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A very important catalog which accompanied the Herter Brothers exhibition. An in depth look at the magnificent furniture created by the firm and the German artisan community of New York City in the 19th century which created it.  This special price is a limited offer before this seminal work goes out of print, buy it now!

From the dust jacket:
In 1848, Gustave Herter arrived in America from Germany, fleeing political and economic chaos. His brother, Christian, joined him a decade later. By 1875 their firm, renamed Herter Brothers, was supplying the White House with furnishings, as it had been doing for some of America's wealthiest families since 1858. During this opulent period, Herter Brothers could claim to be the leading cabinetmaking and decorating firm in the country

The Herter brothers' extraordinary accomplishment has never before been the subject of a book. Here, at last, is an in-depth study of these talented men, their company, and its work, prized then as now for its design, richness of materials and detail, superb craftsmanship, and splendid diversity The best of the Herter Brothers' furniture and interiors are displayed in 133 color and 167 black-and-white illustrations, including many close-up details as well as comparative work by rival fine cabinetmakers of the time in New York and Europe.

Herter Brothers tells the story of the company from its earliest manifestations when Gustave worked with other partners and alone, through his partnership with his brother, to Christian's years as head of the firm and the end of his tenure. The book places the company firmly in its context, international as well as domestic, with an extensive discussion of the brothers' background and influences and an absorbing narrative of the furniture and decoration trade in New York City in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Also described is the superb work done by the firm for their fabulously wealthy patrons - a who's who of the Gilded Age, including J. Pierpont Morgan, William H. Vanderbilt, and Jay Gould - for whom the Herters created some of their most lavish furniture and complete interiors. These commissions, many illustrated here, included woodwork, plasterwork, lighting fixtures, window treatments, wall and ceiling paintings, carpets, textiles, mosaics, stained glass, and decorative objects in additi to furniture.

The furniture produced by Gustave and Christian Herter spans a remarkable range of styles. The brothers demonstrated a fine-tuned ability to adapt and absorb different trends, creating original objects that stand apart from the sources from which they were drawn. A selection of Greek, Pompeian, Renaissance, Louis XV and Louis XVI motifs may coexist harmoniously on the same piece. Later furniture incorporated elements of the English design-reform movement and the Herters' interpretation of Japanese art into a distinctive look, striking in its combination of modern references, luxurious materials, and exquisite craftsmanship. Almost fifty pieces of furniture and numerous interiors are show-cased in detailed commentaries.

 An extensive, authoritative, illustrated chronology; an appendix of Herter furniture details, including carving, marquetry and hardware; a bibliography; and an index enhance the reference value of this volume, an important addition to scholarship on this heretofore neglected area of nineteenth-century decorative arts as well as an aptly beautiful tribute to the art of the Herter brothers.

 About the Authors:

 Katherine S. Howe is curator of decorative arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the coauthor of Abrams' Marks of Achievement: Four Centuries of American Presentation Silver . Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen is curator in the Department of American Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the author of American Porcelain and coauthor of A Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection and In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement. Catherine Hoover Voorsanger is assistant curator in the Department of American Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and has contributed to numerous publications on art history and the decorative arts.

 Contributor Simon Jervis is director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England; Hans Ottomeyer is director of the Munchner Stadtmuseum, Munich; and Marc Bascou is director of the Musee d'Orsay, Paris.