Two more antique malls in the north Dallas suburbs were on the agenda today. One constant theme running through them both seemed to be an abundance of Victorian-era furniture. Victorian of course isn’t technically a style, but a time period, yet if there was a style that could be most associated with the Victorian era, this pseudo rococo style in the form of pieces made by Roux, Meeks and Belter would be it. I don’t think any of these items were made by those three, but that’s the look.

Many of the chairs came in pairs, and about half had new fabric. The ones that didn’t have new fabric had decent existing fabric. Sofa’s seemed to start at around $300 and run up to $1600 or so. A pair of chairs start at around $400.

The popularity of Victorian furniture in Texas is somewhat surprising. There isn’t a wealth of housing stock from this period, most of the housing that can be considered “old” in Dallas looks like it’s from 1910 or later. One theory is it extends from the abundance found North in Oklahoma and Kansas. I did find a number of Victorian-era houses in the town of Grapevine.

A recent survey undertaken by this publication and show promoters The Antiques Show did find a strong interest in items from the Victorian period. With this information in hand, perhaps instead of asking why this style has such a strong presence in Texas shops, the question should be why don’t we find that much of it being offered elsewhere.

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf