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| Only once in a while is a dealer able to acquire stock that is extremely special. Cotswold fine furniture specialist David Harvey has had such an experience. "I purchased privatately an amazing set of twelve 19th century solid walnut chairs. They were black with soot and upholstered in an awful brown rexine," he says. "But there was something compelling about the style, the weight and the quality.
"I took them into our workshop where they were gently cleaned. It took an absolute age, such was the superb craftsmanship and intricate carving even on all four sides of every leg as well as moulded detail on the stretchers. And each one was stamped with the chairmaker's name. "I had to discover more about the history of these chairs. That proved easier said than done." There was a known Scottish connection. The chairs were made by Holland & Company circa 1850, probably for a titled London family with a Scottish estate, maybe Lord Lovat who owned Fort Augustus Abbey on the shore of Loch Ness which he used as a shooting lodge. He is known to have had similar furnishings in his London residence. Hence the appellation, "the Fort Augustus chairs as they have become known. The twelve magnificent chairs were reupholstered in a damask pattern designed for Windsor Castle in the 1840s and specially woven again by the same Essex weavers, Humphries & Company, who supplied it to the royal family in the 19th century. Once again these chairs are back in their original splendour to be cherished for generations to come. "In the meantime," says David Harvey, "the mystery remains as to who originally ordered the chairs and where they lay undiscovered for so long before they came into my possession. Does anyone know?" See PHOTOGRAPH of the Fort Augustus chairs at the foot of this page. See W.R.Harvey Antiques website on page 1 or via our Trade Index for further details. David Harvey may be contacted by telephone 01993 706501. | ||||||||||||||||
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| Sitting on a fast train back from Nancy to Paris last year, the centenary of French Art Nouveau glassmaker Emile Galle's death, gave me the inspiration to organise a Galle Glass selling exhibition at my shop in Camden Passage, London.
The day had been spent at Musee de l'Ecole de Nancy which is set in a similar place to Galle's house and garden in the city, Le Garenne. There are the old front doors from the glassworks and the statue of Majorell. Inside, the whole museum is presented to give the feel of the great man himself, full of Galle's furniture and glass displayed as he would have wished. The light from the large windows shows off the glass in the showcases to great advantage. Each room is an ongoing pleasure. Upstairs, besides a bedroom featuring a moth bed and mushroom lamp, there is a surprise. An amazing, unique, large King Solomon vase dominated a tiny bathroom. Outside is a garden with flowers, a pond and a litle bridge in Japanese style, sympathetically recreated as it would have looked in Galle's time, everying encouraging me to plan a selling exhibition in celebration of his work. The Galle Glass exhibition was at Mike Weedon's Art Nouveau showrooms, 7 Camden Passage, Islington, London during June 2005. It is reviewed in our pages. Click onto the GALLE GLASS banner at the bottom of this page or via our Trade Index. | ||||||||||||||||
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