Rogues and Scholars: The two faces of the modern-day antique dealer

Top-of-the-range auctions almost always make the headlines nowadays. There’s something thrilling about an item that’s been lost or hidden away suddenly being given a high value. Many of us long for the chance of seeing our own undiscovered treasure going under the hammer to make us our fortune.

Even if we’re not actually involved in the sales process, we can dream. There’s something almost magical about the drama of a real-life auction, particularly if you’re attending a sale at one of the most famous auction houses in the world.

I have to declare an interest. I’ve been there, and behind the scenes as well. Some years ago, I spent a few months working at one of the world’s most famous auction houses, Sotheby’s.

There was the every-day routine of preparing sales, as the experts weeded out the unwanted and accepted the valuable items (“property”) for their next specialist sale. Then came the compilation of the catalogue followed by the high-profile publicity that went with a luxury auction.

Regular clients – by that I mean the wealthy and high-spending ones – were invited to private viewings to enjoy champagne and canapés while taking their time to eye-up the collection. Pre-viewing indeed.

If they were honoured guests, and that meant well-known as buyers to the auctioneers and experts, they might have been invited to an intimate pre-auction dinner with other potential buyers, most of whom were good friends, as well as rivals. I remember being brought in to “make-up numbers” at one dinner and being tasked with looking after a particular guest, a handsome and charming man from Italy. It was one of my easier assignments. I didn’t know it but he was the star bidder. He had been sent over by his father as a secret bidder. The other guests and buyers were curious and tried to find out his name. I couldn’t help. I was having such a good time, I couldn’t remember it.

His out-of-the blue bid was successful and he paid £750,000 (€908,000) for a very rare book. I learned then that, even within such a rarefied atmosphere, it was still all about sales.

Making a market out a molehill

Surprisingly, the glitzy glamour and razzamatazz of the modern-day auction is a relatively new sales device. It was inspired by Peter Wilson, the “buccaneering and brilliant” chairman of Sotheby’s between 1958 and 1980.

Art historian James Stourton author of a new book: Rogues and Scholars: Boom and Bust in the London Art Market, credits Wilson with transforming the art market into what it is today.

“London became the leading art city in Europe and that was really because of Peter, who created the modern art market,” Stourton, also a former chairman of Sotheby’s, explains.

“His simple vision was to persuade an American to sell a French picture in London back to an American. There was no intrinsic market in London at all. It was almost a three-card trick.

“He invented this strange thing called ‘International Auctioneering’ something that had never happened before in which you unite American billionaires with – at that time – Greek billionaires in the same room.

“It was easier to do in Europe because the thinking was that Americans come to London but Greeks don’t go to New York so London seemed to be the perfect place to do that.”

London calling

Stourton concentrates on the post-war period and leads up to the beginning of the 21st century. He takes us on a wide-ranging journey not just about rogues and scholars but also explaining how the over-the-top art market of today came into being.

Who knew that old-school auctioneers were much more likely to be parochial and provincial sellers dealing in the dull detritus of the richer people’s lives. I imagine them more as an under-the-counter type of dealer than I’d be looking at now. Today’s auctioneers have celebrity status. That wasn’t available then.

The book’s full of fascinating snippets ranging from behaviour – how fabulously famous Brian Sewell had difficulty making an entry into the art world because his accent didn’t quite fit the mould – to more educational aspects such as how the silver market came into being. It’s all to do with electric light and eating in the kitchen, I learn. As people began to lead a more casual life, table silver lost some of its tarnish. A household’s loss became a collector’s gain.

But running through it all is the theme of rogues and scholars – what makes the difference? Could it be argued that Peter Wilson, a scholarly connoisseur of art, might even have had a roguish quality about him?

Stourton is not sure there’s a distinct demarcation.

“They’re not rogues OR scholars. What’s fascinating is how rogues were often scholars and scholars were often rogues.

“Some of the cleverest people were the biggest rogues. They didn’t need to be rogues and it’s a complete mystery to me as to why some of the most successful dealers in the world felt the need to rip off giant estates and blow everything so unnecessarily. I’ve seen it time and time again – they’re reckless, that’s the answer.”

He cites antiquities dealer Robin Symes for his “his brilliance and vision” in taking antiquities from a value of between $2,000 and $3,000 and persuading people that the “misshapen lumps of stone” were by Picasso or Henry Moore.

“He had this captive audience in America, top of which was the Getty and the problem was supply – there was no supply at that level.”

Stourton tells how Symes decided to look elsewhere for supplies and teamed up with Giacomo Medici, controller of the Tombaroli, a group of tomb robbers who operated in Sicily, to find his own supply.

“No one asked any questions, they were just so pleased and thrilled to buy these things. But then the whole pack of cards came tumbling down at once.”

There are many other examples. Antique dealer John Hobbs, for instance, was the “iconoclast” who loved “cocking a snoop at the establishment” and came dramatically unstuck. I declare an interest in that I knew him a little and spent quite some time in his shop in Belgravia’s Pimlico Road. It like a European Aladdin’s cave, a treasure trove of rare and very pricy goodies. I remember liking the look of an opulent Venetian glass chandelier. It was on sale for £12,000 (€14,534).

Unfortunately, Hobbs comes within the rogues’ gallery part of Stourton’s book.

Stourton explains: “He was a creative genius, in a way. If he’d been selling these things as new furniture, I think we’d all be praising him and lauding him to the skies.

“I was simply staggered by John Hobbs because, every time I went there, I thought he knew exactly what we wanted to find and see and, if there wasn’t the Grand Tour furniture we wanted to see, he’d invent it.

“He made the Swedish neo-classical furniture in some ways so much more amusing and better than the original. “But, of course,” Stourton laughs wryly, “The whole thing was a massive forgery.”

Market manoeuvres

So what of the future? Where does Stourton see the art market going?

“I don’t think anyone can sensibly answer that because it’s always confounded. All we can say is that the art market over the past 20 years has gone through its own revolution.

“It’s the combination of globalisation, which changed everything, the internet and the rise of contemporary art. The two-stop models of Sotheby’s and Christie’s and London and New York have been “blown out of the water”.

“That’s because, with globalisation, all these new markets emerged. The world has changed, it’s moved on.

“Contemporary art still seems to me that it’s going to be the ruling market leader over the next 10 to 20 years, certainly the next decade.

“There’s no question the interesting new artists are coming out of places like China and Africa – they always came out of South America – so a lot of change.”

He goes on: “The trouble is that everywhere is down right now so it’s a bad time to read the market.

“What re-stimulates the market is two things. First of all, economic confidence, and there isn’t economic confidence around at the moment and, secondly, great sales.”

“I don’t know for certain where it’s going to go but there’s still all to play for.”