Re: What does "original finish" mean, exactly?

"quarkmeister" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

(snip)

> the time. These places are certainly not stuffed with wizened
> conservators carving things out of period wood and dabbing things with
> period chemistry.

Do I do anything at all to perpetuate this paradigm? Wizened?


> I just wanted to know if there are any guidelines about the extent to
> which a finish can be manipulated while still allowing itself to
> qualify as an "original finish". I get the impression that if I asked
> that question of 6 different, respected conservators, I'd get 6
> different, respected answers. Which is handy for conservators, because
> it makes them both indispensable and peculiarly autonomous - but it
> certainly makes things right difficult for the rest of us.

OK...I promise not to rant. If you ask six different art experts for their
interpretation of a piece of art, you'll get six different answers. The art
of understanding old things, including the intricate of finish, presence,
style, condition, etc. takes years to learn; knowledge as difficult to
obtain as any college degree. I've been mucking about with these things for
over 35 years, and I still think I'm just mediocre. However, when I see a
proper piece, it jumps out at me. I might have to start crawling around
under the thing to pinpoint it, but the "rightness" of the piece screams at
me. Maybe a well known story can demonstrate the point. A few years ago, a
person by the name of Don Flynn tried to put what  he represented as an 18th
century American block front desk on the  market. The piece raised quite a
stir in  the market because of the alleged maker and provenance. When
experts finally laid live eyes on it, it was instantly recognized as a
fraud. There is an excellent pictorial study published on this case, and
many persons I know looked at the authentic piece and the fraud, and asked
me "what's the difference?" I looked at the study and saw the fraud with its
dead, flat finish, careless lines, and hollow presence and tried to explain
the difference; they looked at me as if I had lobsters crawling out of my
ears. This knowledge can not be imparted in a short course, or quick
demonstration. I know what an authentic 18th century block front looks like
because I went eight  times to a Providence, Rhode Island museum that has
two of them and spent  weeks there. I have spent years looking at real
things, and slowly  understanding the difference. The same evolutionary
education taught me when a finish is "right" for a piece. It is an
individual experience for each piece. Conservators being indispensable?
Well, are doctors indispensable? If you can't take your own tonsils out
they are. I am not sure why people that do what I do are made to feel
ashamed when we want to be paid  for the knowledge we have gained over a
life time.

> authoritative experts. Or perhaps, the experts cloak their black magic
> with a little more conceit than their talents deserve.

(sigh) Yes. We are all conceited because we can't beam our life of
experience into your head. If a  seventeenth century piece was altered and
re-finished in the mid eighteenth century, then it is an altered seventeenth
century piece with an eighteenth century finish. Is it worth more? Less?
Well, is it Dutch? English? Italian? Is it a pleasing piece? Did the
alterations make it awful or improve it? Who did the alterations? Was it an
important piece to start with? The answers to these, and many other
questions are what the "experts cloak  their  black magic" with. If you
don't have the knowledge, and want to be sure about what you get, then pay
someone that knows to help you. If you can't afford to, then start your own
life time journey into the world of old things. It only cost me 35 or so
years and more money than I care to mention. I don't regret a second or a
penny.

As far as conservation and restoration is concerned, yes, I do concoct
potions to bring pieces back from the dead. In my little shop I  have had
wonderful old pieces  that have been burned in fires. What  sense does it
make to leave them burned? Of course some of the finish will not be
original, but the piece will be worth more than it was burned. I have had
furniture, glass, pottery, musical  instruments, and many other types of old
things damaged by some unfortunate accident. My work on them was done not to
fool anyone, but to try and put something of its old spirit back, to
continue pleasing  people. And yes, I have received filthy lucre for my time
and knowledge. Thank goodness for insurance companies;  they seem to
understand paying for opinion and knowledge is not such a bad thing.
>
> As to "what is grunge", a quote from the site and a link:

Grunge is a form of rock music popular in Seattle, Washington.

So....maybe I ranted...just a little. Sorry.

C.