When you antique furniture shop do you ever wonder what an antique furniture appraiser, antique dealer or auctioneer means when they mention the word “patina” while describing a piece antique furniture? If you were to ask them to define the word for you, they most likely would not be able to do so? It's like saying a piece is "elegant", it's hard to define but if find a piece that has elegance, you'll recognize it.

So what does "patina" actually mean? There are some who think the answer is simply two words: “old grime.” But that is too much too basic and not completely true. Antique dictionaries define patina as "a film or encrustation on the surface of an object indicating great age". This is a fair beginning but, with antique furniture, it entails considerably more than that. The “Encyclopedia of Furniture,”
by Joseph Aronson, defines it as "Color and texture of the surface produced by age and wear. In wood furniture the varnish, shellac or oil has a tendency to deepen yet retains transparency; edges wear smooth and sharp outlines are softened.” This is now getting a little more to the point...

However, that still doesn’t quite define it because all of those particular attributes can easily be replicated by an experienced restorer/refinisher, so therefore, there needs to be more to it than that. But Aronson did make a credible attempt to define the term. A good many of the books on antique furniture shun the term completely because it's so difficult to define briefly and correctly, or else
they just mention it in passing. An example can be found in “American Furniture,” by Marvin D. Schwartz, which describes patina as the “Mellow and worn aspect a surface acquires through age; highly desirable quality on most antique furniture.” That skirts around it pretty well...

John Obbard, in “Early American Furniture” (Collector Books, 2000), goes int more detail stating “Patina is the cumulative effect of age, sunlight, wear and grime on old surfaces of wood and metal …” The “Antiques Roadshow Primer,” by Carol Prisant (Workman, 1999), takes a more humanistic approach, saying patina is “the sheen on a surface caused by long handling …” and that it is “… the
accumulation of wax, soil, stains and oils that human hands have left on furniture over the course of many years, have created a smooth film of, well, dirt.” So, there it is...we humans caused it; not sunlight, humidity or the atmosphere.

So, by industry definitions, an antique furniture piece that has patina is dirty, oily, grimy, worn, beat up, faded, rounded and basically unpleasant. Using those definitions, I have some extremely patinated hiking boots. That can't be all there is to patina...

Therefore, whatever it is, patina has not always been universally desirable. Surely renowned furniture makers did not send out their masterpieces all dirty and grimy. They went out to the market all shiny and clean, new and fresh, and 20 or 30 years ago that was the way much of the antiques trade—including some museum curators—preferred their antiques. And that’s the way many buyers
wanted their newly acquired, old pieces to look. They didn’t want all that dirty old stuff in their new dining room or bedroom, with a crackly old dark finish that could be hiding almost anything, especially the beauty of 200-year-old mahogany.

The current emphasis on originality and patina is just that; current. But it wasn’t the case 30 years ago and may not be the case 30 years from now.

Perhaps the definition of patina is not as important as we thought it was. Perhaps patina, which, in and of itself, is not always a beautiful thing. Judging by the industry definitions, should just be regarded as one more tool the questioning new or experienced collector, can use to verify the apparent age of a piece.

If you are tempted to discuss the patina of a piece with a dealer or auctioneer, think about it for a moment and ask yourself, “Does this piece look, smell and feel old?” That may very well be the best definition of all.


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