In my opinion, Neal Auction is being a bit conservative in their attribution on this chair. I’m always very appreciative of Neal’s condition information and research that they provide with their listing and I feel they are consistently careful not to go out on a limb on attributing a maker unless they have a good case. I learn a lot from their catalogs which provide additional historical background on pieces that you will not necessarily get within their online listings.

In the case above with the Modern Gothic chair, Neal Auction has attributed it to Kimbel & Cabus. Judging by the image of the chair to the left from K&C’s 1875-ish catalog that the Smithsonian has, Neal has more than an attribution case.  I would say the chair is absolutely made by Kimbel & Cabus save for one concern: the incising on the sides above and below the seat appear to be missing on the Neal chair.  Hard to be sure from one distant image.  If it is indeed missing, it is likely a design variation for K&C.  Even the stretcher has a small notch in the center of both examples.  More at the listing for the chair.

Neal has a good sale coming up in 8 days and I’ll profile more items in the days coming.  In the meantime,  here’s a link to peruse the full online catalog.

Everyone have a great weekend!

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Grand View will have a little of everything Victorian in this upcoming sale on Saturday.  The bed above will be up for sale and they are attributing it to Alexander Roux.  I would be happy to pay within the expected range of $4,000 to $6,000 for a bed of this quality were it to actually sell in that vicinity.

There will be plenty of Rococo, Renaissance Revival, Eastlake and even a bit of the Aesthetic Movement.  A few top names will be attributed to items in this sale - Belter, Pottier & Stymus, Kimbel & Cabus, and Roux.

If you are interested in R.J. Horner items, I enumerated those that will be sold over at the Horner blog here.

If you remember the Dargate sale of one of these pedestals in March, you may remember that it went for $2,500. I’m surprised the seller hasn’t broken this trio up to maximize the revenue, but thankfully we have a set here. I don’t expect to see $7,500 out of them for the same reason “sets” get broken up - hammer prices aren’t linear. You can’t sell 30 Belter Rosalie with Grapes slipper chairs in one lot and expect to get 30x the going rate. However, how often do you get a matching set of upper-end pedestals? They could exceed the straight-line math in this case.  All you need is two frenzied bidders.  I don’t think they’ll even crack $5k and neither does Neal from their expected range estimates.

These pedestals would be impressive in a large parlor with other ebonized furniture. Even though my house is a typical sizable Victorian, I couldn’t pull off decorating with three of these in the same room. Not enough parlor space. You need a capacious room for these to get lost in.

I have not found a comparable pedestal that has been securely associated with a particular maker to attribute these to, but they appear to be New York and could be Kilian Brothers, or more likely, Kimbel & Cabus. Neal Auction hasn’t attributed them to anyone as well, though they have associated them to the style of the Aesthetic Movement, though I feel that they are more accurately categorized as Neo-Grec.

This lot will sell on May 3rd and the starting price will be $1,000 with expected range of $1,500 to $2,500. I would have expected that they would have cranked that price up a bit considering the $2,500 Dargate sale for one. More details on the pedestals at their listing.

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