Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Furniture & Decorative Arts”
The son of Dr. William P. Spratling, a celebrated neurologist and pioneer in treating epilepsy, William Spratling had a tragic childhood, losing his mother and a sister when he was ten, and his father five years later. He went on to Auburn University in Alabama, where he majored in architecture and was apparently teaching the subject there within two years …
Recently, an ill-considered op-ed in the New York Times, written by David Masello, took issue with the Frick Collection’s plans for an ambitious expansion. Yes, there is something formulaic, almost knee-jerk in the way in which, these days, every museum seems to feel that it must expand and debase itself to embrace bigger audiences. But there is something equally formulaic, …
For most of his eighty-five years H. Peter Stern has carried within him the vision of a lost Eden. As a boy on vacation from his European boarding school he often traveled back to Bucharest by Orient Express. Approaching home he thrilled to the sight of the Transylvanian plains, where farmers in sheepskin jackets and tall fur hats worked golden …
The Salon Doré, a period room at the Legion of Honor, has a long and busy history, most of which has now been uncovered by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s team of curators, architectural historians, and restorers. When it reopens on April 5 all will be revealed, from the salon’s origins at the Hôtel de La Trémoille in …
In suburban Philadelphia, art and industry are joined in a residence commissioned in 1901
What began as a well-intentioned effort to halt the wanton slaughter of elephants has resulted in sweeping restrictions on the U.S. trade in elephant ivory. As part of the Obama administration’s broader strategy to combat wildlife trafficking, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on February 11 announced new regulations prohibiting all imports, even antiques made partly or entirely of the …
It’s been more than half a century since the groundbreaking Loan Exhibition of Southern Furniture 1640-1820 held at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in 1952, and much has happened since then, not just in the study of southern furniture but of the decorative arts of the region as a whole. It is time, indeed, to revisit the subject on …
An interior view signed by James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) hangs above a veneered walnut dressing table, Boston, 1710-1730, formerly in the collection of Eric Martin Wunsch. On the dressing table, from left, are a delft hand warmer shaped like a book, London, probably Southwark, dated 1665 and initialed “B./I.E”; a delft jug with armorial decoration, London, 1699; and a Charles …
The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, may be this country’s oldest continuing museum…or it may not be. Given its other distinctions, that hardly matters. Founded in 1799 by the wealthy entrepreneurs of Salem whose merchant ships sailed to India, Japan, Africa, China, the Pacific Islands, and beyond, it began with the curious idea of presenting the citizens of Salem …
Photography by Alan Kolc | from The Magazine ANTIQUES, September/October 2013. The brick house, handsomely trimmed in brownstone, dates from 1866, one of six identical buildings in the heart of Philadelphia’s historic district. Situated a few streets away from Independence Hall, it was once the home of Brevet General Henry Harrison Bingham (1841-1912), a Congressional Medal of Honor laureate for …