There is a great story about finding this piece. A friend of mine was taking a walk on a Saturday morning in Clinton, Mo., and noticed that the local Elks Lodge was having a fundraising auction. He walked through and found a great walnut victorian parlor chair (that he got for me for a whopping $7!). He sent a picture to my cell phone and next to the chair I saw just a portion of this music stand - so I asked if he could go back and take a picture of it for me. When I saw the photo I asked him to please go back and bid on it. He did and won it for me for $77! I was so excited! Both of the music racks have the inlay of crossed horns. I know it's been painted a long time ago with the old gold paint - what I wanted to ask was what would it have been originally? Could this have been an ebonized piece? Should I try and strip the gold paint? I would really appreciate some advice on the correct way to restore this piece back to it's original look. Thank you all so much for any advice you may have.
Shawn
Victorian Music/Folio Stand
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Antique Furniture Care thread on victorianforum.com · started March 26, 2009 by missourivictorian · 3 posts, 3 image attachments · discussion in 2009.
There is a great story about finding this piece. A friend of mine was taking a walk on a Saturday morning in Clinton, Mo., and noticed that the local Elks Lodge was having a fundraising auction. He walked through and found a great walnut victorian parlor chair (that he got…
Shawn,
A nice find on the music stand. I would not hesitate to strip this piece of the gold paint, you don't have a lot invested in it and anything you can do will only improve it at this point. Not sure what is going on in the center portion with the inlay. It appears in the photo that someone has run a coat of stain across the background, but hard to tell for sure. In any case there were most likely ebonized areas along with gold highlighting in the line carving. I doubt the entire piece was ebonized, however that is not out of the realm of possibility in a piece of this vintage. You will need to be a bit creative in how you restore it, but limit that creativity to how it may have actually originally appeared for the sake of authenticity. For an original example of a music stand on which to draw upon, take a look at this one:
http://www.trocadero.com/MichadiAntiques/items/547768/item547768store.html#item
Thanks,
Michael
A nice find on the music stand. I would not hesitate to strip this piece of the gold paint, you don't have a lot invested in it and anything you can do will only improve it at this point. Not sure what is going on in the center portion with the inlay. It appears in the photo that someone has run a coat of stain across the background, but hard to tell for sure. In any case there were most likely ebonized areas along with gold highlighting in the line carving. I doubt the entire piece was ebonized, however that is not out of the realm of possibility in a piece of this vintage. You will need to be a bit creative in how you restore it, but limit that creativity to how it may have actually originally appeared for the sake of authenticity. For an original example of a music stand on which to draw upon, take a look at this one:
http://www.trocadero.com/MichadiAntiques/items/547768/item547768store.html#item
Thanks,
Michael
Yeah, i am with Michael on this one, i bet theres walnut underneath that gold paint, gold paint be gone!