Samuel Merrin: the Value of Archaeological Fragments
Among the classical figures that have graced the halls of the Merrin Gallery are three marble heads, detached segments from a larger relief heralding from the Hellenistic 2nd century BC in Asia Minor. The pieces are thought by historians to be decorative fragments from an ancient Greek temple. The three marble heads, a youth, a feline, and Eros, have spent time as a regular fixture at the New York Merrin Gallery.
Ancient
Greek temple ornamentation: a youth, a feline, and Eros,
from the Merrin Gallery
Interest in fragments such as these three classical Greek
heads has shown a growing trend in recent years. At the
Merrin Gallery,
Samuel Merrin has held a variety of different ancient
fragments of larger pieces. One, a single bronze Roman
hand, holds particular interest to the prominent dealer.
Just a few inches across, the fingers on the ancient hand
are curled as if to suggest the former presence of a
previously-held weapon. A Greek bronze hood and a section
of a Hellenistic marble face have also served as valuable
acquisitions for the Merrin Gallery. According to
Sam Merrin, “Although we have sold fragments for half
a million to a million dollars, depending on size and
importance, you can still pick up archaeological
fragments for one hundred dollars.”
Greek
Kylix at the Merrin Gallery
Edward Merrin and the International Fine Arts and Antiques Dealers Show
At the International Fine Arts and Antiques Dealers Show, an annual event held in different armories and sites over the years, the world's top art galleries join to produce the best antiques show in the United States. The 1993 show, which took place at Manhattan's Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Avenue in New York City, was a marvelous cohesion of the highest echelon of art dealers united to provide to New York City a selection of antiquities both rare and fascinating.
Edward Merrin, the founder of the Edward H. Merrin Gallery, played a major role in the show. The Edward H. Merrin Gallery has become known as the Merrin Gallery since Samuel Merrin took over the gallery's directorial leadership, but the elder Mr. Merrin has continued to maintain a prominent name for himself in the art world. In 1993, Ed Merrin took particular interest shown in a single Sumerian statuette dating from about 2150 BC. With a price tag of $185,000, the statuette was composed by bronze-like arsenic copper, and despite its diminutive stature carried a sense of dignity that allowed it to survive for millennia. In addition to the Sumerian piece, Edward Merrin displayed at his booth at the show a marble head of Ptolemy II dating from the 3rd century BC, a solid piece of history priced as $525,000. Merrin remarked that he liked to have people visit his booth at the fair “to browse and schmooze.”
Samuel Merrin: Purchasing Trends
Samuel Merrin, in a 1990 Wall Street Journal article, was consulted on a continuously important issue in the world of art dealership: the purchasing trends of buyers. Sam Merrin had noticed that buyers were “taking longer, taking pieces home and living with them a little more,” and that “it used to be 65% [of buyers] would decide immediately,” but that this was no longer the case. In previous years, Merrin was quoted as saying, “if you were an art dealer with some taste and you didn't make money, you must really have been out to lunch.” But with the shift from an art seller's market to an art buyer's market, more and more galleries in the early 1990s were noticing a visible change in how the business worked.
Wearable
Ancient Jewelry and Roman Hand at the Merrin Gallery
As auctions seemed to face a
major test in the early 1990s, Sam Merrin was a recurrent
source in many news articles, most notably the Wall
Street Journal. In a November article, Samuel Merrin
remarked, on the topic of the volatility of the art
market, that “you have $500 million [of art] sold in a
weekend, with only 3% unsold, it signals to everybody
that everything's OK in the art world....If these
auctions [those at Christie's and Sotheby's] are really
terrible, we're still going to have our realm of
collectors, but a whole new group won't be joining.”
Unruffled, but not unconcerned, Samuel Merrin went on to
ensure that the Merrin Gallery would continue its
successful status as one of the world's major players in
the antiquities market.
