Lot Essay
Closely related to a labeled Roux sideboard located in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and illustrated in Katherine S. Howe, et al, Herter Brothers: Furniture and Interiors for a Gilded Age (Houston, 1994) p.65, fig. 44, this sideboard with its deeply carved naturalistic elements reflects the growing interest and demand for furniture closely associated with European styles, as well as the development of furniture manufacturing in America. Furniture making had become a commercial business, where a large number of men were employed and new machinery allowed for a more diverse selection of ready made furniture to be purchased by an expanding market of buyers. The exchange of ideas within the furniture design community in America and across the world became more prevalent. Also the influx of French and German cabinet maker's in America was on the rise during the early part of the 19th century expanding the vocabulary of design for furniture makers in America. This sideboard reflects these influences. A major influence of design for cabinet maker's across the world and specifically for Alexander Roux, was an exhibition in London in 1851. It was here that Alexandre-Georges Fourdinois exhibited an oversized sideboard with highly carved embellishements such as a life-sized stag. Two years later at the Exhibition of Industry of All Nations at Crystal Palace, New York, Roux exhibited a black walnut sideboard with similarly game-carved paneled doors and hound and armorial carved upper gallery.
Alexander Roux, born in France about 1813, came to New York in 1837 and set up business first as an upholsterer at 472½ Broadway and then in 1848 to 479 Broadway. The company, Roux & Co., had a very distinguished history, supplying various styles of furniture to distinguished clients for 61 years. A related cabinet bearing a label used by Roux from 1850-1857 made for William B. Astor and bearing similar high relief carved game is illustrated in 19th Century Furniture and other Decorative Arts: An Exhibition in Celebration of the Hundredth Anniversary of The Metropolitan Museum of Art: April 16 through September 7, 1970 (New York, 1970) fig. 144 Another related sideboard is illustrated in Eileen and Richard Dubrow, American Furniture of the 19th Century, 1840-1880, (Exton, 1983), p. 168. Another sideboard in the Yale University is illustrated in Patricia Kane's, Handbook of the Collections: Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, 1922) p. 96.
Alexander Roux, born in France about 1813, came to New York in 1837 and set up business first as an upholsterer at 472½ Broadway and then in 1848 to 479 Broadway. The company, Roux & Co., had a very distinguished history, supplying various styles of furniture to distinguished clients for 61 years. A related cabinet bearing a label used by Roux from 1850-1857 made for William B. Astor and bearing similar high relief carved game is illustrated in 19th Century Furniture and other Decorative Arts: An Exhibition in Celebration of the Hundredth Anniversary of The Metropolitan Museum of Art: April 16 through September 7, 1970 (New York, 1970) fig. 144 Another related sideboard is illustrated in Eileen and Richard Dubrow, American Furniture of the 19th Century, 1840-1880, (Exton, 1983), p. 168. Another sideboard in the Yale University is illustrated in Patricia Kane's, Handbook of the Collections: Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, 1922) p. 96.