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Carlo Bugatti (1856-1940)
Carlo Bugatti was born in Milan and became an artist and designer of international renown. He trained at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and was greatly influenced by the early exponents of the ‘New Art’ in their reaction against the heavy, ornate, classical, Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo styles fashionable in the mid 19th Century. Carlo Bugatti worked in architecture, interiors, ceramics, musical instruments, paintings, silverware and textiles as well as [...] Click here to continue reading.
The Arts & Crafts Movement
The principles of the Arts and Crafts movement were initially frontiered in England through the efforts of John Ruskin and William Morris. Ruskin was not a craftsman but an academic scholar at Oxford. He believed passionately that the Industrial Revolution would erode the English countryside by turning it into factory fields while relegating the skilled English craftsman to the status of a laborer. The battle cry of his movement, [...] Click here to continue reading.
Henry Boyd
Henry Boyd (1802 to 1886) was born a slave in Kentucky. He apprenticed to a cabinetmaker and was able to purchase his freedom in 1820. Six years later he removed to Cincinnati and worked in an iron factory and as a carpenter. By 1836, he had opened his own factory where he produced bedsteads. He developed an innovative construction, which he called the “wood screw and swelled rail” bedstead that allowed the [...] Click here to continue reading.
John Henry Belter (1804 to 1863)
The American furniture industry was in a state of flux in the mid-19th century. Gone were the days when a single craftsman toiled in his shop taking raw wood, carving and turning the elements to produce a finished piece that he would then sell himself. The advent of the steam engine changed this industry, as it did for most others, forever. Furniture began to be made in stages: [...] Click here to continue reading.
Oscar Bruno Bach
Born in Germany in 1884 and emigrated to the United States in 1913, Oscar Bruno Bach was a metallurgist and designer who, after many years of research, developed his own process enabling ferrous metals to sustain color and resist corrosion when used on building exteriors.
Before the early 20th century, the use of mixed metals had been restricted to small works such as jewelry. Extraordinary skill and new techniques were required [...] Click here to continue reading.
American Furniture Styles, 1610 to 1900 – An Overview
In the process of defining and describing the attributes of American furniture we find both time periods and styles being used to label particular pieces and whole groupings. Such labeling can lead to significant misunderstandings and can, to the new comer, be very confusing.
Furniture periods provide us with just a time frame while styles provide us with the details of design. We must be [...] Click here to continue reading.
The Oriel Cabinet Company
The Oriel Cabinet Co. was founded in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1880 and consolidated operations with Berkey & Gay in 1912. It grew out of a business conducted for a number of years previous to 1880 by Wheeler, Green & Gay.
Information courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions, June 2008.
Gary and Karen Stuffel of Washington, Indiana
Gary and Karen Stuffel loved the country life, and both loved the dream of living with early American antiques. Born in Daviess County, Indiana, they chose to settle in Washington where Gary worked as a union carpenter and Karen as a Postmaster for the Edwardsport post office, and then later the Montgomery post office. Their love extended to a project of acquiring a log home originally built [...] Click here to continue reading.
Kang Definition
A “kang” is the Chinese word for fireplace. In the colder regions of China these were built of clay or brick. They would be would be heated from underneath and used as a bed and general living space. But low tables would be placed on the kang when needed to hold tea, meals, spittoons and other everyday items.
Information courtesy of Robert Goldberg, p4a editor, February 2010.
John William Boor, M.D. (1947 to 2007)
John William Boor, M.D. was born and raised in the city of Philadelphia. Dr. Boor’s love for the fine arts stemmed from his fascination with American history and his tremendous pride and respect for everything related to or originating from the great colonial city of Philadelphia.
To many he was their trusted doctor, specializing in Neurology. Others knew him as a collector of Americana. He had an [...] Click here to continue reading.
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