Herter Chaises

Fall 2012, AFMO granted funds for the Orsay to purchase a pair of rare “Moorish style” chairs made in the 1880s by the New York firm, Herter Brothers.  The Herter Brothers firm, were the interior designers of choice for the wealthy barons of America’s “Gilded Age.”

The Herter Brothers were most known for their decoration of the Red Room, in the White House, during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant.  The seats and backs of the chairs are made of green tufted velvet, which are framed with ornate carving in ebony and ivory inlay.  The chairs could have been the same ones seen in early photos of the mansion belonging to railroad magnate Mark Hopkins, located on Nob Hill, San Francisco.  They were more likely part of the collection of the immense William H. Vanderbilt residence, located on 640 Fifth Avenue in New York. The Vanderbilts entrusted the entire design of their residence to the Herter Brothers. The fine pointed backs of the Chairs, and pierced carving, evoke Arabic calligraphy and ancient Syrian metal inlays, giving them their “Moorish” character.  They are examples of the eclectic taste seen in the United States between 1875 and 1885. The Herter family emigrated from Germany to the United States in the mid- 19th century. The father trained his sons in old world woodworking traditions, enabling them to become the cabinet-makers and interior designers for “first families.”  Acquisitions curator Yves Badetz sought the acquisition to offer visitors to the Orsay a basis of comparison of aesthetic tastes of the 19th century.