Call Us Now: (504) 282-7611

What Are Gilded Age Antiques?

As you have seen in The Appraisal Group blogs on American Style, antiques come in all forms – from highly ornate to radial sawn oak to tubular steel and leather. A lot of folks these days are having issues with very ornate furniture. Like them or not, works of the period are magnificent in their own way and characterize America’s Gilded Age and its lifestyle.

The Belle Epoch – Gilded Age to us in America – was a time of conspicuous consumption. The industrial barons – Henry Morrison Flagler, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Andrew W. Mellon, and John D. Rockefeller and others – were to a maturing nation what Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Donald Trump and others are to our times.

In the mid to late 19th century, newly minted millionaires gushed new money. They traveled to “the Continent” and brought back paintings, gilded furniture, even entire rooms from old castles to decorate their mansions and summer homes.

In the Gilded Age, the best the Americans could make of the French Revolution was to praise its elaborate furniture. The industrial barons delighted in works by André Charles Boulle (1642-1732), who decorated surfaces with brass, tortoiseshell, gilt copper, pewter, ebony. They fell for marquetry and parquetry, surface decorations of veneer inlaid to create geometric and decorative patterns.

Among the then-contemporary makers, they favored works by François Linke (1855-1946) who made extravagant furniture that fused Louis XV style rococo with the lively flowing lines of art nouveau.

American cabinet makers working at the time were equally as intricate as can be seen in works by Herter Brothers, a New York family who made furniture for Ulysses S. Grant’s White House and the Vanderbilts, among others. (Several pieces of Herter Brothers furniture remain in the White House including a center table and a slipper chair.)

John H. Belter, a German born cabinetmaker working in New York, is considered among the most original of the period’s furniture makers. He patented a method of steaming several layers of wood together that resulted in furniture that was thin, strong, and curved in two planes, a process that lent itself to amazing carvings. The effect gave us the rebirth of Rococo.

At The Appraisal Group we see a lot of Gilded Age antiques. As the taste filtered down to an emerging middle class of workers who couldn’t afford the best but could imitate, it became commonplace, creating a huge gap craftsmanship, quality and value. If you think you have Gilded Age antiques and fine art, it’s best to find out their worth.

Editor’s Note: Today’s featured image shows an oak casket (box) made and decorated by Boulle. The surface decoration includes brass, tortoiseshell,gilt copper, pewter and ebony. It is in the Chicago Art Institute. In the middle, is a Belter tete a tete, now in the Metropolitan Museum. Finally, a Herter Brothers cabinet.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Posts

Welcome to the Estate Sale Center in New Olreans

Welcome to the inaugural sale at The Appraisal Group’s new Estate Sale Center in New Orleans. This is where I take beautiful orphans families don’t want to send to auction or sell privately. Most o...

How Much is Your Collection Worth? The Appraisal Group Answers

If your collection is your passion, it pays to know how much value you should place on it. Perhaps you know to the decimal point how much you paid for cars, furniture or fine art. Perhaps you don’t...

Boston’s Skinner Awarded American Impressionist Painting By The Appraisal Group

Of the many fine art and antique appraisals we do, most clients would like to realize a profit on their fine art and historic furniture.  Placing an oil painting or antiques with the right buyer – ...

The Care and Refinishing of Antique Furniture

If you love antique furniture, and even if you don’t but you have a piece that is too good to overlook, there are a few ways you can give your antiques an updated look. The Appraisal Group offers t...

The Jewish Museum Uncovers Fraudulent Early American Portraits & Exhibits Them

The Jewish Museum is the latest to display fraudulent paintings from its collection. As fine art appraisers, The Appraisal Group cautions that you should take an appraisal of your collection to det...

Finding Fakes and Forgeries in High Art

In 1496, twenty year old Michelangelo forged a sculpture of Cupid and sold it to a cardinal. In 1995, the British authorities arrested John Mayatt for forging paintings by van Gogh, Monet, Matisse ...