National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Frank Lloyd Wright
Foundation all have developed or expanded programs over the past
decade. Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village last year returned
to the licensing business through Century Furniture. And Lexington
Industries, under agreement with Old Salem, the original Moravian
settlement in Winston-Salem, recently introduced the lightly orna-
mented, clean-lined reproductions of the Moravian collection.
Furniture licensing deals are relatively straightforward. The muse-
urn or foundation gives a manufacturer the right to reproduce, adapt,
or interpret— under the supervision of its staff— selected furniture in
its collection. In return, it receives from its licensee a financial royalty
from the sales— usually somewhere between 3 and 10 percent and
heightened public awareness of its existence and mission.
Consumers gain access to a new Chippendale sofa, Duncan Phyfe
table, or Queen Anne chair whose design has stood the test of time
and whose production has been scrutinized by curators and executed
by craftsmen. Plus, "they get the extra advantage of what I call the halo
effect," says William Grenewald, president of WGD Associates, a li-
censing consulting firm in Alexandria, Virginia. "They feel good be-
cause they know they are helping out a museum."
Reproducing museum furniture is an exacting business. According
to the American Association of Art Museum Directors, reproductions
must be "a line-for-line copy of the original object, using the same pri-
mary and secondary materials." Minor adjustments are sometimes al-
lowed as long as the piece remains essentially the same as the original.
But, if the shape, size, materials, or finish of the original are changed,
the piece becomes an "adaptation," instead.
One of the newest museum reproduction lines, the Biltmore Es-
tate Collection by Drexel Heritage, arrives in retail stores this fall. Draw-
ing from more than 50,000 items at George Vanderbilt's 250-room
French Renaissance chateau in Asheville, North Carolina, the collec-
tion is an eclectic grouping of wood and upholstered furniture, most
dating from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Pieces range from an 18th-century Chippendale room armoire adapt-
ed to function as an entertainment center to a decorative parlor table

ABOVE, BROWN JORDON'S COPIES OF WROUGH

IRON, REVIVAL-STYLE CHAIRS FROM ABOUT

1910, LICENSED BY THE SMITHSONIAN, AND

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S MIDWAY 2 CHAIR IN

ENAMELED STEEL.

ABOVE, WRIGHT'S COONLEY

2 CHAIR, REPRODUCED BY

THE ITALIAN FIRM CASSINA,

AND AN ELEGANT GRECIAN

COUCH BAKER REPRODUCES

FOR ITS HISTORIC

CHARLESTON COLLECTION.

RIGHT, THE THOMAS

AFFLECK SOFA FROM

CLIVEDON, A NATIONAL

TRUST PROPERTY IN

PHILADELPHIA, IS CONSID-

ERED ONE OF THE FINEST

PIECES OF ROCOCO SEATING

IN AMERICA AND IS REPRO-

DUCED BY KINDEL.

