Hidden Treasures

by Leigh Keno

  “If the secretary's the real thing, then I'm pretty sure I can sell it,” I told Morgan. “But of course I have to see it first.”

  Morgan was thrilled, although he tried to convince me that a trip to Argentina wasn't necessary. “Ed's as good as anybody around,” he said, “if not better. I would buy anything, sight unseen, on his say-so alone. That's how much faith I have in him.”

  But I didn't feel comfortable with that notion. As much as I trusted Morgan, I didn't know Ed very well, and I would never ask a client to buy something that I hadn't personally screened. “I have to go myself,” I said to Morgan, then added with a laugh, “besides, December is the start of summer in Argentina. It's a great time for fly-fishing. I may try to tack on a short trip to Patagonia once I've sealed the deal.”

  “Fine, Leigh,” Morgan said, “you and Ed can go, but there's no reason for me to tag along. It's just not my style.”

  By now, it was understood that this was a three-way deal. Ed had found the piece, Morgan and I would put up the money, and I would place it. Any profit that was generated would be split equally. Furthermore, I had already decided that if the secretary lived up to its description, I would take it to the Winter Antiques Show in New York. Probably the industry's oldest and most prestigious show, it is held every January and is timed to coincide with Americana Week, when collectors from around the country converge on the city for the extensive round of Americana sales put on by Sotheby's and Christie's. The confluence of all those key industry activities means that I can always count on January as being an exciting but chaotic month for me. Not only must I find time to cover the previews at the major auction houses thoroughly and prepare my booth for the Winter Antiques Show but I must also remain completely available to my clients.

  I was excited about the Argentine secretary because it sounded right on the mark in terms of what I like to exhibit at the show—something completely fresh on the market and of major importance. I take special pride in the pieces I select for the show because it is one of the few opportunities a year that I have to present myself to the collecting public at large. That small handful of furniture needs to make a strong statement about my taste and the quality of my business. This secretary clearly had the potential to say all the right things. I might give Jack Warner a sneak preview of the piece, but if he wanted it, he would have to arrive early at my booth at the show.

  It was already mid-December and the show was just weeks away. Ed and I would have to move quickly if this plan were to work. We made arrangements to fly to Argentina, and I even managed to convince Guy Roderick, a San Francisco-based client of mine, to join me for a few days of fishing at the end.

  The last time I had been to South America was on a 1991 trip to Guyana that I had taken with Leslie, which was also meant to combine fishing and furniture hunting. The fish we were after was a rare freshwater breed, the Arapaima gigas. These bizarre-looking creatures—arguably the largest freshwater fish in the world—can grow upward of ten feet in length and two hundred pounds in weight and look like a cross between a fallen log and a prehistoric catfish. We expected our hunt for these fish to take us into the interior of the country, but we also planned to take a quick side trip to Suriname, which borders Guyana to the east. Suriname was a frequent eighteenth-century port of call for Newport-based sea captains, who often carried cargoes of finished furniture to sell in exchange for sugar and local mahogany. Leslie and I had it in our heads that perhaps some of that furniture had survived the notorious climate and insects and was ours to unearth.

  We had read, for example, of a published correspondence between the Providence-based mercantile firm of Nicholas Brown & Company and the Newport cabinetmaker John Goddard, which alluded to the frequency of this type of trade (the originals are housed at the John Carter Brown Library in Providence). In May 1766, an officer of the firm requested that Goddard make a “Handsome Mahogany Arm Chair” for a “Gentelman in the West Indies [sic].” Goddard subsequently wrote back for some clarification as to the chair's design. He received prompt reply that “the Chear should be Very Neet & Handsum therfor Desire You'l make it with 3 claws & if Possible have it Dun in 10 Days otherwise as Soone as you can….” When the chair was finished, it was sent to an appropriately named Captain Bogman in swampy “Surinam,” who paid just under six pounds for the chair. The last time a true Goddard corner chair with ornately carved claw-and-ball feet sold at auction was in 1972 at Sotheby Parke Bernet for $85,000. So naturally, Leslie and I hoped that Suriname held promise of others.

  Another source of inspiration for Leslie and me was a well-known picture by the Boston artist John Greenwood, now in the collection of the St. Louis Art Museum. The 1746 painting, titled Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam [sic], features a group of American mariners sprawled about a crowded, ill-lit tavern in varying states of intoxication. Imagining for just a moment the cargo that any one of those men might have delivered before stepping into that bar had always inspired Leslie and me to make the journey south someday.

  However, my brother and I never made it beyond the fishing leg of our trip. Two days after our arrival in the capital city of Georgetown, after we had secured a license to fish in the interior and had queried the hotel desk clerk about access to the hinterland, we hired a pilot and a single-engine plane and traveled to the southwest. I remember having felt a morbid sense of unease as we flew out over Jonestown, the deserted site of the People's Temple and the ill-fated cult led by the Reverend Jim Jones which ended in the mass-suiade of over nine hundred people in 1978. Over the roar of the motor, our pilot, a broad-bellied, easygoing fellow named Taffy, told us that he had shuttled numerous people to the compound in the mid-1970s. Jones which ended in the mass-suicide of over nine hundred people in 1978. Over the roar of the motor, our pilot, a broad-bellied, easygoing fellow named Taffy, told us that he had shuttled numerous people to the compound in the mid-1970s.

  Nearly four hours later, after one stop to refuel, we landed on a runway of sorts (it really amounted to nothing more than a cow pah), set in the hardscarbble grasslands of the northern Rupununi Savanna, somewhat near the Venezuelan border. Having heard the sound of the plane's approach, a small group of Amerindians had materialized out of the brush to meet the plane. Taffy brought the engine to a stop, and as the three of us slowly climbed down and stretched our legs, we noticed a tall'deeply tanned woman, probably in her mid-seventies, walking purposefully toward us from a nearby cut a path through the small crowd of people that had formed around us.

  “Taffy, darling, it's been too long, she said, startling leslie and me with her clipped British accent. “What have you brought me?”

  “Taffy, darling, it's been too long,” she said, starting Leslie and me with her clipped British accent. “What have you brought me?”

  “Hello, Diane,” said Taffy m a lazy, cowboy way. “These boys want to do some fishing. Can you put 'em up?”

  “Twins,” she said archly as she assessed us with her light blue eyes. “Of course I can.”

  Taffy flew out the next morning, but Leslie and I ended up spending a week with Diane McTurk at her home amid the termite mounds, forested hills, and freshwater creeks of the Rupununi Savanna. Despite the simplicity of the surroundings (the immediate property consisted of a couple of small thatched-roof buildings and one freestanding outdoor shower), the place was actually a working cow ranch called Karanambo, which had been founded by Diane's father, “Tiny” McTurk, back in the 1920s. Diane had been raised in England but had returned to this remote spot in the late 1970s to manage the ranch. According to Amerindian legend, somewhere on the property there was a cluster of large stones endowed with mystic properties that shielded the land from danger. For her part, Diane had made it her priority as an environmentalist to protect a rare breed of indigenous large freshwater otters that lived in the network of creeks and streams that threaded the property but which was under constant threat of extinction by local poachers. There were a few other, larger cattle ranches some miles
away, but Diane's only real link to the outside world was an ancient shortwave radio that she kept in her kitchen.

  With Diane McTurk at Karanambo Ranch.

  That first night, as the finale to a delicious welcoming meal, Diane brought out an old silver tea service emblazoned with her family's Scottish coat of arms. Each piece was beautifully designed with an intricately chased (or tooled) foliate pattern. Naturally, Leslie and I commented upon the incredible workmanship of the set, which Diane explained had been made for her family by the famous British silversmith Paul Storr (1771—1844). Suddenly, an already-magical moment in our lives took a twist toward the fantastic. Leslie and I couldn't believe that we had flown for hours into the heart of the Guyanese interior, only to find ourselves drinking tea from a silver service designed by Storr, whose work was in tremendously high demand at the time it was made and is now showcased in museums throughout the world.

  By week's end, although we had caught countless varieties of exotic local fish, neither Leslie nor I had hooked, nor even seen, the elusive Arapaima, and by the time Taffy had returned us to Georgetown, there wasn't enough time to visit Suriname in search of Newport furniture. Our search for those hidden treasures would have to wait for another trip.

  All in a day's work. Today, however, our fishing is strictly catch and release.

  However, on my subsequent journey to South America, this time in pursuit of the églomisé secretary, furniture was quite clearly my priority. Ed had flown into Buenos Aires a few days earlier than I, so we rendezvoused at the hotel before heading out to the shop in Acassuso. Like Ed, I was enormously impressed by the glamorous presence of this piece when I first saw it. The allegorical figures of Truth and Justice were so wonderfully drawn and richly symbolic that they struck a poignant chord with me. I was certain they would have great appeal to a die-hard patriot like Jack Warner. Recently, I had purchased an original 1788 edition of The London Cabinet Book of Prices, a book of furniture and room design typical of the kind that might have been available in Philadelphia during the Federal period. When Ed sent me early photos of the secretary, the images on the églomisé panels had reminded me of a pair of engraved medallions shown on that book's title page; they featured two women (clothed in ancient Greek dress) posed as Unanimity and Justice. Standing before the secretary that day, I felt certain that its anonymous maker had carefully studied, if not owned, that London price guide.

  I spent most of the afternoon going over the piece, and when I was through, I was completely convinced as to its condition and authenticity. In addition to the alterations that Ed had already pointed out, I noticed that the shop's conservator had treated both the interior and exterior of the secretary with a thin wax finish (the dealers called it “cera Suiza”), typically used on furniture in Latin American countries because, it is believed, that it helps seal the wood and protect it from the humidity. Wax is the last thing you want to see on the interior of an American case piece, because it obscures the time-earned signs of wear, which are used to establish authenticity. Fortunately, the overall consistency in the mechanics and construction techniques used on this piece was sufficient enough to waylay any doubts. The appearance of the wax coating on the outside of the secretary concerned me even less because so much of the drama of this piece lay in the vivid contrast of the wood veneers and in its unusual handling of the many églomisé panels. Veneering is by its very nature a two-dimensional effect. Therefore, it is less dependent upon the residue of time to enhance its character than is, say, the highly carved surface of a rococo piece. Nevertheless, I used the issue of the refinishing to my advantage, for I negotiated the secretary's final price in the low six figures. Considering the fragility of the piece, it was critical to keep the final price as conservative as possible.

  Now the challenge was to get the piece properly packed in time for the New York Winter Antiques Show. The crates and protective material used on this job would all have to be custom-designed. In anticipation of this dilemma, Ed had already done some preliminary research on local shippers who were well versed in the transport of antique furniture by air freight. We probably interviewed about four different packers before settling on one company that regularly did work for both Sotheby's and Christie's. The outfit we chose planned to separate the secretary into three parts—the cornice the bookcase, and the base—which would be individually packed and then floated within a larger box. In all, it took about four days to construct the entire container, and I stayed in town long enough to see the last nails hammered into the crate before leaving on a three-day fly-fishing excursion with Guy Roderick.

  Ed Weissman oversees the preparations for transport.

  As part of the deal, Ed had agreed to stay in town until the piece had made it safely through customs. He took this aspect of his job quite seriously and actually ended up accompanying the piece to the airport, disguised as one of the packers. He later told me that he lingered in the restricted cargo area as long as he could, a baseball cap pulled down low over his face and a crowbar held in one hand, just to keep an eye on the crate. Eventually, though, Ed left the airport and returned to his hotel to relax. His long-held dream of buying the secretary had been realized, and in a matter of hours, the piece would arrive in New York.

  Sometime around midnight, Ed, who had fallen into a light doze in front of his hotel television, was startled awake by the phone. It was Morgan MacWhinnie calling from New York, where he was stationed to retrieve the secretary as soon as it cleared customs at Kennedy Airport.

  “Ed,” Morgan said urgently, “the secretary didn't make it. It was taken off the airplane in Buenos Aires.”

  “What?” said Ed, sitting bolt upright on his bed.

  “It's not here, buddy. I just got a call from someone in U.S. customs because my name was on the manifest as a local contact. He said the secretary had been placed on a commercial flight but that it was bumped for passenger luggage. Apparently, passenger bags take precedent over freight.”

  Now, Morgan is a bit of a jokester, and it actually took him ten minutes to convince Ed that he wasn't pulling his leg. But once Ed was persuaded, he hung up with Morgan and began a frantic twenty-four-hour search for the crate (which finally turned up in a domestic storage zone at the airport in Buenos Aires). It then took him nearly another full day to secure a space for it on a subsequent flight to New York. The second time around, the crate made it onto the aircraft. Morgan once again drove out to JFK to retrieve it. Now he was presented with a new problem: The loading docks at Kennedy's cargo terminals were built to accommodate tractor-trailers, not stocky cube trucks like the one Morgan was driving that day. “The floor of my truck was a good foot and a half lower than the loading dock,” he later told me. “So when the crate was brought out on a forklift, the machine operator couldn't just ease it into the van. Instead, he had to work the container off the steel prongs by tilting them down and then backing up so that the thing would slowly slide off on its own. “Unfortunately, the whole thing dropped into the van with a loud ba-boom!” said Morgan. “I was dying. The entire drive into Manhattan, I kept shaking my head because I was sure that we had lost a lot of glass with that fall.”

  The second time around, the crate made it onto the aircraft. Morgan once again drove out to JFK to retrieve it. Now he was presented with a new problem: The loading docks at Kennedy's cargo terminals were built to accommodate tractor-trailers, not stocky cube trucks like the one Morgan was driving that day. “The floor of my truck was a good foot and a half lower than the loading dock,” he later told me. “So when the crate was brought out on a forklift, the machine operator couldn't just ease it into the van. Instead, he had to work the container off the steel prongs by titling them down and then backing up so that the thing would slowly slide off on its own. “Unfortunately, the whole thing dropped into the van with a loud ba-boom!” said Morgan. “I was dying. The entire drive into Manhattan, I kept shaking my head because I was sure that we had lost a lot of glass with that fall.”

 
; At this point, I, too, had returned from Argentina, having actually beaten the secretary back to New York. So when Morgan arrived at the loading dock of my gallery building, I was there to greet him. The expression on his face when he stepped down from the cab spoke volumes. We were both pretty nervous as we moved the crate out of the truck and upstairs into the shop, where we then proceeded to unpack it. But by some miracle, only one pane of glass had broken throughout the course of that transcontinental journey—one of the less important panes, a clear glass one fronting the bookcase doors—but the more precious églomisé had remained intact. With characteristic efficiency, Clifford Harvard, my gallery manager of nearly twelve years, had it replaced in time for the opening of the show, now less than a week away.

  The most frenzied moments of the Winter Antiques Show are no doubt the opening minutes of the gala preview, which traditionally consists of back-to-back cocktail parties (the earlier the party, the more expensive the ticket) and benefits a local charity, the East Side House Settlement. Many people, including top-level collectors and museum staffers, buy tickets to the earliest of these parties to guarantee a shot at the fresh-to-the-market offerings of the show's participating dealers. (Of course other people buy tickets to the first round of viewing, simply to enjoy the glamour of the event, which tends to attract a lot of socialites and assorted glitterati.) Since Mom and Dad are often in town during Americana Week, I usually ask Dad to help me out during the frenetic last few hours of preparation before the show.

  In 1995, the year I exhibited the Argentine secretary, I was, as usual, so crunched for time that I had a little less than half an hour to run home and change into a suit before the show's official start. As I cut a hasty path out through the front door, I noticed that a significant number of people had already gathered outside the entrance to the show. I knew that Jack Warner had flown into New York earlier in the day on his private jet, and I assumed that he was somewhere in that early crowd. In anticipation of his arrival and the near certainty that he—a man who was not accustomed to waiting—would be asked to wait on line, I enlisted my father to keep an eye out for the tall multimillionaire. “Just listen for his voice; you can't miss it,” I said.