Again, a "Colonial highboy,
hooded," recalled as an especially awkward thing, and "five mahogany
side chairs" had gone for three hundred and eighty dollars. A
"Heppelwhite mahogany armchair," remembered for its faded red satin, had
veritably brought one hundred and sixty dollars; and a carved rosewood
screen, said to be of Empire design, but a shabby thing, had sold
astonishingly for ninety dollars. A "Hogarth chair-back settee" for two
hundred and ten dollars, and "four Hogarth side chairs" for three
hundred and fifteen dollars only darkened our visions still further.
Some of us had known that Hogarth was an artist, but not that he had
found time from his drawing to make furniture. Of Heppelwhite we had
heard not at all, although twelve arm-chairs said to be his had been by
some one thought to be worth around seven hundred dollars. Nor of any
Sheraton did we know, though one of his sideboards and a "pair of
Sheraton knife urns" fetched the incredible sum of five hundred and
fifty dollars. Chippendale was another name unfamiliar in Slocum County,
but Chippendale, it seemed, had once made a wing book-case which was now
worth two hundred and forty dollars of some enthusiast's money.
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