Kimbel & Cabus was a Victorian-era furniture and decorative arts firm based in New York City. The partnership was formed in 1862 between German-born cabinetmaker Anthony Kimbel (c. 1821–1895) and French-born cabinetmaker Joseph Cabus (1824–1894). The company was noted for its Modern Gothic and

Anglo-Japanese style The Anglo-Japanese style developed in the United Kingdom through the Victorian period and early Edwardian period from approximately 1851 to the 1910s, when a new appreciation for Japanese design and culture influenced how designers and craftspe ...

furniture, which it popularized at the

1876 Centennial Exposition The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair to be held in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the ...

Prior partners

In an earlier partnership with Anton Bembe, Kimbel contributed to the decoration of the new House of Representatives Chamber at the

U.S. Capitol The United States Capitol, often called The Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the Seat of government, seat of the Legislature, legislative branch of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is form ...

. The firm carved 131

Rococo Revival The Rococo Revival style emerged in Second Empire France and then was adapted in England. Revival of the rococo style was seen all throughout Europe during the 19th century within a variety of artistic modes and expression including decorative ...

armchairs (designed by architect Thomas U. Walter) for members of Congress, half of the total; and manufactured the monumental clock (designed by

Joseph A. Bailly Joseph Alexis Bailly (January 21, 1823 or 1825 – June 15, 1883) was an American sculptor who spent most of his career in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He taught briefly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which has a collection of his ...

and

William Henry Rinehart William Henry Rinehart (September 13, 1825 – October 28, 1874) was a noted American sculptor. He is considered "the last important American sculptor to work in the classical style." Biography The son of Israel Rinehart (1792–1871) and Mary ...

) over the chamber's entrance. The firm of Bembe & Kimbel lasted from 1854 to Bembe's death in 1861. Cabus had a brief partnership with cabinetmaker

Alexander Roux Alexander Roux (1813–1886) was a French-trained ''ébéniste'', or cabinetmaker, who emigrated to the United States in the 1830s. He opened a shop in New York City in 1837. The business grew quickly: by the 1850s he employed 120 craftsmen in his ...

K & C

Kimbel & Cabus won great acclaim at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, with a display of Modern Gothic furniture. This

Aesthetic Movement Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century which privileged the aesthetic value of literature, music and the arts over their socio-political functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be prod ...

style was a rebellion against the ornate excesses of Victorian decoration. Modern Gothic furniture had silhouettes that were angular and sometimes asymmetrical, and surfaces that were often ebonized and decorated with incised gilt decoration, inlaid tiles and painting, and strap-like medieval hinges. The eclectic style was short-lived, but had a major influence on the later Arts & Crafts Movement. K & C also created furniture in the

, taking its inspiration from Japanese art and handicrafts. Two more-traditional Kimbel & Cabus commissions were for the interior woodwork of the

Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) church in New York City. The church, on Fifth Avenue at 7 West 55th Street in Midtown Manhattan, has approximately 2,200 members and is one of the larger PCUSA congregations. The ...

(1875) and the Tenth Company Room at the

Seventh Regiment Armory The Seventh Regiment Armory, also known as Park Avenue Armory, is a historic National Guard armory building located at 643 Park Avenue in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The building is a brick and stone structure bu ...

(1879–80). By 1878, the American critic

Clarence Cook Clarence Chatham Cook (September 8, 1828 – June 2, 1900) was a 19th-century American author and art critic. Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Cook graduated from Harvard in 1849 and worked as a teacher. Between 1863 and 1869, Cook wrote a serie ...

was already pronouncing the Modern Gothic style ''passé'':

''"There was a little while ago quite a rage for a certain style of furniture that made a great display of seeming steel hinges, key-plates, and handles, with inlaid tiles, carving of an ultra-Gothic type, and an appearance of the ingenuous truth-telling in the construction. The chairs, tables and bedsteads looked as if they had been on the dissecting-table and flayed alive,—their joints and tendons displayed to an archaeologic and unfeeling world. One particular firm'' imbel & Cabus''introduced this style of furniture, and, for a time, had almost the monopoly of it. It had a great run."''

The Kimbel & Cabus partnership was dissolved in 1882, with Kimbel going into business with his sons, as A. Kimbel & Sons, and Cabus forming his own shop. Much of Kimbel & Cabus's furniture is unsigned. But a circa-1875 trade catalogue at the

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile (New York City), Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the ...

contains photographs of hundreds of pieces. Examples of their work are in the collections of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, the

Hudson River Museum The Hudson River Museum, located in Trevor Park in Yonkers, New York, is the largest museum in Westchester County. The Yonkers Museum, founded in 1919 at City Hall, became the Hudson River Museum in 1948. While often considered an art museum by th ...

, the

High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...

, and the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

in Great Britain.

McKim, Mead & White

WLA amart Angel 1887 Abbott Handerson Thayer

Cabus collaborated with

Stanford White Stanford White (November 9, 1853 – June 25, 1906) was an American architect. He was also a partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, one of the most significant Beaux-Arts firms. He designed many houses for the rich, in additio ...

and

Louis Comfort Tiffany Louis Comfort Tiffany (February 18, 1848 – January 17, 1933) was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art NouveauL ...

on the interiors of the

Villard Houses The Villard Houses are a set of former residences comprising a historic landmark at 451–457 Madison Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by the architect Joseph Morrill Wells ...

(1882–84), and carved the

Charles Follen McKim Charles Follen McKim (August 24, 1847 – September 14, 1909) was an American Beaux-Arts architect of the late 19th century. Along with William Rutherford Mead and Stanford White, he provided the architectural expertise as a member of the partn ...

-designed pulpit for the Church of the Ascension (1884). He carved White-designed picture frames "from roughly 1882 to 1894," and constructed White's original wood-and-plaster

Washington Square Arch The Washington Square Arch, officially the Washington Arch, is a marble memorial arch in Washington Square Park, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Designed by architect Stanford White in 1891, it commemor ...

(1889, replaced by current arch 1892). Under

McKim, Mead & White McKim, Mead & White was an American architectural firm that came to define architectural practice, urbanism, and the ideals of the American Renaissance in fin de siècle New York. The firm's founding partners Charles Follen McKim (1847–1909), Wil ...

, Cabus also executed the finer woodworking for James Gordon Bennett, Jr.'s office in the Western Union Building (1885, demolished), the interior of Bennett's yacht, ''Namouna'' (1885, destroyed), the Anne W. Cheney House in South Manchester, Connecticut (1887, demolished), the first

Plaza Hotel The Plaza Hotel (also known as The Plaza) is a luxury hotel and condominium apartment building in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is located on the western side of Grand Army Plaza, after which it is named, just west of Fifth Avenue, a ...

(1888, demolished), and the

Metropolitan Club The Metropolitan Club of New York is a private social club on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded as a gentlemen's club in 1891 for men only, but it was one of the first major clubs in New York to admit women, t ...

(1893–94). Following Cabus's 1894 death, his son Alexander took over the carving of White's picture frames.

Selected works

*Altar, pulpit and interior carving,

, New York City (1875). *Modern Gothic cabinet-secretary (c. 1875), Brooklyn Museum, New York City. *Modern Gothic exhibition cabinet (c. 1876), Victoria & Albert Museum, London. *Modern Gothic desk (c. 1876),

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

, California. *Modern Gothic desk (c. 1877), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. *Tenth Company (Company K) Room,

, 642 Park Avenue, New York City (1879–80). *Modern Gothic corner chair (c. 1880), Brooklyn Museum, New York City.Modern Gothic corner chair
from Brooklyn Museum. File:Bembe & Kimbel House of Representatives chair.jpg, House of Representatives Chair (1857), Thomas U. Walter. Bembe & Kimbel carved 131 of these at $70 each. File:MonumentalClockDesign.jpg, Monumental Clock, House of Representatives Chamber, U. S. Capitol, Bembe & Kimbel (1857). File:PresbychurchNY.jpg, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York City, Kimbel & Cabus (1875). File:Gothic Revival Desk LACMA 88.4a-b.jpg, Modern Gothic desk, Kimbel & Cabus (c. 1876),

. File:7th Reg. Armory, Tenth Company Room HABS NY,31-NEYO,121-92.jpg, Tenth Company (Company K) Room, Seventh Regiment Armory, New York City, Kimbel & Cabus (1879–80). File:Villard staircase 118632pv.jpg, Villard House staircase, designed by Stanford White, executed by Joseph Cabus (1882–84).

References

*''Furniture Designed and Sold by the New York Firm of Kimbel & Cabus'', trade catalogue (1870s), Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Library. *Burke, Doreen Bolger, et al., ''In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement'' (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986), pp. 152–56, 257, 446-47. *Hanks, David, "Kimbel & Cabus: 19th-century New York Cabinetmakers," ''Art & Antiques Magazine'', Sept-Oct 1980, pp. 44–53. *Hanks, David, "Kimbel & Cabus," ''Nineteenth Century Furniture: Innovation, Revival, and Reform'' (New York: Art and Antiques, 1982), pp. 60–69. *Voorsanger, Catherine Hoover, ed. "Gorgeous Articles of Furniture: Cabinetmaking in the Empire City," ''Art and the Empire City'' (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), pp. 287–325.

Notes

External links

Kimbel & Cabus company highlight
from Smithsonian Institution.
Kimbel & Cabus catalogue
from Smithsonian Institution.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kimbel and Cabus American cabinetmakers American furniture designers American woodworkers Interior design Furniture companies of the United States Defunct manufacturing companies based in New York City

Prior partners

K & C

McKim, Mead & White

Selected works

See also

References

Notes

External links