Arts & Crafts Sideboard
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GUEST:
I bought it about two, three years ago from a local estate, and I just liked the style-- the fact that it was a tall ladder-back chair.
APPRAISER:
Great. Well, it's actually made in the Arts and Crafts style, but it's a rustic version of the Arts and Crafts. And the Arts and Crafts was popular in the late-19th, early-20th century. And there were several major proponents of the Arts and Crafts style, one of which was Frank Lloyd Wright, an American architect/designer. Another one was Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and he was a Scottish decorator and interior designer and architect. And we look at the back of this. It's-- as one of my colleagues said-- "it's Mackintosh gone wild," and it really is because both Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Rennie Mackintosh liked the tall verticality often times with either vertical or horizontal slats as you see in the back. And the lower portion is also very much in the Arts and Crafts style-- more in the Stickley style. Gustav Stickley and several of his brothers were also makers in the Arts and Crafts style. Their furniture is often referred to as mission furniture and you see that in the slats-- the wide oak slats. You also see that, the Stickley style, in the manner in which the tops of the legs are exposed above the seat frame and they are chamfered off like this. One of the main themes behind the Arts and Crafts style was the hand craftsmanship. Everything was made by hand. It was a reaction to the excesses of industrialization and the heavy carving of the previous periods. And when was this chair made? You know about that; tell me about that.
GUEST:
Well, on the bottom it says it was purchased for $25 in July of 1920-something-- I forget.
APPRAISER:
'24 I think I read.
GUEST:
1924, that's right.
APPRAISER:
And one thing I will say is there are nails that are used, which would not have been done in the true Arts and Crafts style. They would have used wooden pegs. But still, the idea is really there. It's a wonderful, fun, funky version. If we had it in our shop or elsewhere it would be around $500 to $700 easily, maybe even more than that.
GUEST:
Very good.
APPRAISER:
But really a fun piece of furniture and I really appreciate you bringing it.
Appraisal Details
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Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."
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