Highland gems

If you don’t know about “bickers”, “luggies”, “spongeware” or “hookies”, read on. Before 19th century industrialisation brought mass-produced consumer goods within the reach of everyone, communities relied on artisan craftsmen for their household tools and decorative knickknacks.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than in Scotland which has a long history of traditional crafts that are highly sought after today, particularly among tourist collectors looking to find objects related to the auld country. Perthshire dealer Becca Gauldie had all the answers.

Treen – the collective term for domestic items made from a tree – is plentiful throughout Scotland which is sometimes surprising, considering the lack of native forests.

Bickers, piggins, luggies and quaichs are all treen bowls made by tinker families, many of whom travelled around the country selling their wares from door to door. A bicker is a two-handled small, straight-sided bowl with flat handles. A piggin is similar but with upright handles, while a luggie is slightly larger and with one splayed upright handle. ll have an intricate "feathered" construction which picks them out as being Scottish.Read more »

Antique furniture has never been so cheap, so buy, buy, buy

by Christopher Proudlove©
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I'm no stock market investor but I do know one thing: if you want to make money, buy at the bottom of the market, not at its peak. Whether or not prices of antique furniture will fall further is open to speculation (and I ain't predicting) but the annual survey by the respected Antique Collectors' Club shows that values last year fell by a further 7%.

Note " further". Falls of 6% in 2004, 3% in 2003 and 2% in 2002 have prompted ACC furniture specialist and compiler of the survey John Andrews to be bullish about the future. He says: "There has not been a better time for collectors to buy since the late 70s and the mid 90s when similar falls took place. Some prosperous people are realising this and that may affect prices over the next 12 months."

He for one can see an end to the slump. "The last decline, in the mid 90s, lasted some four to five years before recovery took place. This one started after September 2001 and in late 2006 will have endured for five years," he says.

So, if he's right, what should we buy? Apparently not unfashionable Victorian furniture for a start. According to the survey, values have dropped by a scary 35% since late 2001. Well I'm not so sure, particularly if you're fortunate enough to live in the right house with room to spare - 19th century furniture can hardly be called compact.

From a later era, the minimalist design of Arts and Crafts furniture from the London workshop of Liberty & Co is still fresh and appropriate for the modern home and in my view remains undervalued. Pieces linked to Leonard F Wyburd, the designer who ran Arthur Liberty’s Furnishing and Decoration Studio, like the oak sideboard illustrated, are the cream of the crop and yet are still readily affordable.

The sideboard was made in about 1900 and has the signature Liberty hand-wrought iron ring handles and hinges and outswept legs with bracket feet.

Attributable directly to Wyburd and retaining the Liberty trade label attached to it when it left the Regent Street store, it was estimated at £1,200-1,800 in a recent sale. It sold on the top estimate for £1,800. Imagine the price of a comparable new piece in the shops today.

Arthur Lasenby Liberty (1843-1917) was born in the market town of Chesham, Buckinghamshire, the son of a draper. At 16, the boy began working in his uncle’s warehouse and was subsequently apprenticed to draper John Weeks in Baker Street, London, before taking a position with the prestigious Farmer & Rogers Great Shawl and Clock Emporium in Regent Street.

Partnership in the firm

At the close of the 1862 London International Exhibition, the firm bought a large consignment of important Japanese exhibits to stock their new oriental warehouse, which they opened next door to their main premises. In 1864, at the age of 21, Liberty was appointed manager and subsequently offered a partnership in the firm.

However, Liberty had grander ideas and financed by his fiancée’s father, he purchased the lease of 218A Regent Street. Liberty’s East India House opened its doors to the public on May 15, 1875, selling oriental goods from silks to all manner of decorative items from the East including a small range of furniture, all of which helped to promote the Aesthetic Movement.

Liberty’s is perhaps best known for sturdy oak pieces with elaborate metal fittings and even mottoes in hammered copper panels set into the furniture, much of it supplied by wholesale companies such as William Birch and J.S. Henry, who made designs by George Walton. The firm also stocked chairs designed by the German Richard Riemerschmid (1868-1857).

In 1883, Liberty opened its own Furnishing and Decoration Studio under the direction of Leonard Wyburd (dates unknown, but he retired in 1903) whose designs made Liberty style the toast of Europe at the end of the 19th century. The studio produced furniture in a broad range of designs from Tudor, Jacobean, Flemish, Gothic, and 18th English country style.

Although Wyburd specialised in Moorish designs, he also produced oak furniture in bold designs including sideboards, bookcases, tables, chairs and bedroom suites. These designs were usually given Saxon or Scottish names such as the Athelstan chair, which dates from around 1899. These were illustrated in Liberty’s Yule-Tide Gifts catalogue priced at £3 7s 6d.Today the chairs are worth £300-400.

Pictures show, top: The splendid Liberty sideboard designed by Leonard F Wyburd. It sold for an affordable £1,800

Below: A watercolour design for a living room of a grand house, painted by Leonard F Wyburd, the founder of Liberty’s Furnishing and Decoration Studio in 1883

Fine antique furniture for the connoisseur collector

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by Christopher Proudlove©

Davenport desks; assorted tables for pastimes like playing cards, taking tea and sewing; footstools, nursing chairs and, perhaps best loved of all, whatnots and music canterburies.

All fit the same criteria: they are all are extremely pretty, well made and desirable, so demand is high and, particularly in the case of the latter two, there is plenty of scope for the "restorer" to make a killing among the unwary.

Take those curious little davenport desks, for example. When, in 1789, a certain Captain Davenport commissioned the great furniture firm Gillows of Lancaster to manufacture a piece to his own personal design, he started a fashion.

When repeat orders for desks like Captain Davenport's flooded in, the name stuck.

Such was their popularity, particularly with the ladies, the convenient and compact design endured from the late Regency period well into Queen Victoria's reign.

All davenports have a sloping lid, usually covered in morocco leather.

Many have a gallery in brass or wood to prevent papers sliding to the floor, and most have ingenious small drawers for pens and ink and well-fitted interiors, sometimes with secret compartments held by hidden spring locks where love letters or a cache of gold sovereigns for example might have been kept.

For convenience, drawers, usually four in number, were arranged to pull open from the right hand side of the desk, rather than against the user's legs.

The drawers were usually each fitted with small turned wooden handles which were repeated down the left side of the desk, although their function was purely decorative.

In other examples, the real drawers were concealed behind a cupboard door, avoiding the need for matching dummy drawers.

There are numerous other variations on this theme, together with the development of the davenport from the severe, box-like Regency examples to the generous and flamboyant carved ones of Victorian times.

Early davenports are usually plain, square and of high quality.

Generally the lid is flush with the top section, which often slides forward for ease of use, and galleries are usually of brass.

Below, the solid pedestal body of the desk rests on either a plinth or small feet.

As with everything else, the Victorians made the davenport more elaborate.

No longer did it have the boxy shape but instead, the writing surface, now shaped and curved, jutted out towards the user, supported by two columns, usually cabriole in shape and heavily ornamented and carved.

Bun feet to hide the castors and carved wooden fretwork galleries are other features of the period, the latter often being high enough to hold a row of small books.

This was the era of fine interior fittings and especially desirable are those with rising compartments containing drawers and pigeon holes which can be pushed down out of sight when not is use.

And then, in about 1800, there was the design brief from the then Archbishop of Canterbury.

According to the story, he asked a cabinetmaker to knock up something in which to store plates and cutlery that could be wheeled to the dining table.

That name stuck too. These days, the canterbury is the ideal piece of furniture to stand by one's favourite armchair in which magazines can be stored tidily.

In the past, however, it was universally adopted to hold music and push on its casters out of the way under a piano.

Nowhere is the stylistic development of 19th century furniture design better illustrated than the canterbury.

Earliest examples were nearly always made of mahogany with straight legs and severe lines lacking in embellishment.

Turned legs first appeared in about 1810, coinciding with the introduction of rosewood.

From then on, the purists would reckon design went downhill to Victorian fussiness and over decoration.

Fret-carved partitions of great intricacy became the vogue, followed by the addition of a shelf or two above, held by slender turned supports creating, in effect, a cross between a canterbury and a whatnot.

No, not a commissioned piece this time, simply the name given to a set of free-standing shelves, usually four and square or rectangular in shape.

Each shelf is about the size of a tea tray and supported one above the other by plain turned uprights, running through each corner.

Whatnots first appeared in the 1790s, although the name was probably coined perhaps 15or 20 years later.

Why whatnot ... well, why not. Can you think of a better name?

Accessible from all sides

Simplicity and quiet elegance was their keynote, with the idea that where space was at a premium, a set of these shelves, some up to four or five feet in height, were perfect for books, being accessible from all sides, or for ornaments.

Early examples were usually in mahogany. Unusual features which add to value include a shallow drawer beneath either the first or second shelf; shelves with galleries either in brass or pierced wood; a hinged top shelf to act as a book rest and turnery to simulate bamboo.

The Regency period saw imports of a greater number of types of wood and mahogany lost some of its dominance.

Rosewood was probably the favourite by now and like most furniture, Regency rosewood whatnots are at a premium among collectors.

By the Victorian era, all manner of woods were being used, but easily the most common was walnut, sometimes burr walnut, the figuring of which is particularly attractive.

It was then that the whatnot enjoyed its heyday. First development was the three-sided variety, intended to stand in a corner, which appeared in about 1855.

Then came the heavy embellishment. Shelves were heavily inlaid with marquetry and stringing, uprights were carved and turned with increasing intricacy.

Barley sugar twist supports were specially popular, and shelves took on flowing serpentine outlines.

What to watch for: reproduction copies, obviously.

Those that have been reduced in height either as a result of damage to fragile turned supports or because of worm infestation should be avoided.

Shelves added by "restorers" and other ornament such as galleries, inlay and, less common, particularly tall examples that have been cut in half, remodelled and offered for sale as a matching pair are also bad investments.

Talking of remodelling, perhaps the most lucrative dodge among unscrupulous traders goes as follows: take one rough or damaged whatnot and carefully cut and remove everything above its lowest shelf.

Using the wood made redundant from this, create two or three partitions and fit them to the low shelf.

Then, make a drawer and fit it below the shelf and hey presto, you have a canterbury to all but the wary.

Similarly, take the pedestals from a kneehole desk and it doesn't take much imagination to see how they could be remodelled as a pair of davenport desks.

Best advice when buying antique furniture such as this is to do business only with reputable dealers who will guarantee that what they're selling is genuine. No guarantee ... no sale.

Auction rooms where items on offer are fully catalogued and authenticated are another source.

Private buyers at auctions will always be welcomed and unbiased advice from the specialists employed there freely given. After all, they have their reputations at stake too.

Pictures show, top, left: Wonderful whatnots: left to right, a Victorian mahogany serpentine fronted three tier whatnot, the upper tier with shaped tray top with marquetry decoration, worth £300-400; an early Victorian rosewood rectangular four tier whatnot with figured veneered tiers and spiral turned uprights, the lower tier fitted with a drawer, worth £600-800; a late George III mahogany rectangular three tier whatnot with plain tiers, on turned uprights, the lower tier fitted a drawer, worth £700-900. Cool canterburies: left, a Regency rosewood example and in completely over-the-top contrast, a mid-Victorian example with lyre-shaped dividers and open fretwork gallery. The differences in design sum up the conflicting tastes of the respective eras. Ironically, each is worth £800-1,200 at auction, so watch out for reproductions (and knock off two noughts)

Below, left to right, A Victorian rosewood davenport with the sloping top pulled forward on its slide to reveal its usefulness. It was sold in a recent auction for £1,750

A Victorian inlaid walnut whatnot with pretty barley sugar twist supports and scroll-shaped shelves. It's worth £600-800

A William IV mahogany davenport dating from circa 1824. The top slides and has a turned spindle gallery and leather-covered writing slope. It has four real and four dummy drawers and lobed bun feet concealing castors. It's worth £1,500-2000

A slightly later Victorian canterbury which is heading towards being a whatnot. It's walnut veneered and having a flat back, is intended to stand against a wall. It's worth £1,000-1,500

The best seats in the house

Lancashire spindle back carver
Originally uploaded by Christopher Proudlove.

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by Christopher Proudlove©

The Business Manager (Mrs P) and I visited one of the Cheshire's poshest antiques fairs last Saturday - at Tatton Park, Knutsford - and were cheered to see there were actually some things we could afford. However, she soon put me right … we don't have the space!

Specifically, we were struck by the affordability of some of the furniture on show, notably some lovely oak, which is our favourite.

At £5,000, the gorgeous dresser base on dealer Mike Melody's stand was about half the price it might have been in the heady days of the 1990s.

And then there were chairs. As we arrived, a smiling couple were just about to carry out to the waiting Volvo a super set of 10 Lancashire spindle-back dining chairs they had secured. The ticket price was £3,500 and I dare bet they haggled that even lower.

That's positively cheap. A harlequin set - long runs like that were rarely if ever made, so expect to find slight variations - the 10 included two grand carvers, and they were in pristine condition.

Ten years ago the same set of elm and ash chairs, they dated from 1780-1800, would have cost at least £6,000.

But word on the grapevine is that such bargains will not be around for ever. Minimalism and chucking out the chintz is so last year.

Collectors with an eye for a deal are realising that the furniture market - depressed for some time now - is turning a corner. Bargains are still to be had, but they're being snapped up fast.

The couple who snapped up the Tatton chairs were looking for something to sit on around their newly-acquired elm refectory table. With their original glorious golden brown colour and original patination, they couldn't have made a better choice.

At home in any surroundings, the chairs were comfortable, usable and so much more characterful than the stuff on the High Street.

Less comfortable, but no less charming was a single chair we spotted, which I've always known as a stick chair. "Ah," says Mike, "that's a fool's chair … because you'd be a fool to sit on it!"
Judging by its naïve construction, spindly legs and uncomfortable looking bucket seat, he was probably right. But apparently that's the generic name for such a chair.

Made from elm, it dated from 1700 and at £595, it would make a fascinating conversation piece.

Fact is, there side by side were pieces tracing the development of country chair-making over two centuries.

Country woodworkers, used to making spokes for the wheels of carriages and farm vehicles, quickly turned their hand to making chairs and stools with turned legs.

Indeed, 17th century wheelwrights were adept at wood turning and in many cases, trade labels in use at the time often described craftsmen as "wheelwright and chair-maker".

Before long, a range of joint-less furniture was available from the workshops of wood turners, limited only by the need to avoid any manufacturing technique that might upset joiners whose livelihoods would otherwise have been undermined.

While the extent of the range of chairs available was necessarily limited, the ingenuity of their design was not.

Shapely balustrade

Seats are supported by turned spindles rather than frames formed with mortice and tenon joints, just like the shelves of cupboards, while the legs of a well made chair are as shapely as any stair balustrade.

The work is even more remarkable when the primitive nature of the machinery is considered.

Woodturning as a skill dates back to prehistoric times, while the nature of lathes had changed little by the 17th century.

Many attempts were made to use mechanical power to drive lathes, including, water power.

They were mostly failures, leaving turners to rely on their own stamina and foot-power on the treadle of a pole-lathe or bow-lathe or that of their apprentice, turning the handle of a geared flywheel.

With the pole-lathe, the first downward kick of the treadle revolved the piece of wood being turned in one direction only.

This caused a rope to twist, pulling down on a springy wooden pole or bow. When the operator released his weight from the treadle, the supple pole was allowed to spring back, causing the piece of wood to spin in the opposite direction.

The downside of this was that the shaping chisel could be applied only on the down stroke, but a skilled operator treadling at high speed could shape a chair leg in a matter of moments.

Itinerant wood turners often operated out in the open air, usually in the middle of the stand of trees or forest clearing that was supplying the raw materials for their work.

The more well to do turners might buy a batch of trees, fell and season them where they dropped and then turn them into chair legs or whatever, all in a season of work.

At the end of the day, hauliers were engaged to carry away the finished products, while charcoal burners moved in to scavenge and tidy the site before the whole operation moved on to the next section of forest to be tackled.

The most famous and best loved of all such chairs is the Windsor, so-called because the largest area for their manufacture was in the forest areas of Buckinghamshire and finished chairs were sent to market at Windsor, en route for London.

Another term connected with these early Windsors is the "peg-leg chair", the expression relating to the manner in which the legs and other components are fastened to the seat board.

The method of construction is both simple and primitive, but highly effective. Holes are bored through the plank seat and legs and uprights rammed home.

Prior to this, the end of each of the various sticks were cut into a V-shape, so that once in place, a wedge could be driven into the V, securing it for all time.

The North of England also had a thriving chair-making industry and today's collectors are keen to seek out and secure identifiable examples.

Most common are the spindle back chairs which were turned out in their thousand. However, recent research has identified a spindle back chair popular in Liverpool and the North West in the mid 19th century, identifiable by fan shape carved into its top rail.

Pictures show:
Top
From the harlequin set of 10 spindle back chairs sold for £3,500. Notice that the carver has three rows of spindles, while the others have two, which is ususal.

Below, left to right
The wavy ladderback chair popular in Lancashire from 1750-1840.
The naïve elm fool’s chair, so-called because you’d be a fool to sit in it!
Provincial chair makers copied the designs coming out of London, notably the Chippendale style, but without the elegance of mahogany.

Lancashire spindle back carver

Lancashire spindle back carver
Originally uploaded by Christopher Proudlove.

by Christopher Proudlove©

The Business Manager (Mrs P) and I visited one of the Cheshire's poshest antiques fairs last Saturday - at Tatton Park, Knutsford - and were cheered to see there were actually some things we could afford. However, she soon put me right … we don't have the space!

Specifically, we were struck by the affordability of some of the furniture on show, notably some lovely oak, which is our favourite.

At £5,000, the gorgeous dresser base on dealer Mike Melody's stand was about half the price it might have been in the heady days of the 1990s.

And then there were chairs. As we arrived, a smiling couple were just about to carry out to the waiting Volvo a super set of 10 Lancashire spindle-back dining chairs they had secured. The ticket price was £3,500 and I dare bet they haggled that even lower.

That's positively cheap. A harlequin set - long runs like that were rarely if ever made, so expect to find slight variations - the 10 included two grand carvers, and they were in pristine condition.

Ten years ago the same set of elm and ash chairs, they dated from 1780-1800, would have cost at least £6,000.

But word on the grapevine is that such bargains will not be around for ever. Minimalism and chucking out the chintz is so last year.

Collectors with an eye for a deal are realising that the furniture market - depressed for some time now - is turning a corner. Bargains are still to be had, but they're being snapped up fast.

The couple who snapped up the Tatton chairs were looking for something to sit on around their newly-acquired elm refectory table. With their original glorious golden brown colour and original patination, they couldn't have made a better choice.

At home in any surroundings, the chairs were comfortable, usable and so much more characterful than the stuff on the High Street.

Less comfortable, but no less charming was a single chair we spotted, which I've always known as a stick chair. "Ah," says Mike, "that's a fool's chair … because you'd be a fool to sit on it!"
Judging by its naïve construction, spindly legs and uncomfortable looking bucket seat, he was probably right. But apparently that's the generic name for such a chair.

Made from elm, it dated from 1700 and at £595, it would make a fascinating conversation piece.

Fact is, there side by side were pieces tracing the development of country chair-making over two centuries.

Country woodworkers, used to making spokes for the wheels of carriages and farm vehicles, quickly turned their hand to making chairs and stools with turned legs.

Indeed, 17th century wheelwrights were adept at wood turning and in many cases, trade labels in use at the time often described craftsmen as "wheelwright and chair-maker".

Before long, a range of joint-less furniture was available from the workshops of wood turners, limited only by the need to avoid any manufacturing technique that might upset joiners whose livelihoods would otherwise have been undermined.

While the extent of the range of chairs available was necessarily limited, the ingenuity of their design was not.

Seats are supported by turned spindles rather than frames formed with mortice and tenon joints, just like the shelves of cupboards, while the legs of a well made chair are as shapely as any stair balustrade.

The work is even more remarkable when the primitive nature of the machinery is considered.

Woodturning as a skill dates back to prehistoric times, while the nature of lathes had changed little by the 17th century.

Many attempts were made to use mechanical power to drive lathes, including, water power.

They were mostly failures, leaving turners to rely on their own stamina and foot-power on the treadle of a pole-lathe or bow-lathe or that of their apprentice, turning the handle of a geared flywheel.

With the pole-lathe, the first downward kick of the treadle revolved the piece of wood being turned in one direction only.

This caused a rope to twist, pulling down on a springy wooden pole or bow. When the operator released his weight from the treadle, the supple pole was allowed to spring back, causing the piece of wood to spin in the opposite direction.

The downside of this was that the shaping chisel could be applied only on the down stroke, but a skilled operator treadling at high speed could shape a chair leg in a matter of moments.

Itinerant wood turners often operated out in the open air, usually in the middle of the stand of trees or forest clearing that was supplying the raw materials for their work.

The more well to do turners might buy a batch of trees, fell and season them where they dropped and then turn them into chair legs or whatever, all in a season of work.

At the end of the day, hauliers were engaged to carry away the finished products, while charcoal burners moved in to scavenge and tidy the site before the whole operation moved on to the next section of forest to be tackled.

The most famous and best loved of all such chairs is the Windsor, so-called because the largest area for their manufacture was in the forest areas of Buckinghamshire and finished chairs were sent to market at Windsor, en route for London.

Another term connected with these early Windsors is the "peg-leg chair", the expression relating to the manner in which the legs and other components are fastened to the seat board.

The method of construction is both simple and primitive, but highly effective. Holes are bored through the plank seat and legs and uprights rammed home.

Prior to this, the end of each of the various sticks were cut into a V-shape, so that once in place, a wedge could be driven into the V, securing it for all time.

The North of England also had a thriving chair-making industry and today's collectors are keen to seek out and secure identifiable examples.

Most common are the spindle back chairs which were turned out in their thousand. However, recent research has identified a spindle back chair popular in Liverpool and the North West in the mid 19th century, identifiable by fan shape carved into its top rail.

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