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Michael Pashby: Secret History of the Windsor Chair
134 Plays8 years ago
The two-hundred-year story you've never heard behind the world's most recognizable chair.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Guest
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to the very first episode of Curious Objects and the Stories Behind Them, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:00:16
Speaker
I'm your host, Ben Miller, and today I'm talking with a New York City dealer named Michael Pashby.
00:00:22
Speaker
Michael handles superb English furniture, but we're speaking about a piece with humble connotations, a Windsor chair,
00:00:29
Speaker
made by a company that I've come to think of as the IKEA of the 18th century.
00:00:33
Speaker
I don't mean the quality, but their vertical integration of materials, manufacturing, and distribution.
00:00:39
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So it's a really interesting slice of history.
Exploring the Windsor Chair's History
00:00:42
Speaker
And Michael is a true connoisseur, and he taught me a lot I didn't know about the complexity of this seemingly simple form.
00:00:48
Speaker
If you'd like to see a picture of the chair, I encourage you to visit themagazineantiques.com, where you'll find images and links.
00:00:55
Speaker
Now, this is a new podcast and I'm counting on your feedback to make it better.
00:01:00
Speaker
So if you have suggestions for guests or comments on an episode or anything else you'd like to say, please send an email to podcast at themagazineantiques.com.
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Speaker
I will read your email and I will do my best to respond.
00:01:12
Speaker
I really appreciate it.
00:01:14
Speaker
Finally, it will really help me to get the word out and share stories like this with more people if you leave a rating on iTunes or whatever app you're using to listen.
00:01:23
Speaker
Okay, let's get started.
00:01:29
Speaker
Michael Paschby, thanks for joining me.
00:01:31
Speaker
My pleasure.
00:01:32
Speaker
We are here to talk about a chair.
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Speaker
We are, and it's a very simple chair, and it's commonly called a Windsor chair.
00:01:41
Speaker
And it's a very simple one, but it has a very interesting story behind it.
00:01:45
Speaker
And for the benefit of our listeners who unfortunately can't see us through this microphone, could you give a physical description of that chair?
00:01:53
Speaker
Well, it's what one would normally understand as a Windsor chair.
00:01:56
Speaker
It's got four legs, obviously, but these are particularly well-splayed legs, so it gives it...
00:02:02
Speaker
stability.
00:02:03
Speaker
It has spindles to the back, a hooped back, a curved arm, a flat curved seat, shaped seat, and it's got a very interesting stretcher to the base, which is a very shallow curve to the stretcher with supports going to the rear legs.
00:02:22
Speaker
And all of the legs have got very, very fine turning to them.
00:02:26
Speaker
So it's a standard Windsor chair.
00:02:29
Speaker
Windsor chair is a very interesting thing because most of them are not from Windsor.
00:02:33
Speaker
This type of chair was made in the area of the Thames Valley.
00:02:37
Speaker
The market town of the Thames Valley was Windsor and chairs were moved to other parts of the country through the market town and because it was on the Thames they could be shipped to any part of London or elsewhere in the country.
00:02:52
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So the name Windsor actually relates to their commercial distribution rather than the actual point of origin.
00:02:57
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And I think people at the time said, oh, the chair's from Windsor.
Materials and Quality of Windsor Chairs
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And over time, chairs which were made in Wales or in the north of England all became known because of the distinctive...
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look at these chairs, they all became known as Windsor chairs.
00:03:12
Speaker
But this one is made of indigenous woods.
00:03:14
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It's made of beech, ash, primarily of ash.
00:03:18
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And ash was a very good wood to be steamed and turned.
00:03:22
Speaker
And the seat is, interestingly, is of sycamore.
00:03:26
Speaker
Which would indicate that the chair actually had been painted at some stage.
00:03:30
Speaker
Because if it was a much higher quality piece, it would have either been elm to the seat or cherry, something that was more expensive.
The Gillows Company's Influence
00:03:39
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Now, what's interesting about this chair is it's made by Gillows.
00:03:43
Speaker
Right, and this is a firm that you collect a variety of objects from, is that right?
00:03:47
Speaker
Correct.
00:03:48
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I mean, some years ago I became interested in Gillows because I'd seen so much of their furniture and it was of such high quality and yet
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No one really knew or understood them.
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They weren't a household name as the Chipmendale, Sheraton, Mayhew and Inc.
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Any of those major makers were.
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And I was looking into it.
00:04:11
Speaker
Why doesn't this company have more of a profile?
00:04:14
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You know, it's really quite interesting.
00:04:15
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First is because they were very, very protective of the things that they made.
00:04:21
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And other companies, like Chippendale, for instance, published many books of his designs.
00:04:26
Speaker
Sure, books that are still used by carpenters today.
00:04:29
Speaker
Books that are still used.
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And most of the furniture makers who are so well-known today are well-known because of their publications.
00:04:37
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Gillow's never published a thing.
00:04:38
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And was that to protect their trade secrets, do you think?
00:04:41
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I think it was.
00:04:42
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I mean, they're a fascinating company.
00:04:44
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When I started to look into them, they were a company that started around 1730.
00:04:48
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And it was interesting because they were Catholics.
00:04:52
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The Gillows family were Catholics.
00:04:54
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And if you remember back in the... If you remember.
00:04:56
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If you think back to those times... I remember, of course.
00:04:59
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Of course you do.
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You know, Catholics were not the most popular people in England.
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There was the insurrection, trying to put the jackpots back on the throne.
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So they weren't the most popular people in England.
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To say the least.
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To say the least.
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However, they were from the north of England, up in Lancaster, the way north of England.
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And they did have a form of the Catholic nobility and the Catholic gentry.
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in the north of England and they made a very good business being patronized by fellow Catholics.
00:05:29
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And they also developed what I would say was probably one of the first totally integrated multinational companies in producing their furniture.
00:05:39
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Really?
00:05:40
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They bought the woods in South America for the fine furniture they were using.
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They owned the ships that went out to harvest the woods in South America.
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They brought them back.
00:05:51
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They had designers on their staff.
00:05:53
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They had the factories making the furniture.
00:05:56
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They had decorators and upholsterers.
00:05:58
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They controlled every part of the installation of the furniture.
00:06:03
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We're talking about a very large operation then.
00:06:05
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It grew into a very large operation.
00:06:07
Speaker
As things politically in England calmed down and they became more prominent, they started a huge shop in London and they began stamping their furniture.
00:06:18
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It was a very rare thing to do in England to stamp furniture or even label
Furniture Stamping and Payment Practices
00:06:22
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furniture.
00:06:22
Speaker
They stamped Gillows Lancaster on some of their furniture.
00:06:27
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Can I pause you here and ask about the practice of stamping furniture?
00:06:32
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In many of the decorative arts, artisans like to take credit for their work, put their mark on pieces.
00:06:38
Speaker
Of course, in silver, which is my field, that was legally required.
00:06:41
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That was legally required.
00:06:42
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But why would a firm like Chippendale not want to mark their pieces?
00:06:46
Speaker
Wouldn't that be free advertising for them?
00:06:48
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It would be free advertising, but they didn't.
00:06:52
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Some people did put their trade labels on furniture, but there was Gillers and then later on Holland & Son, who was another maker, but more into the 19th century.
00:07:04
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They stemmed their furniture as well.
00:07:05
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There's a very rare thing in England.
00:07:07
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It was common, obviously, in France.
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You had to stamp your furniture in France.
00:07:11
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What you do see in England, and particularly on Gillard's furniture as well, is you see sometimes initials stamped on there.
00:07:18
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And the initials were nothing to do with the fact that it was made by Gillard.
00:07:21
Speaker
Those were the journeymen stamping their own initials on the furniture.
Gillows' Caribbean Strategy and American Market
00:07:26
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And the reason they did that was Gillows became such a huge enterprise that they employed piece workers all over the country to make things.
00:07:35
Speaker
They would supply drawings for them to follow and the peacemakers would make the work.
00:07:41
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They stamp their work so they could get paid for it.
00:07:44
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Ah, interesting.
00:07:45
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Yes.
00:07:45
Speaker
So that was almost like turning in your pay stub.
00:07:48
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Exactly right.
00:07:49
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So they could say, well, six pieces came from this person.
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We know how much we owe them.
00:08:00
Speaker
Curious Objects is brought to you by S.J.
00:08:02
Speaker
Shrubsole, dealers in antique silver and jewelry in New York.
00:08:05
Speaker
Where else can you buy a spoon that belonged to George Washington, Prince Albert's prized silver greyhound statue, and a precious necklace by the famed Giuliano?
00:08:12
Speaker
Shrubsole.com.
00:08:13
Speaker
That's S-H-R-U-B-S-O-L-E dot com.
00:08:24
Speaker
And so is this Windsor chair stamped?
00:08:26
Speaker
This Windsor chair is not.
00:08:28
Speaker
Going back to Gillows, Gillows stayed in the family.
00:08:31
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It was in the Gillows family until the Regency period, around 1815, 1816, at which time they sold it to the managers of the company.
00:08:41
Speaker
The family sold it to the managers of the company.
00:08:43
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And it continued in production until late in the 19th century, about 1895.
00:08:48
Speaker
Really?
00:08:48
Speaker
At which point it was a 150-year-old company.
00:08:52
Speaker
It was a 150-year-old company, yes, or more, at which time it had declined and it was taken over by its competitor, who was called Waring.
00:09:00
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From that time on, they made reproduction furniture of prior periods.
00:09:06
Speaker
Reproducing things that had previously been made by the same company.
00:09:10
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Correct.
00:09:10
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You see this with Stickley, for example, in modern times.
00:09:13
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Exactly right.
00:09:15
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Unfortunately, Waring and Gillows set up furniture retailers in every town in England.
00:09:21
Speaker
And it was medium quality furniture for the middle class.
00:09:26
Speaker
And so when people saw the name Gillows, they didn't think of it as fine furniture at that time.
00:09:31
Speaker
And so it was not particularly popular to buy Gillows furniture, even if it was 200 years old.
00:09:37
Speaker
When Waring Gillows finally went out of business, which was in the mid-50s, what was discovered was a trove of records.
00:09:45
Speaker
They kept records of everything, all of their customers, all of their invoices, all of the designs they made, vast inventory of designers.
00:09:54
Speaker
Well, historians are now, there have been a number of books published recently about the Gillows' history and furniture and design, and there's still a lot more work to be done.
00:10:03
Speaker
But this chair, an exact design for this chair, there are two designs for this chair that were found in the archives, one for about 1796 and one for, I think, 1805, 1806.
00:10:12
Speaker
No one outside of Gillows has published
00:10:20
Speaker
or has produced chairs of this particular shape, this particular design.
00:10:25
Speaker
Hence the attribution.
00:10:26
Speaker
Hence the attribution.
00:10:27
Speaker
And what's fascinating about it, when you go over it, it's got a sycamore seed, which means it must have been either painted or stained initially, because it's not an expensive piece of wood, and so it would need to have been painted at the time.
00:10:42
Speaker
If you were making a chair that was of fine quality wood, you would use an elm seed at least.
00:10:48
Speaker
And you would have had maybe elm in there, oak in there, beech to the, maybe beech to the legs.
00:10:55
Speaker
And it would have aged in a different way.
00:10:57
Speaker
What we have found out since doing some research on these is that Gillows, because they were such a entrepreneurial type of company, when you're sending ships to the Caribbean to buy wood, you don't want to send an empty ship to the Caribbean.
00:11:10
Speaker
You're sending things to the Caribbean.
Antique Furniture's Unique Stories
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Speaker
that ship unloading and then bringing the wood back.
00:11:15
Speaker
What Gillows did was they shipped furniture.
00:11:17
Speaker
They were a major supplier to South America and North America through the Caribbean.
00:11:23
Speaker
Gillows used their bases in the Caribbean, mainly in, I believe, in Jamaica.
00:11:27
Speaker
And there are invoices in their records showing that they sent a lot of Windsor chairs to the Caribbean.
00:11:36
Speaker
Now, when they sent those rather sensibly, they didn't send them as chairs.
00:11:40
Speaker
They sent them in component pieces.
00:11:42
Speaker
They had the pieces turned.
00:11:44
Speaker
They didn't paint them because if you painted it, it would get chipped.
00:11:48
Speaker
They sent them down, and the furniture was like the old IKEA then, I suppose.
00:11:52
Speaker
They were sent down and they were assembled in the Caribbean and then they used agents in South America and the southern states to sell the furniture on.
00:12:01
Speaker
What I find interesting is that when these would have been painted, either they would have been stained or they would have been painted in green or some other color, red, white.
00:12:11
Speaker
And one must assume that plenty of these can be found somewhere in America.
00:12:16
Speaker
They haven't been, because I don't think people know that these chairs are here, and they must be assumed.
00:12:22
Speaker
Because of their rather odd shape as well, they may well be assumed to be American... American-made.
00:12:29
Speaker
American-made.
00:12:29
Speaker
Interesting.
00:12:30
Speaker
Particularly if they are painted, because people wouldn't necessarily look at the woods, they look at the paint.
00:12:37
Speaker
And they may have been painted in the US or in, I mean, they supplied Argentina, they supplied a load of the place down there.
00:12:44
Speaker
That's so interesting.
00:12:45
Speaker
You know, of course, we have a similar problem sometimes in silver when unmarked English pieces are thought to have been made by American silvers.
00:12:53
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:12:53
Speaker
Which in many cases would seem to make them a lot more valuable.
00:12:57
Speaker
So there's a certain motivated reasoning for collectors to want their unmarked silver to be American rather than English.
00:13:04
Speaker
I like talking about this chair because it is a Windsor chair, which is, you know, a middle class piece of furniture is not an important piece of furniture.
00:13:13
Speaker
So no one is going to look at it with any great eye generally and try to work out all the history of it.
00:13:20
Speaker
Right.
00:13:20
Speaker
No, this was the Ikea of the 1790s.
00:13:22
Speaker
It was the Ikea of the 1790s.
00:13:23
Speaker
And it was also a normal piece of furniture.
00:13:26
Speaker
It was just, and would people have kept these?
00:13:29
Speaker
Probably not.
00:13:29
Speaker
You know, they may have been handed down, but they weren't of any, they weren't a great cabinet.
00:13:34
Speaker
They weren't a great chest of drawers, dining table.
00:13:37
Speaker
It was an ordinary country piece of furniture.
00:13:40
Speaker
But it has a fascinating history.
00:13:41
Speaker
And it is so distinctive in the way that it looks that it would be easy to recognize these in American furniture.
00:13:48
Speaker
I haven't seen them.
00:13:49
Speaker
But I'm now beginning to look.
00:13:51
Speaker
If listeners keep their eyes peeled, maybe they'll find some examples.
00:13:55
Speaker
But they need to find the design source of this to know what it looks like.
00:14:00
Speaker
But it's a wonderful chair.
00:14:01
Speaker
When I looked at this as well, this particular chair had been painted.
00:14:06
Speaker
The wood had been covered in or had been filled with a white lead filler.
00:14:12
Speaker
And underneath, to find out if a chair has ever been painted, you have to turn it upside down because no one...
00:14:17
Speaker
No one cleans, there's generally very little wear around the tops of the legs of the paint.
00:14:25
Speaker
And this one, it had green paint and at least two layers of green paint on it.
00:14:31
Speaker
There was also a date of 1870, I think it was 1876 or 1878 painted on the bottom.
00:14:38
Speaker
which is presumably when someone did a paint job on it.
00:14:41
Speaker
And it finally had a black varnish applied to it.
00:14:44
Speaker
And that black varnish would indicate that it was in England because black varnish was applied to a lot of furniture in the late Victorian times in deference to Queen Victoria after Prince Albert died.
00:14:57
Speaker
And a lot of furniture was turned black and was painted or varnished in black as a memorial to Prince Albert.
00:15:04
Speaker
This piece, it had been in England.
00:15:07
Speaker
Certainly through the 19th century, but it has been to America.
00:15:10
Speaker
One is bound to be able to find these in America, and I suspect that they have been attributed as American furniture for some time, because no one has really seen the design source until recently.
00:15:22
Speaker
What would that do to the value of a piece that had previously been thought to be of American manufacture?
00:15:28
Speaker
I don't know what it would do to the value of the piece.
00:15:31
Speaker
And once one knows the maker of something, it's always going to increase interest in the piece.
00:15:36
Speaker
Whether that increases the value, I don't know.
00:15:38
Speaker
Sometimes it's less important who in particular is responsible than just having a story about the piece to begin with.
00:15:45
Speaker
Well, I think every piece of furniture has a story.
00:15:47
Speaker
I mean, it's just finding it.
Role and Significance of Campaign Furniture
00:15:49
Speaker
Every piece of furniture you see, which is an antique, has been through so many owners.
00:15:54
Speaker
or maybe not, maybe just one, but generally have been through a number of owners.
00:15:58
Speaker
And just looking at the surface of the piece, the surface tells a story often with, has it been touched, has it not been touched?
00:16:06
Speaker
Has it been in one position in a house the whole time?
00:16:09
Speaker
When you see 17th century pieces,
00:16:12
Speaker
The first thing you always look at is the feet because you know that they were on a stone floor, that someone was mopping around them.
00:16:19
Speaker
So you expect... They just pushed in and pulled out and kicked and jostled.
00:16:23
Speaker
And you expect to see stains to the feet at the very least or rot to the feet because of so much water interaction.
00:16:34
Speaker
If you don't see that, then you get seriously worried about the piece.
00:16:37
Speaker
I think I don't mop my floors enough.
00:16:41
Speaker
You can create the 18th century or 17th century effect there, let's say.
00:16:45
Speaker
No, but I mean, that's terribly important when you're looking at a piece to see, does it have all the right indications of what it should have?
00:16:58
Speaker
Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, SJ Shrubsel.
00:17:01
Speaker
Coincidentally, my employer, so for once I actually know what I'm talking about.
00:17:04
Speaker
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00:17:16
Speaker
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00:17:27
Speaker
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00:17:34
Speaker
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00:17:44
Speaker
Now, this idea of every piece of furniture having a story, would you say that's what draws you to the discipline?
00:17:50
Speaker
I think so.
00:17:51
Speaker
And I think what draws me to the discipline is the quality of the workmanship that went into the piece originally, the change in design, the utilitarian functions of the piece, some of which don't exist anymore.
00:18:04
Speaker
I mean, but the way people worked with their furniture, I mean, when you go back to the very earliest times, I mean,
00:18:11
Speaker
It was a table and a few chairs.
00:18:14
Speaker
The things you see most of, though, were the, I mean, chests, which were to keep valuables, to keep linens, and to be easy to move things around.
Michael Pashby's Antiques Journey
00:18:23
Speaker
When you were moving from the court to your country estate or to, you were going out with the army and you would take a chest.
00:18:30
Speaker
There are thousands of chests still extant.
00:18:34
Speaker
And you do handle a good deal of campaign furniture and other campaign companies, right?
00:18:38
Speaker
I handle campaign furniture as well, which I like immensely.
00:18:41
Speaker
And I like that because it was the ingenuity of how do you create the same living conditions when you're going off to war in Africa or India and you're representing the empire?
00:18:56
Speaker
How do you take
00:18:57
Speaker
all that same comfort with you.
00:19:00
Speaker
And, you know, we talked before, not on this, but we talked before about something called Brighten Bones.
00:19:06
Speaker
Yes.
00:19:07
Speaker
Which are fascinating things.
00:19:08
Speaker
You needed to have light.
00:19:10
Speaker
Wherever you were, you needed light.
00:19:12
Speaker
Therefore, you needed candles.
00:19:13
Speaker
Obviously, people take candlesticks with them.
00:19:16
Speaker
If you take candlesticks and they are packed...
00:19:19
Speaker
in a boat and then you strap them on the side of an elephant and you have people carrying them up the side of a mountain, guess what?
00:19:26
Speaker
They get crushed.
00:19:27
Speaker
And so a super design came up, a very simple design called Brighten Bones.
00:19:32
Speaker
You could dismantle your candlesticks, place them in the bases, they screw together and they were in such a shape that they couldn't be crushed.
00:19:40
Speaker
They look more or less like a donut.
00:19:42
Speaker
They look like a donut.
00:19:43
Speaker
In England in particular, because so many people were being sent to so many parts of the world, whether it be America, India, Australia, wherever, they wanted to take modern conference with them because in most places they were going to.
00:19:57
Speaker
there were no suppliers.
00:19:59
Speaker
So there were a number of companies in England that specialized, and Gillows actually took part of that market, as did many other companies, of supplying collapsible fold-up furniture.
00:20:10
Speaker
Chairs which could fold flat, dining tables which could seat 12 but would fold into a case, beds.
00:20:17
Speaker
Everything
00:20:17
Speaker
sort of every sort of need that a gentleman or a lady would need in their travels in India or Australia could be fitted into a small packing case basically and could be reassembled on arrival.
00:20:30
Speaker
I have to say that strikes me as a particular Englishism.
00:20:34
Speaker
Wanting to ride an elephant all day long and then sit down for a cup of tea at the end.
00:20:37
Speaker
Well, I know that, I know, I also know that Napoleon, for instance, had huge amounts of campaign furniture commissioned for his comfort when he was off conquering the rest of Europe.
00:20:50
Speaker
Okay, not only the English.
00:20:51
Speaker
Not only the English.
00:20:52
Speaker
Napoleon as well.
00:20:53
Speaker
I think some other people as well.
00:20:55
Speaker
I think there is some American campaign furniture that still exist as well.
00:20:59
Speaker
Can I ask you a couple of questions about your own story?
00:21:03
Speaker
What was it that... You've talked a little bit about what motivates you about antique English furniture.
00:21:08
Speaker
How did you get into that?
00:21:09
Speaker
Did you grow up surrounded by antiques?
00:21:13
Speaker
I did when I lived in England.
00:21:15
Speaker
It was in the house.
00:21:17
Speaker
I was never rich enough to be able to buy it as a young person.
00:21:21
Speaker
I actually... What I did was I went into the publishing industry initially and...
00:21:28
Speaker
I ended up, I had a number of magazines related to the arts field, including a magazine about art and antiques.
00:21:37
Speaker
I had a magazine in Japan.
00:21:39
Speaker
I was constantly traveling to promote the magazine and find advertisers.
00:21:43
Speaker
And I was in this world so much.
00:21:46
Speaker
And I just loved touching the pieces and seeing the pieces.
00:21:50
Speaker
And it reminded me so much of
00:21:51
Speaker
you know, what it was like at home and everything else.
00:21:54
Speaker
And one day I just decided that's what I want
Internet's Impact on Antiques Business
00:21:57
Speaker
to do.
00:21:57
Speaker
It never occurred to me that, you know, it was really a business.
00:22:02
Speaker
I just thought, this is a great thing to do.
00:22:05
Speaker
And I thought, of course, what a wonderful way to end up in a job.
00:22:09
Speaker
Exactly.
00:22:10
Speaker
And you learn as you go along.
00:22:12
Speaker
And I learned the one thing I learned
00:22:15
Speaker
was don't buy on price, buy on quality, and always, always, always buy exactly what you love.
00:22:22
Speaker
The only times I've really made a mistake is when I look at something and I think, I really could sell that soon.
00:22:28
Speaker
And I know people will want that.
00:22:30
Speaker
I don't like it myself, but I know I'll sell that.
00:22:33
Speaker
And I've still got a warehouse full of those.
00:22:35
Speaker
Wow.
00:22:37
Speaker
Well, it's hard to talk passionately about something that you aren't passionate about.
00:22:42
Speaker
That's right.
00:22:43
Speaker
You're absolutely right.
00:22:44
Speaker
I'm sure someone else may be honest with you, but not me.
00:22:52
Speaker
Curious Objects is brought to you by S.J.
00:22:54
Speaker
Shrubsole, dealers in antique silver and jewelry in New York.
00:22:57
Speaker
Where else can you buy a spoon that belonged to George Washington, Prince Albert's prized silver greyhound statue, and a precious necklace by the famed Giuliano?
00:23:04
Speaker
Shrubsole.com.
00:23:05
Speaker
That's S-H-R-U-B-S-O-L-E.com.
00:23:15
Speaker
Well, now we are talking, our listeners are hearing us through the internet.
00:23:20
Speaker
The internet has had some serious ramifications for the way that art dealers and antique dealers do business.
00:23:26
Speaker
How has that changed your business over the last 10 or 20 years?
00:23:31
Speaker
I mean, I would say that it's more in the last, actually five to seven years that it's had any real impact.
00:23:38
Speaker
Because that really has been the growth of the number of websites.
00:23:42
Speaker
I mean, the first thing is there is huge transparency now.
00:23:45
Speaker
Price transparency.
00:23:46
Speaker
Price transparency and you can see virtually how many pieces there are of any type of item out there.
00:23:54
Speaker
What someone once said was rare, you just type that in there and you find that, oh, there are 127 of those being offered for sale around the world.
00:24:02
Speaker
A good analogy with that is I remember many years ago, after Andy Warhol died, the thought was they're going to produce the catalogue resumé of the Warhol work.
00:24:13
Speaker
And people were very worried about it because Warhol was incredibly prolific, second only to, I guess, Picasso in the 20th century.
00:24:22
Speaker
The worry was if you knew
00:24:25
Speaker
there were 126 similar paintings of Marilyn Monroe.
00:24:30
Speaker
The one you've got sitting on your wall doesn't seem quite so special.
00:24:34
Speaker
But when the catalogue Resoné was produced, it actually had the opposite effect because what it did was it gave people certainty, saying,
00:24:42
Speaker
I know there's 126.
00:24:44
Speaker
I know there's going to be no more coming on the market.
00:24:46
Speaker
So it gave people a certain amount of certainty.
00:24:49
Speaker
Interesting.
00:24:50
Speaker
You're always going to have the catalog resonates out there for an artist.
00:24:53
Speaker
It didn't damage its market.
00:24:55
Speaker
In fact, the Warhol market actually went up.
00:24:57
Speaker
Now, it can make it more difficult for a dealer to buy well.
00:25:01
Speaker
However, you have a much greater world of finding things.
00:25:05
Speaker
I mean, I have been able to find things in South Africa, in Australia, in southern Portugal, for God's sake, in South America.
00:25:14
Speaker
Furniture which maybe only 15 or 20 years ago, I would never have been able to find.
00:25:19
Speaker
But someone put a picture of it on the internet.
00:25:21
Speaker
Someone put a picture on the internet.
00:25:23
Speaker
It's an auction happening there or a person's.
00:25:26
Speaker
I see an image of someone's house in one of those places and I see a piece of furniture which I think I would like.
00:25:31
Speaker
I can go out and I can contact those people.
00:25:34
Speaker
So everyone can do that.
00:25:35
Speaker
There's more transparency in pricing, which is good and it's bad.
00:25:39
Speaker
Ultimately, what dealers do is they add value to this in the end.
00:25:43
Speaker
Because when a dealer will sell something,
00:25:45
Speaker
A dealer is always going to ensure that they've edited.
00:25:48
Speaker
I mean, I see hundreds and hundreds, as you do, I see hundreds and hundreds of pieces all the time.
00:25:54
Speaker
I'm choosing one, two or three out of those hundreds and they have to be the best.
00:25:59
Speaker
They have to be the best.
00:26:00
Speaker
So I'm not offering people a wide range of quality.
00:26:06
Speaker
It's all of a similar quality.
00:26:07
Speaker
So the work has been done.
00:26:09
Speaker
That's in the end where we make our profits.
00:26:12
Speaker
We make our profits by providing that value and editing for the collector and for the customer.
Advice for Collectors
00:26:17
Speaker
What is one mistake that collectors make that you would caution them to avoid?
00:26:23
Speaker
I think the biggest mistake a collector will make is purchasing without advice.
00:26:29
Speaker
For us, this is our business.
00:26:31
Speaker
We are recognized experts in certain areas.
00:26:34
Speaker
Collectors often will buy something because the price is right, they've been told a story, they like it, whatever it may be, but they don't think and they don't understand how to look at condition.
00:26:46
Speaker
They may not understand if it's a rare piece or if it's a common piece.
00:26:50
Speaker
Condition is terribly, terribly important.
00:26:52
Speaker
Many people do not know how to really judge that.
00:26:55
Speaker
And I think when a private person, a collector, buys, for instance, at an auction, they have the feeling that if they're buying at an auction, they must be getting a bargain.
00:27:03
Speaker
Nothing is furthest from the truth because they have to remember that they were the last person to bid if they bought it.
00:27:10
Speaker
That means they paid the highest price for it of anyone who was looking at that piece.
00:27:15
Speaker
And all it takes is two people making a mistake.
00:27:17
Speaker
Two people making a mistake.
00:27:19
Speaker
And that is not uncommon.
00:27:20
Speaker
Let's put it like that.
00:27:22
Speaker
As you know and I know.
Episode Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:27:24
Speaker
Indeed.
00:27:24
Speaker
And so when a dealer drops out, there's a reason why the dealer is dropping out.
00:27:28
Speaker
That's a good thing to watch out for.
00:27:30
Speaker
It is indeed.
00:27:31
Speaker
Well, Michael Bashby, thank you so much for talking with me.
00:27:33
Speaker
Anything else you want to add?
00:27:34
Speaker
No, but I'd love to do this again.
00:27:36
Speaker
Fabulous.
00:27:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:45
Speaker
That's it for today.
00:27:46
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed it.
00:27:47
Speaker
Thanks again to Michael, and thanks to all of you for listening.
00:27:50
Speaker
As I said before, your ratings on iTunes are a huge help, as are your emails to podcast at emagazineantiques.com.
00:27:58
Speaker
Curious Objects is a podcast from the magazine Antiques.
00:28:01
Speaker
Today's episode was edited by Sammy Delati, and our music is by Trap Rabbit.
00:28:05
Speaker
I'm Ben Miller, and I'll catch you again next month.