Sloans & Kenyon out of Chevy Chase, MD will be putting the ebonized Herter Brothers desk to the right up for sale on November 16th.  The back is stamped with the “Herter Bro’s” moniker, so you can be assured that this is the real deal.

The front of the desk is inlaid with “grapevines, stylized chrysanthemums and butterfly, in light satinwood or maple”, according to S&K.  The listing does not mention if the desk’s original “H” key has survived to be a part of the sale.

Bidding is expected to be strong with an expected range of $40,000 to $60,000 with a starting price of $20,000.

I don’t recommend storing the family crayons in this one.

More at the listing for the desk.  Sloans and Keyon will also be selling this ebonized writing table, thrice-signed by Herter Brothers.

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Neal Auction will be selling the above Aesthetic sofa in the remaining day of the Louisiana Purchase sale today.  It is being attributed to Charles Tisch who was a cabinetmaker in New York starting in 1870, categorized himself as a “designer and maker of furniture” in 1886, and an “art dealer” in 1889.

1889 Charles Tisch Gift To The Met

Tisch gave one of his cabinets to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1889, stating in an accompanying letter that it:

Received the first prize at the New Orleans Exposition (18)84/85. It is a purely American production of my own Manufacture and consider it worthy of a place in the Museum

Fast forward 40 years - In an article  from the Magazine Antiques in January, 2000, there is a 1929 quote about Tisch’s cabinet by Joseph Breck, who was the curator of decorative arts for the Met at the time:

“I think I may safely say that [the cabinet] is a piece we will never want to exhibit.” [6] Despite another attempt to deaccession it in 1941, the cabinet remained in the collection until 1950, ostensibly because the museum was unable to trace Tisch or his descendants. In 1950 it was deaccessioned and put into off-site storage, but fortunately in 1957 James J. Rorimer (1905-1966), then the museum’s director, returned it to the American Wing, and in 1969 it was reaccessioned. [7]

Continue Reading »

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I’m a big fan of all styles and eras of Victorian furniture and my interests even leak into the immediately preceding and following eras.

Not wanting this site to be all about Renaissance Revival and Rococo, I’m always on the lookout for nice pieces in any Victorian style.  It’s just that there are more examples of the former, and less Aesthetic, Egyptian Revival, etc., floating around in the marketplace - that are of mentionable quality.

Misslilybart, in the forum, spotted this chair coming up at the 9/7 Brunk auction and had this to say about it:

It appears to be identical to one at the High Museum (see Art & Enterprise: American Decorative Art, 1825-1917 The Virginia Carroll Crawford Collection, page 265, Plate 146). The High catalog does not make any attribution beyond “Probably New York,” but they do note that it is comparable to work executed for the William H. Vanderbilt House by Herter Brothers (these chairs, in particular), and that the mixed-media marquetry is similar to that of known pieces by Herts Brothers. Continue Reading »

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Tags: Aesthetic Movement, Anglo-Japanese, desk, ebonized, inlaid, side chair