Here’s another video from Blake Kennedy (see March 1 and Feb 14), my favorite video authority on antique Victorian furniture and really all things antique. His advice on looking for antique bedroom furniture is as sound as all his advice.
By the way, if you’re looking for an antique bed and have your heart set on king-size, better think again.
Here’s Blake to tell you why:
Here is a wonderful article from the American Collector Archives at Collectors Weekly. The article was first published in the March 1943 issue of American Collector, a magazine that ran from 1933-1948. The author of the article is a man named Richmond Huntley. Collectors Weekly titles it “Flashback: Victorian Furniture.” I can’t tell if that reflects the original title, but no matter.
Huntley’s prose is engaging and educated, a style largely lost in the journalism of today. Huntley’s perspective on Victorian furniture is decidedly negative and gives interesting insight into current tastes for the furniture.
Huntley lets us know that it was only recently (remember, recently as of 1943) that anything made after 1830 was considered antique. And only “recently” has Victorian furniture “been taken seriously at all.” By that we mean seriously enough to invest in, refurbish, and protect under Aviva home insurance! What a change in attitude!
He gives an abbreviated but informative history of Victorian furniture, mentioning Greek, Roman and Egyptian sources and styles like Louis XV and Gothic. He himself favors the furniture made before the Civil War and says little of what came after, perhaps out of contempt.
He makes no bones about his feelings for the “whatnots and overstuffed armchairs of the 1880’s.” If you have to keep one of those horrible chairs around because it belonged to a great-grandfater, you can always hide “its worst features” with a a slip cover. As far as the whatnots go, “family sentiment can be carried too far.”
Very funny. But there is a gloom these days resulting from a shift in taste away from the excess of antique Victorian furniture. As this article shows, though, it was hardly popular in the first half of the 20th century either.
If you like it, buy it. Why worry what everyone else thinks? Eventually tastes will come around to it. If you’re a dealer with an inventory of Victorian furniture, well, tastes may come around sooner than you fear. A bad economy may actually help that along. Have a look at this post.
On the positive side, as far as Huntley is concerned, are Belter, Marcotte, J&J Meeks, and Seibrecht. The article contains a single photo – a bed by Belter. Surprise. Huntley knew the good stuff. An investment-minded person might have taken note. Check out this post to see how far the appreciation for beds by Belter has come. And imagine if your grandparents had bought up Belter in 1943 and left it to you!
Click here to read this delightful article. While you’re there, take a look around the antique Victorian section of Collectors Weekly. It’s well worth the visit.
Take a look at this article from Auction Central News, written by Terry Kovel. Did you know that the Victorian era saw desks that turned into beds, chairs that turned into bathtubs, or highchairs that turned into strollers? Victorian furniture is an endless source of fascination for those of us with a historical perspective.
Now, if you have your eye on that highchair for you own baby, just read far enough to learn that it wouldn’t pass modern safety standards. Inventiveness and safety aren’t always compatible, are they?
On Feb. 21 I posted about a Victorian bed by Herter Bros that exchanged hands for $326,000 at a Bonhams & Butterfields auction that took place in New York City on Jan. 22. Well, the high end of antique Victorian furniture continues to soar. A bed made by John Henry Belter gaveled down at $201,250 at an estate sale held by Hal Hunt Auctions in Northport, AL on February 21. Somebody seems to be surviving the current economy.
“There were some great bargains that might have brought stronger prices in better times,” Mr. Hunt is quoted as saying, “but serious buyers paid top dollar for the high-quality merchandise.”
The collection at this estate sale must have been something to behold. The Belter bed was the top of the lot. It’s an exceptionally rare piece, the only other extant example of which is in the Brooklyn Museum. But there were plenty of other pieces by Belter, not to mention Alexander Roux, J and JW Meeks, Mitchells & Rammelsburg and more.
A mint condition, 10-piece laminated rosewood parlor suite in the Milwaukee pattern by Belter went for $132,250. And many of the other pieces were well into five figures.
Mr. Hunt feels that people are putting their money into hard assets these days, instead of stocks and bond. He remarks that “the nice thing about quality antiques is, you can actually enjoy them while you own them, and they almost always appreciate in value.” Note the words “quality antiques.” A lot of the despair these days is taking place at the low end.
I have two links for you here. This one is to a write up on the sale at PR-inside. This one is a preview of the sale at Auction Central News. I’ve included the preview because the photos are better, especially of that Victorian bed by Belter. I could sleep in it, to say the least. Don’t have the 200 grand to afford it at the moment, but it’s an object that I would find worthy of wealth if I ever had it.
If you haven’t heard about the auction called American Furniture & Decorative Arts offered by Bonhams & Butterfields, which took place in New York City on January 22, you’ll want to take a look at the articles I’ve attached here.
There were over 300 lots at the auction, and total sales topped $2.3 million. Standing-room crowds gathered in particular to watch the auctioning of the Warner Brothers Studios collection of 15 pieces of furniture by the famed Victorian cabinetmakers Herter Brothers.
The prize lot was a Herter Bros bed — parcel-gilt, carved, inlaid, ebonized, and “considered by many scholars to be the finest American bedstead known to exist in the fully developed American Renaissance style.” It was originally commissioned as part of a bedroom suite for the master bedroom at Thurlow Lodge, home of former California Governor Milton Slocum Latham in Menlo Park, CA.
The final price of the bed was $326,000, purchased by collectors Max and Judy Foote of Louisiana, who also came away with a mirrored dresser ($103,700), a rare shaving stand ($61,000) and a pair of night stands ($23,180) from the same suite. The Footes already have in their collection a Herter Bros antique Victorian bed that appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Psycho.
Many of the pieces at the auction, and not just those by Herter Bros, brought in sums far exceeding top estimates. Quite a few others failed to attract any interest at all.
There’s a lot to read about, and you’ll want to see the photos of the bed, the dresser with its massive mirror and other pieces.
I have two links here for you to follow. This one is to the article at Bonhams’ website and this one is to an article at Antiques And The Arts Online.
My thanks to Ben Mijuskovic (see my posts on Oct. 23 and Nov. 20) for bringing this to my attention. He tells me that the price on the Herter Bros bed is a record or near-record for any piece of Victorian furniture.
I found an interesting article at the WorthPoint blog, written by WorthPoint worthologist Tom Carrier. Tom tells how he had the chance to follow Will Seippel, WorthPoint founder and CEO, around the huge antique show in Brimfield, MA. Three times every year the town of Brimfield, population about 5,000, doubles in size as 5,000 antique dealers show up to create the “Antique Capital of the United States.”
Will Seippel wanders around commenting on various things he finds, including a Sheraton style New England work table dating to around 1820, with its characteristically thin legs, some Victorian drawer pulls, and a Victorian bed. Will remarks that the bed is “a little bit higher end of Victorian furniture.” Fruit carvings adorn the head and foot of the bed.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that there is a video accompanying the article. We get the chance to follow Will Seippel around ourselves. The Victorian bed comes at the end.
Back on Dec. 26, I wrote a post about a woman who felt like she belonged in the 19th century rather than the 21st and transformed her home accordingly. I just found another article in the Des Moines Register about a couple who feels the same way and who likewise have turned their home into a showcase of antique Victorian furniture and other furnishings.
Carolyn and Dan Rogers have gone for High Victorian, “where excess is OK” as Carolyn puts it. Because the Victorians considered it poor taste to have any bareness in a room, there is neither a nook nor a cranny of their 1903 home which isn’t “crammed.”
There’s a parlor with 24 working antique lamps, a master bedroom with a Victorian bed 150 years old, and a ballroom sized third story with a funeral parlor at the far end.
The article provides some photos that give you a good sense of it all. Quite striking. I love the detail of the Victorian mirror over their dresser.
I just came across a blog called Slip Into Something Victorian. Its most recent post is about Lizzie Borden. Mystery and the Victorian era sure do go hand in hand.
Denise Eagan, the author of the post, recently visited Lizzie’s Victorian home, which is located in Fall River, Massachusetts. It was in this house back in 1892 that Lizzie’s father and stepmother were found murdered in exceptionally brutal fashion. Lizzie was brought to trial but acquitted.
To this day the crime is unsolved, although Lizzie remains the primary suspect in the minds of many. The post gives a very nice summary of the circumstances of the mystery, with some interesting details about such things as possible sexual abuse and the miserly nature of Lizzie’s father.
And here’s something you probably didn’t know. The home today is a bed and breakfast. You can actually sleep in Lizzie’s room, in a nice antique Victorian bed, I might add! I don’t think I would shut my eyes for a second, and not just because I was admiring all the furniture in the room.
Slip Into Something Victorian contains a gallery of pictures, among which are an excellent selection taken at the Borden house. There’s a lot of antique Victorian furniture in there. You’ll see beds, chairs, mirrors, dressers, a dining room table, a striking medallion back sofa, and more – all within the confines of one of the world’s eeriest Victorian homes.
And maybe you’ll be inspired to visit the home and spend the night. I understand you’ll be treated to the breakfast the Bordens had that morning. The contents of Abby Borden’s stomach actually provided an important clue as to the time of her subsequent murder. Food for thought.
You can read the post here. If you have trouble finding the picture gallery, click here.
And here are some earlier posts of mine involving mystery of one kind or another: Nov. 24, Nov. 20, Nov. 17, Nov. 16, Nov. 13.
There are a lot of articles coming out these days announcing holiday home tours. It’s interesting how many of the homes in these tours are Victorian. But then, as yesterday’s post discusses, the Victorian era taught us how to celebrate Christmas, right down to the Christmas tree.
Here’s one article from the York News-Times about a woman in York, Nebraska named Vina Mody, who for 20 years has been decorating her Victorian mansion for the annual Holiday Tour of Homes. She sets up over 100 Christmas trees in her home! It takes her a month to get ready for the tour and another month to break it all back down. She says this will be her last year though. She can’t handle it anymore. So if you’re in the York area this coming Sunday, you’ll want to catch Vina’s final display.
Here’s another article, this one from the Tyler Paper in Tyler, Texas. This weekend’s tour in Tyler features a number of homes, one of which is an 1891 Victorian known as “The Judge Parker Home,” owned by David and Alva Kesler. If you only have a couple minutes, scroll down to the description of this home. It tells us that the Keslers have painstakingly worked to restore the house to its “Victorian splendor.” Indeed. Wait until you read this.
Just a taste here. The “judge’s den” has been converted into the master bedroom, complete with a four poster bed in brown silk, sitting in the center of the room on an antique rug. In the corner is a mahogany dresser with cheval mirror, circa 1890.
The article takes you room by room, and although there are no photos, the writing is good enough to allow you to visualize it yourself.
Maybe won’t be able to make it to York, NE or Tyler, TX this weekend. But is there a holiday tour of Victorian homes in your area? You never know. It could be your opportunity to see some splendid pieces of antique Victorian furniture while you’re getting into the Christmas spirit.
Here’s a passage from Wilkie Collins, the great Victorian author of detective fiction. This is from a short story called “A Traveler’s Story of A Terribly Strange Bed,” originally published in 1852. The room described here is in a gambling house in Paris, but that strange bed is very British. It has a sinister functionality, too, which you’ll discover if you read the story.
“I raised myself on my elbow, and looked about the room–which was brightened by a lovely moonlight pouring straight through the window–to see if it contained any pictures or ornaments that I could at all clearly distinguish. While my eyes wandered from wall to wall, a remembrance of Le Maistre’s delightful little book, “Voyage autour de ma Chambre,” occurred to me. I resolved to imitate the French author, and find occupation and amusement enough to relieve the tedium of my wakefulness, by making a mental inventory of every article of furniture I could see, and by following up to their sources the multitude of associations which even a chair, a table, or a wash-hand stand may be made to call forth.
In the nervous unsettled state of my mind at that moment, I found it much easier to make my inventory than to make my reflections, and thereupon soon gave up all hope of thinking in Le Maistre’s fanciful track–or, indeed, of thinking at all. I looked about the room at the different articles of furniture, and did nothing more.
There was, first, the bed I was lying in; a four-post bed, of all things in the world to meet with in Paris–yes, a thorough clumsy British four-poster, with the regular top lined with chintz–the regular fringed valance all round–the regular stifling, unwholesome curtains, which I remembered having mechanically drawn back against the posts without particularly noticing the bed when I first got into the room. Then there was the marble-topped wash-hand stand, from which the water I had spilled, in my hurry to pour it out, was still dripping, slowly and more slowly, on to the brick floor. Then two small chairs, with my coat, waistcoat, and trousers flung on them. Then a large elbow-chair covered with dirty-white dimity, with my cravat and shirt collar thrown over the back. Then a chest of drawers with two of the brass handles off, and a tawdry, broken china inkstand placed on it by way of ornament for the top. Then the dressing-table, adorned by a very small looking-glass, and a very large pincushion. Then the window–an unusually large window. Then a dark old picture, which the feeble candle dimly showed me. It was a picture of a fellow in a high Spanish hat, crowned with a plume of towering feathers. A swarthy, sinister ruffian, looking upward, shading his eyes with his hand, and looking intently upward–it might be at some tall gallows at which he was going to be hanged. At any rate, he had the appearance of thoroughly deserving it.”
I absolutely love the remark about the “multitude of associations.” Do you notice how the ornate beauty of the sentences written by Victorian authors closely resembles the beauty of antique Victorian furniture?