Venetian Room, Cultural Service of the French Embassy (NYC)

The Venetian Room is an extraordinary vestige and rare example of the Gilded Age period in New York, and the very last creation in 1906 of the best-known architect Stanford White. The townhouse, where the room belongs, was commissioned as a wedding gift by Oliver Payne, financier and industrialist, for his nephew Payne Whitney and Helen Hay. After the death of Helen Whitney, the townhouse was sold in 1949. The Venetian room had been dismantled the previous year.

The French Government acquired the building in 1952 which now houses Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York. The Venetian room remained in storage until 1997 when Mrs. John Hay Whitney donated the room to the French-American Foundation. The foundation provided the financial support for the re-installation of the room in its original setting.

Restoration of this emblematic example of interior designing during the Gilded Age.

$25,000

The Danny Kaye & Sylvia Fine Kaye Foundation

2017