Stanford White's house for Payne Whitney in New York City - architect

Magazine Antiques, Oct, 2002 by Jenil Sandberg

The reception room just off the entrance hail, often described as 'Venetian" in style, is entirely mirrored, with each panel set in a gilded armature (P1 IX). Italian, and specifically Venetian, eighteenth-century decorative arts were increasingly popular at this time, advocated by Wharton and other tastemakers. However, while many architectural elements were imported from Europe to create moms for the Payne Whitney house, this reception room was made entirely by New York City firms, with the bulk of the work done by Waters, Nichols and Crowninshield, G. E. Walters and Company and Edward E Caldwell and Company (12) The latticework motif on the ceding of the hall continued in the coved metal cornice of the reception room. Caldwell and Company provided the painted porcelain flowers in the latticework and the matching chandelier above the fireplace. (13) According to a room-by-room list of furnishings, the painted furniture for the reception room was "to be bought in Europe." (14)

The delicate, glittering effect of the reception mom no doubt made it one of the most memorable in the house. Highly prized by the Whitney family, it was removed before the house was sold in 1949 and kept in crates at their Long Island estate until 1997, when it was reinstalled in its original location. (15)

While no less lavish, other rooms in the house were perhaps more indicative of White's decorating style. The main salon on the second floor, executed by Jules Allard et Fils, a Paris-based firm with an office in New York City incorporated architectural elements, paintings, sculpture, and furnishings, which, for the most part, White purchased in Europe. For the ceiling of this room alone, Allard employed designers, cabinetmakers, carpenters, "omamanists," carvers, gilders, and varnishers. (16) Other craftsmen were needed to sew and install the window hangings and portieres. This highly specialized division of craftsmanship was characteristic of decorating firms of the time. The walls of the salon were lined with old red velvet, the sumptuous effect of which is only hinted at in black-and white photographs of the period.

The Payne Whitney commission falls into the mature period of White's interiors, characterized by a heavy reliance on antiques and reproductions of antiques for their general effect. James Monroe Hewlett (1869-1941), an architect and author, said of White in 1915, "He seems to have grasped more fully than any of his contemporaries the possibilities that have come to our present civilization as the heir of all the decorative art of the past." (17) The adoption of many different historical styles, often within the same mom, as in the salon, was not unusual. Wharton and Codman, among others, condemned novelty in decoration and advocated instead a careful culling from the best periods of history. Exactitude and precision were valued in the examination of period furnishings and demanded in reproductions. (18)

The antiques market had been flourishing since the late nineteenth century as Americans acquired wealth and along with it the possessions needed to legitimize their positions in society. White spent July 1905 with the Whitneys, visiting the capitals of Europe and purchasing objects and artworks from many of the best-known antiques dealers in Europe, including Duveen Brothers, Raoul Heilbronner (d. 1941), and Dikran G. Kelekian (1868-1951). On behalf of the Whitneys, White spent nearly one hundred thousand dollars on art and antiques. The objects he purchased included a ceiling from a Gonzaga palace, a French Gothic sculpture, a Henri II boiserie, an iron gate from the Chateau de Versailles, and Italian Renaissance furniture. The diversity of his choices reflects the desire of his patrons to surround themselves with the trappings of culture and gentility that at the time were equated with European antiques. (19)