I hadn’t been paying attention. It took a couple years into my Victorian furniture “mindshift” for me to notice that some of the attributed John Henry Belter chairs had lions carved into the arms.  I had probably seen hundreds of photos of Belter furniture and had kept overlooking those with these rarer design variations where Belter employed animals into the carvings.  The chair above is from “American Furniture 1620 to the Present” by Fairbanks and Bates.

Continue Reading »

This bed from the Neal Auction February 2008 sale is part of a 3-piece bedroom suite that I recently ran into in the hands of a dealer.  I believe they are one and the same set and probably one and the same as the one “Hardwood” pointed out was in a December 2008 Alderfer sale.

A tip-off from Zeke reminded me that George Henkels has a documented design from Sloan’s 1861, “Homestead Architecture” that bears some resemblance to this set. The bed above and the Sloan set are absolutely not the same design, however it is possible that Henkels had other designs in his offerings, so I wanted to compare construction details to see if the above set was also made by Henkels. Continue Reading »

I’d like to get back to the series of posts on issues with using furniture books, catalogs, and ads as proof-positive sources for furniture maker attributions (Trade Catalogs Can Be Misleading; Don’t Believe All That You Read).

Another complicating factor is that many furniture makers were also retailers of other makers’ wares.  They augmented their personal offerings with those of others – both imported from abroad and from within the U.S.  We saw that in one example, Prudent Mallard of New Orleans resold Kilian Brothers tables, labeling it as a Mallard piece.  The Victorian Details book presents a theory that George Henkels may have resold furniture by Ignatius Lutz.  Alexander Roux imported furniture from France.  R.J. Horner imported furniture for resale … the list goes on.

Which makes me wonder about the chair that I own, shown above to the right. Continue Reading »

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 of discussion.

The last post dealt with inaccuracies in antique reference books where the collective knowledge of the antique community came up with a different conclusion about a particular piece or set than what we have concluded today.  It dealt with the fact that in decades past, Meeks furniture was often mistaken for John Henry Belter furniture and it was published for all eternity in books from the mid to third-quarter 20th century.  But the Belter/Meeks confusion is only the tip of the iceberg. Continue Reading »

Note to Neal Auction:  free advertising on Rare Vic for infinity if this cabinet finds it’s way to my front door.  Don’t worry, it’s a covered porch.  Like they would need to bribe me since I blog about their sales anyway.

Yes, I’m drooling over this fantastic Allen & Brother cabinet coming up at the Louisiana Purchase Sale on the 11th.  They have another sale chock full of big names: Meeks, Belter, Pottier & Stymus, Herter Brothers, Doe Hazelton.  Yes, Doe Hazelton as in the House of Representatives desk manufacturers.  The desk in this sale indeed bears their stencil and it is a fine example.  There’s even a solo effort by Gustave Herter (attributed) in this sale in the form of a chair frame.

I have questions about a few of the attributions as I have the tendency to do – the P&S table resembles Marcotte more so to me and the Belter Library Chair is very reminiscent of the Henkels/White chair that Neal recently sold.  The key differentiator appears to be – lamination.  The chair sold prior didn’t appear to be laminated while this one is indeed laminated.  That’s an interesting distinction and I see where they are going with that one.