Posts tagged as:

Karpen Brothers

S. Karpen & Bros. Furniture Exhibition – Russell Senate Office Building

March 22, 2009

Emily Rose, a Karpen descendent and author, tipped me off that there is a special exhibition going on featuring furniture from the S. Karpen & Bros. furniture manufacturing company at the  Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C.  The exhibition will continue through September 5th, 2009.
Apparently, a fair amount of this furniture trickled out in [...]

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10-Piece Belter Parlor Set at Bob Courtney November 8th

November 5, 2008

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) [...]

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Allen and Brother Winged Griffin Desk

September 24, 2008

This desk is being attributed to the shop of Allen and Brother of Philadelphia and being dated to around 1875.  I happen to have seen this desk in person – it sat in Adamstown, PA for a number of months and I drooled over the carved griffins on the base, but I couldn’t part with [...]

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Herter Brothers or R. J. Horner Satyr and Griffin Chair

May 11, 2008

I took a breather from Rare Victorian this weekend to attend to important priorities – gambling in Las Vegas. I’m sitting in the Las Vegas airport on the wireless with hours to spare before takeoff so I thought I’d peruse the wild world of Victorian furniture. I’m operating on about 12 hours sleep [...]

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Computer Testing Of Fabric Colors Before You Reupholster

April 28, 2008

To respond to Woodright’s comments on a recent post I tested out my theory that computer software for simulation of room colors could be applied to testing colors on furniture before upholstering. I used a tool I purchased in 2004 from Benjamin Moore, by ei Software to mock up the sofa that is being [...]

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Sometimes You Need To Imagine The End Result

April 24, 2008

I love it when labels are still intact on antique furniture and in this case, thanks to the Flomaton sale, Rare Victorian readers can now firmly identify this parlor set as being by Karpen Brothers Furniture when they encounter it in the future. Other sets like this have been attributed to R.J. Horner countless [...]

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R.J Horner? No, Stickley-Brandt

June 29, 2007

Here’s a parlor set that will be sold at auction by Steven’s Auction Company during their July 27th/28th sale that is marked down as a Horner set. I have seen this same set attributed to Horner and Karpen in the past but it was actually done by Stickley-Brandt and was in their catalog as [...]

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