bldg. 51 acquires historically important museum quality fragment of sumac pattern plaster frieze from frank lloyd wright designed residence

this week saw the purchase of a historically important and exquisitely detailed sumac pattern plasterwork frieze fragment from the extant dana-thomas house at 301 e lawrence avenue, in springfield, il. the frank lloyd wright-designed residence was commissioned for susan lawrence dana in 1902, about a decade after wright was fired from sullivan's firm for taking outside commissions, his well-known "bootleg" houses.

susan lawrence dana was a wealthy heiress and independent woman, widowed at the turn of the century, and set on remodeling her family's italianate mansion. her eventual contract with frank lloyd wright was the largest commission he had yet completed, and the first with an unlimited budget (in the end, $60,000, equivalent to over $1.5 million today). the house showcased the prairie style, and was built with an appreciation of japanese art and dana's position as a socialite in mind -- being explicitly designed for display and entertainment. the new house was built literally over the top of the former house, and came to be not only a brilliant example of wright's work, but a hub for springfield's social, cultural, and charitable activities. it boasts the largest collection of specific, wrightart glass and furniture of any of his buildings. the 35 room, 12,600 square-foot residence also had a 3,100 square-foot carriage house. a single room of the house --the parlor-- was left intact, in memory of susan dana's father who had left her his fortune.

in her old age dana's health steadily failed, until she could no longer occupy the house, and her belongings were eventually auctioned. the dana house changed hands in 1944, purchased by the publisher charles thomas and remade as the offices of the publishing company (hence the hybridized house name). in 1981, the state of illinois purchased the dana house (and its furniture) and undertook a major restoration project to make the dana-thomas house one of the best preserved and most complete frank lloyd wright prairie houses. after three years and $6 million dollars, the state came to own 103 pieces of furniture and 450 pieces of art glass, and had meticulously returned the residence to its original state.

during process of restoration, one of the challenges was to ascertain and recreate the original color schemes of the exterior. dana had applied shellac to the wood around 1910 that after multiple decades had turned to black. underneath this was the original surface, a rich reddish tone. workers also re-stained the concrete capstones along the garden wall and house foundation to recreate the long horizontal golden-brown strips that tie the house to the landscape.

painted surfaces posed a different problem, especially the painted plaster. decades of additional coats had not only altered the original hue, but eliminated the rough, sandy texture. returning this element to its intended state, with material not obscured by paint, entailed taking 250 paint samples and examining them under a microscope. multiple contractors attempted the job, and finally the detailed stains of green and bronze were matched on the reconstructed plaster friezes. the original plasterwork was entirely replaced with the more durable replica during the 1980's restoration.

the frieze, represented by this fragment, wrapped around the whole house, forming a skin patterned after the shape of sumac leaves (a motif also applied throughout the house on windows, lamps and decorative objects). the exact fabricator is unknown, although it could quite possibly have been completed by richard bock, the sculptor who provided statues for the dana-thomas house. bock worked almost exclusively with wright from 1903 to 1913, and had previously designed the plaster frieze for wright's heller house in 1896.