Gentleman's Armchair (Primary Title)
Christian Herter, American, 1839 - 1883 (Designer)
Herter Brothers, American, New York, active 1864 - 1906 (Manufacturer)
In 1879 Christian Herter, principal of the high-end manufacturing concern Herter Brothers, received the defining commission of his extraordinary career: the interior and exterior decoration of the William H. Vanderbilt residence at 640 Fifth Avenue, New York. The monumental Beaux-Arts structure occupied a full city block (between 51st and 52nd Streets), and its lavishly appointed interior served as a platform for synthesizing Herter’s highly eclectic and influential design theses. That effort reflected the era’s new holistic approach to interior decoration. As one contemporary author described it when writing about the Vanderbilt house, a “new impulse [is] now felt in the national life . . . to originate a form of civilization . . . and especially the House.” He went on to write: “the present owner . . . regards the House as a Home . . . [and] the . . . envelope of the man.”
This gentleman’s armchair took pride of place in the mansion’s drawing room. The mother-of-pearl disks and finely carved and gilded structure is emblematic of Herter’s philosophy and hints at the room’s overall effect. The William H. Vanderbilt commission ranks as the foremost domestic project of the Gilded Age, and this chair—with its surviving original upholstery— gives visual testimony to its unique accomplishment.
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