FURNISHINGS : Museum Pieces, Copycat Prices

Artisans of the 18th Century made great furniture, but the pieces that survive as distinguished antiques are well beyond most decorating budgets.

Consider, then, reproductions. Copies of museum pieces enjoy a certain cachet. And historic house museums, with lots of priceless antiques but little cash, welcome licensing fees from manufacturers that want to reproduce them.

The Preservation Society of Newport County, R.I., is one museum making a name for itself in home furnishings. Newport is where the wealthy summered--some still do--in mansions they considered mere cottages. Furniture based on some of them, such as the Elms, Marble House and Rosecliff, was introduced to retailers at the spring market in High Point, N.C. Look for it in upscale stores in September. Prices aren’t set, but they won’t be cheap.

This isn’t the society’s first foray into commercial enterprise, but the selection is more extensive. The collection of living room and dining room furniture includes some 65 items, primarily based on 18th-Century French and English antiques. In addition, there are lamps, mirrors, ceramics, textiles and wallcoverings. E.J. Victor of Morganton, N.C., is the chief manufacturer.

Armin B. Allen, curator of the Newport collections, says that although Newport has a tradition of furniture making, “this collection does not include American furniture. Instead, it reflects the tastes of glamorous Newport into the present.”

John Jokinen, president of E.J. Victor, adds: “We didn’t think that the marketplace needed another expensive 18th-Century American museum collection.”

Selecting pieces to copy can be tricky. People today may like carving, gilding and ormolu mounts. But few homes today can accommodate the larger pieces.

“Most of the dining tables in the mansions were so huge they had no application for the market today,” Jokinen says.

Instead, an Italian console table at Rosecliff was adapted as a dining table. The walnut parquet table with applied gesso and gilt work is still a lot of table unless you have a very large formal room. It’s more than 4 feet wide and 11 feet long, fully extended, and expected to retail for about $8,000.

In the same grand category is a sofa that is some 20 inches longer than today’s traditional three-cushion sofa. It is copied from an original with a serpentine back and eight cabriole legs by Thomas Chippendale. Louis XV cabinets and armchairs, lacquer pieces with touches of Chinese-inspired decoration, and an English secretary fit into the 18th-Century mode.

But what to do about a cocktail table? Nonexistent then, it is essential now. The answer was found in the iron grille work of doors at Rosecliff and the Elms, which were adapted to table designs.

About five of the pieces in the collection qualify as exact copies. Although the patina of age cannot be duplicated, the materials, proportions and other details are like the originals. Where the original could not be duplicated--Cuban mahogany popular in the 18th Century was not available--a look-alike was substituted.

“We used Costa Rican mahogany that is similar and took castings in order to reproduce the hardware and carving,” Jokinen says.

Besides fitting into today’s rooms of less heroic scale, reproductions must appeal to consumers other than antiques buffs. The current eclectic design schemes help make such collections successful.

“Even a customer for contemporary can appreciate a serpentine chest with a marble top,” Jokinen says.