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Flynn-Devereux Antler Chandelier

The irresistible beauty of antlers, skulls, and horns is at the heart of not only Traditional European, Alpine, and Southwestern décor, but also of haute design. As home interiors evolve, designers are thinking more and more about how to ground contemporary spaces in history—balancing the primitive and primal with the modern.

Noting design’s life-long love affair with natural forms, artist Jason Miller of New York-based Miller Studio believes the most creative people in the field are pushing their art, and the antler, one step further. He sees a productive collision of two sensibilities: rural rustic and urban contemporary design. In this vein, Miller creates hip chandeliers and lamps that are ceramic casts of naturally shed antlers. His lighting fixtures fill their own special market niche. “These are for people who don’t want rustic,” says Miller who notes that hunting, gathering, and animal reverence have nothing at all to do with his antler designs.

In fact, artifice is the point, no pun intended. His chandeliers, hung with metal wire, are “consciously refined, cleaner,” and “more urban” than chandeliers made from natural antlers. The  “Superordinate Antler Chandelier” playfully references the idea that the manufactured version of the antler chandelier is better. “When you cast in ceramic, it comes out hollow.  With the real one, you have to carve a groove in the antler, then cover it up, and faux finish it.”

Newell LLC African Swirled Horn and Skull

A similar, streamlined aesthetic is found in the high-style Italian boutique, Fendi Casa. “Iceland Lights,” antlers made of glass, gleam with a regal brilliance. This lamp would distinguish any luxe interior, as would the finely wrought “Double Candlesticks” made of polished horn and “Book Holders” by Airedelsur.  In the striking “Book Holders” a classical modern form, the cube, is paired with a jet-black African horn. In these designs and others like them, all reference to the wild West or African bush is polished away—the focus is purely on form.

Horns and skulls are not only timeless icons that have adorned human abodes since ancient civilization, they figure into our collective imagination as symbols of power, prosperity, and an exotic, fading wilderness. Horns and skulls are not only timeless icons that have adorned human abodes since ancient civilization, they figure into our collective imagination as symbols of power, prosperity, and an exotic, fading wilderness.

Dramatic to behold, pieces such as the “African Swirled Horn and Skull” through Newel, LLC are natural conversation pieces. When placed in a domestic setting, they seem to emanate a primal power. Managing Principal, Lewis Baer notes that many are drawn to the black exotic swirled horn, perhaps because it is a less predictable shape than the ubiquitous antler: “The swirl design has a much more urban feel, it’s almost deco.”

In contrast to high-modernist minimalism evoked by some horns and antlers are pieces that fall more in the middle of the design spectrum.  At home in a beach house, country manor, or mountain lodge, lamps and furniture integrating iron, wood, horns, and antlers reflect the animal’s habitat: nature. Often, the antlers are not highly glossed but coated with a matte or clear finish that reveals variations in grain and texture. Though many of today’s high-end designs are sophisticated, the effect is warmer. Flynn-Devereux’s “Tub Chair” constructed of rawhide and red deer antlers, balances ingeniously on the horn’s “button ends” that extend from the arms and can be caressed by the hand. In chandeliers designed by owner Gail Flynn, tiers of moose horns align in a thoughtful, “flowing” formation. They are sleek, ornate, and grand, yet retain the grace and agility, even the presence, of the animals they came from.

Another example of posh antler furniture is a 19th-century “partner desk” Flynn restyled with birch-bark panels and rare, flawed, and irregular antlers (which are more valuable). The drawer pulls are made of warthog tusks. Sharing the same genre are antler stools by Newel. The focus is on ornament and form, as well as utility.  Antlers comprise the stool’s lyrical base; hides are stretched over top.

Fendi Casa Iceland Lights

Also holding a secure place in the world of interior décor, “trophies” evoke a primal connection to previous eras. Black Forest animal “trophy” carvings, for example, depict an animal’s head with real antlers attached. Hand-engraved wooden designs feature the lifelike spoils of the hunt by the likes of landed gentry vacationing in 19th-century European castles and chateaus. Aspen-based dealer Michael Daniels, of Daniels Antiques, says the animal head trophies are more popular than ever because of their singular elegance and rare detail in a world “that’s full of fakes.”  According to Daniels, there are far too many low-quality replications of the real. Black Forest trophies, which are often bought in groupings that line entire walls, are reminders of a romantic era, a period where wealth and culture flourished in the Black Forest region of Germany. “They’re where Out of Africa meets British Colonialism. They convey old money and wealth instantly,” says interior design pro Debra Blair, “Part of their beauty is that they can go anywhere.”

Undeniably, there is something powerful about evoking the spirit of wild animals in one’s home. Perhaps speaking for all who are drawn to the irresistible form of antlers and their ilk, Daniels attests to a hunger for what is authentic, for what is here only once in a lifetime—even if it’s not the object itself, it seems an intriguing representation will do.

Click here for more antlers, skulls, and horns decor photos.

Kymberly Taylor is an editor and poet who makes her home on the Magothy River.

Contacts:
Airedelsur: airedelsur.com
Daniels Antiques: blackforestantiques.com or 970-544-9282
Fendi Casa: 202-479-0990
Flynn-Devereux: antler.com or 770-491-0929
Hess Industries: www.davidhess.net or 410-527-0338
Miller Studios: millerstudio.us
Newel LLC: 212-758-1970
Oly: olystudio.com