
Speaker: Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker: As always, you can reach me with questions, comments, or suggestions at podcast at themagazineantiques.com or on Instagram at Objective Interest.
Speaker: And you can help me out by giving the podcast a rating and review.
Speaker: Today's episode is produced and edited by Sammy Delati.
Speaker: Our music is by Trap Rabbit.
Speaker: Michael Diaz-Griffith is our co-host.
Speaker: And I'm your host, Ben Miller.
