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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Ghopper1924, post: 3953969, member: 5170&quot;]It&#039;s actually the second etagere. The first one I showed is attributed to Mitchell &amp; Rammelsberg.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m as certain as anyone can be about Mallard. The research I&#039;ve seen indicates that he may actually collaborated with Alexander Roux - a fellow countryman - the high-end cabinet maker in New York. It may have been Roux and/or his workshop that constructed much of what Prudent (not Prudence) Mallard sold. Or it may have been folks in France that made the pieces. Evidently when Mallard&#039;s possessions were probated at the end of his tenure as a cabinet maker/seller, there were none of the usual tools for cabinet making to be found. Which doesn&#039;t mean that he never had them.</p><p><br /></p><p>Nevertheless, there are labeled pieces by Prudent Mallard. The etagere I have was definitely made in New Orleans as I have seen others with nearly identical features, all of which are said to have been made in the Big Easy, at least one of which has never left the family who bought it back in the 1850s. They share identical Rococo Revival features such as crest carvings, feet, wood tracery over the mirrors, shelf shapes, and supporting brackets. I&#039;ve also seen various of these specific features on vintage mid-19th century bedroom sets originating in New Orleans.</p><p><br /></p><p>It seems to me that if it takes multiple ship voyages to produce a finished piece of furniture then the cost would become too great to compete with your furniture producing neighbors. Not that it&#039;s impossible. Also, J and J Meeks did have a branch office in New Orleans aside from their New York headquarters, with an eye towards selling to wealthy merchants as well as plantation society. Meeks furniture of the 1850s and 60s, of which I show two examples in this thread, has a very distinctive look and scale which cannot reasonably be mistaken for Mallard or any other cabinet maker. It may have been convenient for them to use Mallard&#039;s &quot;Ware Room&quot; for sales, but it seems odd that they didn&#039;t have one of their own, given that they were a decades-long established business in their own right.</p><p><br /></p><p>Since this furniture is out of fashion, there is not a lot of research going on to who actually made these pieces. Right now most people still attribute them to Mallard, rightly or wrongly. Perhaps it would be better to say &quot;New Orleans&quot; or even &quot;France.&quot; But most folks who care understand &quot;Mallard&quot; well enough.</p><p><br /></p><p>Heck, at one time everyone called New York Rococo Revival furniture &quot;Belter furniture,&quot; no matter who built it. We&#039;ve come a long way since then.</p><p><br /></p><p>I read Ned Hemard&#039;s excellent article (thanks for the reference) some time ago, when researching this etagere. If, in the future, Ned proves conclusively that it was actually Marie Leveaux who built these pieces, I&#039;ll cheerfully say that this is a Leveaux etagere <img src="styles/default/xenforo/smilies/smile.png" class="mceSmilie" alt=":)" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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