But not entirely into the ether—some of the costliest and most beautifully made furniture of the American nineteenth century was picked up at auction for cheap in 1942 by Warner Bros. Studios to use as set decorations for period films. Eagle-eyed viewers can spot Vanderbilt castoffs in film after film in the 1940s and later, as the stuff of an American dynastic fantasy was marshaled to embroider the fantasy lives of Americans all over the country.
