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拍品專文
Herter Brothers of New York City became one of the leading cabinetmaking and decorating firms of the nineteenth century. Gustave Herter (1830-98) and his younger brother Christian (1840-83) emigrated from Germany to New York. While Gustave spent time working at Tiffany, Young, and Ellis (later Tiffany and Company), Christian had studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Their partnership led to prominent commissions including the homes of wealthy industrialists, William H. Vanderbilt, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Potter Palmer, among others. Dictated by the favored tastes of the Aesthetic Movement and its quest towards "art for art's sake," the Herters' work achieved a perfect blend of classic and craft as they became one of the first "tastemakers" of the period, designing exquisite furniture as well as interior schemes.
This rosewood and mahogany cabinet with its marquetry of various woods, elaborate gilding and central porcelain plaque, typifies the eclecticism and exoticism that became the signature of the Herter Brother's work. A grand form, the demilune cabinet form features side doors of glass, perfect for the Victorian-inspired trend of displaying one's objets d'art. The myriad of sources from which the Herter Brother's took their designs, including motifs of ancient Greece to that of eighteenth century France, evidenced here in the incorporation of a classical figure depicted on a porcelain plaque, exhibits the vast range of creativity and methods employed in their craftsmanship.
A virtually identical Herter Brothers cabinet with only slight differences in the side cabinet doors is illustrated in Katherine S. Howe and Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, et al., Herter Brothers: Furniture and Interiors for a Gilded Age, (New York, 1994), p. 119, fig. 104.
This rosewood and mahogany cabinet with its marquetry of various woods, elaborate gilding and central porcelain plaque, typifies the eclecticism and exoticism that became the signature of the Herter Brother's work. A grand form, the demilune cabinet form features side doors of glass, perfect for the Victorian-inspired trend of displaying one's objets d'art. The myriad of sources from which the Herter Brother's took their designs, including motifs of ancient Greece to that of eighteenth century France, evidenced here in the incorporation of a classical figure depicted on a porcelain plaque, exhibits the vast range of creativity and methods employed in their craftsmanship.
A virtually identical Herter Brothers cabinet with only slight differences in the side cabinet doors is illustrated in Katherine S. Howe and Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, et al., Herter Brothers: Furniture and Interiors for a Gilded Age, (New York, 1994), p. 119, fig. 104.