ANTIQUES; Twin Brothers With One Pursuit: Old Treasures
By Wendy Moonan
NEW YORK TIMES, December 8, 2000
You don't have to know a thing about antiques to enjoy ''Hidden Treasures: Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture,'' a new book by Leigh Keno, a New York dealer in American antiques, and his twin brother, Leslie Keno, the senior specialist in Americana at Sotheby's. The twins, who appear regularly as appraisers on ''Antiques Roadshow,'' the popular PBS television program, wrote the book with Joan Barzilay Freund, and it reads like a novel. It's one hunt after another, not all with happy endings.
Both Kenos have made incredible discoveries, and they candidly share the stories in the work ($29.95), published by Warner Books.
In 1999, for example, Sotheby's sold a large mahogany secretary-bookcase made in the 1740's for $8.3 million. The so-called Appleton secretary was ''without question, the most significant piece of American furniture ever offered for sale in Sotheby's 255-year history,'' Leslie Keno writes.
He recounts the long campaign to get the piece consigned by its Paris owners, how the secretary had ended up in France and how he was finally able to ascertain its Newport, R. I. maker, Christopher Townsend, by having Sotheby's take infrared photographs of a barely visible graphite signature on the underside of a drawer.
What makes the story so compelling is that he takes the reader with him as he systematically evaluates the plum-pudding mahogany, the unusual solid silver hardware, the carvings of the block-and-shell doors, the dome-shaped pediment and the search for a signature. He tells you about his hunches and instincts. Then he details the exhaustive preparation a successful auction -- a combination of hard work and buzz creation.
For his part, Leigh Keno discovered an important Federal secretary bookcase in Buenos Aires. It ended up as the star attraction of his booth at the Winter Antiques Show in New York in 1995. He surmises that the secretary had gone to Argentina with a Confederate sympathizer from the Old South, one of many who left after the Civil War rather than live under Yankee rule.
A formal and glamorous piece, the secretary had several eglomise panels, including two large ones on the front depicting the goddesses of truth and justice. Miraculously, Mr. Keno found a bit of dated Philadelphia newspaper in it, proving its origin in that city. The piece sold in the first minute of the antiques show for its $440,000 asking price.
If any two people were destined to go into the antiques trade, these twins were. They grew up in a farmhouse built in 1845 in Mohawk, N.Y., with parents who were country dealers. Their dad was a high school art teacher who retired early. He always collected and restored vintage sports cars, and both parents sold folk art and country furniture at flea markets like Brimfield's, a three-day outdoor fair in Brimfield, Mass.
As they write in the book, they spent their childhoods happily scouring the Mohawk Valley for ''remnants and refuse'' of the early settlers, from bits of stoneware to door hinges to glass bottles. These were brought home, sorted and studied. ''We resolved to record and research in the greatest detail the many objects we admired and sought,'' the Kenos write.
By the age of 12, the inseparable twins had begun a joint diary with the notation, ''We are Antique Dealers.'' They chronicled their finds from flea markets, tag sales and antiques shops they visited with their parents en route to other fairs.
In 1969, they wrote: ''In case we forgot to tell you, we started our little antique bussiness [sic] by searching the countryside for old barns and taking the hardware legaly [sic] off of them and selling them to get money. With the money that we got from the hardware, we started to buy other things.''
They began to collect antique salt-glazed stoneware made from New Jersey clay. A childhood photograph reproduced in the book shows their stoneware collection, the enormous decorated jugs carefully displayed on floor-to-ceiling shelves in their home. Today, Leslie Keno said, they regret having sold that collection.
They were always confident in their instincts. According to their book, they were only 14 when they paid $3,500 for an American salt-glazed stoneware jug, at the time the world record for American stoneware.
They attended different colleges, then moved to New York in 1979. Leslie joined the one-year training program at Sotheby's while Leigh went to work for the William Doyle Galleries as a general appraiser. In 1984, Leigh moved to Christie's American Furniture Department, then he went out on his own as a dealer.
Leigh Keno said that one of the unexpected results of their appearing on ''Antiques Roadshow'' was discovering the interest in American antiques the program had elicited among young people. He said he had recently received a letter from a 29-year-old man in Dallas who had just married. The man wrote that he and his wife now go antiquing on weekends because they want to start collecting 18th-century American antiques.
''The show opened a window for some people who didn't know what antiques were,'' Mr. Keno said. ''When we were first filming, we even had a group of punk rockers come in to say how much they loved the show.''
Leigh Keno carries antiques in the $5,000 to $20,000 range for new collectors, in addition to important pieces in the Queen Anne and Chippendale styles. ''I get excited about great objects,'' he said.
Leslie Keno echoed him: ''Queen Anne and Chippendale will always be sought after, but Federal and Neoclassical pieces of furniture are, unquestionably, an up-and-coming collecting area, and Empire furniture is pretty affordable.''
Neither Keno collects American antiques, but they both appreciate Pilgrim furniture from the 17th century. Leslie Keno pointed out a real discovery that will be part of Sotheby's Jan. 19 sale, ''Important Americana'': a Pilgrim Connecticut blanket chest that was discovered in a dump in Old Lyme, Conn. ''The oak chest has a four-panel facade with fleurs-de-lis inscribed within fans in each panel,'' he said. ''It's similar to a group of five documented chests made in Windsor, Conn.'' He said the lid had been replaced, so the estimate is $5,000 to $8,000.
His brother added, ''Condition always affects value, but with Pilgrim furniture you have to realize that a piece that has been around for 300 years might have some replaced parts.''
Do the twins ever disagree? ''We have disagreed -- mostly on girl stuff when we both liked the same girls when we were really young -- but most of the time we do agree,'' Leigh Keno said. ''It's almost uncanny. We usually arrive at the same conclusion when we look at a piece of furniture.''
Do they compete? ''Our goals are completely opposite,'' Leigh Keno said. ''Leslie's job is to get the most money for his client. My job is to get something for my client for the least amount of money. There's no conflict.''
The Keno brothers are on a book tour for the next few months. Warner Books said they would be in Dallas tomorrow for a book signing at Lady Primrose's Antiques at 1 p.m.; in Austin on Monday, at the Book People, from 7 to 9 p.m.; and in Norfolk, Va., on Wednesday, at the Chrysler Museum, for signings at 2:30 and 8 p.m.