Herter Brothers

Christian Herter (1840-83). Born in Stuttgart. He studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris before joining his elder half-brother Gustave (1830-98) in New York in 1860. Gustave had been there since 1848 and had worked for Tiffany before founding his own furniture and decorations firm in 1857. In 1864 Christian returned to Paris to study under Pierre-Victor Gallard (1822-92) and in the early 1870s he was in England. Herter Brothers became a leading New York furniture and decorating business in the 1870s and 1880s, being one of the first to abandon the usual run of historical styles and produce pieces rather similar to those made contemporaneously in England, with a discreet use of oriental motifs. Marquetry furniture like that made for the railroad magnate Jay Gould in 1877-82 or the luxurious gilt and inlaid furniture made for the William H. Vanderbuilt House, NY, c. 1882 is typical of the more extravagant type of aesthetic movement in the US. He employed a large staff of craftsmen and designers, the latter including the architect Charles B. Atwood (1849-95). The firm survived until 1906.