What goes on behind-the-scenes in the antiques world? Maureen Stanton, who wrote the book 'Killer Stuff and Tons of Money,' talks about a master carpenter she calls 'Wesley Swanson,' who builds new Windsor chairs and goes through extraordinary measures to pass them off as valuable antiques.
He's creating what appears to be chairs of 300 years of age so he can sell them for $5,000 a piece. He's even fooling the top auction houses. How does Wesley Swanson create believable Windsor chairs?
(thanks Lisa)
2 comment(s):
I just bought the book for my Kindle...thanks for the tip, Gerard!
I know my antique windsor is not a fake, because it was my great grandfather's, and my great aunt remembered her own grandfather sitting in it, she having been born in 1896, and the chair having been a wedding gift to her great-grandfather, which occurred, so far as I can tell, in 1856 or thereabouts (family bible, notes in the endpaper.)
However, the subject makes me think of the ridiculous arts and antiques market, where people buy things because of their 'investment potential' rather than a love of the item itself.
I recall a comment made by the great Japanese potter, Shoji Hamada, (who did not sign his work), when told that a counterfeiter was passing off fake pots as Hamada's... "I am not troubled", he laughed, "In fifty years, all his best pieces will be mine, and all my worst will be his"
Counterfeit works may be, and often are, better in skill and workmanship than the original. If you buy a windsor chair because of its beauty, comfort, and workmanship, then it will retain those features even if it's revealed to be only a few years old, and will have attached to it a far more interesting story than a genuine item bought from an antique dealer who knows nothing of its history. My chair is special to me because of the generations, parents and children, who've enjoyed it. One bought from a stranger would have none of that.
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