If you want to buy a wooden dresser, you have a huge range of options. Which do you prefer: this modern chest of drawers by George Nelson, or this late 18th century tiger maple tall chest?

Here is the list of things I think about when I’m searching for antique furniture made from wood. I find the search is most successful when I have a solid idea in mind for two or three of these criteria, and then remain flexible for the rest. For example, I might know that I want a mahogany table with specific dimensions, but I’m flexible when it comes to style and finish.

1. What’s the purpose?

Ask yourself, why am I buying a piece of furniture?  Perhaps the piece will have a specific function—you might need a new dining room table. Or maybe you want something decorative to go with the modern style of your new home.

2. Know your style

It can help narrow down the choices if you define the style you’re looking for, but I suggest keeping your mind open. Sometimes you’re drawn to the design of a piece without knowing why, and these are the purchases that will help to develop your unique, personal style.

3. What’s your budget?

Make sure you know how much you’re willing to spend before you start looking. This is especially important at auction, where it can be all too easy to get carried away and overlook the buyer’s premium. It’s also important to research the value of a piece of furniture so you can recognize if a piece is selling for a reasonable price.

4. Make sure it fits!

We’ve all made this mistake at least once. You go to a showroom or an auction preview and fall in love with a piece of furniture, and then you bring it home. And it’s the wrong size. Even after you remove a door to try to get it in the house, it still doesn’t fit! So be sure to write down the dimensions you’re looking for – height, length, and depth.

5. Look at the design of the whole room

Even if the piece of furniture fits physically into the space you have in mind, that doesn’t mean it will fit visually or artistically. Take pictures of any other pieces of furniture, rugs, wallpaper, or other accessories you plan to place in the same space. You can create a collage online using OlioBoard to see how everything works together before you buy.

6. Oak, walnut, or mahogany… what’s the difference?

Look at wood samples in a hardware store to help figure out which materials appeal most to you. Some common options are oak, walnut, mahogany, pine, teak, cherry, and other more exotic woods. Some of the pricier antiques you’ll find are made from historic old growth wood (that may even be extinct) rather than new growth wood.

7. How is the surface finished?

The surface of antique wooden furniture may be painted, stained, fumed, oiled, or lacquered. A surface in original condition is always of more interest to collectors. You’ll find both real wooden furniture and wood veneer, and it’s important to know the difference.

8. Consider the hardware

The knobs, hinges, and drawer pulls on a piece of furniture can change its whole appearance. Some historic pieces of furniture have handmade hardware and many antique furniture collectors find this quite appealing.

9. Recognize well-crafted joinery

Be sure to inspect the joinery on a piece of furniture. Failure to do this is like buying a car without looking under the hood. Joinery is important. It can make all the difference in the longevity of a piece of antique furniture. I’ll explain how to recognize different types of joinery in a future blog post.

10. What’s the story?

The great thing about buying antique furniture at auction is that pieces often comes with a story or history—who owned it, where and when it was made, and the historical trends that contributed to its style and design. The provenance of a piece of furniture can make a big difference in how much it appeals to collectors.

My colleagues and I would be happy to help you explore woods, joinery, historic styles, and more at a Skinner auction preview. After over forty years in the auction business, we have seen some of the most interesting pieces of furniture ever made.

My next few posts in this series on buying wooden furniture will cover joinery, finish, and different wood choices. Please leave a comment if you have a specific question about wooden furniture that you’d like to see addressed.

(Detail) Kashmir Moon Shawl, North India, early 19th century, sold for $59,250 in Skinner's February 2012 Oriental Rugs & Carpets Auction

Next time you sort through boxes in your basement, setting aside items for a yard sale, think twice about what these items may be worth. You could be the unknowing owner of a buried treasure.

In the Skinner Oriental Rugs & Carpets auction on Saturday, February 11, 2012, An important Kashmir Moon Shawl hammered at $50,000 after intense, competitive bidding. The phone lines were all busy with bidders calling in from around the world.

The shawl was made in North India in the early 19th century. The condition of the textile along with its rare beauty, great color, and delicate embroidery attracted serious attention in the market.

Just a few months before the auction, the shawl was hiding away in the consignor’s basement, a forgotten yard sale purchase from 30 years ago. The consignor had bought the shawl because she was attracted to the lovely fabric pattern, and thought it might be a nice craft project to make a pillow from it someday.

Thankfully, the pillow never got made, and when she came across the fabric many years later, she realized that it was all hand-stitched. The quality of the craftsmanship gave her pause, and she decided not to simply put it into another yard sale. Instead, she called Skinner auction house for a professional appraiser’s opinion.

Gary Richards, director of the Oriental Rugs & Carpets department and an experienced appraiser of rugs and textiles, took a look at the piece, and instantly knew it was something special. Further research confirmed that the piece was an authentic Kashmir shawl and could be worth thousands of dollars.

Much to the delight of both the consignor and Skinner, the shawl brought $59,250 with buyer’s premium, a world record for the sale of a Kashmir Moon Shawl at auction.

The consignor said, “I was so pleased. Skinner worked together with advertising, photography, and expert opinions in order to attract bidders from all around the world. The shawl could have been destroyed or lost forever; I’m so glad that it’s now being preserved as an important historic textile.”

Skinner expert appraisers are always available to give free verbal estimates of the value of art and antiques. Call 508-970-3299 to set up an appointment. It never hurts to ask; who knows where the next buried treasure will come from?

Kashmir Moon Shawl, North India, early 19th century, sold for $59,250 in Skinner's February 2012 Oriental Rugs & Carpets Auction

Fitz Henry Lane, Manchester Harbor

Skinner set a new world record for a painting by Fitz Henry Lane in November 2004: a record that still stands today. The $5.5 million price bested the previous world record price for the artist by over $1.5 million. Even more exciting, this was the third record price that Skinner set for a work by Fitz Henry Lane, who is widely regarded as one of the foremost American painters of the 19th century. At the time, this painting was also the most valuable artwork ever sold at auction in New England.

Skinner still holds the world record for a work by artist Fitz Henry Lane, set when Manchester Harbor sold for $5.5 Million in a Skinner American & European Paintings & Prints Auction in Boston in November 2004

Lane was born in 1804 in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and spent much of his youth sketching the Cape Ann shore, north of Boston. He also seems to have undergone two name changes, only one of which was of his own doing. He was born Nathaniel Rogers Lane. As a young man he changed his name, possibly to differentiate himself from the well-known miniature painter Nathaniel Rodgers. He apprenticed with William S. Pendleton, the Boston lithography firm, in the early 1830s, specializing in topographic views. At this time, he began signing his works “F.H. Lane.” Lane fell out of favor with collectors in the late 19th century, and remained that way well into the 20th century. As of the 1930s, if scholars considered Lane at all, they considered his name to be Fitz Hugh Lane. In fact, when Manchester Harbor sold in 2004 this was still thought to be the case. It was not until 2005 that researchers in Gloucester, Massachusetts rediscovered the 1831 letter Lane had written to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts requesting
a name change to Fitz Henry Lane.

Whether you call him Nathaniel, Hugh, or Henry, the artist probably saw the works of Robert Salmon and Washington Allston in Boston in the early 1840s. It was at this time that he decided to concentrate on painting. The paintings of the late 1840s and early 1850s reflected Lane’s earlier graphics training, in conjunction with the influence of the marine artists of the earlier generation. As is apparent in Manchester Harbor, the foreground details with its figures, piers, and spits of land, the scale for the work while accentuating the vastness of the view and its light. The low placement of the horizon line allows for an expansive sky. Tinted with the warm hues of sunrise and reflected in the calm waters, the light becomes the focus of the work, as is typical of Luminism.

The horizontal arrangement of the composition creates stillness in spite of the great, varied activity of the foreground. In conjunction with the concentration of light around a sun viewed through clouds just above the horizon, Manchester Harbor foreshadows the increasing calm and poetry of Lane’s mature Luminist style as it would emerge in the late 1850s.

From my experience as an appraiser of fine paintings and prints for Skinner and on Antiques Roadshow, I know how rare it is to find a masterpiece like this one. Every time I sell a fabulous painting at auction, I wonder how many more there can be left to find? But I know there are many more amazing finds out there.

If you have an exceptional painting or print by a well known artist, and would like me to take a look, please call and set up an appointment at 508-970-3299.

The Chippendale Mahogany Bombe Chest-on-Chest

This Chippendale Mahogany Carved Scroll-top Bombe Chest-on-Chest sold for $1,766,000 in a 2003 American Furniture & Decorative Arts auction

Extraordinary American antique furniture never goes out of style. The elegant proportions and masterful craftsmanship of a fine piece of furniture in original condition will always attract interest and command high prices at auction.

Just under a decade ago, Skinner made history when we sold an 18th century Chippendale Mahogany Carved Scroll-top Bombe Chest-on-Chest for $1,766,000. This lovely example of the rare American furniture form was made in Boston or the North Shore of Massachusetts, and remained in very fine condition, retaining its old surface and original brasses. Stylistically, the piece most closely resembles one in the collection of Colonial Williamsburg.

The Chippendale Chest was one of the finest examples of American furniture I have found in my years of working in this business, and Skinner was truly privileged to have the opportunity to offer it at auction. It seems only fitting to me that after more than 200 years, it was auctioned in Boston — the city in which it was likely made.

The provenance of the chest is also notable. Family papers verify that the piece once belonged to Robert “King” Hooper, prominent Marblehead merchant and one of the wealthiest men in 18th century America. Hooper, through a series of provident events and strategic decisions, became a powerful force in the colonial fishing industry in Massachusetts, playing a vital role in providing cargo essential to the British “Triangle Trade.” A Loyalist during the American Revolution, Hooper subsequently lost the fortune he had amassed, but in the middle decades of the 18th century, his lifestyle and the home and furnishings he enjoyed had reflected that of British high society across the ocean.

It’s extremely rare to discover a piece of furniture this beautiful and pristine, but I know there are more out there. As an expert American antique furniture appraiser and regular on the Antiques Roadshow, I’m always on the lookout for the next great find. If you have a piece of antique furniture in original condition and would like me to take a look, please call and set up an appointment at 508-970-3299.

Contemporary Craftsfirms Show at the Arts & Crafts Conference | Photography by Bill Murphy, Asheville, NC

You might say it was an idea conceived in the parking lot at Skinner.

The year was 1987 and I was in Boston for both the Skinner fall Arts & Crafts auction and for the opening of the long-awaited “The Art That Is Life” Arts & Crafts exhibit at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

A few months earlier, I had attended the final Arts & Crafts conference held at the aging Roycroft Inn. When word circulated among the dealers and collectors gathered there that the Roycroft Inn would be closed for what turned out to be a nine-year restoration, my first reaction was: we should host the conference at the Grove Park Inn.

Built overlooking Asheville, NC in 1913, the Grove Park Inn had been hailed as “the finest resort hotel in the world.” Furnished with Roycroft hammered copper lights, Roycroft furniture and Heywood-Wakefield wicker rockers, it was an Arts & Crafts mecca. The original gift shop in the lobby sold Newcomb College vases, Roseville pottery, Roycroft books and metalware, and Cherokee hand-woven baskets and rugs.

As I stood that day in the parking lot at Skinner, urging Arts & Crafts collectors and dealers to come to Asheville the third weekend in February, most must have wondered, “Arts & Crafts in the South? Not Boston, Syracuse or East Aurora?”

But they came, and they discovered what was a hidden Arts & Crafts treasure at the time. They sat in Stickley Morris chairs, warmed themselves in front of a fireplace large enough to park a car, attended seminars, and bought Arts & Crafts antiques from 29 dealers. We decided that weekend to return the following year, and the year after that, and the year after that, until today we are preparing for our 25th Arts & Crafts Conference at the Grove Park Inn on February 17-19.

But now it’s more than just a few seminars and a handful of antiques dealers. This year’s conference will draw more than 2,000 collectors, antiques dealers, contemporary crafts firms, magazine editors, book publishers, and authors. They will choose from ten daily small group discussions, take both walking tours and house tours, watch demonstrations, participate in hands-on workshops, and learn about what they collect through six major seminar presentations and a film documentary.

And just to keep it lively, they will sip champagne, listen to music in the Great Hall, and dance until midnight on the Sunset Terrace to live bands.

Who says antiques collectors don’t know how to have fun?

If you would like to learn more, take a look at www.Arts-CraftsConference.com. The Slide Show will give you a great feel for what will be happening next month at what today is being called “the finest Arts & Crafts resort in the world.”

In past years we’ve seen our fellow exhibitors raffle off everything from lobster dinners to bottles of champagne to all sorts of electronic gadgetry. We joined the fray this year but decided to do so with a different twist. Our giveaway was an example of the wares we bring to auction regularly: a beautiful piece of modern design in the form of a Tiffany favrile vase offered in our recent 20th Century Design auction.

Jane Prentiss, our Director of 20th Century Design, wrote the following comments about the piece and the process by which it was made:

Prior to the turn of the 20th century, Louis Comfort Tiffany’s “Quest of Beauty” led him to develop Tiffany favrile Glass. Hand-wrought, this early glass was called fabrile after the French for “made by hand.” It later became known as “favrile,” as the glass developed a radiance and richness.

One of the most striking characteristics of favrile glass is its iridescence. This is achieved by exposing the glass to metallic fumes while still hot, creating a surface that plays with light. Pulling the hot glass creates the form and undulations on the surface, giving the glass vitality. Timeless in its beauty, Tiffany favrile glass is as highly admired now as ever.

The bottom of this gold iridescent vase is finished with a button pontil. The pontil is a remnant from where the glass rod held the vase while it was being manipulated in the furnace by the glass blower.  The vase carries the L.C.T mark (for Louis Comfort Tiffany) and is numbered 2243. It was created circa 1900 for collectors and lovers of art.

Apparently, there were a number of art lovers and perhaps even collectors at Heckerling this year, as our fishbowl held almost 150 business cards by the end of the conference. Jane Prentiss drew one of them, and the vase is now on the way to its new home with the lucky winner!

Should you be headed to Heckerling next year, please visit our booth – we’re planning to have an equally interesting and beautiful object available as our prize drawing. And if you’re a fan of Tiffany or art glass in general, watch for the catalogue for our next 20th Century Design sale, coming up on June 23rd.

This lovely arrangement interprets an 18th/19th century portrait of a gentlewoman as Diana, Goddess of the Hunt (Lot 310 in the February 3, 2012 Paintings auction)

Several months ago, Skinner art appraiser Kathy Wong agreed to arrange all of the flowers for a friend’s wedding. I know you’re wondering what this has to do with antiques and auctions, but just stay with me for a minute. The friend happens to be a Skinner colleague, so this past fall we have all enjoyed watching the process as Kathy brought in ideas to show to the bride-to-be: designs for table arrangements, bouquets, boutonnières, and more.

It turns out that, in addition to being a great art historian, Kathy has a fantastic eye for color and design.

Now, Kathy is putting her design talents to work for the sake of art and a terrific cause. In conjunction with the February 3rd Prints and Paintings auction in Boston, Kathy will interpret several of the lots presented as flower arrangements. Have you ever seen the Museum of Fine Art’s Art in Bloom or the Worcester Art Museum’s Flora in Winter? Our presentation will be similar, but we are adding a slight twist. The arrangements will be sold during the Paintings & Prints auction to raise money for the Boston Public Library’s Fine Arts Library in the historic McKim building in Copley Square.

Attend our Fine Art Gallery walk on February 2nd to view the art-inspired bouquets.

The BPL’s Fine Arts Library is a tremendous resource open to all, and as art appraisers, we use the library constantly in our research. The librarians are extremely knowledgeable, and work under difficult conditions – anyone who has gone in there to do research on a hot July day knows exactly what I’m talking about! Given the number of books I request in the course of a single visit, I can’t imagine that they are ever thrilled to see me, and yet they are always welcoming and considerate. It is one of our favorite places to work, and yet it is a place desperate for an upgrade. We realize that the amount we raise for them will only be a drop in the bucket, but it is our very small way of saying thank you.

Plus, won’t it be nice to come to the Paintings & Prints auction preview and see all the fresh, colorful flower arrangements? There’s nothing like a little bit of spring in the middle of winter!

The preview will be open to the public on Wednesday, February 1st, 12 to 5 pm; Thursday, February 2nd, 12 to 8 pm; and Friday, February 3, 9 to 10:30 am at Skinner’s Boston auction gallery. The auction begins at noon on Friday, February 3rd. We hope to see you there!

Lot 468: Walter Launt Palmer (American, 1854-1932) The Pine Grove, c. 1917, Estimate $8,000-12,000 in the February 3, 2012 Auction of American & European Works of Art

One of the distinct joys of being a fine art appraiser and cataloguer is getting to physically handle a work and bring its forgotten history to light. When we are lucky, the owner provides documentation for provenance or context. More often than not, what we work with are anecdotes that we must verify or rule out independently. At the heart of cataloguing is looking at a work objectively and asking the fundamental question “What does that mean?” of any inscriptions or marks.

Recently, I had the pleasure of puzzling over a winter scene by Walter Launt Palmer.  Palmer was acclaimed in his lifetime for his winter scenes and it’s easy to see why—he essentially did for snow what Monet did for haystacks, which is to say that he represented snow with a depth of color and texture that no other American artist had previously. As far as art historical categories go, Palmer is considered a Tonalist more than an Impressionist, owing in large part to his muted palette and stylistic restraint.

In cataloguing, examination of the reverse of a work is de rigueur. What we hope to find are titles, dedications, labels and other bits of information to tell us about its former life. In the case of our Palmer, we found a promising lead—an effaced title and stamp (see Figure 1).  After a process of trial and error, we explored the possibility that the 1917 volume of the American Art Annual—a venerable publication in print from 1898 to 1948—might have further information for us.  To my surprise, under the heading “Paintings Sold at Auction: Season of 1916-1917” was an entry for a Walter Launt Palmer work entitled “The Pine Grove,” 30 x 22 inches, sold as lot 154 in a sale entitled “War Relief” to Otto Bernet. The consignor believed that her father had purchased the work at auction in New York, and ours measured exactly 30 x 22 inches. Could this be our work? More information was needed. What was this “War Relief” sale, and more importantly, was a catalogue produced?

Figure 1

Further research turned up the following:

• The “War Relief” sale was held May 3 to 4, 1917, and comprised of works donated by the American Artists’ Committee of One Hundred, of which Palmer was a member (1)

• Most members of this artist Committee had trained or exhibited in France, and this American relief alliance formed in 1916 out of gratitude and concern for their French mentors and counterparts (2)

• The sale was handled by the American Art Association (our AAA acronym!), an auctioneer established in 1883 (3)

Figure 2

Sometimes tracking down primary source material is as tricky as finding out that it exists in the first place. There were less than three copies of the sale catalogue in public collections nationally, and the only book form was located in the Brooklyn Museum library. With the help of a library assistant, we found that the catalogue description matched our work (see fig. 2).

There is still more to know about this work, such as whether or not the previous owner, Collier Whittemore Baird (1888-1977), an executive in the rubber industry, acquired it directly from Otto Bernet or through an intermediary. The American Art Association Records, microfilmed through the Smithsonian Archives of American Art (SAAM), may yield further clues.

Larger contextual questions also remain, such as what was Palmer’s involvement with the war relief committee and how many other sales did he participate in? The American Artists’ Committee of One Hundred Records, also through the SAAM, may be revealing.  

As cataloguers, we are the temporary custodians of these works, and consider ourselves lucky when we’ve found enough to pique the interest of the next owner—ideally, a devoted researcher.

This work will find a new home at the February 3, 2012 American & European Works of Art auction in Boston.

Edward Hopper (American, 1882-1967) Night Shadows, 1921, Auctioned for $27,255 in September, 2010

“Want to come up and see my etchings?”

The opportunity to throw out a line like this may be one motive to collect prints, but there are much better reasons. Collecting prints is the auction equivalent of “having your cake and eating it too.”

“Print” is a broad term that, in the context of fine art, refers to a work for which the artist creates the printing matrix, such as an etched plate, a lithographic stone, or a carved woodblock, and uses this to create multiple impressions of an image.

The artist may or may not be the actual printer, but generally approves of the quality and methodology of printing, and often signs his or her prints by hand.

Prints tend to be smaller in scale than paintings – unless you’re looking at Modern and Contemporary works – and generally invite the close, intimate scrutiny that a smaller space engenders. This intimacy lends itself extremely well to adorning the walls of a regular-sized home.

If you have a limited budget—who doesn’t these days?—you should consider prints.

Because of their very nature, prints are less expensive than paintings. Prints are multiples, rather than one-of-a-kind works of art, so clearly they are less rare. This also means that condition is extremely important. In buying a unique work, if you absolutely love the image you may be more accepting of some minor condition problems.

With prints, however, the rules change. Consider an iconic etching like Edward Hopper’s Night Shadows of 1921. If that is the work you want, then you have options. This work was printed in an edition of 500. The very next one to come up at auction might be laid down or have trimmed margins or staining — all negative condition issues. If you’re willing to overlook those problems, you could get one of those 500 etchings for around $25,000 or less. Or, you can hold out for a fantastic impression in pristine condition for $40,000.

Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975), Threshing

The Hopper in poor condition may not be within your price range, but here’s another example: Let’s say you want to buy Thomas Hart Benton oil—just a minor one. Well, you need to be ready to spend $300,000 to $500,000. That’s the price of a house! It’s simply beyond most people’s budgets. And that doesn’t even address the cost of a prime example of his painting – his record for auction prices is just over $2.4 million.

But, you can get a great Thomas Hart Benton lithograph—a quintessential example of his work—for $3,000 to $5,000. That’s not cheap, but it’s only a mortgage payment or two, and if you’re in love, what are a few mortgage payments? And since you’re wondering; for a major Hopper painting, plan to spend the price of the house, two new cars, plus 4 years of college tuition… or over $1,000,000. Suddenly $25,000-40,000 seems like a bargain.

My advice to you is, “have your house and decorate it too.”

So, should you collect prints or paintings? It’s a few mortgage payments versus the whole house. You make the call!

View the Fine Paintings & Prints Auction Catalogue for our February 3, 2012 auction.

K'ang-hsi Period Cloisonne Bottle-Form Vase, China, 1662-1722, Estimate $10,000-15,000

Have you ever watched Antiques Roadshow on PBS? As a senior art and antiques appraiser at Skinner, many of my days are a lot like the reality TV show.

I spend considerable time meeting with prospective consignors at our Marlborough and Boston auction galleries and viewing the antiques, collectibles & fine art brought in for an auction evaluation.

I’m always surprised by what I see. Items run the gamut, spanning centuries, continents and values. The stories behind these antiques are often fascinating.

Over the past few weeks, many interesting items have come through our doors. Here are five of my favorites that I’ve taken in on consignment.

Keep an eye out for these antiques in future Skinner auctions:

1. K’ang-hsi Period Cloisonné Bottle-Form Vase, China, 1662-1722

The fluidity of the floral pattern and elegant form made this piece stand out from the Bohemian glass, Limoges china and other items on the viewing table. Purchased at auction in New York in 1911, this vase will be featured in our April Asian Works of Art auction after 100 years off the market. Auction estimate: $10,000-15,000.

2. Norse-revival Silver Covered Presentation Cup & Cover, by the Norwegian silversmith Henrik Moller

Combining the Arts & Crafts styling of the period with scenes from the Viking Sagas, mythical beasts and dense interlaced stylized foliage, this cup has a fantastical look that would fit any décor from Arts & Crafts to Goth. Auction estimate: $4,000-6,000.

3. Miniature Portrait on Ivory of a Gentleman

The profile is dashing in a Darcy-like way, and a curious note accompanying the piece mentions a Margaret Churchill, duchess of Marlborough, and H. Francis Blagge whose initials are engraved on the reverse of the token. Auction estimate: $400-600.

4. Pair of Minton Pate-sur-Pate and parcel-gilt decorated cabinet plates

Signed by the artist Albion Birks, and painted in the slip technique imported from France in the late 19^th century, the plates are elegant with scenes of Cupid and gilded foliage. Minton saw great success with this line of wares at the turn of the 20^th century. Auction estimate: $1,000-1,500.

5. Art Deco Fada Radio

From the model line L-56 first introduced in 1939 and made of Catalin, a brand-name resin similar to, but not identical to Bakelite, the radio’s yellow color isn’t as rare as those incorporating multi-color combinations but it should appeal to both art deco collectors and radio enthusiasts alike. Auction estimate: $300-500.