Customer Reviews

Objects of Desire: The Lives of Antiques and Those Who Pursue Them

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What an interesting and thorough insight into Americana Week in NY! One gets not only the insight into the furniture that is exhibited, but the quirks of the collectors, dealers, and the furniture makers themselves.

Though I'm familiar with a few of the furniture pieces mentioned in this book, the lack of photographs inhibits the less informed.

This book is excellent for anyone who collects furniture or desires to collect furniture, or who just has a passion for antiques!

If you have difficulty understanding why anyone would pay big bucks for antiques, read this book. You will live through the fascinating saga of three pieces of furniture from day one to their day on the auction block. Each piece comes alive as you become intimately involved in their history. You will be enriched by an appreciation for provenance that you did not have before. And, you have gained respect for those collectors, auctioneers and craftsmen that combine their efforts to make the desire for inanimate objects a very real thing.

Now that it's summer and the Antiques Roadshow is in reruns, loyal viewers might need a change of pace. This is the perfect book to take along with you to the Brimfield Flea Market, or on vacation (with the requisite antique shop stops, of course). Why? Because this book gives you the inside scoop on many of your favorite appraisers on the Roadshow, and gives you a great insight into the behind-the-podium world of antiques dealers.

Some of the best bits have to do with the Keno brothers, Leslie and Leigh. They began their career in the antiques trade at age 7 (!) when they started selling stoneware they dug up around their house. At age 13 they went to Brimfield, where Leigh had a hizzy fit after a stoneware jug he asked the dealer to hold for him was sold. You can also find out more about Barbara Deisroth (you know, the lady who never, ever, pays attention to a Tiffany signature). Other Roadshow Regulars appear as well, and you will never be able to look at any of the appraisers in the same way again.

If you like the Roadshow and antiquing, you will enjoy this book a great deal. Highly recommended for summertime (or any time!) reading.

This book is delightful--I've bought 7 copies over the years for friends and family. With its readable style, brilliant characterizations of the eccentric people involved and its nonfiction "plot," it SHOULD have been the next MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL. I suppose its relative lack of success is due to factors in the industry, but it's certainly through no fault of the book's. I heartily recommend it to anyone and everyone, even persons uninterested in antiques--for, while it IS about antiques, it's mostly (as the subtitle suggests) about PEOPLE.

This is one of the finest examples of "Creative Nonfiction" to appear in recent years. It is both engaging and informative, and will be a source of enjoyment to anyone who appreciates antique funiture, American history, a good narrative or, preferably, all three.

This is a very good read, which I enjoyed as a woodworker/furniture maker rather than an antique collector/dealer. What befuddles in the extreme is why there was no photo of the Willing card table, I'd have loved to see the carving, as well as the rest of it. So I have to go to the library and dig up a couple of magazine articles (from the New York Times Magazine 1/16/94, for example) just to see it.

Pam

Enjoyed the book but found it kind of hard to visualize what the objects looked liked. Simple drawings or photos would have been nice.

In twenty two chapters the author traces the history - as far as it is known - of three lovely pieces of 18th century American furniture, from their original manufacture, to their sales to their current (as of 1991) owners. In between, one is boxed and stored, forgotten, for 60 years in a bank basement, and all pass through the hands of a variety of pickers, antique dealers, and/or collectors, eventually winding up at major auction houses or antique shows. The book starts at the New York Winter Antiques show in 1991 and jumps around in time and place, ending up again at the 1991 show where it began.

The book is interesting and competently, but not exceptionally well, written. One gets the feeling that the author has a limited number of facts and sometimes is using filler to expand the book to fill its 290 pages. The stories of the manufacture of the pieces (only one has been identified as to maker), are well written and presumably historically accurate, but the specifics are all purely imaginary.

Most of the antique dealers in the book are described in a fairly generic manner and seem to fall into two patterns; either they caught the antique bug as a child and were dealing in antiques before they were teenagers or they had another career and caught the bug later on. The author repeatedly (and annoyingly) uses a formula to describe persons' physical appearances, e.g., hair color, eye color and, above all, how tall each "stands": "Hirshhorn stood five feet, three inches tall" (p. 97), "Pari stands about five feet, ten inches tall" (p. 110), Walton "stood five feet, six inches tall" (p. 161), Marion "stands over six feet tall" (p. 210), Buatta "stands more than six feet tall" (p. 260). The book could have benefitted from some more aggressive editing.

Notwithstanding these defects, several of the stories are interesting, particularly the stories of dealers John Walton (chapter 13) and David Schorsch (chapter 14), and the Sotheby's auction of the Willing card table (chapter 21). Many of the descriptions of persons, however, descend into pure "gossip": X is a drunk, yells at his employees or siblings, will cheat even his mother, etc.

Finally, and most prominently as others have observed, although the book's focus is on three beautiful pieces of American antique furniture, the book does not include a single photograph of any of them. This omission is simply astounding. Small photographs of the Federal sofa table and the Queen Anne blanket chest-and-drawers do appear on the rear of the dust jacket, as does a Chippendale card table with its top swaddled in a sheet, with only the lower part of its legs exposed. It is not even stated whether this is the Willing card table featured in the book. Apparently it is not, since it is not credited (like the two others) on the dust jacket.

My rating is based primarily on the quality of the writing, but the absence of any photographs also is significant.

This book can give you a glimpse into the American antique trade. Focusing on three different pieces of furniture, he tells of the story of how it was created, where it's been and why it was up for sale. I enjoyed learning about how people browse and buy things and of the passion some have for a certain style or maker. It's an introspective book with a unique insight. The only criticism is that there were no pictures of the objects mentioned. This was frustrating as it made me curious about them.

Even if you're not already interested in American antiques, if you enjoy excellent nonfiction writing, try this book. Unlike so many contemporary writers of nonfiction, Freund does not focus this book on himself but on a subject--the world of American antiques. By telling the stories of three different objects, the craftsmen who made them, and the collectors who owned them, Freund brings his readers into a quirky, fascinating world, where the desire for objects shapes people's lives. And if you have any interest in nonfiction writing, this book will give you lessons in the craft from a master writer.