The Antique Victorian Furniture Blog

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?

Read the article here.

Technorati Tags: auction central news, bathtubs, Beds, Chairs, desks, Furniture, highchairs, inventiveness, strollers, Victorian

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.

Technorati Tags: alexander roux, Antique, Antiques, Auction, Bed, Beds, bonhams & butterfields, estate sale, Furniture, hal hunt, hard assets, Herter Bros, john henry belter, meeks, milwaukee pattern, mitchells & rammelsburg, parlor suite, rosewood, Victorian

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.

Technorati Tags: Antique, Bed, Beds, Chairs, Dresser, Furniture, Home, House, lizzie borden, Mirror, Mystery, Sofa, Table, Victorian

Here’s some intriguing news. Kim Palmer of the Minneapolis Star Tribune has written an article on the recent appearance of Victorian elements of style in modern furniture design and home décor. “Victorian furniture is making a comeback,” we are told.

From avant-garde Dutch designer Maarten Bass and his “Smoke” chaise, to online retailer Brocade Home with their mass-marketed ornately carved beds, to Pottery Barn with their dragonfly bottle stoppers, Victorian is back in vogue.

Evidently it’s not so much nostalgia for the Victorian era itself as a return to femininity in high-tech times. Along with heavily carved furniture and mirror frames, we are seeing art with religious undertones, a shift in color from reds and greens to plums and pinks, and the reemergence of the silhouette.

A return to femininity? I don’t think there’s enough femininity left in our society to return to. But if Victorian elements are being put into pieces of furniture manufactured for the mass market, I’m left to wonder what the trickle-down effect will be on real antique Victorian furniture.

You’ll find the article here.

Technorati Tags: Beds, Bottle Stoppers, Chaise, Decor, Furniture, Home, Mirror, Style, 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

You never know where you’re going to find your next treasure online. How about a site devoted to investigating haunted houses in the Kansas City, MO area?

Independence, MO, famous as the home of Harry S Truman, lies just to the east of Kansas City. There are several historic Victorian homes in Independence open to the public, one of which is the Vaile Mansion. The Vaile Mansion, named after its original owner Harvey Vaile, was designed by architect Asa Cross and completed in 1882. Its structure is Gothic. Harvey Vaile, an extremely wealthy lawyer and landowner, lived in it with his wife Sophia.

A newspaper article from the Kansas City Times, written in 1882, called the home a Mansion d’Or, or Mansion of Gold. Today the mansion is owned by the City of Independence and is maintained by the Vaile Victorian Society, whose members have restored the interior and exterior of the home, including fully furnishing it with antique Victorian furniture in the home’s original style. And yes, rumor has it that the mansion is haunted.

The team at Ghost Vigil Investigations duly took up the case. No, I’m not making this up. The team did a pre-investigation visit and devoted a page of their site to it. This page includes 49 photographs taken by the team. Of these, 13 are of the exterior, including a close-up of the Victorian doors at the main entrance, and 36 are of the interior.

The mansion has 112 windows and 9 fireplaces. Some photographic highlights include the copper bathtub, the Victorian beds with high headboards, and the ceiling art. On the ceiling of the master bedroom is a life-sized woman in a reclining pose. It was done by an Italian painter who was given free access to the extensive wine cellar. (Harvey Vaile owned vineyards.) Originally the woman on the ceiling was nude from the waist up. Very scandalous! Sophia Vaile was reportedly ostracized by the ladies of Independence because of it, and a lace bodice was added to make the painting more modest.

Ghost Vigil Investigations treats us to a very full description of the life of Harvey and Sophia Vaile, as well as the subsequent history of the house. Well, some strange things happened there. Early in the 1880s Harvey Vaile was accused of being involved in defrauding the government, and in 1883 Sophia took a fatal overdose of morphine. The rest is mysterious history.

In the early 20th century, the mansion was used as a retirement home, where surgery was performed and uncontrollable patients were locked away. I’ll let Ghost Vigil Investigations fill you in with all the details.

I’ve provided two links here. The first is to the pre-investigation page. The second is to the page with the details of the investigation itself. Pretty eerie. A mausoleum with an extra casket and a lot of paranormal activity, which is focused on that master bedroom! It reminds me of a Wilkie Collins novel. We also get a lot more pictures of the mansion and many more intriguing details.

So if you like Victorian mystery along with your antique Victorian furniture, this is well worth your time.

See the pre-investigation here.

See the investigation here. (Some of this appears to be under construction, but there’s plenty that’s complete.)

Technorati Tags: Antiques, Beds, Doors, Gothic, Mansion, Vaile, Victorian, Wilkie Collins

Here’s a fun little post from the Rocky Mountain Mattress blog about making mattresses for a pair of antique Victorian beds.

It raises an interesting question. If we buy Victorian beds and intend to use them, where will the mattresses come from? Don’t expect your standard sizes to fit!

I’ve linked to the article here both for the sake of its curiosity value and also because it includes some excellent photos of the beds. Note how deep the mattresses are that were custom made for them.

You’ll find the post here.

Technorati Tags: Antique, Beds, Furniture, Victorian