You don’t come across a signed, Rosewood Alexander Roux bed for $2k that often (current price with no reserve).  It’s not an overly grandiose bed in size or sophistication of design, but the carvings are  exceptionally well done as would be expected of one of the best furniture makers in NY at the time.  The padding on the headboard should likely be able to be removed and restored back to resembling original condition by an appropriate professional.  Asking the current owner might give some more clues on why/when it got there.

More details at the listing and I’ve included some of the photos below.

One my favorite cabinetmakers, Allen & Brother from Philadelphia was profiled in the May 1996 edition of the Magazine Antiques and a desk very similar to this one appraised below on the roadshow is shown on page 723.  The attributions appear to be related to the the desk locks in the article having an “A” key, turned spindles, free-standing columns, and shallow incised carving which are all characteristic of known Allen & Brother pieces.

The roadshow tiles depict knights in armor while the tiles from the magazine depict bird imagery in the Japanese taste.

I’ve always liked perusing Ebay for Victorian Antique finds because you never know what will pop up at a reasonable price. I believe that I have run across an authentic Alexander Roux cabinet (auction completes on 1/4/11 – link will expire in about 7 days) that compares very favorably to other labeled cabinets of similar design.  And you can get it for the price of $3,800 (currently) and restoration costs as you see fit.

There are plenty of labeled specimens to use for identification purposes.  The cabinet above is a labeled and stamped Alexander Roux (even one of the mounts has an “R” on the back) in the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute collection and is featured in the book, “Masterpieces of American Furniture from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute“.  You can find another related cabinet with three front legs at the Met here (also labeled Roux).

I’ve compared below, several aspects of the two cabinets but you will have to look beyond the differences in resolution and color of the photos.  As you know, photos on eBay are often not of the highest quality.  From the wheat motifs with their morning glory counterparts and matching scrolled incising surround, to the identical Ionic Capital mounts, to the matching feet, column bases and bottom panel rosette, there is no question they are made by the same maker – Roux.

The MWPI cabinet has been restored while the Ebay cabinet has not, so there is ormolu missing and incising that has long lost it’s gilding, however, you can still see the profiles of these elements where they are missing or worn when you use the MWPI cabinet as a reference.

By the way, the Ebay cabinet has markings on one of it’s mounts too – “RC”.  Could that be a reference to Roux & Co.? or maybe Roux/Cabus?  Roux had a partnership with Joseph Cabus in the 1850s.  Having a living piece representing their collaboration would be a nice find, but for now, I’m sticking to my Alexander Roux attribution with confidence.

Antique Value

Having a blog that is well entrenched into the Google search results leads a lot of new site visitors here that send me photos of their items asking, “what is the value of this antique?”  The problem is, it depends where they would be selling it, when they’d be selling it (the luck factor of who is in the market at the time), and how long they’d be willing to wait for their price.  All you need is two bidders to show up to the party that REALLY want the item to make the price $1,000 instead of $300.  The ebonized, Aesthetic cabinet above is a case-in-point.  It has been on Ebay for a week and has seen 32 bids – 22 are from the same 2 bidders.

Had the second rabid bidder not shown up to the party, the other top bidder would have possibly scored the cabinet for only $300 (the bid just above the third highest bidder).  However, due to the presence of two parties that REALLY want it, it has been bid up to $1,000 as of this writing.  They have been battling it out for 4 days and with four hours left, I am betting that the battle will continue.

This just goes to show you that putting a price on a piece of history is subjective and can be way off (above or below) the actual selling price because who knows who will show up to the party.  This is also why valuing items with a range based on historical results is much more realistic than throwing out a single number.  So many of the people that ask me what something is worth tell me that “so-and-so valued it at $10,000 five years ago”.  Is that an auction estimate?  Retail estimate?  Insurance estimate?  They don’t say.  The other variable in providing value estimates is shelf-life.  A valuation from five years ago isn’t necessarily accurate to what it would be worth today.

Anyway, back to the cabinet at-hand – which by the way, a Kimbel and Cabus attribution is being given on this item by the seller.  I think it is  a great example of the problem with providing antique values.  You never know…

It’s high time I selectively whittle my Victorian antique collection down as I have bought and bought and ran out of space to put it all in. Therefore, the Rare Victorian Antiques Store has been born! I will be adding more items to the inventory in the coming days, but we are open for business!  There is a great yellow/orange marble-top Neo-Grec parlor table in the inventory and I will be adding another heavy-duty table covered with lion heads within the next few days.

One of my first late-19th century table purchases was a real beater, but I bought it because at the time I felt it was probably a table by Merklen Brothers.  I thought that I’d get around to repairing and refinishing it as I did with this other Merklen.  Repairing this one, however, would cost way more (in my time spent or money for a pro) than the table is even worth, but hey, I had my first “Merklen”.  The “Merklen traits” of the table include the extensive spiral work as well as the brass claw feet with wooden balls.

I keep forgetting that the table retains it’s original label, above.  I will probably never know if William Koelle made the table or just resold it, as he was a retailer as well as manufacturer.   Since William’s location in Philadelphia is a short way away from New York, it is not out of the question that he resold Merklen furniture.  Since component parts (the feet) and spiral machinery were readily available at the time, his shop could been the one to manufacture it.

Nonetheless, I thought that I’d pass on the name of yet another long-lost furniture manufacturer.  Without labels such as these, we’d probably never remember these cabinetmakers ever again, and stick to our short list of manufacturers for attribution purposes.  What we know today of these makers is just a tip of a very big iceberg.

Here’s an excerpt from a Google books’ scan of Boyd’s Blue Book, ca. 1894.  I learned a new decorative arts term today, below, “escritoires“.

One of the lending uptown furniture and upholstery establishments, is that of William Koelle, 1209 Girard Avenue, established 1877. Mr. Koelle keeps the sort of stock that is a pleasure to the judicious and tasteful buyer, who prefers not to have to search for what he wants through a heterogeneous mass of unattractive material. Though lure the collection of furniture amid bric-a-brac is a diversified one, it is select and marked throughout with excellent taste. Special effort has been made for years to present a complete line of suitable holiday gifts, and this year’s surpasses any previously shown. China, cabinets range from $15 to $175. escritoires from $10 to $105, and there are parlor cabinets, divans, dressing tables, chiffoniers, musical chairs, that play when sat upon, marquetry, rockers and tables, electrical musical smokers’ tables, and an assortment of bric-a-brac, lamps, &c. People who visit this store for the first time frequently express surprise at the high order of taste everywhere displayed, and indeed this is a great feature of Mr.Koelle’s business .  The store remains open in the evening till 10 o’clock.

Neal Auction is preparing for their annual Louisiana Purchase sale this weekend which includes a full representation of styles from the early 19th Century through the early 20th.

One of the more interesting items is a Gothic Carved Rosewood Center Table, c. 1845, after a design by Alexander Jackson Davis with original hexagonal white marble top. One can spot a glimpse of the table design in Alexander Jackson Downing’s influential “Architecture of Country Houses” in figure 179.  Once can also see an image of a related but less decorative table in “The Gothic Revival Style in America, 1830-1870“.  Neal is expecting a range of $25,000-$30,000 for the table.

Another key item at the sale is a Rosewood Rococo Revival half-tester bed made by Prudent Mallard.  I would say this is one of the more heavily carved beds I’ve seen attributed to Mallard and it is interesting to see the creeping-in of Renaissance Revival elements, especially the cartouches in the footboard.  Neal Auction is expecting a $35,000-$50,000 final sale on this bed.

There is also a rare George Hunzinger daybed with its original patented woven wire webbing.  Expected range for this item is $6,000-$8,000.

Here’s a small smattering of 19th Century lots that will be in this sale and more information is available at the Neal auction website.

Continuing from where I left off with my Victorian cliff-hanger – I was about to unveil the name written under the upholstery of one of my Egyptian Revival chairs.

I was pretty excited when John Hutchinson of Rose Valley Restorations called me and told me that under the upholstery were several areas of markings on the chair frames. Even though these discoveries generally result (for me, anyway) in finding some not-meaningful-since-the-1800′s model/part/order numbers, there is always at least a moment of hope that something interesting can be found, and in this case, there was – “Jos. Stiner” was written on one of the chairbacks.

I remembered from interacting with Joe Lombardi here on the site here that he owned the famous Octagon House in Irvington, NY, built in 1859 by Paul Armour and bought and expanded (added the dome, for one) in 1872 by a Joseph Stiner, a wealthy tea merchant. I had to contact Joe Lombardi and tell him what we had found. It only made sense that this chair could have originally been owned by the very same Joseph Stiner, especially due to where I was told they had been retrieved.

I was told a story when I bought the chairs that they had been owned by a man who had gotten them from Equus in Tarrytown – less than 10 miles from the Armour-Stiner house.   I don’t know about you, but the proximity of the storage location to the Armour-Stiner house, the written name, the period of time the chairs would have been made, all seem to me to make a good case that they were owned by Joseph Stiner.  Not just owned, but ordered by Stiner as the first owner from Pottier & Stymus.

I can’t say for sure that the chair was part of the Octagon house or another of Stiner’s residences, or whether the other two non-Stiner chairs were unmarked siblings or later marriages.  However, with the one chair, my theory is that at some point Stiner or his estate sold the chair locally and they stayed in the same basic area for 100 years, either changing hands multiple times or maybe just the one time – until this Philadelphian took them out of New York – only to happily return the set back to their perceived origin years later.

Rather than have them purchased by someone else and put into a miscellaneous house, Joe Lombardi and I worked it out that the chairs would live on in the Octagon house, maybe even having been reunited with the very structure they began living life in.

Next post will have some glorious photos of the inside and outside of the home.  While I was there dropping off the chairs, I took a little tour, and a camera…

A few years ago, I purchased a three-piece Pottier & Stymus Egyptian Revival set.  There was strong evidence to back up the attribution that I had made – the set was pictured in many of the reference books and labeled as so.  More importantly, almost all the hardware was marked on the back with P&S, so I was thrilled to get the set.  It was a stretch for me at the time, but I put the set away to be restored one day to it’s former glory.  It was in a state of basement neglect.

Several months ago I set out to have the restoration done.  Some of the delicate hoof feet needed to be repaired or re-carved and one of the backs of the chairs had seen better days.  The upholstery was shot and you did not want to be in the same room and breathe the air around the chairs – I’m not sure if it were the dust mites, the horsehair, the webbing or the upholstery itself, but it was unpleasantly musty.  Nonetheless, I was going to see that these important chairs came back to life.

I had my friend and craftsman, John Hutchinson at Rose Valley Restorations do the work and his first task was to remove all the upholstery (we had it checked by an upholstery historian – old, but not original).  As John was doing the painstaking removal, lo and behold, there was writing inside the chair – presumably model numbers, but also - a name.  A name that I knew.

And so began a little adventure for these chairs and their current owner and I’ll be sharing the story with you over a few blog posts in the coming days.  You can see the chairs in their post-restoration state, before upholstery.

Next up – whose name was written inside the chair and what home’s grand porch are these chairs pictured on?