There is a graceful Louis XV sofa in the Petit Trianon that I have
copied many times. The copy is as beautiful as the original, because
this sort of furniture depends upon exquisite design and perfect
workmanship for its beauty. It is possible that a modern craftsman might
not have achieved so graceful a design, but the perfection of his
workmanship cannot be gainsaid. The frame of the sofa must be carved and
then painted and guilded many times before it is ready for the brocade
covering, and the cost of three hundred dollars for the finished sofa is
not too much. The original could not be purchased at any price.
Then there is the Chinese lacquer furniture of the Chippendale period
that we are using so much now. The process of lacquering is as tedious
to-day as it ever was, and the reproductions sell for goodly sums. A
tall secretary of black and gold lacquer may cost six hundred dollars.
You can imagine what an Eighteenth Century piece would cost!
The person who said that a taste for old furniture and bibelots was
"worse than a passion, it was a vice," was certainly near the truth! It
is an absorbing pursuit, an obsession, and it grows with what it feeds
on. As in objects of art, so in old furniture, the supply will always
equal the demand of the unwary. The serious amateur will fight shy of
all miracles and content himself with excellent reproductions.
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