Bob Courtney Auctions has a sale coming up on on Saturday, November the 8th that will include the six brethren to the above four John Henry Belter side chairs.  The complete set is being categorized as following Belter’s “Henry Clay” pattern.

The issue that I have with this set (not even having looked at condition yet) is that it appears to be an incongruous marriage with an un-Henry Clay suite.  Aside from the fabric variations and the inexplicably large number of ten pieces (nine of which are chairs), some of the side chairs have a distinctly different design than those above.

I did some initial digging before vacation to try to unravel the pattern of the chairs that I don’t see as pure Henry Clay but ran out of time, so maybe someone with deeper Belter knowledge can enlighten us.  The chairs in question are below.  A glance at THE Henry Clay reference set that started the pattern is all you need in order to see the variation in the seat back.

What we may have is a few chairs that don’t fit a particular pattern but are an ancestor of, descendant of, or variation on the Henry Clay pattern (with some Rosalie).  Some more digging would tell me for sure and if they are not meant to be together, this is an example of a large set that I wouldn’t get agida over if someone decided to split it up post-sale.  I would bet good money that it will be split by it’s next owner.  Courtney should or might have even thought of doing so.

Anyway, there is more to see in this sale and while it is still pending you can see a selection of items from it below including a signed Karpen Art Nouveau set from 1906-1911 (thanks, Emily Rose, for that info), some “RJ Horner” chairs that are more likely also Karpen (see here to compare), a great Belter window seat, a questionable Roux attribution (did Roux ever really do Atlas figures? not that I’ve seen), a Meeks sofa, an Aesthetic cabinet that they attribute to Herter Brothers, as well as a “Hunzinger” hall tree that mysteriously looks like a Merklen knockoff (I don’t think it is actually made by either), and more.  Something for everyone …

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When speaking of John Henry Belter and J & JW Meeks furniture, there are several “patterns” that were typically made by the makers as original designs or commissions for wealthy clients and subsequently produced again and again.

Some Belter pattern examples are “Tuthill King“, “Henry Clay“, “Cornucopia“, “Fountain Elms“, “Rosalie” and “Rosalie w/Grapes“.  You may not have heard about the Belter “Milwaukee Pattern” which doesn’t seem to show up too often.  Meeks examples are “Hawkins” and “Stanton Hall“.

If we are really lucky in this lifetime (and with the Swiss bank account that we have amassed), you get a chance to buy “THE” first/reference set for a particular pattern, which recently happened with the Belter Henry Clay pattern - $105,000.

Once the reference set was produced, the patterns adopted their name from an identifying feature (e.g. Cornucopia), name of the mansion (e.g. Rosalie), or person (e.g. Tuthill King).  Usually, these “patterns” represent the best that those makers had to offer at the time and since they were made for special commissions, tend to be fairly well documented, and thus, we know who made them.

Cut to the sofa in the “Bird Pattern” above, which leaves me scratching my head.

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The sofa depicted above is coming up during James D. Julia’s “Spectacular Maine Auction” on August 26th.  I’ll be profiling more of the delectable Victorian pieces in future posts as we near the sale, but let’s talk about the sofa above for the moment.

Priscilla Myer’s 1980 book, “Victorian Details” dedicates two pages to theories on the maker of the above sofa.  The sofa photo is unfortunately intentionally split at the spine of the center of the book and some details, like the crest, are missing.  However the rest of it is there and it is undoubtedly the same sofa design.

Myers examines two theories on the couch above - could it either be the logical progression for Belter to a more elaborate design later on, the “Birds” pattern, or could it be a transitional pattern for the Meeks’ to the Hawkins pattern?  Here are examples of each: the Birds, another Birds, and Hawkins.  Also, here is a table that Stevens Auction described as the Meeks Bird pattern, though I doubt they intended to draw a relationship to the aforementioned sofas.

James D. Julia is attributing it to Belter and Grand View also had one and attributed it strongly to Belter, so it looks like any mystery that existed in 1980 is no longer present.  I, for one, also have my money on Belter but some better provenance on one of these sofas would be nice to have so that we can lock it in.

Stay tuned for further discussion on the “Bird Pattern” furniture and how it seems that no one is sure even today who made that furniture.

In the meantime here are a few more items from the upcoming Julia sale.