RARE! Herter Brothers American Victorian parlor set of a sofa and matching chair. This is a very rare matching pair of Herter Bros furniture. There is a duplicate set in the music room of the Lockwood Mathews Mansion Museum located at 295 West Avenue, Norwalk, CT. The Herter Bros NYC firm made the furniture, wall and door panels for several major rooms in the house. We have provided a photograph of the museum's interior, as shown in Art and Antiques 1994, showing a bit of the baseboard molding inlay. The molding inlay exactly matches our set's frame inlay. The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum is one of the earliest and finest surviving Second Empire style country houses ever built in the United States. The 52-room mansion was built by banker-railroad tycoon LeGrand Lockwood. He began construction of his estate on the Norwalk River in Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1864, and completed it in 1868. Designed by European-trained, New York-based architect Detlef Lienau, the mansion is considered his most significant work. Both American and immigrant craftsmen were employed to construct the grand castle. Lockwood's financial reversals in 1869, and his untimely death in 1872, resulted in the loss of the estate, then known as "Elm Park." The mansion's mortgage, controlled by Cornelius Vanderbilt, was sold to Charles D. Mathews and his wife Rebecca in 1876. Mathews, a prominent importer, from Staten Island, NY, and his family, resided in the mansion until 1938. In 1941 the estate was sold to the City of Norwalk and designated a public park. When the building was threatened with demolition in the 1950's, local preservationists succeeded in saving the mansion and formed the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, Inc. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1971, the structure serves as a valuable resource of 19th-century American history. The Museum's mission is to conserve the building while creating educational programs on the material, artistic and social culture of the Victorian era. The above description was taken from http://www.lockwoodmathewsmansion.org/history.htm The sofa measures 62 inches wide, 36 and one quarter inches high, and 32 inches deep. The arm height is 20 and three quarter inches, the width inside the arms is 55 inches at the back, and the inside depth is 25 inches. The front rail height is 11 and three quarter inches. Side chair measures 27 inches wide, 38 and one quarter inches high, and 29 inches deep. The arm height is 22 inches, the width inside the arms is 19 and one quarter inches at the back, and the inside depth is 25 inches. Excellent strong original condition with fine inlay and some minor old repairs.

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