notes

Or so proclaims an article in Bonhams Magazine, the house organ of Bonhams Auctioneers. Well, it never really went out, though, did it? Certainly the notion of a period interior composed entirely of brown furniture has gone the way of the do do bird- and it should. A so-called ‘period’ room, with items all of a piece from the same historical period is a contrived notion, that has very little basis in historical reality. Eclecticism has always been the rule, whether in an 18th century or 19th century interior. The prevalence of suites of matched furniture came into fashion in the Edwardian period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when mass production made suites of furniture affordable to the mass market. If you wonder why a so called ‘period room’ is redolent of something your grandmother had, it is because it is. Suites became the rage beginning in the 1880’s. Our notions of Chippendale and Sheraton, unfortunately, are heavily informed by the revivals of those styles and the sales of huge numbers of very affordable suites of furniture from the late 19th century onward.

Still, the occasional piece of Georgian brown furniture, relieved by a bit of chinoiserie or the strategically placed piece of mid century design, comes together very nicely, thank you, and makes for fascinating interior design. Frankly, this mix of periods and styles is what our clients, both interior designers and private collectors now demand, without exception.

Not to say, as certainly the item in Bonhams Magazine makes clear, are all these items inordinately expensive. We always have to watch price points, and in our galleries, compare our prices to those at the better new furniture showrooms. A good case in point is a George III period chest on chest we presently have in inventory. A lot of wood for the money, this piece is in excellent original condition, of fine quality Cuban mahogany, with all its original brasses. The price? We are asking $15,000. Can you find the same thing for less money in a new piece of furniture?    

The catalog arrived yesterday from Sotheby’s for the sale of the contents of Cher’s Malibu house. The sale will be at the most fitting venue one can imagine for the event- the Beverly Hilton. I’ve always felt more than a slight affinity with Cher, and not because she is an iconic figure for gay men. No, it is because we are both of us from Fresno, and while both of us got away from that benighted community, our paths diverged. 

The furnishings Cher is selling are all, according to the catalog, inspired by Augustus Pugin, certainly the early 19th century’s most influential designer in the Gothic mode. Cher’s furnishings run heavily toward stained oak, with a lot of pointed arches, crockets, and finials. By sheer weight of number, in fact a few of the pieces are pretty good. Thank goodness, though, Pugin is long dead and now presumably has attained the wisdom of the ages and not therefore turning over in his grave. If he were alive, Pugin’s always fragile mental state would be put under considerable strain had he seen the use that Cher’s designer had put a Gothic idiom to, and citing Pugin as the inspiration. Sadly, in putting acquisition ahead of connoisseurship, Cher has missed out on a real opportunity to embrace at least partly what Pugin stood for.

Pugin, as well as an inspired designer, was amazingly adept at putting his designs within an intellectual framework, and it is this that led to the design and decoration of what was arguably his best work- the Houses of Parliament. In his embracing of the Gothic, he sought to put in material form what he considered to be appropriate both aesthetically, intellectually, and morally. He felt that both architecture and decoration should be edifying and uplifting not only for those who frequently dwelt there, but also for the occasional visitor. In fact, Pugin began the train of thought that carried through John Ruskin and William Morris, preaching the moral superiority of the Gothic. In simple terms, the Gothic, expressed prominently in medieval great churches, were created by those who gloried in their workmanship, and it was this glory that resulted in such a tremendous efflorescence of decoration. As well, it was inherently vernacular, as the craftsmen had very little idea about the architecture of classical times, so couldn’t have been influenced by it. So, really, the Gothic is very much popular architecture, a style of the people, and not institutional in the way that classical architecture can be. And it was institutionalism, both in government and in big business, that had a profound dehumanizing effect on the population. The Gothic, then, was a humane form of decoration that functioned to foster and encourage individual creativity and accomplishment.

Well, this doesn’t quite match the mindset expressed in Cher’s house- an overblown vaguely middle Italian villa filled with overstated, over large dark oak furniture. Any humane social content in a manner consistent with Pugin? Not that I can see. Good luck to Cher, though- she decorates and sells houses often, and that is always a boon to the antiques trade.