A small cabinet from a Milwaukee collection took top dollar at Christie’s “Americana Week” sale of “Important American Furniture and Folk Art” on January 20, 2012. The “rare and important Chippendale carved mahogany diminutive block-and-shell document cabinet with drawers” sold for $3,442,500 (including buyer’s premium). According to Christie’s, it is a record for an American document cabinet.
The seller was the Chipstone Foundation, established in 1949 by the late Stanley and Polly Stone as a center for the collection and study of American Decorative Arts. In 1964 the Stones bought the circa 1754 cabinet, made in Newport Rhode Island, and added it to their estimable holdings of mostly 18th century American furniture and British pottery. Proceeds will fund acquisition of contemporary works, according to director Jon Prown. The news of the sale, as reported by Mary Louise Schumacher of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in a blog post, also received a fair amount of attention from those predisposed to comment on blog posts, commonly with more opinion than fact:
“You don’t sell an icon” … [Chipstone is] “monetizing the collection” … “What about donor intent?” … “Who built it? When? Where? What’s it made out of? How many were made? How many still exist? When was it acquired? For how much? What’s its provenance? Etc.”
In other words, “what makes this thing worth $3 million, and if it is – then why sell it?”
Plenty of Horne met with Chipstone director Jon Prown for answers.
As background, it should be noted that there are a number of factors that go into the value of any tangible item, and the Chipstone chest had them in spades.
● Since the piece was signed in two places by its maker, John Townsend, its builder was known, not merely conjectured as is often the case.
● Townsend is recognized as one of the finest makers of any era.
● A cheat sheet on Newport furniture would tell you to look for shells – and this piece has three of them, carved in concave and convex relief.
● It appears this is the first piece ever made with the shell motif for which Newport became famous.
● An examination of the bulbous feet,, not commonly associated with this sort of furniture, shows they are original to the piece, as are the seven distinct layers of finish that coats it.
In short, it has all the hallmarks of an exceedingly rare and valuable piece of furniture – an Icon.
So, why sell an icon?
According to Prown, “when you deaccession an item, you sell the ones you know the most about, not the least. This piece has not sat dormant in the collection. It has had a ton of responsible scholarship done to it, many articles [the Christie’s catalog cites 11] … it was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
In fact, he said, with a confidence in his collection that few curators could justly muster, the piece, rare and fine as it is, represented one of the “areas of redundancy” in the Chipstone holdings. “So we sold an item. We have hundreds of furniture masterworks in the collection.”
But what about donor intent?
“The Stones’ mission was to create a great collection and to spread the word about it,” he said. Selling the piece was “not at all divergent from their mission,” Prown added.
“All collections have to modify their missions. You can’t do what the donor of 100 years ago wanted to see done and remain relevant. The Stones, for example, would never have envisioned digital collections, or been part of a movement that we now have of contemporary craftspeople who reference traditional objects. We are pursuing exactly what we need to do to be pertinent,” he said.
Prown said that Chipstone has “greatly expanded its programmatic, digital, community interactive, community curated and publishing initiatives,” all of which are to a considerable extent 21st century phenomena.
Prown says the Chipstone board is “thrilled” with the direction he is taking to tie “into the Stones’ interest in decorative arts education,” and says that the Polly Stone, as a widow, “kept the Chipstone mission statement open.” She died in 1995 at 97.
“She did the opposite of the Barnes,” he added, referring to the Philadelphia art collection whose future was threatened by its founder’s posthumous prohibition of deaccessioning, lending or re-hanging any of its works of art. Although its collection was priceless, the foundation was nearly broke when its trustees decided to abrogate the terms of its founding trust, lest it face extinction.
Chipstone, with assets – not including the collection – of over $75 million ($50 million in cash) is anything but broke, so Prown has ample sources of revenue to continue his community outreach programs, which he says are in line with the Stones’ interest in education. The proceeds from the sale of the Townsend cabinet “must be spent on the purchase of furniture,” and may not be used to support program or overhead expenses. “We are not a member of the American Association of Museums, but we act as if we are,” when it comes to the sale of items in the collection, he adds. “That means it has to be approved by the board of directors,” he says, which include representatives of the DuPont Winterthur museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, under the leadership of retired Foley & Lardner partner W. David Knox III, its chairman.
As examples of Chipstone’s focus on contemporary work, Prown cites recent shows at the Milwaukee Art Museum, including “The Tool at Hand,” now on display, in which 16 artists were invited to create an object using just one implement. [Prown included himself in the show, carving a wooden spoon – a specialty of his – with a single knife.] Another item in the show, a found-twig and recycled-candle chair by Madison’s Hongtau Zhou, was created at Milwaukee’s Sweetwater Organics, using, for his tool, a flame.
Prown also cites Chipstone’s funding of the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database, an ongoing project to document this state’s material culture.
“I believe more people know us today for our contemporary work than for our 18th century furniture,” he said, also expressing a concern that the traditional museum model of period rooms and stately halls may fail to attract a new generation.
“The way Chipstone grew, we’re increasingly engaging in projects connecting with the community at large, with practicing artists around town. This sort of thing didn’t exist 10 years ago here. There is some nice energy in Milwaukee.”
FUN FACT:
Stanley Stone and Polly Stone were the embodiment of 18th century manners and etiquette. Their Fox Point estate was patterned after the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg, Va., and was designed by that landmark’s restoration architect in 1950. They dined formally, even when alone, and lived in great state. They even used Latin to describe their attachment to old things, explaining in 1959 that they had been stricken by the “virus antiquarium.” Stone considered the United States Department of State Diplomatic Reception Rooms to be infra dignitatem for any piece from his collection, (“I don’t want a bunch of diplomats putting out their cigarettes on my furniture,” he said once, in refusing to loan an item) but did deign to donate a piece to the White House.
But the Stones had a greater investment in contemporary furniture than they at first realized. John Walton, the New York dealer from whom they bought the Townsend cabinet in 1964, also sold the couple dozens of fakes over the years, mostly built in the 20th century from recycled odds and ends.
These ersatz pieces eventually came to light due to Chipstone research and were included in its 2002 exhibition “The Truth Lies Within: Furniture Fakes from the Chipstone Collection.”
Cabinet photo from Christie’s
