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Lot Essay
The exuberant sideboard illustrated here is a tour de force of both late 19th century New York City cabinetmaking and the Neo-Grc aesthetic.
In form and aesthetic details, this sideboard is related to several case furniture examples associated with the best cabinetmaking firms of New York City at the close of the 19th century. A cabinet attributed to Leon Marcotte (active New York City, circa 1848-1880), now in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (see "Current and Coming," Antiques (January 1979), p. 48, ill.), is identical in shape and several decorative elements to the lower section of the sideboard illustrated here. Both examples are rectangular forms with one long end defined by inset rounded corners and an adjoining central panel set off by applied decoration. The example illustrated here and the LACMA cabinet also share the same gilt-incised feet, the same applied herm columns defining the central panel, the identical combination of rectangular and round brass relief-cast and ebonized framed panels, and the same ormolu roundel centering the raised monopodia of the cabinet top. Although attributed to Leon Marcotte, LACMA described their cabinet as, "executed in the manner of Alexander Roux, 1862" (p. 48). A second cabinet that is not attributed to any specific New York City firm has the same overall shape and foot decoration, and is illustrated and discussed in Elder and Stokes, American Furniture, 1680-1880, from the Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, 1987), p. 100, cat. 73. The sideboard illustrated here is also related in shape and conception to a cabinet by Pottier & Stymus in the Governor Henry Lippit House, Providence, Rhode Island (see Howe, et al. Herter Brothers: Furniture and Interiors for a Gilded Age (New York, 1994), p. 69, fig. 49).
Opening their warehouse and later showroom first in 1859 on Lexington Avenue between 41 and 42nd streets, and subsequently in 1883 on Fifth Avenue and 42nd street, the cabinetmaking firm of Pottier & Stymus created a variety of late 19th century revival forms. Pottier & Stymus was one of several New York City interior furnishings manufacturers to exhibit at the Philadelphia Centennial Fair in 1876, where their products were noted for, "skillful use of materials, happy blending of colors and ornamentation of the highest order of art" (Dubrow, American Furniture of the 19th Century; 1840-1880 (Exton, PA: 1983) pp. 49-50). Compared to their rival firms, Pottier & Stymus, "formulated a less orthodox, more colorful version of the Louis XVI style than that of Marcotte....," (Howe, et al, p. 70) though in many instances, the sources of imported decoration shared by the late 19th century New York City firms and the movement of artisans from one firm to another resulted in a high degree of homogeneity in the finished products of the era.
On an aesthetic level, the sideboard illustrated here fulfills the Neo-Grc mission in its material encyclopedia of art history for the Victorian Renaissance Man. The object is a tableau for a multitude of aesthetic references and bespeaks the significance of art history as a viable academic discipline in late 19th century America; the object itself is a Grand Tour for a newly wealthy consumer public. With its architectonic form adorned with Egyptian lotus leaves, antique and renaissance-style gilt-bronze figural and portrait busts, and arabesque marquetry panels, this sideboard incorporates a classical vocabulary and underscores classicism as the assumed foundation of a proper education. The Svres-style enamel-decorated porcelain plaques evoke Louis XV and XVI cabinetry into the sideboard, and in so doing places both the furniture and the porcelain it evokes into the canon of art history as well. With the imported European brass-relief panels decorating the facade of this sideboard, the decorative scheme and intent of this sideboard is complete. In these panels, there is not only a reference to Italian Renaissance sculpture, but there is further homage to antiquity in the classically-dressed subject matter of the panels. The placement of these panels within the form is also a reference to Louis XIV cabinetry (see Ames, "What is the Neo-Grc?" Nineteenth Century (Summer 1976), pp. 15). Finally, the specific appearance of the relief-cast brass panels, as well as that of the applied gilt-bronze herms, shows awareness of current aesthetic values. The interpretation of the classical maidens on these panels is not a literal quotation on an antique theme it is an updated adaptation of that ideal; their attenuated stance and diaphanous robes emulate the spirit of contemporary sculpture in the work of such artists as Augustus Saint-Gaudens.
In form and aesthetic details, this sideboard is related to several case furniture examples associated with the best cabinetmaking firms of New York City at the close of the 19th century. A cabinet attributed to Leon Marcotte (active New York City, circa 1848-1880), now in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (see "Current and Coming," Antiques (January 1979), p. 48, ill.), is identical in shape and several decorative elements to the lower section of the sideboard illustrated here. Both examples are rectangular forms with one long end defined by inset rounded corners and an adjoining central panel set off by applied decoration. The example illustrated here and the LACMA cabinet also share the same gilt-incised feet, the same applied herm columns defining the central panel, the identical combination of rectangular and round brass relief-cast and ebonized framed panels, and the same ormolu roundel centering the raised monopodia of the cabinet top. Although attributed to Leon Marcotte, LACMA described their cabinet as, "executed in the manner of Alexander Roux, 1862" (p. 48). A second cabinet that is not attributed to any specific New York City firm has the same overall shape and foot decoration, and is illustrated and discussed in Elder and Stokes, American Furniture, 1680-1880, from the Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, 1987), p. 100, cat. 73. The sideboard illustrated here is also related in shape and conception to a cabinet by Pottier & Stymus in the Governor Henry Lippit House, Providence, Rhode Island (see Howe, et al. Herter Brothers: Furniture and Interiors for a Gilded Age (New York, 1994), p. 69, fig. 49).
Opening their warehouse and later showroom first in 1859 on Lexington Avenue between 41 and 42nd streets, and subsequently in 1883 on Fifth Avenue and 42nd street, the cabinetmaking firm of Pottier & Stymus created a variety of late 19th century revival forms. Pottier & Stymus was one of several New York City interior furnishings manufacturers to exhibit at the Philadelphia Centennial Fair in 1876, where their products were noted for, "skillful use of materials, happy blending of colors and ornamentation of the highest order of art" (Dubrow, American Furniture of the 19th Century; 1840-1880 (Exton, PA: 1983) pp. 49-50). Compared to their rival firms, Pottier & Stymus, "formulated a less orthodox, more colorful version of the Louis XVI style than that of Marcotte....," (Howe, et al, p. 70) though in many instances, the sources of imported decoration shared by the late 19th century New York City firms and the movement of artisans from one firm to another resulted in a high degree of homogeneity in the finished products of the era.
On an aesthetic level, the sideboard illustrated here fulfills the Neo-Grc mission in its material encyclopedia of art history for the Victorian Renaissance Man. The object is a tableau for a multitude of aesthetic references and bespeaks the significance of art history as a viable academic discipline in late 19th century America; the object itself is a Grand Tour for a newly wealthy consumer public. With its architectonic form adorned with Egyptian lotus leaves, antique and renaissance-style gilt-bronze figural and portrait busts, and arabesque marquetry panels, this sideboard incorporates a classical vocabulary and underscores classicism as the assumed foundation of a proper education. The Svres-style enamel-decorated porcelain plaques evoke Louis XV and XVI cabinetry into the sideboard, and in so doing places both the furniture and the porcelain it evokes into the canon of art history as well. With the imported European brass-relief panels decorating the facade of this sideboard, the decorative scheme and intent of this sideboard is complete. In these panels, there is not only a reference to Italian Renaissance sculpture, but there is further homage to antiquity in the classically-dressed subject matter of the panels. The placement of these panels within the form is also a reference to Louis XIV cabinetry (see Ames, "What is the Neo-Grc?" Nineteenth Century (Summer 1976), pp. 15). Finally, the specific appearance of the relief-cast brass panels, as well as that of the applied gilt-bronze herms, shows awareness of current aesthetic values. The interpretation of the classical maidens on these panels is not a literal quotation on an antique theme it is an updated adaptation of that ideal; their attenuated stance and diaphanous robes emulate the spirit of contemporary sculpture in the work of such artists as Augustus Saint-Gaudens.