House & Garden Magazine Recommends Antlers

Interior Design Tip in December’s House & Garden magazine – Antlers ‘au naturel’

Bear In Mind The Decorative This January

House & Garden has gone mad about antler-inspired furniture in their December issue, pairing it with natural hides and sheepskins, and softly-textured woollen rugs and floorcoverings.  The combination looks very cosy!. Items made with antlers have been around for a very long time, but became fashionable in C19th Europe (Germany, Austria, France) in the country houses and hunting lodges of the wealthy and the aristocracy.

The best examples were made from around 1825 to the early C20th, and it was produced in some quantity in the late C19th by specialist manufacturers on the Continent.  Antler furniture, along with Black Forest carved bear furniture, has been recently finding new favour with interior decorators in the UK and USA.

Leather Topped Table: Early C20th

The three-times-a-year Decorative Fair usually has antique antler furniture for sale – tables, chairs, chandeliers and wall lights – which is usually bought for decorating a ski- or hunting-lodge, or for a gentleman’s study.

The Black Forest carved bears (as C19th example seen here, left ) appear most often as umbrella or hat-stands, sometimes as side-tables and very occasionally as a chair back. Antlers get made into a miriad of quirky furnishings – as this example seen on the right: A leather topped, early-20th Century table.