“I just love that highboy! Look at the (portrait) bust. Oh, the lines! Ooh, the legs.” “The curves.” Original surface. The very language of antique collecting seems oddly like that of romance (Okay, maybe not original surface.) Marvelous objects entice, ensorcell, enchant, enrapture.
Hardened collectors can be reluctant romancers, yet they often bathe in a pool of wonder, promise, and fulfillment and finally drown in the languishing water of “I must have.” Harry Potter and King Arthur are twisted about by Hermione and Guinevere until they cannot separate the real from the implied. And so are collectors. Seduction is all around them.
I’m in the Mood for Love, a 1935 song moans the mood is “Simply because you’re near me.” But there are other causes for rapture – the classic candlelight dinner with soft music playing in the background, the presence of fine alcohol, Lanvin perfume and muted conversation. One or both participants blissfully await magic in the air, the same spell that entraps collectors, plunging them into the abyss.
I have never seriously considered seduction and the casting of spells in the collectors’ world. If you have not either, prepare to be enlightened, perhaps bewitched.
“I heard words like sexy, beguiling, and enigmatic, being used to describe it…” “Quite simply, the piece seduced all who crossed its path (Hidden Treasures: Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture, Keno, L. & Keno, L., p. 11). … “a number of spotlights dramatically accentuated its form.” (p. 12). “I hung the chairs from fishing line strung at eye level . . . Doing so forced visitors to confront the chairs as sensual, sculptural forms…” (p. 49) The same tome tells collectors of a table with “chic and poise” and “curves . . . movement, … and sex appeal.” It celebrates the “cool beauty of the entire form.” The Kenos introduction to the antique as siren.
Objects are described as having “beautiful form,” “stunningly sleek form,” or “gorgeous.” A reporter for this very publication (M.A.D.) wrote in disappointment several years ago that collectors at one auction did not go “absolutely bonkers” (act as if bewitched?).
My determined mining of the collector’s mentality, language and behaviors strongly suggests we have entered the world of seduction (from the Latin, meaning “leading astray”) and the necessary casting of spells. We could be talking about Betty Grable, Errol Flynn, or Rita Haworth from the golden era of cinema, or the love of my movie life (from afar of course), Lauren Bacall. A compelling woman is a seductress, a siren, a temptress. We need parallel labels for antiques (and dealers) that seduce – the rake, the dandy, the charmer, or the coquette do not seem to do. And what do we call a collector who looks upon an antique with desire? A fool for love (as those CW songs would have it), a willing victim, lucky?
Seduction sometimes involves more than the antiques themselves. Many collectors have experienced such seduction and there are times when they not only endure being seduced but willfully seek it, for there is pleasure in the sin) – form, lighting, the soft voice of a dealer, blessed pieces of Americana. In seducing the collector, the goal is to subtlety tempt him with antiques and incite interest That colonial table cannot be the equivalent of a streetwalker. Wrong, wrong vibe! But the hoarse-voiced beauty with a swath of blond hair shading one eye, yes!
The wooer, if a dealer or auctioneer, also must choose the correct victims, and collectors of Americana fill the bill being susceptible to antiques’ charms. Toss in a bit of the exotic (provenance perhaps, or rarity or condition) and behold the enticing seller and the bemused collector are dancing their dance.
Odysseus had his men fill their ears with wax to avoid the sirens’ temptation. Yet he tied himself to the mast so he could hear their irresistible temptation, but live. Many consider him to be the preferred role model for the wise collector who is lured by the siren song of an antique, dealer, or auctioneer, but through will power if nothing else insulated from temptation, at least for the moment.
Listen closely to Casanova who observes and celebrates the wiles of women (and men), who limns the art form needed to get what one wants through allurement and attraction. For our purposes the art of persuading may have sexual overtones, but with the end goal of the buying and selling of antiques! The art of seduction can be innocuous or immoral, but collectors experience it all the time and oft enjoy it.
What made Lauren Bacall seductive? Her deep throaty voice for one. And her signature look — chin down with eyes peering seductively upwards — has been often imitated but never matched. Her blond hair, her “you can’t have me” demeanor. And of course, some of the lines she said or purred: “You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve.” (To Have and To Have Not) While antiques cannot talk in words, they do communicate. Put those elements together and you have one alluring woman or highboy, take your pick.
Seduction in all its complexity can involve an indirect and subtle use of scent, sight, words spoken, and gestures unspoken, things common in collecting environments. The antique is presented as an object of desire, sometimes in a praiseworthy disguise. The seller pretends the piece is just a Thing, only a chair, perhaps. Just as for Odysseus, temptation is everywhere. The object flirts with the collector, its messages are suggestive. “Look at me.” “I want you to want me.” “If you do not desire me someone else will.” “You know you have always wanted me.” The collector gazes, the collector touches. The collector thinks, “You’d be so nice to come home to.”
The objects, its setting, the dealer, each in their own way speak of the pleasure of taking “me”. One thinks of the holiday song, Baby It’s Cold Outside. “I have to go home,” the collector says,” “please stay” the antique responds, but not too assertively.
A high-end antique show meets our criterion of seduction, and rather well. It provides “pretty people and pretty things need to be seen.” (Objects of Desire, p. 3), on opening night or the show’s first full day, as muted conversations focused on “have you seen X’s charming Y?” float in the air. Champagne helps, as does the glittering array of people at opening night (for which they have paid handsomely). Throw in luxurious carpeting, creative booth designs, spotlights and soft music, and a mood that showcases the wonderful antiques each dealer has subtly slides into place.
After the high-end preview, the bewitching ambience often diminished or gone (poof!) in the light of day. But antiques can cast their own spell, just by being what they are. A beautifully painted Shaker chest needs little held to catch and stun the eye, a cherry tea table no assistance to capture the caress. I remember the Riverside show in Manchester, held in the Armory, a place that should have been looming and hollow. Yet even when largely empty of collectors the setting cast a spell. The pieces spoke, cried out, called for a look, a touch. Outdoor shows also can have their witchcraft – an idyllic day with a blue sky, a warm breeze, and a few puffy clouds.
What does it mean to be under a spell? Typically, the person is so transported and charmed that rational thought is cast away. He acts as if in a daze, aware of what is happening, perhaps, but not in control of his actions. He obeys the will and power of the incantation, of the one who cast the spell. He is enchanted, described as bewitched (“bonkers” at an auction?). Shakespeare’s use of a love potion in A Midsummer Night’s Dream shows the power of bewilderment, the inability to separate fact from illusion, the depth and shallowness of attachments and the magic of not knowing the difference.
Incantations in the American antique universe? The dealer’s abracadabra may be his detailed knowledge of the genre this piece represents so well, creating desire in the antique’s uniqueness, specialness, or alluring lines. The collector feels it can be hers I’m in the mood… the collector feels. And without imbibing Love Potion Number 9 she is suddenly besotted.
The three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth influence the decisions he makes, convincing him to desire the crown and then trick him into a suicidal fight. While he made the decisions that determined his fate, they lead him to his eventual destruction. The witches controlled his mind, but it was his own free will that makes MacBeth the tragic figure he is. It is no less true for the collector.
The spell on the audiences that movies cast to make the Lauren Bacalls of the cinema bewitching depended on such stars having that undefinable “something” that acting alone cannot produce. A chemistry between them and costars, and them and the audience existed and was sustained. Just like with fine antiques. But sometimes it is as Cole Porter wrote (1935), Just one of those things, and the antique that so seduced, by morning’s light is ordinary. The collector has indeed been led astray. “It was just one of those nights.”
What spirits do collectors or antiques invoke before an auction or show? What spells do MacBeth’s witches bestow on collectors? Do collectors even know they are being seduced? Do they care? Most of the time, I think not.
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