Thank you for reading my newsletter.
I learned about ‘vestas’ last month, look them up in Google. I was presented with a small metal object, a vesta, that was stored with a business card advertising ‘Oriental Antiques’ on Market Street, between The Palace Hotel and The Chronicle building in San Francisco. There was nothing Oriental about the property, but the owner was manager for Scoma’s, a popular, iconic, San Francisco Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant. I took the uncommon step of suggesting a professional trade of skills.
The location of the business, near the port of San Francisco, gave me the idea of a merchant sailor, bringing the object into the antique shop for trade or sale. My oldest son has been a merchant sailor for the last 15 years, lives in San Francisco, so asked him to lunch too. My son’s fiancé joined us, she has a degree in Art History, and thought her skill set could be of use. The fourth person for lunch was my husband, Arthur Leeper, a dealer of Chinese decorative art for nearly five decades. The small metal box, the size of a match box, was placed on the table while we perused the menu.
Engraved inside on both the bottom and the lid were two ‘X’s’ and four ‘I’s’. If Roman numerals, why would four be IIII and not IV. On the back of the box, was a bending stem with three leaves. On the front, were small strips of raised gold threads, placed on top of each other, in a seemingly random order. Think like a lion beast in front of Egyptian temple. The latch inside to keep the box closed was elaborate to me and involved a loop. No one other than I, seemed to think the latch was anything special.
Please click on the link https://cynthiashaver.com/notes-from-an-appraiser-march-2024/ to see the pictures.
Thank you for your time,
Cynthia