Neal Auction Winter Estates January 2015

W denotes the lot is illustrated at www.nealauction.com 33 draws heavily from French Renaissance sources of the second half of the sixteenth century, incorporating strapwork, gadrooning, balusters, scrolls, and term figures. In the 1850s, high-end American cabinetmakers began producing elaborately carved furniture that exhibited forms and decorative motifs borrowed from the Henry II style. The firms of Julius Dessoir, Bulkley, Herter, and Alexander Roux displayed furniture at the 1853 New York Crystal Palace Exhibition that was among the earliest American examples in the French Renaissance style. These pieces reflected the influence of contemporaneous furniture made by prestigious cabinetmaking firms in Paris and followed the fashion for Henry II-inspired designs as represented in French furniture trade periodicals of the mid-nineteenth century. The suite offered here is closely evocative of the furniture made by New York City cabinetmaker Alexander Roux, a French immigrant craftsman who produced very rich interpretations of the French Renaissance style in the mid-19th century. Labeled examples by Roux exhibit the same elaborate detail, fine craftsmanship, and well-executed carving that characterize the furniture presently offered. References: Richard Dubrow: American Furniture of the 19th Century, 1840-1880 (Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2000), p.p. 166-168; Catherine Hoover Voorsanger, et al. , Art and the Empire City: New York, 1825-1861 (New York, 2000), pp. 315, 319, 526-527 & 530.