THE WELL-APPOINTED ROOM TO BE AUCTIONED AT DOYLE NEW YORK ON JANUARY 27, 2010

Furniture, Decorations, Globes and Maps from Prominent Dealers Jonathan Burden, John Gredler and George Glazer

Meet Acclaimed Interior Designer Jeffrey Bilhuber at a Book Signing Reception on January 25

The well-appointed room is attractively equipped, artfully arranged and composed with a level of sophistication and comfort. Grand without being ostentatious, the well-appointed room is comprised of edited pieces that have history and purpose and that promote conversation and further study. Edith Wharton used the phrase often when she wrote about the stylish homes where her characters resided. The well-appointed drawing rooms in Wharton's novels were stylishly decorated and consisted of quality pieces that were timeless and evocative of a bygone era.

The Well-Appointed Room auction at Doyle New York on January 27, 2010 comprises almost 200 lots of furniture and decorations from Jonathan Burden, LLC, and John J. Gredler Works of Art, and globes and other articles from George Glazer Gallery. Through the vision of acclaimed interior designer Jeffrey Bilhuber, these renowned taste-makers create their own version of today's Well-Appointed Room. The public is invited to the exhibition will be on view from Saturday, January 23 through Tuesday, January 26. Doyle is located at 175 East 87th Street in Manhattan.  

Media Contact: Louis LeB. Webre, Vice President, Marketing and Media, 212-427-4141, ext 232, louis@DoyleNewYork.com. Images and interviews are available upon request.

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BOOK SIGNING RECEPTION with JEFFREY BILHUBER

Monday, January 25 from 6pm-8pm
at Doyle New York, 175 East 87th Street, New York City

You are cordially invited to meet Jeffrey Bilhuber at a cocktail reception and private exhibition of The Well-Appointed Room. Jeffrey will sign copies of his lavishly illustrated book, Defining Luxury: The Qualities of Life at Home, published by Rizzoli. Presenting Jeffrey's projects from coast to coast, the book is filled with charming anecdotes and observations by the designer, whom Hamish Bowles has likened to a 21st century Billy Baldwin. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event courtesy of

JEFFREY BILHUBER

I find that enlightenment is the best word I can give to derive the underpinning of a well-appointed room. What you are trying to find is intelligence, enlightenment and education. There are pieces in the room that motivate you to want to learn more. A well-appointed room tells you more about the people who live there than the objects themselves.

Auction houses bring to the stage a world of curiosity and interest. If it works really well, it acts as a catalyst to the collector to want to know more. The more they know, the more they want to have those objects around them. I have decorated one of my houses almost entirely from pieces I bought at Doyle. And those pieces have inherent personality.

My clients are looking for a sense of tradition, from where we've come and a way to interpret that. What I am doing is trying to build a sense of the familiar in an edited, enlightened way that shows that we have the clarity to live modern lives. Modern is philosophical. I don't see modern as material - it's not lacquer glass, it is movement in spirit. How do we react as a society to what our needs are today? Modern is being nothing more than responsive to the times.   - Jeffrey Bilhuber

		Bilhuber & Associates 330 East 59th Street New York, NY 10022 Tel: 212-308-4888 Web: Bilhuber.com

JONATHAN BURDEN

Jonathan Burden is a dealer and furniture restorer whose eponymous store is located in Tribeca. He started his career in London, and after a stint in Geneva, he came to New York. He shares his insights for collectors in an informal Q & A below.

Q How would you describe your look?
A I don't like the word eclectic but it is. I like the juxtaposition between modern and ancient. Having a background in English antique furniture is fantastic, and I have learned that there are other things that go so well with that if you try to mix it. I like to mix opposite pieces, things that are different, like over-scaled armoires with little console tables or tribal with 18th century. A large piece of furniture next to a small piece allows them to both stand out in their own right. That's how this store came together. I also love different surfaces.

Q What are your favorite pieces?
A I came out of the 18th century English school and I do prefer the mid-18th century architectural mahogany furniture that looks vaguely like a building and has pediments. I like the Anglo-Indian and all the offshoots of that - campaign furniture, things that do things, get smaller, bigger. Chinese influence in furniture is very strong for me, and I love anything that has Chinoiserie or a lacquer screen.

Q What makes a well-appointed room?
A Levels of things, levels of surface and of age. Things that are antique and modern. I don't like clutter. Things have to have space around them as well; you can't just shove everything into a room. Things need a chance of light to hit something. A well-appointed room includes objects and sculpture, idiosyncratic things, conversation pieces. You want someone to walk into a room and say, WOW! I never would have thought hat works and it works well. If you can do that, you have got a well-appointed room.

Q Any advise for collectors?
A You've got to trust your eye. If you see something and it turns your head, think about why. Trust your instinct and use common sense.

Q What were some of the first things that caught your eye?
A Parts of things, bits of carving. Growing up in the UK my father was in the church, and I would hang out in cathedrals and see a beautiful spiral staircase with paneling. I would be fascinated by how they could do that. It wasn't until I got a little older that I was bowled over by the proportion of beautifully drawn chair. I think the chair is the most beautifully drawn bit of sculpture you could ever see. It has so many sides - arms, backs, back legs, front. Beautiful chairs were my link to studying and collecting.

Q What are some of your favorite well-appointed rooms?
A I like the Chatsworth House in the UK because there are apartments above where the family still lives, and they've all taken bits from the old staterooms.

Cy Twombley has incredible taste. He lived in a Piazza in Rome and had fantastic furniture and beautiful tile floors and large paintings.

Julia Schnabel has put together beautiful place in his loft with his oversize paintings and a great mix of furniture. Nothing expensive, the furniture is not important furniture, but the scale is dramatic. And he put together a beautiful, well-appointed room.


Q How did you decide what you would sell in the January 27 auction?
A The 19th century ebonized mahogany bed was the first thing I thought of. It really holds the room. It was bought in Calcutta and came out of a palace. There are four limestone dishes that fit under each leg of the bed where you traditionally put the oil to stop the bugs from crawling into the bed to eat all the vestments and liniments. Bugs don't like to crawl through oil. It would have been heavily draped originally. That's the key piece, and I built around that.

For the rest I wanted a mixture of things - different colors, different shapes, not all brown furniture, some painted things, some black things. Everything can't be the same height. You need low tables, medium range chairs, high beds, shiny surfaces, some unrestored. It looks like a collection that would have been put together over many, many years.

		Jonathan Burden, Inc 180 Duane Street New York, NY 10013 Tel: 212-431-5770 Web: JonathanBurden.com

GEORGE GLAZER

I am pleased to have been selected along with dealers Jonathan Burden and John Gredler, and interior designer Jeffrey Bilhuber, to participate in Doyle New York's Well-Appointed Room - a sale inspired by Edith Wharton, the prolific and influential early 20th century novelist and designer.

My personal interpretation of the well-appointed room is one rich with history, mixed with modern sensibility. It is an inviting place that is an artistic and intellectual expression of the people who live there - a comfortable place for them to enjoy with guests and as their own private sanctuary.  

My actual well-appointed room - an apartment on the Upper East Side - is filled with antique world globes, maps, natural history and architectural prints, and decorative arts. My business reflects this style, and the main theme of the George Glazer Gallery is an 18th or 19th century library inhabited by someone with wide-ranging curiosity and interest in the world and the universe - a cross-section of the liberal arts and the natural sciences.

In this sale, the George Glazer Gallery has contributed art and antiques to appeal to the tastes and purchasing objectives of individual collectors. Our goal is to assist the Doyle client in creating their own Well-appointed Room, selecting items that will enhance their collections and reflect their personal interests and aesthetics.

An English 18-inch terrestrial floor globe (London, circa 1807) provides the centerpiece of our selection. This globe was dedicated by its makers, W. & T. M. Bardin, to Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820), who served as president of the British Royal Society, the world's oldest science academy, now celebrating its 350th anniversary. One can imagine Banks' vast and varied Georgian library in his residence at 32 Soho Square in London, resplendent with his curated collections of books, art, artifacts and natural history specimens relating to the latest discoveries of the 18th century.  

Although Banks was very much a man of his times, in 2010 we can still relate to his wide-ranging curiosity about science, natural history, and the yet unexplored corners of the world, while appreciating the art and design of earlier centuries. In drawing inspiration from a man of the Age of Enlightenment like Sir Joseph Banks, today's collector might enjoy our selection of botanical (scientific and horticultural), bird and butterfly print sets in the sale. Indeed, Banks was a prominent botanist and advised King George III on the design of the Royal Gardens at Kew. A globe would also be appropriate - many of Banks' scientific discoveries were made when he accompanied Captain James Cook on the historic expedition aboard the H.M.S. Endeavour in 1768-71. Today's world traveler might equally enjoy owning a world or celestial globe - and the George Glazer Gallery has included a variety in this sale. As a member of the Society of Dilettanti, perhaps Banks would have liked our set of four Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) prints of ancient Roman artifacts, also in the sale. As a member of that Society, Banks would presumably have been interested in the aesthetic appeal of his room. Likewise, a person designing his or her own room in the 21st century can build on an interest in interior décor and the history of art with our prints and decorative objects.

The George Glazer Gallery is offering exemplars of decorative, interesting, and historically relevant art and objects for the homes of Doyle New York's clients. Items have been chosen with an eye toward creating the modern version of Wharton's “Well-Appointed Room,” imbued with the history and great design of the past - an enriching, intriguing and, above all, a pleasant place to be.

		George Glazer Gallery 28 East 72nd Street New York, NY 10021 Tel: 212-535-5706 Web: GeorgeGlazer.com

JOHN GREDLER

 

		John J. Gredler Works of Art, Inc. 180 Duane Street New York, NY 10013 Tel: 212-966-2514 Web: JJGredler.com