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Another Man's Treasure: Frank Levy's Tapestry-Upholstered Furniture
59 Plays6 years ago
A suite of furniture made for the storied Beekman family of New York has one extremely over-the-top feature: the pieces are upholstered with export-quality French tapestries, i.e., material that wasn’t good enough for the French to hold on to. One man's trash . . .
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Transcript
Introduction to Beekman Chairs
00:00:00
Speaker
If you're used to the typical New York chair, this isn't it.
00:00:04
Speaker
These are upholstered with tapestries, and that is very, very different from the upholstery that most people are used to seeing.
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello, and welcome back to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:00:25
Speaker
I'm Ben Miller.
00:00:26
Speaker
If you've ever walked around in Lower Manhattan, the name Beekman is probably familiar to you.
00:00:31
Speaker
There's Beekman Street.
00:00:33
Speaker
There's the Beekman Tower, designed by Frank Gehry.
00:00:35
Speaker
There's the Gilded Age Beekman Hotel.
00:00:38
Speaker
The list goes on.
00:00:40
Speaker
And if you're like me, you probably walked down Beekman Street in that grand old historic neighborhood and asked yourself, how do I get to the subway?
00:00:49
Speaker
Okay, well, I can't help you with that.
00:00:51
Speaker
But in today's episode, we are going to take a look at another remnant of the Beekman legacy here in New York, a set of chairs made for James Beekman in the early 19th century.
Characteristics of Beekman Chairs
00:01:00
Speaker
Now, this was a time when New York's famous street grid had just been planned out.
00:01:05
Speaker
The Erie Canal was being dug out and was about to explode the city with commerce from the Midwest.
00:01:10
Speaker
The population was blooming with immigrants, and the city was rapidly overtaking Philadelphia as the largest in America.
00:01:17
Speaker
And in the midst of all this, the city's elite families, the Beekmans among them, were expressing their wealth with increasingly lavish homes, competing with their European counterparts to create refined and impressive living spaces full of the best art, furniture, and silver and porcelain that they could get their hands on.
00:01:35
Speaker
The chairs we're talking about today are a fantastic example of the genre.
00:01:39
Speaker
They're New York-made, but grounded in English style and incorporating upholstery from France.
00:01:45
Speaker
This was James Beekman strutting his stuff.
00:01:48
Speaker
Joining me as always is Michael D.S.
00:01:50
Speaker
Griffith, and we spoke with Frank Levy, co-owner of the 100-year-old firm Bernard and S. Dean Levy here in New York.
00:01:58
Speaker
If you've been listening to Curious Objects for long enough, you'll remember Frank talking with us at the Winter Show back in 2018 about a pair of tables that coincidentally also have Beekman provenance.
00:02:07
Speaker
But this time we got to do a deep dive into the history of the aesthetics and the culture and commerce and industry that these chairs can tell us about.
00:02:15
Speaker
It's a great story, and Frank's a great storyteller.
00:02:18
Speaker
So stick around, and we'll get started right after this.
00:02:27
Speaker
Curious Objects is sponsored by Freeman's.
00:02:30
Speaker
I'd like to bring your attention to America's oldest auction house, Freeman's.
00:02:34
Speaker
Located in Center City, Philadelphia, Freeman's has been telling the story of valued objects and collections since 1805.
00:02:41
Speaker
With international experience and a comprehensive knowledge of market conditions, the specialists at Freeman's work closely with consignors and collectors to offer unparalleled assistance in the sale and purchase of fine art
00:02:51
Speaker
design, decorative arts, jewelry, books, and more.
00:02:55
Speaker
Are you curious about the value of your collection?
00:02:58
Speaker
Freeman's is now welcoming consignments for their November American Furniture Folk and Decorative Arts Auction.
00:03:03
Speaker
For more information about auction valuation, please visit Freeman's online at freemansauction.com.
00:03:10
Speaker
Curious Objects is also sponsored by Reynolda House Museum of American Art, one of the nation's most highly regarded collections of American art on view in the 1917 North Carolina estate of R.J.
00:03:21
Speaker
Reynolds.
00:03:22
Speaker
Don't miss iconic works that shaped a nation when Leyendecker and the Golden Age of American Illustration opens on August 31st.
00:03:29
Speaker
Learn more at ReynoldaHouse.org.
Historical Context and Craftsmanship
00:03:32
Speaker
Let's go ahead and dive in.
00:03:34
Speaker
Frank, thanks so much for joining us.
00:03:37
Speaker
And I just wanted to waste no time and get straight into the chairs, because the object that you've just introduced us to here in your shop is, well, you showed us two chairs out of a much larger set that come from this very city of New York about 200 years ago.
00:03:58
Speaker
and I want you to tell us about them.
00:04:00
Speaker
Can you start for listeners just by telling us what they look like?
00:04:04
Speaker
Sure.
00:04:06
Speaker
If you're used to the typical New York chair, this isn't it.
00:04:10
Speaker
This is not it.
00:04:11
Speaker
This is not it.
00:04:11
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:12
Speaker
It's not the classic New York chair.
00:04:13
Speaker
These are upholstered with, I think the first thing that people notice is the upholstery, and they're upholstered with tapestries, French tapestries that would have been imported.
00:04:24
Speaker
In fact, we know that they were imported and then bought at auctions.
00:04:28
Speaker
by the Beekman family, the owners of the chairs, in 1817.
00:04:31
Speaker
And that is very, very different from the upholstery that most people are used to seeing.
00:04:37
Speaker
It's not the big medallion or silk or whatever.
00:04:41
Speaker
So what does it look like, the upholstery?
00:04:44
Speaker
What's depicted on these tapestries?
00:04:47
Speaker
For the most part, they're Aesop's fables.
00:04:49
Speaker
You need to remember your Aesop's fables very closely.
00:04:52
Speaker
There's that, and you almost have to be a little bit imaginative.
00:04:56
Speaker
what those animals actually are.
00:04:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:58
Speaker
Um, but there are a sub stables throughout.
00:05:01
Speaker
Right.
00:05:01
Speaker
Right.
00:05:01
Speaker
Um, and then the two sofas have, I guess, more pastoral scenes.
00:05:05
Speaker
There's no single scene on the sofas.
00:05:07
Speaker
They don't fit in as well.
00:05:10
Speaker
And these are armchairs.
00:05:11
Speaker
So were they meant for use at a, at a dining table?
00:05:14
Speaker
Probably not.
00:05:16
Speaker
Um, at first the thought was that they were made when the Beekmans, um, bought them, they had just finished building a, an extra room on their house.
00:05:25
Speaker
which was an octagonal room, which seemed to have been the rage in New York in this period of around 1815 to 25.
00:05:33
Speaker
Madame Jumel builds an octagonal room up at the Morris Jumel House.
00:05:37
Speaker
The Beakmans have theirs.
00:05:38
Speaker
The octagon house down in Washington is built around this time.
00:05:41
Speaker
So you have something in the American brain is about the octagon.
00:05:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:46
Speaker
Which then makes sense because there's two sofas and 16 chairs.
00:05:51
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:05:52
Speaker
that works out with, with eight.
00:05:54
Speaker
Right.
00:05:54
Speaker
You have two chairs in each corner that gets you to the 16.
00:05:57
Speaker
I think because they were armchairs, they were never thought of as dining chairs.
00:06:02
Speaker
Um, I think it would have been too complicated to too much going on with all the armchairs.
00:06:07
Speaker
Um, there's nothing in the notes.
00:06:08
Speaker
There's nothing in the books that the Beekmans tell us what they were for, but,
00:06:11
Speaker
Having the octagonal room built on in this period really implies that the 16 chairs and two sofas make sense for that.
Influence of the Beekman Family
00:06:20
Speaker
So the way you imagine it, these were sitting chairs for leisure, for a group before dinner or after dinner, maybe to congregate?
00:06:30
Speaker
I think so.
00:06:30
Speaker
And I think also for just visual impact.
00:06:32
Speaker
For visual impact, right.
00:06:34
Speaker
They said something.
00:06:35
Speaker
They're making a statement that we're up to date with the most current taste, the most current
00:06:41
Speaker
forms, but also, you know, the tie-in to France with the French tapestry.
00:06:47
Speaker
Now, here's one problem, which whenever we show these tapestries to French experts, they all say that this is, you know, like the third worst that they've ever seen.
00:06:58
Speaker
Very typical for what would be coming out as an export.
00:07:01
Speaker
Export-quality tapestries.
00:07:02
Speaker
Export-quality tapestries, exactly.
00:07:04
Speaker
Do you think that New Yorkers would have known the difference?
00:07:06
Speaker
Not a chance.
00:07:07
Speaker
Nope.
00:07:07
Speaker
They probably thought this was as good as what the king and queen had.
00:07:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:10
Speaker
You know, back
00:07:11
Speaker
were the revolution and were most likely sold that this was what the king and queen had.
00:07:17
Speaker
We see so many sets of furniture from France that are here that have this great history of being in Versailles when there is no chance that they were ever near Versailles.
00:07:28
Speaker
It's funny because I think of this period, I mean, we're talking about the 18-teens and 20s in New York.
00:07:34
Speaker
I think of that period as the period when New York was really coming into its own as a cosmopolitan center and
00:07:40
Speaker
when great houses were being constructed in New York, when New Yorkers were becoming rich on the same scale as people in England and France for the first time ever.
00:07:49
Speaker
And they were starting to fund craftsmen who are working at a much higher standard than ever before.
00:07:55
Speaker
You know, we're not talking about colonial American furniture.
00:07:58
Speaker
That's basically something like folk art, you know, where we treasure it for its rarity and for its significance, maybe more than for its elegance.
00:08:09
Speaker
But this period in American decorative arts is becoming much richer, much more sophisticated, much more elevated.
00:08:19
Speaker
And yet third-rate French tapestries are being used here.
00:08:23
Speaker
So, I mean, how do you explain that?
00:08:25
Speaker
Were the Beekmans simply bamboozled or did they not care?
00:08:31
Speaker
I don't think they were bamboozled.
00:08:33
Speaker
I think that this was what you were expected to get and this was what was available.
00:08:38
Speaker
If you don't know that there's something better.
00:08:40
Speaker
And also, I'm not sure that the looms were actually working in this period.
00:08:44
Speaker
These are probably mid, well, not mid, but late 18th century fabrics that came over here.
00:08:50
Speaker
So they were already several decades old.
00:08:53
Speaker
Exactly.
00:08:53
Speaker
And they were cut up and placed on chairs as upholstery.
00:08:58
Speaker
Exactly.
00:08:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:59
Speaker
Again, anything that's made for export is almost always a lower quality.
Construction and Provenance of Beekman Chairs
00:09:03
Speaker
So I think they just, they most likely thought these were as good as you could get
00:09:08
Speaker
And in a sense, they were right, because they're as good as you can get here.
00:09:11
Speaker
Right, right.
00:09:13
Speaker
It's interesting, though, that you mention the craftsmen, because we know who made these.
00:09:19
Speaker
Which is really unusual for this period.
00:09:22
Speaker
Very unusual, for any period of early American furniture.
00:09:25
Speaker
But we have the bill of sale from, the sets were made in two slightly different times.
00:09:29
Speaker
One is billed in
00:09:31
Speaker
I think June of 1819, the other in January of 1820.
00:09:34
Speaker
And it's eight chairs and one sofa in each of the two sets.
00:09:39
Speaker
Right.
00:09:40
Speaker
They're built from a man named John Banks.
00:09:43
Speaker
So in 1819, Longweir dies, so it's unlikely that they would have used him.
00:09:49
Speaker
But Fife is alive.
00:09:52
Speaker
And Allison is alive.
00:09:53
Speaker
And there are many other capital makers that they could have gone to.
00:09:56
Speaker
And it's very puzzling in a way that the people of the Beekmans
00:10:01
Speaker
of James Beekman stature, the original owner of the chairs would have gone to this guy, John banks.
00:10:06
Speaker
Now we knew of a work table at winter that's stamped by him.
00:10:12
Speaker
Um, there was a clock that came up at Sotheby's a few years ago that was stamped by him.
00:10:16
Speaker
Uh, there are a pair of tables in an upstate, uh, historic house.
00:10:20
Speaker
There are a couple of things that we know that are labeled or stamped by banks, but they're not great things.
00:10:26
Speaker
They're nowhere near the quality of these chairs.
00:10:29
Speaker
why the beacons chose to go to John banks for this.
00:10:33
Speaker
We have no idea.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:35
Speaker
It's a really, there's no known family connection or he wasn't somebody's brother-in-law or somebody's there's, yeah, there's no, there's no family connection there.
00:10:44
Speaker
The only mild,
00:10:46
Speaker
connection that there is is that Banks works on Beekman Street.
00:10:50
Speaker
But they all do.
00:10:51
Speaker
There are a lot of cabinet groups on Beekman Street.
00:10:53
Speaker
So you can't just use that as the reason.
00:10:57
Speaker
Can you tell us a little about the Beekmans?
00:10:59
Speaker
You mentioned James Beekman's stature.
00:11:02
Speaker
What was his stature and how did he get it?
00:11:06
Speaker
The Beekmans were among the founding families of New York and among the most important families of New York.
00:11:11
Speaker
And it's not a coincidence that there's still places that
00:11:17
Speaker
Howard, you know, there are a lot of Beekman ties still to New York City and the surrounding areas and up into Albany.
00:11:26
Speaker
I honestly don't know how they all made their money.
00:11:29
Speaker
I think James Beekman did a lot in sort of real estate speculation, owned quite a bit of property and made money through rentals and things.
00:11:38
Speaker
The Beekmans were one of the premier families in New York, and particularly in that period.
00:11:44
Speaker
So the fact that they're
00:11:47
Speaker
is renovating their home would have been a big deal in the period in the home, which unfortunately doesn't stand anymore was around first Avenue and 51st street, 52nd street in that area.
00:11:58
Speaker
Um, parts of it do remain though.
00:12:00
Speaker
So that the Met has Mount Pleasant, which was the name of the house.
00:12:03
Speaker
They have their, uh, their mantelpiece on exhibit.
00:12:08
Speaker
And then that's actually surrounded by some of an earlier Beekman collection of furniture.
00:12:14
Speaker
Interesting.
00:12:15
Speaker
They had, um,
00:12:17
Speaker
So the Beekmans are major players in New York politics, New York social society, and New York mercantile interests.
00:12:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's...
00:12:31
Speaker
Pretty cool, I have to say, to be talking about these chairs that you just showed us in your gallery while we're sitting 30 blocks north of a house which they originally inhabited, and about two blocks or one block from the Metropolitan Museum where other remnants of that house still survive.
00:12:52
Speaker
It's been a couple hundred years, but these pieces haven't moved very far, have they?
00:12:57
Speaker
They haven't, and it's funny that you bring that up because...
00:13:00
Speaker
When we bought the set, the suite, we picked them up and we took them to our warehouse, which was in Queens at the time.
00:13:08
Speaker
And I realized as we were driving them over the 59th Street Bridge, that's the first time these chairs have left Manhattan Island.
00:13:14
Speaker
Wow.
00:13:15
Speaker
Since they were made.
00:13:16
Speaker
Amazing.
00:13:16
Speaker
There's no... Talk about shopping local.
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:21
Speaker
We know the history of where they've been passed down all the way through until they were on loan to the New York Historical Society.
00:13:29
Speaker
And then they...
00:13:31
Speaker
the family decided to sell them in 2000.
00:13:34
Speaker
They had never left Manhattan Island.
00:13:36
Speaker
And then they went out to Queens for a little bit.
00:13:38
Speaker
And it's pretty remarkable.
00:13:41
Speaker
Do you know anything about how they met?
00:13:43
Speaker
I mean, so many of the treasures of early American families have been dispersed many generations ago.
00:13:50
Speaker
And there are precious few artifacts that really managed to come down through all those generations to today.
00:13:55
Speaker
Do you know anything about what made that possible?
00:13:58
Speaker
I mean, how did the Beekmans...
00:14:00
Speaker
Keep track of these.
00:14:02
Speaker
The Beekmans were incredible in their record keeping.
00:14:05
Speaker
So the reason we know who the maker of these chairs is, is because of the Beekman papers at New York Historical.
00:14:14
Speaker
A scholar, a woman named Elizabeth Banks, Elizabeth Bates, John Banks, Elizabeth Bates, did research on these right after we bought them.
00:14:25
Speaker
because of the Beekman name, she figured maybe there's something in the papers.
00:14:28
Speaker
She found all the information about the maker, about the upholsterer, about repairs.
00:14:35
Speaker
They kept records of repairs on these chairs from 1850, from 1890.
00:14:40
Speaker
There's a portrait of a Beekman that features one of these chairs.
00:14:44
Speaker
It's an 1890 portrait.
00:14:46
Speaker
Really?
00:14:46
Speaker
And it features one of the chairs that we actually still have.
00:14:50
Speaker
Where is that portrait?
00:14:51
Speaker
It's in a private collection.
00:14:52
Speaker
It actually still belongs to the family.
00:14:54
Speaker
Oh, really?
00:14:55
Speaker
Last time I knew, it was like 61st and 3rd, I think, or Lex.
00:14:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:00
Speaker
But it's down at one of the family offices.
00:15:02
Speaker
It's only 10 blocks.
00:15:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:04
Speaker
It didn't go very far.
00:15:07
Speaker
But they kept these immaculate records.
00:15:10
Speaker
And I think because they were keeping records of their purchases, I think they also kept a lot of the objects that they had bought.
00:15:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:15:19
Speaker
Some of them had found their way out
00:15:21
Speaker
into the marketplace over the years.
00:15:24
Speaker
The sale in 2000 of things coming out of New York Historical included some great, great things, a pair of New York Chippendale card tables, like the one that we talked about a few years ago.
00:15:36
Speaker
And we actually found a record of those as to who made one of them, one of the two tables, which is the maker of both in that case.
00:15:46
Speaker
There were some peer tables.
00:15:47
Speaker
There were a number of really wonderful things that came out.
00:15:50
Speaker
that the family had just kept together.
00:15:52
Speaker
And the Beekman Family Historical Association, the Beekman Family Association, I'll never remember which one it is, has been wonderful in keeping that historic interest alive.
00:16:05
Speaker
That's brilliant.
00:16:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:07
Speaker
Let's return to the chairs themselves for a moment because I feel like we have a sense of how they're upholstered, but they're also beautifully and richly carved and they're put together in an interesting way.
00:16:20
Speaker
And the methods of their construction vary a bit from chair to chair.
00:16:24
Speaker
So could you tell us a bit about those details?
00:16:26
Speaker
Sure.
00:16:27
Speaker
Sure.
00:16:27
Speaker
So you have two sets.
00:16:29
Speaker
One set is built a little bit sturdier in a sense.
00:16:33
Speaker
It has what's known as a medial rail underneath the seat, which is just a board that goes underneath the seat that you don't see from above.
00:16:40
Speaker
That crest rail is tenanted into place, as you'd expect from a chair of this period.
00:16:44
Speaker
Sorry, just by that, you're referring to the kind of joint that holds
Innovations in Chair Construction
00:16:51
Speaker
the piece together.
00:16:51
Speaker
Yes, the mortise and tenanted joint.
00:16:52
Speaker
It's basically a tongue that fits into it like the hole and then gets either pinned or just glued together and will stay together.
00:17:00
Speaker
Right.
00:17:02
Speaker
There's also the use of dowels in these.
00:17:04
Speaker
I'm actually not sure if you want this for the podcast.
00:17:08
Speaker
Bring it on.
00:17:10
Speaker
We love dowels, Vincurious Objects.
00:17:12
Speaker
We do.
00:17:13
Speaker
And we love dirty secrets and we love all of the details.
00:17:17
Speaker
Okay, so the detail is when the chairs came in, one was a little bit loose and I opened it up at the crest and there's the sign of a dowel.
00:17:26
Speaker
Dowels, prior to 1800,
00:17:30
Speaker
are a bad word.
00:17:31
Speaker
You don't expect to see dowels.
00:17:32
Speaker
You expect that it's either a repair or a later chair.
00:17:37
Speaker
As we found out subsequently, there are mentions of dowels in price books, which are cabinet makers' books of how they price different things.
00:17:46
Speaker
They price dowels at a certain price, round dowels, square dowels, which they actually do say are different from pins and different from mortise and tenon joints.
00:17:55
Speaker
So I spot the dowel,
00:17:58
Speaker
and realize we have to get these things x-rayed.
00:18:03
Speaker
Because there's something going on that's not visible from the surface.
00:18:06
Speaker
Not visible and not normal.
00:18:07
Speaker
Not what I expected to see.
00:18:10
Speaker
So I called a friend, and he called a friend, and we ended up going down somewhere in Maryland to a vet's office.
00:18:20
Speaker
Really?
00:18:21
Speaker
They had horses in there and everything else.
00:18:23
Speaker
So we bring him in.
00:18:25
Speaker
We take a bunch of x-rays.
00:18:27
Speaker
Is this the second time that the chairs left Manhattan?
00:18:29
Speaker
This would be the second time the chairs left Manhattan.
00:18:32
Speaker
It was just two chairs went down.
00:18:36
Speaker
So as we're doing it, the vet finally comes in and says, guys, you got to go.
00:18:41
Speaker
And there's a dog waiting to get neutered.
00:18:44
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:18:46
Speaker
This is way more interesting than we'd anticipated.
00:18:50
Speaker
Well, I think the dog would have preferred that we continue with a chair.
00:18:52
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:18:52
Speaker
Sure.
00:18:53
Speaker
You know, everything had to happen as it did.
00:18:57
Speaker
But so the Dow was an issue.
00:19:01
Speaker
And like I said, as it turns out, we found in first in the Washington, D.C.
00:19:05
Speaker
price book of 1818 that they mentioned Dow's.
00:19:09
Speaker
And I figured if it's in Washington, D.C., no offense to people in Washington, New York's going to be more on the forefront of cabinet making in that period.
00:19:16
Speaker
It must be earlier here, too.
00:19:18
Speaker
We found it in Philadelphia in 1814 and I think in New York in 1812.
00:19:23
Speaker
they might have had.
00:19:24
Speaker
So this is really sort of a discovery.
00:19:27
Speaker
Yes.
00:19:28
Speaker
On the basis of these chairs.
00:19:30
Speaker
Exactly.
00:19:31
Speaker
And when we announced this, all of a sudden a lot of museums started to x-ray their furniture and the Met x-rayed a chair with very large scroll arms.
00:19:41
Speaker
The scroll arms are held on with dowels.
00:19:43
Speaker
Wineter has a chair from a similar to it, also doweled.
00:19:48
Speaker
So that people have been looking at this now and we're finding these dowels.
00:19:51
Speaker
Now they're not completely doweled up.
00:19:53
Speaker
It's just in certain sections where they need them, where it's sort of too thin for the wood to hold as a mortise and tenon joint.
00:20:00
Speaker
At the scroll where it's very thin on one set of chairs, that's where they use the DAO.
00:20:05
Speaker
So do you think that style changing forms necessitated the use of a new technical solution?
00:20:11
Speaker
Or did the DAO begin to emerge and people found reasons to use it for efficiency or economy?
00:20:19
Speaker
I think it's probably more economy because it's a cheaper, easier way to put it together.
00:20:24
Speaker
In the case of these chairs, it allowed them to give a little bit more grace to
00:20:31
Speaker
to one set because they could use the thinner wood and more, I guess more scroll is not the right term, but there's more, oh gosh, movement to the back.
00:20:43
Speaker
Yeah, there's a bit more grace in one set.
00:20:46
Speaker
The other set feels a bit more solid.
00:20:48
Speaker
And that's the doweled set.
00:20:50
Speaker
And I think a large part of that is that they don't need the big hunk of wood to keep the thing together.
00:20:55
Speaker
They use the dowels.
00:20:57
Speaker
So I think later on it becomes just much more economical, but in this case, they're using technology to improve the design.
Furniture Sets vs. Modern Tastes
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:05
Speaker
There are stylistic implications that I think we wouldn't expect for there to be.
00:21:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:11
Speaker
This is a great example of how looking at an object can open up new windows into history, isn't it?
00:21:17
Speaker
No question with this group.
00:21:19
Speaker
There is so much that we learn from these chairs.
00:21:23
Speaker
You know, like I said, we know the maker, we know the upholsterer.
00:21:25
Speaker
We know that they bought the fabric,
00:21:27
Speaker
the tapestry two years before the chairs were made.
00:21:31
Speaker
They didn't really buy the chairs.
00:21:33
Speaker
The chairs are frames for the tapestry.
00:21:36
Speaker
The fact that they held them for a year and a half before they hired somebody to make the chairs is pretty interesting.
00:21:43
Speaker
They bought the tapestry at auction from a guy named McMenamin, which is hard to say, but we know he was an auctioneer.
00:21:51
Speaker
in New York and auctioning both furniture and other decorative objects coming in from Europe, from Asia, from everywhere.
00:22:00
Speaker
So that's one big part.
00:22:01
Speaker
Obviously the family history is important with this, the use of dowels, how that, that changes things.
00:22:06
Speaker
And we're talking about pretty substantial differences between the two groups.
00:22:11
Speaker
One sofa and eight chairs look a little bit different.
00:22:14
Speaker
I showed you some of the moldings that are different on the arms.
00:22:17
Speaker
The carving is different.
00:22:19
Speaker
The, the,
00:22:20
Speaker
way they've shaped the front rail is different.
00:22:23
Speaker
And then the construction is different.
00:22:24
Speaker
So they are two different sets.
00:22:28
Speaker
When you look through sets that were done and perfectly legitimate, that is the way that they, we know.
00:22:33
Speaker
I mean, for me, looking at them from across the room, I wouldn't have guessed that they were different sets.
00:22:41
Speaker
It was only when you pointed it out and, you know, under closer examination that you start to see those little differences in the details.
00:22:48
Speaker
But for the sake of putting them in an octagon around a room, anyone walking into that room is going to see 16 chairs.
00:22:55
Speaker
And after a few glasses of punch, a cigar, three, you know, one's perceptual abilities.
00:23:02
Speaker
The tables may start to move on you.
00:23:03
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:23:04
Speaker
The octagon's spinning.
00:23:07
Speaker
But the question of what is a set, what is a pair comes into play.
00:23:12
Speaker
And we see that in the 18th century when you look through...
00:23:18
Speaker
the Ken Walder set.
00:23:20
Speaker
We know that those were shipped out to different cabinet makers and different carvers.
00:23:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:24
Speaker
Putting together that set.
00:23:25
Speaker
So the two card tables, which are a pair and made en suite are very different.
00:23:30
Speaker
Right.
00:23:31
Speaker
If somebody were to just look at them without knowing the outside information, they'd say, these are not a pair.
00:23:38
Speaker
They're just two different tables.
00:23:39
Speaker
They
Crafting Relationships and Logistics
00:23:40
Speaker
are a pair.
00:23:40
Speaker
They were made for the same person at the same time.
00:23:44
Speaker
By the way, for listeners who are enthusiasts about this, you can refer to the earlier episode in which Frank told us about these card tables.
00:23:54
Speaker
The big card tables, right.
00:23:57
Speaker
At the Winter Show, actually, in 2018.
00:24:02
Speaker
Lots more information there.
00:24:04
Speaker
And this whole question of acquiring or commissioning pairs relates to the way that houses were designed and that rooms were planned, right?
00:24:13
Speaker
And I think we don't always have an appreciation for that now because we're always looking for a kind of one-off special object, right?
00:24:22
Speaker
a sideboard for the dining room.
00:24:24
Speaker
But in the large classically planned rooms of the early 19th century, you might be buying two pier mirrors or two sideboards or two card tables for a drawing room.
00:24:35
Speaker
And I think that's a little difficult to wrap one's head around that kind of planning.
00:24:41
Speaker
It's a different idea of how a room is constructed.
00:24:45
Speaker
When you buy an antique today, you don't expect to be able to match it
00:24:49
Speaker
No.
00:24:50
Speaker
And we kind of like that.
00:24:51
Speaker
The developing taste favors that eclectic view.
00:24:56
Speaker
But that's not the way that our forefathers saw it.
00:24:59
Speaker
They were buying on suite.
00:25:01
Speaker
They were putting together a group.
00:25:03
Speaker
And that was a big deal for them.
00:25:06
Speaker
If you were buying something new today, you wouldn't buy three separate things necessarily.
00:25:11
Speaker
you would try to have something where it's all similar or at least close together.
00:25:17
Speaker
That's what they were doing back then.
00:25:19
Speaker
I mean, this was home decoration.
00:25:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:22
Speaker
And symmetry mattered a great deal.
00:25:25
Speaker
Indeed.
00:25:26
Speaker
Could you tell us a bit about the relationship between banks and the upholsterer or upholsterers?
00:25:32
Speaker
I know that William Denny was involved.
00:25:34
Speaker
Yes.
00:25:34
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:34
Speaker
So William Denny is the upholsterer of one set.
00:25:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:37
Speaker
We know that he built for the upholstery of one set.
00:25:40
Speaker
We don't know who did the second set and we don't know which is the first and the second set.
00:25:44
Speaker
We just know that one of them was done by Denny.
00:25:49
Speaker
As far as I know, there is no relationship except
00:25:52
Speaker
they were fairly close to each other geographically okay they were both on beekman street um and within as best i can tell a quarter of a mile of each other's shops um so it's possible that that uh banks would have suggested denny as an upholsterer it's also possible he was available to do it we just don't
00:26:16
Speaker
We don't know enough about, we really don't know enough about how some of the day-to-day work took place.
00:26:25
Speaker
And we don't know who demanded what.
00:26:28
Speaker
Was this the client saying, I want this guy to carve it, I want this guy to do it, to upholster it?
00:26:34
Speaker
Or if it was just banks and this is my guy to do it?
00:26:38
Speaker
We just don't know.
00:26:39
Speaker
So I wish I had more information on that, but we don't.
00:26:43
Speaker
And there might have been different practices, right, between cabinetmakers in different cities as there is today.
00:26:50
Speaker
I don't know that we know of any cabinetmakers at this time who were also upholsters or who had their own upholsters.
00:26:57
Speaker
I think they were two very different trades at that time.
00:27:01
Speaker
But, yeah, I guess we just don't.
00:27:04
Speaker
Somebody may know.
00:27:05
Speaker
I don't.
00:27:05
Speaker
I don't know what the...
00:27:09
Speaker
What about with the carving?
00:27:10
Speaker
Because these are very richly ornamented chairs.
00:27:14
Speaker
Without a doubt, banks who ran what we assume is a fairly small shop would have brought in a professional carver to do the carving.
00:27:22
Speaker
So probably not a full-time staff member.
00:27:25
Speaker
Not exactly.
00:27:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:27
Speaker
Now, I mean, Fife at this point would have had carvers on hand in his shop who would have done the work.
00:27:33
Speaker
And he would have had set carvings that you could have applied to the chairs.
00:27:37
Speaker
Um, no, I think he brought in a freelancer to come in and do the work.
00:27:42
Speaker
He didn't have to pay for health insurance.
00:27:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:46
Speaker
Or dental.
00:27:48
Speaker
Um, and is the carving consistent between the two suites?
00:27:53
Speaker
It's not, there are differences.
00:27:54
Speaker
Um, again, you have to look closely, but there are differences in both the carving on the crest rail, the carving on the legs are different.
00:28:02
Speaker
And even the molding on the arm supports and the arms themselves,
00:28:07
Speaker
are there two different molding profiles between the two sets.
00:28:10
Speaker
So, again, it's pretty clear there are two different hands going after the two different sets.
00:28:16
Speaker
Interesting to see because if you put the two chairs together and put the legs together, you really do see the big difference between the two carvers.
00:28:24
Speaker
Sometimes carving can be a little bit confusing to people because they don't get to compare and contrast right next to each other.
00:28:30
Speaker
These are a good example where you see a different hand working the same motif.
History of Frank Levy's Firm
00:28:47
Speaker
Let's take a quick break.
00:28:48
Speaker
When we come back, we'll chat with Frank about the long and rich history of his firm and what he's doing to bring his business into the future.
00:28:56
Speaker
First, I want to say thanks for listening and to remind you that, as always, you can see images of our curious objects online at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast.
00:29:05
Speaker
And there's even more on Instagram.
00:29:07
Speaker
I'm at Objective Interest and Michael is at Michael Diaz Griffith.
00:29:12
Speaker
If you want to help out the podcast, one really quick thing you can do is to leave us rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening now.
00:29:20
Speaker
Those ratings are great for helping new listeners find the show.
00:29:23
Speaker
Thanks again.
00:29:24
Speaker
We'll be right back.
00:29:28
Speaker
Curious Objects is sponsored by Freeman's.
00:29:31
Speaker
I'd like to bring your attention to America's oldest auction house, Freeman's.
00:29:35
Speaker
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00:29:41
Speaker
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00:29:45
Speaker
The specialists at Freeman's work closely with consignors and collectors to offer unparalleled assistance in the sale and purchase of fine art, design, decorative arts, jewelry, books, and more.
00:29:55
Speaker
Are you curious about the value of your collection?
00:29:58
Speaker
To learn more about Freeman's specialists, upcoming auctions, and how to sell your items at auction, please visit Freeman's online at freemansauction.com.
00:30:07
Speaker
Curious Objects is also sponsored by Raynolda House Museum of American Art, one of the nation's most highly regarded collections of American art on view in the historic 1917 Winston-Salem, North Carolina estate of R.J.
00:30:19
Speaker
and Catherine Reynolds.
00:30:20
Speaker
Don't miss the iconic works that shaped a nation when Leyendecker and the Golden Age of American Illustration opens on August 31st.
00:30:27
Speaker
Get one step closer to a true experience in American art by visiting raynoldahouse.org slash Leyendecker.
00:30:35
Speaker
We've been talking about chairs that are about 200 years old.
00:30:38
Speaker
I want to talk to you about something that's about 100 years old, which is to say you're firm.
00:30:45
Speaker
How's that for a segue?
00:30:48
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, where we're sitting, you know, we're part of this, you are certainly part of this history of a dealer in furniture with a great pedigree.
00:31:00
Speaker
And I think listeners would be interested to know something about the history of
00:31:04
Speaker
of the firm and what brought it to where it is today and where it's going.
00:31:09
Speaker
Happy to talk about that.
00:31:12
Speaker
So in 2001, we thought that was our 100th anniversary.
00:31:17
Speaker
And we hired a couple of people to do some research into doing a book or some sort of historical something to put out.
00:31:28
Speaker
It turns out all the stories that we had been told,
00:31:32
Speaker
basically from my grandfather about the start of the business were incorrect.
00:31:37
Speaker
The old story was that my great grandfather, this wonderful job as a foreman in a factory and his brother-in-law, John Ginsburg, was this antique dealer who wasn't doing very well, was buying a bunch of stuff and always was borrowing money.
00:31:53
Speaker
And eventually my great grandfather said, that's, that's it.
00:31:55
Speaker
We're partners.
00:31:57
Speaker
He left his great job at the factory, which in retrospect never made a lot of sense.
00:32:02
Speaker
It's a good story.
00:32:03
Speaker
It's a good story.
00:32:04
Speaker
But as it turns out, it may be the opposite, where my great-grandfather was buying a lot of things and then couldn't sell them.
00:32:12
Speaker
And he brought in, he and John Ginsburg got together somehow.
00:32:16
Speaker
I think John had some money.
00:32:18
Speaker
And in possibly as early as 1896 formed Ginsburg in the
00:32:24
Speaker
They started down on the Lower East Side.
00:32:26
Speaker
We have a picture, which I actually should show you guys, of my great-grandfather in front of the shop on Grand Street, which was their first shop.
00:32:34
Speaker
And they actually say on the sign, Skinsburg and Levy Antiques, Brick-a-Brack.
00:32:39
Speaker
I don't think they say jump, but it's clearly a very different… But they used the word Brick-a-Brack.
00:32:44
Speaker
Brick-a-Brack is on the sign.
00:32:46
Speaker
Amazing.
00:32:46
Speaker
It's on the sign.
00:32:47
Speaker
And if you look in the window.
00:32:48
Speaker
That's not on your sign today, is it?
00:32:50
Speaker
We don't have a big sign.
00:32:51
Speaker
If we had room, we'd put rick and rick on it.
00:32:54
Speaker
But in the window, they have this big show window.
00:32:59
Speaker
There's nothing in there that we would sell today.
00:33:03
Speaker
It was just stuff.
00:33:05
Speaker
They moved up to Fourth Avenue at some point and actually bought their first major piece of American furniture, which is a John and Thomas Seymour sideboard.
00:33:16
Speaker
which is currently at the Met.
00:33:17
Speaker
So if you go into the Met, that was the first piece that they bought.
00:33:20
Speaker
They apparently spent nights drawing it so they could have this, you know, at least some record of what they had sold and record of what they had.
00:33:30
Speaker
They sold that to a major collector who ended up donating, the family ended up donating to the museum, but that got them started on to better things.
00:33:38
Speaker
And they started to handle better things and then moved uptown again to 49th Street where they sold to a lot of like Broadway musicians
00:33:44
Speaker
stars and things like that.
00:33:45
Speaker
They were in that neighborhood.
00:33:46
Speaker
They were 57th Street.
00:33:48
Speaker
This is all in the 20s until they finally bought a building at 815 Madison Avenue, where they were from 19, it's either 27 or 28, all the way through until the breakup in 73.
00:34:02
Speaker
And that's where, actually, my grandfather joins the firm and his, I guess, uncle's
00:34:11
Speaker
son, whatever it's, it gets a little convoluted who's who, but, um, where they both joined and we're working together.
00:34:18
Speaker
Ben Ginsburg is also fairly well known.
00:34:22
Speaker
Um, and, and they worked out of the eight 15 Madison for many, many years and that's where, and they were really handling great American things and English things, but, but at a lower level, I mean, sort of English things that looked American.
00:34:35
Speaker
So for people who couldn't afford the great American, they could afford something quite beautiful that was English.
00:34:41
Speaker
Um,
00:34:42
Speaker
And they were selling to a lot of the great collectors.
00:34:44
Speaker
I mean, they sold to DuPont.
00:34:45
Speaker
They sold to I'm a hog.
00:34:47
Speaker
She was a very special client for my grandfather.
00:34:50
Speaker
They sold to Henry Ford in the 30s, and he's the one who kept them through, got them through the depression.
00:34:56
Speaker
He would spend, we think, anywhere from $200,000 to $250,000 in 1931, $32 with them.
00:34:58
Speaker
That's real money.
00:34:59
Speaker
It was a huge amount of money because things were cheap.
00:35:10
Speaker
at that point, they built up an incredible stack.
00:35:13
Speaker
I mean, we're still the beneficiaries of what they did in the 30s and early 40s.
00:35:19
Speaker
After my grandfather got back from the war, he was obviously much more involved in the business and, like I said, sold to a lot of the top collectors.
00:35:28
Speaker
Another one is George Alfred Kluet, who was a big name in the collecting world but not as famous as, let's say, DuPont or Haag.
00:35:35
Speaker
He had some great things, some really, really great things.
00:35:41
Speaker
And then what happened in 1973?
00:35:44
Speaker
So in 73, my father's in the business and my grandfather together, there was a family quarrel and they split.
00:35:52
Speaker
They left and moved up to the second floor of the Carlisle, which was at that point right across the street from Park Burnett, Sotheby's.
00:36:00
Speaker
And they were there from 73 to 86, well, 87.
00:36:02
Speaker
And then 87, we moved to this building.
00:36:08
Speaker
is 24 East 84th Street and that's right around when I started I was a winter for two years and then during the farm and in 89 I know we were 91 and we've been here ever since but as of May 15th we have sold this building and have bought a property down 17th Street in Chelsea between 7th and 8th Avenue which will hopefully
00:36:37
Speaker
be ready to be moved into in the next six months or so.
00:36:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:42
Speaker
It's very exciting.
00:36:43
Speaker
It was funny, as you were telling us earlier, that the firm has had a longstanding tradition of moving farther and farther uptown.
00:36:49
Speaker
Yes.
00:36:50
Speaker
And now you're going right back down to where you started.
00:36:53
Speaker
We're making a 180 right back down there and heading a little bit west.
00:36:56
Speaker
So, yeah, that's something that I have thought about because it has been this progression uptown.
00:37:03
Speaker
And it's...
00:37:05
Speaker
It's a new neighborhood for us.
00:37:07
Speaker
I think we're new to that neighborhood, although there's quite a bit of, obviously, art galleries down there, a lot of modern furniture galleries, and just in the neighborhood, there's a lot of home furnishing, which, you know, in essence is what we are.
00:37:21
Speaker
I mean, they're artworks and they're historically important, but they're also home furnishings.
00:37:26
Speaker
And if that's one way for somebody to at least catch the bug, get interested in it, because they think it's pretty, that's a perfectly legitimate way
Antiques Market Insights
00:37:35
Speaker
to get into it.
00:37:35
Speaker
into early American Dictative Art.
00:37:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:38
Speaker
And Ben and I are, of course, always talking about our goal of drawing in new audiences.
00:37:45
Speaker
I think this is a really laudable, you know, project of going to a neighborhood where we know there's a new audience for this material and kind of confronting them with it.
00:37:56
Speaker
I mean, this is some of the most
00:37:59
Speaker
amazing material culture that this country has produced.
00:38:02
Speaker
You know, here it is, one block from the Twitter and Google headquarters, I think you said.
00:38:08
Speaker
So it's kind of a grand experiment in seeing how these audiences can be attracted.
00:38:17
Speaker
And if this stuff doesn't attract them, then we really are in trouble.
00:38:20
Speaker
That's right.
00:38:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:24
Speaker
I mean, at the risk of getting a little bit of insider baseball in here,
00:38:30
Speaker
So, well, I'll just sort of share my experience and ask you whether that is familiar to you and whether it relates to your business also.
00:38:38
Speaker
Because at ShrubSoul, the firm where I work, where we deal in antique silver, what we've found in recent years is that there aren't quite so many people buying sets of four candlesticks to give as wedding gifts anymore.
00:38:53
Speaker
And there aren't so many people trying to complete their flatware services.
00:38:57
Speaker
And so instead of selling a lot of what I say in a completely non-derogatory way, what I call quotidian silver, instead of selling a lot of this sort of everyday silver for home use,
00:39:11
Speaker
we are selling more and more of the sort of the most rare, the most interesting, the most valuable and collectible pieces.
00:39:19
Speaker
And we're selling them to museums and we're selling them to really specialized and educated and often academically inclined buyers.
00:39:30
Speaker
which is fun because it means that we have an excuse to deal with really high quality material, but it also, it doesn't feel like a great trend for the long-term health of the business.
00:39:42
Speaker
And I wonder if, if American furniture is experiencing anything along those lines.
00:39:50
Speaker
I think, yes, but there's one of the nice things about American furniture, I think all,
00:39:58
Speaker
almost all American Decker of Arts, is it's very inclusive in that you can find something from $200 or less all the way on up to millions.
00:40:09
Speaker
There's a lot of different things out there from all periods that people can buy.
00:40:15
Speaker
I think some of the very sort of good but not great things, the nice isn't doing as well right now.
00:40:25
Speaker
Although with prices falling as much as they have, it's opened up a lot more opportunities for people.
00:40:31
Speaker
So you're seeing, I mean, I'm seeing people coming back into the market who were scared off in the 90s, early 2000s, because the prices have gotten so crazy.
00:40:40
Speaker
They've gotten so high.
00:40:41
Speaker
And now they're back to something that's affordable.
00:40:45
Speaker
And, you know, you can actually buy museum quality things, things that are either the made to or like the one at the Met or Connecticut historical, depending on
00:40:55
Speaker
whichever museum you want to talk about, in the $1,000 to $5,000 range.
00:40:59
Speaker
And obviously the higher up you go, the more that opens up.
00:41:05
Speaker
But there are a lot of opportunities for it.
00:41:08
Speaker
And I know people are sort of pounding on that, that this is the time to buy, but it really is.
00:41:12
Speaker
There are opportunities out there.
00:41:14
Speaker
And for most of my career, I remember people just saying, oh, I wish this were the 50s again.
00:41:21
Speaker
I would have bought this, this, and this.
00:41:22
Speaker
And that's what I'm saying.
00:41:24
Speaker
We're in the 50s now.
00:41:26
Speaker
You're back to the point where some things are bringing what they brought back then, the same dollar amount.
00:41:32
Speaker
Some, if you include the inflation changes in dollar value, are significantly less than they were back then.
00:41:40
Speaker
So this is that opportunity that people have to buy low.
00:41:47
Speaker
We're seeing people coming in because of that, I think.
00:41:50
Speaker
I think it's also a reason to come into shops, to go into shops where they survive as they do here.
00:41:57
Speaker
Because I know, based on my experience with antiques fairs, including the Winter Show, which you both exhibit in and which I used to be a director of,
00:42:06
Speaker
that economic pressures have forced dealers to bring that masterpiece level of material to shows, right?
00:42:14
Speaker
Because that is often, you know, you're investing a lot of money in your booth, you're taking a risk on that outing, and so it makes sense to bring
00:42:24
Speaker
you know, the rarest, most exceptional piece that you have on hand or a couple of them.
00:42:29
Speaker
And I know that, you know, you've both been successful in doing that and really showing that face of your business in that elevated venue.
00:42:37
Speaker
But if you want those 1950s deals,
00:42:41
Speaker
I think it's really wise to come into the shop, to get to know a dealer in that territory, you know, and to go down to the basement, so to speak, and sort of find out what's there at the more accessible price range.
00:42:55
Speaker
And I love that you're going to kind of continue that tradition of keeping a shop, but just in a new neighborhood.
00:43:01
Speaker
Right.
00:43:01
Speaker
So that that opportunity continues.
00:43:03
Speaker
It will be an open shop.
00:43:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:04
Speaker
You know, I'm still trying to figure out exactly what days make the most sense.
00:43:08
Speaker
We used to be open Tuesday through Saturday.
00:43:10
Speaker
Right.
00:43:11
Speaker
and found that nobody was coming in on Saturdays, but I'd come in on Tuesday and have a bunch of phone calls for Monday.
00:43:16
Speaker
Where are you?
00:43:17
Speaker
Why can't you come in?
00:43:18
Speaker
I'm actually reconsidering maybe opening up on Saturdays for down there just to give more access for people to come in.
00:43:28
Speaker
But absolutely, I mean, at a show you are limited in space.
Emotional Connections with Antiques
00:43:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:32
Speaker
So there's only, I mean, I guess if I bring 10 pieces of furniture that's, well, maybe 15, that's a lot.
00:43:40
Speaker
You see in this room alone where we're sitting, which you can't see, but you can see.
00:43:45
Speaker
More than I'd have in a booth at any one time.
00:43:47
Speaker
And this is one room of many.
00:43:51
Speaker
So you're absolutely right.
00:43:52
Speaker
Coming into the shops and seeing what's available is worth it.
00:43:56
Speaker
And I think sometimes people feel a little bit intimidated by the shops, which is such a shame because there's very little intimidating here.
00:44:05
Speaker
I mean, it's not like you break it, you buy it.
00:44:07
Speaker
We've never had anything broken, but...
00:44:09
Speaker
It's all fixable if something were to get broken.
00:44:12
Speaker
And it's a good opportunity to come look through, talk to either me or to Melanie or to anyone else who's here.
00:44:21
Speaker
I've done it too.
00:44:22
Speaker
I mean, I collect rocks and minerals, and I know when I go to shows or into other people's shops, I'm always a little concerned.
00:44:28
Speaker
Well, I don't know as much as they do, and I'm going to say something stupid.
00:44:32
Speaker
There's really nothing that you can say that's stupid.
00:44:34
Speaker
If you're showing interest in something that I love and care about,
00:44:38
Speaker
or we all love and care about, that just having the interest means that there's nothing that you can say that's going to be done, that's going to be a problem.
00:44:48
Speaker
So it's an open invitation to come into our shop.
00:44:52
Speaker
I'm sure it's an open invitation for your shop.
00:44:55
Speaker
And you don't have to feel like you have to buy anything because quite frankly, most people don't.
00:44:59
Speaker
So you're in a club that's a big club.
00:45:03
Speaker
And now that admission to the Met isn't free anymore,
00:45:07
Speaker
Admission to our shop still is.
00:45:09
Speaker
It still is.
00:45:10
Speaker
And the material there may end up in the Met someday, right?
00:45:13
Speaker
Come and look at it in a comfortable environment.
00:45:15
Speaker
That's right.
00:45:16
Speaker
With no entrance fee.
00:45:17
Speaker
All right.
00:45:18
Speaker
Well, this has been a pretty good advertisement for ourselves.
00:45:22
Speaker
But it's also fabulous advice.
00:45:24
Speaker
And I think it can be extended to every part of the antiques market.
00:45:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:28
Speaker
Not just to silver and American furniture.
00:45:29
Speaker
Right.
00:45:31
Speaker
Well, thanks so much.
00:45:32
Speaker
That's very well put.
00:45:33
Speaker
And I appreciate you bringing us into your world and sharing these wonderful chairs with us.
00:45:39
Speaker
Anything else that you'd like to add for listeners before we let you go?
00:45:49
Speaker
I'm just glad people are listening.
00:45:51
Speaker
I'm glad people are interested in this world because it is a fascinating world and there's so many aspects to it.
00:45:59
Speaker
There's the aesthetics, there's the history,
00:46:01
Speaker
There's the engineering of the objects, there's the construction.
00:46:07
Speaker
There's so many ways to get excited about these pieces.
00:46:11
Speaker
I know I started, my interest was really in American history and to be surrounded by things that have historical importance or maybe just around when certain things happen.
00:46:25
Speaker
Revolutionary War, War of 1812, whatever it is.
00:46:28
Speaker
That is, it still gets the hairs on the back of my neck when I think about some of the history.
00:46:34
Speaker
I have to say, when you mentioned that, you know, the first time that the chairs had left Manhattan Island, something about that just felt magical to me, you know, because they're so rooted in this place where we're standing, we're sitting right now.
00:46:49
Speaker
I really felt bad.
00:46:50
Speaker
I mean, I couldn't turn around on the 59th Street Bridge, but I felt bad that these were leaving, that these were leaving Manhattan.
00:46:58
Speaker
I guess to me it just sort of emphasizes, it's not that it's bad that they've left, it's just that it really emphasizes the specialness of the object and the connection that they have.
00:47:10
Speaker
You know, sometimes you go into a museum or a shop even, or a private collection, and you see an object and you know academically that it's connected to these old people and old places and times.
00:47:24
Speaker
But something about just the way that you put it, that those chairs had never left before made it feel so immediate to me.
00:47:32
Speaker
And these chairs that we were just looking at a minute ago and touching, you know, there's a continuum through history from our touch back through, back through the whole Beekman family, all the generations of it and its makers and the French tapestry, the weavers and,
00:47:53
Speaker
John Banks hammering away.
00:47:54
Speaker
John Banks hammering away.
00:47:56
Speaker
And we may not have inherited the Beekman fortune, but we can look on those objects today and still benefit from them.
00:48:03
Speaker
I think it's a magical inheritance that we get to benefit from.
00:48:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:08
Speaker
Even if we don't, you and I don't get to own them.
00:48:12
Speaker
Not yet.
00:48:12
Speaker
Not yet, but we may come back here and, uh, lay down a check.
00:48:16
Speaker
We'll see.
00:48:17
Speaker
That's the beauty about the antiques market right now is that, uh,
00:48:21
Speaker
All good offers considered.
00:48:22
Speaker
Okay, well, we'll hold you to that.
00:48:24
Speaker
Thank you for sharing all of this history with us and pointing the way to the future.
00:48:31
Speaker
That's a wrap.
00:48:32
Speaker
Thanks so much to Frank Levy for joining us, and thank you for listening.
00:48:37
Speaker
Don't forget to check out pictures at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast.
00:48:41
Speaker
Our music is by Trap Rabbit.
00:48:43
Speaker
Our editor and producer is Sammy Delati.
00:48:46
Speaker
My co-host is Michael D.S.
00:48:47
Speaker
Griffith, and I'm your host, Ben Miller.