Ice Cream Collectibles

The Antique Detective: Rediscovering Old Wooden Ware

What Is It Worth?

Common Sense Antiques

E.G. Barnhill's Handpainted Photographs

As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, June 2007

Q. Help! I have had this chair for approximately 30 years and it belonged to my grandmother before that. I have seen similar chairs stating "marked Charles and Ray Eames". I cannot find any markings on my chair. Where should I look? How can I tell if it is an original? Are all their chairs marked? Thank you.

A. The problem is one of perception. In the 18th and 19th centuries most furniture makers designed and built their own pieces. While they may have followed a general style such as Chippendale or Empire, each piece of furniture was pretty much a unique creation, sometimes even signed, marked or labeled by the designer/maker. By the late 19th century the designer was less important than the manufacturer except in cases like Eastlake. The important factor was the factory - whether it was Berkey and Gay or Mitchell and Rammelsberg, Nelson Matter or Globe-Wernicke.

In the modern era of furniture design, which essentially began with the Paris Exposition of 1925, individual designers became prominent again. Names like George Nelson, Eero Saarinen, Hans Wegner and Isamu Noguchi became important factors in the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's. But, with the exception of Noguchi, they generally did not make their own work. They designed works for manufacturers of the day and each piece turned out by the factory is not necessarily marked with the name of the designer even though it may be a true copy of the original design.

Your chair was designed in 1951 by Charles and Ray Eames for Herman Miller. The chair has long tapering birch runners and black metal struts. It probably originally had a paper or foil label attached usually under the seat but that may be gone by now. Your chair is known as the "Zenith" rocker. The precursor of the Zenith chair was the LAR chair designed by Charles and Ray in 1949 for the Industrial Design Exhibit at the Grand Palais in Paris. The LAR was identical to the Zenith in the shape of the "tub" and the supporting struts but it lacked the birch rockers and was a stationary chair.

The Zenith can be seen on page 83 of  "Fifties Furniture, With Values" by Leslie Pina, Schiffer Books. The value of the chair in the 1996 edition of the book is listed at $400 - 600. The LAR  is on page 178 of  "Styles of American Furniture, 1860 - 1960" by Eileen and Richard Dubrow, Schiffer Books. This 1997 book places a value of $700 - 900 on the LAR version of the chair. Those chairs of course are in perfect condition with a traceable provenance and intact labels. 

Q. I am a novice and am trying to learn to make sure I buy real antiques. I buy mostly at auctions so I need to rely on my own expertise. If you have time would you mind answering a question?

How do you research a piece of furniture to determine its maker (assuming no label)? I purchased a folding chair that I would guess is a "Jelliff campaign chair from the late 1800's." I am basing this on the fact that it looks like a parlor suite I saw in an antique furniture book. We don't get a lot of stuff from the East where in my part of the country so I have not seen many real antiques in the past.

When I use a magnifying glass to see the carved faces used by Jelliff, in book and pictures, I am not able to get a clear enough image to match the ones on my chair. The one thing I am able to determine is that all of the faces I have seen are different with different names and different makers. I didn't realize it was such a complicated process. Virginia C

A. Yes, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus in this business - at least most of the time.

According to "American Cabinetmakers, Marked American Furniture 1640-1940" by William Ketchum, Crown Publishers, John Jelliff  (1813-1893) was a cabinetmaker in New Jersey who worked from 1836 to 1843 in partnership with Thomas Vantilburg. He then has his own shop in Newark until retiring in 1860. After he retired, his business was taken over by Henry Miller who ran it under Jelliff's name until 1890.

It's hard to attribute something directly to John Jelliff, even with a label. The only change to the label when Miller took over in 1860 was the addition of the word "Co." to Jelliff's mark. Thus "John Jelliff & Co." and "J.J. Co." indicate work by Miller's shop, not Jelliff. Add to that the fact that while Jelliff's work, and Miller's for that matter, were distinctive, they were by no means unique. In 19th century shops sometimes many hands were involved in the carving and construction, making identification of a given face almost impossible. And those hands often worked in different shops during a short period of time.

Some excellent places to see carved faces attributed to "Jelliff" are online at http://antiquesbylisebohm.com, http://pages.joanbogart.com and http://www.goantiques.com. Most of the work shown will be in the Renaissance Revival style although some earlier Rococo work, circa 1850, also bears his name. Also see "American Furniture" by Helen Comstock, Schiffer Books, plate 634.