Contemporary Fabric and Period Furniture

Many years ago I' got from my mother a considerable number of chairs, a sofa, a bench and a footstool bench, all Louis XV replicas with needlepoint upholstery about 50 years old. Well-made and of good quality, but terribly conventional, not particularly appealing (see left) and the blue-ish colour scheme doesn't go with anything I had in mind then. (The project never came to pass.)

When I noticed stunning examples of similar furniture upholstered with modern fabric, I thought that might be the ideal solution for my predicament, the more as the pieces weren't authentic anyway and so I wouldn't have had to desecrate some treasures from the past.

This old Sanderson advertisement shows what I mean.

With a greyish-green background colour in mind, I found some lovely fabrics by P. Kaufmann, which I would like to share.

Central Park Green

Best in Show

Derby Cordovan

Huntsman

Library Suede

Now, years later, I sometimes think that it was probably for the better that the project was never realized. My passion for horses decidedly got the better of me here and the fussy patterns would very probably have looked ghastly with the furniture.

I had, however, an alternative plan which might have turned out better.

I could, I thought, go for something completely different and do a Frédéric Mechiche (see a typical example below) on the chairs. Stripewise, I mean. I drew the line at black and white.

At that time I had found by chance the fabric below in a German online shop with otherwise nothing but more or less ghastly stuff.

It would have certainly been a much better solution.
Since then, by the way, I am rather a fan of modern fabric on period furniture, all circumstances considered.

It doesn't necessarily to be stripes. Here are two very nice examples with other patterns.

Mulberry Flying Ducks

Sanderson Giselle