This Business of Antiques
Antiques are a fascinating subject, but also a vast one, beyond the scope of this brief article. Here we can concern ourselves with such aspects as their collection by the élite of society, their haphazard donation or loaning to museums and, later, the production of “fake” antiques as a result of our commercial system.
Our story begins with the archeological efforts of Sir Arthur Evans at Cnossos on the Mediterranean island of Crete, who revealed an early Grecian civilisation of a high order, until then unknown.
These excavations early in the 20th century prove that, nearly four thousand years ago and at least five hundred years before the pottery of Athens achieved its ceramic supremacy, the craftsmen of Crete were producing articles for ornament and use in gold, ivory and porcelain of excellent design and execution. This Cretan civilisation, together with its contemporary cultures in other parts of the world, represents mankind’s first steps from tribal society.
Two thousand years afterwards, the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 created a primitive museum for many fine examples of Man’s early works of art later to be unearthed by archeologists. These excavations revealed floors of mosaic, mural paintings, gold and silver ornaments and bronze busts, all of great beauty—whilst similar operations at Herculaneum were richer still in the artistic craftsmanship of the period.
During the period between the contemporary civilisation of Crete, Babylon, and Egypt, and the unearthing of the Pompeian treasures, Man’s cultural activity portrayed changes in his development as he reacted to his material environment—changing it and then changing himself. From the 7th century B.C. up to the 4th century A.D. the pottery of Athens was symbolical of the stage of ceramic achievement of this period, whilst Byzantine art, a combination of Greek, Persian and Román culture, was influenced by the rise of Christianity, with the symbol of the cross embodied in many designs. Indeed this motif is still with us, although religious items are not good sellers in the modern antique trade and probably the “cult of the cross” is on the wane.
Examples of Celtic art are provided by 8th century bronze shields of Ireland and the famous Tara brooch of Dublin from the 10th century. Craftsmen in Scandinavia also produced many beautiful designs in bronze and silver, their Viking ship incorporated a bronze dragon prow reflecting the early Icelandic sagas, recorded by William Morris in his epic poem—Sigurd the Volsung. It is also interesting to note that in the 12th century their pagan gods, Thor and Woden, overlapped in culture the rising Christian symbol, in a similar way that the Cretan culture influenced early Greek and Román art.
The 16th century witnessed the introduction into Europe of Chinese porcelain with its motif dragon patterns and the purity of the Ming dynasty productions. These early craftsmen of China, produced a hard paste porcelain which was the forerunner of what is known all over the world to-day as “china”.
Two hundred years later saw porcelain being produced in England at Bow, Bristol, Worcester, Derby and Longton Hall, while in 1775 Josiah Wedgwood introduced his famous Jasper ware at Etruria and of course this popular Wedgwood is still being produced to-day. Much could be written of the beauties of Dresden Candelabra, Meissen Figurine, Sevres vases, Chelsea groups etc. but enough has been said in this context, we hope, to explain the origin of antiques. We must now pass from the historical side of the subject to the economic for a continuation of our brief review.
Economics of Antiques
The commercial rule for determining whether an article qualifies for the description of “antique” is laid down by H.M. Customs and Excise Department in that it must be at least a hundred years of age to escape customs import duty.
Unlike new commodities, antiques have no exact price ticket range, but the post-war demand, mostly from America, has produced a pretty keen market for certain items, such as old Ruby glass ware, Staffordshire pottery figurine, early Wedgwood, pewter plates and tankards, Sheffield plate, Georgian silverware and jewellery, flint lock and percussion pistols.
There are those who patriotically lament this drain on stocks of antiques in Britain. They would do well to consider the reason, which is that, in a buying and selling world—with commodities “constantly in love with money” as Marx aptly put it—antiques represent a use-value to those American buyers wealthy enough to purchase an 18th century background for their 20th century mansions. In such a transaction antiques represent the usual be-all and end-all of commerce—a profit to the British seller, whose patriotism melts, “like snow upon the desert’s dusty face” at every chance of a profitable deal. In any event the denuding of Britain’s art stores is no more cause for shedding working-class tears, than the loss of a few colonies from the British Empire. Art treasures may certainly change their geographical position, but, like the colonies, they remain in the ownership of the capitalist class of the world. However, although antiques may vanish from the shores of Britain, it may also be relevent to enquire from where they came.
The collecting of antiques in England was largely initiated by the Earl of Arundel who in 1624 sent his agent, one William Petty, on an art-hunting expedition to Greece. Apparently Mr. Petty excelled himself in this task, sending to England, many consignments of Grecian statues, bronze busts etc., in a prodigious effort to denude Greece of its native art. Eventually, so numerous became the collection of nude statues in the Earl’s garden, that Sir Francis Bacon (so the story goes) coming upon them for the first time, stopped short and exclaimed— “The Resurrection!”.
Some 270 years later, we find a sort of sequel to this transplanting of antiques from one geographical area to another in a controversy in the British Parliament about the return to Ireland of some very valuable ancient Irish ornaments, found in Ireland by a “poor” man and purchased by trustees of the British Museum for a paltry £600. During the discussion a Mr. Leighton quite logically asked where this system of restitution was to end and if the British Museum would return the objects they had taken from Greece and Egypt? Apparently this question fell on deaf ears, but then—any reader visiting the British Museum will find the answer.
In addition to the existence of genuine antiques, there is the problem, thrown up by the cesspool of commerce, of “faked” antiques which originally graced the drawing rooms and china cabinets of bourgeois mansions of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Fakes of old Chelsea porcelain are too numerous to mention. While Staffordshire pottery “Toby jugs” made last week and buried in the earth to produce signs of age, which may not deceive a connoisseur, are foisted on to many a dealer and eventually sold to the usual credulous “man in the street”. Items of furniture, appearing on the market as “Sheraton” or “Chippendale” mysteriously increase the production (not the profits!) of those early craftsmen.
Some years ago, the writer purchased a three-piece set of china figurine that appeared to be Chelsea, complete with the well known “gold anchor” mark. Actually they were produced by a ceramics manufacturer in France who specialises in faking the valuable early Chelsea art, no doubt at times with success! This counterfeit Chelsea was being produced in Paris as early as 1850, and in Belgium there is a factory producing counterfeit Sèvres and Dresden porcelains. The difficulty of detecting these spurious wares by amateur buyers is spotlighted by the fact that experts themselves are at times deceived. For instance, J. H. Yoxall, who was a member of the Select Committee of the House of Commons which investigated in 1898 some forgeries of antiques bought by the Victoria and Albert Museum, found that a platter of Palissy ware bought for the museum at £200 was a forgery from France, originally sold by the French makers at £10 each! This same Museum also paid several hundred of pounds for a Sedan chair supposed to be a genuine antique which had genuine panels only let into a brand new chair!
To give an up-to-date example, the Manchester Evening Chronicle recently reported on Indian artisans who have resorted to faking ancient statuettes by buying new sculptures and tarnishing them.
All this merely goes to show that so long as antiques are part of a buying and selling world, it is a branch of commerce that bristles with pitfalls for the unwary, as it is only an expert who can detect real age, for instance, by the Patina which is a result of the chemical action of light and air over the years.
Apart from the waste of energy and material in the production of fake antiques, most dealers, whether handling the spurious output to which the profit motive leads or the “real McCoy” are primarily concerned with the cash value represented thereby, and appreciation of their intrinsic artistic beauty is a secondary consideration.
Private collections of antiques are a bugbear peculiar to a class-divided society, because instead of being freely available for social enjoyment and cultural education, they are confined within the mansions of the wealthy in an ostentatious and snobbish display of opulence. As an illustration—at the recent exhibition of private collections of paintings (some 250) on view in Manchester City Art Gallery, one Reynolds had not been viewed by the public since 1884! Another very large beautiful painting by Stubbs of a grey mare and foals had been exhibited only once before. Just how much of the art heritage of the past remains hidden from society is anybody’s guess!
This state of affairs is, of course, the result of our class-divided society and will only be abolished through the establishment of a class-less Socialist society ending the buying and selling of the commercial system, thus opening up new vistas of social enjoyment of the artistry of mankind.
As it is, “Mine and Thine” is the ruling ethic in the art world of to-day, and along with a host of other privileges goes “an environment of objets d’art.” To have one’s walls adorned with a Reynolds, a Rembrandt, or a Millais, tables in antique silver with Sèvres porcelain, one must belong to the non-producing class in our present social system.
Inevitably, as a result of this class division, the shoddy goods of multiple stores provide a tasteless and cheap façade for the Pre-fab, semi-detached and tenement homes of the mass of humanity.
We see, therefore, that it ¡s the commodity nature of antiques that stands in the way of their social ownership and so long as they remain such they will be used as status symbols of false values in a snobbish world. But make no mistake; appreciation of the arts is no biological peculiarity of the minority rulers of society, neither has it anything to do with the colour of one’s blood. It is simply a matter of having time to devote, and access to artistic productions, in order to appreciate them.
This Socialism alone can provide and surely this is not an impossible task for modern man to achieve.
G. R. RUSSELL