Featured Card table and Empire swan chairs (repro)

I found this card table and chairs at a consignment store. The carving was nice but the green Naugahyde was disturbing, so I passed on it until the price dropped almost $200 to $315, at which point I figured that would make a dent in the reupholstering cost!

I haven't been able to find this exact set but the chairs (photo 2) are the spitting image of some Maitland-Smith Empire reproductions absent the gold leaf on the swans. (Photo 3) In every other detail I believe they are the same. I don't know much about Maitland-Smith or card tables but the table looks Rococo to me rather than Empire.

Would recovering in fabric like the M-S chairs make sense? The Nauga is pretty horrific and not in good condition. I don't play a lot of cards or smoke cigars, but an occasional board game and a place to stage my Buillotte lamp would be cool.

I'm pretty good at gold leaf so I'm sure I could do that, too.

 

Those are lovely chairs! I can just see them in tufted black or wine-red leather. (I love tufted leather.)

 

I also love French toile. I bet they'd look good in that, too.

 

I found several in various fabrics. Here's the tufted leather!

 

Classy! I love it!

 

Very nice.

 

OMG!!!!! GORGEOUS SET!!!!! Red, Black, Beige, tufted or not.....whatever sets off that wood and carving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edit: Although in going back and re-looking at the red tufting.....TO ME...I think the red is competing with the carving......might not be in black tho....but that's just TO MEEEEE!!!!

 

I agree that a red leather would probably be not enough contrast with the wood. I would suggest taking it to a good upholstery shop and look at the samples. You definitely want something that would make those lovely swan arms show, so maybe another green is the way to go.

 

Bless Aquitaine et al, for mentioning one of my pet peeves. Marrying a wood that is, however slightly, yellowish, with a material that is, however slightly, bluish, just doesn't work very well. Victorian parlour sets were so often done up in deep crimson, or burgundy, or wine...regardless of the wood involved. As me mither used to say, "It adds to neither, and detracts from both."