Deebs

A corn Auction House is located in a former retail store in a local mall. The mall, one of many slapped up over several hundred meadows and pine forests in the 1980s, has fallen on the twin hard times of disuse and disinterest. American retail consumers are wickedly fickle, and the mall is no longer the biggest in the area, nor the host to the trendiest, most coveted stores. Local zoning boards and governing councils had been convinced by developers and builders that each proposed mall in upstate New York would be a great boon, that crossing the nepenthe of their parking lots would allow us to forget the ruined mill towns and postindustrial dilemmas of small cities like Troy and Schenectady.

So the auction moved in, a scavenger’s business, gnomic and pokey, where things come to light that might have lounged, unloved and unnoticed, for generations. Here they are finally given their days in the spotlight, under the scrutiny of auction attendees, people who are part misanthrope, part specialist—among the last shrewd and cagey consumers. Something might have been prized at one time, then discarded and forgotten, but this tribe will determine whether new value and new fascinations can be pinned upon it. Auctions are moments of possible resurrection for the least sublime of our possessions.

This night Acorn Auction advertised goods from “a house in Cazenovia, New York,” probably part of the settling of an estate. The sellers had been collectors, however, so the sale was full of the kind of flotsam only that kind of madness can accrue. The hall was bursting with dishware and flatware, geegaws like solid glass tomahawks, ancient hymnals, blanket chests, dressers, and vanities. They also offered some fetching American miniature paintings on ivory, and one haunting larger painting on canvas. The auction house had labeled the latter as having undergone a “museum restoration.”

In antiques, condition is everything, and “original condition” is a grail-like term. That something had undergone a restoration, even one ostensibly done by experts, would seriously discount the bidding. With the discrimination of a crow, I often pounce on such flawed things, as their diminished state puts them within my scavenger reach. I am less interested in things than I am in the idea of things—and something can be less than ideal and yet still represent that ideal in my mind. Torn copies of a first edition or patched oak baskets simply have been used and appreciated more than the pristine example. And they are still baskets and books.

We were not in the market for a painting, however. I can’t comprehensibly speak for all auction attendees, but we seldom go to an auction with a goal. It seems futile, because you never know what you are going to find or what will seize you. Some buyers I know are such specialists; however, Susan and I tend toward a more open-hearted approach: we allow whatever we might love to have its way with us. It makes for a rather eclectic home decorating style, but it is one that suits us. I like to think our earnest fondness for these castoffs binds everything together, so the 1921 Victrola communicates with the Persian carpet, and the rustic dining room table has a nodding familiarity with the Victorian hall mirror. The fireplace in our living room is flanked by an American folk-art fireplace tool set and a four-hundred-year-old Turkish amphora—with a crack. We love all of these things without prejudice.

In the last hour of the preview, we orbited the Acorn Auctions offerings, hoping something we walked by would arrest us, call out in its dusty and half-lost voice. That’s when the painting took us. His eyes were the point of contact, not unusual for a painting; I’ve read somewhere that in painting their sculptures, ancient Greeks filled in the eyes last, knowing that any depiction of a face would seem prematurely complete with the eyes added too early—other features might be neglected or even omitted, as a result. And so it is with portraits: We are drawn to the...