Photography by Katherine Bish
On his last trip to Treasure Aisles, Scott Lowenbaum spotted a tiny plaster study by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (who designed the $20 double-eagle gold coin that’s still considered the most beautiful American coin ever issued). “I called a friend at the Met, and she said that piece has been lost since 1905,” he confides. “It was next to a really ugly fake terra cotta, and it was $54. It’s a study, unfinished and a little dirty; conservatively, I’d say it’s worth $3,000 to $5,000.”
Mr. Lowenbaum used to pay his Wash. U. tuition bills by, as he dryly puts it, “identifying undervalued objects.” Now he’s a painter, with two shows coming up in Milan. He teaches a class at École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and just finished giving a master class in Mali, West Africa. But every once in a while, he still goes hunting, just for fun.
“I love buying in St. Louis,” he says as we pull into the Treasure Aisles parking lot in Maplewood, “because there was so much money here, especially at the turn of the century, and they bought the best.” Today most buyers don’t understand or appreciate those things, he adds, “so we’re left with a lot of good stuff.”
At the entrance, he scans—fast—the first few booths. “So what exactly are you looking for?” I ask eagerly, sure that I, too, have an innate ability to divine provenance. I certainly have an innate ability to choose the most expensive fabric swatch or frame molding on the wall.
“I just look for anything that stands out,” he says absently. “Something unusual. Quality. Things I haven’t seen before.”
I nod sagely and scan the shelves along with him, eyes darting back and forth to match his pace. Ahhh, I see it, we’re going to focus in on the little hand-painted figurine ...
“That bookcase,” he exclaims. “It’s been cut down; the arch at the bottom should be taller. It’s called a Missouri bootjack foot. And it’s been repainted three times. If it were all original, it’d be that pale minty green. In the right shop, $1,200 to $1,500.”
I peer again at the $195 price tag. But Mr. Lowenbaum’s already sliding his finger along the high glaze of a hideous yellow, green and brown candleholder priced at $8. “Belgian art pottery,” he murmurs reverently. “In the right place—like the Chelsea Flea Market in New York, where high-style midcentury stuff sells well, this would be about $65.” An aisle later, he sees a Modernist art-glass ashtray and nods. “In New York,” he explains, “they still smoke. Here, the kids don’t want their parents’ ashtrays.”
Because Mr. Lowenbaum knows dealers and collectors in New York, Paris and Milan, he keeps a mental list of objects that tend to be underpriced here and snapped up elsewhere. St. Louisans ignore upholstered furniture, for example, and refuse to buy silver plate. “That makes sense with the 1940s-to-’60s Reed & Barton,” he says, “but old Sheffield plate from the 18th century has come through, so collectible.”
So what do the locals love? “What’s called in the trade ‘brown furniture’—1920s reproduction, pseudo-Sheraton or Hepplewhite or Georgian, nice wood but factory-made, the proportions a little off,” he says promptly. Shame curls my entrails. I love brown furniture.
“That and crazy folk-art stuff,” he adds.
He picks up a piece of etched glass. “These are by a very famous designer, Dorothy Thorpe, but because they’re sherbets, they’re not as desirable. Still, a lot of the ’40s Hollywood regency is really in now. It’s very glamorous. I used to find Dorothy Draper’s pieces here all the time. Once I found a pink upholstered daybed by her for $400. I was flipping.”
He picks up a glass vase. “See, this isn’t Dorothy. A.) It’s not etched as deep, and B.) it’s not frosted. And it’s not stylized enough.” He sets it down. “When you are in these places, you are almost a curator.”
Not long ago, he came here and found a print by Georges Rouault, color woodblock, “The Temptation of St. Anthony,” initialed in pencil and dated. “You have to be careful,” he warns. “A lot of people will take a bookplate and sign it—how easy is that? And watch out for prints that are initialed and prints numbered in big editions—the artist is not going to sign all those, so that’s basically a high-class poster.”
He moves on to a shelf of porcelain, and his “Damn!” makes the teacups vibrate in their saucers. He’s holding up an exquisite demitasse, which he says is “Old Paris porcelain, exceptional quality, great condition.” He pauses for drama, then adds woefully, “No saucer.”
He turns a bit of sculpture in his hand. “They say this is terra cotta, but if you look at the base, these little white bits, it’s plaster underneath. Painted to deceive. Still, it’s a great-looking object for $30.”
Eyeing the next booth, I point triumphantly to a heavy, ornate frame that’s bound to be old and French. He winces. “It’s a copy of Italian neoclassical but done in a resin, probably in the last 10 years as a decorator piece in China. It’s way too dense; it weighs a ton, and that’s a tip-off.”
Like a gambler in the throes, I try again, pointing to a bookcase every bit as primitive as the first one he spotted. He looks it over. “The nails match,” he says charitably, “and the surface is right, and the wood’s thick and consistent, no particleboard back or anything—but it doesn’t have any color; there’s nothing remarkable about it. Now, these!” He pounces on some murky bits of metal on a shelf, tangled in a bright gold plastic cord. “Cord’s new, but so what? These are 1920s light fixtures of copper, bronze and iron in the manner of a designer named Oscar Boch.” He rotates one slowly. “These are really fine castings. You can’t see any mold lines, and the seams are actually vertical along the leaves. That’s a very difficult way to cast a piece of bronze.”
The next piece has far too much color: three layers of latex at least, and Mr. Lowenbaum says the last painter made the worst mistake of all, putting oil base on top. “Anything that’s been replaced or repainted will diminish in value by 70 to 80 percent. That’s an American obsession; in France, restored furniture sells for more than the original.”
He spots a beautifully detailed kitchen cabinet with raw edges. “So many of these built-ins are coming out of Clayton tear-downs,” he exults.
At the next booth I can feel a change. If Scott Lowenbaum were a terrier, his ears would definitely be twitching.
“I found a French 18-karat gold mesh bag here a couple of weeks ago,” he says sotto voce. “It weighs almost 4 ounces.” He paid $35; he suspects that at today’s prices, the gold would bring $4,000—if he could bring himself to melt it down.
I scan the shelves with renewed vigor.
“I’ve been coming back to this booth ever since I found that bag,” Mr. Lowenbaum says, “because I know dealers: They buy an estate and hold the best stuff back, and then they bring things here after they don’t sell for a while, because people begin to think that they are not worth much even though they are fabulous.” From a rack of pop-pearls and Mardi Gras beads, he plucks a strand of what look to me like blue and white plastic kids’ beads. “These are an Italian copy of African trade beads, handmade. They are attributed to Coppola e Toppo.”
“Poor guy,” I think, “he’s so eager to find an-
other treasure, he’s going to sink $18 into that junky little necklace.”
He walks faster, clutching the beads. He nods to a tall chest: “That’s quartersawn oak, you can tell by the high-contrast grain.” Then he picks up a porcelain cup: “It’s modern. See how light it is? It’s slip-cast. By the way, if you ever repair porcelain, use Elmer’s glue; it’s reversible.
“Brands matter now,” he continues without breaking stride. “In the past a lot of things weren’t marked, because people didn’t care. Country of origin didn’t have to be stated until after 1892, and even then a lot of it was on paper labels that came off.”
“That a reproduction?” I ask nonchalantly, pointing at an antique standing lamp that looks Art Nouveau.
“Everything is a reproduction, in a way,” he replies. “Very rarely do you find things that were truly of the period. The Chinese have copied themselves since about 200 A.D.” He squats to examine my find. “This is probably a ’30s copy, neo-Gothic with Spanish Colonial influences.” Uh-oh: too many descriptors. It’s a mutt.
He reaches for the tag. “They say it’s bronze and cast metal. I don’t think it’s bronze. We’ve got to search it for a little damage—see this scratch? It’s white pot metal underneath.” He slides a finger across the base. “Museums will say, ‘You can look at this object, but you can’t touch it,’ and I will say, ‘Then I’m not doing the appraisal. If I can’t touch it, I can’t understand it.’”
He rises. “We don’t own anything, you know,” he says as we go out the door. “We’re just taking care of it.”
I muse all the way back to the office about his words’ philosophical import, their communal generosity of spirit. Then I open my email and find a message from Mr. Lowenbaum:
“I just sold the Coppola e Toppo necklace for $365, and it’s going back to Italy.”
Caretaking, indeed.
