A Note on Directories
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57 A NOTE ON DIRECTORIES Whilst most of the trade directories consulted for the dealer dictionary were standard list formats, some nineteenth century directories were more ambitious projects. John Tallis’ London Street Views, for example, published in parts between 1838 and 1847, was an innovative publication that included lithograph illustrations of architectural elevations of the shops in a number of streets and locations in London. Traders in Tallis’ directory, which was aimed at the top end of the market, could pay to have their names advertised above their pictured shop fronts. The illustrations in this dictionary contain a group of antique and curiosity shops illustrated in John Tallis’ London Street Views - (see figure 12 ; Miss Clarke, Regent Street, figure 13 ; Isaacs, Regent Street). Directories, like any historical source material, are anchored in their own social and cultural contexts and it is important to take care to acknowledge the nature and purpose of the source material in any historical investigation. Indeed, it is well-known that trade directories, particularly in the period up to the 1850s, were notorious for their inaccuracies and inconsistencies, as historians such as Jane E. Norton and P. J. Atkins have already explained.5 Aspects such as the method of compilation of directories had a significant impact of the completeness and consistency of the information presented and given the sheer amount of time it could potentially take to compile a large directory, it is clear that some of the information would already be out of date by the time the directory was published. Even aspects such as the weather could have an impact on the comprehensiveness and accuracy of information in directories - for example, heavy snow was known to restrict the survey activity in some areas.6 Directory publishers were also not averse to plagiarism, often reprinting whole sections of earlier directories and merely adjusting the date of publication. Criticism of directories as accurate sources of information is not restricted to the rigour of modern historical investigations and directories were often condemned for their failings at the time of their publication; William Robson, publisher of the London Directory in the 1830s, encapsulates the exasperation of the task, as he wrote in the preface of his 1833 edition; Books o f this nature have to pass through a most severe ordeal; and are subject to a species of criticism from which all other publications are exempt. Here every man turns critic; and when a respectable name happens to be omitted, or wrong spelt, or a trade or residence inaccurately described, the most sweeping and unjust censures are often instantly passed upon the whole book, as good for nothing, merely because it is not good for everything. I f such indiscriminate censors could know the extreme difficulty o f obtaining the full and accurate information, essential to the compilation o f a correct directory, and the immense labour, time and expense attending to its publication, they would abate somewhat of their reproaches... The dictionary entries not only reflect the inconsistencies of the Trade and Post Office directories themselves, but they also illustrate the protean nature of those involved in the antique and curiosity trade during the nineteenth century. Naming is an unstable cultural register and many of the descriptive terms and trade classifications appear to have been 58 DICTIONARY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY ANTIQUE & CURIOSITY DEALERS used interchangeably in the period. Moreover, we also need to be aware of projecting our own perceptions into the prospective meaning of a descriptive category, classification or title. The complex nature of the nomenclature adopted by those describing the practices of the antique and curiosity trade often remains difficult to decipher and it is quite clear that trade classifications obscure a much broader range of practices. For example, Samuel James Hadnutt was listed as a ‘Dealer in Ancient Furniture’ trading from Wardour Street between the late 1830s and the early 1850s, however, Hadnutt was also listed in several other trade directories in the same period simply as a ‘Carver and Gilder’. Such anomalies illustrate the overlapping practices of those involved in the antique and curiosity trade, something that was especially evident during the first half of the nineteenth century when the trade was expanding rapidly in response to the evolving market. It is also clear that many of those traders classified as ‘art dealers’ and ‘picture dealers’, sold a much wider range of objects than their trade classification in the directories suggest. However, the dictionary only includes entries on well-known ‘picture dealers’ where there is firm evidence that they also traded in antiques and curiosities in the period. For example, Thomas Emmerson, Henry Farrer, and the Colnaghi family were predominantly known as art dealers but are included due to consistent evidence that they were frequent traders in ancient armour, antique furniture and curiosities during the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Art dealers such as John Smith, Samuel Woodburn and Thomas Agnew do not appear in the dictionary as there appears to be little evidence that they strayed too far beyond their activities as picture dealers. Such classifications and their associated inclusions and exclusions are open to further debate. However, the rationale for inclusion of a dealer in the dictionary was always based documentary evidence and given the complex nature of antique and curiosity trade in the nineteenth century, it is hoped that any apparent contradictions are resolved in the information contained in the individual entries themselves. Readers will also note that the dictionary does not include entries for the French Marchands-Merciers trading from Paris and elsewhere in the opening decade of the nineteenth century. Individuals such as Philippe-Claude Maelrondt, who supplied the Prince Regent (later George IV) with French furniture and works of art, owe their legacy to eighteenth century specialist traders such as Lazare Duvaux (d.1758) and Dominique Daguerre (d.1796) and perhaps can be more properly considered to be suppliers of modified ‘modern’ productions.8 It is of course clear that several of the dealers included in the dictionary, such as Edward Holmes Baldock, Robert Hume and Robert Fogg and even conventional trade directory classified curiosity dealers such as William Forrest and John Coleman Isaac, did indulge in practices such as modifying, converting and embellishing antique furniture and works of art in a similar way that the Marchands- Merciers are known to have worked. However, these ‘curiosity dealers’ also indulged in practices more conventionally associated with the trade in antiquities, curiosities, ancient furniture and related historical material. The absence of the French Marchands-Merciers from the dictionary is a reflection of the more specific nature of their own practices and, at least as far as the evidence suggests, the lack of any trade activities of a similar nature to those of the curiosity dealers. I trust I can be forgiven for such classificatory exclusions. The inclusion of information on dealer activities at the major auction sales during the course of the nineteenth century highlights the presence of the dealers as speculative 59 buyers and commission agents at these important moments in the evolving market. At the same time, the roll call of dealer names at auctions such as Strawberry Hill (1842.), at Stowe (1848), Hamilton Palace (1882) and the Fountaine Collection (1884), directs attention to the significance of the role of the dealer in the histories of collecting and consumption. Equally important are the roles that the dealers played within the exhibition culture in the nineteenth century. The display of objects at exhibitions such as those at Gore House, London in 1853 and at related events such as the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857 and the Exhibition of Works of Art at Leeds in 1868, were significant platforms for the expansion of the market for fine and decorative art and the inclusion of information on dealer activities and practices at these events directs further attention to the agency of the dealer within these complementary art market mechanisms. It is hoped that the compilation of this dictionary will act as a catalyst for further investigation and study of the dealer and their roles within the histories of collecting, the histories of the art market and the histories of consumption. No less significant of course is the role of the dealer in the history of furniture, which, as the reader will note, has been a specialist trade activity since at least the second decade of the nineteenth century, (see the entry for William Holl, the first trader officially classified as ‘Antique Furniture Dealer’ in 18 17). REFERENCES 1. Mark Westgarth, The Emergence o f the Antique and Curiosity Dealer i 8ij- i 8jo: the commodification of historical objects, (forthcoming, Ashgate, 2010). 2. The Isaac archive is held at the Hartley Library, University of Southampton, M S139/A /J3. The archive was transferred from the Anglo-Jewish archives at the Mocatta Library, University College London to the University of Southampton in 1990. The papers were deposited at the Mocatta Library, University College London by the late Joseph Pollitzer, John Coleman Isaac’s great, great nephew. A number of letters are written in Hebrew and were translated into English in the late 1960s by a Rabbi Feld. A brief summary of the archive and in particular its significance in relation to Jewish cultural history was completed during the early 1970s by the late Alex Jacob and the late G.H. Whitehill, director of the Anglo-Jewish archives at the Mocatta Library, (see Hartley Library, M Siyy/A Jy} no.468/Add 3). 3. The Isaac archive contains three fairly substantial parcels of letters from the collectors, Ralph Bernal (C1783-1854), (covering the period 1 8 3 4 - 4 1 ) , Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick (1783-1848), (covering the period 1 8 3 1 - 4 2 ) and Captain Henry Augustus Langley ( d .