FREE Standard Delivery On orders over £40 FREE Next Day Click & Collect On orders over £20 International Delivery Find out moreLUST OVER THE ELEGANCE COLLECTION LUST OVER THE ELEGANCE COLLECTION WORK HARD, PLAY HARD SIT BACK AND RELAX Frenchfinds is a family business selling quality antique and vintage French furniture sourced mainly in the Loire Valley region of France, the majority dating from around 100 years old, vintage, authentic used furniture - we don't sell new or reproduction items. All of our items of furniture have that French flair for design and are restored to a very high standard which transforms them into the contemporary style which, when carried out sympathetically, is so in vogue. It fits in well with the modern eclectic look, highlighting the decorative features and enhancing the craftsmanship of the period. The ultimate in recycling! We offer a wide range of antique and vintage French furniture in natural wood
or painted finishes - mainly walnut, cherry wood, oak and mahoganyLONDON — The curtain is slowly coming down on the lifestyle of the old Western world establishment, and the impact on the art market is spectacular.Last week, 450 works ranging from furniture to paintings and sculpture that had adorned Lyons Demesne, the Irish Georgian house restored at vast expense by the late Tony Ryan, who founded Ryanair, were dispersed at Christie’s to great fanfare.The fine catalog did justice to the mansion in County Kildare designed in 1797 by Oliver Grace for the wealthy businessman Nicholas Lawless. The son of a rich Dublin draper, Lawless further expanded his financial position by marrying the heiress of a brewer, Margaret Browne, and was made a peer. As the 1st Baron Cloncurry, Lawless acknowledged this costly promotion by writing to the Viceroy: “If I have obtained any honours, they have cost me their full value.”His son Valentine was more pugnacious. He joined the Society of United Irishmen set up in 1791 to fight against the Act of Union with Great Britain and was incarcerated in the Tower of London following the 1798 uprising but was released in 1801, the year of the Act of Union.
Whereupon, the 2nd Baron Cloncurry redirected his energy toward the embellishment of Lyons Demesne and embarked on a wild art-buying spree in Italy. Among his purchases were the granite columns from the Golden House of Nero, which had been re-employed in the Palazzo Farnese and now support the portico at Lyons. Past history fired up Mr. Ryan. Having saved the grand mansion from ruin in the most ambitious program of restoration ever undertaken privately in Irish history, according to Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, who tells the story in “Great Houses of Ireland,” the businessman proceeded to furnish it at top speed. Christie’s made the most of the Lyons Demesne motif — house sales traditionally gave furniture and other objects a halo that substantially enhanced their commercial value. While the July 14 sale went remarkably well, with 90 percent of the lots finding takers, it also underlined the decline of the traditional furniture and decorations beloved by members of the Western upper class until the late 20th century.
Good 18th-century furniture that does not belong in the superlative museum category did not fare well. The one great success was the piece that comes closest to that definition. The George III demi-lune cabinet in the manner of Robert Adam soared to £103,250, or $167,000, far above the equivalent of £26,780 that it realized at Sotheby’s Monaco on March 25, 2001.But many pleasing pieces were markedly less expensive than they had been a decade or so ago, once allowance is made for the erosion of the buying power of the British and American currencies. A pair of late George III armchairs with the salient lines picked out in gold against the ivory ground brought £15,000. In May 2000, the pair had cost Mr. Ryan £14,300 at a house sale conducted by Sotheby’s, which works out to 15 to 20 percent more than what it realized this week.A pair of rare satinwood pier tables of the same period with tops painted with garlands (“swags”) of flowers realized only £58,850. At Sotheby’s New York in April 2001, the same pair realized $132,250, about £81,800.Significantly enough, the drop in value was not so dramatic for a pair of George II Irish mahogany armchairs made in the late 1740s that were helped by their documented historical past.
The armchairs were commissioned for the saloon (reception room) in the grand 18th-century mansion built for Joseph Leeson, later Lord Russborough and Earl of Milltown, at Russborough. Christie’s judiciously reproduced a photograph taken around 1935 that shows them in situ, on either side of a marble chimney piece designed by Richard Castle, who died in 1751. The chairs went up to £39,650, still less expensive in real terms than the $52,500, or about £36,000 at the time, that they had cost at Sotheby’s New York in April 2001.French 18th-century furniture was in serious trouble. The most telling casualty was a set of six Louis XV giltwood fauteuils carved with floral sprays in the restrained manner of the 1750s and covered with Aubusson tapestry, which used to be considered a plus by traditional connoisseurs. Removed from the Paris residence of Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, one of the greatest 20th-century art collectors, the set had shot up to £91,750 in December 2000, at Christie’s.
Last week, it remained unwanted at £26,000. The armchairs are not in the original condition that would qualify them as super museum trophies — they have been re-gilt, leaving “traces of earlier decoration,” as the catalog notes. Best suited as furniture to live with in a grand décor, the set has lost its constituency. The younger generations neither fancy such seats — you cannot sprawl in a Louis XV fauteuil — nor do they like the interior design into which gilt Rocaille armchairs can fit. The fauteuils fell between two stools.Such setbacks have nothing to do with national preferences. An extremely elegant pair of George III parcel gilt armchairs inspired by Louis XVI models likewise were unsold as the auctioneer’s hammer fell at £3,000. The blocks and castors terminating the legs are modern replacements and, like the French set, they are neither glamorous enough to satisfy buyers looking for trophies nor sought after as furniture to live with. On Oct. 18, 1997, the same pair had cost Mr Ryan $24,000, or nearly £15,000, at Sotheby’s New York.
True, the settee that goes with the armchairs sold separately for £4,375. But this is not even a third of the $24,000 that it cost at the New York sale. Paintings, some by renowned artists, suffered heavily from the loss of interest in the 18th-century “art of living,” as the French like to say.The monumental portrait of Mrs. Thomas Edwards Freeman done around 1778 made a laughable £49,250. At Sotheby’s London sale of Oct. 24, 1999, the price had been £140,000. Add that the period giltwood frame alone is worth £15,000 to £20,000, and that makes the superb Reynolds a giveaway. Even rarities were harmed by the disaffection from anything evocative of grand 18th- to early 19th-century décors.The portrait of a lady by the Dublin-born Martin Archer Shee sold against the reserve for a miserly £20,000, far below the £35,000 paid by Mr. Ryan at Christie’s London on June 15, 2001. Yet, the monumental likeness, which measures 238.2 centimeters, or 93 inches, in height and is still in its early 19th-century giltwood frame, is an important document of cultural history.
The sitter is seen with her hair curled in the “Graecian” manner celebrated by Thomas Hope in “Costume of the Ancients” in 1809 and in “Designs of Modern Costume” in 1812. A Greek painted earthenware vase based on the famous “Meidias Hydria” bought in 1772 by the British Museum with other pieces from the collection of William Hamilton can be seen in the foreground. In recent times the portrait was deemed sufficiently important to be reproduced in the “Handbook to the Collection” published in 1981 by the Kimbell Art Museum.A real gem hardly attracted the attention it deserved. Paintings by the Irish artist Thomas Roberts, who died in 1778 at age 30, are virtually unobtainable. All told, the artist exhibited 59 works at the Society of Artists in Ireland. Yet, his ravishing landscape with a waterfall seen behind a clump of trees went for only £73,250.While this price matches Christie’s high estimate, it is a joke in today’s market for such an original picture by the Mozart of Irish painting.