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For immediate release
More Textile History!
LUXURY TEXTILE GIANT, SCALAMANDRE, OFFERS ARCHIVAL FINDS IN ITS FIRST EVER ON-LINE AUCTION
Scalamandre, the much-loved American manufacturer whose name is recognized the world over as a premiere source for luxury fabrics and wall coverings, is unfolding a new chapter in its 75 year history. For the first time ever, the company will offer selections from its extensive archives of custom designed silk, inspirational art work, historical fabrics from the world's most famous restoration projects, and a wide variety of important artifacts from the Scalamandre offices and the Scalamandre Textile Museum, which during the 1950s and 60s was located on Fifth Avenue in New York City and became an important destination for designers, decorators, and fabric scholars.
The first of the scheduled on-line Scalamandre auctions will open for bidding on April 19, 2006, and will close Thursday, April 27. Museums, collectors, restoration professionals, antiques dealers, and fabric aficionados can peruse an on-line preview right now by visiting www.LLDspecialtysales.com. Two additional auctions are scheduled for this Summer and early Fall, with hundreds of artifacts and archival fabrics carefully chosen as representative of Scalamandré's weaving history, custom commissions, and restoration work for homes and buildings with profound historical provenance. Altogether, these on-line auctions of never-before-made-public material offer a grand opportunity to own a part of an American company that continues to a 75-year reputation for ingenuity, authenticity, and artistic excellence.
Highlights for the April Auction include several White House fabric lots including two shuttle looms, silk lampas samples that are the original working samples for chairs in the Blue Room, and which were designed by Mrs. Adriana Scalamandre Bitter for Jackie Kennedy's White House restoration initiative but later installed in the 1970's. These trials feature golden eagles, wreaths, and rosettes on a French blue ground and include certain design quirks that no longer exist in current production runs. Other White House fabric includes eight yards of straw on gold Georgian silk damask woven in the 1970's and almost five yards of a four field silk lampas first reproduced in the 1940's and woven again in the 1970's for the window treatment in the Nixon's private dining room. Bidders can even compete for two historic "White House" looms that were set up specifically to produce numerous customized fabric projects requested by just about every administration during the 20th Century.
Other important fabric includes more than six yards of hand brocaded Italian silk (also referred to as "Spolinato"), woven with metallic threads in early 18th Century style, and selected by Princess Marie-Jose, the last Queen of Italy, for the Royal Summer Palace. When last offered for sale the wholesale price was $2500 per yard. Serious Americana collectors can compete for more than 10 yards of a wine colored silk Damask woven for chairs and draperies at Mount Vernon and also displayed at the Scalamandre Museum of Textiles. And for collectors of modern textiles and design there is an important framed panel of the last approved loom trial of the wall covering woven for the World Financial Center, destroyed on 9/11. This brocatelle was designed by Adriana Scalamandré Bitter and Cezar Pelli with inspiration from Owen Jones and Christopher Dresser.
The Scalamandre on-line auctions are presented by LLD Specialty Sales of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, the firm that handled Scalamandré's record setting on-site artifact sales when the company moved its weaving operations from their historic red-brick Long Island City, NY factory to a new South Carolina facility. All the auction items are authenticated and vetted by Robert Bitter, President of Scalamandre, and every lot is guaranteed as described and accompanied with a letter of authentication and provenance.
"The Scalamandré auctions are very timely," notes LLD founders Jill and Web Wilson. "With more manufacturing outsourced in Asia, Mexico and India, there is a real thirst for American-made products and Scalamandre represents the highest level of American industrial production. Many people are restoring historic homes or searching for antiques and decorative products that represent American art and craftsmanship."
"LLD is a founding member of AntiquesYes.com," Web Wilson continued, "so we have helped develop an on-line auction site with proprietary software and special features for serious auction buyers. We have listed reserves, bidder anonymity, and realistic bid increments. A buyer's premium of 15% applies and the new software provides for extended bid time that eliminates sniping."
Along with archival fabrics, the April Scalamandre auction will also offer artwork and artifacts from the Scalamandre Home Office and the Scalamandre Museum of Textiles. One important furniture lot is a 19th century European side chair, with gilded finials and upholstered in tapestry, that was given to Franco Scalamandre by French and Company, designers for William Randolph Hearst in payment for work done at his San Simeon estate. Another lot offers an 18th C. silk winding machine constructed from cast iron and carved and gilded wood, bought by Franco Scalamandre for the Textile Museum. Artwork includes paintings and drawings used for design inspiration such as two paintings by Victor Portelet, an important 19th Century Industrial artist. Of special note are several lots of point papers, the thread-by-thread diagrams required for every fabric design, some of which were hand-drawn by Franco Scalamandre and his daughter Adriana.
For more auction information contact: LLD Specialty Sales at 800-508-0022 and sign-up for auction email alerts at www.lldspecialtysales.com.
For publicity information contact Leigh Infield Associates, 212-691-7297.
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