The Christopher Forbes Collection

Lita Solis-Cohen | October 27th, 2012

The 51½" high side chair made by Dard Hunter for his own use before he went to work at the Roycroft Shops in 1904 is constructed of oak and has its original leather upholstery with copper tacks. It bears a coat of arms and a carved inscription on the back, “Sit down & rest thy weary bones,” and had descended through the Hunter family. It sold on the phone for $46,875 (est. $20,000/30,000) to Rudy Ciccarello for his Two Red Roses Foundation and his proposed American Craftsman Museum in Tampa, Florida.

Roycroft fernery by Karl Kipp, East Aurora, New York, 1912-15, hammered copper and nickel silver, with orb and cross mark and “KK” for Karl Kipp, 6" high x 7¼" diameter, $33,750 (est. $15,000/20,000). An icon of Roycroft metalwork, it shows the influence of Vienna Secessionist design on American Arts and Crafts. Only a few of these small ferneries are known, and they have brought a lot more. The surface of this one and the fact that several have come on the market in the last few years kept the price down.

Rago Arts and Auction Center, Lambertville, New Jersey

by Lita Solis-Cohen

Photos courtesy Rago Arts and Auction Center

When Christopher (Kip) Forbes and his wife, Astrid, needed to furnish their Colorado vacation house, built between 1914 and 1916, they decided to shop for furnishings of that period made in Elbert Hubbard's Roycroft Shops in East Aurora, New York. Hubbard, a consummate salesman, promoted “things that are simple, honest, genuine, and exactly what they are purported to be and made to last a century.”

Elbert Hubbard, the founder of Roycrofters, was a writer. His first novel, Forbes of Harvard, was published in 1894, the year before he founded his own print shop in East Aurora, New York. Did that book inspire the Forbeses to collect Roycroft instead of Stickley, or was the compelling story of Hubbard’s Arts and Crafts community the reason?

Elbert Hubbard built and ran a profit-making crafts community in East Aurora, New York, from 1895 until he and his second wife, Alice, went down with the Lusitania, which was torpedoed in 1915. Hubbard had made some money as a junior partner in the Larkin Soap Company, his brother-in-law’s business in Buffalo, New York, and is credited with coming up with the idea of offering premiums as a marketing tool. After he sold his interest in Larkin for $75,000, he started his publishing business, which he intended to be an American version of William Morris’s Kelmscott Press.

By the turn of the last century, Hubbard became nationally known as the publisher of a monthly magazine, The Philistine, and a series of pamphlets called “Little Journeys.” He lectured across the country, and soon people came to East Aurora to see his print shop and bindery. He had his workmen make furniture for his bindery in the Mission style, sold it to visitors who admired it, and soon began to advertise it in his publications. From small beginnings, the furniture shop grew, and it flourished from 1912 to 1919, when taste had shifted away from Arts and Crafts furniture. After the Hubbards drowned, the Roycroft business was carried on by their son Bert until it closed in 1938.

A number of accomplished artists worked at Roycroft, among them papermaker Dard Hunter, who worked there from 1904 to 1910. Hunter designed type and books and then stained-glass lamps and metalwork; he also made pottery, sculpture, and jewelry. He was aware of the new styles in Europe and spent his honeymoon in Vienna in 1908.

The chair that Hunter made for his own use before he came to Roycroft was the first lot in Rago Arts and Auction Center’s sale of the Christopher Forbes collection in Lambertville, New Jersey, on October 27, 2012. It sold on the phone for $46,875 (including buyer’s premium) to Rudy Ciccarello for his Two Red Roses Foundation and the American Craftsman Museum he is planning for Tampa, Florida.

With the exception of the Dard Hunter chair, the Forbeses did not furnish their vacation house with museum-quality pieces. Nonetheless, they did get some solid prices for what they used.

Their double-door bookcase carved with the Roycroft orb and cross mark is top of the line and sold for $25,000 (est. $10,000/15,000). A tall chest of drawers went for $15,000; a double Morris chair, not in very good condition, sold for $22,500 (est. $5000/7000); and a settle with leather cushions (est. $4500/6500) sold for $17,500. A chestnut chiffonnier sold for $15,000, and a single-door bookcase with “Roycroft” spelled out across its cornice went at $16,250. A rare, small hammered copper and nickel silver fernery with an orb and cross mark and “KK” for Karl Kipp, a Roycroft metalworker and designer, sold for $33,750 (est. $15,000/20,000); it shows the influence of the Wiener Werkstätte.

There were bargains to be had. A rare 10' long table that came from the Roycroft chapel sold for $7500. A possibly one-of-a-kind octagonal table with the Roycroft orb and cross mark carved in two places brought $5313, and an iconic Ali Baba bench with the carved orb and cross mark sold for $6250.

The Forbes collection (est. $345,200/ 501,700) sold for a total of $560,181.25.

“There is a group of people who adore Roycroft and believe deeply in Hubbard’s genius,” said Jerry Cohen, who cataloged the sale. “Roycroft furniture is beyond the standards of Gustav Stickley. Hubbard was over-the-top meticulous. Roycroft is rarer; there are probably twenty-five pieces of Gustav Stickley to every one piece of Roycroft.” Some Roycroft furniture has a folk quality about it.

Hubbard was a salesman, a marketing visionary, who knew the importance of a brand and marked his wares prominently long before Ralph Lauren and Louis Vuitton. According to one of Hubbard’s differing explanations, the Roycroft mark is said to have been adapted from a cross and circle used by one of the first bookbinders in the Middle Ages, a monk named Cassiodorus. Hubbard divided the circle into three parts to signify faith, hope, and love and added an “R” for Roycroft.

For more information, contact Rago at (609) 397-9374; Web site (www.ragoarts.com).

Double-door Roycroft bookcase, East Aurora, New York, circa 1905, with carved orb and cross mark, 70½" x 52" x 15", $25,000 (est. $10,000/15,000).

Bookcase with beveled glass door, “Roycroft” carved across the top and marked twice on the bottom drawer with orb and cross marks, 60½" x 31½" x 15½", $16,250 (est. $5000/8000). In March 2008 at Rago, it sold for $11,400.

Rare black walnut two-drawer library table with free edges and with the Roycroft orb and cross mark, East Aurora, New York, circa 1905, provenance includes Geoffrey Diner Gallery, Washington, D.C., $5213 (est. $2000/3000).

Roycroft tall chest of drawers, circa 1905, with orb and cross mark, 58½" x 41½" x 24", provenance includes Geoffrey Diner Gallery, Washington, D.C., $15,000 (est. $6000/9000).

Roycroft settle, circa 1905, with orb and cross mark, 34" x 75" x 31", $17,500 (est. $4500/6500).

Rare chestnut chiffonier with “Roycroft” carved on the top long drawer, 55½" x 42" x 20", $15,000 (est. $4000/6000).

Unusual hall bench and cabinet sold by Liberty & Co. London, England, circa 1900, oak, leaded glass, iron, and tiles, 75" x 92½" x 22", with carved motto “Well Befall Hearth and Hall,” $6250 (est. $8000/12,000). It may have been a bargain; the Forbeses had bought it at Sotheby’s in London in 1985.

The hammered copper case for this 12" tall telephone was made at the Roycroft Shops before 1915. It bears the Roycroft mark on the front of the base and is marked “Property of the American Bell Telephone Company.” Elbert Hubbard is pictured holding a similar phone in the October 1983 article on the Forbes collection in The Magazine Antiques. With a provenance that includes Ark Antiques, New Haven, Connecticut, it sold for $10,625 (est. $2500/3500). In March 2008 at Rago’s, a similar one sold for $2640.