Art Nouveau Carved Walnut Desk, ca. 1890
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GUEST:
This desk was carved by my great-grandmother, Blanche, probably just before the turn of the century. Blanche was a renaissance woman, she traveled all over the world, and had time to do a number of wood carvings. We have several of the pieces, but this is a real favorite because the desk has been in the family for years.
APPRAISER:
So where was your grandmother living when she made this?
GUEST:
Born and raised and lived in Green Castle, Indiana.
APPRAISER:
Okay.
GUEST:
And I'm told she entered it in the Indiana Fair and won a number of blue ribbons, with her carvings there as well.
APPRAISER:
I can see why.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
When I first looked at the information about it and realized that it was made by a woman, one question I had to ask you was: are you descended from a line of strong women?
GUEST:
(laughing) I would say yes. I would say yes.
APPRAISER:
Because this is a really gutsy project for a woman in the 1890s. Did she go to any schools to study art or anything?
GUEST:
Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, she was a lady of leisure, really. She did china paintings, she traveled the world, brought some beautiful pieces back from Europe, but did a number of very nice, big strong pieces just like this.
APPRAISER:
That's the thing that attracted me to this right off the bat. When you first walk up to it and you look at it, it makes you think of something maybe that has an Oriental influence. And then when you start looking closer, you see that the carving is more from the Art Nouveau period. That was a time when there was interest in decorative arts, and there were a lot of very nice floral and sinuous lines. My guess is she knew somebody that was a cabinetmaker that could make the desk and then she did all the embellishments. It's just eye candy from the top to the bottom. I love the way she did the splashboard up top there with that little offset over on the side. And my favorite part of it probably is the slant lid. To me that has the boldest carving. And the thing that blows your mind when you start looking at something like this, when she started out with this, she had a piece of walnut-- black walnut-- and it was a solid board. She probably sketched the designs on it, and then she took a chisel and knives, and she also probably had a little stippling punch like you work with leather. Because once she got it down to where the background was going to be, she put all those little stipple marks in it. Those are just like little small holes punched.
GUEST:
Right, right.
APPRAISER:
And they... she did that to give it more architectural detail. Those are still the original pulls on there. What she did was she created her artistic vision of an Art Nouveau style desk. And in my mind, the quality of it and the way that it's done, it's really... it's almost like a museum piece. I think there's a lot of interest in female artists from that time period, and for insurance purposes, I would give this a value of $5,000.
GUEST:
Oh, that's wonderful, wonderful.
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