New York - Decorative Art

Dramatic early 20th century Antique Persian Senneh Rug Details rug no. j3278 size 3' 7" x 4' 9" (132 x 203 cm) Antique Senneh rugs are one of the most distinctive of all Persian r...

1930s Persian Kashan Mat in good overall condition Details rug no. 30692 size 1' 9" x 1' 10" (53 x 56 cm)

Set of 6 vintage plates - black decal calligraphy in bird motif - Uccelli Calligrafica on Arzberg and Schonfeld blanks. Some rubbing off of pattern on plates as photographed Perfect ...

A beautiful Italian seashell framed print, circa late-20th century, Italy. Seashell print is from Florence, Italy, as reads on back white label. On fro...

Pair of neoclassical style wood sconces. They are well carved. Mahogany. Late 19th century. They would look great painted.

Art At Auction 1972 - 1973 The Year At Sotheby's Parke-Bernet. Viking Press, NY, 1972. 1st ed hardcover with dust jacket. Numerous color photos of important lots from all of Sotheby'...

Vintage Persian Baktiari Oriental rug, Small size A vintage Baktiari oriental rug, size 8'2" x 5'3", circa 1930. This handsome hand-woven geometric rug features a central medallio...

Art At Auction 1974 - 1975, The Year at Sotheby Parke Bernet. Viking Press, NY, 1974. 1st Ed hardcover with dust jacket. Numerous color photos of importan...

Late 19th century Persian Lavar Kerman Pictorial rug. Measures: 4'7'' x 8'.

Charming Folk Art glass shard cat picture set within a grey washed handmade wood frame. Made with glass shard mosaics by hand depicting in an image of a ca...

A beautiful set of four (4) Neoclassical wall art scenes, circa mid-20th century, Europe. Set includes four different scenes with dark blue and gold octagonal wood frame, matting, pr...

early 20th century Persian Worn Room Size Antique Tabriz Rug 10'3'' x 13'2''

Antique Persian Sarouk Oriental Rug, circa 1910, Room size An antique Persian Sarouk oriental rug, size 13'9" x 10'6", circa 1910....

Sotheby's Art at Auction-1988-89 by Sally Liddell, (editor), Jasper Johns Cover. Harper & Row, NY. 1st Ed hardcover with dust jacket. Several hundred be...

Gray, light blue, brow, hint of red 20th century Persian Senneh mat size rug. Measures: 1'7" x 2'8" Antique Senneh rugs are one of the most distinc...

American Country style brass bed warmer with wrought iron handle (19/20th Cent.)

Pair of Art Deco embroidered baby bib pictures from the 1930s. Amazingly graphic embroidered and pieced colored linen baby bibs in the form of cat in clown costume...

White Bunny Drawing by Oleg Cassini for Playboy October 1979, Signed. Illustration of a woman wearing a white body suit, choker, and hat. Signed by Oleg Cassini. Notice the body suit is in the shape of the head of a bunny with clever use of the 'whiskers'. Approximate Measurements: Length: 11" Width: 14" Property from the Collection of Steven Rosengard, Chicago, Illinois This original drawing was commissioned by Playboy and included in the October 1979 issue of Playboy Magazine (pages 225-227) in a feature that included works from designers such as Bill Blass, Oleg Cassini, Edith Head, Fernando Sanchez, and Monika Tilley, among others, who create their versions of the Playboy bunny costume. Candace Collins can be seen modeling some of the designs in the feature. Oleg Cassini is an icon of twentieth-century fashion. Though born to Russian aristocracy and raised in Italy, he built a fashion empire that was unmistakably American. Cassini is perhaps best known for the hundreds of designs he created for First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (see images 4-8), but his achievements as a collector, connoisseur, and quintessential twentieth-century man go far beyond Camelot. In 1913, Oleg Cassini was born in Paris to the Russian diplomat Count Alexander Loiewski and Countess Marguerite Cassini, a Russian aristocrat of Italian ancestry who also had an interesting link to America. The daughter of Count Arthur Cassini, Russian Ambassador to the United States during the McKinley and Roosevelt administrations, Marguerite dazzled turn-of-the-century Washington as her father’s official hostess and left her mark on the capital city. Stationed in Denmark when the Russian Revolution toppled the czar, Ambassador Cassini and family were exiled to Switzerland before settling in Florence, Italy, where young Oleg was raised. A true Renaissance man, he spoke Russian, French, and Danish before adding Italian and English; he studied medieval and modern European military history and costume and learned to draw; he learned horseback riding, fencing, and the art of chivalry; and, most importantly, he came to understand the struggles of the Russian titled class and other European aristocrats in the wake of the Russian Revolution and World War I. Countess Cassini started a successful fashion business in Florence, and soon the talented young Oleg was sent to Paris to sketch the latest collections for recreation in Italy. In Rome in his early 20s, Cassini created fashions for high society women and designed for a few films, which planted the seed for his move to Hollywood. The drive to reinvent himself brought Cassini to America in the 1930s; in his autobiography he describes arriving nearly penniless in mid-Depression New York City where his title as an exiled Russian Count meant even less than in war-devastated Europe. Down and out, Cassini struggled for employment, having sketching skills but no knowledge of the wholesale trade required for survival in Manhattan’s Seventh Avenue fashion district. However, he excelled at making connections, and Cassini slowly entered New York society. He was soon joined by younger brother Igor (who had studied in America and travelled with the young Emilio Pucci) and his parents, the once-dazzling Countess and his father, the displaced diplomat still loyal to Russia. The family settled in Washington, D.C., and Igor worked his way up the Hearst newspaper chain to become the famous society columnist Cholly Knickerbocker. In New York, Oleg Cassini married the troubled socialite Merry Fahrney (who would go on to marry eight times), but the marriage ended in scandal for Oleg, and he decided to follow his original intention and head for Hollywood. Despite initial difficulties, Cassini gained access to Hollywood’s elite (partially through his skills on the tennis court), and was soon hired as a designer at Paramount Pictures alongside the redoubtable Edith Head. In her 1941 film debut I Wanted Wings, Veronica Lake wore a memorable Cassini design. That same year, Cassini met and married the newest young Hollywood star on the scene, the beautiful 20th Century Fox–talent Gene Tierney. With the outbreak of World War II, Cassini enlisted in the Coast Guard but was transferred to the U.S. Army Cavalry which allowed officers of foreign birth. He attended basic training at Fort Riley, Kansas, and the horsemanship he learned as a boy served him greatly. He attended Officer Candidate School and reached the rank of First Lieutenant (he also became an American citizen at this time, losing his title of Count). Cassini spent several years posted at Fort Riley, where Tierney joined him before he landed a convenient military post in Hollywood. As Tierney’s career thrived (she played the title role in Otto Preminger’s Laura in 1944), she was able to assert her influence over 20th Century Fox’s head Daryl Zanuck, who hired Cassini as designer for Tierney on her 1946 film The Razor’s Edge, which proved to be a brilliant showcase for his talents. The pair separated the same year and, again seeking reinvention, Cassini re-established himself in New York City as a fashion designer. By 1950, the Oleg Cassini label was born. Combining his knowledge of Old World and modern Europe, Hollywood, the tennis courts of Palm Beach and Newport, and of course, New York City, Oleg Cassini invented a new brand of fashion that was distinctly American and of its moment. For his first collection, Cassini took to the stage, narrating the looks and imbuing the scene with his personality, unusual in an industry where the designers typically remained backstage and the models were called by number over a PA. The first collection was a smash — the president of Lord & Taylor devoted all of their storefront windows to his designs — and by 1955 sales had reached $5,000,000. Oleg Cassini’s career had turned a very positive corner. Cassini spent the early 1950s traversing the country, personally selling his collections to department stores in the interior, something his predecessors had never done, and moving between the Hollywood and New York scenes. Cassini’s brother Igor coined the term “the Jet Set” for this generation that constantly flew from New York to Los Angeles (then a ten-hour flight), Las Vegas, Paris, Rome, and the Riviera. In 1954, Cassini set out to woo Grace Kelly and sent her roses every day. The two were briefly engaged before her marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco. In December 1960, Cassini’s career-defining opportunity came when he was chosen by Jacqueline Kennedy to design her fashions for the White House. Cassini had long known Joe Kennedy and his war-hero son John, and had first met Jacqueline Bouvier before her marriage in the early 1950s. Invited by President-Elect Kennedy to meet Jacqueline at Georgetown Hospital (she had just given birth to son John Jr.) to present to her drawings of potential dresses and First Lady looks, Cassini worked furiously to prepare a new line for the First Lady. Mrs. Kennedy had always had her clothes made by the top French couturiers of the day, but for the White House she wanted an American designer. Cassini wrote in his autobiography that he told the First Lady: “‘You have an opportunity here,’ I said, ‘for an American Versailles.’ She understood completely what I was trying to communicate; she began to talk excitedly about the need to create an entirely new atmosphere at the White House. She wanted it to become the social and intellectual capital of the nation” (Oleg Cassini, In My Own Fashion, 1987, p. 327). Mrs. Kennedy loved Cassini’s design for a gown to wear to the Inaugural Gala (she had already ordered a dress from Bergdorf’s for the Inaugural Ball), and Cassini was selected as the First Lady’s designer and was soon dubbed the “Secretary of Style.” From 1960 to 1963, Oleg Cassini would design over 300 items for Mrs. Kennedy, creating the “Jackie Look” that contributed not only to a fashion revolution but also the dawn of a new age. Cassini wrote that “Jackie played a very active role in the selection of her clothes. She loved brilliant colors — pistachio, hot pink, yellow, and white among others. Her sense of style was very precise; she would make editorial comments on the sketches I sent her. She always knew exactly what she wanted; her taste was excellent” (Oleg Cassini, In My Own Fashion, 1987, p. 334). After the Camelot years, Cassini’s business flourished and grew into a major industry; his name appeared on everything from couture to tennis-, sport-, and swimwear, car interiors, housewares, and perfume. He collected beautiful and rare artwork, arms and armor, and antique furniture, and lived the lifestyle projected by his image. From this period onward, Cassini also came to live in important homes. Of his Gothic Gramercy Park townhouse on Manhattan’s 19th Street he would write imaginatively, “I walked into the foyer and immediately fell in love. It was a place unlike any other in New York, a sixteenth-century Dutch house transported brick by brick from Europe by the Wells Fargo family in the early twentieth century. There was a vaulted, twenty-foot ceiling in the living room, leaded windows, elegantly carved wood paneling...

Original Signed lithograph titled "Shield" by James Carter. It also has a custom burled elm frame. This piece has been floated and features hues of teal, terra cotta, sea foam green,...

Vintage Persian Sarouk Oriental rug, circa 1930, Room size A vintage Persian Sarouk oriental rug, size 10'1" x 8'3", circa 1930. This lovely hand-knotted wool rug features an intr...

An oversized antique carved wooden frame with intricate details such as birds, flowers and tree limbs. Immerse yourself in the intricate beauty and grandeur...

Antique Chinese Art deco Rug, Room size, circa 1920. A one-of-a-kind antique Chinese Art deco oriental carpet, hand-knotted with medium th...

A Modern Souf Persian carpet dpeicting a lion on a neutral field 3'11'' x 5'5'' Souf rugs are very rare technique found as they have a raised low and high pile technique. They are...

Monotype by Harry Bertoia, initialed and numbered 1860 on rice paper set mounted in oiled walnut frame. From the Bertoia Family collection. A beautiful rendering of his sculptures id...

Fascinating early 20th century Turkish Melas carpet in bright yellow and bright red. The vertical design was cleverly woven making this a highly desirabl...

One-of-a-kind hand-knotted Turkish Anatolian rug with 2 deers and 2 other animals on a green ground Measures: 1'9” x 2'3”.

Antique Turkish Oushak Decorative Oriental Carpet, Room size, with Red Field A gorgeous antique Turkish Oushak carpet, circa 1920, size 13'5 x 10'7. This lovely carpet features mult...

early 20th century Persian Senneh Accent Size Antique Rug 4'3'' x 6'2'' Antique Senneh rugs are one of the most distinctive of all Persian rugs, even though the designs are often ...

Antique Ferahan Sarouk Oriental rug, circa 1910, Small size An antique Ferahan Sarouk oriental rug, size 4'7" x 3'3", circa 1910. This lovely hand-knotted wool rug features an int...

Suzani, a Central Asian term for a specific type of needlework, is also the broader name for the hugely popular decorative pieces of textile that feature this needlework in vivid col...

Pair of circa 1950s English Montgolfier etchings with wood frames. Measurements: Height: 18.75" Width: 14.5" Depth: 1.5".

Peter Astrom abstract expressionist paper collage entitled "The Bird Nest #1. Crafted with Japanese rice paper on Arche paper. Created in 1990 in ...

An antique Persian Hamadan camel hair oriental rug, circa 1910, size 5'2 x 3'9. This delightful small carpet features a central cartouche with a gul medallion, embedded within a fiel...

Modernist nude photogravure. Circa 1910. Nicely framed and matted. Silver leaf frame.

An early 20th Century Khotan Samarkand Rug with a pictorial design on a pink field 4'' x 7'10''

An early 20th Century Sarouk Ferehan Rug with an open-field pictorial animal design Measures: 6'10'' x 9'

A romantic collection of dried, pressed Botanicals, well preserved with calligraphy and Latin description, describing each piece, place found and date. One may purchase as many as on...

Late 19th Century distressed antique samarkand khotan rug with 4 flamingos hovering over a bright pink ground 5'10'' x 10'.

Antique Persian Baktiari Oriental rug, small size. An antique Baktiari oriental rug, size 7'0" x 4'8", circa 1920. This handsome hand-woven geometric rug features a central medall...

An antique Persian Sarouk oriental rug, circa 1920. Size 5'0 x 3'3. This delightful hand knotted Persian rug is characterized by an elaborate floral design in the red central field, ...

Vintage Persian Hamadan oriental rug, small size A vintage Persian Hamadan oriental rug in small size, size 6'8" x 4'3", circa 1930. This lovely hand-knotted carpet features multi...

Antique Persian Heriz Karaja Oriental Rug, size 4'7" x 3'8" An antique Persian Heriz Karaja oriental rug, size 4'7" x 3'8", ...

An early 20th Century Persian Kashan rug Measures: 1'3'' x 2'6''.  

Medusa Shield An original painting by Lynn Curlee The painting is acrylic on canvas stretched upon a circular frame. Painted in 1984. It depicts the severed head of the Gorgon Med...

Abstract modernist oil painting by Zoute dated 1953. Oil on Masonite. Zoute (born - Leon Salter - 1903-1976) was self-taught and well exhibited during his lifetime. He painted from 1...

Antique Ferahan Oriental rug, circa 1910, Room size An antique Ferahan oriental rug, size 13'3"" x 10'3"", circa 1910. This lovely hand-knotted wool rug features repeating palmett...

an early 20th-century Square size Persian senneh rug featuring a striated all-over traditional herati design. Measures: 12'3" x 12'10" Antique Senneh rugs are one of the most dist...

An early 20th Century Ivory Ground Persian Kashan room-size rug Measures: 8'8'' x 11'2''.  

Kananga masks form geometric patterns. These masks represent the first human beings and are normally made by carvers of the Awa society. The masks are worn during the Dama dancing ce...

early 20th century Persian Senneh Accent Size Antique Rug Details rug no. j3195 size 4' 6" x 6' 6" (137 x 198 cm) Antique Senneh rugs are one of the most distinctive of all Persian...

An early 20th-century finely woven Persian Kashan rug. 4'6'' x 6'9''

Vintage Persian Baktiari Oriental rug, Small size A vintage Baktiari oriental rug, size 8'2" x 5'5", circa 1940. This handsome hand-woven geometric rug features a central medallio...

A Caucasian rug from the 2nd quarter of the 20th century Measures: 3'11'' x 6'1'' Antique Caucasian rugs from the Shirvan district village are still considered one of the best deco...

Antique Persian Heriz Karaja Oriental rug, in room size. An antique Persian Heriz Karaja oriental rug, size 6'3" x 5'0", c...

A beautiful original Belgian exotic 'White Calville Apple' botanical color chromo print (aka, Chromolithography), by artist de G. Severeyns, circa 19th century, Belgium. Item is orig...

an early 20th century Persian scatter size rug Measures: 3'7" x 5'2" Antique Senneh rugs are one of the most distinctive of all Persian rugs, ...

A remarkable late 19th-century pictorial Tabriz rug woven by Hadji Jalili workshop. The most interesting element f the rug are the puppies woven in the middle of the rug. The multipl...

Super quality early 20th century Persian Sarouk Ferehan carpet. Deep red field and border with a navy blue medallion and accents in blue and green. Measures: ''3'5'' x 4'10''.