Luxe: Summer Jewels

LOT ESSAY

Louis Vuitton was born in Anchay (Bourgogne-Franche-Comté) in eastern France in 1824, and at age 14 headed to Paris to pursue trade as a carpenter. After serving as an apprentice to the Parisian luggage-maker M. Maréchal and producing the personal luggage for Empress Eugénie, he opened his own firm in 1854. Vuitton's principal innovation was the application of waterproof canvas to the top lid of his trunks, eliminating the need for a dome-shaped lid and allowing trunks to be stacked. His son Georges took over the firm, and two of his trademark inventions are visible on the present lot: the five-tumbler lock, introduced in 1890, which resisted picking and allowed each client to have the same combination for all their luggage; and the monogram canvas (1896), conceived to repel counterfeiters and designed in the prevailing Japonisme style of the era.

In an era before mass brand diffusion and the modern fashion industry, Vuitton trunks were one of the Gilded Age's most recognizable luxury goods. Here, nearly all the constituent elements ― the lock, the leather trim and handle brackets, the nailheads, the lid quilting ― bears Vuitton's name or logo.

The present lot includes exterior storage labels and paper hang tags indicating its use by the poet and playwright Katherine Garrison Chapin (1890-1977) and include her Georgetown address at 1669 31st St. NW. The Georgetown residence was purchased in 1944 by Mrs. Chapin and her husband, Francis Beverly Biddle (1886-1968), the 58th Attorney General of the United States. Attorney General Biddle served in that role during the entire American duration in World War II (from August 1941 to June 1945), and lived in the Georgetown house until his death in 1968; Mrs. Chapin continued to reside at the address until 1973.

Sources:

Bowman, LaBarbara. "Biddle Home Auctioned To Parisian for $800,000." The Washington Post. October 20, 1981.

Steele, Valerie (ed.), The Berg Companion to Fashion (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015), 717.