The Personal Property Appraisers Post

BOOK REVIEW- AESOP’S MIRROR by Maryalice Huggins

Once again the veil has been lifted and the public can peek behind the curtain of the antiques world to view its inner workings in the new book Maryalice Huggins Aesop’s Mirror. From a barn in rural Rhode Island to The Winter Antiques Show, Huggins tells the tale of a large mirror and an Empire sofa as they work their way up the antiques food chain. As a New York City antique restorer with a heavy hitter client list, the story goes deeper. This very personal story that will be a must read for personal property appraisers. It will validate both the highs and lows of our investigations.

In many ways, the book is the ultimate fantasy appraisal, the one we all would like to do if not bounded by time, money and energy. Due diligence directs us to consult experts when evaluating an object and the marketplace. Huggins, an insider, is able to show the mirror, unsure if is it American or English, to a staggering array of big names in the antiques field; John Hays, Luke Beckerdike, The Kenos, Alan Miller, Albert Sack, etc. Equally staggering is the wide variety of opinions and values gathered, many of which were spongy “maybes” and “perhaps” . No one gets by unscathed. This alone is worth the price of the book. She further reveals the little know “blessers” who carry enormous power over the object’s worthiness in the marketplace. These Blessers are often exalted restorers, not scholars who have learned how to wield their power and command fees for the combined result of both gut instinct and experience. As such, they are much aligned, especially by antique dealers who can watch their deals sour at their altars. New collectors and the uninitiated revere their every word and marvel at their staged quirkiness. The truly frightening part is that these many opinions are not written down or attached to the back of the object, so as appraisers when evaluating an object are faced with this shadow history. What if one of the blessers’ has ruled that your appraisal piece is less than it purports and the invisible opinion affects the value, unbeknownst to the appraiser? As we know it happens all the time.

Huggins hooks her audience with discovering the objects in a Rhode Island estate and purchasing it later at a Gustave White auction. In describing the svengali charm of auctioneer Mike Corcoran, she nails him. In capturing his circus ringleader mastery, I was fearful in sharing our beloved local talent with a larger audience. She also captures the rough neck male dealers, as base gamblers, addicted to the “action” of the trade more than honoring the object or building great collections. In the end, it is the auctioneer, Mike Corcoran, with his charm and integrity maintained by hovering just slightly outside of the trade that is the true hero of the book.

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Besides laying out the hierarchical ladder of the antiques trade, the author spotlights the many polarized camps. Territorial conflicts are entrenched greater than the Republicans and Democrats; Restorers versus conservators; scholars versus dealers, auctioneers versus appraisers and then any combination therein. She takes on sacred topics which are rarely challenged such as the need for conservators to X-ray furniture when their construction is well known. With a level hand across the entire antiques trade, Huggins bravely shows us that the emperor has no clothes.

Huggins continues the fantasy appraisal when she dives undaunted head first into years of primary document research into the famous Brown family of Providence, looking to establish the mirror’s provenance. Already warned that the archives had already thoroughly picked over, she produces undiscovered vignettes of family members with their own archives. What appraiser wouldn’t like the thrill of document research and family interviews trying to establish ownership and craftsman source? But in the real world appraisers are not compensated nor get to work for such a well prominent, well documented family. While this section of the book provides the narrative and characters to rival the Bronte sisters, it is perhaps the weakest part. Extrapolated from the material is historical novelization that will make the book enjoyable for the public, but will chafe most scholars. Spoiler alert; In the end, her years of toiling yield only suggestions and possibilities and not a solid provenance.

Huggins covers fresh ground in describing the antiques trade through the vantage of the restorer. Never before has the mysterious high end workshop been fully depicted. As a restorer myself, this was rich and insightful. She is brutally honest in dispelling the romanticised idea that the public has about the alchemy and recreation of a restoration workshop. Instead Huggins shows, restoration as the manic endeavor it can be. One gray area of the book is the exact extent of the restoration which she did to the mirror and how this may have affected the mirror’s journey through the marketplace.

This will be a delightful journey for appraisers from the usual conventional formatted exhibition catalogs and scholarly research tomes. Unlike Lucien Freund’s Object of Desire, now nearly 20 years old, this object road trip is written by an insider rather than someone outside the trade. The moral of this story may be that even those inside the profession, with many high level connections still can’t get a straight answer nor an easy sale. When our (Mary) Alice falls through the looking glass, she buys it, restores it and then tries to sell it, and is right at home with the white rabbit and mad hatter and Queen of Hearts found in the Antiques world.


Jennifer Lacker, J. London Appraisals