Antiques Roadshow

MAN

My wife and I visited an estate sale earlier in the year, and saw the chair, and loved it, had to take it home with us.

APPRAISER

This chair dates from the third quarter of the 19th century. So roughly 1875 to 1880. It's a time in American history that's marked by great design, great money. One of the primary makers is Herter Brothers, which was an interior decorator and a cabinetmaker. When we say cabinetmaker, we mean they're producing one-of-a-kind-type furniture-- not multiple examples of it. And this is similar to that, the type of work that's produced. It's what we refer to as the Aesthetic Movement. It's light, it's meant to be not just a chair, but to have a function of art. So when you walked in, I thought, "Is that the chair?" And I knew immediately what it was, and that's confirmed... by the book published from Herter Brothers. Okay. In 1994. Wow. And when we open it up... There it is. We find the exact chair. Right. At the time of publication, there were ten copies of this chair known. Wow. Mostly in pairs. They were made for parlors and for bedrooms. This particular chair is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (chuckling): Wow. There's also examples in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Wow. We're trying to date these chairs. So we can pinpoint them down to 1875 to 1880. There's a numbering system that's found on nearly every example on the back seat rail. Okay. I'd like to see if that was present. Would you mind if we... Sure!...took it apart? Sure! I can see the silhouette of that four-digit number. And I can't quite determine exactly what it is, but it appears that it starts with a four, which would be consistent with the other chairs, which begin at 4400 and go to 4800. Herter Brothers created furniture for the richest, most sophisticated people around the country. This chair would have sat in a very prominent home. Wow. And it would be the pinnacle of design in the late 19th century. How much did you pay for it? $150. Yeah. And that was marked down. I think this was the third day, so I think maybe the original price was $300. It's not without issues-- it is original, it's authentic, it could benefit from some restoration. As it sits, $10,000 at auction. Wow... wow. Great! I could see the right collector in a retail setting paying as much as $25,000 if the chair were put together appropriately.