There’s something about Kilian Brothers pieces that make them some of my favorites.  Their heavy mix of ebonization, polychrome paint (in some cases), heavy use of gilt-incising and Neo-Grec styling is very appealing to me and resulted in me adding one of their pieces to my collection a while back.

Thanks to a Rare Vic reader, John B., I was notified of this attributed Kilian Brothers table currently up for sale on Ebay.  I’ve also learned a new word from within the listing used to describe this piece of furniture  - architectonic.  I would agree based on it’s definition that a lot of Kilian pieces are “architectonic”.  First time I’ve heard that one.

Photo of the inlaid top below.  Listing ends on October 31st and the BIN price is $5,995 - or make an offer.  More at the listing.

Read more on Kilian Brothers.

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Jerry Burrell gave me a heads up on an upcoming auction at Tidwell’s in the “extreme Southeast corner of Oklahoma” and it appears they have an affinity for selling items from our favorite era.  I have not previously heard of this auction before so we’ll need to keep an eye on them as they appear to have 2-3 sales a year.

The next sale is this weekend and there are certainly some items of interest, but I wouldn’t go looking for Meeks or Belters or P&S in this particular one.

One item that caught my eye from a research perspective was the Kilian Brothers table to the left.  It looks to have a veneer issue on the inlaid top and is missing the chains that would have strung between the legs.  Finding tables with a complete set of chains seems to be very uncommon.

As you may or may not know, Kilian provided high-design furniture at a level affordable for the middle class.  Their furniture was sold extensively at wholesale, and according to the Magazine Antiques article from May 1999 where this table is pictured, it is unclear whether they ever sold at retail.

This particular table was known to have been resold by Prudent Mallard of New Orleans - a far cry from New York - due to the existence of Mallard-labeled instance(s) of this table.

The May 1997 issue of Magazine Antiques goes so far as to say, “… from surviving documents as well as extant examples it becomes apparent that beginning about 1840 New Orleans was primarily a center for retailing rather than manufacturing household furnishings”.

This wholesaling/resaling greatly complicates the job of trying to unravel the truth behind who made particular pieces.

In one of my next posts, I will profile another example of this challenge in the form of a chair that recently sold that could rewrite what we know of “known” Henkels pieces.

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The stand above is a good example of why I read and research Victorian Furniture to the extent that I do. When I first started collecting Victorian Furniture it was only so that I could put furniture in my home (built in 1887) that was more befitting the house than what I already owned.

As I had no prior experience in antiques, I did some basic edumacating of myself on Victorian Furniture so that I wouldn’t get “had” when I went shopping. As I did more and more research, I learned that it became more of a passion for me than just a means of decorating “properly”. It doesn’t hurt that there is antique collecting in my DNA, handed down from my mom’s side.

My purpose in researching progressed beyond preventing me from being “had” and went on to amassing knowledge for the sake of helping me find good deals on hidden treasures. Very few of us have an unlimited budget for antiques and I wanted to maximize what that money could do for me.

The stand above is a recent example of this. The picture on the left represents the image from the listing, which was buried in the following two inappropriate and nondescript categories on Ebay:

Antiques & Decorative Arts > Other > Live Auction Seller

Antiques > Furniture > Tables, Stands > 1900-1950

In actuality, the table is ca. 1870 and not the 1900-1950 range that it was listed in. The description of the stand put it as “Egyptian Style”, which was also wrong. The photo was very dark and nearly monochromatic - another element of this listing that did nothing to help it gain exposure.

Fortunately for me, I was doing a broad search for furniture - not my usual highly-precise keyword searches - and I knew the profile of the stand immediately when I browsed by it - in spite of the quality of the photo. Here it was, in the wrong category, marked as 1900-1950, and with the wrong description and no mention of a maker. I was lucky to happen upon it and recognize it.

Fast forward to now; I’ve taken it home after having the winning bid and you can see the polychromatic paint on it (red, green, and gold) that wasn’t apparent from the original listing. I could have had it for half the price were it not for one other person who knew what I knew. The two of us doubled the next lowest bid.

We corresponded after the listing ended and I promised that I’d let the person know if I ever ran across another one like it. She congratulated me and told me how she had wanted a stand like it (by the maker) for quite some time. Although I didn’t get it for what “might have been”, it was still a reasonable price that I am happy with.

The stand is by Kilian Brothers and an identical one like this (in better, restored condition) is illustrated in the May 1999 issue of Magazine Antiques and is also in the c. 1870 Kilian Brothers catalog (which I wish I had). Mine is missing two of the chains that would have hung lower and directly from the two ends. If anyone knows where to locate replacement chains let me know. You can read the text from the May 1999 article here and learn more about the Kilian Brothers.

Back to my research …

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