Modern Gothic: the Inventive Furniture of Kimbel and Cabus, 1863 - 1882
Barbara Veith, Brooklyn Museum of Art&Medill H. Harvey, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Kimbel and Cabus (New York, 1863–82). Cabinet-Secretary, circa 1875. Painted cherry, gilding, copper, brass, leather, earthenware, 60 × 35 × 14 in. (152.4 × 88.9 × 35.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum; Bequest of DeLancey Thorn Grant in memory of her mother, Louise Floyd-Jones Thorn, by exchange, 1991.126. (Photo: Gavin Ashworth)
Join Barbara Veith and Medill Harvey as they share new scholarship and fresh insight into this innovative firm and its contributions to American design history. Over the course of their nearly twenty-year partnership, immigrant cabinetmakers Anton Kimbel (1822-1895) and Joseph Cabus (1824-1898) became an American success story focusing on enterprising design and ambitious marketing.
One of New York City’s leading furniture and decorating firms, they captured national attention with their inventive Modern Gothic designs melding British and Continental design sources. Their forward-looking forms, from their famous chair designs and dramatic, monumental desks to their quirky, smaller forms decorated with fanciful paper panels appealed to their adventurous clientele.
Barbara Veith is the Guest Curator of Decorative Arts at the Brooklyn Museum; Medill Harvey is a Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.