The Antique Victorian Furniture Blog

On the first weekend of December, the Galveston Historical Foundation will hold its annual Dickens on the Strand Festival. Except this year it will be a celebration of the rebuilding that has taken place since the town was flooded by a storm surge on Sept. 13, 2008.

If you think those people in Galveston don’t know how to recover from a storm, take a look at this post.

Did you know that downtown Galveston has one of the largest collections of restored 19th century iron-front commercial buildings in the country?

The event is a celebration of Galveston’s Victorian roots. Charles Dickens’ great-great-great-granddaughter will be there signing books.

Get a full account here at The Daily News out of Galveston County.

Technorati Tags: 19th Century, Dickens, galveston, Victorian

On Saturday, October 24, Stair Galleries of New York will host an auction of the Hunt Slonem collection contained in Edgewood Terrace, also known as Cordts Mansion, “an imposing Second Empire-style brick mansion that stands at the top of a hill overlooking the city of Kingston in New York’s sprawling Hudson Valley.” Previews run from October 9 to October 24.

I’ve attached the press release and photos here for you, so there’s not much need for me to elaborate. Suffice it to say that this is going to be one magnificent auction. Here’s some more from the press release to entice you:

“After restoring his country retreat to its original Victorian grandeur, Mr. Slonem filled the rooms with an eclectic combination of 19th-century furniture and decorations, modern art and his own exotic, vibrantly colored, neo-expressionist paintings… The sale will feature an extensive selection of 19th-century furniture, decorative arts and fine arts as well as a number of 20th-century paintings, prints and photographs.

According to Mr. Slonem, ‘The collection represents nine years of gathering.’ The impressive array of 19th-century furnishings, spanning the years from 1830 to 1900 and encompassing all the major styles of the Victorian era, is heavily focused on the Gothic Revival. Throughout the house are chairs, center tables, dressing bureaux, secretaries, gilt-bronze mantel clocks, glass vases, porcelain teawares and ironstone toilet sets embellished with tracery, pointed arches, steep gables, pinnacles and cusping. Balancing the medieval-inspired pieces are furniture and decorations in other revival styles including Rococo, Renaissance, Louis XVI and Neo-Grec. Modern works of art, hung on brightly painted walls inspired by the colors in Mr. Slonem’s paintings, serve as a foil to the Victorian furnishings.”

Wow.

Click here to read the full press release.

Click here for the catalogue. You have to see this.

For information, contact Walter G. Ritchie, Jr. of Stair Galleries at 518-751-100 or walter.ritchie@stairgalleries.com. Visit Stair Galleries’ website at http://www.stairgalleries.com/.

Technorati Tags: 19th Century, Antiques, Chairs, clocks, decorative arts, Furniture, gothic revival, Hunt Slonem, louis xvi, modern art, neo-grec, paintings, Renaissance, Rococo, second empire, secretaries, Stair Galleries, tables, Victorian

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.

You can see for yourself here.

Technorati Tags: 19th Century, Antique, Bed, Dresser, Furniture, Home, lamps, Mirror, Parlor, room, Victorian

If you feel that you really belong in the 19th century rather than the 21st, you‘re not alone. A woman named Barbara Johnson, who lives in northern Baltimore County, is so sure of it that she has transported the interior of her 5,500-square-foot home back to Victorian times.

A recent article in the Baltimore Sun tells us that Mrs. Johnson has been reinventing her home ever since she and her husband bought it newly-built back in 1991. Today it’s full of antiques and collectibles such as toys, photographs, china and, yes, furniture.

The original dining room is now a train room showcasing a “Department 56 Snow Village” with over 30 buildings, trees, carousels, a snow covered mountain and sledding children. Her living room has become her parlor, with a camelback sofa and loveseat.

The living and dining area has been shifted into an elegant addition at the back of the house. The article says that the design and décor of this space is breathtaking. It features velvet draperies, two crystal chandeliers, and a 13-foot mahogany table that seats 18.

Where did Mrs. Johnson get her inspiration? She does have an interior decorator, but she also says that the key to decorating is to “create a presence; to go inside yourself for some kind of feeling.”

Click here to read the article and see some photos of the presence she’s created in her home.

Technorati Tags: 19th Century, Antiques, Chandeliers, Decoration, Dining Room, Furniture, Home, Loveseat, Parlor, Photographs, Sofa, Table, Victorian

Unable to resist articles about holiday events in Victorian homes (see my post on December 3), I came across this article in the Holland Sentinel about a Victorian Christmas Tea being offered at the Cappon House in Holland, Michigan. The event promises to be a step back in time for the attendees, with authentic Victorian delicacies being made according to period recipes. There will even be a pianist in period attire playing the popular tunes of 1900. But something else in the article caught my eye.

This house, built in 1873 for Dutch immigrant Isaac Cappon, a wealthy tannery owner as well as Holland’s first mayor, remained in the Cappon family all the way up to 1980. As a result, it is now “furnished with one of the country’s largest collections of early Grand Rapids furniture in its original setting.”

I took a look at the three photographs provided with the article. I was charmed by the sitting room and amazed by the massive mirror over the mantle. That was enough to set me off on the trail, and I found the site for the Holland Museum, run by the Holland Historical Trust, which owns the contents of the mansion somehow in coordination with the City of Holland.

On this page of the site you’ll see a photo of the exterior of the home. The house was designed by another Dutch immigrant, Jan R. Kleyn, in the Italianate style. It’s impressive, to say the least.

The first link provided from this page is Preserving the Past. Following the link we come to a page that gives the history of Isaac Cappon and his family. Mr. Cappon had eleven children by his first wife and five by his second (the housekeeper). Good thing he lived in a mansion!

Most of the furniture in the home came from Berkey & Gay and Nelson, Matter & Co., “two of the most significant early Grand Rapids furniture companies.” Both companies, along with a third Grand Rapids firm, won awards at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876.

Berkey & Gay supplied the mirror, parlor suite, center table, drapery and corner cornice for the parlor, the master bedroom suite, and the parlor suite and bookcase for the sitting room. There are a number of pictures provided on this page, one of which is a close-up of the arm of a Berkey & Gay chair. Photographs taken of the Berkey & Gay showroom back in 1870 show a mirror identical to the one over the mantle and chairs similar to the ones in the sitting room.

Another link to follow is Lessons from the Parlor. This page, along with providing two shots of the parlor, talks about how the furnishings of this particular room and of the home in general teach a lesson of immigration and assimilation during the Victorian era of 19th century America. This is a thoughtful little article, more insightful than much of what you get on museum promo pages.

I hope you enjoy all this. It falls right in line with my general endeavor to put antique Victorian furniture back into its own era. My compliments to the Holland Museum for their achievements in doing the same!

Technorati Tags: 19th Century, Antiques, Beds, Chair, Furniture, Grand Rapids, Home, House, Mirror, Table, Victorian

I have just stumbled onto a very rich blog called A Victorian Passage Into Time. To date the blog contains 129 articles on a broad range of topics, including much on Victorian furniture and household furnishings in general.

Here’s a quote from the blog’s note of welcome: “Most of our growing archive of Victorian Era subjects are taken directly from the 19th century sources to achieve a closer look into how our ancestors really lived.” That’s good news! Needless to say, I plan to spend some time over there and to post on the articles that’ll interest us here at The Antique Victorian Furniture Blog. At a glance, it looks like there are quite a few.

In the meantime, here’s the link if you’d like to follow this passage back into Victorian times yourself.

A Victorian Passage Into Time

Technorati Tags: 19th Century, Furnishings, Furniture, Victorian

I almost missed this article out of London from the Kilgore News Herald. It talks about the Christmas traditions that we owe to the Victorian era, especially the meal. And it discusses the influence of Charles Dickens’ description of Christmas at the Cratchit’s, the family of Tiny Tim, in A Christmas Carol.

A Christmas Carol was published on December 19, 1843. Within a week 6,000 copies were sold!

Dickens, the article says, was the first to paint this “portrait of celebration,” complete with a stuffed goose, mashed potatoes, gravy, applesauce, and plum pudding. Apparently, in the early 19th century, Christmas was not a cause for great celebration; but Dickens’ picture of “everyone sitting around the table with a great big goose” helped to change all that.

It’s not just the feast, either, that we get from the Victorians. The Christmas tree itself, although already a long established tradition in Germany, became widely popular in England only after a print was published showing Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and the children all gathered around one.

There’s so much more to antique Victorian furniture than cabriole legs. Perhaps that Victorian table you’re thinking of buying offered up numerous Christmas meals for a happy Victorian family, who feasted under the intoxicating influence of Dickens. You may not know it, but those ghosts of past Christmases are still sitting there.

Read about Tiny Tim’s Christmas table here.

Technorati Tags: 19th Century, Cabriole, Christmas, Dickens, Table, Tree, Victoria, Victorian

The New York Times has just run an article on shopping for antiques in Atlanta, GA and surrounding areas. The article gives a lot of information on a large number of antiquing destinations. It also gives some suggestions for restaurants and hotels if you decide that a trip to the area is worth your while.

In Buckhead, a trendy neighborhood close to downtown, look for Bennett Street and its “upscale antique shops and art galleries.” A large store called the Stalls has 60 dealers, and right now there’s a 19th century French walnut buffet in there somewhere going for $4,500.

Want even more variety? How about 2,400 antique booths on the second weekend of each month. You’ll find them at the Atlanta Expos Centers near the airport.

Let’s see, what else? Traveling east of town you can find antiques in the tiny town of Rutledge. Then keep going to Madison, a town frozen in time, full of restored antebellum homes. This sounds like a good place to hunt for Victorian furniture. Check into Antiques on the Square. They’ve got an American walnut armoire, Renaissance Revival, circa 1870 for $1,795.

Have a look at the article here. There’s a whole lot more, and it’s an entertaining read even if you can’t make it to Atlanta.

Technorati Tags: 19th Century, Antiques, Armoire, Atlanta, Buffet, French, Furniture, Renaissance, Revival, Victorian, Walnut

I truly enjoy posts written by people who are excited about finding just the right pieces of antique Victorian furniture for their homes.

Here is one by a woman in Wisconsin who is remodeling the 1898 home that she and her family are living in. She had been looking for an antique Victorian sofa for years but had never found one she could afford. Finally she came across this one on Craigslist “for a really great price.” She tells us that it’s from the late 1800s and seems to belong in the house. Note the comment on the date though.

You can find the post with photos of the Victorian sofa here. You’ll see why she’s excited about the piece. It’s a great find. I’ll add that her blog overall is well worth the visit, and I myself plan to return.

On another note, this is the second post I’ve written about someone who was thrilled to find the perfect piece of antique Victorian furniture on Craigslist. The first was about a woman who had just found an elegant suite there: a Victorian sofa, love seat and chair.

If you yourself are searching for that perfect Victorian antique, you may want to take a look over there.

Technorati Tags: 19th Century, Craigslist, Home, Remodeling, Sofa, Victorian

Here’s a column from the Ottawa Citizen, written by antiques expert John Sewell. The column is another one that gives appraisal of antiques to readers who I assume send in their inquiries with photographs.

Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find the photos that go with this column. That’s odd. Unless I’m overlooking a link, it’s left to our imagination to supply an image of the pieces.

One of them is intriguing enough for me to have linked to the article despite its visual deficiency. Someone named Ron describes a “piece of furniture” that his mother brought from Ireland in the late 19th century. Mother? Late 19th century? Wow.

We learn from Ron that it came from a castle in Ireland, is solid mahogany, has its original finish and original mirror, and measures 236 centimeters high by 90 centimeters wide. Evidently, however, Ron doesn’t have all his information straight. Because Mr. Sewell replies that it’s actually North American, not Irish, and made of walnut rather than mahogany. No, at this point we still don’t know what type of furniture it is, except that it does have a mirror. I assume Ron wasn’t mistaken about that.

Are you guessing dresser? In fact, it’s an étagère, the French name, Mr. Sewell explains, for an open-shelved piece of furniture used to display ornamental pieces, common in hallways of grand Victorian homes. The style is Renaissance Revival, dating to around 1865 to 1870, worth at least $1,500 in today’s soft, buyer’s market.

The mysteries of antique Victorian furniture. What about that Irish castle? Did this North American étagère make two trips across the Atlantic in the late 1800s?

Click here to see the article, but not the étagère. If you do find a photo, please let me know.

Technorati Tags: 19th Century, Antique, Etagere, Furniture, Mahogany, Renaissance, Revival, Victorian