Phyllis Washington Collection

Phyllis Washington Collection In 1998 Phyllis opened Maison Felice/Phyllis Washington Antiques in Palm Desert, CA

Four flames. One figure. And a room that suddenly understands what candlelight was always meant to do.These Charles X fo...
06/25/2026

Four flames. One figure. And a room that suddenly understands what candlelight was always meant to do.
These Charles X four-light candelabras — ormolu and patinated bronze, a pair — date to one of the most quietly opulent periods in French decorative history. The reign of Charles X, 1824 to 1830, was brief but visually decisive: a deliberate turn away from Napoleonic severity toward warmth, ornament, and the unapologetic pleasures of beautiful objects. French bronziers responded with some of the finest figurative candelabra ever cast.
Each piece rises from a patinated bronze classical figure — draped, composed, looking slightly away from the light he holds aloft — into a spray of ormolu branches alive with acanthus scrollwork and flowering terminals. The contrast of surfaces is everything: dark, warm patinated bronze below; fire-gilded ormolu above, catching every flame from every angle simultaneously.

Lit, on a dark polished dining table, they do not merely illuminate. They preside

Available exclusively at Maison Felice.
Where history lives and legacies begin.
Inquiries: 310.595.4010 | link in bio

There are pieces of furniture that fill a room. And then there are pieces that become the room.This Louis XV fruitwood a...
06/24/2026

There are pieces of furniture that fill a room. And then there are pieces that become the room.
This Louis XV fruitwood armoire, crafted in France circa 1740, is the latter. The bonnet top sweeps upward in a single unbroken serpentine curve — a silhouette so assured it requires no ornament to justify itself. Below, two doors are articulated with shaped and molded panels in the Louis XV cartouche manner, each outline a study in controlled movement, framed by delicate carved foliate borders running center and side. The apron scrolls gently on cabriole feet that barely touch the floor.
The wood is the revelation. Fruitwood — likely cherry — has deepened over nearly three centuries into a color that has no name in any paint chart: warm amber at the center of each panel, darkening through honey and to***co toward the edges, the grain catching light differently with every hour of the day. This is what furniture looks like when it has been allowed to simply age, untouched, in a good room.
No restoration needed. No apology required.
Available exclusively at Maison Felice.
Where history lives and legacies begin.
Inquiries: 310.595.4010 | link in bio

Black and gold. China and France. Two centuries of conversation, still going.This extraordinary pair of late Qing Dynast...
06/24/2026

Black and gold. China and France. Two centuries of conversation, still going.
This extraordinary pair of late Qing Dynasty gilt-decorated black glazed vases, circa late 19th century, represents one of the great marriages in decorative arts — Chinese imperial porcelain met with French ormolu mounts, the combination so prized by European collectors that it became a collecting category unto itself. The vases, in deep mirror-black glaze with richly painted gilt scrollwork, lotus medallions, and scattered cloud motifs, speak to the height of Qing decorative refinement. The ormolu bases — Rococo scrolled feet in fire-gilded bronze — were almost certainly added in France, where the finest Chinese porcelain arriving via trade was routinely mounted by Parisian bronziers to suit European taste and display.
The result is neither wholly Chinese nor wholly French but something more interesting than either — a dialogue between two great decorative traditions, each made more beautiful by the presence of the other.
Here, on a plaster and brass console, with the Santa Rosa Mountains and desert agave beyond the glass, they look like they have always lived in exactly this light.
Available exclusively at Maison Felice.
Where history lives and legacies begin.
Inquiries: 310.595.4010 | link in bio

She decorated for Cole Porter. She painted her ceilings black just to prove a point. And every piece she touched still l...
06/24/2026

She decorated for Cole Porter. She painted her ceilings black just to prove a point. And every piece she touched still looks like nobody else's.
Rose Cu***ng arrived in New York from Australia in the 1920s and spent the following decades dismantling the polite conventions of American interior design — one daring, glamorous room at a time. Her own shop on Madison Avenue became legendary not for being orderly, but for being thrillingly, deliberately not. She mixed centuries, colors, and scales with a confidence nobody before her had quite dared.
This console, from her personal collection, is the proof. Cream-painted and parcel-gilt in the Louis XV idiom, finished with verre églomisé panels — gold leaf applied to the reverse of glass and protected beneath its surface, a technique requiring exceptional control — the piece carries real 18th century bones dressed in Cu***ng's unmistakable point of view. The cabriole legs scroll into carved paw feet; the apron is alive with gilded ornament against a soft, weathered cream ground.
Set beneath a round brass mirror and a crystal chandelier, framed by desert light pouring through floor-to-ceiling glass, it does precisely what Cu***ng intended every piece she touched to do — command the room without raising its voice.

Available exclusively at Maison Felice.
Where history lives and legacies begin.
Inquiries: 310.595.4010 | link in bio

***ng

Venice has been perfecting reflection for seven hundred years. This is what mastery looks like, distilled into one bedro...
06/23/2026

Venice has been perfecting reflection for seven hundred years. This is what mastery looks like, distilled into one bedroom wall.
This is one of a pair of Venetian-style mirrors, framed in cobalt blue and clear glass panels embellished with intricate foliate cut and etched glass ornament — rosettes, florets, and scrolling cresting all hand-formed from molten glass on the island of Murano, where the technique has been guarded and refined since the 13th century. Each decorative element is individually blown, pressed, and applied while the glass is still workable, an entirely different discipline from carved wood or cast bronze, governed by heat, timing, and an almost musical sense of when to stop.
The cobalt panels framing the mirror plate give the piece real graphic weight, while the etched florets scattered throughout catch and scatter light in a way only glass can manage. It is ornate without being heavy — the particular gift of Venetian mirror-making.
Hung here against soft plaster, beside a wall of glass and the Coachella Valley spreading out toward distant mountains, it becomes a small, brilliant counterpoint to an enormous view.
Available exclusively at Maison Felice.
Where history lives and legacies begin.
Inquiries: 310.595.4010 | link in bio

A wardrobe is supposed to hold what you wear. This one holds the better part of three centuries.This is a decoratively p...
06/23/2026

A wardrobe is supposed to hold what you wear. This one holds the better part of three centuries.
This is a decoratively painted armoire in the Uzès style, crafted in the southern French town of Uzès, circa 1760 — a regional tradition celebrated for exactly this kind of exuberant, hand-painted ornament. Provincial cabinetmakers in the south of France developed a distinct decorative language all their own, departing from the gilt formality of Paris in favor of bold painted surfaces: trompe l'oeil panels, faux marquetry, and lively figural and floral motifs applied directly to the wood.
Here, a soft sage ground is overlaid with raspberry red linework, scrolling lattice cartouches, and two small painted landscape vignettes set within octagonal frames on the doors — miniature scenes within a much larger composition. Cranes appear at the base of each panel, a recurring decorative motif throughout the southern French painted furniture tradition. The wear at the edges, the softened color, the slight unevenness of the hand-painted lines — all of it is original, all of it irreplaceable.
Placed here against raw desert light, the armoire becomes the room's single boldest gesture, proving once again that color and pattern from centuries past still know exactly how to hold a modern room.

Available exclusively at Maison Felice.
Where history lives and legacies begin.
Inquiries: 310.595.4010 | link in bio

Edward Wormley spent his career proving that mid-century modern didn't have to be cold. These chairs are the argument, s...
06/23/2026

Edward Wormley spent his career proving that mid-century modern didn't have to be cold. These chairs are the argument, settled.
Edward Wormley was the quiet outlier of American mid-century design — working for Dunbar Furniture from the 1930s through the 1960s, he resisted the stark minimalism of his contemporaries in favor of warmth, comfort, and a sophisticated eclecticism that borrowed as freely from antique furniture as it did from modernism. His Janus collection, named for the two-faced Roman god of transitions, embodied that philosophy precisely: forward-looking design with one eye always on the past.
These ebonized mahogany armchairs, 1950s, show Wormley's genius for proportion — gently curved backs, generous tufted upholstery, exposed wood arms with the kind of sculptural confidence that needs no further ornament. The frame is pure mid-century restraint. The silhouette is endlessly comfortable.
Reupholstered here in a bold abstract textile that practically vibrates against the desert sunset beyond, the pair proves Wormley's enduring relevance — proper mid-century pedigree, styled for right now.

Available exclusively at Maison Felice.
Where history lives and legacies begin.
Inquiries: 310.595.4010 | link in bio

Five minutes before the hour, the bells would ring, and an entire monastery would stop what it was doing and walk toward...
06/22/2026

Five minutes before the hour, the bells would ring, and an entire monastery would stop what it was doing and walk toward dinner.
This is a massive solid walnut buffet à deux corps, circa 1770, acquired from a monastery in the French countryside — and it carries one of the most genuinely charming functions we've encountered in twenty-five years of collecting. Built into the architecture of the piece is a working clock that chimes five minutes before each hour, a quiet built-in summons that called the monks from their work toward the refectory table, time measured not in minutes but in the rhythm of communal life.
The buffet itself is provincial French furniture at its most monumental — two full tiers of open plate racks designed to display an entire household's china, fitted cupboards and drawers below, all carved from solid walnut with the restrained, confident detailing typical of ecclesiastical commissions. This was furniture built to outlast generations of use, and it has.
Filled here with antique transferware and standing watch over a contemporary dining table, it still does exactly what it has always done — organizes a room around the ritual of gathering.

Available exclusively at Maison Felice.
Where history lives and legacies begin.
Inquiries: 310.595.4010 | link in bio

Empire France did not believe in subtlety, and this daybed is proof it was right not to.This is a fine Empire polychrome...
06/22/2026

Empire France did not believe in subtlety, and this daybed is proof it was right not to.
This is a fine Empire polychrome decorated and parcel-gilt iron daybed, circa 1825 — a moment when Napoleonic taste, even after the Empire itself had fallen, still dictated the grammar of serious French furniture. Swans' heads descend along the scrolled ends, cornucopia-form legs terminate in carved paw feet, and the entire iron frame is painted and gilded with a richness that belies its material. Iron furniture of this caliber, decorated rather than disguised, was the height of Empire sophistication — strength made ornamental.
The piece comes together with a later matching corona, decorated to harmonize, suggesting it was once part of a complete daybed ensemble designed for a grand bedchamber or salon, dressed for both rest and display.
Layered here with deep paisley textiles, embroidered velvet, and tasseled silk pillows beneath hand-hewn beams, the daybed becomes the room's gravitational center — proof that the boldest antiques don't need a quiet room to live in. They simply take command of a loud one.

Available exclusively at Maison Felice.
Where history lives and legacies begin.
Inquiries: 310.595.4010 | link in bio

Lyon, circa 1750. A carver picked up a chisel and decided gold was the only acceptable answer.This Louis XV carved giltw...
06/22/2026

Lyon, circa 1750. A carver picked up a chisel and decided gold was the only acceptable answer.
This Louis XV carved giltwood console was made in Lyon or Avignon, in the heart of the French silk and craft trade, where some of the era's finest furniture makers worked outside the immediate orbit of Paris with no less ambition. The Louis XV style is defined by movement — every line a curve, every surface alive with asymmetric rocaille carving — and this console is a textbook example of the genre at its most exuberant. Deeply carved cabriole legs sweep outward with total confidence, joined by an elaborately scrolled stretcher centered on a carved shell, while the apron erupts in latticework and foliate scrolls beneath a slab of rich red marble.
The gilding has taken on the warm, slightly burnished glow that only true age produces — bright enough to still announce its presence, soft enough to feel inherited rather than new.
Flanked by lamplight and crowned by a contemporary metal wall sculpture, this console proves the oldest argument in design: a piece this confident was never meant to match its surroundings. It was meant to anchor them.

Available exclusively at Maison Felice.
Where history lives and legacies begin.
Inquiries: 310.595.4010 | link in bio

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73960 El Paseo
Palm Desert, CA
92260

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