Antiques are, by definition, old. Of course the definition of old is relative. My Nokia 5110 phone, which I stumbled across just last week, is an antique and it’s less than 20 years old. In Georgia you can get a special “Antique” license plate if your car is 25 years old. In the world of furniture and furnishings, for a piece to be designated antique, it usually must be 100 years old. Indeed, that is exactly how the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency defines antiques.
One of the great things about an item being old is the fact that it has a lot of history... which can often be quite interesting. As we have many pieces that are quite old, we wondered what stories they might have to tell. Below are some totally true, completely plausible, possibly embellished narratives from various pieces we have. Did we mention that they are totally true?
First we have a Swedish Karl Johan drop front painted wood desk with many tiny drawers and cubbyholes. Dating back to the 19th century, this desk has almost 200 years’ worth of history associated with it. If we look closely we can see a scene from its first installation into the home of its original owner, who appears to be a Stockholm merchant. He may well have used this desk to do the books for his business or maybe record his winnings and losings at the baccarat tables. He may also have used it to write love letters to his Spanish wife who was born and raised in Barcelona and refused to spend her winters in Stockholm. While the winters were long without her, the nine months she spent with him each year more than made it worth the annual parting.
Later, somewhere in pre WWI America the desk was found sitting in the den of an American industrialist whose family immigrated to Pennsylvania after famine struck Sweden in 1866. There it mostly gathered dust as it held black and white photographs of his family, including his favorite, a picture of his father and mother riding in a carriage.
Chandeliers, unlike desks, which are generally used by one person at a time, can brighten the world of dozens or more people at the same time. This Italian crystal Empire style chandelier, hanging in a palace overlooking Lake Como, brightened the room of countless balls and galas and dinner parties during its lifetime. Indeed, it once illuminated the room where ballerina Pierina Legnani found herself somewhat wobbly while entertaining a small group of friends after a long evening of wine tasting. Later it would brighten the evenings in a private school library in Connecticut, where the students who should have been studying were spending most of their time writing mischievous notes to one another, usually about one of their teachers.
Chests are wonderful pieces of furniture as they hold many of our worldly… and most intimate possessions. This particular 18th century French five drawer chest appears to have belonged to one of Queen Marie Leszczyńska's (Louis XV's wife) ladies in waiting. In the middle left drawer, behind her delicates, she hid whist cards she would “appropriate” from time to time during evenings spent in Versailles’s Games Room. She would invariably bring the cards back and would smile and feign ignorance as confusion ensued when someone noticed there were too many cards in the deck.
Later it belonged to an upscale Paris haberdasher who employed a barber for just one special customer, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who would soon be elected President of the Second French Republic. Crowned as Napoleon III after his coup d'etat in 1851, Louis-Napoléon enjoyed having his handlebar mustache and chin puff goatee trimmed and waxed every Thursday afternoon.
Eventually the chest would make its way to London and found itself in America in April 1915, having traveled on the RMS Lusitania’s final successful transatlantic crossing before she was sunk by a German U-Boat later that month off the coast of Ireland.
Of course we can’t be sure that any of these stories are actually true, but who knows? They could be... But whatever the case, one of the beautiful things about antiques is that they let us dream about the secret stories they have to tell. Maybe we can’t yet travel back in time to discover the real stories, but it’s a lot of fun to imagine what they might be while we’re busy making stories of our own today that people will dream about tomorrow.
One of the great things about an item being old is the fact that it has a lot of history... which can often be quite interesting. As we have many pieces that are quite old, we wondered what stories they might have to tell. Below are some totally true, completely plausible, possibly embellished narratives from various pieces we have. Did we mention that they are totally true?
Later, somewhere in pre WWI America the desk was found sitting in the den of an American industrialist whose family immigrated to Pennsylvania after famine struck Sweden in 1866. There it mostly gathered dust as it held black and white photographs of his family, including his favorite, a picture of his father and mother riding in a carriage.Chandeliers, unlike desks, which are generally used by one person at a time, can brighten the world of dozens or more people at the same time. This Italian crystal Empire style chandelier, hanging in a palace overlooking Lake Como, brightened the room of countless balls and galas and dinner parties during its lifetime. Indeed, it once illuminated the room where ballerina Pierina Legnani found herself somewhat wobbly while entertaining a small group of friends after a long evening of wine tasting. Later it would brighten the evenings in a private school library in Connecticut, where the students who should have been studying were spending most of their time writing mischievous notes to one another, usually about one of their teachers.
Later it belonged to an upscale Paris haberdasher who employed a barber for just one special customer, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who would soon be elected President of the Second French Republic. Crowned as Napoleon III after his coup d'etat in 1851, Louis-Napoléon enjoyed having his handlebar mustache and chin puff goatee trimmed and waxed every Thursday afternoon.
Eventually the chest would make its way to London and found itself in America in April 1915, having traveled on the RMS Lusitania’s final successful transatlantic crossing before she was sunk by a German U-Boat later that month off the coast of Ireland.
Of course we can’t be sure that any of these stories are actually true, but who knows? They could be... But whatever the case, one of the beautiful things about antiques is that they let us dream about the secret stories they have to tell. Maybe we can’t yet travel back in time to discover the real stories, but it’s a lot of fun to imagine what they might be while we’re busy making stories of our own today that people will dream about tomorrow.
A Vintage Italian Gilded and carved wooden mirror... Is it possible that this mirror was the one Sophia Loren used to use when setting her hair as she was growing up in Pozzuoli, a little village not far from Naples?
This pair of 19th Century French Louis XVI Style wingback chairs could be from a smoky back room at Les Deux Magots, where regular guest Hemingway might have had long meandering conversations with Picasso or James Joyce or Bertolt Brecht as they tried drink one another under the nearest table.
A richly carved French wooden drop-front nightstand that might have been used by Jules Verne to keep his notes for ideas as he was writing "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" or "Journey to the Center of the Earth" or "Around the World in Eighty Days".
This exquisite 18th Century Spanish two-drawer console could very well have been a table upon which famed architect Antoni Gaudí sketched out his designs, its simple lines and dark colors providing a stark contrast to his Catalan Modernism.
This 19th Century English settee could have been part of the furnishings of Blenheim Palace, where a young Winston Churchill might have rested from his busy mornings of conducting war games with his collection of 1,500 toy soldiers.
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