Just a quick post to make sure everyone knew I was kidding on this post about the Quervelle-attributed sofa. I tried to lather it on thick so that it was hopefully obvious that I loved the sofa and was trying to farcically “discourage” any competition from bidding:

• “special” 40% buyers premium
• located in Siberia
• cardboard facades
• 1960s reproduction
• bidding on it myself to “take it out of circulation”
• a “preposterous ruse” that looks as good as that?

Anyway, most of you saw the comedy and went along with it. The comments at the bottom of the post from zeke were hilarious as he fed the story with oxymorons:

• horrible damask upholstery and the cheap button tufting and matching ugly pillow
• I dragged the image into photoshop and enhanced it. What appears to be mahogany is actually contact paper on particle board.

Anyway, hopefully we’re all on the same page now. I don’t think I’ve seen more people click through (70 so far) from my site to view the actual listing for any other item I’ve profiled before, so obviously there was a lot of interest generated. I figure that the topical nature of Victorian antiques risks being very droll, so injecting some fun every once in a while makes it a little more exciting. Be on the lookout for future bad humor…

You know I’ve been reading too many auction listings when fancy-schmancy decorative arts nomenclature like “parcel”, meaning partial, ends up in my blog post title. I can’t believe it popped into my head. Anyhow, in case there are some Egyptian Revival fans out there, I thought I’d mention this chair coming up for sale at Doyle’s in New York. I’ve seen similar style chairs done by Pottier & Stymus and Gustave Herter, though I haven’t done enough research to associate one of those names with this particular chair. Starting price on this chair will be $350 with an expected range of $750-$1,000. You can see the details at it’s listing.

Also coming up in the same Doyle auction will be the Belter sofa shown below. It appears to be a Rosalie with Grapes pattern. Expected range will be $4,000 to $6,000 and it starts at $2,000.

Both will sell on April 29th, but if you miss it you’ll get a second chance on this Belter sofa pattern since Flomaton will be offering one on May 3rd. I’ll be doing a post on the Flomaton auction as we get a little closer.

In deference to Rare Victorian visitors from the UK and Canada which represent 2% and 4% of the traffic to this site, respectively, I have added country-specific links to the “Shop For Antiques” page. Don’t worry, I’m paying attention that you’re out there! It’s a start, anyway.

Pay no mind to this Grecian (scroll back) sofa in the next Neal Auction coming up in the May 3rd and 4th sale. The carved Cornucopias, incised crestrail, and seat rail gadrooning speak nothing of Anthony Quervelle and his designs. A friend who inspected this sofa for me indicated that the carved legs are cardboard facades and not the carved mahogany paw feet that Quervelle so frequently employed.

Ignore the sofa in figure 6 of the March 1974 issue of The Magazine Antiques on pg. 515 which is attributed to Quervelle that looks nearly identical to this decidedly impostrous 1960s-era copy. I also hear that the above sofa will have a special buyers premium of 40% and it is located in Siberia, which would be a costly shipping bill for the potential buyer.

Why Neal Auction put this on the cover of their auction catalog is unknown to me. If I were you, I would not even consider putting a single bid on this sofa or you will certainly find yourself in a state of buyers remorse. I will do the Neal Auction customers a favor and provide a modest bid to take the sofa out of circulation and return it to it’s Philadelphia origin, storing it in my home so that others are not taken in by this preposterous ruse.

More pictures of this cardboard 1960s copy are here but I’m not sure why you would care to go there anyway.

Kaminski Auctions of Beverly, MA is selling these twin John Henry Belter Meridiennes/Recamiers on the 26th of April. Condition seems to be fine on these two, which appear to be in the “Rosalie with grapes” pattern, though the image is small enough that I can’t guarantee the grapes are there. Some close-up images requested from Kaminski could confirm. If these were the “without grapes” version, I believe the skirt and knees would be missing the added decoration, which further confirms my suspicions.

It looks like these pieces generally garner $5,000-$5,500 when sold as individuals (see here, here, and here) and if you get the pierce-carved variety, you might be fortunate to secure $33,500 like this pair achieved. The listing for the above pair states that the starting price is $1,000 and expected range is $2,000 to $4,000. The details are here at the listing.

If someone can educate me on the fine points of distinction between a recamier and a meridienne, I’m all ears. It seems that I see them used somewhat interchangeably, albeit possibly incorrectly. Why have two French words for the same thing?

I’m familiar with the reclining habits of Jeanne-Françoise Julie Adélaïde Bernard Récamier, for whom the recamier is named; just not the technical distinction between the two forms.

According to the “Field Guide to American Antique Furniture“, here are the definitions:

recamier - A chaise lounge with a single high armrest which can also serve as a back.

meridienne - Reading or lounging sofa often of asymmetrical form. Classical and Rococo Revival preferred styles.

Well, that helps … Not …

Both fit the bill on these particular pieces. I assume there are separate definitions in the book to demonstrate that there are distinctions between the two.

Then there is the Louvre… The Louvre says of the painting of Madame Récamier by David Jacques-Louis, that:

Madame Récamier, gracefully reclined on a meridienne with her head turned towards the viewer, is dressed in a white antique-style sleeveless dress and is barefoot.

So the source of the word recamier was reclining on a meridienne…

Maybe that’s why Kaminski Auction is listing them as “fainting sofas”.