PROVENANCE: Diane Tate & Marian Hall

It is my impression that decorators were not much used up here in the 50's and 60's.  Most people did their own houses.  If new upholstery were needed, one went to Mr. Macaul, the excellent upholsterer over in Bar Harbor, who had the best sample books, and gave good advice.  For slipcovers or curtains one would call Mrs. Horton.  One knew enough not to hang paintings too high, and the rest was up to fate.

There were exceptions, of course.  I remember one house from my youth that always struck me---with a very stylish dining room in dove gray with bold accents in leaf green and splashes of yellow.  Only years too late, after that big old shingled house was demolished did I discover that the the reason for those stylish interiors was the owner's sister-in-law, Diane Tate of the famous firm of Diane Tate and Marian Hall.  Tate is given rather short shrift in Adam Lewis's The Great Lady Decorators, but on evidence of a few pieces of Tate's furniture which came my way years ago, I would beg to differ.

This Directoire center table, with its Egyptian inspired lotus column base, painted in black with red and gilt accents and a stone top, was one of those pieces, and according to the niece who inherited it, was used in Tate's New York apartment.  I'm sorry for the poor photograph---it's a scan of an old Polaroid, and doesn't begin to convey the real quality of the table..  I don't know how we antique dealers survived before the invention of the digital camera.

Below, just for fun, an old advertisement in which Tate & Hall endorse a silver plate pattern.  Personally, I'm mad for the Etruscan inspired china.