tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27633252704756818812024-03-27T01:14:27.019-07:00Write AntiquesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger211125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-21343457600768240332020-03-27T09:58:00.001-07:002020-03-27T09:58:18.953-07:00Glass with class: Jack in the Pulpit vases<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_7e-DayFfKtbbOv88D2OZAE_WGyFHXKFtG9esbvIztSOC4B_IAnYsH60ia8dl1KgO-2ZRjnIuqm7rta3DxbJXpdw6O53O6tzjn6KismUxeXUl8zZiiGB_sx2An1Ek3WZGR5sag2jK_Pc/s1600/Jack-.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_7e-DayFfKtbbOv88D2OZAE_WGyFHXKFtG9esbvIztSOC4B_IAnYsH60ia8dl1KgO-2ZRjnIuqm7rta3DxbJXpdw6O53O6tzjn6KismUxeXUl8zZiiGB_sx2An1Ek3WZGR5sag2jK_Pc/s640/Jack-.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
It’s not just owning a collection of antiques that’s fun. It’s also the enjoyment of hunting for new acquisitions, specially in a new saleroom or location, to say nothing of the excitement of finding something special. <br /> Adding immensely to the experience is the fellow collectors you meet along the way, some of the encounters adding rich memories to the journey.<br /> Like the chap we met at an antiques fair who claimed he was “a world expert on Victorian fairings” – crudely potted hard paste porcelain knickknacks that were either prizes or else penny purchase at country fairs.<br /> He reckoned he’d once discovered a fairing so rare, he had been able to sell it for enough money to buy two first-class plane tickets to New York. We came across him later that day at a church jumble sale, his wife’s arms laden with second-hand clothes. Clearly, similar rarities had evaded him.<br /> Then there was the lovely retired couple we chatted to over coffee. He was, he said, a collector of “Jack in the pulpit” glass and he had cabinets full of the things, to the point where his wife had insisted some had had to go.<br /> He’d kept the best, though, and in the pause in the conversation that followed, it was obvious he was waiting for us to ask what a Jack in the pulpit glass was. His disappointment when we didn’t was palpable, but we refrained from boasting about a couple of our own, one of which is particularly lovely.<br /> What we hadn’t given much thought to was where the name came from, although once you know, it’s obvious, specially if you’re a gardener.<br /> Jack in the Pulpit, or Ariscema triphyllum, is a plant that originated in woodland in North America where it was used by the native population as a food source and as a medicine to treat sore skin. However, in its raw form, it is highly poisonous and should not be touched without wearing gloves.<br /> The plant flowers perennially, the old fashioned “pulpit” being formed by a leafy hood beneath which is “Jack”, the spiky, erect flower’s reproductive part. At first glance, it looks like a Sunday-morning preacher ready to give his sermon to anyone passing by.<br /> Given its American roots (sorry!) it’s perhaps not surprising that one of its admirers was arguably that country’s greatest glassmaker, Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848 -1933) who first saw it on his Long Island, New York, estate. As a result, many credit him with being the first to use its name to describe a particular style of glass vase modelled after the plant’s shape.<br /> I’m not so sure, though. His vases appeared in around 1900, but English glassmakers Stevens & Williams were making similar products half a century earlier. Since then, a myriad of other makers followed and Jack in the Pulpit glassware continues to flow from today’s producers.<br /> With their slender, sometimes curling stems and coquettish twist to the tip of the “pulpit”, the shape screams Art Nouveau, a decorative arts design period from about 1890-1910 that took its inspiration from nature.<br /> Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) was the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, the New York fancy goods retailer and one of America’s most influential Art Nouveau artist-craftsmen.<br /> Louis trained as a painter but turned to the decorative arts in 1879, establishing a firm of interior decorators in the city which boasted the American writer Mark Twain among its most prestigious customers.<br /> However, his international fame was secured as a glassmaker and designer, producing everything from stained glass windows to breathtakingly beautiful lamp shades.<br /> His vases were made form iridescent glass, produced with a technique he patented in 1894 called favrile, a name derived from fabrile, meaning handmade or belonging to a craftsman. <br /> Several glass firms made iridescent glass in the early 1900s, but Tiffany's soft, incandescent sheen of lustrous favrile glass, inspired by colours found on excavated antique Syrian and Roman glass, was unique. <br /> Tiffany’s Jack in the pulpit vases were made in different sizes and colour combinations, achieved by dissolving salts of rare metals in molten glass and keeping them in an oxidised state in the kiln to produce chemical reactions. <br /> Some were also sprayed with chloride, which made the surface break up into fine lines that picked up the light. Gold lustre is said to have been made from gold coins dissolved in hydrofluoric acid. <br /> Needless to say, such glassware is financially out of reach for most but the wealthiest of collectors but the interestingly, we found a golden iridescent “Tiffany” Jack in the Pulpit vase decorated with at an upmarket antiques fair last month. It was priced at £285.<br /> The dealer selling it was quick to point out, however, that the base had been engraved with the Tiffany name in the distant past by some devious chancer. In fact, the vase was made in the Loetz glassworks, founded in 1836 in the Southern Bohemian town of Klostermühle, today part of the Czech Republic. Hence the price.<br /> Jack in the Pulpit-style glassware has been made in both opaque and in colours such as cranberry, milk, peachblow, and “Vaseline” yellow, more correctly termed uranium glass and the list of makers worldwide who have produced and are still producing it is lengthy.<br /> But what of Stevens & Williams? Established in Stourbridge in the West Midlands in 1776, the glassworks at Moor Lane, Brierly Hill passed from Richard Honeybourne to Joseph Silver in 1824 and subsequently to William Stevens and Samuel Williams, who each married Silver’s daughters.<br /> Stevens & Williams was founded in 1847 and became noted in particular for producing quality decorative glass, using techniques such freehand engraving, acid etching, enamelling, and cameo cutting from about 1880 under the direction of John Northwood and his protégé Frederick Carder.<br /> The firm patented “Damascened” glass in 1885, which featured silver or copper design surfaces; “Jewelled” and “Pearl Satin” glass, the latter looking like mother of pearl, and, in 1888. “Moss-Agate” glass, which gave the effect of crazed semi-transparent alabaster.<br /> Interestingly, Carder made his name in America where he co-founded the famed Steuben glassworks in Corning, New York <br /> Stevens & Williams became Royal Brierley Crystal in 1931 following a visit by the Duke and Duchess of York and is now owned by Dartington Ltd.<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-41636773274673475782012-12-07T10:36:00.000-08:002017-02-01T16:32:25.405-08:00Menus and their holders can be tasty collectables<p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz61212antiquemenu-10.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 344px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Menu-10" border="0" alt="Menu-10" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz61212antiquemenu-10_thumb.jpg" width="344" height="547" /></a>I’m on a diet, so there’ll be no stuffing myself with turkey, Christmas pudding and brandy butter or lashings of ginger beer this festive season. Thankfully we’ll be on a beach, so the temptation won’t even be there, which is just as well because will power was never my strong point.</p> <p>It’s one of the reasons why I don’t fancy a winter cruise. According to reports that filter back from various other family members who have tried it, most of the time is spent in one or other on-board restaurant. Apparently, we’re told, it’s quite possible to eat right around the clock.</p> <p>‘Twas ever thus. In 1947, dinner in First Class aboard the Cunard White Star flagship RMS Queen Elizabeth went as follows: for starters, it was oysters on the half shell, followed by clear turtle soup, turbot for the fish course and timable of ham. Main course was roast sirloin of beef accompanied by braised onions, fresh broccoli, globe artichokes and hollandaise sauce. Potatoes were “boiled, roast snow and Parisienne”.</p> <p>Pudding was a choice of Seville soufflé, charlotte russe or praline parfait, or one could stick with the ices: vanilla, Neapolitan or pistachio. And to finish: fresh fruit, coffee and “Scotch Woodcock”. How do I know? Simple, among my cache of printed ephemera, I have a copy of the menu. </p> <p>A couple of printed menus sold last week were out of my reach, though. Henry Aldridge and Son, the Devizes auctioneers who lead the world as auctioneers of Titanic memorabilia, secured a bid of £64,000 for the rarer of the two, pictured above. It listed the 24 dishes including roast Surrey capon, fresh lobsters, “Hodge Podge”, roast beef and ox tongue, served at the first luncheon served in First Class on board Titanic on her maiden voyage out of Southampton on April 10, 1912.</p><a name='more'></a><p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/Titanic-launch-lunch.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 496px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Titanic launch lunch" border="0" alt="Titanic launch lunch" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/Titanic-launch-lunch_thumb.jpg" width="496" height="262" /></a>Brothers Richard and Stanley May were travelling from Southampton to Cork for a fishing holiday and were aboard Titanic to cross the Irish Sea. They had the good fortune to leave the “unsinkable” ship at Queenstown and took the menu with them. It sold to a UK private collector.</p> <p>The second, pictured above, was from a meal served at a luncheon held at the Grand Central Hotel in Belfast on May 31, 1911, to celebrate the liner’s maiden voyage. After a bidding battle, it sold for more than £36,000 to a UK private collector against a collector from Beijing.</p> <p>The luncheon consisted of 12 lavish courses including eggs stuffed with foie gras and turtle soup. As a palate cleanser, a drink known as Ponche à la Romaine – Roman Punch - was served. This sourbet-like concoction was made with lemon juice, champagne, rum sugar, water and ice, and it later proved to be a sensation with First Class passengers.</p> <p>Visit a restaurant these days and the menu is generally brought to you by a waiter and taken away again after you have ordered. In Victorian and Edwardian days, the menu remained on the table, held flag-like by some simple but usually ingenious device, so that it was always at hand.</p> <p>Sometimes, the holders were nothing more than a plain metal disc with either a clip or a slot in to which the menu was pushed to hold it upright. But then there were posh restaurants where everything on diners’ tables followed a distinct design that echoed<a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz61212antiquemenu-4.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 271px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Menu-4" border="0" alt="Menu-4" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz61212antiquemenu-4_thumb.jpg" width="271" height="427" /></a> the style of the establishment and, of course, the prevailing fashion of the day.</p> <p>Thus, a sober gentleman’s club, all leather armchairs and oak panelling, would chose matching menu holders, usually in silver with the mutest of decoration, possibly just the club crest and motto. Upmarket big city hotels and restaurants, on the other hand, would be sure to follow current fashion.</p> <blockquote> <h6><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/sh/en50ojvudogrha0/OADpAe1Key">Click here to see a collection of menu holders</a></h6> </blockquote> <p>When Art Nouveau was all the rage, menu holders would be far less understated than previously. Expect to find flowing sensual examples, all flowers and femmes fleur with exotic tendrils and complex curves. The arrival of the Art Deco era put an end to all that and fashionable restaurants were obliged to adopt the geometric zigzags and odeonesque angles the fashion demanded.</p> <p>Menu holders are found in a variety of materials including porcelain, ivory, glass and several different metals, notably hotel-quality electroplated base metal. The finest, though, were obviously made from silver and as you might imagine, master smiths allowed their imaginations free rein, as can be seen by the examples illustrated, all of which were assayed in Chester.</p> <p>A simple glass or pot holder could be yours for a fiver, a good Deco example for £80-100 or more.If it’s a set of menu holders you’re after, then a country house contents sale could provide the answer. Preference was given to silver, silver gilt or good quality silver plate and the holders would have been produced in sets – usually cased – to match the table silver, or flatware, as it is more correctly called.</p> <p>Chances are, such sets would have been handed down over several generations and often they are decorated with family mottoes and crests. These make a fascinating area of research for today’s inquisitive collectors who, with a good reference library book listing such things, can often trace the development of a family and to discover exactly which branch or member ordered the menu holders and when.</p> <p>And don’t think, like I used to, that when not in use on the dining table, menu holders are good only for sitting in a collector’s cabinet and looking pretty. Let’s face it, who bothers with menus anyway at a dinner party anyway?. I was watching <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006nb9z">Bargain Hunt</a> the other day when Tim Wonnacott came up with some great suggestions for alternative uses.</p> <p>Why not use them to display favourite photographs, or birthday and Christmas cards. Talking of which, with the cost of postage these days, when friends or family come round for Christmas lunch, have their cards waiting for them at table, each held on show in its own menu holder. And if you were feeling really generous, the holder could double as a gift.</p> <p>Don’t worry about me, though. I’ll be by the pool sipping a diet cola.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-46042834798358816412012-11-30T07:00:00.000-08:002017-02-01T16:32:09.111-08:00Give festive gifts with historic charm this Christmas<a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz291112antiquecollect-9.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 383px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="collect-9" alt="collect-9" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz291112antiquecollect-9_thumb.jpg" width="383" height="454" border="0" /></a>My mission this week is to help you find Christmas presents for the collectors in your life: for Gran, a nice hand-blown English drinking glass for her egg nog; a first edition classic for Grandpa; an impressive gold necklace or gem-set brooch for Mum; an antique handmade golf club for Dad; and the kids? Well virtually any plaything from the past would be perfect.<br/><br/>But all that’s old hat. Why not buy each of them a Christmas collectable? Let’s face it, there’s plenty of choice and since it’s a festival that’s been going for a while now, celebrating Christmas is not something that’s going to go out of fashion.<br/><br/>The idea was planted in my subconscious the last time I went to Florida for my summer holiday. There’s something distinctly odd about shops that sell only Christmassy kitsch all<br/><br/><a name='more'></a><br/><br/><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz291112antiquecollect-8.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 365px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="collect-8" alt="collect-8" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz291112antiquecollect-8_thumb.jpg" width="365" height="611" border="0" /></a>year round, but the air conditioning provided welcome relief from the 80 degree August sun and by the time we’d finished looking, many dollars had been liberated from my wallet.<br/><br/>Whether or not any of the baubles, ornaments and knickknacks will ever be worth more than they cost is doubtful, but they are brought out every year around now and they continue to bring pleasure. Perhaps in another hundred years or so ...<br/><br/>No matter. Since then, we’ve been squirreling away all manner of old Christmas decorations. They turn up occasionally at the countless antique fairs and car boot sales we visit every year and they also add a certain unique charm when we deck the halls with boughs of holly.<br/><br/>We’ve yet to find a vintage Christmas tree, like the one illustrated here, preferring instead to enjoy the pungent smell of the real thing. Dealing with the fallen needles is a necessary evil. The artificial tree and all its original decorations came from Binns department store in the 1930s.<br/><br/>The British tradition of decorating a tree at Christmas is a relatively new one, following a fashion started in 1841 by Queen Victoria’s new husband. Prince Albert installed a decorated tree in Windsor Castle to mark their second Christmas together, and it so delighted the queen that the Christmas tree soon became universally popular<br/><br/>It was a tradition Albert brought with him from his native Germany. There, legend has it that the mother-less children of a woodcutter were home alone in the forest one day when a little boy came asking for food and shelter. The children took him in and shared what bread they had with him and gave him a bed for the night. The next morning, on leaving, the boy visitor, who was in fact the Christ-child, planted a fir tree. Instantly it grew and grew and miraculously brought forth apples, nuts and sweets in abundance. The Christmas tree perpetuates the story ever after.<br/><br/>As for antique Christmas tree decorations, look for 19th century glass baubles made in Lauschia, in Germany; bisque porcelain snow babies with original decoration; so-called Christmas pudding dolls and cake decorations and papier maché Santa Clauses made from the 1870s intended to contain sweets or biscuits.<br/><h5 align="center">At £10, they seemed like a bargain</h5><br/>Lauschia was the cradle of German glass-making from the 17th century. Christmas shiny balls are today very rare and often mistaken as witch balls. Expect to pay £200 or more for the large Kugels (German for sphere or ball), which measure up to 10 inches across and around £50 for the smaller examples. Beware modern copies.<br/><br/>We saw a box of six 1930s German-made glass shiny balls at recent car boot sale and now, faced with having to decorate our own tree with modern plastic excuses for tree decorations, we wished we had bought them. At £10, they seemed like a bargain, given their longevity.<br/><br/>Snow babies are small porcelain dolls measuring around two inches with blue eyes and rosy cheeks. The German Heubach firm of dollmakers produced the most sought after, but expect to pay £75 plus for a 19th century example. Japanese makers copied the idea after the First World War. Their products are recognisable by their brown eyes, calligraphic eyebrows and inferior quality. Again, modern copies abound.<br/><br/>Vintage Santa Clauses are very collectable, even the plastic varieties popular in the 1950s, being worth £2-5 today. The best are those that are hollow for sweets and which range in size from six to 18 inches. Nineteenth century examples are worth £150-200, while even later copies made in Hong Kong or bearing an “Empire Made” mark are worth £75.<br/><br/>Examples with no mark probably date from just after the First World War when retailers scratched off the “Made in Germany” mark for fear of being left with stock no one would buy.<br/><br/>Harder to find are vintage Christmas crackers, basically because once pulled – the whole point after all – they are discarded. They were invented by London baker and confectioner Tom Smith in Clerkenwell, East London, who copied the Chinese fortune cookie by wrapping his sweets with a motto in waxed paper.<br/><br/><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz291112antiquecollect-2.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 296px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="collect-2" alt="collect-2" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz291112antiquecollect-2_thumb.jpg" width="296" height="362" border="0" /></a>Tom's next brainwave was to include a small charm or trinket, which he decided he would place with the sweet and motto inside a small cardboard tube enclosed by an outer wrapper. The cracker was born, although it was still without the “crack”.<br/><br/>Tradition has it that inspiration came from the crackling of a log fire. It took two years to perfect but the solution is still in use today. Tom's crackers were launched under the brand name "Bangs of Expectation” in time for Christmas 1860.<br/><br/>The golden era for crackers was 1880-1930. Tom Smith remained the dominant manufacturer producing sets linked by common themes: Shakespearean crackers containing party hats and quotations from the Bard's plays; "Aesthetic Crackers" inspired by Oscar Wilde and "Stereoscopic Crackers" containing tiny kaleidoscopes and other optical toys. Others celebrated war heroes, Charlie Chaplin, the wireless, motoring, the Coronation and even the 1914 plan to dig a Channel Tunnel.<br/><br/>Cheapest of all festive collectables, though, are Victorian and Edwardian Christmas cards, our latest costing just 75 pence. Rowland Hill and his Penny Post of 1840 is who to thank, while one of the most prodigious publishers was Raphael Tuck.<br/><br/>Punch magazine summed up the attraction of Victorian Christmas cards in 1883 with the words: <em>"E'en though you sneer at Christmas cards, you'll feel inclined to gush; O'er wondrous screens and novelties, in satin, silk and plush."</em><br/><br/>I couldn’t agree more.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-34221805624939663192012-11-23T07:55:00.000-08:002017-02-01T16:32:25.373-08:00My heart belongs to Chiparus Dolly Sisters<a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwwszz221112antiquedolly-3.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 363px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="Dolly-3" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/_d_improd_/nwwszz221112antiquedolly-3_thumb_f_improf_431x460.jpg" alt="Dolly-3" width="431" height="460" border="0" /></a>THIS magnificent bronze and ivory figure by the great Romanian-born Art Deco sculptor Demetre Chiparus may not be unique – numerous editions would have been cast – but the two exotic vaudeville dancers it depicts surely were. They were the Dolly Sisters, the original dolly birds, alluringly naughty legends in their own lifetime on both sides of the Atlantic, who drove their fabulously rich suitors mad with desire.<br/><br/>The Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII, and his close friend Edward “Fruity” Metcalfe were both reported to have had affairs with the identical twins. Media magnate William Randolph Hearst and entrepreneur “Diamond” Jim Brady were captivated, while Harry Selfridge, the widowed American founder of the Oxford Street store, was said to “bat the Dolly sisters back and forth like ping-pong balls” between himself and newspaper tycoon Max Beaverbook.<br/><br/>Selfridge’s indulgence knew no bounds, He squandered millions on the twins who were<br/><br/><a name='more'></a><br/><br/><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwwszz221112antiquedolly-1.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 263px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="Dolly-1" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwwszz221112antiquedolly-1_thumb.jpg" alt="Dolly-1" width="263" height="280" border="0" /></a>mirror images of each other and ended up bitter and impecunious in a London flat after paying their gambling debts and showering them with jewels. But then to be seen out in society with one sister was glamorous enough. To be seen squiring one on each arm was every aspiring young playboy millionaire’s dream.<br/><br/>And yet, it all ended in tragedy. Behind the façade of sisterly love, fame and fortune, was rivalry, disaster and tragedy.<br/><br/>Born in 1892 in Budapest as Roszika and Janszieka Deutsch, they emigrated to New York aged 12, when their parents’ business hit on hard times. Already keen dancers, they turned professional to help their family make ends meet and before long, they were appearing with the Ziegfield Follies. When someone remarked they looked like dolls, the name stuck. Rosie and Jenny were the Dolly Sisters and fame followed.<br/><br/>In May 1916 Margaret Burr of Theatre magazine wrote: “It must be admitted that the chief fascination of the twin Dollies lies not so much in the grace of their dancing, nor in the charm of their personalities, nor in the naiveté of this manner, nor yet the quaintness of their accents - sufficient as are all of these – but rather in the amazing duplicity of Nature.”<br/><br/>They were strikingly beautiful. Small, dark-haired and exotic, they won minor Hollywood roles and delighted audiences with guest Broadway appearances in flamboyantly extravagant identical outfits and routines, the choreography matched to perfection. It was not long before they discovered there was even more rewards to be had from wealthy admirers only too eager to shower them with gifts.<br/><blockquote><em>Demetre Chiparus (1888-1947) was born in Romania and schooled in Italy and then just before the outbreak of the First World War in Paris, where he was a pupil of the sculptors Anonin Mercier and Jean Boucher. </em><br/><br/><em>His first exhibition was at the Salon of the Société des Artistes Français in 1914. He showed a number of small sculptures in bronze and received an honourable mention, an accolade that was much coveted among the artistic fraternity. Another recipient of the award was Louis Comfort Tiffany. </em><br/><br/><em>Chiparus subsequently went on to experiment with the process of combining painted bronze with ivory, a technique known as chryselephantine. </em><br/><br/><em>The use of ivory for faces, hands and bare flesh gave the figures more natural, lifelike and tactile and adds greatly to their exotic appeal. </em><br/><br/><em>Chiparus became a naturalised Frenchman, married and had several children, some of whom feature in his figures. </em><br/><br/><em>However, he was fascinated by the dancers in Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, who entertained the cafe society in Paris, Leon Bakst’s stage designs and subsequently the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922 which heavily influenced his designs and subject matter. </em><br/><br/><em>The Dolly Sisters were a natural subject for Chiparus who was obsessed with vaudeville and the music hall. </em><br/><br/><em>The girls would have worked at the Follies Bergere, the Moulin Rouge and the Alcazar, each hosting sumptuous Hollywood-style productions featuring flashy costumes and dancing which Chiparus loved to visit. </em><br/><br/><em>His sculpture of the sisters is regarded as one of his finest and is regularly chosen to represent his work. </em><br/><br/><em>Some Chiparus figures were made in spelter cold-painted to represent bronze and ivorene, an early plastic, which was cast and also painted in bright colours. </em><br/><br/><em>Other examples of his work can be seen in the bronze figures commissioned by the firm of Arthur Goldscheider which were also reproduced in pottery. </em><br/><br/><em>Authentic examples of Chiparus bronzes (although by no means all) are each etched with this signature in the marble base and some show the name of the foundry where they were cast. However, there are many fakes. </em><br/><br/><em>Another distinguishing feature is the long slender fingers of the subjects. Look carefully and the detail of each fingernail is also carved delicately in the original, a feature the faker overlooks. </em><br/><br/><em>His figures were produced in three different sizes. This large size figure of the Dolly Sisters, one of only five known, measured an impressive 74cm and was sold at <a href="http://www.bonhams.com" target="_blank">Bonhams</a> in London last week for £277,250, an auction record for that particular sculpture and the most valuable of four works by Chiparus in the sale.</em></blockquote><br/>Despite Prohibition, their New York apartment boasted a magnificent cocktail bar and for much of the 1920s, in both Paris and London, they were continually in the news for their extravagant living, gambling, predilection for jewellery and high profile love affairs with the rich and famous. Both sisters married and then divorced, gaining huge financial settlements.<br/><br/>In one season's gambling at the chic French resort of Deauville, they won $850,000, while Jenny once won four million francs (then around £80,000) in one evening in Cannes, which she converted into jewellery before going on to win another 11 million. Losses were equally substantial, but there was always a millionaire handy to pick up the tab, including King Alfonso of Spain, and his son Prince Fausto.<br/><br/>It could never last. Although completely devoted to one another, a degree of tension emerged between them, often as an on-going game of rivalry. At the end of 1927, after more than 20 years on stage, they retired and went their separate ways. Jenny bought a fabulous chateau in Fontainebleau, opened a couture establishment and adopted two young girls whom she hoped would become the “New Dolly Sisters”.<br/><br/><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwwszz221112antiquedolly-6.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border-width: 0px;" title="Dolly-6" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwwszz221112antiquedolly-6_thumb.jpg" alt="Dolly-6" width="160" height="203" border="0" /></a>Tragedy followed in 1933 when, in the midst of an affair with French aviator and film star Max Constant, Jenny suffered serious facial injuries in a car crash near Bordeaux. Her financial and emotional condition was already poor and after the accident she moved back to America and sold off her jewellery - reputed to be the largest collection in private hands in the world - to pay for plastic surgery. She married attorney Bernard Vissinsky but hanged herself in 1941, during a trip to Los Angeles.<br/><br/>In 1943, Rosie sold the film rights to a far from accurate musical about the Dolly Sisters, but even Betty Grable and June Haver could not make The Dolly Sisters a box office hit. Rosie attempted suicide in 1962 but by then she had settled down with a new, rich husband from Chicago, confirming the generally held view that she had always been the lucky one. She died in 1970.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-40603996935406789252012-11-16T10:57:00.000-08:002017-02-01T16:32:25.355-08:00Mourning jewellery–poignant and highly collectable<a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/Queen-Victoria.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 319px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="mourn-10" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/Queen-Victoria_thumb.jpg" alt="mourn-10" width="319" height="392" border="0" /></a>Queen Victoria ruled for almost 64 years, the longest in British history. The last 40 of them were spent in mourning for her beloved husband, Prince Albert, who died in 1861. And when she declared that mourning nationally should be for “the longest term in modern times”, it became not just a ritual but a fashion. Ironically, dressmakers and jewellers had a field day (as, no doubt, did undertakers).<br/><br/>So, while it may be a bid morbid, this week’s missive is all about collecting memoriam or mourning jewellery. Time was when such pieces commemorating the death of a loved one were treasured and passed down through the generations, but after the carnage of two world wars, relatives were often only too relieved to rid themselves of anything relating to death. The secondhand market became flooded with the stuff and only now is it being appreciated by a new generation of collectors.<br/><br/>It was the upper classes who made the most of mourning, a widow naturally bearing the burden more than most, although her children suffered too. Special bonnets, heavy “weeping veils” of black crepe, and gowns – her “widow’s weeds” – covered her almost entirely, which the rules demanded should be worn for at least a year and an a day and sometimes as long as four years after a loved one’s death. The universal colour was, of course, black.<br/><br/><a name='more'></a><br/><br/><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz151112antiquemourn-11.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="mourn-11" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz151112antiquemourn-11_thumb.jpg" alt="mourn-11" width="296" height="203" border="0" /></a>A period of “half-mourning” followed, during which time colour could be slowly reintroduced, with the widow gradually returning to some sort of social life. Too soon and she was open to criticism, particularly if she gave any hint that she was open to courtship and a second marriage. Even her servants were expected to wear black, dressed appropriately at her sometimes crippling expense.<br/><br/>The practice of wearing mourning jewellery is thousands of years old, but Queen Victoria’s obsession sparked a fashion which became craze. She chose Whitby Jet, also known as sea coal and “black amber”, as a symbol of her grief.<br/><br/>Jet is a carboniferous mineral – a form of fossilised wood – mostly associated with the town of Whitby that was once collected from the North East shoreline to be used as fuel. Then, in 1800, John Carter and Robert Jefferson discovered it could be carved and polished. It was subsequently mined extensively along the Yorkshire coast, supporting a workforce of 1,400 men by the middle of the 19th century.<br/><br/><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/Group-of-three-memoriam-brooches.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="Group of three memoriam brooches" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/Group-of-three-memoriam-brooches_thumb.jpg" alt="Group of three memoriam brooches" width="260" height="203" border="0" /></a>The dull black gloss of the mineral suited the heavy, sombre dresses that widows favoured. Equally heavy brooches, earrings, necklaces, bracelets and even skilfully carved, massive link chains gave an added sombreness.<br/><br/>In fact, so popular was Whitby jet that entrepreneurial Paris glassmakers copied the designs and faked them with deceptively similar so-called French jet It looks and feels like true jet but you can tell the difference by rubbing it against your teeth. If it's real jet, it's smooth, while the glass variety grates and scratches.<br/><br/>The very finest brooches change hands for £500 or more today, but more simple and no less charming examples can be had for as little as £10. Look out also for jet hatpins at £40-60; buttons from £5 and the somewhat rarer snuffboxes at £200-300.<br/><br/>Gold mourning jewellery has been worn since the middle ages and became popular in the 15th and 16th century with macabre symbols of skulls, coffins, and gravestones being the most common. They were replaced in the Georgian and Victorian eras with more sentimental flowers, hearts, crosses, and ivy leaves.<br/><br/><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz151112antiquemourn-8.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="mourn-8" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz151112antiquemourn-8_thumb.jpg" alt="mourn-8" width="257" height="203" border="0" /></a>Decoration was usually in black enamels sometimes including pearls – representing tears and sincerity – and often incorporating brief epithets such as “In memory of” or “Forget me not”, together with memoriam inscriptions giving the deceased’s name or monogram, and the date and sometimes cause of death. These are particularly poignant, especially in the case of the death of a child. The brooch on the left of this picture is one example of the latter.<br/><br/>Jewellery containing the plaited hair of the deceased dates from the mid-17th century but is found more readily today dating from the 19th century. Most common are lockets, the reverse of which contain a lock or plait beneath a thin cover of rock crystal or glass. Often the hair is woven into intricate patterns or knots.<br/><br/>Rings, bracelets, earrings, watch fobs and necklaces all became a popular way of keeping the memory of a loved one near. I’ve even one commemorating the death of a pet dog.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-8802069783096015532012-11-09T08:25:00.000-08:002017-02-01T16:32:25.337-08:00Chocks away! What better way to spend rainy days than collecting first
editions of Biggles’ adventures<p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz081112antiquebiggles-4.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 347px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Biggles-4" border="0" alt="Biggles-4" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz081112antiquebiggles-4_thumb.jpg" width="347" height="441" /></a>I<em> am grateful to Roger Harris to sell for  his assistance in writing this post.  Roger is the publisher of  </em><a href="http://www.biggles.com" target="_blank"><em>Biggles.com</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://www.wejohns.com" target="_blank"><em>WEJohns.com</em></a><em>, both of which I recommend highly.</em></p> <p>HOW I hate the rain. Every time we plan to  go somewhere or do something, it pours. Even  Bonfire Night was a washout. There was a time, though, when I prayed for rain: I hated double sport lessons. If it was wet, they were spent in the library, where Biggles books were my refuge.</p> <p>Roger Harris is another Biggles fan but with different, more painful, memories than my own. As a great admirer of the pilot-adventurer immortalised by author Captain W.E. Johns, Roger collected around 60 of the books but then sold them all for the grand sum of £12. That was in 1979. “Twenty five years later it would cost me in the region of £12,000 to buy them all back,” he told me ruefully.</p> <p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz081112antiquebiggles-2.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 133px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Biggles-2" border="0" alt="Biggles-2" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz081112antiquebiggles-2_thumb.jpg" width="133" height="142" /></a>At first he could afford to buy only pre-1942 first editions without their original dust wrappers. He now owns a first edition copy of every Biggles book published since 1942, all in their original, unclipped dust wrappers showing their original price. It took him 10 years to find a first edition of the first Biggles book “The Camels are Coming”.</p> <p>I didn’t dare ask him what they set him back, but having watched a first edition copy of “Biggles Flies South”, published in 1938 sell for a sky-high £1,000 in a </p><a name='more'></a><p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz081112antiquebiggles-3.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 364px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Biggles-3" border="0" alt="Biggles-3" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz081112antiquebiggles-3_thumb.jpg" width="364" height="457" /></a>recent auction – the book retailed originally for 3/6d (17½ pence) – I thought there was no one better equipped to tell me more.</p> <p>For starters, Captain W.E. Johns was actually not a captain at all. Roger explained it was a pen name he adopted because he thought it would be more appealing to boys than his actual rank, which was a Flying Officer.</p> <p>Born in 1893, William Earl Johns served in the trenches at Gallipoli and then in the Machine Gun Corps until learning to fly as a 2nd Lieutenant with the Royal Flying Corps. After a year training others, in the summer of 1918 he joined 55 Squadron as a bomber pilot in France.</p> <p>His flying career was short-lived, however. On September 16 his plane was hit first by anti-aircraft fire and then shot down by German aircraft, killing his rear gunner. </p> <p>Johns spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner, re-joining what was then the Royal Air Force, but by the 1930s he had changed career and was working mainly as an aircraft illustrator and writing short pieces for such magazines as “Modern Boy”.</p> <p>He was subsequently appointed editor of “Popular Flying” magazine and with the first edition in April 1932, he published the very first Biggles story – “The White Fokker”.</p> <p>“Biggles was James Bigglesworth, a young officer who flew a Sopwith Camel and Johns created him to give readers an idea of what the officers of the time were really like, Roger said.</p> <p>“However, ‘Popular Flying’ was aimed at adults and the short stories had Biggles swearing and drinking alcohol. When the stories were later reprinted for children, alcohol became lemonade and any Biggles “cursing luridly” would be replaced by ‘Oh Gosh!’ and similar expressions!</p> <p>“Johns’ writing was extremely realistic because of his own experiences. He knew what it was like in air combat and what it was like to be shot down from 20,000 feet, but it had to be tempered for his audience.”</p> <p>The short stories from the first seven issues of “Popular Flying” were published in book form with 10 others in “The Camels are Coming”, which was published on September 7, 1932. A first edition in original dust wrapper sold last year for £11,000.</p> <p>The first five Biggles books were published by a company called John Hamilton, but first editions of them are very hard to find, particular with dust wrappers. Johns changed publishers to Oxford University Press in 1935 from then until 1943, they published 20 Biggles titles.</p> <p>“Again, these Oxford books are hard to find in first edition with original dust wrappers,” Roger said. “Examples in excellent command high prices, regularly achieving four figures at auction.”</p> <p>Johns was paid £250 per book by Oxford but received no royalties, although he was writing two or three Biggles books a year, establishing a comfortable income for himself in the 1930s.</p> <blockquote> <p><strong>Roger Harris has created a popular website at www.biggles.com showing all of the first edition covers. The site also features story summaries and other interesting information. </strong></p> <p><strong>A handful of titles which he is searching for his own collection remain allusive. </strong></p> <p><strong>He said: “The Boys’ Friend Library published two flimsy paperbacks in 1935 called “Biggles Learns to Fly” and “Biggles in France”  (pictured above) that I am very keen to acquire. If anyone has a copy, please contact me via my website.” </strong></p> <p><strong>Anyone interested in learning more about Captain W. E. Johns and the other books he wrote should visit Roger’s other website: www.wejohns.com where they will find full information about his fascinating life and career</strong>.</p> </blockquote> <p>The books became extremely popular, particularly after the Second World War when they started to sell in very large numbers. “Johns had the good sense to change publishers,” Roger said. “He moved to Hodder & Stoughton, who along with their subsidiary company, Brock Books, would publish the Biggles books until Johns’ death in 1968.</p> <p>“The move meant Johns would receive royalties and when his books were translated into numerous foreign languages around the world, he was able to live a very comfortable life.”</p> <p>Johns died in June 1968, half way through writing “Biggles Does Some Homework”, the last ever Biggles book, which itself was only published in a very limited edition of 300 paperbacks in 1998 and 300 hardbacks in 2007.</p> <p>“By the time of his death, Johns had written an incredible 274 stories featuring Biggles consisting of 83 novels and 191 short stories collected into a further 18 books. In total, there are 101 Biggles books. The stories are extremely exciting and make great reading.”</p> <p>As a result they are highly collectable, particularly the first editions. Johns moved the character with the times, so after the initial First World War stories, Biggles had exciting adventures around the world until the outbreak of the Second World War when he commanded a Spitfire Squadron. </p> <p>“At the end of the Second World War, Johns had the clever idea of Biggles becoming an Air Detective for Scotland Yard with the ‘Air Police’, so Biggles, with his ever-faithful companions, Algy, Ginger and Bertie, had an excuse to continue flying around the world solving mysteries and catching criminals,” Roger said. </p> <p>After Johns’ death, the books’ popularity declined. Libraries considered them not politically correct and too jingoistic. However, they continue to be printed and collectors continue to search out rare, early editions.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-65378445281365924742012-11-02T07:46:00.000-07:002017-02-01T16:32:25.321-08:00The potted history of collectable Victorian pot lids<p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz250712antiquepotlid-10.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 366px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="potlid-1o" border="0" alt="potlid-1o" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz250712antiquepotlid-10_thumb.jpg" width="366" height="376" /></a>Who among readers of this weekly missive collects Staffordshire pot lids? Clearly no one who was at a sale I watched the other day because not one of 16 lots of the things, mostly with two lids in each lot, found a buyer prepared to pay the - generally - £80-120 per lot that the auctioneer was expecting.</p> <p>Let’s assume the reserves were on the low estimate. Is £40 too much to pay for a colourful, ready-made (and often ready-framed) little work of art that once had collectors falling over themselves to own? Answer: a resounding yes. Fashions change and just like the Clarice Cliff vase that I know cost its owner £450 and she let go in the same sale for £260, it’s very easy to get caught out and left to count the cost.</p> <p>Which I suppose means that now is the time to buy Staffordshire pot lids. They will probably never be cheaper. Read on and perhaps by the end, you’ll know what you’re looking for.</p><a name='more'></a><p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz250712antiquepotlid-12.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 534px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="potlid-12" border="0" alt="potlid-12" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz250712antiquepotlid-12_thumb.jpg" width="534" height="337" /></a>Like so many antiques that have fascinated us, we were introduced to pot lids by Arthur Negus. In 1981, he interviewed actor Leslie Crowther, arguably the best known collector of them, and “The Price is Right” star explained how Victorian manufacturers of fish and meat pastes were quick to realise that the attractively decorated lids enhanced the sales of their products.</p> <p>We had to find one that we could afford. With prices then often topping the hundreds, they were out of our reach. Then, amazingly, we dug one up in a long-forgotten rubbish dump. We still own it today.</p> <p>Small earthenware pots with lids decorated first in black and white and then in full colour were commonplace in the mid-19th century. They had been around since about 1760 and were ideal as “packaging” for utilitarian products such as bear's grease hair lotion, cure-all ointments, and tooth powder.</p> <p>Today, pot lids provide a fascinating lesson in social history. A host of different illustrations appear on them, covering such diverse subjects as the Australian gold strike, the Crimean War, Shakespearian plays, assorted portraits of royalty, heroes and actresses and the Great Exhibition of 1851.</p> <p>The man to thank is Felix Pratt (1813-1894) who introduced multi-coloured printing on ceramics at his works in Fenton in the Potteries in 1846. Pratt went on to dominate the market, largely as a result of the expertise of his engraver, Jesse Austin, who developed the process for decorating pot lids.</p> <p>Austin was a gifted artist who drew inspiration from celebrated paintings, events and other aspects of Victorian life. He painted the designs in watercolour and then etched them onto copper plates in order to reproduce the scenes in miniature.</p> <p>Four colour plates were used in all, one for each prime colour in the printing process and a fourth black key plate to lay down the image on the pot lid.</p> <p>Each plate was charged with its respective colour and covered with a sheet of special tissue paper. Plate and paper were then passed through a mangle-like machine that applied pressure, to transfer the impression to the paper. This was then laid over the fired but unglazed pot lid which absorbed the colours under further pressure, one at a time, until the picture was complete.</p> <p>Once this was done, and each step in the process sometimes took several days while each colour dried out, the lids were glazed and fired revealing the full strength of the colours for the first time in the entire process.</p> <p>This long and extremely delicate operation called for absolute accuracy to ensure correct colour registration. One tip to help weed out reproductions and fakes is to look for the small black dots at either side of the picture which were used ensure successive plates were aligned correctly. Only authentic lids have them.</p> <p>Collectors seek out the work of Jesse Austin in particular as it shows a marked excellence. His name or initials can be found on a number of lids engraved by him. </p> <p>The height of pot lids' popularity was in the 1860s, although they were still in production in the 1900s, still used for their original purposes. Some were reproduced in the 1920s by such firms as Cauldon and Coalport but purely for decoration. The earliest of pot lids generally had flat tops and black borders with an unevenness that later mechanisation overcame. They were also smaller in diameter than later lids, which had a convex surface. </p> <p>The best colours appeared on lids produced between 1860-1875, while later lids had a heavier, less artistic feel about them. Look particularly for brilliant reds and blues which, generally speaking, denote an earlier lid.</p> <p>The idea of collecting pot lids started in 1897, three years after Felix Pratt’s death, when an exhibition of his work was held in Blackpool. Stand-alone auctions of Prattware pot lids began in 1924 and by the mid 1960s, the hobby reached its height with the formation of the Pot Lid Circle collectors’ club. It continues today.</p> <p>By then prices were reaching astronomical heights, well into four figurers, with the result that reproductions and outright fakes began to appear – one fact alone that had a serious affect on confidence among buyers and consequently the prices they were prepared to pay.</p> <p>The fakes are still out there, so buy from a reputable dealer with a reputation at stake. If he values his good name, he'll be straight with you. If he shows a reluctance to guarantee the authenticity of what he's selling, you'd be best served taking your custom elsewhere.</p> <p>Another pointer might help. Most early lids show signs of crazing in the glaze, while repro lids do not. Or if they do, it will be a faker's crude attempt at imitating crazing. Try running your thumb nail across the surface; if there is any resistance caused by the crazing, think again.</p> <p>The definitive book on pot lids was written by Abe Ball. “The Price Guide to Pot Lids and Other Underglaze Multicolour Prints on Ware”, published by the Antique Collectors' Club, lists with very few exceptions, each of the 550 or so recorded Prattware pot lids. It also includes illustrations of superb watercolours painted by Jesse Austin together with the pot lids produced from them demonstrating his accuracy and engraving ability.</p> <p>Pitfalls apart, pot lid spotting and collecting is great fun and with prices currently as low as they are, there’s no better time to buy them. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-53072779168435592742012-10-26T07:22:00.000-07:002017-02-01T16:32:25.304-08:00Sotheby’s to sell the George Daniels Horological Collection, greatest
watchmaker of 20th century<p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/back-cover.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 377px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="back cover" border="0" alt="back cover" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/back-cover_thumb.jpg" width="377" height="412" /></a>I’m not sure what George Daniels would have made of the iPhone. Apart from making voice calls and texts, for as little outlay as free, or 99 pence at worst, it’s possible to have the thing tell you the time or the weather anywhere in the world, the air temperature in Wirral and even when high tide will be tomorrow in Rhyl, constantly recalibrating itself to take into account leap years and phases of the moon. He’d probably have bought one just to take apart to see how it was made.</p> <p>Dr Daniels, who died at his home on the Isle of Man in October last year, had that kind of inquisitive mind. When he was five, he opened up the back of a broken watch to reveal its complex mechanism of wheels and cogs, shedding a light on a new universe, which he said transformed his life.</p> <p>On November 6, Sotheby’s will sell the personal collection of watches and clocks George built over a lifetime devoted to horology: unique timepieces George made himself, together with fine and important antique clocks and watches by makers who inspired him. They are expected to raise £3.8 to 5.8 million.</p> <p>Proceeds from this landmark sale will be added to the £11 million raised for his collection of vintage cars, sold last June. The funds will go to the George Daniels Educational Trust, set up by him to further the higher education of pupils studying horology, engineering, </p><a name='more'></a><p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz251012antiquewatch-1.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 200px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Watch-1" border="0" alt="Watch-1" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz251012antiquewatch-1_thumb.jpg" width="200" height="263" /></a>medicine or building construction. There could be no more fitting memorial.</p> <p>Dr George Daniels was a world-renown horologist and the most important watchmaker of the 20th century. He was the only watchmaker ever to have received a CBE and an MBE for his services to horology and the inventor of the revolutionary Daniels “co-axial escapement”, the first new watch mechanism created since the invention of the lever escapement by Thomas Mudge in 1754. Unlike the lever, escapement, this allows the movement to run unaffected by the deterioration of its lubricant.</p> <p>In Sotheby’s catalogue for the sale, a foreword by Andrew Crisford, a friend of Dr Daniels and a Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, notes that in the past, it would take 34 people to make a watch, all highly skilled, having served lengthy apprenticeships. In addition to case making, dial making and engraving, no fewer than five different craftsmen were required to produce the wheels alone.</p> <p>In an industry now largely reliant on quartz movements and batteries, Dr Daniels had no access to skilled craftsmen. Instead, with the exception of engraving the numerals on the dials, he mastered almost every single technique himself conceiving, designing making a complete watch from blank sheet of paper to a finished, ticking, supreme timepiece, “down to the last blued steel screw”, as Tina Millar, a former head of Sotheby’s clocks and watches department put it.</p> <p>He also decided he would make only watches that interested him, rather than what the market might require. In a 40-year period, he made only 27, each one taking as much as 3,000 hours to create. He would sell only to people he liked. Sotheby’s sale includes nine prized examples that have never before been on sale. The most valuable is estimated at £500,000-800,000.</p> <p>This gold-cased pocket watch is a masterpiece of engineering, designed to show the skills of the matchmaker as an artist craftsman. As a result, it is highly complex. Called the Grand Complication watch, it was made in about 1987 and has a one-minute tourbillion – it revolves once a minute to counter the effects of gravity on accuracy; the Daniels slim co-axial escapement; minute repeating mechanism on two gongs; instantaneous perpetual calendar; equation of time; moon-phases; thermometer and power reserve indicator. Enough to make an iPhone blush.</p> <p>Close behind at £400,000-600,000 is the “Space Travellers’” watch, which has a charming story attached to it. On a trip to Zurich, Dr Daniels had dinner with a collector who was keen to buy the watch he had with him. The watch was not for sale, but the collector persisted, impressing Dr Daniels with the compliment of not even asking the price. So the watch changed hands. Immediately regretting parting with it, Dr Daniels decided to make another, even more complicated and accurate than the first.</p> <p>In the 18th century, the accuracy of a watch was checked against a precision clock set by a star. By means of having solar timed (based on the passage of the sun) and sidereal time (based on the rotation of the Earth), this watch could make the calculation for you, the difference being 3.555 minutes per day, to an accuracy of 0.8 seconds a year. With the help of a mathematician from Cambridge University, Dr Daniels was able to produce a watch which reduced to error to 0.28 seconds.</p> <p>He used to say to people: “When you are on your package tour to Mars you need a watch like this, and when using the telephone for long distance calls you could switch the chronograph into sidereal time to cut your bills by 3.555 minutes per day!”. It was named to commemorate the first moon landing in 1969.</p> <p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz251012antiquewatch-6.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 200px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Watch-6" border="0" alt="Watch-6" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz251012antiquewatch-6_thumb.jpg" width="200" height="281" /></a>The most valuable wristwatch is the first made by Dr. Daniels to demonstrate the suitability of the co-axial escapement for wristwatches. It also incorporates another of his inventions: a compact chronograph mechanism which was experimental at the time. It is estimated at £150,000-250,000.</p> <p>Dr Daniels’ formidable success – he retired to the Isle of Man for tax purposes – enabled him to acquire exemplary timepieces by some of the greatest makers in history. The sale includes more than 100 antique clocks and watches covering some 400 years of craftsmanship.</p> <p>They range from Dr Daniels’ favourite, a German carved wood cuckoo clock, circa 1880, which was kept running in the kitchen at Riversdale, his £2.5 million pound home in Ramsey (estimate £250-350) to a superb, small, and extremely rare silver-mounted ebony table clock, made by Joseph Knibb and dated 1677, which is estimated at £600,000-900,000. The clock was given as a gift to his great grandfather, the surgeon Thomas Beckett by George III.</p> <p>It will be interesting to see if a Daniels watch beats it. I suspect it might.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-49364771291325255582012-10-19T10:51:00.000-07:002017-02-01T16:32:25.286-08:00Raise your glasses to the Jacobite cause - Amen<a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz181012antiqueglass-1.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 336px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="Glass-1" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz181012antiqueglass-1_thumb.jpg" alt="Glass-1" width="336" height="447" border="0" /></a>It’s not often a single, utilitarian domestic object like a wine glass can teach us a history lesson, but in the week that David Cameron and Alex Salmond have agreed there will be a referendum on Scottish independence, here’s a glass celebrating the Jacobite cause. It would have been used to toast the “king over the water”<br/><br/><object width="206" height="115" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/N2xb5EiCZZc?hl=en&hd=1" /><embed width="206" height="115" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/N2xb5EiCZZc?hl=en&hd=1" /></object><br/><br/>and the romantic notion that Charles Edward Stuart would return one day to lead Scotland to freedom after the disaster of Culloden in 1746.<br/><br/>An example of the so-called “Amen glass” – a hymn or prayer engraved into the body of the glass concludes with the word “Amen” and one of fewer than 40 know to have survived – it comes from the Edward V. Phillips Collection of 16th, 17th and 18th century furniture, glass and works of art. It is one of the most significant collections to be offered in the region in recent times.<br/><br/>The late Mr Phillips was known in the Powys area near Knighton as a private and quiet man,<br/><br/><a name='more'></a><br/><br/><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz181012antiqueglass-3.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 373px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border-width: 0px;" title="Gl;ass-3" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz181012antiqueglass-3_thumb.jpg" alt="Gl;ass-3" width="373" height="262" border="0" /></a>well respected and renowned for his horticultural knowledge and skills. Few were aware, however, that after retiring from his business as a corn merchant in the Cotswolds and moving to the area in 1994, that he then began creating a collection of museum quality and importance.<br/><br/>Totalling more than 500 lots, the collection includes: two William and Mary oyster veneered collectors’ cabinets on stands; a Queen Anne burr walnut escritoire; a 17th century walnut and marquetry display cabinet on stand; two William and Mary oyster veneered chests of drawers; fine 18th century dining chairs; Elizabethan and 17th century joined oak stools; Charles II oak dining chairs; 16th and 17th century oak coffers; no fewer than 40 16th century Nuremberg alms dishes; 16th and 17th century warming pans; 25 rare silver mote spoons; 12 mille-fleurs pastoral tapestries depicting gothic country life and a collection of 19th century British School watercolours by noted artists such as David Cox.<br/><br/>But is it the glasses celebrating the Jacobite cause that are causing the most excitement, the Amen glass being just one piece in what auctioneers <a href="www.hallsgb.com/fine-art" target="_blank">Halls of Welsh Bridge, Shrewsbury</a>, describe as an extraordinary and fine collection of 150 examples of 18th century glasses, the condition of which collection is truly remarkable. Only one piece has any obvious damage: a chip to the footrim.<br/><br/>Time for that history lesson. The "Glorious Revolution" of 1688-1689 was a period of strife with its origins in 1669, when James, the son of Charles I, converted to Catholicism. He was crowned James II in 1685 and immediately started to convert his Roman Catholic faith into royal policy.<br/><p align="justify">This naturally alarmed the English Protestants who, after three years of unrest, forced him to flee for his life to France, replacing him with the Protestant monarchy of William III of Orange and his wife, Mary, James II's daughter. The belief that James was the legitimate ruler became known as Jacobitism (from Jacobus or Iacobus, Latin for "James") a real stronghold of which was the Scottish Highlands and Islands.</p><br/><br/><blockquote><br/><p align="left"><strong><span style="font-size: small;">The sale of the Edward V Phillips Collection is on Tuesday and Wednesday November 6-7. For more information contactJeremy Lamond, telephone 01743 284777 or visit www.hallsgb.com/fine-art.</span></strong></p><br/></blockquote><br/>James II spent the remainder of his life under the protection of King Louis XIV of France, but his son James Francis Edward Stuart and grandson Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender (Bonnie Prince Charlie) attempted to restore the Jacobite line.<br/><br/>In 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie raised the Jacobite standard at Glenfinnan in a last desperate bid to overthrow the reigning Hanoverian family. Despite substantial, if often furtive, support from the Jacobites who championed their cause, he was defeated by the Duke of Cumberland at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 and fled with a few loyal supporters to the Isle of Skye.<br/><br/>By their nature, Jacobite societies on both sides of the Border were officially outlawed and meetings had to be held in secret.Discovery resulted in imprisonment and ultimately execution for treason. Despite this, supporters met often, the meeting always ending with a toast over a bowl of water, signifying the "King o’er the sea," or James III, as James Edward Stuart styled himself.<br/><br/>As a result of the need for absolute secrecy, the Jacobites signalled their support with objects that were either small and easy to conceal, or decorated with intentionally obscure symbolic designs and inscriptions alluding to the cause.<br/><br/>The most common was the rose, depicted fully open and often with two closed buds on the stem. The open flower is thought to represent the throne of England, and the two buds the two Stuart sons of Bonnie Prince Charlie and Prince Henry, the Cardinal Duke of York.<br/><br/>The addition of the words “Fiat”, meaning "let it be" or "let it come to pass", or Redeat, Redi, or Revirescit, suggesting hope that the prince will return, are another common feature. Others are engraved with a likeness of the Young Pretender.<br/><br/>The Amen glass is the most famous and the earliest of all Jacobite glassware. However, with fewer than 40 known examples, values were driven so high that forgers were quick to copy them in 19th century using genuine Georgian glass. There is no doubt about the authenticity of the “Lennoxlove Amen glass” in the Phillips collection. It was formerly in the collection of Lord Blantyre, Laird of Lennoxlove in East Lothian, and sold at Christie’s in 1947. It has also been on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was purchased by Mr Phillips at Asptrey,London in 1986. This time out it is estimated at £20,000-£30,000 and could make more.<br/><br/>The glass is inscribed in diamond point with a crown and cipher, hidden within which is the figure eight, representing James VIII of Scotland, James III of England, the Old Pretender. The engraved verses are perhaps commemorating the execution of 29 Jacobites who were hanged, drawn and quartered on Kennington Common in London in 1746.<br/><br/>Said auctioneer Jeremy Lamond: “This glass is testament to the fact that this was perhaps one of the few times in the history of alcohol when the glass was more dangerous to the imbiber than its contents.”<br/><br/>The secret Jacobite toast continued to be honoured throughout the 18th and 19th centuries and other highlights include Jacobite portrait glasses with estimates between £2,000 and £6,000; a rare Jacobite decanter (estimate £4,000-£6,000) glasses of Jacobite significance, for private drinking and a section of Georgian sweetmeat glasses with estimates ranging from £150 to £800.<br/><br/>Predictably, the Protestant supporters of William and Mary had engraved glassware of their own, usually depicting an equestrian figure of William. When George I became king in 1714, thereby establishing the House of Hanover, glasses were decorated with the Hanoverian white horse together with a white heraldic rose.<br/><br/>The collection also includes examples of all the known types of drinking glass from early heavy balusters to the lighter air and cable twist stems of wine glasses from later in the century. Another feature is a number of firing glasses, so called because of their thick bases, ideal for cracking on the table following a toast, sounded like cannon fire. There are cordial glasses for more formal drinking, wine glasses in seemingly endless capacities, short ale glasses, ratafia glasses and on top of all that, several glass candlesticks and tapersticks, oil lamps and a lacemaker’s lamp.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-2556060520498510612012-10-12T07:17:00.000-07:002017-02-01T16:32:25.268-08:00James Bond 007: Licensed To Make Collectors Of Us<p><font size="3"><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz111012antiquebond-5.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 400px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Bond-5" border="0" alt="Bond-5" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz111012antiquebond-5_thumb.jpg" width="400" height="384" /></a>I grew up with James Bond. I read all Ian Fleming’s novels, I’ve seen all the Bond films. I even wear an Omega Seamaster wristwatch like my hero. Last week, in a <a href="http://www.christies.com" target="_blank">Christie’s</a> charity auction in conjunction with UK Bond film makers EON Productions, the watch worn by Daniel Craig in the new blockbuster Skyfall sold for a cool £157,250.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Out of most people’s reach, granted, but it was very special: a unique automatic <a href="http://omegawatches.com" target="_blank">Omega</a> Seamaster Professional “Planet Ocean” watch made in titanium specially for the action scenes, sold to benefit ORBIS, the charity fighting blindness worldwide.</font></p> <p><font size="3">But even that paled alongside the star lot: the Aston Martin DBS used by Craig in Quantum Of Solace and sold to benefit </font></p><a name='more'></a><p><font size="3">Barnardo's. A bidding war between the internet, telephones and those in the saleroom saw the price spiral to £241,250.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Even Craig’s swimming trunks caused a splash. Sold fittingly to benefit Women For Women International, which helps victims of war and conflicts, the skimpy outfit worn by the Chester-born star in the beach scene in Casino Royale sold for £44,450.</font></p> <p><font size="3">The glittering evening auction, held last Friday - Global James Bond Day – was one of a number of events celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of Dr No, the first Bond film starring Sean Connery and Ursula Andress. Since then Bond has appeared in 22 films, with <a href="http://www.skyfall-movie.com/site/" target="_blank">Skyfall</a> due to premiere on October 26.</font></p> <p><font size="3">But you don’t have to be a high roller to collect Bondiana, there are plenty of opportunities at all price levels.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Timed to coincide with the anniversary was a veritable doorstop of a book by cinema production designer Dennis Gassner charting 50 years of James Bond movie posters. Every single one is a collectors’ item worth serious money. Gassner’s exhaustive book, published by <a href="http://www.dk.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781405356800,00.html" target="_blank">Dorling Kindersley</a> and priced £35 is set to become one.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Working chronologically, the book sets out to chart the creative development of the posters published around the world in a myriad languages, each one illustrated in full colour, many occupying spreads or full pages in the oversize book, heavy enough to make a coffee table groan under its weight.</font></p> <p><font size="3"><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz111012antiquebond-6.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 302px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Bond-6" border="0" alt="Bond-6" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz111012antiquebond-6_thumb.jpg" width="302" height="372" /></a>Of course, if funds will stretch to it, there are still plenty of original posters available, with more to follow as the Bond franchise continues. <a href="http://www.quadbod.co.uk/" target="_blank">Quadbod</a> media memorabilia had the two illustrated among their stock, the rare single-sheet for A View To A Kill (1985) starring Roger Moore and Grace Jones being priced at an affordable £500.</font></p> <p><font size="3">According to Gassner, the poster, with artwork by Brian Bysouth, was withdrawn because it was felt Bond did not look sufficiently commanding in a white tuxedo. The poster measures 41 by 27 inches.</font></p> <p><font size="3">In contrast, Sean Connery – everyone’s favourite 007 – wears a suitably inscrutable expression while being attended by bikini-clad Eurasian beauties in the large quad poster for You Only Live Twice (1967). Measuring 30 by 40 inches, examples can be picked up for around £1,000-2,000 depending on condition.</font></p> <p><font size="3">What price a poster from Skyfall, the 23rd Bond film, I wonder? Gassner’s final illustration shows a 30 by 40 inch used for international advance publicity. The mostly black teaser shows Daniel Craig’s Bond walking along a tunnel which also doubles as the traditional Bond gun barrel logo. Try begging one from your local cinema!</font></p> <p><font size="3">If wall space is an issue, first editions of Fleming’s books are another route to collecting penury. Take Casino Royale, for example. This was the first appearance by James Bond in print and the story was considered by the publishers to be too lightweight to gamble on a long print run.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Today a comparative rarity, a first edition, first printing of this first novel in good condition and with dust jacket would set you back something in the region of £15,000-£20,000. Later impressions from the first edition are around £1,000, but without dust jacket or in poor condition, the value falls to about £100.</font></p> <p><font size="3"><em>*Pictures courtesy of Quadbod</em></font></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-15000543177850610112012-10-05T08:09:00.000-07:002017-02-01T16:32:25.248-08:00On The Tiles: Why Collectors Love These Victorian Beauties<p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz040912antiquetile-42.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 422px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Tile-4" border="0" alt="Tile-4" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz040912antiquetile-4_thumb2.jpg" width="418" height="427" /></a><font size="2">We were on holiday in Tunisia and if we fancied a break from lazing around the pool, the tourist rep said she was arranging a free trip to see some Roman remains. It wasn't much of an trip - in the heat of the day we walked crocodile-style a few hundred yards from the hotel down a dusty road - but the pay-off was a sight that has stuck in our memory. <br />    The rep was carrying a bucket as we picked our way through the what looked like a building site but it wasn't for donations for the tour guide. After asking us to stand aside, the guide dipped the bucket into a trough of water which he flung across the ground. As it washed away the sand, there revealed to us for the first time was a magnificent marble mosaic floor. A closer look showed that the ornate patterns were made up of tiny square-shaped pieces of coloured stone tiles, called tesserae. It must have taken hours of painstaking work to lay. <br />    Perhaps that's why we collect tiles like the ones pictured here. After all, they owe their existence to the Romans. Ours are somewhat younger, <font size="2">though, dating from Victorian and</font> <font size="2">Edwardian times but, in our opinion at </font></font></p> <p><font size="2"><strong>(Pictured: A selection of tiles designed by William de Morgan</strong></font></p><a name='more'></a><p><font size="2">least, no less beautiful than those decorating the floors - and walls - of Roman villas. <br />    Monastic potters were making tiles, largely by hand, for the floors of cathedrals by the end of the 10th century. Italy had gained renown as a centre for tin-glazed floor tiles by the 16th century and travelling potters introduced their techniques to Spain, France, Holland and Portugal. <br />    In the 17th and 18th centuries, London, Bristol and Liverpool were centres for the manufacture of so-called 'blue delft' - with a small 'd' - tiles that were copies of the Dutch Delft originals. However, it is machine-made tiles produced at the height of the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century that we collectors of limited means are most interested in today. <br />    The man to thank is Samuel Wright, a potter working in Shelton, Stoke-on-Trent, who in 1830 patented a tile-making machine. Working alone, commercial success eluded him. However, the potential was recognised by the potter Herbert Minton. With the backing of his father, the great Thomas, founder of the Minton empire, Herbert bought a share in the patent and went on to dominate the industry. <br />    Another leap forward came in 1840 when Birmingham inventor Richard Prosser patented a process for making buttons from clay dust compressed between metal dies. Minton saw the potential and adapted machines to produce tiles. <br />    Decorative wall tiles did not come into general use until the late 1860s and through the 1870s, when fashionable society was gripped by the Aesthetic Movement. The period also saw a challenge to Minton's supremacy. Shropshire makers Maw and Co. were the most prominent, while Doulton, Della Robbia, Pilkington, Copeland and Wedgwood all produced highly collectable tiles.</font></p> <p><font size="2"></font></p> <p align="center"><font size="4">Transfer Printing Revolutionised Everything</font></p> <p><em><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz050912antiquetile-82.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 329px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Tile-8" border="0" alt="Tile-8" align="left" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz050912antiquetile-8_thumb2.jpg" width="325" height="591" /></a>Liverpool played a significant part in tile-making, thanks to Sefton newspaper proprietor John Sadler (1720-1789. He and his assistant Guy Green swore an affidavit in support of a 1756 patent application that they had invented a method of decorating tiles using a mechanical transfer printing process. <br />They claimed to have printed 1,200 earthenware tiles with different patterns within the space of six hours that were "better and neater, than one hundred skillful (sic) pot painters could have painted in the like space of time in the common and usual way". <br />The process used a copper plate engraved with the required pattern, which was "inked" with the desired coloured glaze. Tissue paper was then pressed onto the engraved plate, transferring the pattern to the tile which was then fired, leaving the pattern fixed permanently. <br />The process revolutionised the pottery industry and is still in use today. Josiah Wedgwood, the father of the British pottery industry, purchased the right to use the technique in 1763, and began sending thousands of pieces of his creamware to be printed at Sadler's factory where decoration could be done by comparatively unskilled workers.</em></p> <p><strong>Spot the difference: Top and bottom: Liverpool mid-18th century delftware tiles printed with Dutch canal scenes by John Sadler. It contrasts with the two London hand-painted delftware tiles, decorated respectively with a sailor and a Biblical scene. The estimate for each pair is around £300</strong></p> <p> <br /> <font size="2">   As further research adds interest to the hobby, so attention is switching to the output of different designers. Names such as William De Morgan, Walter Crane, C.F.A. Voysey, Lewis Day and Doulton's Margaret Thompson are well known and their work in tile design thoroughly documented. <br />    De Morgan (1839-1917) was to tile design what his friend William Morris was to wallpaper. Look for lustre decoration and patterns with a Persian influence. De Morgan disliked the idea of mechanisation and unlike most British tiles, which were machine-made, his output was handmade and comparatively small. <br />    Crane (1845-1915) is best remembered as a book illustrator. However, he designed tiles for Wedgwood for 10 years from 1867 and later for Maw and Co and Pilkington. A founder member of the Art Workers' Guild, Crane produced designs that lean towards the illustrative. <br />    His first designs for floor and wall tiles, accepted by Maw and Co., date from 1875. They were decorated with Boy Blue, Bo-Peep, Tom Tucker and other nursery characters, mirroring themes from his famous children's books. <br />    Voysey (1857-1941) was an architect and a Guild member who was influenced by the Art Nouveau movement. Best known as a furniture designer, he was however also a major designer for Pilkington, producing some popular patterns for tiles embracing naturalistic themes. <br />    Lewis Foreman Day (1845-1910) was another founder member of the Guild who initially started designing stained glass windows. Like William Morris, he went on to cover the entire field of interior furnishings, but without the constraint of being opposed to mechanisation. His tiles are naturalistic with a strong emphasis on line. <br />    Margaret Thompson (fl. 1890-1930) worked mainly on commissions to design and produce murals made from tiles for major public buildings, notably hospitals. Her unique panels were produced by Doulton and Co in the early 1900s. <br />    Collectable tiles are readily found and easily affordable with prices suit all pockets. We bought two Edwardian tiles in an antique shop for £1 apiece. The superb and rare William de Morgan lustre tiles illustrated each have saleroom values of £400-600. The other joy of tile collecting is that much remains to be discovered and identified, with corresponding rewards for the finder.</font></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-30782387090405913912012-09-27T07:36:00.000-07:002017-02-01T16:32:25.231-08:00The Atmos Clock–It Runs On Thin Air<p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz270912antiqueatmos-4.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 338px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Atmos-4" border="0" alt="Atmos-4" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz270912antiqueatmos-4_thumb.jpg" width="338" height="360" /></a>Saturday saw us drinking champagne outdoors at a wedding reception in Wirral. Last night we turned the central heating on for the first time this year. Talk about a change in the weather. Yes, this column is about atmospheric changes, but actually clocks, not barometers. They’re called Atmos clocks and they’re expensive when new, incredibly accurate and they run quite literally on thin air.</p> <blockquote> <p><strong><a href="https://secure.flickr.com/photos/chrisp/sets/72157631635664525/show/" target="_blank">Click here</a> to see a slideshow of Atmos Clocks</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>I’ve been fascinated by clocks ever since I was a boy. I used to take them apart in ham-fisted attempts to repair them – sometimes I actually got them to work again, but not often. I think I caught the bug from my father, an inveterate tinkerer. I remember the time he tried to get a cuckoo clock to work using bottles of tomato and brown sauce as weights to drive the going and striking trains. But I digress.</p> <p>It’s possible to pay anything from £8,000-10,000 for a new Atmos clock, so well out of my reach. The nearest I ever came was a £95, so-called anniversary clock which dated from the </p><a name='more'></a><p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz270912antiqueatmos-5.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 290px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Atmos-5" border="0" alt="Atmos-5" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz270912antiqueatmos-5_thumb.jpg" width="290" height="234" /></a>1930s, said to run for a year on a single wind of the mechanism. You wind it on your birthday or wedding anniversary, see?</p> <p>Mine never did, for they are temperamental so and so’s. But they are elegant and somehow hugely relaxing to watch. The movement is protected from the elements by a glass dome and the pendulum is a rotating horizontal weight, set with brass orbs or sometimes, capstans. And that’s it. The weight rotates lazily one way and then the other, encouraging its owner to relax and wind down, so to speak. For the money, it’s the nearest thing you’re every likely to get to perpetual motion.</p> <p>Leonardo da Vinci, among others, was fascinated by the quest to achieve motion without an external source of energy. He failed, as did a young Paris engineer named Jean-Leon Reutter. In 1928, the latter claimed to have succeeded with his clock, which harnessed the energy given off by mercury when it was subjected to changes in temperature or atmospheric pressure.</p> <p>You’ve seen something similar in the drinking bird toy seen on countless fairground and seaside stalls, apparently destined forever to swing forward and back, dipping its beak into a glass of water and also claimed to be in perpetual motion. Like Reutter’s clock, it is not. Both require energy from somewhere else.</p> <p>In the Atmos clock, however, its owner has a Swiss precision-made timepiece that operates virtually with no friction to its moving parts and a working life said to be more than 600 years (although a service every 20 years is recommended).</p> <p>Interestingly, Reutter also drew his inspiration from the anniversary clock, which reached the height of its popularity around the same time he began his experiments. His aim was to produce a movement that required the least possible amount of energy to make it run. He achieved this by making bearings from watchmaker’s jewels and reducing the movement in the escapement to an absolute minimum.</p> <p>Secret of his success, however, was his design of a minute, thermometer-like glass tube sealed inside a small metal cylinder, which acted like bellows. Changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure cause the bellows to expand and contract, keeping the clock’s mainspring wound continually. The Atmos was born.</p> <p>Later safety requirements saw the mercury replaced with a gas called ethyl chloride, but the result was the same. It is said that a change in temperature of just one degree is sufficient to run the clock for two days, while the energy used to light a 15 watt bulb would run 60 million Atmos clocks simultaneously.</p> <p>Manufacturers were sceptical of the claims made by Reutter for the clock and enthusiasm for it was lacking. By a stroke of luck, though, he cashed in on his invention by selling the patent to the important Swiss watchmakers, LeCoultre, whose manager happened to see one of the clocks in a Paris jeweller’s shop window. Mesmerised by it and the claims of perpetual motion, he bought the clock and sought out its inventor.</p> <p>LeCoultre subsequently merged with its French rival watch company Jaeger and the Atmos clock continues to be made entirely by hand exclusively by Jaeger-LeCoultre, who boast similarly exclusive clients. Own an Atmos clock and you join a group which has included the Pope, Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan among its number.</p> <p>The old cliché about being presented with a gold clock on retirement is often the source of many Atmos models appearing on the secondhand market. Recipients die off or might prefer the cash and so the saleroom can be a happy hunting ground. Prices are usually a fraction of the cost new.</p> <p>However, they might not be the bargain they appear. Like any highly tuned instrument, Atmos clocks can be temperamental. They will work only if they are on an absolutely level surface and kept completely stable. A mantelpiece works, a side table does not.</p> <p>Repair is a matter for only the most highly skilled specialist and maintenance, specially for a newly-acquired clock, is both recommended and essential. Force a badly set up clock to work against its wishes and irreparable damage can result. The cost of parts and paying for damage to be repaired can be as much as you paid for the clock.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-30283023995851986642012-09-19T03:47:00.000-07:002017-02-01T16:32:25.212-08:00Stuff U Sell makes eBay selling simple<p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/David-Brackin-Stuff-U-Sell.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 407px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="David-Brackin-Stuff-U-Sell" border="0" alt="David-Brackin-Stuff-U-Sell" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/David-Brackin-Stuff-U-Sell_thumb.jpg" width="407" height="144" /></a><font size="2">I wrote to a reader last week,  a lady who wanted to know how best to sell a silk head scarf from the 1976 Canadian Olympics. Either sold as a souvenir, or else perhaps given to competitors, the scarf was printed with the Olympic torch and listings of all the events.</font></p> <p><font size="2">Ironically, I came across the scarf, illustrated here, in a sale at The Canterbury Auction Galleries, also last week. Commemorating the "Olympic Winners of XIV Olympiad, London 1948", it was described as having been designed by Ena Pitfield, devised by Arnold Lever and printed </font></p><a name='more'></a><p><font size="2"><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz200912antiquestuff-6.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Stuff-6" border="0" alt="Stuff-6" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz200912antiquestuff-6_thumb.jpg" width="146" height="203" /></a>in Surrey by the Weyvale Fabric Print Works. It measured just less than 36 inches square and it sold bang on its presale low estimate of £100.</font></p> <p><font size="2">The price no doubt reflected the excitement of the recent games, coupled with the fact that it was being sold on home ground, so to speak, but I thought it offered something of a yardstick to judge others by. Clearly, however, collectors in Canada were likely to be most interested and, with hindsight somewhat glibly, I suggested she should put the scarf in an online auction such as <a href="http://www.ebay.com">eBay</a>.</font></p> <p><font size="2">And then, after the letter had been posted, it occurred to me just how glib I’d been. She might not even have a computer, let alone a digital camera, access to the Internet and the time or inclination to jump through the various hoops needed to post an item successfully in an online sale. I know it can be a time-consuming exercise. I’m supposed to know what I’m doing, but in the handful of times I’ve done it, it was hardly worth the effort, save the relief of getting rid of stuff now unloved and unwanted.</font></p> <p><font size="2">That’s where a company cleverly calling itself <a href="http://www.stuffusell.com" target="_blank">Stuff U Sell</a> comes in. Founded in 2004 by David Brackin and Fraser Pearce, , two Cambridge maths graduates both aged 38, they handle everything for people wanting to dispose of stuff in an online sale. Sadly, readers of this column live outside the catchment area of their van courier service, but for £10, they’ll collect a box of stuff from anywhere. (Of course you could always drop stuff off at their warehouse in North London).</font></p> <p><font size="2"></font></p> <blockquote> <p><strong><font size="2">What it costs</font> </strong></p> <p><font size="2"><strong>For selling your item, Stuff U Sell charge a commission of a third of the selling price of an item up to £500 and then 10 per cent above that. The buyer pays all the postage charges and eBay and Paypal fees as part of the hammer price. </strong></font></p> <p><font size="2"><strong>For example, they sold a valuable 19th century Rudall and Rose flute for £2,053. Their commission was 33 per cent for the first £500, i.e. £165, then 10 per cent on the remaining £1,553, i.e. £155, so their total commission was 16 per cent, i.e. £320, and the seller received £1,733. Traditional bricks and mortar auctioneers charge between 15 and 25 per cent. </strong></font></p> <p><strong><font size="2">Unlike traditional auction houses, there is no charge for storage of unsold lots or higher percentage commissions for larger items.</font> </strong></p> <p><font size="2"><strong>Contact Stuff U Sell on 0800 046 1100 or <a href="mailto:enquiries@stuffusell.co.uk">enquiries@stuffusell.co.uk</a>.</strong></font></p> </blockquote> <p><font size="2"></font></p> <p><font size="2">Either way. hopefully, that’s the last you’ll see of it. Your unwanted kit will be researched, photographed, catalogued and listed on eBay. The sale timing will be managed to your advantaged and the object(s) shipped out to successful purchasers, with a cheque for the proceeds back to you, usually two weeks after payment has been made and cleared. Stuff U Sell currently boasts a 99.6 per cent positive feedback from its customers on an annual turnover of £1.5 million.</font></p> <p><font size="2">David Brackin claims Stuff U Sell prices are typically 25 per cent higher than can be achieved going it alone. Having talked at length with him, I see no reason to doubt his word. By way of illustration, he told me about a pair of secondhand stereo speakers Stuff U Sell had sold for a customer for £91. He subsequently noticed an identical pair, offered by a private individual, which the vendor illustrated on the eBay auction platform using his company’s “borrowed” photograph. They fetched just £48.</font></p> <p><font size="2">It seems strategy and timing is everything, both things that a maths degree is handy for. For example, David has discovered that 5-6pm on a Friday is not a good time to sell. The optimum is on Sundays at around 7pm when eBay is at its busiest. Then there’s the issue of a fixed, buy-it-now price or the make an offer model over a traditional auction or even a Dutch auction, where the price starts high and falls over time until someone bids and buys.</font></p> <p><font size="2">Solid research on the likely value of an object; good digital photographs of it and clear and legally accurate descriptions are also vital to a successful sale. David employs 20 staff, to do all the legwork – IT, admin, photography, packing, despatching and so on – six of whom are cataloguers – he calls them “listers” – while the business operates out of a 16,000 square foot warehouse. </font></p> <p><font size="2">So space is not an issue, which is just as well. In addition to the usual collectables and fashion items, Stuff U Sell will also find eager bidders and a new home for your redundant fitted kitchen, granite worktops and all. In fact, there’s nothing much that David won’t sell, so long as it’s legal and not offensive. But he will sell only genuine objects – eBay rules forbid touting fakes – so no dodgy “Louis Vuitton” handbags or “Tiffany” jewellery thanks. Anything not worthy of auction can be donated to charity or sent for recycling.</font></p> <p><font size="2">“The business was born out of our own need to sell,” David said. “We had both worked in Internet companies before deciding we wanted a business of our own and we started in Fraser’s bedroom. Then we asked around among friends if we could help declutter their lives. In the early days Fraser was driving the van and I was in the passenger seat with the laptop on my knee. Since then it’s grown to be phenomenally popular.” The company is now one of the country’s leading eBay Trading Assistants.</font></p> <p><font size="2">“We exist to help people solve the problem of having too much stuff. The alternative is paying for storage, which starts out as seeming like a good idea but eventually you end up paying more than the objects you’re storing are actually worth. We thoroughly research every item we sell and by checking our various price databases, we know where and how to pitch for the best possible result.</font></p> <p><font size="2">“Unlike the one-day auction which relies on getting the right people in the room at the right time, our auctions on eBay can last six to eight weeks until we find the right buyer and ensure we get the best prices.”</font></p> <ul> <li><font size="2">What are your experiences of selling on eBay? Share them in the comments.</font></li> </ul>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-51150144918885649102012-07-06T08:44:00.000-07:002017-02-01T16:32:25.178-08:00Ibeji, tribal art borne out of tragedy<p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz040712antiqueyoruba-1.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Yoruba-1" border="0" alt="Yoruba-1" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz040712antiqueyoruba-1_thumb.jpg" width="184" height="244" /></a>Manchester artist Geoffrey Key is widely regarded as one of the most important working in the country today. Auctioneers in the region are more used to selling his paintings for thousands of pounds, but now he’s set one of them another task: disposing of the characters pictured here.</p> <p>He calls them his little army and he’s been collecting them for 25 years or more, but a house move has meant his collection of dozens of antique African carved figures and other tribal art has to go. The exotic and little known corner of tribal art collecting is known as Yoruba art.</p> <p>The Yoruba are an ancient race of people, today making up one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa, predominantly in Nigeria. Its craftsmen are noted for their artistic traditions of </p><a name='more'></a><p>ceramics, bronze casting, weaving and sculpting, while Yoruba wood carvers are among the most prolific producers of objects for domestic and ritual use.</p> <p>Interestingly, the Yoruba people also produce the highest rate of twin and multiple births in the world. In ancient times, twins or ibeji, (from ibi = born, eji = two) were believed to be evil, but by the middle of the 18th century, such beliefs were reversed and twins were celebrated and revered. They were awarded the status of minor deities, called Orishas, and their arrival was viewed as an omen of good fortune.</p> <p>The cult surrounding the children of multiple births is complex and steeped in tradition. The first born is always called Taiwo, whether it is a boy or a girl. The word describes the one “having the first taste of the world”, while the second-born is named Kehinde, meaning “arriving after the other”.</p> <p>However, despite being born first, Taiwo is always considered the youngest child. His brother or sister still in the womb are believed to have sent him out into the world first to tell them what it looks like. As soon as Taiwo has given a signal by crying, Kehinde will follow.</p> <p>As a result of this somewhat unusual start in life, Kehinde is supposed to be more careful, more intelligent and more reflective, while Taiwo is believed to be more curious and adventurous, but also more laid back. The children are also thought to have one soul between them.</p> <p>Sadly, however, the death rate among twins and triplets was – and still is - unusually high. The death of an infant was regarded as a great calamity which could be appeased only with the intervention of the family or village priest and a wood carver, chosen by the holy man, to create a figure to contain the soul of the dead child.</p> <p>Called Ere ibeji, (ere = sacred) these figures usually stand between six and 10 inches tall and are carved with the features and attributes of the dead child in adulthood. A feast follows completion of the carving and its return home, where it is placed on a shrine in the hope that the soul which was split when the child died will be reunited with its siblings.</p> <p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz040712antiqueyoruba-3.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Yoruba-3" border="0" alt="Yoruba-3" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz040712antiqueyoruba-3_thumb.jpg" width="244" height="244" /></a>Thereafter the carved ibeji is treated and cared for as if it were alive. It is rubbed in sacramental oil, washed, “fed”, clothed, sung to and prayed to. It is kept standing during the day, and is laid down at night and is often dressed in the same clothing as the living children. As a sign of wealth, some ibeji were given cloaks of pearls or cowrie shells and sandals.</p> <p>Responsibility for caring for the ibeji is borne by the mother and on her death, the women of subsequent generations of the family in order to protect the household from evil and to bring good fortune. Bad fortune and curses are thought to follow and even the survival of the other children is in doubt if the ibeji is neglected. The practice continues today.</p> <p>Geoffrey Key draws parallels between his collection of tribal art with those formed by such artists at Picasso, Braque and Miro. “Without their interest in tribal art there would never have been a Cubist art movement,” he told me. “Any painter alive and breathing in the 21st century cannot fail to be influenced by tribal art, it’s inevitable.” However, private collections of ibeji figures as large as his own are rare, the only other of comparable size being in New York. He was first introduced to them by a photographer on National Geographic magazine, who lived in Bolton. The photographer had travelled extensively in Nigeria and now owns a gallery selling tribal art in New York.</p> <p>Many examples were acquired from him, together with others from dealers at fine art fairs around the country who were dispersing prominent collections formed in the 1920s and 30s. Geoffrey Key points out that while the figures are now widely copied and reproduced for the growing tourist market, those in his collection are tribal pieces, none of which was purchased at auction.</p> <p>“They are exquisite things,” he said. “I shall be sorry to see them go but you cannot possess everything in life. I collected them for the love of owning them and to satisfy this illness that is collecting, Moving house means it’s time to let someone else have the pleasure of enjoying them.”</p> <p><strong><font size="4">Sale details</font></strong></p> <p>The Geoffrey Key Collection will be sold at Peter Wilson’s Nantwich auction room in South Cheshire next Wednesday July 11. Is expected to raise a total of around £20,000.</p> <p>It comprises almost 100 lots of single or pairs of figures, both male and female, with estimates starting at £50.</p> <p>However, a pair of male and female figures attributed to the master Abogunde of Ede (fl. 1900-1925) is estimated at £1,000-1,500.</p> <p>Each of this pair of figures wears neck, wrist and waistbands of beads which represent gifts from the family on the children’s birthday.</p> <p>Purchased by Mr Key from the Mark Eglinton Gallery in 2005, these figures were exhibited in the UN Building in New York in 2003.</p> <p>Notable elsewhere in the collection is a hardwood stool from the Congo, modelled with a crouching female figure, the seat resting on her head and raised hands, which is estimated at £3,000-5,000, while most amusing is a carved wooden face mask from the Ivory Coast with two pairs of horns, one upturned, the other downturned, which one Peter Wilson porter was only too happy to model.</p> <p>Viewing at the Victoria Gallery saleroom in Market Street, Nantwich, is on Sunday July 8 from 2-4pm; Monday July 9 from 10am-5pm; Tuesday July 10 from 10am-4pm and on the morning of the sale from 9.00. The sale starts at 11am. Telephone 01270 623878.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-37235079841127942052012-04-26T08:07:00.000-07:002017-02-01T16:32:25.159-08:00Rare Celestial And Terrestrial Pocket Globe Sells For £18,800 In Peter
Wilson AuctionThe young auctioneer was ecstatic. He’d just sold the object illustrated here for a cool £16,000 on behalf of a client from Crewe who didn’t know he owned it. The rare and early celestial and terrestrial pocket globe – consider it a precursor (by about four centuries) of the sat-nav – was “found” by the auctioneer, Chris Large of Nantwich, Cheshire auctioneers Peter Wilson, in the bottom of one of 16 boxes of otherwise <a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/Chris-Large-with-globe.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 279px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border-width: 0px;" title="globe-1" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/Chris-Large-with-globe_thumb.jpg" alt="globe-1" width="279" height="244" border="0" /></a>unloved and unwanted bric-a-brac from the man’s parents’ home. When told of the magnitude of the winning bid, the owner was naturally enough, “over the moon”. The auctioneer was happy too. “Something like this always cheers you up and makes you realise why you enjoy the job so much,” he said.<br/><br/>Less than three inches in diameter, the globe was concealed inside what was otherwise a dirty green-coloured outer case of the same shape that looked like it would have been more at home in a game of skittles. However, when the hinged outer case was opened, the colours of the globe nestling inside were almost as bright and vivid as they were on the day it was made. On the inside of the outer case, protected from sunlight and damage, was a "map" of the heavens. It was quite delightful. Not bad when you consider that it dated from 1710.<br/><br/>Clearly the globe was an early example. Its 12 hand-coloured printed “gores” – the term for the pieces of vellum covering its surfaces illustrating the various land masses – showed<br/><br/><a name='more'></a><br/><br/>northern Canada as “Unknown Areas”, while huge swathes of Australia and New Zealand were also left blank. But was it right?<br/><br/>There were initial doubts that the case and the globe it contained were strangers to each other – termed a “marriage” in the trade. One inscription read “Correct Pocket Globe With Trade Winds” by H. Moll”, while another read “A Correct Globe with New Constelations (sic) of Mr Hevelius 1710”. Worries proved unfounded.<br/><br/>The late 17th and early 18th century saw a universal thirst for knowledge of the Earth and its heavens. Cartographer Herman Moll (1654-1732) probably originated in the Netherlands but was in London by 1678, where he opened a book and map shop. However, he turned to publishing after the success of his own work, which he called “Thesaurus Geographicus”, followed by “Fifty-Six New and Accurate Maps of Great Britain” and another work he called “The Compleat Geographer”. He is known to have been making and selling pocket globes for the amateur geographer in 1710.<br/><br/>Astronomer Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) meanwhile, came from a rich family of Polish brewers, and began to study the constellations in 1640, using a huge 150-foot telescope, which he built himself, on the rooftop of his home in Danzig (now Gdansk). He published “Selenographia” his study of the Moon in 1647, which won him the patronage of four Polish King’s. Today he is regarded as the founder of the study of lunar topography and with Copernicus, one of Poland’s greatest astronomers.<br/><br/>So, the authenticity of the Crewe globe looked promising. But what put the matter beyond doubt was the word “Damp”, almost hidden among the place names, a clue that only the specialist might recognise. It is also known that some of now rare examples of Moll’s globe were printed with the route of Dampier’s circumnavigation, completed in 1709. The Crewe globe was such an example and that’s why it made £16,000. It sold to a collector in Hong Kong.<br/><br/>Captain William Dampier (1651-1715) was the first Englishman to explore parts of Australia (then called New Holland) and the first person to circumnavigate the world three times. He is also remembered as having rescued Alexander Selkirk, who was the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s book Robinson Crusoe.<br/><br/>Born in Somerset, Dampier joined the Navy in 1673 but his career was cut short by ill health. He subsequently made his circumnavigations as a somewhat lawless privateer. However, publication of his exploits and discoveries turned him into a hero and advanced geographic knowledge by previously unthought-of degrees, coming as they did before voyages by Captain Cook. Indeed, he has a port and archipelago named after him on Western Australia’s Coral Coast.<br/><br/>Not everyone has £16 grand to spare for what is little more than a scientific instrument collectors’ curio. Collectors of furniture love free-standing antique globes, which add instant class to any room. But even they caused problems for their original owners. The oldest surviving globe dates from 1492 and does not show the Americas which had yet to be discovered However, such was the speed with which explorers were discovering new areas of the world that globes were out of date almost immediately they were made.<br/><br/>Cartographers responded by publishing printed paper maps containing the latest information available which could be purchased separately and pasted over the top of the existing but outdated versions. Globes are found in which the name of one cartographer has been replaced with that of a later one. This does not affect value. Indeed, it could be argued the globes are more interesting for it.<br/><br/>This practice also explains why some are found with cartographic information and<a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz250412antiqueglobe-4.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 246px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="globe-4" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/nwszz250412antiqueglobe-4_thumb.jpg" alt="globe-4" width="246" height="219" border="0" /></a> discoveries that date from many years after the date of manufacture of the base or stand. Regency library globes have elegant stands with tripod bases and slim, gently curving supports. Victorian examples, on the other hand, are heavy with turned legs and far less style. However, the latter can be had for a few hundred pounds apiece.<br/><br/>Bonhams will sell a pair of the former – 18-inch celestial and terrestrial globes by J & W Cary – in a sale of scientific instruments in Knightsbridge on May 3. Purchased new by the vendor’s family in the 1830s to furnish a newly constructed home, they are estimated at £30,000-50,000.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-42200048444651473292010-10-07T09:48:00.000-07:002017-02-01T16:32:25.194-08:00Teeth, Sheep, Apples And Cheese: An Age-Old Problem Solved<p>By guest writer Geoff Smaldon</p> <p><a href="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/2-copy.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding-left: 0px; width: 416px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="2 copy" border="0" alt="2 copy" src="http://writeantiques.com/wp-content/2-copy_thumb.jpg" width="416" height="403" /></a></p> <p> Few of us look forward to a visit to the dentist, but we are now accustomed to a level of dental care unheard of in the past. It was not until 1858 that the first dental hospital <br />opened in the UK and the Royal College of Surgeons started to license dentists in the same year. Prior to that, ‘barber-surgeons’ and even blacksmiths performed <br />extractions on unwilling patients and it is likely that, away from major towns and <br />cities, dental care was very limited. </p> <p>So, imagine how you would cope if your front teeth were badly diseased, painful or</p><a name='more'></a><p> <br />even absent: how would you bite into that delicious Cox’s Orange Pippin, or that tasty <br />but hard piece of cheddar? You could cut pieces off with a knife, or you could use <br />a scoop which would allow you to minimise waste and which would be easy to slip <br />into your pocket after use. Such scoops have been known for many centuries and were <br />made of a hard wood e.g. boxwood, silver or most commonly, bone. The knuckle- <br />bone of the sheep was most frequently used, one end being sawn off and the other <br />cut back on one side and rounded off at the end: the result was a strong and useful <br />implement which was personal to you. </p> <p>These bone apple-scoops, sometimes called apple-corers, are increasingly rare <br />although they were certainly in use well into the 20th century: I have purchased a <br />couple found in the cutlery drawer of a house being cleared in Witney. There is <br />no doubt that they were very personal items; scoops bearing the owner’s initials <br />are not uncommon and folk-lore in some regions suggests they were buried with <br />their owner. A scoop found in a tenth century grave in Ireland gives some credence <br />to this story although it could not be proved that the skeleton and the scoop were <br />contemporaneous. </p> <p>Decoration on scoops can range from a simple cut cross (a sign for good luck) to <br />intricate carving of initials and even messages. Scoops were sometimes given as love- <br />tokens, much in the fashion of Welsh love spoons, and often bear carved hearts and <br />the initials of the betrothed couple. </p> <p>Strangely enough, written accounts of the use of apple scoops are few: there is a <br />20th century description of a woman using a scoop to remove the flesh from an <br />apple ‘leaving the skin intact, until it would crumple in the hand like paper’, but I <br />know of no other accounts. There is little doubt that these scoops performed another <br />function of removing the core of an apple prior to cooking, but the very personal <br />nature of many of them suggests that their main use was in eating. </p> <p>The illustration gives an indication of the variety of scoops which can be found: let <br />me comment on these examples, going from left to right, as this will bring up some <br />interesting points. </p> <p>The first is a plain unadorned scoop with no decoration <br />Second is a scoop showing a saw-cut cross, a very common form of decoration. </p> <p>The third scoop shows slightly more complex cross-hatching, again done with a saw </p> <p>The fourth is more complex and accomplished </p> <p>The fifth is where the owner has really gone to town with a saw and a drill! </p> <p>The sixth is more organic in design and more difficult to achieve </p> <p>The seventh is a typical example showing the owner’s initials, in this case ‘W.B’ </p> <p>Number eight; now we get really complicated! This scoop has carved on it ‘JG July <br />30th 1853 ME, and on the shaft ‘Remember’. What lovers’ tryst resulted in this being <br />skilfully carved: one can only imagine…. </p> <p>Number nine is clearly a love token: dated 1771, with a prominent heart carved on it <br />and three further hearts on the reverse, plus the initials AC. A very professional piece <br />of work </p> <p>Ten is another mystery: The initials M and H are separated by two hearts with the date <br />1856 below. What you cannot see from this photo is that on the shaft is carved ‘Here <br />we suffer grief and pain: here we meet to part again : Goodnight’. I suspect this one <br />does not signify a happy occasion. </p> <p>The cut-out carving on number eleven is again of hearts and nares (nostrils), elements <br />which figure frequently on Welsh love spoons. Around the top are carved a hen and <br />two chicks! </p> <p>The scoop with the wooden top ( bottom of the photo) obviously has some <br />ecclesiastical connections: why the cross? What is the significance of the carved <br />crown? I don’t know. </p> <p>Finally, here’s one to think about: The whitish scoop with the fancy initials on it <br />is carved from ivory, but it mimics the sheep- bone examples. Why carve such a <br />thing in ivory? Perhaps it comes down to fitness for purpose, and maybe a member <br />of the gentry saw a servant using a bone scoop to good effect and had it copied in a <br />more ‘upmarket’ material!</p> <p>WriteAntiques is grateful to Geoff Smaldon for permission to reproduce this article.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-39317024860127946622009-11-06T07:11:00.000-08:002017-02-01T16:32:25.093-08:00Car mascots – best in auto-bling, but watch for fakes<p><a title="Lalique Coc Nain" href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2435/4080648060_7fab152fa5_b.jpg" rel="tag"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2435/4080648060_7fab152fa5_b.jpg" /></a> The auto traders weren’t happy. One had paid £800 for his pitch, another £1,000 for a slightly bigger area, but the dealers in the area set aside for an autojumble had laid out just £200 apiece for arguably a more prominent position.</p> <p>“That’s because they’re selling old stuff, collectables and that,” said the harassed organiser lady.</p> <p><a title="Mascots slideshow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisp/sets/72157622622458101/show/" rel="tag">Watch a slideshow of glass car mascots</a></p> <p>“But a lot of their stuff is brand new, the same kind of things we’re selling,” countered one trader as I eavesdropped on the conflict.</p> <p>“Well yes, I know, but the new stuff isn’t selling,” was the organiser’s feeble response.</p> <p>It didn’t go down well!</p> <p>I wanted to butt in and suggest that the so-called antiques fair, also among the “attractions” in the “huge trade mall” in the centre of the field was another area where trading standards </p> <a name='more'></a> <p>officers could have had a field day.</p> <p>Most of the stuff dated from around 1740 – that’s 20 minutes to six, probably the night before.</p> <p>Instead, I thought better of it and went to check out the automobilia and autojumble for myself. I was looking for car mascots made from glass like the ones illustrated here. It was the same story.</p> <p>Antiques? Amid the glitz and the glamour and the few genuine pieces for the connoisseur, the only antiques I saw were some of the cars and the folk driving them.</p> <p>Yes, fake glass mascots have been known to turn up, but they are few and far between, compared to duff metal examples which are legion.</p> <p>Glass mascots are among the most sought after and expensive of all car bling, the best being those made between 1915-30.</p> <p>A number of companies produced them, including Marius-Ernest Sabino and Edmund Etling in France and Warren Kessler and Red-Ashay in this country.</p> <p>The latter company was founded by Herman George Ascher, a Czech émigré who established his business in Manchester in the 1920s.</p> <p>Coming from an area then known as Bohemia, which was renowned for the production of fancy glass products, Ascher was well placed to commission and import glass mascots, which he sold at motor car exhibitions in London and Edinburgh and from his premises in Chorlton on Medlock.</p> <p>In all, Ascher built a range of 30 mascots, which he marketed under the name Red-Ashay. However, they were the preserve of only the well-heeled and the well-wheeled.</p> <p>They retailed for between one to 10 guineas, the best being those which were illuminated by the car’s battery.</p> <p>Even more novel were examples fitted with cylinders of coloured glass which caused the mascot to glow in shades of white light, red, orange, blue and green.</p> <p>Some were controlled by hand, while others were driven by a small propeller fitted to the mascot mount.</p> <p>As the car gathered speed, so the propeller turned faster, causing the coloured cylinder to spin, emitting a different colour as if did so.</p> <p>Changes in taste and the nationalisation of Czech glass factories after the Second World War saw the decline and eventual death of Red-Ashay, the company closing in 1952, but the Nottingham-based company Crystal Art Glass continues to import and sell some of the mascots, produced by the original moulds used by the factory that made them for Herman Ascher. (So, beware new examples being passed off as antique).</p> <p>Doyen of all glass mascot makers, however, was the master French glassmaker René Lalique (1860-1945) whose most famous mascot was commissioned by the Citroen (e with two dots over it) car company entitled Cinq Cheveaux (five horses) for the 5CV car first introduced in 1924.</p> <p>Others include St Christopher, Archer, Coq Nain (cockerel), Perche (fish), Grand Libellule (dragonfly) Tete (first e acute) d'Aigle (eagle's head), Sanglier (boar's head), Chrysis (kneeling nude), Longchamps (horse's head), Tete (first e circumflex) de Paon (peacock's head) and Victoire (female head).</p> <p>They were hugely popular. The eagle's head, for example, which symbolised military might, was chosen by Hitler for his commanders' Mercedes-Benz staff cars.</p> <p>Rich British motorists bought them eagerly too, through Lalique's London agents, the Breves Galleries in Knightsbridge.</p> <p>Many were sold also as paperweights, but mascots are distinguishable by the heavy brass bases which allowed them to be mounted to car radiator or bonnet.</p> <p>Lalique trained as a jewellery designer and maker but went on to spread his Art Nouveau and later Art Deco interpretations across most media including perfume bottles, porcelain, chandeliers and clocks.</p> <p>Glass mascots also served to warn drivers of the temperature of the water in their car radiators which were often prone to boiling over.</p> <p>These so-called moto-meters or calormeters comprised an illuminated glass tube sandwiched between discs of clear glass in a metal mount attached to the radiator cap.</p> <p>When the temperature rose, the water level climbed inside the tube, giving the driver an ever-visible indication of engine temperature, even at night.</p> <p>The glass and dials of these gauges were often engraved with decoration and they quickly sprouted wings and other adornment, although they were intended to be treated more seriously than the adornment of a car bonnet.</p> <p>As a result, they are less expensive than most others and largely immune from the fakers.</p> <p>Slideshow pictures show a handsome group of glass mascots sold by Warrington, Cheshire based vintage and veteran motor car auctioneers H&H Sales. The most valuable proved to be a Lalique St Christopher in perfect condition, which sold for £731. An amber version of Lalique’s Coc Nain sold for £315 despite a significant chip to the base, followed by a Red-Ashay style of a woman’s head, modelled after Lalique’s Victoire, which fetched £405. A rare Red-Ashay Pharaoh mascot sold for £191.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-11052374879955030672009-03-12T09:07:00.000-07:002017-02-01T16:32:24.988-08:00Taxidermy – the art of a devoted animal lover<p><a title="Coates with Snowy Owl" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3467/3349500942_c30446710b_b.jpg" rel="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3467/3349500942_c30446710b_b.jpg"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3467/3349500942_c30446710b_b.jpg" /></a> It was a Harry Potter moment. Standing alone in Douglas Coates's shop in Llangollen, North Wales, I felt compelled to stroke the plumage of an achingly beautiful snowy owl.</p> <p>Watching me all the while was the beady eye of a 13lbs 12oz brown trout, apparently a British record.</p> <p><a title="Taxidermy slideshow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisp/sets/72157615075407823/show/" rel="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisp/sets/72157615075407823/show/">Click here to see more pictures</a></p> <p>At my feet was a fox curled up as if asleep, unperturbed by a large, prowling mountain lion picking its way across a mountain outcrop, while a badger went about its business untroubled by either of them.</p> <p>Douglas Coates, you see, is a professional taxidermist and a more fascinating man, passionate about natural history, collecting, acquiring knowledge and his love of Mother Nature and her creatures, I have yet to meet.</p> <p>I admit, I thought long and hard about this week's topic because I knew I would be writing about a sensitive subject. Douglas Coates treats his art with the utmost sensitivity.</p> <p>Despite owning a large number of mounted and preserved wild animals, both pieces for sale </p> <a name='more'></a> <p>in his shop and in his own personal, private collection, Douglas is a nature lover.</p> <p>For a man who cannot bear to see a dog ill treated -- he has rescued several -- it is no surprise when he explains that with the exception of the Victorian examples in his collection, all of the creatures with which he comes into contact have died from natural causes.</p> <p>The snowy owl, for example, he had been commissioned to preserve for its owner, a breeder of the birds. The mountain lion, similarly, had died of old age in a wildlife park.</p> <p><a title="Coates with birds" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3626/3349499096_4729acdc5f_b.jpg" rel="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3626/3349499096_4729acdc5f_b.jpg"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3626/3349499096_4729acdc5f_b.jpg" /></a> So with that concern behind me, I learned that Douglas, 58, inherited his love of natural history and had started collecting bones and feathers and suchlike as a schoolboy.</p> <p>He was born in Jamaica into a well-to-do family with a strong military history. He moved to Llangollen aged three and today finds it difficult to walk through the town without being hailed at every turn by people who know him.</p> <p>While other boys were given train sets and Dinky cars for birthday and Christmas presents, Douglas was given a stuffed bird or other creature, which he then proceeded to take to bits to see how it was made.</p> <p>In those days, the art of taxidermy was a closed shop. No one who practised it was prepared to give any time to a youngster keen to learn the skill, and so Douglas taught himself.</p> <p>As a young man, he served his time as a plasterer and for a while combined his job with his hobby. The late 1960s saw a revival of interest in taxidermy and Douglas decided to devote his time entirely to his hobby, becoming a founder member of the Guild of Taxidermists.</p> <p>A new guild was formed subsequently and membership was by invitation only, with Douglas being one of its long-standing members.</p> <p>Today, he both preserves and sets new specimens, either to sell in his shop, Riverside Taxidermy in Mill Street, Llangollen, or to fulfil commissions from around the world. He will also undertake restoration of Victorian pieces, either to order or for stock.</p> <p>I suspect, however, that at least as much time is spent in detective work learning more about Victorian taxidermy and taxidermists and finding more of the finest examples for his private collection.</p> <p>A long-standing collaboration with retired zoologist and taxidermy specialist Dr Pat Morris has resulted in numerous books on the subject. Douglas does the research and Dr Morris the writing.</p> <p>The latest is about the celebrated Aberystwyth taxidermists Hutchings who were in business from 1860 to 1942.</p> <p><a title="Fox stick stand" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3651/3349500038_89f2366274_b.jpg" rel="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3651/3349500038_89f2366274_b.jpg"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3651/3349500038_89f2366274_b.jpg" /></a> That company, founded by James Hutchings (1842/3-1929) is worthy of an entirely separate column but suffice it to say that outside London, it produced some of the most significant specimens in the country, many of which are now in Welsh museums.</p> <p>In addition to its obvious quality, Hutchings' work also stands out for its distinctive glass-fronted cases, which a collector with an eye to detail like Douglas can spot at 50 paces.</p> <p>He has spent 30 years researching the Hutchings firm and his personal collection contains many examples of their work, several of which were used to illustrate the book.</p> <p>Another firm represented by a large number of specimens in Douglas's collection is Van Ingen, which was based in Mysore in India, when the days of the Raj saw a booming business in big game hunting.</p> <p>One of the largest and most famous of all taxidermists, Van Ingen employed 130 workers at its height in 1922.</p> <p>Van Ingen specimens can be found around the world and although strongly against modern-day big game hunting, Douglas has made it his business to seek out some of the best for the walls of his home. Dr Morris has also written a book about the company -- with the research from Douglas Coates.</p> <p>It is Douglas's fascination with research that makes his collection so absorbing. He owns a large library of books on the subject, one of which, Fauna of Shropshire, written in 1899 by H. Edward Forrest, is illustrated with pictures of cases of preserved birds from the collection of John Rock (1817-1881) who lived at Clungunford Hall, outside Ludlow.</p> <p>Through painstaking detective work, Douglas tracked down the cases and one now stands in his sittingroom. Others used in the book can be seen in Ludlow Museum.</p> <p>In another instance, he came across the old invoice from a taxidermist for work done to preserve and set a swan. Douglas contacted the name of the family on the invoice and by following lead after lead as the piece changed hands, he was ultimately able to acquire it. The case now stands in his hallway.</p> <p>So what of the future? Sadly, but not surprisingly, good Victorian examples are few and far between. The days when cases of stuffed animals and birds were turfed out because they were considered to be in bad taste are long gone.</p> <p>Now, good examples attract high prices with rare or extinct creatures selling for a premium over the ordinary.</p> <p>Equally, the number of trained and qualified taxidermists is dwindling. Douglas Coates is one of a dying breed in more ways than one.</p> <p> <strong><em>Pictures show from top: </em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>Douglas with the snowy owl commissioned by a breeder of the birds</em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>Douglas with the case of birds from Clungunford Hall</em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>Your stick sir. A Victorian novelty stick stand modelled with a standing fox </em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>Below, Do not disturb - the sleeping fox in Douglas's shop</em></strong></p> <p><a title="Sleeping fox" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3602/3348675745_cbde5f1d6a_b.jpg" rel="tag"><img style="display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3602/3348675745_cbde5f1d6a_b.jpg" /></a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-2658039799816927972009-03-09T08:42:00.000-07:002017-02-01T16:32:24.947-08:00Happy birthday, dear Barbie<p><a title="Barbie number 1" href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/91/232846295_a7b456e31a_b.jpg"><img style="width: 222px" height="287" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/91/232846295_a7b456e31a_b.jpg" /></a> She has long blonde hair, slim waist, narrow hips and not a sign of a wrinkle, even at  50.</p> <p>Parties will be taking place across the world today to mark Barbie’s 50th birthday  the occasion, and the world's first store dedicated to the doll has been opened in Shanghai. </p> <p>Her dolls are now collectors’ items, a 1959 model was sold for $27,450 at an auction in 2006. </p> <p>More than one billion dolls have been sold since her inception, and according to makers, Mattel, 90% of American girls aged between three and 10 own at least one. </p> <p>Read how Barbie came into being <a title="The Barbie story" href="http://writeantiques.com/barbie-for-sale-the-story-behind-the-biggest-collection-in-the-world/" rel="tag">here.</a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-56874947667442824222009-03-04T09:48:00.000-08:002017-02-01T16:32:24.930-08:00Precious pots raised from the deep<p><a title="Pencilled Discussion pattern" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3601/3328921266_4df17aaa5d_b.jpg"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3601/3328921266_4df17aaa5d_b.jpg" /></a> There are two Vietnamese blue and white pots in our house, a bowl and a plate, decorated respectively with fantastical fishes and dragons. We purchased them from a street vendor on an unforgettable holiday and we’ve treasured them ever since.</p> <p><a title="Ca Mau porcelain slideshow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisp/sets/72157614728340283/show/" rel="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisp/sets/72157614728340283/show/">Click here to see a slideshow of the Ca Mau porcelain</a></p> <p>Brand new “antiques” they might be, but no matter. Ironically enough, in the same street was a tailor who made the Business Manager (Mrs P) a silk dress. While she was being measured up and fitted out, I was taken to a backroom to see the owner’s collection of real Vietnamese antiques.</p> <p>The tailor’s wife explained that the pottery had been brought to the shop by fishermen who</p> <a name='more'></a> <p> often pulled in their nets and found stuff in them dredged up from the seabed. Interestingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, they were decorated with designs similar to our fantastical fishes and dragons.</p> <p>I could take my pick, pay the necessary and no one would trouble me at customs, I was reliably informed, specially if I hid the piece away in my luggage wrapped in a dirty shirt.</p> <p><a title="Two Pheasant pattern" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3124/3328920002_f5ba33a443_b.jpg" rel="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3124/3328920002_f5ba33a443_b.jpg"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3124/3328920002_f5ba33a443_b.jpg" /></a> In true journalistic style, I made my excuses and left. Were in not for our fish and dragon pots, I’d be at Shrewsbury, Shropshire auctioneers Halls next week bidding for some of the porcelain pictured here.</p> <p>It is what’s left of a massive consignment of 18th century export porcelain salvaged from the Ca Mau, a Chinese junk which sunk off the Vietnam coast in 1725.</p> <p>Following two successful auctions of the stuff last year, Halls are hoping for similar enthusiasm from collectors when another 1,000 pieces go under the hammer.</p> <p>The first part of the collection, sent for sale by a Staffordshire collector, sold for £16,000 in March. In December, the second consignment of 440 pieces sold for £7,500., Assuming that demand might be becoming satiated, there could be some bargains this time. </p> <p>Halls fine art director Jeremy Lamond, the specialist in charge of the sale, told me that the Ca Mau was engulfed by an intense fire while sailing 90 miles south of Canton on its way to the Malaysian archipelago.</p> <p>The fire, burning at 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, may have started in the kitchen as cast iron cooking pots were found welded together. </p> <p>The heat was so intense that it fused together some pieces of its precious cargo. </p> <p>The junk lay undisturbed for more than 280 years until, in 1998, two Vietnamese fishermen snagged their nets on some of the porcelain and began to haul it from the deep.</p> <p>Before the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture and Information stepped in, the fishermen had managed to bring to the surface over 30,000 pieces. </p> <p>In 2005, the Vietnamese government decided to sell a proportion of the 130,000 pieces that had been salvaged and sent 76,000 to auction at Sotheby’s in Amsterdam.</p> <p>The sale over three days in January 2007 saw the Ca Mau finally unload its cargo to an eager market in the West after a gap of two centuries.</p> <p><a title="Bird and Insect pattern" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3652/3328920200_d1e5824488_o.jpg" rel="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3652/3328920200_d1e5824488_o.jpg"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3652/3328920200_d1e5824488_o.jpg" /></a> “Shipwreck porcelains are a fascinating subject and shed much light on history, human and marine archaeology and commerce,” Mr Lamond said. </p> <p>“They represent in their purest form a time capsule, sealing in the fashion of the day represented by the most popular shapes and designs.” </p> <p>After the discovery of the Nanking Cargo by Michael Hatcher in the 1980s, there have been many shipwreck porcelain sales at auction including Vung Tau, Tek Sing, and Diana.</p> <p>The number of pieces offered have been breathtaking, usually 100,000 or more per sale and reflect the size of these cargoes in their day and the demand for such wares throughout South East Asia and Europe.</p> <p>“To the student of porcelain, shipwreck artefacts present a unique window on the past. They are obviously not fakes or reproductions and such pieces are ideal for learning by handling,” Mr Lamond said. </p> <p>“If a shipwreck has been thoroughly excavated, then dating is usually quite precise and it would not be difficult for a keen collector to pick up wares from shipwreck porcelains offered on the current market from ships dating from the Song and pre-Ming dynasties right through to the 19th century! “Arranged in chronological order, this would give the scholar a snapshot of Chinese taste and design throughout the centuries for as little as a few hundred pounds.”</p> <p><a title="Wild Cherry pattern" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3571/3328085865_3f07a0c5e8_b.jpg" rel="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3571/3328085865_3f07a0c5e8_b.jpg"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3571/3328085865_3f07a0c5e8_b.jpg" /></a> The Chinese export trade to Europe in blue and white porcelain tea wares reached its zenith in the 18th century and catered for a burgeoning middle class demand for durable and attractive blue and white porcelain tableware.</p> <p>In the early 18th century, when the Ca Mau sank, the principal companies dealing in the export trade were the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the East India Company of London.</p> <p>Although the Ca Mau was destined for Batavia, the major part of its cargo was to be shipped on to the Netherlands and some of the porcelains were painted to Dutch taste with churches and traditional European scenes in the so-called Scheveningen design.</p> <p>A great deal of the Ca Mau cargo consisted of tea bowls, saucers and saucer dishes for the mass market painted in cobalt blue against a white porcelain ground which are ideal for collectors, being easy to display, relatively inexpensive and often utilising a myriad of different patterns.</p> <p>The Halls sale is next Wednesday March 11 with viewing from Saturday Mar 7. Estimates start from £120 for 30 saucers. Further information from Halls on 01743 284777.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-12316803230987931682009-02-25T08:42:00.000-08:002017-02-01T16:32:24.885-08:00Charles Horner hatpins – get the point?<p><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3178/3308633989_8613b6a362_b.jpg" /> This week found me researching the Suffragette movement, a term coined - according to <a title="Wikipedia link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette" rel="tag">Wikipedia</a> - by the Daily Mail as a derogatory way of describing members of the Women's Social and Political Union, headed by Emmeline Pankhurst.</p> <p>Interestingly, the same newspaper carried a report of how a judge ordered a group of Suffragettes on trial to remove their hatpins in court, fearing they could be used as weapons.</p> <p><a title="Hatpins slideshow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisp/sets/72157614343025399/show/" rel="tag" target="_blank">See a slideshow of Charles Horner hatpins</a> Images courtesy of Charles Horner of Halifax by Tom J. Lawson, published by GML Publishing and distributed by the Antique Collectors’ Club Ltd., which supplied them.</p> <p>By now off on a completely wrong tangent, I learned from another report, dated December 17, 1908, how a woman lost her sight in one eye after an accident in the rush on the first day of a shop </p> <a name='more'></a> <p>sale, while in April, 1913, the New York Times published a letter from a man who had contracted blood poisoning from a wound inflicted by a hatpin.</p> <p>At one point the authorities in Berlin banned over long hatpins and other cities in Europe and America followed suit.</p> <p>Byelaws were introduced prohibiting the wearing of hatpins not fitted with safety guards to cover the sharp end and police forces were mobilised to enforce the law.</p> <p>Not surprisingly, hatpins also came to be recognised as a useful aid to self-defence. Nowadays, they are quirky, often beautiful, collectors' items that recall the days when big hair and equally big hats were <em>de rigueur</em>.</p> <p>Up until the Regency period, ladies secured their hats - usually sensible affairs with tasteful </p> <p>frills - with ribbons, those imported from France being considered the most fetching.</p> <p>In the 1820s and 30s, hats were still of a manageable size and small decorative hatpins were used unobtrusively to keep them in place.</p> <p>But by the late Victorian period, hats began to grow, eventually to gargantuan proportions.</p> <p><a title="Hatpins advertisement" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3590/3308633539_63668a19ec_b.jpg" rel="tag"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3590/3308633539_63668a19ec_b.jpg" /></a> Two things quickly became vital additions to a woman's wardrobe: one was sufficient hair - either her own or someone else's in the form of a wig - with which to support the hat, the other, long hatpins with which to secure it.</p> <p>The hatpin's heyday was the Edwardian era, though. Lillie Langtry and other musical hall stars prompted ludicrously large creations and the bigger the hat, the longer the pin - sometimes as long as 14 inches.</p> <p>The hatpin's heyday was a brief affair. By 1920, most modern women had bobbed their hair and the need for pins in cloche hats was minimal.</p> <p>Ordinary black glass-topped pins which were bought in packets could still be found, though their use was confined to the matriarchy.</p> <p>However, in the intervening years, designers and manufacturers of hatpins allowed their imagination to run riot.</p> <p>Thus, today's collectors have much to pursue, providing their pockets are deep enough.</p> <p>Time was when pretty Art Nouveau silver hat pins could be picked up for the proverbial fiver. Not any more.</p> <p>You'd be doing extremely well if you found one for under £50, while top quality examples, perhaps set with a semi-precious stone can be twice, three or even four times the price.</p> <p>There are cheaper, of course, with some late, glass and plastic-headed types to be had for under £1. But generally speaking, hatpins and the collecting of same is big business with its own international collectors' club and dealers who specialise in nothing but the pins and the stands - novelty and serious - in which to stand and display them.</p> <p>The period from 1900-1910 produced some of the most decorative silver hatpins, made at a time when Britain was enjoying the tail end of the Art Nouveau movement and the emergence of the Arts and Crafts school of design.</p> <p>One of the most prolific manufacturers of the day was Charles Horner. <br />Horner was a native of Halifax in Yorkshire who, in the mid-1850s, ran a retail watchmaking and jewellery business.</p> <p>He died in 1896, leaving a large family including six sons, two of whom, James Dobson Horner and C. Harry Horner, built a new factory in the town to produce large quantities of relatively inexpensive gold and silver jewellery, and fancy goods. Thimbles and hatpins were the mainstay.</p> <p><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3450/3309463842_3c195cd60b_b.jpg" /> Hallmark of Horner's products was elegance, combined with fluid and sensuous shape and line which was so indicative of the period.</p> <p>Always highly ornamental, hatpins come in a wide variety of shapes and in many other mediums other than silver.</p> <p>One favourite among today's collectors is Whitby jet, so loved by Queen Victoria who made mourning a national pastime.</p> <p>Look also for so-called French jet, the posh name for black glass cut in Whitby styles.</p> <p>Sporty types had hatpins that represented their particular game: tiny tennis rackets, fox's head, roller skates, or golf clubs, for example.</p> <p>Favourite dogs were another choice, while one of my favourites are those sent home to mothers, wives and sweethearts by soldiers during the First World War: a button from a tunic mounted on to a pin.</p> <p>At the other end of the price range are Liberty and Co., examples and those in Japanese Satsuma earthenware.</p> <p>And if you're very rich, seek out the fabulous glass hatpins produced by French master craftsman Rene Lalique.</p> <p>Examples the size of a milk bottle top moulded with emerald and jade green designs of flying moths or interlocking locusts fetch £1,500-2,000 in the saleroom.</p> <p>The amazing thing about them is the way their iridescent colours flash as they catch the light. Imagine for a moment the magnificence of the hat that would have done them justice!</p> <p><em><strong>Pictures show, from top:</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>A particularly attractive Charles Horner hatpin modelled as a thistle with sensuous, art nouveau stem. The amethyst-coloured glass "flower" would have been moulded and then polished by hand</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong></strong></em></p> <p><em><strong></strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>An advertisement from a trade catalogue showing some of the styles of hatpins available at the turn of the century. Note the golf club shaped examples on the bottom row</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>A group of silver hatpins by Charles Horner, decorated with paste thistles</strong></em></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-44815391084695201842009-02-16T10:04:00.000-08:002017-02-01T16:32:24.849-08:00Car boot sale buy is rare PenDelfin plaque<p><a title="Rare PenDelfin plaque" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3169/3285380900_68eaa27159_o.jpg" rel="tag"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3169/3285380900_68eaa27159_o.jpg" /></a> A chance find at a car boot sale is set to hit the jackpot for a couple after auctioneers valued their £2 bargain at £1,000 or more. </p> <p><font color="#ff0000">UPDATE: The wall plaque sold for £1,350.</font></p> <p>"The little ceramic wall plaque was lying in the grass underneath one stall and my husband walked past without giving it a second glance," said the woman, a local government officer who asked not to be named. </p> <p>"I was following on behind and it caught my eye when I looked down, so I picked it up. I didn't think much of it at first, but when I turned it over, I saw the name <a title="PenDelfin" href="http://writeantiques.com/hunting-for-bunny-money/" target="_blank" rel="tag">'PenDelfin'.</a>. </p> <p>"There was no price on it, so I asked the stallholder how much she wanted for it and she said '£2.50'. I offered her £2 and bought it just like that. </p> <p>"When we got home, we looked it up on the Internet but couldn't find anything about it. The</p> <a name='more'></a> <p>PenDelfin factory was in Burnley, so we went to the library there and found three specialist PenDelfin books in the reference section. While we were looking through one of them, we came across a picture of the very same plaque. It was really exciting because the book said it was very rare." </p> <p>By chance, the book contained an advertisement for Nantwich, Cheshire auctioneers <a title="Peter Wilson" href="http://www.peterwilson.co.uk" target="_blank">Peter Wilson</a>, who have achieved high prices for the collectable nurseryware pottery, best known for its families of rabbits. Ceramics specialist Chris Large confirmed the rarity of the eight-inch diameter plaque and it will be sold in a <a title="Peter Wilson" href="http://www.peterwilson.co.uk" target="_blank" rel="tag">Peter Wilson</a> sale on Thursday February 19. </p> <p>Chris Large said: "PenDelfin ware was the creation of a Burnley woman, Jean Walmsley Heap. She died last October and there has been a revival of interest among collectors for rare pieces such as this wall plaque. </p> <p>"Its official name is the Pixie House plaque, and it was introduced in 1953 - the first year of PenDelfin production - and withdrawn in 1958, so not many were made. It is not known how many survive today, but they are very rare. We expect the sale to create a great deal of interest, both in this country and in America and Canada, where there are large contingents of PenDelfin collectors." </p> <p>Jean Walmsley Heap started her artistic life with a yearning to become a children's book illustrator. As a schoolgirl aged 10, she began selling pictures to friends and relations to raise money to buy a wooden hut "to live and paint in" but her parents persuaded her to open her first studio under the stairs of her Burnley home. A scholarship to Burnley School of Art followed where she studied under the distinguished painter Noel H. Leaver ARCA. However, a paper shortage during the war prevented her from achieving her ambition. </p> <p>The PenDelfin business was formed in 1953 at Pendle just outside Burnley. Jean met Jeannie Todd while attending an exhibition of paintings being staged by Burnley Artists' Society, and they became close friends and decided to go into business together. </p> <p>The two women each contributed £5 as working capital and with the garden shed as company HQ, the entrepreneurs began by making Christmas gifts for friends. Jean modelled the figures - at first pixies, elves and Pendle witches - from clay and Jeannie boiled rubber on the kitchen cooker to make moulds. However, the hobby quickly became a full-time business employing many staff. </p> <p>The family of mischievous rabbits first appeared in 1955. Father Rabbit was first and production continued creating a steady stream of attractive and highly collectable creations that were soon sitting on mantelshelves and in children's bedrooms around the world. </p> <p>The sale, at Peter Wilson's Victorian Gallery in Market Street, Nantwich is on view from Sunday February 15 (2-4pm); Monday February 16 (10am-7pm) and Tuesday and Wednesday February 17-18 (10am-4pm). </p> <p>For further information, please contact Chris Large, telephone 01270 623878. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-28850425541024245022009-02-11T04:11:00.000-08:002017-02-01T16:32:24.806-08:00Stevengraphs: silken Valentine’s Day gifts<p><a title="Lady Godiva's Procession" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3357/3271063245_69257b9704_b.jpg" rel="tag"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3357/3271063245_69257b9704_b.jpg" /></a> February 14 presents something of a double whammy on my wallet: not only is it Valentine’s Day, but it’s also the Business Manager’s birthday. Mrs P and I have known each other for a long time and it has always caused a problem.</p> <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisp/sets/72157613614286781/show/">See a slideshow of silken Stevengraphs</a></p> <p>One year I recall buying her a wonderful Nailsea glass ship under a glass dome – a Victorian fancy that I thought she would like as much as me. She did, but she’s never let me forget just whose present it really was.</p> <p>Then there was the year when, following mutual agreement, we decided not to buy anything</p> <a name='more'></a> <p>for each other’s birthdays. I didn’t even send her a card and she’s given me cause to regret it ever since.</p> <p>This year I’m taking her to dinner followed by the theatre. I had thought about buying her the picture illustrated here – it’s a woven silk picture of Lady Godiva’s Procession, but then I remembered the Nailsea ship squabble.</p> <p>Leofric (968–1057), the Earl of Mercia, had a similar problem with his missus. He was forever being nagged by Lady Godiva to take pity on the people of Coventry and stop taxing them so harshly.</p> <p>In the end, he tried to silence her by challenging her to ride through the streets in the buff. If she did so, he would relent.</p> <p>Ever the clever one (aren’t they always) she did just that, hiding her modesty behind her long hair and having first commanded everyone to stay indoors and close their curtains. </p> <p>Apart from the knights who accompanied her, only one other man saw her – a tailor named Tom, which is where the expression “Peeping Tom” is said to originate.</p> <p>Fittingly, the woven picture of her ride was made by Thomas Stevens of Coventry, a silk manufacturer, whose idea of producing them saved his entire workforce from penury. </p> <p><a title="The Last Over" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3329/3271062931_457465f0cf_b.jpg" rel="tag"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3329/3271062931_457465f0cf_b.jpg" /></a> Over the years until about 1938 literally hundreds of the so-called Stevengrahps were produced, featuring every subject imaginable.</p> <p>Fancy silk ribbon weaving began in Coventry in about 1700. However, when the French invented the Jacquard loom in 1801, it was they who led the way in mass-production of silk woven designs.</p> <p>The Jacquard produced mile after mile of ribbon to patterns reproduced on punched cards which were fed automatically through the looms. The machines were adopted by Coventry manufacturers and by 1840, half the city's workforce was employed in the industry.</p> <p>Thomas Stevens went into the business straight from school and established his own mill in 1854. However, in 1860, the British government adopted legislation removing duty on imported silk goods and cheap foreign material flooded the home market.</p> <p>Coventry was one of the victims with mill closures and mass unemployment but entrepreneur Stevens hit on the simple idea of adapting the Jacquard looms to produce vertical rather than horizontal designs. When cut into short lengths and finished with silk tassels, they made charming bookmarks.</p> <p>Three years after the slump, Stevens had created a new market and his woven bookmarks were selling like hot cakes. The continued livelihood of his loyal workforce was assured.</p> <p>Instead of selling his wares to the drapery trade, Stevens persuaded booksellers and stationers to retail the bookmarks which were eye-catching and colourful creations depicting illuminated texts from the Bible, poems, Christmas, new year, birthday and – yes - Valentine's Day greetings, portraits of royalty, and contemporary scenes.</p> <p><a title="The Water Jump" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3445/3271063569_d545077100_b.jpg" rel="tag"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3445/3271063569_d545077100_b.jpg" /></a> Stevens subsequently claimed to have produced 900 different bookmark designs for the home market, the Continent and the United States, although only about half that number has been catalogued by current research.</p> <p>Encouraged by his early success, in 1879 Stevens introduced mass-produced woven silk pictures, which he fitted in simple cardboard mounts so they would last longer.</p> <p>They were introduced at the little-known York Exhibition which opened on May 7 that year, where two Stevens looms could be seen producing scenes of local interest: the London and York Stage Coach and Dick Turpin's Ride to York.</p> <p>Their striking almost three-dimensional effect impressed visitors who were able to buy them straight from the loom for a shilling (5p) each.</p> <p>New pictures were issued at the rate of one a month and at least 70 different topics are covered including portraits of royalty, sporting, military, religious and political figures; exhibitions, castles and well known buildings; horse racing; coursing and fox hunting; sports; battleships and even fire engines. Some are surprisingly rare, others relatively common, with prices to match.</p> <p>Stevens died in 1888, but the factory continued to be run by his two sons until it was made a limited company in 1908. Fashions had changed by about 1914 and demand for Stevengrahps dwindled.</p> <p>The portraits of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother produced in 1938 were probably the last to be made before the factory was totally destroyed in the Coventry blitz of 1940.</p> <p>The hallmarks of a good Stevengraph are brightly coloured silks, with an unstained and original card mount. Their enemies are strong sunlight, which will bleach out the colour; dampness, which will cause the colours to stain or run and card mounts that become brittle with age.</p> <p><a title="God Speed the Plough" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3419/3271882836_bf7cc692d1_b.jpg" rel="tag"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3419/3271882836_bf7cc692d1_b.jpg" /></a> Avoid faded examples or those with dirty or damaged mounts. They are impossible to restore and values can be affected seriously. Bookmarks change hands at between £5 to £50, depending on their size and how elaborate they are.</p> <p>Mounted pictures can be eight or 10 times that amount depending on condition, rarity and subject. Pious or religious scenes are least desirable and therefore cheapest. Queen Victoria is worth more than Gladstone, but much less than cricketer W.G. Grace, for example.</p> <p><strong><em>Pictures show, from top:</em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>Stevengraphs need not cost the earth. This and others are coming up for sale at Peter Wilson’s in Nantwich, Cheshire, next Thursday (Feb 19). Godiva’s Procession is being offered together with “Turpin’s Ride to York on his Bonnie Black Bess” and “The Present Time” showing an early steam train. with an estimate of just £30-50, they sound like a bargain</em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>“The First Over” a scarcer Stevengraph with a cricketing theme, estimated at £100-150</em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>“The Water Jump”, one of a series of five Stevengraphs with a horse racing theme, together estimated at £80-120</em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>“God Speed the Plough”, being sold with four others including the well known hunting trio “The Meet”, “The Chase” and “The Kill”, together estimated at £50-70</em></strong></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-33037611686006630902009-02-10T09:03:00.000-08:002017-02-01T16:32:24.738-08:00So, farewell then wonderful Wedgwood<p><a title="Josiah Wedgwood" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3473/3268613335_78c59be701_b.jpg" rel="tag"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3473/3268613335_78c59be701_b.jpg" /></a> So, farewell then wonderful Wedgwood (at least in the form we know it today). You will be sorely missed … Last week, and with virtually the same words, this column mourned the passing of Woolworths.  Now another great institution is on the ropes.</p> <p><a title="Wedgwood slideshow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisp/sets/72157613593255830/show/" rel="tag">Click here to see a Wedgwood wonderland</a></p> <p>     Venture capitalists circle over the Barlaston works, enticed by Receivers who will be the only winners in the game, while a talented workforce of Staffordshire potters nervously awaits its fate. <br />    Founded by the great Josiah in 1759, Wedgwood once produced wares that everyone wanted to buy from Catherine the Great to people like my parents who just wanted a smart Sunday best teaset. Not any more it seems. <br />    The youngest of 12 children, Josiah was born at his parents' pottery in Burslem. He started school at the age of six, but was forced to leave on his father's death at nine. <br />    He then worked then for five years as apprentice in the family pot bank, but was then</p> <a name='more'></a> <p>struck down by smallpox. It was a cruel blow which affected his legs - his right one had to be amputated - making him unable to operate a potter's wheel. <br />    Cast adrift by his family - his eldest brother refused to take him into partnership - he worked for two years for another potter before he met and, in 1754, entered into partnership with one of the most eminent potters of the day, Thomas Whieldon. <br />    Robbed of a career as a potter, Wedgwood concentrated on developing new ceramic bodies and glazes and by the time the Whieldon partnership expired in 1759, Wedgwood had invented several new products. He started his own business back in Burslem and began to prosper. <br /><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3035/3268611135_909dc19a0c_b.jpg" />     In 1762, he met Thomas Bentley, a successful Liverpool merchant with a wide and cultivated taste who had the right social contacts and a knowledge of the arts that gave him an eye for design. <br />    Wedgwood was quick to recognise the inspiration that Bentley offered and the two formed a partnership that lasted from 1768 until Bentley's death in 1780. <br />    It was at this time that collectors became interested in the classical antiquities being discovered in Etruscan tombs and Wedgwood and Bentley produced copies, including their so-called Etruscan vases. <br />    When they opened their new works in 1769, they called it Etruria after the district in central Italy where the ancient Etruscans had lived. <br />    A pioneer of the Industrial Revolution and the canal system - he wanted a cheap and reliable means to transport his wares to Liverpool - a scientist, engineer, entrepreneur businessman, anti-slavery campaigner, aesthete and radical, Josiah is regarded as the father of English potters. <br />    Wedgwood became a public company in 1967 (some say that's when the decline started) and it was taken over 19 years later by Warterford Glass. What happens next is anyone's guess but what remains a constant is the raft of highly collectable pottery. <br />    Early pieces of Wedgwood and Bentley black basaltes busts and vases still turn up at auction, while the Fairyland Lustre designed by Daisy Makeig-Jones (1881-1945) is highly sought after. <br />       Interestingly Daisy's innovative designs helped the company revive its reputation in the harsh years of the first quarter of the 20th century, as did the work of such distinguished artists as Keith Murray (1892-1981), John Skeaping (1901-1980), Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) and Arnold Machin (1911-1999). <br />       Another constant, where all of the company's rarest treasures can be seen, is the futuristic new £10.5 million Wedgwood Museum which opened last October. <br />    Built after eight years of international fund-raising and supported by a £5.9 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant, the museum is a registered charitable trust and thankfully entirely independent from the company. <br /><a title="Apotheosis of Homer vase" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3304/3268610775_389f2557f4_b.jpg" rel="tag"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3304/3268610775_389f2557f4_b.jpg" /></a>    Situated at the Wedgwood factory site at Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent (the company moved there in 1939) the museum exhibits include everything from Josiah's experimental trials, designs and products from throughout the 18th century to the present day totalling about 6,000 artefacts, some never seen by the public before. <br />       A collection of 75,000 original manuscripts detailing everything from international trade, social history, the anti-slavery campaign and the building of Britain's canal system , and 10,000 experimental pieces from the Wedgwood archives are also available for examination, while important original paintings by artists Joshua Reynolds and George Stubbs portray Josiah and his family.  <br />     A unique interactive  "magic carpet ride" takes visitors on an aerial tour around Wedgwood's original Etruria factory, now demolished, and specially built bottle ovens house display areas of 18th century wares. <br />    The museum is open from 9am to 5pm (10am at weekends) and admission costs £6 (concession £5) or in groups £5 (concession £4.50). For further information, go to www.wedgwoodmuseum.org.uk or telephone 01782 371900. </p> <p><strong><em>Pictures show, from top: A portrait of Josiah Wedgwood I (1730-95) in enamels on a Wedgwood ceramic plaque made in 1780 </em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>The Portland Vase a Black Jasper copy of the famous Roman cameo glass vase once owned by the Duchess of Portland.  It took Josiah over three years of experiments and trials before the first perfect copy was made in October 1789.  They are considered amongst the greatest technical achievements of the potter's art</em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>The Apotheosis of Homer vase in Blue Jasper, the bas relief design by John Flaxman Junior.  Josiah Wedgwood declared this to be, 'The finest and most perfect I have ever made', c.1786. </em></strong></p> <p><a title="Fairland lustre vase" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3392/3269434602_4c49302a8a_o.jpg" rel="tag"><strong><em><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3392/3269434602_4c49302a8a_o.jpg" /></em></strong></a><strong><em>Left: Fairyland lustre was the name given by Daisy Makeig-Jones to her range of designs based on exotic fairy stories where vivacious imps and fairies are seen in mystical landscapes.  The ware was made by Wedgwood from 1915 until 1931, though after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, demand declined dramatically. This bowl dates from about 1920. </em></strong></p> <p><em>Pictures courtesy of the Wedgwood Museum, Stoke-on-Trent.</em></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2763325270475681881.post-19672571959164692292009-02-05T08:16:00.000-08:002017-02-01T16:32:24.719-08:00Masriera – master jeweller<div class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:b6d159fd-9ba0-4b1e-ada0-527ac7001460" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; float: none; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Masriera" rel="tag">Masriera</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Jewellery" rel="tag">Jewellery</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Art+Nouveau" rel="tag">Art Nouveau</a></div> <p><a title="Masriera brooches" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3440/3256012354_95b0acbbc7.jpg" rel="tag"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3440/3256012354_95b0acbbc7.jpg" /></a> Fly to the Costa Brava for a penny? You must be kidding! I wasn't, and we did, thanks to a last-minute flight out of Liverpool's John Lennon Airport courtesy of one of the low-cost airlines operating there. </p> <p>It was a great way of setting ourselves up for the twin Christmas excesses of too much turkey and television. </p> <p><a title="Masriera slideshow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisp/sets/72157613392462428/show/" rel="tag">Click here to see a bejewelled slideshow</a></p> <p>In contrast, we raced around in the glorious winter sunshine seeing cities and seaside resorts, eating paella in two-hour lunches and even managing to fit in visits to a museum and an antiques fair - all without the crush of summer tourists. </p> <p>The first of many revelations was Antoni Gaudi's Temple de la Sagrada Familia - Barcelona's astonishing "jewelled" cathedral to the Sacred Family still being built more than 120 years after it was started in 1882. </p> <p>The following day, we enjoyed tapas at a pavement cafe outside one of the most striking Art Nouveau buildings in Girona, and in the same city we saw an exhibition featuring the </p> <a name='more'></a> <p><a title="Masriera peacock" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3355/3256012344_86c025806a_m.jpg" rel="tag"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3355/3256012344_86c025806a_m.jpg" /></a> breathtakingly beautiful jewels illustrated here. Our low-Costa break had turned into a fascinating excursion that I would recommend to anyone interested in antiques and fine art. </p> <p>The 1890s saw a renaissance in Barcelona, the Catalonian city becoming a centre for avant-garde art with its own version of Art Nouveau, which was turned Modernisme. </p> <p>At around the same time, a jeweller named Lluis Masriera - the creator of these jewels - was about to burst onto the scene. The third generation of a family of jewellers - his grandfather, Josep, had founded the business in 1839 - Masriera was truly gifted. </p> <p>He joined the firm as an apprentice aged 15 and began a regime of extensive training in the arts including a period at the School of Fine Arts in Geneva. There he studied the specialised skill of enamel painting, used extensively in jewelled miniature portraits which were popular keepsakes among the rich. </p> <p>One of the boy's first recorded works is an enamelled vase, presented to the President of the Exposition Universelle in Paris by the Spanish artists exhibiting there. </p> <p>More importantly, the exhibition introduced Masriera to the extraordinary jewellery of René Lalique, which was receiving wide acclaim. </p> <p>The experience had a dramatic affect on the young artist craftsmen who returned to Barcelona, his imagination fired by the Art Nouveau motifs of Nature and the sinuous sensual lines of the femme fleur. </p> <p align="center"><font size="4">Name was on everyone’s lips</font></p> <p>Masriera's style was transformed and still only in his late twenties, he was on the verge of huge success. </p> <p>The turning point followed Masriera's second visit to Paris to see the Centennial Exhibition of 1900. </p> <p>The French Art Nouveau movement was at its climax by then and legend has it that Masriera decided to close his shop, melt down his entire stock and start again. </p> <p>After working frantically on his new designs, the shop reopened a few days before Christmas in 1901 and within the week, the showcases were virtually empty. The name "Masriera" was on everyone's lips. </p> <p>Soon he was the toast of Europe and notably South America. In 1906, he was commissioned to make a tiara for Queen Victoria, which is seen as one of the major achievements of Spanish Art Nouveau, and in 1915, he joined forces with the oldest family of jewellers in Spain, the Carreras. </p> <p>Founded in 1766, Carreras were top in their field but producing jewellery of more conservative design. </p> <p>The merger was a boost for both companies and they moved to a new location in one of Barcelona's finest streets. </p> <p>By 1924, the new company was trading under the name Masriera y Carreras. </p> <p>However, fashion is fickle and the romantic natural forms of Modernisme were seen as outdated. "Art Deco", a term derived from the title of an international exhibition in Paris in 1925 called the Exposition des Artes Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes, had arrived. </p> <p>In Catalonia, this new 20th century spirit was called Noucentisme and Masriera responded accordingly, producing a range of striking "Jazz Age" pieces which won a gold medal at the Paris exhibition. </p> <p>A gifted painter, it is interesting to note that Masriera won a second gold medal for his decoration of the huge curving canvas hung in the circular space that his company used to mount their display. It was an indication that Masriera was preparing to move on. </p> <p>Four years earlier he had founded a company to promote Catalan theatre and by the 1930s, he had pulled out of jewellery manufacture to concentrate on this other branch of the arts. </p> <p>The Masriera y Carreras company continues today under the control of the Bagués family who acquired it in 1985. Production continues using many of the original moulds and meticulous methods that made the jewellery unique. </p> <p>Aside from the fabulous designs and precious materials used by Masriera, his tour de force is the use of a technique known as plique à jour. </p> <p align="center"><font size="4">Brushstrokes of an Impressionist painting</font></p> <p>Creating an effect like a stained-glass window, this requires the jeweller to fill a tiny skeleton made from platinum, gold or silver with coloured enamels which are held in place either by their own surface tension or a mica backplate which melts away in the firing process. </p> <p>Being open backed, this allows light to pass through the enamel in varying shades and with natural striations producing effects like the brushstrokes of an Impressionist painting. </p> <p>Today, such techniques have been largely forgotten. In Masriera's day the work required incredible skill, a great deal of time and patience and because levels of wastage were high, a group of customers for whom money was no object. </p> <p>The Masriera family comprised painters, musicians, sculptors, and art critics. The jewellery business was founded in 1839 by Josep Masriera following a six-year apprenticeship. </p> <p>Josep had five children and his three sons, Josep, Francesc and Frederic all entered the family business, becoming apprentices at the age of 13. </p> <p>By the time the father died in 1875, the firm had become well-established and successful, but hugely traditional. </p> <p>In addition to fine jewellery made for Spain's rich bankers and industrialists, the company also produced ornate religious works of art for the country's churches. </p> <p>In 1884, the brothers opened what they called a "temple of art" which was both a studio and a retreat intended to inspire them to produce new designs to replace attired product list. </p> <p>Instead, Frederic found the inspiration to quit jewellery design to establish a metal foundry for the production of bronzes and monumental sculpture. </p> <p>The two remaining continued alone, registering their business in 1886 as "Masriera Hermanos” - Masriera Brothers. </p> <p>Josep had four sons, two of whom - Josep and Lluis - joined the family business, but it was the latter who quickly made his mark. </p> <p>The first piece Lluis designed was a tiara for the bride of a marquis. He was 15. </p> <p><strong><em>Pictures show: </em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>Top:  The dragonfly and the bee were favourite Art Nouveau motifs. Both insects have plique à jour enamelled wings, while the head of the dragonfly is a human face carved from ivory </em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>Above: A diamond, sapphire, cultured pearl and enamel peacock brooch</em></strong></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0