The Antique Victorian Furniture Blog

Long Sutton, as I have come to understand, is a market town in Lincolnshire, England. I’m geographically out of my element here, but what’s going on there very soon is something that will amaze any lover of antique Victorian furniture and Victorian antiques. Dealers and collectors will be licking their chops over this one.

An English woman named Edna Northam collected and dealt in Victoran antiques for more than 40 years and decorated every room of her house with an astonishing array of antiques.

She had ceramics, glass, china, porcelain, furniture, metalware, and taxidermy. Auctioneer Clinton Slingsby says, “This is one of the most remarkable collections I have ever seen and probably one of the best examples of Victoriana remaining in the country.” And that means England itself!

Every room in Mrs. Northam’s house was themed by color: cranberry glass, blue glass, green glass. Her Victorian furniture was in mahogany, walnut and rosewood.

I’ll let the article tell you the rest. It’s from a publication called Cambs Times 24, and it has a link to a gallery of photos. Wow. Click here to read it.

The sale takes place on June 16 and 17. A full catalogue will be online a week before the sale. Let’s keep our eyes out for it.

Technorati Tags: Antique, Antiques, auctioneer, catalogue, ceramics, china, collections, Collectors, Dealers, England, glass, Mahogany, metalware, photos, porcelain, rosewood, sale, taxidermy, victorian antiques, victorian furniture, victoriana, Walnut

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.

Technorati Tags: American, american renaissance, Antique, Antiques, art, Auction, Bed, bedroom suite, bedstead, cabintmakers, Collectors, decorative arts, Dresser, Furniture, Herter Bros, Mirror, night stands, shaving stand, Victorian

Here’s another article out of the UK on the state of the market for antique furniture. Unlike the article I linked to yesterday, this one, which comes from the Telegraph, takes a negative view.

This makes the second article I’ve found that paints a gloomy picture of the Victorian furniture market, and the first negative one to come from the UK. Yesterday’s article and the one from the post on October 25 were both from the UK and both positive. Today’s sounds more like the one from November 27, which predicted a permanent collapse in the market for antique Victorian furniture.

And it would appear to blow up my theory about British Victorian being in a stronger position than American Victorian.

Here are some things the article says. Prices are at their lowest level in ten years. The 90s were boom years, but things have gone downhill since the 9/11 attacks. Collectors are selling off pieces to pay off debts. Many dealers are thinking of throwing in the towel. It could be a good time to buy if you could wait 20 years for prices to recover. Business at auctions is up because so many people are selling. The low prices are actually attracting a new generation of buyer.

The article provides a list of specific pieces, with their prices a decade ago vs. their prices today. Here are a few that may interest you (prices are in British pounds):

• Victorian Pembroke Table (200 in 1998, 50 today)
• Victorian Dining Room Table with Braided Legs (800 in 1998, 175 today)
• Victorian Chesterfield Sofa (400 in 1998, 75 today)
• Set of Six Victorian Dining Room Chairs (900 in 1998, 300 today)

The article does not give its sources for this information, by the way, so it’s probably based on the word of a few dealers. Not all dealers are struggling in this market, by the way. On November 25 I linked to an article about a man who recently opened an antique shop in the economically devastated city of Detroit. He’s now enjoying great success selling high end antiques and also selling online.

Perhaps it’s the case that the market got overinflated, much like the housing market. If a new generation of buyer is now able to afford pieces previously out of sight, Victorian furniture could be getting a whole new life. Out of the hands of investors and speculators and into the hands of people who actually live with it and appreciate it?

More on this topic to come, I’m sure. We’re getting quite a variety of messages.

Here’s the article.

Technorati Tags: Antique, Chairs, Collectors, Dealers, Furniture, Market, Sofa, Table, Victorian