Set of Six Valances

CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Set of Six Valances
Datec. 1820–1840
Probable placeNew York, United States
MediumYellow-poplar, paint, and gold leaf
Dimensions(each): 8 5/8 × 44 1/4 × 3/8 in. (21.9 × 112.4 × 1 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Miss Ima Hogg
Object numberB.68.4.1-.6
Current Location
Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
Chillman Parlor
On view

Explore Further

Department
Bayou Bend
Description

While originally thought to be window cornices, these are more likely valances for venetian blinds, judging from related extant examples that remain with their blind sets. The naive, fanciful landscapes of the central panels depict a stone windmill, a Gothic church, a Gothic bridge, an octagonal garden folly, and houses on two, suggesting that the painter’s inspiration came from prints.


Related examples: A virtually identical example is in the Bybee Collection, Dallas Museum of Art. Similar valance boards, painted cream rather than green, were found in the attic of the Pettus Home in Woodville, Mississippi, and were installed at Rosemont Plantation, Woodville. Another set in Murfeesboro, Tennessee, has been documented in MESDA’s survey of southern decorative arts (letters in object files, Bayou Bend). Other examples are illustrated in Waring 1968, fig. 153; Christie’s, New York, June 4, 1988, sale 6622, lot III; Sotheby’s, New York, October 26, 1991, sale 6627, lot III; Northeast Auctions, Manchester, New Hampshire, May 23–24,1992, lots 400,401; and Antiques and The Arts Weekly, October 6,1995, p. 134E.

 

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.


Provenance[Peter Hill, Washington, D.C.]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1968; given to MFAH, 1968.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
[no inscriptions]
[no marks]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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Valance, Part of Curtains with Valances
Ernest LoNano Interiors
late 19th–mid- 20th century
Wool
B.79.25.5
Curtain, Part of Curtains with Valances
Ernest LoNano Interiors
late 19th–mid- 20th century
Wool
B.79.25.3
Curtain, Part of Curtains with Valances
Ernest LoNano Interiors
late 19th–mid- 20th century
Wool needlework on worsted ground
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Curtain
c. 1820–1830
Glazed and printed cotton (chintz)
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Curtain
c. 1820–1830
Glazed and printed cotton (chintz)
B.79.13.3
Side Chair (one of a set of six)
c. 1840–1860
Cherry, beech, yellow-poplar, soft maple, and paint
B.71.130.1
Side Chair (one of a set of six)
c. 1840–1860
Cherry, beech, yellow-poplar, soft maple, and paint
B.71.130.2
Side Chair (one of a set of six)
c. 1840–1860
Cherry, beech, yellow-poplar, soft maple, and paint
B.71.130.5
Side Chair (one of a set of six)
c. 1840–1860
Cherry, beech, yellow-poplar, soft maple, and paint
B.71.130.6
Side Chair (one of a set of six)
c. 1840–1860
Cherry, beech, yellow-poplar, soft maple, and paint
B.71.130.4
Side Chair (one of a set of six)
c. 1840–1860
Cherry, beech, yellow-poplar, soft maple, and paint
B.71.130.3