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Front Porch: He knows the art of appraising antiques

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published September 2, 2005

Listening to Jay Loiselle deconstruct the history of an old painting or precious document is a rare treat, a languid narrative that can braid together past, present, even the obscure: the natural resistance of some early Florida Indians to certain tropical diseases, say, or the particulars of the American tonalist painting movement around 1900.

Think Antiques Roadshow meets appraisal day at the Henry B. Plant Museum (where Loiselle has offered his expertise in the past).

On WFLA-TV Ch. 8's Daytime show, where he makes a regular guest appearance every Monday, it works like this: Viewers e-mail Loiselle pictures of their treasure (or a good description). The best ones, like the rare, signed molasses jug made by a South Carolina slave (appraised at $50,000), he talks about on the air.

The segment usually includes some informed chit-chat about an interesting item from his elegant, uncluttered little shop with its antique rugs and walls painted pale yellow.

"I read a lot," he explains, "the trades, books on art and antiques, even about stuff that doesn't interest me like Barbie."

Loiselle, a virtual walking encyclopedia on art history and antiques, might well be considered the intellect of the Tampa antiques world.

His longtime shop, Hunter's Find, 3224 Bay to Bay Blvd. in South Tampa, feels like a small, exclusive art museum, particularly if the docent giving the tour is Loiselle himself. He points out a late 19th century impressionist painting of three nudes by Geneve Rixford Sargeant, a California painter who exhibited her work in Paris and at the Art Institute of Chicago. There's a formal portrait of a wealthy little boy in blue velvet with his hobby horse, painted in 1842 by Philadelphia artist Robert Street. And another gritty, but fetching, painting of a 1920s dredge boat by New York painter Robert Williams.

For some eye-popping fun among the serious, he displays an enormous French 1933 advertising poster of a wing-hatted nun hawking the first electric stove made in France.

Tired of looking at art?

How about one of the first maps of Florida by Jacques Le Moyne?

Or a land grant signed by Benjamin Franklin when he was president of the Continental Congress?

Loiselle, who first started collecting 27 years ago when he furnished his first home, calls his love of antiques and art "a glorified hobby run amok."

Though he specializes in exquisite, hard-to-find pieces of period antique furniture, he leans hard toward art, a habit he formed years ago at estate sales.

"I just realized one day that I was looking more at the art than the furniture," says Loiselle, 58, a former well-traveled military brat who says he traces his real roots to Tampa, where his father was a test pilot at MacDill Air Force base during World War II.

His art and antiques command high prices (he recently sold a painting by an Old Master for $180,000), but he only buys what he loves at first sight, an instinct, he says, that when coupled with education, is a winning combination.

"I always go with my first response - I try not to overanalyze," he says.

When he appraises art and antiques, he typically asks the owner to save their Antiques Roadshow story for later.

"I say: "First show me the object, then tell me the story.' It's better not to cloud my mind with the story because often the least important indicator is oral family tradition."

His customers come from all over Florida - and the local area - from Hyde Park to North Tampa.

"I love what I do, I love the objects, the art. And I rarely meet a stinker," he said, smiling wryly. "Serious collectors are usually very nice people."

[Last modified September 1, 2005, 08:26:09]