first handcrafted on the Biltmore estate in the early 1900s. Also in-
cluded is Napoleon's chess-and-backgammon table, made with ebony
chess squares and drawer pulls and some 914 individual inlays of wood.
As the furniture licensee for Winterthur Museum, the elegant dis-
play case for Henry Francis du Pones extraordinary collection of Amer-
ican decorative art and furniture, Kindel Furniture of Grand Rapids,
employs 21 master carvers for its reproductions. Its oldest and best
known Winterthur piece is the Townsend-Goddard desk and book-
case, considered by many experts to be one of the most beautiful pieces
of American furniture ever created. Intricately carved with a shell mo-
tif and crowned with three urn-shaped finials with corkscrew flames,
the secretary is one of the company's most popular reproductions, de-
spite a price of about $23,000.
The newest item from the 31-piece Winterthur collection— and at
$29,000-plus, the most expensive— is a copy of the Van Pelt high chest
of drawers, bought by du Pont in 1929 for a then record-breaking price
of $44,000 and now displayed in the Port Royal Parlor of the Wilm-
ington, Delaware, estate house.
"The original Van Pelt piece is probably the most important Roco-
co-style chest in the country," says Kindel executive Paula Fogarty. "It
stretched the limits of our capabilities to reproduce it." Standing almost
eight feet tall, it's handcrafted in solid mahogany and decorated with
elaborate acanthus leaf and scroll hand carving.
Without a doubt, museum reproduction furniture is costly, tending
to the upper price ranges. But the Townsend-Goddard secretary and
the Van Pelt chest are showcase items. Most of Kindel's line for Win-
terthur is priced at well under $20,000, as are the majority of pieces
from the other reproduction lines.
Under a license from the National Trust for Historic Preservation,
Kindel also reproduces select pieces from 17 Trust properties. The line
has a more relaxed feel, says Fogarty, because many of its pieces or
at country estates in northern Virginia rather than in the more
formal town homes of Philadelphia.
Baker Furniture, based in Grand Rapids, has been licensed to re-
create elegantly formal pieces from Colonial Williamsburg, the grand-
ABOVE, SUTTON FINE
FURNITURE REPRO-
DUCES THIS ELABO-
RATELY CARVED
AMERICAN EMPIRE SOFA
UNDER ITS LICENSE
FROM THE SMITHSONIAN
INSTITUTION.
RIGHT, KINDEL'S
REPRODUCTION OF THIS
TOWNSEND GODDARD
NEWF .JRT DESK AND
BOOK _ASE, FIRST
CARVED IN THE 17705,
SELLS FOR AROUND
$25,000 IN THE WIN-
TERTHUR COLLECTION.
THE ONLY ORIGINAL NOT
OWNED BY A MUSEUM
FETCHED A RECORD-
SHATTERING $12.1
MILLION AT AUCTION
IN 1989.
A MAHOGANY CHINA TABLE AND
NEOCLASSIC SIDE CHAIR THAT
RECENTLY JOINED BAKER'S
WILLIAMSBURG LINE.