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Victorian Furniture: The Big Players. Season 2, Episode 28.
39 Plays3 years ago
This week we take a look at some of the work from the most well-known Victorian furniture houses.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:21
Speaker
All right, welcome back to episode 28 of the American craftsman podcast where we're talking about Furniture production during the Victorian age today. Yeah. Yeah. Where'd we leave off last week? with the Victorians we had sense of humor when it came to greeting cards and
00:00:41
Speaker
Yeah, and speaking of greeting cards, we want to thank our sponsor Bits and Bits. Talk about that segue. Bits and Bits is our choice for purchasing router bits.
00:00:57
Speaker
They actually they make some of their own bits. They do Astra coding on Whiteside bits and you know, they're out in Oregon. Great United States company. So somebody that we like to support. I know that. Oh, yeah. We have a coupon code with them. It's American Craftsman can save you 15% up until April 16th. I want to say that's valid until.
00:01:18
Speaker
But, yeah, they make a whole slew of bits from eighth-inch to half-inch spiral cutters, and they do stuff for CNCs. Yeah, eighth-inch shank to half-inch shank. Yeah, for CNCs, handheld routers, router tables, any type of routing type machine that you have, one thirty-second to half-inch diameter of cut.
00:01:39
Speaker
The Astra Coating is a nano coating designed to keep the bit running cooler and prolonging the sharpness of the cutting edge. I think they're also a Festool dealer. They are. They sell mainly consumables for the Festool routers and dominoes. So you can check them out for that and help support the podcast. Big thanks to Bits and Bits for supporting the show.
00:02:03
Speaker
Definitely. And at that we'll get into
Impact of Industrialization on Furniture Production
00:02:05
Speaker
it. What do we got? Well, furniture production during the Victorian age is going to be the beginning of the year. I think that's how we closed the show last time. We're the craftsmen. No, it's really, as previously discussed,
00:02:26
Speaker
Industrialization is the biggest driver of American society affecting all aspects of life and commerce and of course there are benefits to industrialization and the economy is scale and making things available to more things available to more people.
00:02:46
Speaker
When you come at it from our point of view and furniture, the craftsperson, it really changes life dramatically. So when discussing furniture the period, we start to see the word factory as well as marketing. Is that when value engineering came about?
00:03:12
Speaker
I don't know that sounds a little bit more recent, but although the concept is not recent, I think I think those two words as a put together as a phrase.
00:03:26
Speaker
I remember that when I was doing that estimating job for a commercial GC in the city. That was the big thing they come back with. Can you value engineer that? Make it cheaper. That's code for just make it cheaper. Right. So the people of the greatest influence during this time were most often factory owners.
00:03:49
Speaker
not individual craftsmen or designers. So we're really taking a right turn or a left turn. Yeah, the division of labor. Up until this point, we've talked about people, you know, the big names, Applewhite, Sheridan, Nicholas Disbrough. Disbrough, it starts with him, of course.
00:04:14
Speaker
All these really influential designers and builders, the Newport, Rhode Island design schemes, all these builders following in these footsteps.
00:04:31
Speaker
And now it really becomes detached from that. I'll read a quote from my favorite author, Charles Dickens.
Social Critique of the Industrial Revolution
00:04:43
Speaker
The Industrial Revolution has tended to produce everywhere great urban masses that seem to be increasingly careless of ethical standards.
00:04:55
Speaker
for those that don't know dickens you know he wrote tale of two cities and great expectations hard times christmas carol christmas carol that's a biggie yeah christmas cards christmas carol see the pattern for me yeah
00:05:11
Speaker
But he was a big critic of the Industrial Revolution and the climate and conditions it produced in England where he was living at the time. One of the largest and most prominent manufacturers of the time was Padiaire and Stymus.
Padiaire and Stymus: Influential Furniture Makers
00:05:37
Speaker
They made furniture in the neo Greco Renaissance revival Egyptian revival and modern gothic styles now I never heard of these guys me neither which I suppose is a testament to You know the difference between a factory owner and a craftsperson You know we have a copy of
00:06:04
Speaker
the cabinet makers director over there. And this guy, these guys, Padia and Stymus, they're lost to history. Yeah, they were just a couple of guys with some money to put a factory together.
00:06:23
Speaker
But this company supplied furniture to the president's office and the cabinet room in the White House in 1869. And for the homes of such well to do families as the Rockefellers and Railway Baron Leland Stanford. So this was not just a corner shop. Right. In 1872, they employed 700 men and 50 women. Quite progressive.
00:07:03
Speaker
Three drawings published in Harper's new monthly magazine in 1876, November of 1876, provide evidence that in addition to exclusive furniture for office buildings and rich clients, Padillaire and Steimas also produce simpler and cheaper furniture.
00:07:16
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder how many children.
00:07:24
Speaker
But nonetheless, some of their work can be seen at the Brooklyn Museum, which is not, you know, I'm going to say a small thing. You know, Brooklyn Museum has a that's quite a collection. Well, this is but Egyptian looking to me. Yeah. They did. They did do Egyptian revival. And there you go.
00:07:46
Speaker
It's either in amazing shape or it's a great picture. Yeah. Because it's like glowing. It is. It's jumping off the screen, isn't it? It's a chair, straight back, high back chair, almost.
00:08:02
Speaker
Jack of being in in stance. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of thrown like. Got this like you said it's teal aquamarine. Yeah. Yeah. Fabric with almost like a crest, a royal sort of. Yeah.
00:08:23
Speaker
Like this little kind of checkerboardy. Oh, actually, those are like little urns. It looks like. Right. Right. I mean, it's there's a lot of intricate work there. Yeah. Oh, look at the head there. Yeah. Look at these. These are all they're all tiny urns. Yeah. Three rows put together really closely. Yeah. I don't even know how they got the inside row in there.
00:08:50
Speaker
So kids with tiny hands. This was all done in a factory. So you got complete division of labor to 3D. Yeah. You got, you know, just one department doing all the embossing. I mean, I wonder how much of that is,
00:09:18
Speaker
is carved and how much of it is embossed, formed. We started learning about machines that could duplicate parts. I guess the final cost would tell us a lot too. But that's a lot more ornate than I had imagined it would be. That's got to be right out of the Brooklyn Museum. Yeah, that's cool. I like that. Let's see what one of their cabinets looks like.
00:09:48
Speaker
Wow. Again, really ornate. Yeah. Marketry veneer work like a burl veneer up here at the top is a little harder to see because it's got that black background. Yeah. There's like a cameo in the center panel. But it's it's in that, you know, classical revival style with
00:10:13
Speaker
Like you said, there's all that inlay work and marketry. Yeah. This is the use of like Broughven years and black backgrounds gilding on these arms. So I think this is a mirror. Oh, they black out the mirror because it is a reflection. All right. Yeah, probably. You're right.
00:10:41
Speaker
So, I was a little condescending of Padia and Stymus. They're in reading. Yeah, they're heavy hitters. They are. They put out some fancy work. I should say the guys working in their factory are heavy hitters, not them. Yeah. Maybe they came up with a design, maybe.
00:10:57
Speaker
I you know, that's a good question. Well, definitely a good question. Like, what did they have? What did they bring to the table aside from money? Yeah. I mean, we know guys like Duncan Fife did that. You know, Duncan Fife wasn't really making the furniture. But he was designing it. Right. He became more of the executive chef. Yep.
00:11:25
Speaker
The White Furniture Company was organized in Mabane, North Carolina in 1881 by brothers William E. and David A. White. The factory was incorporated as the White Rickle Furniture Company on May 9th, 1896. So when
The Carolinas: A Furniture Making Hub
00:11:45
Speaker
do people stop using their middle initials? That's what I want to know. I don't know. I'm going to start using mine, I think.
00:11:55
Speaker
Was it Francis? Yeah. Robert F. Barone. Doesn't have a good ring to it. Good manly name. That's my communion name. My birth given middle name was William. Okay. Robert W. Barone. WF.
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah. That sounds substantial. Jeff. Jeff J. A. Krug. Right? Don't you sound more important all of a sudden. Yeah. Esquire. Yeah.
00:12:37
Speaker
So we got two companies of note building up in the last half of the 1800s. In addition to manufacturing window materials, the White Brothers contracted for building jobs. The mass production of building materials eventually led to the standardization of architectural forms throughout the state. For those that don't know the history of furniture in the United States,
00:13:06
Speaker
The Carolinas have been big centers of making furniture for a long time. And I guess this is where it's all starting. I mean, a lot of that stuff moved overseas. Yeah. I mean, that's where like was it Ethan Allen Lane?
00:13:26
Speaker
That was Bassett down there too. But a lot of the companies that were sort of natural progressions of these furniture factories that made better stuff, they were all based down there.
00:13:43
Speaker
And so this is interesting to see where it all started. So these guys, they were doing a lot of architectural mill work too. Well, now white furniture company success in this lucrative industry led to the production of fine furniture in 1896, specializing in furnishings for bedrooms and dining rooms. And the company continued to prosper.
00:14:08
Speaker
Always on the cutting edge of technology, white furniture became one of the first plants in the South to utilize electrically powered machinery. Yeah. Wow. So we're really starting to get into it. In 1905, the company became the first Southern furniture manufacturer to be awarded a contract with the US government supplying furniture to military personnel working on the Panama Canal. Wow.
00:14:38
Speaker
It's funny to find out all these links, you know, like it'd be like, you know, a local company here getting winning a bid to supply whatever for, you know, a huge building process project like building the bridge or something like that. A man, a plan, a canal, Panama. It's a palindrome.
00:15:08
Speaker
Ah. Did you do you remember that from school? Amanda playing a canal Panama. Yeah. I don't know where where I remember from. But yeah, that's a pound drum. Yeah. It's a long one.
00:15:26
Speaker
So eventually the company, the White and Rickle Company, supplied solid mahogany furniture for the quarters of army officers throughout the United States and the Far East. That's money well spent. Yeah. Wow. In 1912, white furniture provided the furnishings for Asheville's famed Grove Park Inn, many of which are still in use. That'd be nice to know. It's too bad I didn't include a few pictures there.
00:15:57
Speaker
Yeah, I would like to see what they were doing. During the Jamestown exposition of 1907, white furniture received an award as the top manufacturer of furniture in the country and a blue ribbon for best furniture display. Eventually, the company became known for its elegant mahogany dining room furnishings.
00:16:18
Speaker
The pieces produced by white furniture featured classical designs with attention given the details such as the selection of fine kiln dried woods. Carefully crafted inlays became the company's trademark. Mark makers badges and marks. I think we've seen this before. Yeah.
00:16:44
Speaker
So do we see anything there from the white company or Jay Horner, Jay and JW Meeks, Meeks we know. Yeah. A Rue French cabinet maker, Alexander Rue French cabinet maker.
00:17:03
Speaker
So Maker's Marks were part of factory built stuff. Yeah. I mean, West 23rd Street. You could see it's 61, 63, 65 West 23rd Street. So it's, it's taken up a good chunk of that block. Yeah. Uh, three buildings. Cincinnati. That's the Horner company. Um, Jack Horner sat in the corner.
00:17:30
Speaker
I wonder how many craftspeople got like pushed out of business. Like let's say the guy who owns the corner hardware store, did he go to work at the Home Depot when they came in and put them out of business?
00:17:46
Speaker
Possibility like did a crash person get run out of business now? Maybe never the the top tier guys. They always probably had their niche. That's clear if you go to Home Depot Those are not top tier guys. No, but I mean the furniture makers during the this industrialization process like
00:18:08
Speaker
Not everybody got put out of business. You know, there were some people that hung on. Yeah. I mean, did they head hunt in the beginning and they were like, we got to get the best carver to work at the factory and they actually paid him good money. And then, you know, who knows? I don't know how how they went about it. Did they go for the cheapest guy or they try and get the best guys?
00:18:29
Speaker
Right, they had to have somebody skilled, like to lead each department, at least in the onset. Right. Maybe they imported workers, you know. It reminds me of the restaurant field in a way and the way it developed. Back in the 80s when I worked in the restaurants,
00:18:51
Speaker
Basically, everybody on the line was, if not a career person, they were there for a longer haul. You might have started
00:19:04
Speaker
You know, drop and fries or stuff like that, wherever, you know, depending on what the menu was in the place. And then you'd work your way up the line, as it's called, until you were doing sautes and fronting and stuff like that. But as time progressed.
00:19:23
Speaker
What they what the restaurant started doing is keeping one guy, one skilled guy and then backfilling with a lot of really inexpensive immigrant label that labor that was exploited, working for less than the other guys. And, you know, eventually everybody's just cheap labor. Yeah.
00:19:47
Speaker
Now, I remember some of the best advice I ever got when I was living out in San Francisco. The places in Hawaii would often advertise for chefs to open up, uh, restaurants out there. And my, I have cousins that live out in Hawaii. They've been there for decades since the seventies. And I talked to them about it and they said,
00:20:15
Speaker
What they're gonna do is they're gonna bring you over there.
00:20:19
Speaker
and you're going to do all the hard work. You're going to open the restaurant and as you're turning the corner in like second year, you're going to get rid of your ass. Yeah. They're going to have you come in as a consultant, basically work for half of half what a consultant would. Right. He said, so tell them you want five years salary in escrow. Yeah. And that'll tell you if they're serious or not. They're going to have a contract. Right.
00:20:47
Speaker
Otherwise, you're going to open their restaurant for them, and then you're going to be stuck in Hawaii with no job. Yeah, you'd be working at the Howard Johnson. Flipping pancakes. You're going to become a real beach bum. So that was some great advice. I wonder if furniture factories were doing the same thing. Yeah. It could be.
00:21:15
Speaker
I mean, they had to have somebody to open these places. Yeah. Yeah. Whether they did in-house training, you know, they hired people who were unskilled and then train them having one, you know, one or a few people who were skilled or, you know, I don't know. Right. Because from the look of that furniture, people had to know what they were doing. Yeah. And if that stuff was mass produced.
00:21:44
Speaker
And, you know, there could have just been efficiencies, you know, where they are paying people a good wage to do, you know, some of these people are good ways to do their work. But, you know, there's so much economy of scale and efficiencies built into a factory sort of set up, you know, in terms of like.
00:22:03
Speaker
this piece comes to you, you're doing this one small task really well and it's moving on, so it's more profitable that way versus, you know, just working by yourself in a shop. Right, right. You're talking about the benevolent factory owner. Yeah. Well, if there's more profit, it's good for them.
00:22:25
Speaker
So let's move on. We had Portier and Steinman and the White Brothers.
Robert J. Horner's Market Strategy
00:22:33
Speaker
And now we got Robert J. Horner. He was a clerk in a curtain store in New York City with a keen business sense and a knowledge of trends in the furniture industry that prompted him to establish R.J. Horner and Company in 1886 on 23rd Street in Lower Manhattan.
00:22:54
Speaker
I know that area pretty well. Horner's marketing strategy was to target the wealthy as well as those of modest means, and it paid off handsomely. So it wasn't just targeting the top layer. He probably had a few tiers of furniture. Much of what came out of his shop was heavily carved, but it could also be formal and less embellished.
00:23:19
Speaker
It's funny because when we think of carved, we think of time consuming and not cheap. Like it would be hard to produce something cost effective and carved at the same time for us. So this is where Horner and his marketing paid off. He would display furniture in his building for people to see so they could get inspiration when designing their homes.
00:23:45
Speaker
So, you know, the fairly well-to-do would come through and they'd see it. So he's got showrooms instead of just the catalog. I wonder if he's the first to do that. Maybe not the first, but he's definitely the guy who survived history. He initially capitalized on America's newfound fascination with the Japanese style by making faux bamboo furniture.
00:24:12
Speaker
using maple wood and staining it to make it look like bamboo. Oof.
00:24:25
Speaker
We invoke the name of our favorite stainer to look like something else. Yeah. Yeah. Maple stain to look like bamboo. I never heard that one. No, it seems like it needs some faux painting or something because, you know, it's got those those knuckles on it. Right. Mm hmm. Bamboo does.
00:24:45
Speaker
The line soon expanded to include dining room sets, partners desks, hall trees, bookcases, tables, china cabinets, servers, sideboards, parlor sets, clock cases, benches, mirrors, and more. I mean, I don't know what's left, but
00:25:05
Speaker
The guy was making and selling everything. Yeah. And this is a feather in his cap. He famously used only the finest mahogany and oak hardwoods for his creations and maple stain like bamboo. Yeah.
00:25:22
Speaker
Only Asterix. Seems a bit of a juxtaposition there, right? Here he is. I guess getting bamboo was probably difficult. Yeah. And maybe finding people who knew how to work bamboo and all those other things. Yeah.
00:25:43
Speaker
So let's take a look at a horn or glass front cabinet. Let's get a look at this guy's work. Little Jack Horner sat in a corner. All right. Staining his maple to look like bamboo. The thing that pops out to me is the curved glass. Is that is it curved? I was looking at these like gargoyles at the top. Yeah. Yeah. Griffins. He's a couple of cherubs. Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:11
Speaker
And see why they black out the mirror now. Oh, yeah. So there you go. So this is some kind of glass front case. Yeah. And Curio cabinet almost. Right. And it's got these bow front doors, very simple doors, you know, small style and rail and glass. But the Kurtz curved glass and it's got a mirror back. And in the mirror, you clearly see
00:26:39
Speaker
the photographer sitting on a wheelie chair and everything that's behind him all the other curios and pieces of furniture and and stuff in the background his the stands
00:26:58
Speaker
But more about the furniture. It's really a nice, dark, rich color. A lot of carvings. Oh, look at the caryotids over here. Yes, I was searching for that word. Got some like dragons kind of up here, it looks like.
00:27:13
Speaker
These griffins a couple cherubs in this this pediment. So as far as it relates to Victorian furniture that we we looked at in the previous episode, where do you say this fits in? It's got to be like a Renaissance kind of. Mm hmm. Maybe a little bit Gothic.
00:27:37
Speaker
And you know, I'll agree with you there. It's it's it's got like the classical base with these applied contrivances, these mean the feet are heads, three heads. Yes, which is a little creepy because you got these faces staring out from below the cabinet and the faces are all different. See, this one's kind of like.
00:28:04
Speaker
We're like a grimace. This one's like yelling. So is this one, but the eyes are a little bit different. Yeah, yeah. Heavier brow. So a lot of architectural influence on those carvings and maybe they're applied carvings. That's going to be my guess.
00:28:24
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. Think like that. I don't think you could apply this curve. Yeah. I don't know. I wonder what it's like some egg and tart up here in the freeze. It's interesting. I'd love to get a real eye on that, you know, to see what's the difference between that and a crafted piece. Yeah. Because it's
00:28:52
Speaker
You know, you can't escape it. It's a mass-produced piece somewhere somehow there's Another one. Yeah, there's a shortcut taken we know that
00:29:03
Speaker
Um, so about Horner's work, there's a thematic aspect to Horner's work that accounts for his success and much deserved reputation as a top notch furniture maker of his time. Uh, says Neil Alford, who's president and owner of Neil auction company in New Orleans, Louisiana. So, uh, Horner's reputation is pretty solid. Yeah.
00:29:29
Speaker
He consistently used only the finest materials in woods, oak and mahogany, and he took on motifs that buyers found irresistible. Carved wings, griffins, good call Jeff, heads, the whole tilt of ornamentation and decoration. Shotgun blast of... That's a good way to describe it.
00:29:51
Speaker
He struck a chord that resonated with people and he brilliantly used labeling, advertising and marketing to his advantage. So if social media was around in his day, he'd be an influencer. He would. He would.
00:30:09
Speaker
Alford pointed out that while Horner was firmly entrenched in New York, he didn't let his address restrict his outreach to new customers far and wide. Quote, many of Horner's contemporaries limited their marketing radius to the immediate area, but Horner made his name, reputation and furniture line known to people all up and down the East Coast and even out to the Midwest.
00:30:35
Speaker
He understood that people everywhere wanted quality furniture and that's what he gave them. Wow. So is there anybody around that we could compare a horn or two? Uh,
00:30:53
Speaker
What would you say if I compared him to... Thomas Moser? Yes, Moser is the only guy I could think of. Yeah, I'm sure there's other companies that, you know, we're probably just not familiar with because factory made furniture isn't, you know, what we're looking at very often. But yeah, I mean, definitely a guy like Moser. Yeah, I would say that's a good comparison.
00:31:22
Speaker
So Mohor opened a few other factories and his final move was to a new retail store located at 20 West 36th Street in 1912. I'm trying to imagine 20 West 36th Street. That's got to be close to where Macy's is now. I think Macy's Herald Square is 34th. Yeah, the miracle on 34th Street. And 6th.
00:31:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's got to be real close to where Macy's is. And in 1915, Horner merged his business with George Flint, a neighboring furniture manufacturer on the same street in New York. So Horner wasn't just a consummate businessman, marketer, extraordinaire, influencer.
Rococo Revival and Alexander Roo
00:32:19
Speaker
Yeah, content creator.
00:32:22
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I wouldn't be smart him with that label. He was known for making some good furniture. Yeah. So this is this is taking an unexpected turn. Yeah, we were going to be all down on the factory guys, but I plucked a few cherries from the from the bunch, didn't I?
00:32:49
Speaker
Oh, this is a good one. Alexander Roo, he's another furniture maker of note during his time, this time of factories and industrialization. It's still the 1800s, though. He passed away 1886. He was a French-trained Ebeneastay, which is a French term for cabinet maker.
00:33:16
Speaker
who emigrated to the US in the 1830s. He opened up a shop in New York City in 1837. His business grew quickly and by the 1850s, he had 120 craftsmen in his shop. Could you imagine that? 24 when he opened the shop. It kind of dazzles me because
00:33:42
Speaker
Think about how long he was in business. He had 120 people here. I was toiling away by myself for 15 years. Of course, I had a different business plan, but still, I mean, it's still amazing.
00:34:00
Speaker
I think a guy comes over from another country, opens up a shop, and he's got 120 craftsmen working for him, not that long after. Yeah, 15 years after. Yeah. Opening.
00:34:20
Speaker
His shop introduced new, well, then new industrial technologies such as steam powered saws. Well, Shaker invented. What was her name? Betty something or other. Yeah, Betty Queen and the Shaker Shokin.
00:34:41
Speaker
Roo specialized in the ornate Rococo revival, but practiced many other styles. His work is highly sought by collectors with larger and more complex pieces fetching large sums. That makes sense. One of his sideboards was featured in a 2000 exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now, that's that's going to make it out to the Met.
00:35:07
Speaker
Well, you know, it's it's definitely in the same style as that. Poitier and. Oh, it was. Stimming. Stimming. Stiming. Ren and Stimpy. Yeah, that's all I can think. Stymus. Yeah, Stymus. Something like that. Yeah, it kind of has like an Egyptian kind of feel to it. What would you call that? Like a pediment at the top? Yeah.
00:35:36
Speaker
And definitely, Salut. Those large cameos at the doors. Yeah. I think a piece of dust fell out of the ceiling and went right in my nose. Jeff's soldiering on through one nostril today. Yeah. Yeah, I'm at the beginning of getting sick from my son and then my wife. Yeah, I'm sure I'm next in that line.
00:36:09
Speaker
We just better be better by next Friday. That's all I can say. That was the one thing on my mind. I'm like, if I'm sick for going fishing, I'm gonna be pissed. You can't fight the natural course of events. No, I'll be out there no matter what.
00:36:25
Speaker
But this is a lot of inlay, you know, some looks like gilt work, those gold like a little person up here. Oh, yeah, that's definitely like classical. It's like either, you know, Greek or Roman. Yeah. Figure kind of looks like the chick from Hercules. Yes. Some wheat.
00:36:55
Speaker
Oh, there's a little romance scene going on here. Yeah. Was he playing a mandolin or like a little a lute? A liar. Yeah. And then they're kissing. Yeah. So definitely Victorian in its symbolism and its motifs there with the romanticism. Yeah. And the classical motifs. Fun feat. Yeah.
00:37:20
Speaker
It's kind of like, uh, got radiused kind of concave radiused ends. And then, uh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Nice piece. Yeah. Let's see the second roof side board. Oh, wow. Oh my God. This couldn't be more different. Looks like Kaya. Yeah. Now this.
00:37:47
Speaker
is so ornately carved. It's got two full sculptures of carvings of dogs. Yeah, like full-sized dogs. With the top on top of their heads. Yeah, the apron is probably like six inches thick.
00:38:08
Speaker
All fully carved. The back is, um, what is that in the middle? I mean, all, all. It's a rabbit. It's a, it is a rabbit. It's his ears right there. Some grapes. It's just deep, deep carvings. Yeah, that is a rabbit. Funny. He's like upside down like that. Yeah. I wonder if he's supposed to be like, well, I guess maybe these are like hound dogs. There you go. Um,
00:38:41
Speaker
This is this is insane. Yeah, I I don't even know what to say about this piece. The top is really nice. Looks like mahogany, right? Yeah, light, you know, in comparison to everything else. And it's got this cool sort of shape to it where it's relieved in the front like that. Has like a typical broken pediment. Yes.
00:39:08
Speaker
But what it's just so hard so heavily, you know, there's so much ornamentation that it kind of gets lost. Right. I didn't even recognize the broken pediment because it's it's as if like all these vines and grapes and everything have grown up over it. Yeah. Well. I guess it's a mirror down here. Yeah, that they blacked out probably. She's.
00:39:39
Speaker
So Alexander Roo did indeed work in several styles. Yeah. So move on to another influential builder.
00:39:54
Speaker
So the thing that separates, in my mind, Roo from the other guys is he started out as a cabinet maker and then sort of, if we use the restaurant analogy again, he opened his own place and, you know, became the executive chef and employed people in the kitchen to actually make the food, to make his, his menu.
Herter Brothers and Victorian Mastery
00:40:19
Speaker
Excuse me.
00:40:21
Speaker
So the firm of the Herter brothers, we're starting to get into the 1900s now, the end of their career. Yeah. These guys were German immigrants, Gustav and Christian.
00:40:37
Speaker
Again, coming to New York City. And New York is kind of the center, it appears, of the Victorian furniture manufacturing. It's no longer in New England, Rhode Island, Boston area. It's definitely moved down. Yeah, I mean... Yeah, New York and the Carolinas, I guess.
00:40:58
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we had Duncan Fife before this who was, you know, definitely from New York, but this is this is where everything seems to be coming out of. Yeah. The Herder brothers, they began as a furniture and upholstery shop warehouse
00:41:18
Speaker
But after the Civil War became one of the first American firms, but after the Civil War, comma, became one of the first American firms to provide complete interior decoration services. Hmm. All right. Uh, I mean, we don't really talk about the Civil War, but it's one of the biggest events, if not the biggest event in the latter half of the 1800s. Oh yeah.
00:41:44
Speaker
I mean, it broke people and made new millionaires. Essentially, it destroyed the economy of the South and made all sorts of new wealth in the North.
00:41:58
Speaker
Yeah, and you know, really, it was like a proxy war for money. I mean, in grade school and even all the way, I don't know what they're teaching in high school now. It's been 20 some odd years. And even when I was teaching history,
00:42:18
Speaker
It was still the oversimplified version of the causes. Yeah, the South wanted slavery and the North didn't want them. Right, right. Well, you know me and my. So one cynical point of view, I was like, follow the money and say, Mr. B, why did they do this? Follow the money.
00:42:42
Speaker
Um, we digress, but, uh, these guys came over and post civil war took advantage of, um, the, the new market in the north. And that's probably why New York was the center. You know, it had to be a Northern city. Uh, and.
00:43:05
Speaker
Yeah, because the South was, you know, in shambles. It was, it was. And everybody down there was basically, you know, sort of exploiting the old system.
00:43:19
Speaker
Instead of slaves, now you had, you know, indentured servants and tenant farmers and everything. So it was, you know, same thing under a different name. Well, the herders, with their own design, with their own design office and cabinet making and upholstery workshops,
00:43:45
Speaker
They could provide every aspect of interior furnishing, including decorative paneling, mantles, wall and ceiling decoration, pattern floors, carpets, and draperies. So they're thinking even bigger. They're the one-stop shop.
00:44:01
Speaker
Yeah, they got their hand in all the pots. They're like the expo of designs for Home Depot, right? That's what they call that, the Expo Design Center. Is it? Yeah. Now, we just clicked on a picture. It's unfortunately not a very good picture. It's black and white. It almost looks like a drawing. Looks like it might be an actual picture from the 1800s. Yeah.
00:44:27
Speaker
It's a drawing room. It's fancy. Oh, yeah, I mean got like this radius tray ceiling with mural.
00:44:42
Speaker
classical motifs for sure. Yeah. I mean, is this a doorway? It looks like it. It's like about 18 feet high and about 12 feet wide. Framed out by columns. I mean, columns. Yeah. I mean, look at this corner over here. Yeah. So they're providing everything. The carpets, the drapery, the furniture, the wall paneling.
00:45:09
Speaker
Uh, they probably, the only thing they had a contract out for was the guy doing, you know, the Trump Lloyd paintings and everything like that. Yeah. I mean, palatial doesn't even describe. No. Um, that's a, that's a good way to describe it though. Um, give somebody some mental imagery. It really, uh,
00:45:32
Speaker
It's like the aristocracy. You don't know where else you'd see such a room. The oligarchy. Yes, the American oligarchy.
00:45:46
Speaker
So the herders. Well, they were big players. For real. That was the Vanderbilt drawing room. I guess any relation to the college Vanderbilt? I think so. I think everything with their name on it. And especially in this side of the country. Yeah. It is them. It's like Carnegie. Yeah. Or Carnegie. Yeah. Which is how I think you actually say it.
00:46:15
Speaker
Some of the Herder brothers most prominent clients included JP, the P4, Pierpont, Morgan. Never heard of him.
00:46:26
Speaker
Jay Gould and Cyrus McCormack, millionaires of the day. The Red Room of the White House was furnished with Herder Brothers furniture during the administration of Ulysses S. Grant. Several pieces of Herder Brothers furniture remain in the White House, including a center table and a slipper chair.
00:46:51
Speaker
So we're going to take a look at a center table, which bears the remains of the only known Herder Brothers paper label. Generally the firm stamped their furniture, which was common practice in the 1800s. Gilded screen from the Herder Brothers.
00:47:13
Speaker
Oh, very, very Japanese. I was going to say, yeah, really Asian. And I suppose Japanese is where, um, maybe Chinese. Is that a koi? Is that a fish? Uh, I thought it was a rooster. Yeah. It's a rooster. There's, there's a tie. Oh, I see. That's a chicken. Uh, here's a chicken. Here's a rooster. I get it. I see. I thought it was a fish first too. Yeah. Cause there's water back here.
00:47:40
Speaker
But yeah, very, very Asian inspired center panel. Some birds at the top. It almost looks like robot birds. Yeah. All gilded framework. You have like the Chippendale. Yeah. The Chinese Chippendale. That's right. Pattern right there. That's exactly it. This is like a horse. What do they call it? A horse mirror. That's that is.
00:48:10
Speaker
But it's but it's not a mirror. It's a screen, but same same kind of setup. Well, I guess not really because those had a pivot in the center, but. Very cool. Yeah, that is pretty nice. I wonder, I guess this is just a painting. It looks like it has some texture to it does. It looks like it's, you know, got dimension. That it's embossed in some way. Yeah, like this looks like something you might see in like a Chinese restaurant. Yeah.
00:48:40
Speaker
You know, exactly. Not like your neighborhood, not like the one that has the pictures of the food. No, the ones with the red leather seat. And I'll have the number three, please. Oh, man. I haven't had Chinese food in so long. Oh, some good Chinese food. Herder Brothers Cabinet. Let's take a look.
00:49:05
Speaker
I'm good. We've this more Asian influence. Yeah, I kind of like this. Is it like chrysanthemums? It looks like. You know, like swapping out some of the feet details, which are like animal paws in swapping those out and sort of getting rid of the flowers.
00:49:28
Speaker
I like the proportions and the and the and the just the the way it presents itself. Yeah. I could see like making these arches like a bigger radius. So it's not not such a semicircle. Right. Maybe next this backsplash. Mm hmm.
00:49:49
Speaker
have like a tapered leg that comes down. Yeah, it's nice. It's a sideboard style cabinet, two doors in the middle, flanked by two open areas on the sides. Gold leaf here. Stringing light everywhere. Yeah, yeah. What do you think that that background is? It's like a
00:50:20
Speaker
You see? Yeah. What material do you think that is? It looks like gold leaf. Right. And it's sort of like a pattern. Oh, yeah. Like it's on top of something. Maybe like leather. Yeah. There's some elements like around the drawers and with that string inlay that almost speak of art deco in a way. Yeah. Yeah. Like this. Yeah. Yes.
00:50:50
Speaker
Yes, like some bird's eye. Mm hmm. Veneer. Oh, those are miter doors. Yeah. That reminds me, I saw on Facebook Marketplace, somebody posted some piece of furniture and they were like, burl veneer. But it's just like regular. I want to message him like it's not burl. Doesn't look anything like burl. Just Google burl. And you'll realize that your furniture does not have any burl veneer in it.
00:51:19
Speaker
So true to the Victorian fashion, this is a mishmash of several styles. Yeah. You can't really pin it down. I like this so much lighter than you're right. That's that is a market difference. Yeah. Now, there you go. That's about as gothic as it gets. And this is more harder brother's work. So
00:51:48
Speaker
This kind of has that like German Gothic look. Yes. I mean, what what purpose does this piece serve? It's a cabinet, isn't it? Shallow. Bookcase. A bookcase. That's why it's so shallow. Where the books go. I guess. These are doors, I guess. Behind those doors.
00:52:07
Speaker
How are people supposed to know how smart you are if all your books are behind the doors? It almost looks like it could be the front of a fancy church. Yeah. Crockets galore up top. Yes. In this, like. The scroll work on the doors, even just the etching on the glass. It's crazy. I think that might be lead, leaded glass. Yeah.
00:52:33
Speaker
These I love the guys in the corner. Yeah, they're right here, too. Oh, man. I know I say it every episode. I didn't say it last episode. I skipped an episode, but it's definitely worth it to at some point look some of this stuff up just to get a gander at it.
00:52:59
Speaker
It's kind of spectacular in a way. And to think that, I don't know, this is probably not one of their mass produced pieces. This is probably like a one-off kind of thing. What do you think? I don't know. I don't know.
00:53:18
Speaker
It's pretty, pretty crazy though. Right. Like these look like candle holders maybe. Yeah, you're right. Because most places didn't have electricity and then of course no electric light.
00:53:36
Speaker
Wow. Insane. I love the, the, the bottom half of those top doors. Yeah. I really liked that. I mean, um, the middle ones, not, not as much the outer ones, but there's so much detail, so many little differences and little spinoffs of the motifs. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's cool.
00:54:06
Speaker
We got one more example. The Herder boys know what they're doing. Here's a chair. What happened to this picture? This is a cameraman moved right when he was taking the picture. I think it's just a bad picture. I had it zoomed way in. Yeah. So Herder brothers chairs. This thing's interesting. It is. These guys,
00:54:31
Speaker
They were unique. They were. I'm one. There's three chairs. I'm one. It's I mean, you wouldn't expect two people to sit in that thing, would you? Or is that just I must be like it's like a mini bench. Yeah, like a one and a half chair.
00:54:47
Speaker
Yeah. So all the woodwork is gold. It's got a really padded seat cushion and back. And like that in the middle, it's
00:55:08
Speaker
Example kind of look like they're from the same. Well, they all kind of look like they're from the same family. They borrow that leg detail straight across. Yeah. Right. With that kind of, um, kind of shape. Yeah.
00:55:21
Speaker
These guys are interesting, the Herter brothers. I never heard of them before. And if you're looking it up, making notes, it's Herter, H-E-R-T-E-R. Never heard her of the Herters. Yeah, so in case my diction isn't coming across, Herter brothers.
00:55:45
Speaker
uh it's definitely worth checking out you know you type it in the images will pop up oh yeah uh so we'll get on i think uh closing out we got other well-known cabinet makers
00:55:59
Speaker
Of the period we got George Hunzinger also German by birth working in New York in the 1860s and his work is It shows a mastery of Renaissance design vocabulary Let's take a look at and see what they mean by that. Whoa That's looking like a Duncan Fife kind of that is really yeah, it's
00:56:25
Speaker
It's I guess that's maple, maple stain, but like bamboo. It almost looks like a basket. Yes.
00:56:36
Speaker
And it has some lines that almost remind me and you're going to say I'm crazy of the Bauhaus chair. I could see that. But this right here. Yeah. The seat cushion looks sort of like an unmade bed. Yeah. Like a like an old timey mattress with no sheet on it. And the framework is is this faux bamboo.
00:57:06
Speaker
Kind of. Yeah, but not really. Right. They carve in some details to make it look like the bamboo knuckles and then. It's like it was inspired by bamboo, but not supposed to be bamboo. Right. It's mock bamboo. And then at every every intersection, there's a cube. Oh, yeah, that's interesting. Not every intersection, but most of them. This is upholstered as well. Yeah, like an oval backsplat.
00:57:36
Speaker
Wow. That is weird. And then look how different the back legs are. Yes, they just put these tapered back legs in. It was like a little curve in them. This is the Victorian furniture you never knew of. Wow. It's got the same sort of rib cage kind of look there.
00:58:01
Speaker
Here's another guy. Love this like houndstooth kind of fabric. Yeah. He's employing that same cube at the intersection of the joints. Yeah. Hunzinger.
00:58:16
Speaker
What's cool about this stuff is that you might take a tiny little tidbit of this and reinterpret it as inspiration for one of your own designs. Yeah, this almost has a look of like a Welsh chair kind of how they have that skinny sort of spindle back with the wider kind of base. Yeah, right.
00:58:42
Speaker
And these just hang. They're just hanging there. Yeah. It's it's a design element. Yeah. I like this low back and then this big splat. Mm hmm. That's cool. I'd love to see a side view of this and faces on the arms. Right. Look. Yeah. Wow. Those crazy Victorians. Yeah. I'd love to see more pictures of that.
00:59:10
Speaker
All right, so we see Hansinger style really speaking now. Yeah. It's less faux bamboo, but more of that the rod. It's like, yeah, like you go if you were to go into like a boiler room of pipes. There you go. Intertwined. Very interesting. Yeah. So it's like some sort of crest at the top.
00:59:40
Speaker
Is that an ancient astronaut spaceship? That is. That's a Giorgio Succulos ancient astronaut airplane. Yeah. They took it to a lab, the aerodynamics. It's impossible that they could have done this on their own. I agree. This chair would fly. Makes one have to ask the question. Could it be?
01:00:08
Speaker
I don't see any other answer. He's following through with that cube with the circle for the joints. Yeah. Let's see if the last one has it too. Yeah. Hunzinger. Yeah. Wow. Wow. This almost looks liturgical. Yeah. A little bit.
01:00:29
Speaker
rigid, more sparse, but look at this bulbous cushion. I like that inlay shape there and that design work. Yeah, I like how it goes. Forty fives right there. Look at these little drop finials. Yeah. Wow. Same thing here.
01:00:53
Speaker
Hunzinger is definitely another guy to check out. Yeah, I like the shape of these acorn finials. Mm hmm. You've probably not seen anything quite like it. No. Palm tree here. I even like the detail that like that border around the the seat. Yeah. That right there with those little knuckles or whatever those are. Yeah.
01:01:18
Speaker
It's almost like getting into green and green kind of territory with the with the Ebonized sort of details. Right. It makes you think, you know, possibly he could have influenced the Green Brothers, the Green Brothers. You know, I mean, this almost looks like, you know, if you were stranded on an island and you had to lash together pieces of bamboo to make a chair. This is what this is what it may look like. Yeah, they had on Gilligan's Island. Yeah.
01:01:47
Speaker
after many years of developing skills. Hunzinger. Yeah, well, George Hunzinger. Renaissance. So the two Germans really have impressed us. Yeah, I know what they're doing. John Jelleff in Newark, New Jersey, whose designs included sofas and chairs carved with male and female busts. Here's the Jelleff mirror.
01:02:15
Speaker
Would we pick that out as Victorian straight away? Uh, maybe. You know, it's kind of like a Georgian kind of looks Georgian. You know, they work in all these revival styles. It's it's so hard to tell. Yeah, this kind of Fibonacci spiral down here. What are these little? Like little wells, little fonts. Yeah, yeah.
01:02:42
Speaker
Stone here, got a shell. That's interesting. Definitely. Not as nice as the Hunsaker stuff. No. There's Daniel Pabst from Philadelphia. He collaborated with architect Frank Furness on many of his high style pieces to create elaborate and often architectural pieces. Let's check out a Pabst bookcase. That's pretty nice. Yeah.
01:03:12
Speaker
Definitely like the proportions. Yeah, like the way that it's a it's three sections with the center kind of proud of the two sides. Yeah. Understated definitely compared to the rest of the work we've been looking at. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm not a big fan of like these kind of carvings. Yeah. They just look clunky and these like this looks very Pennsylvania Dutch to me.
01:03:34
Speaker
Yeah, it does. It almost looks like embossing around that freeze right there, even. Look at that. It's got an email from the men's warehouse. Glad that I interrupted the podcast. Oh, good. Your suit's ready. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah.
01:03:55
Speaker
Nice. Nice use of figure wood down there. Thomas Brooks, a Brooklyn native. Go Brooklyn. Is known for his extraordinary designs of tables, bedroom suites, and hall stands. Come on, Brooks bench. Let's see it. Oh.
01:04:18
Speaker
So we open up the pictures on this really, really nice, deeply tufted like brown leather top of this bench. Yeah. And then we pan out and the woodwork and design is really just ugly. Yeah. It's nothing to write home about. It's like something you'd find on the side of the road. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, it's done and it's on tiny wheels. Oh, God.
01:04:47
Speaker
So in summary, the Victorian era changed furniture making forever. The Victorian era and the Industrial Revolution played into each other's hands, thus causing Victorian furniture to be the original furniture to be manufactured or mass produced. Craftsmen no longer had direct contact with the customers. The apprentice system was all but eliminated.
01:05:12
Speaker
And here's a quote from Greg Palace. The purpose of every industrial revolution is to make craft and skills obsolete and thereby make people interchangeable and cheap.
01:05:29
Speaker
And that was depressing. Yeah. I got I got to close it out with 10 interesting facts about the Victorian era. Yeah, I want more Christmas cards. All right. Number one, they took mourning seriously.
01:05:44
Speaker
Women often wore morning rings, which were usually made from onyx or jet and featured hair from the deceased person. Some would even bottle their morning tears. Often women were hired to stand at a bachelor's gravesite, usually a blonde woman, to cry inconsolably so that he seemed adored. Had to put that in my will. I need a bunch of blonde chicks to stand at my grave for a couple of months. Number two.
01:06:14
Speaker
These are now a particular order. Hypnotism, divination, and spiritualism. Spiritualism, I'm getting hungry, it's harder to speak, were huge. They would attend many events where they could get their future read, speak to the deceased, or be hypnotized. This was a big money industry in this era, which was usually filled with greatly paid actors. Not much has changed in that department.
01:06:43
Speaker
You may have known this, number three. Taxidermy was huge in the Victorian era. Victorian fact number four. Victorians wore a lot of black. The original Goths. Yeah.
01:07:00
Speaker
This is because of the air pollution, mainly from coal. If you wore light colored clothing, it turned gray. Oh, God. Here's another goodie. Number five, freak shows were big during the Victorian age. Going to a freak show back then is comparable to us going to the movies nowadays. Oh, my God. I need a freak show. I'll just go to the food town right there.
01:07:30
Speaker
Oh, number six, when somebody passed away, when somebody passed the family, when somebody passed. I boy, I was lacking with my comments when I wrote this down. When someone passed, the family would often have a photograph taken of the body. Sometimes the family would even pose with the body to make it look alive. Last shot. Yeah. Get a picture. Number seven. Gothic novels were at their peak.
01:08:00
Speaker
Dracula and works by Edgar Allan Poe were written during this period. Number eight. A lady would not wear a skirt that showed her ankles.
01:08:13
Speaker
Modesty boards were made to hide the woman's ankles when she would sit as exposing your ankle was considered too racy. What? So when you sat down and your dress came up, they had to put these boards in front of you so that they couldn't, you couldn't see their ankles. What about their socks? Or was the ankle with a sock on too racy?
01:08:37
Speaker
That gets my blood going. Yeah. Oh, man. We have to cut this short talking about these ankles. Number nine, corsets of the Victorian era can almost not be worn by someone of today. The corsets would clinch their way so tightly to around just 16 inches.
01:08:55
Speaker
This walked the body structure causing a large range of medical issues such as breathing and even trouble in childbirth. 16 inches. That's less than half of my waist. Exactly.
01:09:11
Speaker
And number 10, when women paid calls to someone, that is, went to someone's home to tell them something or to have a chat, it was done in the afternoon. If it was done any sooner, it was called bad manners. You wouldn't stay for long. And if someone else would come while you were there, you would exit gracefully. I can get down with that, you know, so there's no poppins. Yeah.
01:09:40
Speaker
And here is a bonus. Tattoos were popular with both criminals and royalty. I put insert joke here. I like to see what a Victorian tattoo. Yeah. Royalty and criminals. That's probably not tattoos. We're not the only link is what I'm implying.
01:10:06
Speaker
hanging out in the same places. So there you have it. The influential movers and shakers in the furniture industry from the Victorian
Conclusion and Next Episode Preview
01:10:15
Speaker
era. Well, New York city was big. Yeah. The herders and the Hunsiggers, man. Yeah. A lot of, a lot of good German workmanship and, um, rule that Alexander Roo from France. Yeah. His stuff was okay. Um,
01:10:32
Speaker
And, you know, they actually put out some good work. Even those bigger factories, though they probably put out a bunch of crap, that didn't survive. You know, their finer work did. Yeah. And they did some nice work.
01:10:51
Speaker
So what are we doing next week? Next week, we have episode twenty nine interior decoration and design of the Victorian period. All right. Yeah. So you want to help support the podcast? You can join our Patreon. You can use our coupon codes at Bits and Bits and at Vesting and keep tuning in. Thanks a lot, guys. Yeah. See you next week.
01:11:30
Speaker
Ain't no shame but there's been a chain.