Hidden Treasures

by Leigh Keno

  I was so intrigued by her account (she also described slender S-shaped legs ending in hairy-paw feet and Regency-style lion's-head brass pulls on the drawer) that I asked her if she would be willing to drive home and retrieve the piece. She agreed, but when she returned at the end of the day, Leigh was on duty alone at the furniture-appraisal table. Thinking he was I, she asked for his help carrying the table into the hall. Leigh quickly realized her confusion, but he offered to help with the piece. When he reached the woman's van and saw what was inside, he nearly fell over at the sight. Despite the substantial weight of the table's dense mahogany wood, he later told me, “I carried it into the hall like it was made of feathers. I was that excited.” Less than an hour later, Leigh and I appraised the piece with the cameras rolling and “Mary from Michigan” soon learned that her table could reach $120,000 on the open market.

  Inspecting the Duncan Phyfe sewing table just minutes after it arrived on the set

  The segment grew all the more moving after the table's owner explained to us the importance of antiques in her life. “I had cancer of the cervix twenty-three years ago, and if I hadn't had the hobby of antiquing, I think I would be gone now,” she said in a quivering voice. “But antiques have kept me…the running and looking for them, the finding and researching, reading through the papers and magazines…. Sharing with other people your finds, your treasures—it just carries you and lifts you. You have no time to get sick or die.” By the time she was through speaking, we were all on the verge of tears.

  To date, our most exciting Roadshow discovery occurred in September 1997 during a taping filmed at the Meadowlands Exposition Center, a huge stadium arena in Secaucus, New Jersey. It was after 11:00 A.M., but Leigh and I and the rest of the Roadshow crew were already well into our third hour of appraisals. I had just placed a value of one hundred dollars on a late-nineteenth-century oak rocking chair (another form that surfaces a lot on the show), while nearby, Leigh was winding down his analysis of a circa 1830 spinning wheel (another frequently seen object, also worth about one hundred dollars). Next in line was a blond woman, probably in her late sixties, wearing royal blue slacks and a white blouse, with a small folded semicircular, or demilune, tabletop (consisting of two hinged half-moon-shaped boards) braced against her side like a stack of books. Accompanying her was another woman, who had what was clearly the matching four-legged frame slung over one shoulder.

  Despite its dismantled state, I could already see that this object was vastly different in quality from the dozens of items I had already examined that day. I was still a few yards away as the woman with the table frame slid the piece off her shoulder and onto the floor, while her companion stood by, preparing to position the brown mahogany top. Each of the table's straight, tapering legs featured a brilliant band of satinwood inlay, used to accentuate its narrowing slope. Even without the top in place, it was easy to appreciate the geometric interplay between the light wood framed by the dark. At the bottom of each leg was an elongated four-sided foot that resembled a pedestal (usually referred to as a term or spade foot). The form is common on English furniture of the late eighteenth century but it is uncommon to find it on American pieces. The front rail of the table arched outward in a luxurious sweep (designed to echo the curved shape of the demilune top) and was decorated with a delicate pattern of inlaid satin-wood swags of husks draped from a series of bowknots. In short, the entire package was so striking and distinctive that it immediately called to my mind the work of the father and son cabinetmaking team of John and Thomas Seymour.

  Today, the furniture of the Seymours—who emigrated from Devonshire, England, to Portland, Maine, in 1784 and later settled in Boston, where they worked together from 1794 until 1804—is revered for its supreme level of craftsmanship and sophisticated style. They are known to have made furniture for a number of wealthy, style-conscious clients, including, most significantly, Elizabeth Derby West, the daughter of Elias Hasket Derby of Salem, who is said to be New England's first millionaire. Unfortunately, though, there were not enough millionaires in the Boston market to support their meticulous (and costly) craft adequately. In 1818, John died penniless in the Boston Almshouse, while his son suffered two failed cabinetry businesses before becoming the foreman for a former competitor. I have always been intrigued by the story of these men, particularly since I have the luxury of placing some twentieth-century perspective on their tremendous yet underappreciated talent.

  The table's term foot, with an inlaid husk above

  Needless to say, when I guessed that day in Secaucus that I was likely looking at an undiscovered treasure by the Seymours of Boston, my heart began to race. I glanced over at Leigh—whose intense focus upon the piece, I had already sensed—and his wide-eyed expression told me that he, too, had drawn the same rapid conclusion.

  Within seconds, Leigh and I were flanking the two women, eager to confirm our suspicions. Before we could even introduce ourselves, the woman in the blue slacks, who had been holding the table's top (which was now resting on the frame), identified herself as the owner. Then she abruptly reached down and peeled off a roughly twelve-inch square of bright green-and-gold Christmas paper that was attached, rather inexplicably, to the exposed underside of the table's top. As soon as she lifted it, we understood why it had been placed there—to protect a well-worn rectangular strip of paper adhered to the surface below, which I instantly recognized as a cabinetmaker's label.

  “Is it?” I said to Leigh under my breath as we both stooped closer to decipher the faint wording.

  “It is,” he answered softly as we read the inscription: John Seymour & Son Cabinet Makers Creek Square Boston. Offhand, I could think of perhaps five known examples of labeled Seymour furniture, which meant that this table's appearance before us was nothing short of a miracle.

  But as excited as Leigh and I were, it was important for us, as appraisers on the Roadshow to maintain a facade of calm so as not to undermine any potential on-screen excitement. We needed to sound out the table's owner regarding the history of the piece while keeping our own feelings under wraps. So in the most straightforward tone I could muster, I asked the woman, who introduced herself as Claire (Roadshow guests are asked to refer to themselves on a first-name basis only in order to maintain their anonymity), how she had acquired the table.

  “I bought it at a lawn sale about thirty years ago,” she said. “I bargained the owner down from thirty dollars to twenty-five because it was all I had in my purse at the time.”

  Now I could hardly contain myself. A masterpiece of American Federal furniture found at a yard sale, bought for a few dollars. It was the stuff of dreams—really so far-fetched that it reminded me of an outrageous prank that Leigh played back in 1979 while he was pursuing a postgraduate fellowship program in American decorative arts at Historic Deerfield in Massachusetts. (I had graduated from the same program the previous summer.) One night, he and a friend stayed up late to place hand-painted signs around the grounds of the historic village museum, announcing a (mock) clearance sale. One read: TAG SALE—TODAY ONLY. HIGHBOYS! LOW-BOYS! QUEEN ANNE AND CHIPPENDALE! YOU NAME IT WE'VE GOT IT. Another said EVERYTHING HERE PRICED TO SELL. ALL STYLES REPRESENTED FROM PILGRIM TO CLASSICAL, INCLUDING YOUR FAVORITES, QUEEN ANNE AND CHIPPENDALE.

  Leigh, age twenty-three, with a Windsor armchair, at Historic Deerfield.

  Within a few hours, that sleepy museum town (famed for its outstanding collection of Americana) awoke to the sound of the switchboard ringing off the hook. The callers had seen the signs from the road and wanted to know all kinds of things. “What time is the sale starting?” “Will they ship to Boston?”

  Claire's discovery of the elegant Seymour card table sounded just about as unlikely. Leigh and I needed to find Aida quickly.

  “Well where is she?” was Aida's rapid response when we presented her with a quick description of what had just unfolded. Within seconds, we were all back with Claire.

  After introducing herself, Aida asked gently, “
Would you feel comfortable going on television with your table?”

  “Of course,” Claire responded with a ready smile. “That's why I'm here.”

  Once a property owner like Claire is tapped for an on-air interview, he or she is then ushered into a small waiting area, otherwise known as the greenroom. There the owner will find coffee and snacks and a few television monitors set up where it is possible to watch other segments in the process of being taped. Guests may have to wait anywhere from thirty minutes to three hours for their segment to be taped, which doesn't always give the appraisers much time to prep for the enlightening object lesson that they will be expected to deliver when the cameras start rolling. Although much of what we say on-screen stems from our professional expertise, it helps if the explanation contains a couple of hard dates or facts (such as the work dates for the Seymours) culled from the Roadshow's traveling research library.

  Usually, Leigh and I don't do our on-screen evaluations together, but in the case of the Seymour table, which we had spotted simultaneously and were equally enamored with, it seemed like the best (and most equitable) thing to do. I began the on-air interview by asking Claire, who we learned was a retired elementary school teacher and divorcee, to recap how she had come to own the table.

  Claire's table in use at home.

  “I had moved into a new house and I knew I needed a diminutive table,” she explained carefully. “I thought I knew the shape and size. When I saw this one at a local yard sale, I thought it was a great thing—even though it was pitch-black and a moldy mess.”

  Claire had gone to the yard sale with a friend, who cautioned her against buying the piece because the top was slightly unstable. “It will never hold a lamp” was her advice. When Leigh and I examined the piece prior to the taping, we, too, noticed that the table was a bit shaky. But that was because it was attached to the frame with a set of original eighteenth-century screws. The table had been designed to convert from a semi-circular pier table into a round-top gaming table (the half-moon leaf simply unfolded and was supported by the two swing legs).

  Despite her friend's warning, Claire seized the initiative and purchased the table for the bargained-down price of twenty-five dollars. It was only after she took the table home and down to her basement workshop (where she attempted to tighten the few loose screws) that she spotted the Seymour label. She copied down the names, and a few days later, she visited her local library and investigated the Seymour name. In a 1959 book titled John and Thomas Seymour: Cabinetmakers in Boston, 1794—1816, by Vernon C. Stoneman (which, despite considerable advances in scholarship, remains the most thorough book on their work), she learned a little bit more about the men who had made her table. She then decided that her yard sale find might have some historic weight after all.

  I wanted to introduce a little bit of the history into the dialogue, so I pointed to the Seymours' label, affixed to the underside of the table's top. “With most pieces of furniture from the Federal period, we make attributions on the basis of inlay, style, and secondary woods,” I explained to Claire. “With your particular table, we are very fortunate to have the actual maker's label. It's a little bit deteriorated, but we can still read it, and that is really just extraordinary.”

  I could sense by the body language of Leigh, who was standing close by my side, that he was eager to share his own excited appraisal of the piece, so I took a discreet step back.

  “Claire,” he said, moving in toward the table. “Even if this wasn't a labeled piece, everything about it says John and Thomas Seymour. The quality is just incredible.” Leaning over excitedly, he skimmed his hand along the curved edge of the top, where an intricate inlaid design of oblong seed husks interspersed by small dots could be seen. “This pattern,” Leigh explained, “was actually sand-burnt, which means hot grains of sand were used to scorch the wood and give the inlay a shaded, three dimensional effect.”

  The inlaid skirt pattern of Claire's table featured delicate swags of husks suspended by tied bow knots.

  Next, his hand moved to the inlaid pattern of continuous swags of three-petaled wheat husks displayed across the sweeping arc of the table's front. “So many of this table's decorative elements came out of late-eighteenth-century English design books by cabinetmakers like George Hepplewhite or Thomas Sheraton,” he said, referring to two of the most influential sources of the Federal era. “The inlaid swag pattern, the demilune form, the tapering legs with the spade feet…but the Seymours took these references to the highest level.”

  Pacing is always a factor in these interviews, so Leigh paused only for a breath before asking, “Now, Claire, did you ever try to clean this table?”

  “Linseed oil and turpentine,” she answered quickly. “But then I saw this,” she said, pointing to the inlaid pattern along the front, “and I thought, Well, I'll just wait.”

  “Well, luckily, Claire, you are not a very good refinisher,” Leigh quipped.

  “But I am … I am,” she earnestly protested.

  “No, I'm joking,” he said with a smile. “Because if you had cleaned it any more, you would have taken off a lot of the value. Luckily, the table still has a nice old color.” Pointing to the tapering slope of the rectangular-shaped term feet, he added, “You see all the dirt at the bottom? I love that.”

  Now, Leigh began to wind down the interview. “When we first saw your table, my heart went thump, thump, thump,” he told Claire, hammering a fist to his chest. “Feel it right now,” he said, impulsively grabbing her hand and holding it to the front of his double-breasted gray pinstripe suit. “It was one of the most exciting moments in our lives.”

  Next came the classic Roadshow question (as familiar to viewers as “Heeeere's Johnny!” or “Is that your final answer?”). Did Claire have any idea of what the table was worth?

  “Probably about twenty thousand dollars,” Claire answered, quoting a figure she had been offered once, back in the 1970s, after she showed the table to a Connecticut antiques dealer. “But I'm just saying that.”

  Leigh tapped his hands lightly against the table's dark surface and then said with a grin, “I think the estimate we are going to give you is going to top that.” He paused dramatically and then continued. “Les and I both feel that because this table is a ten in all the right areas—quality, rarity, condition—on the open market, the piece could bring in the range of two hundred thousand to two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. But on a really good day—now I don't want to get your hopes up—it has a possibility of bringing three hundred thousand.”

  Inspecting the label

  Claire blinked her eyes slowly in the bright television lights. “That's not bad,” she said in a voice that broke ever so slightly. She then added pragmatically, “Are you writing this all down so that I can remember?”

  The interview ended there, and all too quickly it was time for us to say good-bye to Claire and her wonderful table. Knowing that I worked at Sotheby's, she mentioned to me in parting that she had visited the preview exhibition for the estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. “It was very exciting,” she told me, a gleam in her eyes.

  The moment of truth

  Though I was forbidden by Roadshow policy from speaking with Claire any longer about the table, I was nonetheless thrilled that of all the sales for her to have visited at Sotheby's, she had gone to a blockbuster like the Onassis sale. It gave me hope that, given the newfound value of her table, she might, on her own accord, decide to bring the piece to auction. Perhaps the relationship we had forged in the studio would be enough to attract her to Sotheby's.

  Leigh and I stood for a moment and watched Claire leave the hall with her table, its two parts once again separated between her and her friend. I was sure that Leigh, too, was nursing similar thoughts of handling the piece. In a sense, we represented the two best options for a property owner like Claire. At auction, with the right buyers in the room or on the phone, Claire was assured of getting a competitive price for the piece. But if she consigned
the table to a private dealer like Leigh, who advises many of the best collectors in the field, she could also get a top-dollar price, but without the same level of exposure. Some sellers and buyers prefer the anonymity of a private sale because it offers a way of sidestepping the curious (relatives, for example), while others wouldn't think of missing the excitement of the auction room. All my brother and I could do was hope that on her way out the door, Claire might stop at the courtesy table to pick up one of our respective business cards.

  Friday of the following week, I walked into my office and was greeted by the sight of a pink telephone message slip lying on my desk. It said “Claire” and there was a phone number with a New Jersey area code. I let out a holler. A few days later, I drove down to Mahwah, New Jersey, to the home of the woman, whose full name I finally knew: Claire Wiegand-Beckmann. Also with me that day was senior cataloger John Nye. As we pulled into Claire's driveway in John's dark green Ford Explorer, we saw a man standing on the front steps, holding a video camera. As it turned out, the man was Claire's ex-husband, there to record the event for posterity sake. Seeing him reminded me of a time almost two decades earlier: I had driven out to a modest home on Long Island to pick up a masterful Chippendale marble-top pier table that had a long history in an old New York family. As I carried that table out to my car, the owner snapped a number of pictures of me with the table. I thought it was a sweet gesture, but I later learned that the photos had been taken as a precautionary measure to document the fact that I was removing the heirloom from the house.

  Claire's table was just so exceptionally beautiful and untouched, it really could have sold itself. Still, to highlight its finer points, I hired Robert Mussey, certainly the field's preeminent scholar on the work of the Seymours, to write the sale catalog entry for the piece. John Nye and I had already discovered that Claire's table was identical to another labeled Seymour gaming table owned by the collectors George and Linda Kaufman, which to my mind only enhanced its value. Thanks to Robert's research, we learned that the two were exact mates and that the stationary top on Claire's table appeared to have been cut from the same plank of mahogany as the folding leaf on the Kaufman example. This made the two tables the only known pair of labeled Seymour furniture of any type at the time.