Collection Online as of October 23, 2019
Fire Screen
firm of Herter Brothers
(American)
Gilded wood, painted and gilded wood panels, brocaded silk, embossed paper
Overall: 131.8 x 76.2 x 58.3 cm (51 7/8 x 30 x 22 15/16 in.)
The Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 1997.58
Location
not on view
Description
During the 1870s the New York firm of Herter Brothers produced some of the most sophisticated and technically refined furniture made anywhere in the world at that date. Although the firm is known to have made a considerable quantity of gilded furniture, this fire screen is one of only a few examples to survive in good condition. The painted and gilded embossed panel of birds and flowers was likely made in Japan.
Herter Brothers
Christian Herter (1840-83). Born in Stuttgart. He studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris before joining his elder half-brother Gustav (1930-98) in New York in 1860. Gustav had been there since 1848 and had worked for Tiffany before founding his own furniture and decorations firm in 1957. In 1864 Christian returned to Paris to study under Pierre-Victor Gallard (1822-92) and in the early 1870s he was in England. Herter Brothers became a leading New York furniture and decorating business in the 1870s and 1880s, being one of the first to abandon the usual run of historical styles and produce pieces rather similar to those made contemporaneously in England, with a discreet use of oriental motifs. Marquetry furniture like that made for the railroad magnate Jay Gould in 1877-82 or the luxurious gilt and inlaid furniture made for the William H. Vanderbuilt House, NY, c. 1882 is typical of the more extravanant type of aesthetic movement in the US. He employed a large staff of craftsmen and designers, the latter including the architect Charles B. Atwood (1849-95). The firm survived until 1906.