Rare Arts Crafts Biltmore Industries NC Carved Wood Bowl Early Stamp Acorns
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:6809989 | Country/Region of Origin: United States |
| Original/Reproduction: Original | Age: 1900-1940 |
| Color: Brown | Style: Arts & Crafts/Mission Style |
| Maker: Biltmore Industries |
San Francisco Bay Area Estate Sale Find.Rare Arts Crafts Biltmore Industries NC Carved Wood Bowl Early Stamp (forward arrow) Acorns motif. Measurement is in the photos in this listing.Condition is as is and Condition is as shown in the many photos, view and angles in this listing. Please refer to the photos for further visual condition and description. Not returnable so please ask questions if needed.Shipping/ Packaging $19.95Thanks for looking.From art& crafts collector magazine, ......”Biltmore Industries was an Arts & Crafts cottage industry founded five miles away from the Grove Park Inn in 1905 by Edith and George Vanderbilt for the sons and daughters of their employees on their 125, 000-acre Biltmore Estate. The workers and their families lived in a small, adjacent village called Biltmore Village, now a quaint collection of restaurants, shops and galleries.Three Biltmore names: once all connected, now three separate historic attractions.Biltmore Industries remained in Biltmore Village from 1905-1917, when Fred Seely, designer of the Grove Park Inn and close friend of Elbert Hubbard, bought it from Edith Vanderbilt and moved the woodworkers, weavers and woodcarvers into five Arts & Crafts workshops he built next to the Grove Park Inn. Their woodworking department flourished into the 1940s, and their oak looms remained busy producing homespun cloth for ladies’ and men’s suits until the 1970s. The buildings have since been restored as a restaurant, the Grovewood Gallery, an auto museum, and several artisan workshops.The woodworkers primarily made small, hand-carved items which were sold to tourists, local residents and guests at the Grove Park Inn. As a result, they can surface today in just about any part of the country. Although they subscribed to Gustav Stickley’s The Craftsman magazine, most of their bookends, bowls, letter openers, bookracks, picture frames and similar items were made from walnut or mahogany, both better suited to hand carving than quartersawn oak.The most desirable among collectors are those items with the deepest, most advanced carving of natural motifs, most notably the dogwood blossom or the grapevine. In contrast, a plain bookend with a single monogrammed letter carved by one of the beginning craftsmen sparks only minimum interest.Although their brochures illustrated pieces of furniture, these rarely surface. Still considered rare, a larger number of small walnut or mahogany benches, with carved seats, have appeared in collections and on the antiques market.Three shopmarks appear most frequently. The earliest (1905-1917) featured a branded arrow around the word “Forward” placed over “Biltmore, N.C.” After the move in 1917, the “Forward” arrow appeared over “Asheville, N.C.” Later items were branded only with block letters “Hand-Made And Hand-Carved / Biltmore Industries / Asheville, N.C.”While not a household name even among Arts & Crafts collectors, the hand-carved bowls, frames and bookends made at Biltmore Industries serve as excellent examples of the products of manual arts workshops, classes, schools and cottage industries — products that reflect an allegiance to the Arts & Crafts philosophy that many more famous figures often neglected.”
