In Memoriam  

TED DELL

JANUARY 3, 1939 - MARCH 30, 2020

This memorial site was created by Yuri Yanchyshyn, furniture conservator, to honor Ted Dell and his work. Reminiscences are welcome and are found after the obiturary below. Please contact Yuri at yuri@periodfurnitureconservation.com with your contribution.

Ted Dell, noted decorative arts historian and advisor, died in the Bronx on March 30, 2020, as a result of coronavirus. He was 81. A highly respected expert on 18th-century French furniture and decorative arts, he was an advisor to John Paul Getty in the formation of his collection, as well as to other museums and private collections. He was also the author of the French furniture sections of the catalog collections of the Frick Collection and Detroit Institute of the Arts Dodge Collection.

An unusually thorough and meticulous individual, Dell was also known as a generous mentor and colleague. His interest in furniture began during his student years at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, where he became acquainted with historic American furniture. During his junior year, he was awarded a fellowship to Historic Deerfield. There he met Peter Spang, then curator of the collection, who had just returned to the United States from studying at the Courtauld Institute in London. Realizing that the young Ted Dell had a growing interest in researching the sources of English furniture design on American furniture, Spang encouraged him to travel to the UK to develop these interests, which Dell did upon graduation in 1961.

It was the years that Dell spent in London in the early to mid-1960s that would lay the foundation for his later achievements. While beginning his independent research at the Courtauld Institute of Arts, Dell also visited numerous other institutions, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, where he discovered the Jones Collection, a significant collection of French furniture. This experience, as well as his reading Francis John Baggot Watson’s recently published book Louis XVI Furniture, changed Dell’s focus and purpose to French 18th-century furniture. In his words, “I was enthralled by the grandeur of it all.” In spending his time researching notable collections at both major institutions and secluded country homes, Dell met the individuals and colleagues who would later play a significant role in his life. One such person was Watson, whose book had so inspired him, and who was then the curator at the Wallace Collection. Watson encouraged Dell in his pursuit. Another was Frank Berendt, of the future firm Alexander and Berendt, a premier decorative arts gallery, with whom he would have a working relationship for many years.

During his collections visits, Dell not only honed his observational skills and developed insights but began to collect books and materials on French decorative arts. He also began to compile a comprehensive photographic record of prominent examples. These efforts resulted in a private library of over 5,000 items, which is today The Ted Dell Library, located at the Bard Graduate Center Library. The publication in 1967 of The Gilt-Bronze Cartel Clocks of Charles Cressent (here) in The Burlington Magazine established him overnight as an authority in the field.

Realizing that French decorative arts in American collections required additional research, Dell returned to the States in 1969. He purchased a 99 days for $99 Greyhound bus pass and traveled around the country, visiting and examining notable collections. Then, based on his masterful article in The Burlington Magazine, he came to the attention of the Frick Collection and was hired to catalog its French furniture collection. This decades-long labor of love, published in 1992 as The Frick Collection: An Illustrated Catalogue, received highly complimentary reviews and remains today a perceptive description of the collection. It broke fresh ground with many innovative approaches, one of which was incorporating new research fields, such as a wood anatomist’s identification of furniture woods.

It was during his travels back and forth between London and the United States that Dell developed an advisory relationship with John Paul Getty, above, becoming a reliable advisor on the acquisition of French decorative arts for his collection. The first known example of numerous later purchases was the 1971 acquisition of an extraordinary oak table, below, veneered with marquetry, tortoiseshell, and pewter attributed to Andre Charles Boulle, currently on display at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Later, Dell wrote the catalog for the Dodge Collection, a bequest to the Detroit Institute of the Arts. Assembled from former Russian imperial collections on the advice of Baron Joseph Duveen, and housed in the Music Room of Rose Terrace, Mrs. Dodge’s great home on Lake St. Clair, it included examples of the greatest ébénistes of 18th-century France. In his later years, Dell continued being an advisor to numerous institutions and private collectors as well as being an Adjunct Professor at The Bard Graduate Center, New York. He retired from the field in the early 2010s.

Albert Theodore Dell was born on January 3, 1939, and raised in Rockport, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC. He was the only child of Albert Hanson Dell and Blanche Christine Cook. Mr. Albert Hanson Dell was an engineer who developed guided missile technology at John Hopkins University in the 1950s, for which he received a patent. Blanche Christine Cook was a senator’s secretary. Both parents were lovers of music. His mother played the piano, his father was an accomplished string instrument maker, especially of violins, and both were members of the church choir. Ted Dell is survived by his partner, Enrique Martinez. He was buried at St. Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx.

REMINISCENCES

Ted and I met in the early 1990s, and over the decades we jointly collaborated on numerous furniture conservation projects. He became a mentor and a friend, and in his own patient way taught me the difference between looking and seeing. Ted, I will miss you. Yuri Yanchyshyn, furniture conservator

I met Ted Dell as a beginning collector of French and English 18th century decorative arts. This happened when I bought a beautiful B. Lietaud regulateur clock from the celebrated French dealer Frank Berendt for whom Ted consulted. Frank suggested I meet Ted who lived in New York where I also lived part of the year. We clicked, and became fast friends for life.  I would say that between 1985-2010, we spoke twice weekly on the phone. I am an economist and philosopher, and Ted was very interested in the large issues of life, and in political economy in particular.  This was my area of expertise. For his part, he taught me so much about French decorative arts, and he advised me for over twenty-five years on the quality of pieces I was considering, and on their possible provenance. 

While Ted gets the credit he deserves for his remarkable books on the collection of decorative arts at the Frick collection, and at the Dodge Collection, he has received almost no official recognition from curators at the J. P. Getty museum in Los Angeles. This contrasts with the myriad and well-deserved plaudits given to the late Gillian Wilson who played a great role in extending the collection, especially after Mr. Getty died in the late 1970s. However, both she and others at the Getty failed to cite Ted’s contributions, which antedated hers by years. 

Ted alone went to visit Mr. Getty at “Sutton Place” outside of London – a total of some 36 visits. He described many of these unforgettable visits to me. Virtually no one else went, as Mr. Getty was secretive and trusted very few.  Ted advised Mr. Getty to buy some of the earliest and best pieces in the collection that would become so great. He had known Gillian at the V&A, and coached her in this field, and worked closely with her once she became the Getty’s curator.  Yet once again, he received no credit. 

I partially rectified this oversight when, in either selling to or gifting some 36 objects to the Getty about 8 years ago, I dedicated some 10 purchases to Ted on the labels identifying each piece. His overlooked contribution to the Getty story was thus partially rectified. But given his recent death, the museum should now publish a proper piece on his remarkable contribution.

One very special attribute of Ted’s in the field of decorative arts is that he had genuine “connoisseurship” that came from having the luxury of viewing thousands and thousands of objects d’art in museums, in his famous catalogue collection now stored in the Bard Institute, and in private houses and palaces. Today, this quality is altogether missing on the part of so-called “professional “ curators and conservation teams who have very little connoisseurship, and who pride themselves in their ability to find “faults” in antiques, faults such as “being regilded” or “overly restored”.  

Consider the incompetent conservators of the N.Y. Metropolitan museum who declared three years ago the museum’s great small walnut cabinet had been “altered,” and who suspected it was partially new.  [This had been recognized as one of the museum’s greatest pieces.] They were to sell it at auction, but right before the sale, a genuine connoisseur discovered the drawings of the cabinet. It was 100% correct. Happily, this treasure was scooped up before the auction by the renowned collector John Bryan of Chicago, a former Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Art Institute.  Those responsible at the Met should have been fired, especially as they have been known regularly to screw up. The same is true of conservators in many other instances. True connoisseurship barely exists. Ted possessed it.  He could take one look and know a lot. 

Ted taught me (simply peruse his Frick catalogue) that some of the most famous French antiques were often reconstructed, lengthened, and altered in other ways.  [The celebrated commode in the Fragonard Room of the Frick was seriously altered.] This is part of their history, and should be accepted as such. He also stressed, as is now well known, that virtually all important ormolu-mounted objects were regilded, often several times.  It often makes no difference. He also stressed that objects in near perfect “original” condition are very often fakes. Again, read his books to learn about this. 

Ted was a great friend, always giving, asking for nothing. He was amusing, dry, and always intelligent.  In his later years, he was taken care of by his great younger friend Enrique.  In whatever neighborhood he lived in, he got great joy from cleaning up the streets, and from planting flowers and in bettering the environment to the best of his abilities. 

A salute to the well-lived life of a true original! Horace “Woody” Brock 

I was lucky to have Ted as a friend and mentor. He taught me how to look at people as well as French furniture. He not only had a photographic memory and encyclopedic knowledge, he had a remarkable eye, especially for gilt-bronze objects. I was fortunate to be with him on occasional visits to dealers, salerooms and collectors where he was so generous with his introductions, his knowledge and his insights. He paid me the highest compliment when he asked me to give a series of lectures on French furniture to an important client, rather daunting as he was in the audience.  Rest In Peace my good friend.  Robin Miller, antiques dealer and restorer

Ted Dell was a guiding spirit in the world furniture survey that I originated at the Bard Graduate Center. A visit to view the Frick’s French 17th and 18th century furniture led by Ted Dell was a highlight of the course. The BGC is proud to be the home of Ted’s private library and archive focused on French decorative arts. It benefits students and scholars working in the United States and elsewhere. Susan Weber, Director and Iris Horowitz Professor, the Bard Graduate Center. 

I might have met Ted in 1977 while I was living in London as a Ford Foundation Fellow at the V&A Museum (1976-78) or certainly by 1978 when I started my position as the Assistant Curator of European art at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). At that time, the museum bought a beautiful German late 17th century baroque inlaid tortoiseshell, exotic woods, ivory and mother-of-pearl table from Frank Berendt, the great decorative arts dealer in Mayfair, London, and that was one of my first acquisitions. It was Frank who recommended Ted to me as a most knowledgeable expert of French furniture and decorative arts.  Afterward at the DIA, I was soon given the responsibility of pulling together, organizing and co-authoring the Dodge Collection Catalogue of French and English 18th century Works of Art, where Ted had written excellent entries on Anna Dodge's important collection French furniture. These and many other French and English works of art had been in her exquisite Music Room which she bequeathed to the DIA in 1971. I worked very closely with Ted for many years, and we became good friends. We would often see each other when I came to New York for the October International Antiques and Antique Dealers Fair in NYC. He was vetting European furniture and I was vetting European sculpture and works of art, and we would have dinner and we’d talk. He had an amazing library at his three story townhouse on 14th street in Chelsea.  At that time he was in the midst of also finishing up the French Furniture two volume catalogue of the Frick Collection in New York,  which became a very beautiful and important book. However, he also wrote detailed excellent entries for the French 18th century furniture for our Dodge Collection, which is one of the finest French decorative arts collections in the country.

When the works located elsewhere in Rose Terrace, Anna Dodge's  mansion, were sold at auction at Christie’s London in 1970/71,  the auction lasted five days, and a good part of her collection was purchased by J. Paul Getty and formed the nucleus of the Getty Museum's collection. When later the museum bought the Andre-Charles Boulle Clock of the Four Continents, ca. 1710-15, also from Frank Berendt in 1984, Ted wrote a superb entry for it as well as part of the Dodge Catalogue Appendix of Works of Art purchased with the DIA's Anna Dodge Acquisition Fund.  Later, also under my direction the Dodge furniture was conserved first by Nikki H'Lopoff, and still later in the 1990s by the late James Robinson, both of whom were very talented skilled conservators specializing in French furniture. Ted was always very kind, gentle, somewhat quiet, meticulous, always wise and thoughtful. I will miss him, as will so many of us who knew him.   Alan P. Darr, Ph. D. Senior Curator of the European Art Department  & Walter B. Ford II Family Curator of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Detroit Institute of Arts  

Ted was a friend of the playwright Julian Mitchell, who got tired of him sitting around his apartment doing nothing. One day he threw Francis Watson’s catalogue of the Wallace Collection at him and told him to take the #75 bus to the V&A. It was love at first sight. He went every day. When he met Peter Thornton at the V&A, Peter explained to him that the Museum had no one studying the Jones Collection. From then on, Ted became the unofficial Museum expert and the late Gillian Wilson became his friend. On a visit to Paris Ted found a commode being sold as Louis XV, which he thought was English. He recognised it as by Pierre Langlois and which was then purchased by the V&A. It was one of the reasons that the late William Rieder, then studying in the Museum’s Department of Furniture and Woodwork , wrote a number of articles in Apollo magazine to which Peter Thornton added his name. Martin Zimet who ran the picture dealers French & Co had met Paul Getty and discovered Mr. Getty was looking for antique French furniture, so he decided to deal in furniture as well. He then employed Ted, who had returned to New York, where Gillian was working at the Metropolitan Museum. Ted suggested that Gillian would be a suitable curator for the Getty Museum in California.    John Hardy, Independent Scholar, former V&A Curator of Furniture, Christie's Consultant.

In 1977 I began working with Gillian Wilson, the Curator of Decorative Arts at the Getty Museum. Gillian, much to my surprise, showed no interest in teaching or guiding me in my new curatorial position. What she did organize, thankfully, were introductions to several of the great French furniture historians of the day: Sir Francis Watson (Wallace Collection then Royal Collection), Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue (Waddesdon Manor then Royal Collection), Bill Rieder (Metropolitan Museum), and, most fortunate for me, Ted Dell (Frick). When I met Ted I was in my early 20s with uncontrollable enthusiasm for French furniture. Ted, a princely, soft-spoken man, graciously took me under his wing as mentor, in the most traditional sense. My first tutorial was on a non-public day at the Frick. Ted positioned me before a pair of Henri Riesener side tables, informing me that one of the two central starburst mask-mounts was a later replacement. My task was to somehow ascertain which table held the authentic 18th century mount. Ted drove his point home by removing both mounts, educating me in great detail; and changing my life. I had the opportunity to spend much time in Ted’s beautiful house on 15th Street. He was uncommonly generous with his research as well as access to his astonishing library / archive, now at Bard College. The most aggressive I ever saw Ted was when I once nearly returned a catalogue to its wrong position on the bookshelf - a monumental no-no! Michael Shapiro, Michael Shapiro Photographs 

I don’t have too many actual anecdotes or stories to share, but I remember his soft spoken but authoritative voice; he was always willing to offer advice and share his knowledge with fellow enthusiasts in the field like me who were finding their way. I remember two of his clients whom he advised on their collections and who both adored him (both now dead so I don’t think any breach of confidence here): Libby Keck, whose house La Lanterne in Bel Air was filled with treasures bought on Ted’s advice - many sold in the famous sale in the early 90s, but others which she kept until her death - she doted on his every word. And then there was Martin Alexander, the reclusive collector in Tenafly, New Jersey whose extraordinary collection was built up over the years on Ted’s advice, and still one of the most memorable sales I have ever worked on. Ted was like an eminence grise, a quiet figure in the background who led these collectors with his unerring eye and legendary data base of knowledge to countless treasures from the 17th and 18th century - when Martin Alexander first contacted us on Ted’s suggestion, he asked us if we would be interested in seeing a pedestal he owned, giving us a book reference - it turned out to have been a unique piece by Charles Cressent made for the Elector of Bavaria! He was as understated as Ted!     Will Strafford, Senior International Specialist, European Furniture and Decorative Arts, Christie's New York 

The Ted story that other people might not have heard about is one he told me when during my time at Bard, I went as an intern to the MFA Boston to work on the Firestone collection.  Ted said that when he was quite young, he was invited by Elizabeth Parke Firestone to catalogue her collection in Newport (furniture, porcelain and decorations sold after her death by Christie's in 2 volumes, but very good silver went to Detroit and the rest of the silver to the MFA Boston). It must have been during the summer if Mrs. Firestone was in Newport, and I don't know if Ted was staying at the house or simply working there most days, but Mr. Firestone showed up from Detroit and was NOT HAPPY to have a young man in the house with his wife when he was not there. Ted was practically thrown out, and all of his work on that collection came to nothing. I wondered if it helped him later with his work on Rose Terrace, though - a Detroit connection. I just loved the image of a young Ted being considered a threat to the virtue of a glamorous older socialite... John Ward, Senior Vice President, Head of the Department of Silver, Sotheby’s

Ted Dell was my best friend in college.  We met at the College of William & Mary in Virginia when he was a senior and I was a junior. Actually, we met between art history glasses where, my class following his, he would wait for me in the hallway so that we could talk.  I remember one Christmas season when we both decided to stay in Williamsburg rather than going home.  Bumping into him in town, I invited him to join me for dinner one evening, and we really hit it off.  He came to my off-campus apartment that night where we drank a lot and had a good time.  He never went back to the dorm, but stayed with me as my roommate until he graduated.  He had already done an internship at Historic Deerfield the summer before and suggested that I apply for it the following summer, which I did.  When he traveled to London to study at Courtauld, we wrote frequently.  By the time he moved back to New York, I had married a fine woman to whom I’m still married.  When we met for lunch at a restaurant he suggested, I found that he and I no longer had the same interests as when we were in school and our friendship diminished from that point.  But that six months that we spent together in college were great fun.  We created a sort of underground society off-campus and had drunken parties every weekend.  He was more serious than I about his studies and continued in the field of his major, but I went on to become a public relations practitioner, experiencing considerable success in that field (www.primaverapr.com). I regret that we didn’t stay closer in recent years, but I followed his activities with great interest.  I was sorry to hear of his untimely passing. Bill Primavera, Founder & President, Primavera Public Relations, Inc.