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.

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If you collect books and information on Victorian antiques and you are a fan of Leon Marcotte, you should nab a copy of this 1994 issue of American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite. There is a 24 page article on Marcotte with some photos of his work that I had not seen before. I paid $128 for my issue (above) which was still new in the wrapper (14 years old and still wrapped ?!?) but there is one currently on Ebay currently priced at $4.24 - final price up to you.

Other sources - Amazon

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I had previously mentioned that I’d be giving you a little more of a review on my latest book purchase, Victorian Detail, by Priscilla S. Meyer, so here goes.

Lise Bohm tipped me off to this book, as she occasionally does, and this time I hit some research paydirt immediately upon receiving it. I had been trying to identify a particular chair that repeatedly shows up at auctions and was finally able to point to Charles Klein as the maker due to this book.

The full official name of the book is Victorian Detail: A Working Dictionary. The latter part of the title is the important part. For those of us who didn’t major in Decorative Arts in college or haven’t worked at an auction house for 25 years, it’s good to find a Victorian-specific “Dictionary” that educates the reader on the decorative elements of furniture - specifically Victorian furniture. Yes, there are other furniture anatomy books but they are so broad in scope that they aren’t helpful. Although I’m interested in it, I don’t currently desire to learn about the finishing touches of a Chippendale highboy.

I’m going to detail the Table of Contents because I believe that it gives you a complete picture of the value of the book:

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