'Museums of household art': The interiors and furniture of Herter Brothers, 1865-1906. (Volumes I and II)

Gustave Herter had founded a furniture manufacturing business in the late 1850s, soon expanded its services to include interior decoration, and, once his half-brother Christian Herter joined in 1865, the firm became New York's preeminent decorating establishment of the mid nineteenth century.;The main body of the dissertation is divided into four case studies, commencing with the 1882 John Sloane residence, 883 Fifth Avenue, New York, a project which is compared to some of the firm's more well-known interiors in the "Artistic" style popular during the mid nineteenth century, such as the William H. Vanderbilt house, 1879-1882. The Sloane residence is of particular importance as the library woodwork and the room's furnishings are still extant, one of the few surviving interiors by Herter Brothers. Chapter III details two turn-of-the-century San Francisco commissions for the entrepreneurs Claus and John D. Spreckels; these two houses, which were partially decorated by Herter Brothers, display transitional styles of decoration evident as interiors became simplified and more restrained. The John D. Spreckels residence includes one of the most well-documented and finest Moorish interiors in this country. The Clarence W. Seamans residence, 789 St. Marks Avenue, Brooklyn, 1902-1903, illustrates the renewed interest in classicism in American interior design of the early twentieth century. The Seamans house also documents the changes in Herter Brothers' production, as the company began to rely increasingly on outside suppliers for furnishings. Herter Brothers' final large commission, the St. Regis Hotel, Fifth Avenue at 55th Street, New York, 1903-1904, is examined in Chapter V. Herter Brothers only provided the woodwork for the public rooms of the hotel, acting as a sub-contractor to the New York dry goods and decorating firm of Arnold, Constable & Co. The Conclusion summarizes the stylistic changes evident in these various interiors, the development of the company, and explores the reasons for the firm's final closing.;The Introduction of this thesis includes a history of Herter Brothers, from Gustave Herter's arrival in the United States in 1848 to the firm's closure in 1906; stylistic developments in American interior decoration during this period; the structure of the company and its business practices; and the surviving documentation of the business.