Walter Abner Burns Nichols was one of the most colorful of the American adventurer/entrepreneurs in 1920s China. The Nichols name has come to be used almost synonymously with the ‘Chinese deco’ rugs manufactured in Tientsin, China in the 1920s and 1930s. Nichols did not originate the Chinese deco style, but he did a great deal to popularize it and to maintain its high standards of manufacture.
Nichols began in his youth as a first-class wool grader who went to Tientsin around 1920 to work for the Elbrook family of wool merchants. Nichols started his own business a couple of years later. In a brochure he produced in the late ’20s, with the assistance of Pande-Cameron, he announced: “In 1924 W.A.B. Nichols of Tientsin, North China, introduced the Super Chinese Rug which has become world famous. It is known in every market as the most durable and beautiful product of the modern Chinese weavers art and adorns the homes of people all over the earth.”
American Art Deco Reed & Barton Sterling candlesticks 1928
REED & BARTON (active 1824 – present) Taunton, MA
Candlesticks 1928
Sterling silver with Hoffmann-like fluted base and bobêches with undulating stem and palm leaf like terminating detail.
Marks: eagle R (in a shield) lion, Sterling, 1000, cement reinforced, eagle (date mark for 1928).
Model illustrated: Vanity Fair (Dec. 1928, Vol. 31), p. 120., Reed & Barton Vintage Catalog, p. 10, plate number 1000.
For more information on Reed & Barton see: Encyclopedia of American Silver Manufacturers, Dorothy T. Rainwater (West Chester, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1986), p. 156-160.
Alexandre Noll rare and early Art Deco mahogany and glass box c. 1930
ALEXANDRE NOLL (1890-1970) France
Covered box c. 1930
Mahogany with ebony peg details and 1 ¼ inch thick Saint-Gobain glass.
Marks: ANoll
Provenance: Private Collection New York, Galerie de Beyrie Paris, Odile Noll (A. Noll’s daughter), Alexandre Noll Estate
For more information see: Alexandre Noll, Olivier Jean-Elie, Pierre Passebon (Paris:Edition du Regard, 1999); Alexandre Noll: Les Matres de L’ Art Decoratif Contemporain, Collection dirigée par R. Moutard-Uldry edited by (Geneve: Pierre Cailler, 1954); Le Mobilier du Xxe Siécle: Dictionnaire des
Créateurs, Pierre Kjellberg (Paris: Les Éditons de l’Amateur, 1994) p. 455-456.
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