Finders Keepers with Gerald Bland

FINDERS KEEPERS | MASTERS & MUSES | CABANA MAGAZINE

Preeminent New York gallerist, Gerald Bland, is a world expert in English 18th-century furniture and a collector of fine art, and period and contemporary furniture. He shares the stories of his personal connection to two incredible discoveries: his greatest find and a piece he'll keep forever.

INTERVIEW BY MILA WOLPERT | MASTERS & MUSES | 11 OCTOBER 2024

View of Gerald Bland gallery, Courtesy of Gerald Bland

Gerald Bland opened his Manhattan gallery as a purveyor of primarily 18th-century English furniture. After all, he knew a great deal about the subject having run the English 18th-century furniture department at Sotheby’s in New York. Responding to shifts in the economy and changing tastes over the decades, Gerald's eponymous gallery now sells contemporary art and ceramics, along with contemporary and 18th-century furniture. He sat down with Cabana to share his 'Finders Keepers', reflecting on the extraordinary objects that have passed through his hands.

Hall Chair, William Kent, 1730-1740, The Rienzi Collection, museum purchase funded by the Rienzi Accessions Endowment, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

My Greatest Find: Hall Chair from Chiswick House

“A lot of objects have passed through my hands, but the most important for me was probably a Hall Chair from Chiswick, Lord Burlington’s Palladian Villa near London. The story of the chair involves three of my favorite architects: Andrea Palladio (16th-century, Veneto); Inigo Jones, who introduced Palladio’s ideas to England in the 17th-century; and William Kent, who promoted Inigo Jones’ work in the 18th-century.

"About 30 years ago, while viewing a small auction in New York, I spotted within a tester bed frame, a very recognizable chair. Most aficionados of 18th-century furniture would identify this chair as the work of William Kent for Lord Burlington’s Chiswick House circa 1730, not a Victorian Mahogany Armchair, as described in the catalogue. A very distinctive chair, it was more architecture than furniture. With a triangular pedimented back and solid seat, it embodies English Palladianism.

"Once part of a set of 12, the chair belonged to the collection at Burlington House, then moved to Chatsworth, and later wound up in an American collection. In her book on Chatsworth House, Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, remarked on how the chair may have made it across the pond: ‘I reckon one fell off the truck between Chiswick and Chatsworth and somehow ended up in America.’”

Gerald's Keeper: 18th-Century Palladian Mirror; courtesy Gerald Bland

The Piece I’ll Keep Forever: 18th-Century Palladian Mirror

“This piece falls in the same category as the chair, illustrating the predictability of my taste. Spotted again at a New York City auction, was a mirror also to a design by William Kent from around 1730. I knew it had been regilded rather poorly and the mirror plate had been replaced. The challenge of being a dealer is to find pieces that have been neglected or badly treated and to put them back into proper condition.

"I took the mirror to our gilder at the time, Eve Kaplan, who now happens to be our leading ceramicist with work all over the world. She removed the offending mirror plate and proceeded to dry strip the frame down to the original gilding, clay, and gesso. All the original details were intact, with gilding so soft that all you could see was a flicker of gold, and that, only in good lighting. I took it back to the shop we had at that time on Madison Avenue and it hung in my office as just a frame with the original backboard, and I appreciated it exactly as it was.

"At some point I covered the backboard with dark gray felt and started pinning images I was inspired by including: a 19th-century architectural drawing, a sketch of the entrance of the building opposite the old shop by my wife, Mita Corsini Bland, a drawing by Albert Hadley, a 16th-century sketch, a sketch of a donkey by Paolo del Pra, a postcard of a radiation symbol, and a postcard of Robert Adam Mahogany Doors. Now a collage with the occasional edit, this has been hanging in my office for 25 years and still elicits comments.”