I had previously mentioned that I’d be giving you a little more of a review on my latest book purchase, Victorian Detail, by Priscilla S. Meyer, so here goes.

Lise Bohm tipped me off to this book, as she occasionally does, and this time I hit some research paydirt immediately upon receiving it. I had been trying to identify a particular chair that repeatedly shows up at auctions and was finally able to point to Charles Klein as the maker due to this book.

The full official name of the book is Victorian Detail: A Working Dictionary. The latter part of the title is the important part. For those of us who didn’t major in Decorative Arts in college or haven’t worked at an auction house for 25 years, it’s good to find a Victorian-specific “Dictionary” that educates the reader on the decorative elements of furniture - specifically Victorian furniture. Yes, there are other furniture anatomy books but they are so broad in scope that they aren’t helpful. Although I’m interested in it, I don’t currently desire to learn about the finishing touches of a Chippendale highboy.

I’m going to detail the Table of Contents because I believe that it gives you a complete picture of the value of the book:

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I watched a few items sell today via Ebay Live Auctions from the Freeman’s Auction sale in Philadelphia, which is local to me. The prices fetched during the sale were relatively strong from the cross-section of items that I was watching (note to self: remember to sell at Freeman’s next time).

This Alexander Roux attributed cabinet went for $27,000 ($33,400 with buyers premium) which was significantly outside of the range that Freeman’s had expected and outside of where I thought it would end up. I guess the economy is fairly healthy in Philly.

More pictures and details at the listing.

St. Charles Gallery is selling two pieces of attributed Alexander Roux furniture that they describe as being in the form of the “A Rose” pattern. This is my first exposure to this purported pattern. I am unable to find any reference to it anywhere else, though maybe Rare Victorian readers who have run across it before have more information. I’m sure it’s out there somewhere.

I have to say it is not one of my more favorite Roux forms, but it could be more enjoyable in person. I’ve provided a body double picture for the chair at the end of the post. Bidding on the sofa and chair ends April 13th.

For those of you who are avid VictorianForum.com visitors, you are already aware of this, that the Fontaine’s auction is approaching and now the listings have hit Ebay. I’ve created a custom search that isolates just the furniture for Fontaine’s here, which includes 139 high-quality pieces.

The Roux-attributed table above will be one of the top, if not the top, items to sell at this particular auction. Unfortunately it is not labeled, which I think would have added five-figures to the final hammer price. As it is, this table is expected to sell in the $75,000 to $125,000 range. I’m sure this table was just sitting out in some barn somewhere before this sale.

A few other items that caught my eye from in the sale:

I also have this identical Merklen Brothers table, but in better condition. I will be watching for valuation purposes.

Monumental Queen Size 3-piece bedroom set expected to sell in the $20,000-$30,000 range.

This credenza is attributed to Pottier & Stymus due to a very similar piece in the Herter book on page 69.

Nice 3-piece Rosewood Rococo parlor set, unattributed, expected to sell in the $5,000 to $7,500 range.

You will also find pieces by Belter, Meeks, Pabst, Kimbel & Cabus, Herter Bros., and Horner in the sale.

If you’re new to Rare Victorian or you just missed the first-ever post, I’ll mention again that this blog was initially created as a real-time journey as I educate myself in the niche of rare Victorian furniture. This blog just recently hit the one year birthday mark and that makes me very happy since I thought for sure I’d never stick to it that long. I tend to collect hobbies and discard them with reckless abandon. Fortunately, blogging and Victorian furniture has stuck.

While putting my education on display for the world to experience along with me, the hope was that I’d find others out there with a similar interest in Victorian and that we could all learn together. Every post I put out there, I hope that someone out there knows more than I and will share with us all by posting a comment or sending me an email, giving me another crumb of wisdom about a particular piece. When I get those crumbs, I pass them along.

If you remember this post a few posts ago, I showed an image of an attributed Alexander Roux credenza to be sold on the 23rd; the credenza is at the top of this post. Michael O’Docharty of Michadi Antiques shared these images below of a signed Pottier & Stymus table that was unfortunately cut down (turned into a coffee table). The intriguing thing is that the porcelain plaques are identical to the credenza above. While the plaques certainly suggest the credenza could be by P&S, a lot of these plaques were produced outside of the cabinetmakers shop and therefore could show up in various makers’ pieces. While not a smoking gun, it is something to suggest further investigation might be warranted. Take a look at the plaques below:

The credenza auction lot description states that the bronze mounts are identical to two documented Roux cabinets, one at the Met and the other at the Munson-Proctor-Williams Institute. I’ve made a collage of the mounts from the three pieces:

The images I had to work with (hopefully they’ll forgive me for borrowing pieces of them for educational use) were not intended to be high detail for purposes such as this, but I feel that the mounts on this credenza (the third) do not match the first two (the signed Roux pieces). The size proportion isn’t the same. That may open the door further for a case for P&S. There are other elements of the three cabinets that point to the two museum pieces possibly being different from the third:

Many times P&S mounts have markings behind them, so the owner (Lise Bohm?) might be able to check that to be sure.

Thanks to Michael for sharing his table pics and the lead.

Note to self: The top center mount on the Roux cabinet at Munson-Proctor-Williams is the same as the unattributed cabinet they also own save for a small decoration added to the top (see pages 104, 107 and the cover of their book).