Collecting Religious Antiques

Taking Stock in the Sacred:
Dealers carve niche in religious antiques market

by Elizabeth Hanes

You could be forgiven for feeling an urge to kneel and genuflect upon entering Edward Holgate's antique store. The lifelike carved crucifixes and images of martyrs staring down from the walls bid even the most devout person pause.

Tucked fittingly between the historic San Felipe de Neri church and an open-air shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Old Town district of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Saints & Martyrs Religious Antiques caters to those whose collecting tastes run to the sacred. It's a small antiques niche, but Holgate and his partner, Tim Rodgers, have been successful at it for nearly six years.

The genesis of the idea to deal in religious antiques occurred during a 1989 trip to Mexico. Holgate and some friends spent three weeks traveling through Mexico City and the southern part of the country, buying antique works of art for their personal collections. A few years later, the idea of becoming an antiques dealer surfaced again.

"I was dissatisfied with my job in a museum gallery," Holgate said. It seemed the perfect time to make the transition to gallery owner.

Aware that the antiques industry is a fickle one, Holgate and Rodgers took a very businesslike approach to their new venture, writing a business plan, completing a market assessment and scouting several locations--including Scottsdale and Tucson--before settling their shop in the heart of Albuquerque's tourist district.

"When we were starting up, some friends told us [of two ways to finance an antiques business]. 'You can either start with a large fortune and end with a smaller one, or you can do [it by] hard work and credit cards.' We did hard work and credit cards," Holgate says with a laugh.

The two knew they wanted to focus on religious antiques, but in the beginning they stocked an eclectic mix of furniture, art, and newer items. As their business evolved, they

dropped the furniture in order to focus on art and antiques. Today, they carry primarily Mexican or Spanish colonial religious art and objects, some as old as 400 years. Holgate balances the antique items with new books and milagros (charms).

"We want to make the shop accessible," Holgate explains. "We have items ranging from seventy-five cents to $12,000."

Serious collectors gravitate toward the 19th-century retablos (oil paintings on tin depicting saints and other Biblical figures) and carved wood crucifixes and statues. "People collecting the antiques tend to see them as Spanish Colonial art" as opposed to holy objects, Holgate said.

And the idea of the sacredness of the objects sometimes becomes a point of controversy.
Holgate said occasionally someone will enter the store and be put off by the assortment of religious antiques.

 

"Some people feel like religious objects should not be any part of commerce," he says. He reminds these patrons that "these [objects] are [acquired] on public markets, like any other object in the world." Indeed, religious objects have been bought and sold throughout the centuries. As Holgate points out, even Michelangelo was paid for his religious artworks.

Fortunately, most folks who enter Saints & Martyrs are looking for precisely what the shop offers. Holgate reports an upturn in clients seeking to create sacred spaces in their home. He tweaked his inventory to meet this need by stocking books on the subject of building a home altar. He also serves a burgeoning group of collectors who want to bring the saints into everyday life.

"I can't say the religious antiques market is a growing one, but it's a steady market," Holgate said.

He and Rodgers acquire their inventory through buying trips to Mexico and, more recently, Spain and Italy.

"As late as the mid-90s, it was still possible to shop on your own" at flea markets and antique stores in Mexico to obtain items, Holgate says. "But now we rely on personal connections--local dealers, most of them without shops--who go to antique flea markets and get items for us."

Though jetting around the world to acquire religious antiques for his clientele sounds very exotic, Holgate says he loves his business for more personal reasons.

"Part of the story to me is the conversations with people. That's the fascinating part to me, because I collect the stories."

Saints & Martyrs Religious Antiques is located at 404-A San Felipe NW, Albuquerque, NM 87104, (505) 224-9323.