An American Aesthetic Maple Faux Bamboo Half Tester Bed, c. 1880, New York, tester with turned finials and spindled frieze on turned posts, headboard with reticulated crest and panels, conforming foot board, bracketed rails, casters, interior width 56 in, height 103 in., length 80 in., width 56 in.
Provenance: Pollatsek-Reynolds family, New Orleans.
Note: Introduced at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the Japanese aesthetic greatly influenced late 19th-century American design. Most of this furniture in the Japonesque taste was produced by firms in New York working from French antecedents such as Victor Quentin's Le Magasin de Meubles. Writing in the 1870's Clarence Cook called the new faux bamboo style "capital stuff" for a country house. Among faux bamboo makers, Robert J. Horner established his furniture business in 1883 on East 23rd Street, New York, producing work to satisfy a variety of tastes including pieces in the Japonesque mode such as in this example and in the subsequent offerings.
The two complete bedroom suites offered here furnished the bedrooms of sisters Sydonia Pollatsek (1878-1965) and Nina Pollatsek (1880-1968), daughters of music critic Adolph Pollatsek. Beginning in 1927 the family residence had been 1370 Moss Street in New Orleans, the c. 1800 Pitot House, then leased from the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. In 1946 The Pollatsek-Reynolds family built a replica of Pitot House down Bayou St. John at 800 Moss Street; the sisters resided at 800 Moss until their deaths, and the house was occupied by niece Constance Reynolds Green until her death in 2012.
A variety of rare forms were assembled in the Pollatsek bedroom group, most notably this half tester bed, which was possibly made especially for the New Orleans climate.
Reference: other examples of faux bamboo furniture include those in Pierce, Art and Enterprise: American Decorative Art, 1825-1917, The Virginia Carroll Crawford Collection. pp. 230-23 and Metropolitan Museum of Art, 19th Century America, Furniture and Other Decorative Arts cat. 228.