From the monthly archives:

January 2009

New Orleans Auction – St. Charles Gallery “Spectacular Winter Sale”

January 31, 2009

I was pressed for time this week, otherwise I would have given you more advanced warning of this sale which is happening today and tomorrow in New Orleans. The above-pictured Belter-attributed table will be part of the sale as well as several other notable Victorian-era pieces.

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Antiques Roadshow Herter Brothers “Burn Mark” Parlor Table

January 30, 2009

As Michael Flanigan said in this Antiques Roadshow appraisal, if this table hadn’t been branded “Herter Bros”, I would have passed it off as a nice Rosewood Renaissance Revival table.  However this is indeed a true Herter Brothers table that originated from the estate of Darius Ogden Mills, a wealthy Californian that made his money [...]

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Hunzinger 1869 Patent Chair

January 30, 2009

Whoa.  It has taken me 5 days to isolate an issue on this blog that prevented me from creating new posts.  It is easier to troubleshoot problems where nothing works at all then to troubleshoot the case where everything works on the site except adding new posts.  It has not been fun and has broken [...]

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Trade Catalogs Can Be Misleading

January 24, 2009

I hadn’t intended yesterday’s blog post to be first in a multi-part series, but as I lay awake last night after dealing with a sick puppy, it occurred to me that I had been saving up a bunch of material for a post on George Henkels and it actually fit in well with this line [...]

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Don’t Believe All That You Read

January 23, 2009

You need to retain a healthy dose of suspicion when you read anything in books related to 19th century furniture and the identification of their makers contained within. That caution also includes what you read on this site.  We all have the best of intentions, but the reality is we’re trying to recreate history [...]

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Robert Mitchell High-Back Arm Chair #66-1337 A

January 22, 2009

I knew eventually that this chair would turn up and it finally has. This is the Robert Mitchell High-back Arm Chair from his ca. 1902 catalog, model #66-1337 A. The “A” designates the Mahogany version of the chair, which this is. It was also available in quartered Oak – which had 2 [...]

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Victorian Antique Lorillard Tobacco Cabinet

January 19, 2009

Not something that you’d hang above your Rococo or Aesthetic Movement sofa, but here’s a great 1880s Victorian tobacco cabinet from the Lorilard Tobacco Company, which operated 100 years prior to this cabinet’s creation as well as operates even to this day.  Lorillard was founded in 1760 by entrepreneur Pierre Lorillard and was the first [...]

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