For me, silver is the color of a dime, a necklace, forks and spoons, and antique vessels. So imagine my delight when I was browsing the furniture offerings at an auction house recently and came upon two silver sofas.
The color was as bright as gold, so vibrant in a room where every other piece of furniture was a dark wood. The chairs didn’t just sit there, they shone there. Stricken, I started looking for other silver furniture and spotted two chairs in the same material, which looked to be leather.
I realized that they would look lovely in the right home – something with an antique feel because the sofas appeared to be Victorian and the chairs French.
I’d never considered silver furniture for my home, just like I’d never considered animal prints until I came across some lovely chairs upholstered in the wild look a couple months ago at this same auction house. I’d use both very sparingly among a mix of other furniture that would accentuate them.
I love this auction house because it always has some of the most amazing and wonderfully different furniture pieces. I always take the time to walk through its narrow aisles to see what’s waiting for me to touch and explore.
I take my time to eye each piece of furniture, stopping to rub a fabric chair bottom here or follow the outline of a carved table leg there. I always find something that makes me stop and take notice, and sometimes it’s not furniture. Once I was awed by some 1940s jukeboxes that still had their song lists.
I’m never around for the actual sales, but I’m certain that others also embrace the pieces and they get sold for a fine price.
On this day, though, it was the silver that transfixed me. While the seats looked to be leather, the wood frame was likely silver leaf. I didn’t bother to look for a maker, whose name was probably on the bottom of the furniture.
These modern pieces were a far cry from what I found out about silver furniture via Google. I learned that several castles and palaces in Europe have antique solid silver pieces among their furnishings. Two of those structures are in Great Britain: Buckingham Palace and the Queen’s home of Windsor Castle. Here’s a silver table from Windsor Castle.
The British were among several who loaned silver furniture pieces in 2008 for an exhibit that re-created the opulent apartments of Louis XIV, who reigned in France during the 17th century. Called the Sun King, he furnished his Palace of Versailles with the finest of solid silver tables, stools, mirrors, chandeliers, and more. Such opulence was short-lived, though, because he had to melt it all down to pay for the costs of war. The old was replaced with new gilded furniture.
The furniture pieces at auction were not my style, but I could go for a chair with silver accents like the ones on this website. Take a look at this couple’s San Francisco apartment that’s heavily decorated with silver furniture. Gorgeous. And here’s an armchair that went from dirty tan to an unbelievably beautiful silver.
