Carved Drapery and Tassel Wall Brackets, Gilt, Pair, c. 1950–1985

The Piece

A pair of carved wall brackets in the form of a knotted drapery swag, each carrying a small demilune shelf on the shoulder of the knot, finished in a dark antiqued gold.

The carving is the whole object. A length of cloth is gathered and tied at the top, falls in deep undercut folds down the left, and ends in a heavy bullion fringe of separately cut strands. A second, shorter tail breaks away and hangs free. The folds are cut deep enough that light travels right through behind them in places, which is why the brackets read as cloth rather than as a shape.

The shelf is a plain demilune with a moulded front edge, set just under the knot so whatever stands on it appears to be held up by the drapery rather than by a bracket.

The finish is a dark bronzed gold, rubbed back on the high points of every fold and tassel so the relief reads from across a room, and gone to a warm near black in the hollows.

Turn one over and the back is flat sawn wood, the profile cut out on a band saw, with the grain and the old finish plainly visible and a small brass keyhole plate screwed on for hanging.

History & Provenance

A correction is owed before anything else. These were described in passing as cast metal. They are not. They are carved wood, and the backs settle it: flat sawn timber with the grain running clean across it, band saw marks at the profile, and a screwed on brass keyhole plate. A casting has a hollow or a sprue, not a sawn face.

That changes what they are for the better. Carved wood drapery brackets are hand work in a way a casting is not, and the front here is genuinely carved rather than pressed from composition. The fringe strands are separated, the folds are undercut, and the tool facets are visible inside the hollows where no sanding could reach.

On age, the evidence points later than antique and it is worth being straight about why. The profile is band sawn, the back is machine flat, and the hanging hardware is a small stamped brass keyhole plate on a modern screw. None of those belong to an eighteenth or nineteenth century bracket, which would be hand shaped at the back, thicker in section, and hung on a hand made hook or a block. The finish is also a single applied antiqued gold rather than water gilding over a bole ground, and there is no gesso layer breaking anywhere at the edges.

What they are instead is the Italian and continental carved and gilded woodwork that came into the American decorating trade in quantity from the 1950s through the 1970s, made by hand in small shops and sold through decorators and department stores. The drapery and tassel motif is Louis XVI in origin and was revived hard in that period.

They have hung somewhere for a long time. There is old wall residue around both keyhole plates, the screws have rusted into the wood, and the finish has genuinely rubbed rather than being distressed to look that way.

No maker's mark, label, stamp or country of origin survives on either piece, and that absence gives an outer limit rather than a starting point.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

A wall bracket solves a problem that shelves cannot. It puts one object at eye level, on its own, with nothing beside it competing, and it does that without committing a whole wall to shelving.

A pair is what makes them work. Flanking a mirror, a door, a window or a bed, they build symmetry into a wall in a way a single one never manages, and they are the standard trick for making a plain wall look designed.

The carving is why these are worth more than the moulded resin brackets sold everywhere. The folds are cut deep and undercut, so they throw real shadow and change as the light moves. Hold one and it is light, warm and hand worked.

At this size they take a bust, a small vase, a plant, a clock or a single good piece of pottery, and the drapery does the work of making an ordinary object look placed rather than parked.