Current & Coming |
Eames House tour contest
February 22, 2010 |
The Delaware-based type foundry and design firm House Industries is offering three lucky individuals a chance to win an exclusive tour of the Eames House (Case Study House #8) in Pacific Palisades, California, where the dynamic design duo lived from 1949. Although the grounds of the Eames House are open to the public, tours of the interior are usually only available to Eames Foundation members once a year. Winners will be announced tomorrow, February 23. Don't miss your chance—enter here!
For a peek inside, check out this vintage photographs from the Library of Congress:
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Discovery |
A to Z: Penwork
February 22, 2010 | 
A Regency penwork cabinet, England, 19th cetury. Courtesy of Mallet/1stdibs.com.
Penwork A type of decoration applied to japanned furniture in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, mainly in England. Furniture to be treated in this way was first japanned black, then patterns were painted on in white japan and finally the details and shading were executed in black India ink with a fine quill pen. The effect is delicate and lacy, rather like an etching in reverse, with white motifs on a black ground (The Penguin Dictionary of the Decorative Arts edited by John Fleming and Hugh Honour)» More
The Market |
This week's top lots
February 19, 2010 | 
What: Leather and brass dog collar belonging to Charles Dickens, 19th century
Where: Bonhams New York (February 19, The Dog Sale)
Estimate: $4,000-6,000
Sold For: $11,590
Like most Victorians, Dickens's love for dogs was well known. Although the exact animal that wore this collar is unknown, one account of his home at Gad's Hill (the address inscribed on the collar) writes: "the large dogs were quite a feature of the place, and were also rather a subject of dread to many outsiders...Linda, a St. Bernard had been living in the garden at Tavestock House before she was taken to Gad's Hill. She and Turk—a mastiff—were the constant companions in all their master's walks."
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Current & Coming |
Celebrating the 'Decodence' of the SS Normandie
February 18, 2010 | Unlike other major exhibitions of the art deco period, DecoDence: Legendary Interiors and Illustrious Travelers Aboard the SS Normandie, which opens today at the South Street Seaport Museum, isn't an over-the-top display. Instead, it's a balanced, and entirely engrossing, collection of furnishings, ephemera, and architectural elements that graced the legendary ocean liner.
Among the show's highlights: photographs that document the daily activities aboard the ship and capture the atmosphere of the Grand Salon and other deluxe compartments, 
and promotional accessories, such as a black leather clutch, presumed to be by Hermès, that mimics the Normandie's famous silhouette. Wooden French sailor figures used for window displays; and architectural fragments from the well-known églomisé mural panels by Jean Dupas to a pair of bronze doors used in one of the ship's private dining rooms. Other standouts are the modernist designs in silver by Luc Lanel for Christofle created for first class tea sets, table crumbers, and serving pieces whose geometric forms look as if they were plucked from MoMA's recent Bauhaus exhibition. Arguably the masterpiece of the exhibit is the one-of-a-kind ash veneer baby grand piano designed by Louis Sue for the Deauville Suite (each of the Normandie's four Grand Luxe suites had included a piano by its respective interior designer) that can also be seen in its heyday in a photograph with Marlene Dietrich seated at it.
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Discovery |
Museum accessions, part 2
February 18, 2010 |
This short list of notable acquisitions began with a request to decorative arts curators in major American museums to choose and discuss a favorite recent gift or purchase.
The design of this elegant Gothic revival center table is attributed to the renowned Alexander Jackson Davis. The leading
advocate for the "pointed style" in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, Davis incorporated medieval elements in his architecture, furnishings, and interiors. Strikingly similar to his center table illustrated in Andrew Jackson Downing's Architecture of Country Houses (1850), this recent acquisition features a hexagonal white marble top supported by a bracketed apron with drops and turrets, a suspended pierced tracery cage, three-clustered columns, and a tripod base. Its fine craftsmanship suggests that it was produced in the New York shop of Alexander Roux, the émigré cabinetmaker whose knowledge of European styles and techniques attr…» More
Sitzmaschine, model #670, Designed by Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956), Manufactured by J.& J. Kohn, Austria, ca. 1905.Bent beech wood, steel; height 39
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