Antiques Dealers as Sleuths in Fiction and Fact
In a sense, all antiques dealers are sleuths. A detective’s sensibility is required to be successful in the concrete enterprise of finding valuable old goods, as well as for the less tangible task of seeking the story behind an object, whether researching its particular provenance or just the historical context of the time and place in which it was made and used.
But one local antiques dealer here in Maine has taken things a step further by inventing a fictional alter ego – an antiques dealer who solves mysteries of the true-crime variety. Like the author, Lea Wait, the protagonist of her “Shadows” mystery series is a dealer in antique prints.
The latest installment in the series, Shadows of a Down East Summer, finds 38-year old Maggie Summer taking an August vacation with her boyfriend (also an antiques dealer) at the home of his 91-year old aunt in the charming coastal Maine town of Waymouth, which is purely imagined, but strikingly similar to our own home base of Damariscotta.
The story interweaves some true historical details of the late 19th century life of the artist Winslow Homer at his studio in Prout’s Neck, Maine with a fictional crime spree in a modern-day small town. It intersperses excerpts from an invented 1890 journal of a young woman who posed with a friend for Homer while he sketched at the rocky shore.
The Bathers, wood engraving by Winslow Homer, Harper's Weekly, 1873
As the story progresses, we discover that this artist model’s descendants live in Waymouth, setting the stage for old family secrets and new family greed to result in theft and a murder. Maggie helps solve these crimes by using her antiques dealer-honed skills, such as recognizing stolen paintings at an auction preview, and finding and interpreting primary historical documents.
Some aspects of the story involving the antiques business are realistic, and some not so much. Maggie is a full-time professor and a part-time antiques dealer, which would be hard to pull off successfully in real life. But a chapter about Maggie helping her boyfriend set up at an outdoor antiques show in a rain storm, trying to save his merchandise from damage while bemoaning the lack of customers and sales on such a filthy day, rings quite true.
This is not a particularly gripping mystery, as it is quite easy to figure out “who done it.” There is also not a lot of compelling character development, as much of the dialogue sounds like all the same person talking - that person being the author, giving mini-lectures on art history and the antiques business in the guise of conversation between characters. But there were some interesting glimpses of Homer’s life and studio, which the Portland Museum of Art has now acquired and recently opened to the public.
Winslow Homer's studio, Prout's Neck, Maine (photo from ArtFix Daily)
And it is always enjoyable to read descriptions of coastal Maine in the summer, particularly during this time of year when spring is still struggling to begin.
On the factual end of the spectrum of books featuring antiques dealers as sleuths is Killer Stuff and Tons of Money: Seeking History and Hidden Gems in Flea Market America. It is written by Maureen Stanton, an investigative reporter who spent several seasons being what anthropologists would call a “participant observer” assisting a friend (given the pseudonym Curt Avery) who is a full-time antiques dealer in New England.
The author experienced shopping for, setting up, and selling antiques, mostly at outdoor shows and flea markets, and took detailed notes on the experience to document a subculture within the antiques trade.
Curt has an impressive knowledge about a range of early, traditional antiques, and is seasoned in the rituals of buying and selling. Much of the book is in his voice as the author recounts his amusing running commentary about old objects and business strategies, competitors and colleagues, mentors and buyers, all as they ride in his van, attend auctions, walk show fields, and tend his booth. She profiles his weakness for obscure objects that have a diminishing market value, such as undecorated six-board blanket boxes and 1-quart butter churns.
His life is not romanticized, but is presented within the context of the hardships of long hours on the road and the pressures of making a living with no safety net of a secure salary with benefits. The author is honest about the impact she sees his career having on his family, from his being unavailable for weekend outings, to his tendency to overrun his home with merchandise - up to the point where his wife finally adds a wall down the middle of their living room to try to contain his stuff on one end of it in an office of sorts, in an attempt to preserve one small piece of territory free of boxes and clutter. (After that, Curt takes to sneaking certain new acquisitions that he knows are not particularly saleable into the garage at night while she is asleep.)
This book provides a good dose of actual reality, which is far from made-for-TV reality, about one segment of the antiques business. It profiles a person who lives by his knowledge, wits, and instincts, yet is limited by being just a one-man operation. The reader comes to respect his hard-won wisdom about essentials such as identifying fakes, knowing what examples within a genre are common or rare, assessing the elements of an antique’s condition that matter most, and understanding price points that can make or break a purchase or sale. While it is easy to sit in an arm chair and critique what he could be doing better, such as getting rid of a huge backlog of unsaleable merchandise rather than hoard it in hopes of a better day, overall it is hard not to respect his diligence, determination, integrity and optimism.
This is an engaging read for anyone in the antiques business, for people who love to shop at flea markets, or for students of human nature who appreciate an in-depth study of a unique character. Unlike the mystery novel which wraps everything up in a tidy package at the end, this non-fiction book is somehow more satisfying as it leaves you contemplating a true-life, unsolved mystery: what compels certain individuals to dedicate their careers to this crazy business.
