1974 recession – Rob said to Tommy Brod that it was a bit like playing brag, where, when things aren’t going well, then one changes the rules – “let’s put all our Dutch paintings into black frames”. The rest is history.
At the time Sandra Cooke (later to become Lady Lean) was PA to Thomas Brod and confidentially privy to the tastes of many of the art dealers. When asked about their eating prefrences, she immediately said “ Fish, shellfish and more fish.” Armed with a photo of a Still Life by Osias Beert, I went to the owner of the Pond Place restaurant to see if he would copy it in real life.
In 1984, after 14 years of research, Dr Pieter J.J. van Thiel opened an exhibition of Dutch frames, the likes of which the world had never seen before.
Whilst “teaching” art in Norfolk, I fell in with a group of artisans and layabout émigrée philosophers from London. A number of them were in the provincial Art Trade comprising of dealers, restorers, artists and gallery owners. The one missing expertise was conservation, and in particular, re-lining.
We were asked to make copies of an existing antique oak, Jacobean, 16 branch chandelier except that our ones needed to be wired for electric lighting conforming to British Standard ?? whatever that was back in the day.
I remember we were approaching Christmas 1973 and the lights had gone out again. The oil crisis was deepening. Initially the effect was a just a gradual lessening of work but then, just as if someone had turned off the tap, the orders dried up…
