Antique 18th Century French Provincial Sofa in Brocade

Description

This elegant 18th century French antique, carved wood sofa with a paneled back is of pegged construction and upholstered in … more This elegant 18th century French antique, carved wood sofa with a paneled back is of pegged construction and upholstered in a lovely gold brocade. There is no discernible maker's mark. It has been in the family for three generations and many happy memories are associated with it.

Provenance:

This French provincial sofa was owned by Elizabeth Taliaferro Close, grandmother of actress Glenn Close.

Elizabeth was born on 27 April 1897. Her ancestors helped found Virginia in the mid-1600s. Her father was in the cotton business and moved his family from Virginia to Galveston, Texas, where Elizabeth was born. She survived the flood of 1900. After the flood, her family moved to Houston. There, Elizabeth’s father Edwin Munford Taliaferro died in 1906. Her widowed mother Catherine Mitchell Taliaferro was an accomplished watercolorist who led painting tours throughout Europe.

In 1920 she married Edward Bennett Close (b. 1882) whose ancestors founded the town of Greenwich, Connecticut, helped found New York City, and fought in the American Revolutionary War against the British. Close was a lawyer and businessman whose concern was medicine. His first wife was Marjorie Merriweather Post, the cereal heiress who built Mar-a-Lago as a summer home. Close and Post had two children, Adelaide and Eleanor, then divorced in 1919.

Edward and Elizabeth had twin sons, Edward “Ted” Brevoort Jr. and William “Bill” Taliaferro Close born on June 7, 1924, in Greenwich, CT. For many years Edward Sr. was head of the American Hospital in Paris. It may have been in Paris that Elizabeth acquired the sofa. When the Nazis invaded Paris, the Closes fled back to the States. Edward then worked for the American Red Cross in DC. He died in 1955.

Edward and Elizabeth’s son Bill attended Harvard and later became a surgeon. In 1943 Bill wed Elizabeth M. H. Moore (Bettine) of Greenwich. He then left college and his new bride to join the Army Air Corps and fight in WWII. He served in Europe, including flying wounded out of the Battle of the Bulge and over Berlin. After the war, he attended Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and became a surgeon.

Dr. Bill Close and Bettine had four children: Tina (artist), Glenn (actress), Alexander (machinist), and Jessie (writer). In 1959 the couple moved to Zaire, Africa, now Democratic Republic of Congo. President Mobutu came to power and Bill became his private doctor while running the Mama Yemo hospital in Kinshasa and developing it into the largest outpatient hospital in the world at that time. He flew medical missions into the jungle and helped the CDC isolate the Ebola virus during its first outbreak in 1976 at Yambuku.

When Mobutu became corrupt, the Closes fled Zaire to Big Piney, Wyoming, and opened a medical clinic. After his mother’s death in 1988, Dr. Close used the sofa in his medical office waiting room. When he died, his granddaughter inherited it. less