| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: The Pleasures of Collecting
Author: Teall, Gardner Callahan
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Pleasures of Collecting" ***
(This file was produced from images generously made
THE
PLEASURES
OF
COLLECTING
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Early American Mahogany Block-Front Cabinet-Top, Rhode Island Style
Desk, 1750-1775]
[Illustration:
THE
PLEASURES
OF
COLLECTING
BY
GARDNER TEALL
Being sundry delectable
excursions in the realm
of antiques and curios,
American, European,
and Oriental
New York
The Century Company
1920]
Copyright, 1920, by
THE CENTURY CO.
TO
MY SISTER
FRANCES COTHEAL TEALL
IN LOVING MEMORY
DEAR READER
Your true collector does not apologize for his hobbies; he exalts their
virtues. Necessity may occasionally compel him to resort to the
camouflage of mid-interest, as when his family is not in sympathy with
his pursuits; or, again, as when fate has placed him in arid communion
with unsympathetic associates, individuals whose personalities have
developed independently of their souls, leaving them pronounced in the
directions they invariably select; directions, in consequence,
invariably divergent from those paths which the true collector loves to
tread.
While not secretive by nature, and by the same nature eager to share his
joys with his fellow-beings, the true collector is endowed, more often
than not, with a certain intuitive perception which enables him to
appreciate the futility of hoping to convert the unequipped infidel to
the solaces of his own faith in the delights of the lares and penates of
another generation, an intuition which warns him to protect his peace of
mind by harmlessly appearing to accept with good grace the
commonplacenesses undoubtedly enjoyed by the many, but with no culpable
renunciation of his own lively interest in the quaint and curious
mementos of the world of yesterdays, a world into which our own to-days
slip, one by one, silently, but as surely followed by our to-morrows.
Was it not Charles Lamb who exclaimed: “Antiquity! thou wondrous charm,
what art thou? that, being nothing, art everything? When thou wert, thou
wert not antiquity,--then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter
antiquity, as thou calledst it to look back to with blind veneration;
thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks
in this retroversion? or what half Januses are we, that cannot look
forward with the same idolatry with which we forever revert! The mighty
future is as nothing, being everything! The past is everything, being
nothing!”
Your true collector may often maintain reticence in order that he may
enjoy a normal place in the community, undisturbed by the merely idle
curious, the undeft rummaging of the clumsy, the curt depreciation of
the supercilious, the gushing of the undiscriminating susceptible, or
the skepticism of those who measure the sanity of their fellows by the
canons of their own irrevocable and undeviating limitations, those to
whom no music but the echoes of caverns can appeal. Such are beyond the
pale of any errand in missionary spirit.
The true collector is born, not made. Yet one cannot discover the mirror
without knowledge of the reflection. The contentment to be found in the
acquisition and in the contemplation of the things that are dear to the
heart of the antiquarian and the art-lover is a contentment that is the
gift of the gods, always awarded the intelligent, though not always
disclosed to them.
A friend, then, will be he who discovers to one a treasure like that
which the joy of collecting uncovers. What we read and what we see
pictured for us is precious, indeed, if it holds up to us the image of
that which we immediately know to be congenial to our natural tastes.
And so it is that this little book is not devised for savages, but
tenderly has been nurtured in sympathy with the interesting and the
beautiful things of yesterday. May it find friends among those who love
them as well as among those who love the things of to-day which have
prospered in their heritage from the days of long ago!
The author wishes to express his grateful acknowledgments to those who
have made possible the preparation of this volume--to Messrs. Condé
Nast & Company, Inc., publishers of “House & Garden,” Messrs. Munn &
Company, Inc., formerly publishers of “American Homes and Gardens,” the
publishers of “The Cosmopolitan,” the publishers of “The House
Beautiful,” and the publishers of “The Sun,” New York, for permission to
include in this volume portions of the material contributed by him to
those periodicals; to Dr. George Frederick Kunz, Mr. Richardson Wright,
Mr. Charles Allen Munn, Mr. Robert H. Van Court, Mrs. Elizabeth C.
Lounsbery, Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus, Mr. Robert Lemmon, Mr. H. E. Bauer,
Miss Mary H. Northend, Mr. André M. Rueff, Mr. T. C. Turner, Mr. William
A. Cooper, Mr. William Francis Phillips, Miss Elizabeth Robinson, Mr.
William C. Clifford, Mr. G. H. Buek, Mr. Frederick H. Howell, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose photographs have been drawn upon for
illustration, the Brooklyn Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the New York Public Library, and
to those authors whose works are noted in the Bibliography.
GARDNER TEALL
NEW YORK
June 4, 1920
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE PLEASURES OF COLLECTING 3
II COLLECTORS OF YESTERDAY 9
III AMERICAN TABLES 18
IV TEA AND ANTIQUITY 26
V CUP-PLATES 36
VI CHINTZ 42
VII PEWTER 51
VIII SAMPLERS 61
IX WAX PORTRAITS 68
X HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 74
XI CHAIRS 77
XII ENGLISH DRINKING-GLASSES 84
XIII STUART EMBROIDERIES 94
XIV DELFT 98
XV EARLY DESK FURNITURE 106
XVI CHELSEA 115
XVII WEDGWOOD 125
XVIII SAVING THE PIECES 130
XIX LOUNGING FURNITURE 134
XX SHEFFIELD PLATE 146
XXI STRAW MARQUETERIE 153
XXII CONSOLES 164
XXIII SÈVRES PORCELAIN 170
XXIV EUROPEAN ENAMELS 178
XXV THE ROMANCE OF A POTTER: BERNARD
PALISSY 191
XXVI ITALIAN MAIOLICA 210
XXVII GLASS OF A THOUSAND FLOWERS 218
XXVIII ANTIQUES OF PERSIA AND OF INDIA 227
XXIX CHINESE PORCELAINS 238
XXX CHINESE AND JAPANESE LACQUER 246
XXXI CHINESE SNUFF-BOTTLES 253
XXXII CLOISONNÉ ENAMELS OF CHINA AND JAPAN 262
XXXIII JAPANESE SWORD-GUARDS 270
XXXIV MEDALLIC ART 278
XXXV ENGRAVED GEMS 286
XXXVI FRAUDULENT ART OBJECTS 299
BIBLIOGRAPHY 305
INDEX 319
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Early American mahogany block-front cabinet-top
Rhode Island style desk, 1750-1775 _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
American walnut gate-leg table, 1675-1700 24
American pine and walnut chair-table, 1700 24
American cherry and maple gate-leg table, 1675-1700 24
Late 18th century English tea caddy 25
Late 18th century English tea caddies 25
Ivory and two tortoiseshell 18th century tea caddies 25
Cup-plates 40
Early printed cotton 41
Chinese pewter jar with bronze cover--early 18th century 60
A Swiss pewter wine-flask, Zurich, dated 1766 60
American 18th century sampler 61
A dated English or Welsh sampler, 1787 61
Wax-portrait of Ferdinand I of Sicily, Italian, late 18th century 76
Wax-portrait, subject unknown, Italian, early 18th century 76
Model of an American peg-loom bearing the name of
W. D. Fales of Providence, Rhode Island 77
Handwoven coverlet in bed-chamber of the John Howard Payne House 77
Chippendale mahogany arm-chair, 1760-1780 80
Shield back Hepplewhite arm-chair 80
Louis XIV arm-chair 80
Louis XV arm-chair 80
Three rare Williamite glasses 81
Two English glass rummers engraved with Nelson subjects 81
A small Jacobite Arms rummer 81
Tumbler commemorating coronation of George IV of England 81
Two 18th century tumblers 81
English 17th century stump-work embroidery 96
Dutch delft shelf ornaments 97
Four Dutch delft tiles, 17th century 97
A pair of candlesticks and a vase of 18th century Chelsea 120
Cabinet inset with Wedgwood jasper ware medallions 121
16th century Venetian glass covered cup 136
Double chair-back settee, Chippendale, 1735-1750 137
Settee, Adam style 137
Sofa of the William and Mary period 137
Sheffield plate tray and spoonholder 152
Sheffield plate teapot and coffee-pot 152
Straw marqueterie box, French, 18th century 153
Straw marqueterie box, English, 17th century 153
French console, Louis XIV period 168
French console, Louis XV period 168
Sèvres white bisque statuette of Voltaire 169
Sèvres white bisque bust of Franklin 169
A pair of Sèvres porcelain covered vases 169
Oval dish by Bernard Palissy, 1510-1589 188
Lumières by Bernard Palissy 188
Limoges enamel covered cup attributed to Pierre Raymond 189
Champlevé enamel casket, French, 13th century 189
Early Italian maiolica plates 216
Copies of Roman millefiori glass 217
Two ancient Roman millefiori glass bowls 217
Ewer and basin, Bindri ware, India, 18th century 236
Polychrome Persian tiles, 17th century 236
Chinese porcelain, Kang H’si period, 1662-1723 237
Chinese lacquer vase, 18th century 252
Japanese gold lacquer toilet stand, 17th century 252
Chinese snuff bottles of the Ch’ien Lung period, 1736-1796 253
Chinese cloisonné Palace Censer, Chia Ching period, 1522-1567 268
Japanese armour of the feudal period showing swords
with their sword-guards (tsuba) 269
THE PLEASURES OF COLLECTING
THE PLEASURES OF COLLECTING
CHAPTER I
THE PLEASURES OF COLLECTING
Blessed is the man who has a hobby! declared Lord Brougham; and of all
the hobbies it is doubtful if any are more blessed than those of the
collector of antiques and curios, old prints, coins and medals, rare
books and bindings, and the like. “God never did make a more calm,
quiet, innocent recreation,” good old Isaac Walton said of angling. But
that is true, too, of collecting, which, figuratively speaking, is in
itself a species of the art of angling, of dipping into the quiet pools
of unfrequented places, there to angle for quaint curios and interesting
mementos of bygone days, conscious that though the bait may be small,
the catch may be large--besides, there is the fun of fishing!
In “Le Jardin d’Epicure,” Anatole France has written: “People laugh at
collectors, who perhaps do lay themselves open to raillery, but that is
also the case with all of us when in love with anything at all. We ought
rather to envy collectors, for they brighten their days with a long and
peaceable joy. Perhaps what they do a little resembles the task of the
children who spade up heaps of sand at the edge of the sea, laboring in
vain, for all they have built will soon be overthrown, and that, no
doubt, is true of collections of books and pictures also. But we need
not blame the collectors for it; the fault lies in the vicissitudes of
existence and the brevity of life. The sea carries off the heaps of
sand, and auctioneers disperse the collections; and yet there are no
better pleasures than the building of heaps of sand at ten years old, of
collections at sixty. Nothing of all we erect will remain, in the end;
and a love for collecting is no more vain and useless than other
passions are.” Anatole France might well have added Sir James Yoxall’s
observation, that “good for health of mind and body it is to walk and
wander in by-ways of town and country, searching out things beautiful
and old and rare with which to adorn one’s home.” Indeed, collecting has
aspects other than the one of discovery, of acquisition, of
entertainment, or of furnishing a pastime: it has its utilitarian one as
well.
There is an undeniable and oftentimes indefinable charm about a home in
which well-chosen antiques and curios form part of the decorative scheme
and become part of its furnishing and adornment. Many collectors have
become such through an increasing interest in old furniture, rare china,
early silver, and other classes of antiques and curios, inspired in the
beginning by the acquisition of some object of the sort, personal
contact with which has served as an example of the pleasure which
collecting holds in store for one. The true collector is not merely “a
gatherer of things,” indifferent to the guidance of a discriminating
taste. Rather, when he finds an object at hand, he considers it from
many points of view--its historical value, its significance in the
development of the arts, its anecdotal interest, its worth as a work of
art, and its workmanship.
The intuitive sense will carry the _amateur_ a long way, but
connoisseurship will depend upon knowledge. Those persons who are
absolutely indifferent to the whys and wherefores of things,
uninterested in any effort to discover the “story” of an object, bored
by its history or unappreciative of its beauty, are hardly likely to
become collectors, though accident and the chances of fortune may throw
interesting things into their possession. Neither are they likely ever
to become as Thackeray, who, in “Roundabout Papers,” said of a certain
antique and curio shop: “I never can pass without delaying at the
windows--indeed, if I were going to be hung, I would beg the cart to
stop, and let me have one look more at the delightful _omnium
gatherum_.”
Now, it often happens that we find a collector-in-embryo--one who has a
desire to start a collection, but fancies it an undertaking requiring
very special qualifications--asking: “How could I hope to become a
collector when I know so little about the subject I think I should be
interested in? Then I fear good things cost too much, and that real
bargains have long ago vanished from the mart.” To such a one the reply
can truthfully be made that it is by no means difficult for the beginner
to acquire definite and valuable knowledge on any subject in the
collector’s field that may chance to interest him.
The way one learns to collect (and that means the way one learns about
the things worth collecting) is by collecting. Contact with the objects
themselves is necessary to connoisseurship, just as it is one of its
pleasures. The collector learns more about Oriental porcelains, old
English china, Dresden figurines, French enamels, Russian brass, Italian
laces, or Bohemian glass by having a few representative pieces of them
at hand for study than he could learn, so far as helpful knowledge
fitting him to judge is concerned, from volumes on the subject. While
this contact with actual objects is necessary in developing a
connoisseurship (one may have it visually in museums or have access to
private collections; the shops, too, will teach one much), all the
accessible writings on the subject should be consulted, as comparative
study increases the interest and confirms or corrects one’s personal
deductions and opinions.
Supremely fine examples of old furniture, china, silverware, bronzes,
miniatures, and the like, have not often been “picked up for a song.”
The collector must remember that the pastime of collecting is not one of
recent development. Indeed, the ancients were collectors of the rare,
curious, and beautiful. The Medici were renowned for gathering in their
places _objets de virtu_, and few collectors of note of to-day could
outvie the enthusiasm of Horace Walpole, who turned Strawberry Hill into
a veritable museum. All this goes to show how keenly sought for have
been all art objects of unusual importance. Naturally, when rare
occasion brings them to the mart they command high prices. However, it
is not for one to despair because he cannot collect museum pieces, to
cry for those things which have little to do with the pleasure of
collecting beyond the interest their contemplation affords. That the
by-paths which the collector may tread are literally bristling with
bargains _is_ true. Certainly the small collector need not become
discouraged. For instance, the author continually finds within the
boundaries of New York city alone numerous objects that any collector of
limited means could acquire with rejoicing heart. One day it is a yellow
Wedgwood mustard-pot for two dollars, another day a _genuine_ Paduan
medal for fifty cents; then a Persian lacquer mirror-frame for a dollar,
and a Japanese sword-guard by Umetada, signed, for half as much! It adds
to the interest of collecting that while the collector soon learns where
to look for things, he constantly meets with them also where they are
least expected, and the country holds as many treasures hidden away for
the keen collector as does the metropolitan stronghold.
CHAPTER II
COLLECTORS OF YESTERDAY
This is an age in which Achilles gives way to Douglas Fairbanks, Helen
of Troy to Mary Pickford. At least Homer in the original is unpopular
and to confess to a liking for Virgil in the Latin is to be frowned upon
by those who have persuaded certain of our universities to turn their
backs on the very cultural presences that have given structure to
civilization. As for myself, I shall continue to be old-fashioned. Only
this morning I have been dipping into good old Pliny’s “Letters.” Now
more than ever I am convinced that those who cried most loudly against
the classics were those who knew nothing about them. Where, I ask, in
all literature will there be found more things of human interest than in
the writings of those old masters of antiquity?
It is Francesco Petrarca’s chief title to fame that he was an inveterate
collector of classical writings, that he devoted himself with an
unending enthusiasm to the recovery of the literature of the Ancients.
And yet he knew naught of Greek, little enough of Latin from the point
of view of scholarly attainment in the language. What he did realize,
did sense, was the value to intellectual development of these bygone
literary Titans, and at Padua he warred against the medievalism which
was, after all, nothing more than a warring against the complacency of
his own times, just as the attitude of those of to-day who fight against
such of the finer things of life as are to be reached only through
contact with the original writings of Homer, Euripides, Aristophanes,
Sophocles, Horace, Virgil, Cicero, Cæsar, Ovid, Plato, Pliny, and the
rest is, in effect, smugly complacent in its acceptance of cultural
things as they stand.
Renan called Petrarch the first modern man; if only we could be as
modern! And what a debt the world owes to his collecting proclivities,
an instinct connected with an intelligence!
Of course, there were hundreds, one may venture to say thousands, of
collectors who were his contemporaries; for the love of beautiful and of
interesting things is seldom separated in the normal person from the
desire to own them, a desire that has produced more history and more
romance than one would dream of.
There are those who dissolve pearls in wine, those who treasure them in
necklaces; these two sorts are in the world. To Petrarch each scrap of
writing was as precious as a pearl to be added to a necklace to adorn
the fair throat of Learning, and his accomplishment, his devotion to
this hobby, marks him as the very Prince of Collectors of Yesterday.
I suppose there have been collectors ever since things were discovered
to be collectable. Every object of human creation seems eventually to
fall within the collecting class, Father Time saying when. _C. Plini
Caecilii Secundi Epistularum_ sounds somewhat formidable to the ears of
a foe to the classics, but it lately yielded this morsel from the eighth
letter of Book VIII, a letter from Pliny to his good friend Rufinus:
You have now all the town gossip; nothing but talk about Tullus. We
look forward to the Auction Sale of his effects. He was so great a
collector that the very day he purchased a vast garden, he was able
to adorn it completely with antique statues drawn from his stores
of art treasures.
Ancient Domitius Tullus! would that we knew how your sale came out! Did
you turn in your tomb that some Eros from Praxiteles’s own hand, some
Amor chiseled by great Phidias himself, fetched but a hundredth of its
value? Or did you rush off to Dis and to Proserpina with the gleeful
tale of how friend Pliny, who thought to get something for nothing, was
forced up to a prince’s ransom by Lucanus in the matter of that little
sardonyx gem, engraved by Pyrgoteles, finer, the auctioneer declared,
than the Perseus by Dioskourides? How human it is to wish to know!
Those old Romans were great collectors. Even when the creative spirit
had degenerated they were appreciators of the fine things which the
Greeks had produced. Petronius, that _arbiter elegantiarum_ of Nero’s
court, amassed thousands of remarkable art treasures that even the
emperor longed to possess. Incurring Nero’s displeasure, and dying under
the Emperor’s orders, he disdained to imitate the servility of those
who, under like penalty, made Nero heir to their possessions and, as
Suetonius tells us, filled their wills with encomiums of the tyrant and
his favorites. Petronius broke to bits a precious goblet out of which he
commonly drank, that Nero, who had coveted it, might not have the
pleasure of using it. Incendiary, violinistic Nero, Nero who on shaving
off his beard for the first time put it in a golden box studded with
precious gems! What would not collectors of a lock of hair of this great
one, and of that, give to discover the beard of Nero!
I dare say, in no time was human nature more perfectly understood than
in Roman days. Even Augustus Cæsar was wont to amuse himself by a device
explained by gossipy Suetonius as follows: “He used to sell by lot
amongst his guests articles of very unequal value, and pictures with
their fronts reversed; and so, by the unknown quality of the lot,
disappoint or gratify the expectation of the purchasers. This sort of
traffic went round the whole company, every one being obliged to buy
something, and to run the chance of loss or gain with the rest.” How
many of us who have frequented the art sales in American cities, from
the old Clinton Hall auction days to the present, would have imagined
that Pliny took such things as seriously, Augustus Cæsar such things in
jest? How old the new world is, how new the old!
From the time of the ancient Athenian vase shops, and even from long
before that, to our own day, when we may browse in the realms of
antiquarians at home, the bazaars of the Far East and the quaint
inglenooks of Europe when we are traveling, collecting has been a
passion with the many as well as a mania of the few. But we, ourselves,
are more prone to collect the things of yesterday than were the
collectors of yesterday to collect the things of the centuries before
their time.
Lorenzo de’ Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent, found time when steering
through the perilous channels of endless family feuds to immortalize
himself as a collector. To the efforts of Cosimo, his grandfather, are
due those priceless classical and Oriental manuscripts which formed the
nucleus of the Laurentian Library in Florence. The grandson was worthy
of his forebear. Through Joannes Lascaris he procured from the monastery
of Mount Athos two hundred manuscripts of greatest importance for the
Laurentian, an incomparable collection, which, together with other works
of art, disappeared at the sacking of Florence during the rule of
Lorenzo’s wretchedly incompetent son, Piero. Lorenzo, notwithstanding
his love for ancient works of art, was a ready patron of the art of his
time. Lorenzo’s daughter, Catherine de’ Medici, had all the Medici love
for art, and she, too, patronized living artists lavishly, as her
husband’s father, Francis I, had done in France before her. She it was
who took such constructively active thought for the planning of the
Tuileries, and her interest in books, manuscripts, and other things led
to enriching the collections of the Bibliothéque Nationale.
What a remarkable list of collectors France can write in her Golden Book
of Art-Lovers--Jean Grolier, De Thou, Pierre Jean Mariette, Cardinal
Mazarin, Comte de Caylus--to name but a few of literally thousands! Nor
must we forget Madame de Pompadour, whose library and marvelous
collection of works of art were sold after her death. There is no
question that Madame de Pompadour took a constructive interest in art
and literature, an interest which led Voltaire to assert that without
her patronage the culture of her time would have found itself in sorry
plight under the rule of a king whose thoughts had little or nothing to
do with the finer things of life, that king who stood at the palace
window looking forth as the cortège of the Pompadour passed by in a
drizzling rain and remarked: “It is a wet day for the Marquise!”
Charles I of England was a king whose art-collecting proclivities
produced rich spoils indeed for the Cromwellians. In the quaintly worded
old catalogue recording his possessions we find noted among other
things, “Item, a landscape piece of trees, and some moorish water,
wherein are two ducks a swimming, and some troup of water flowers, being
done in a new way, whereof they do make Turkey carpets, which was
presented to the King by the French Ambassador, in an all over gilded
frame 1 ft. 10 x 2 ft., 5 wide.”
Some of King Charles’s treasures in the century following passed into
the hands of Horace Walpole, who housed them in his villa at Strawberry
Hill, that “Gothic castle” which revived the English eighteenth-century
taste for Gothic design. Austin Dobson’s “Horace Walpole” says of the
master of Strawberry Hill:
As a virtuoso and amateur, his position is a mixed one. He was
certainly widely different from that typical art connoisseur of his
day,--the butt of Goldsmith and of Reynolds,--who traveled the
Grand Tour to litter a gallery at home with broken-nose busts and
the rubbish of the Roman picture factories. As the preface to the
Ædes Walpolianæ showed, he really knew something about painting; in
fact, was a capable draughtsman himself; and besides, through Mann
and others, had enjoyed exceptional opportunities for procuring
genuine antiques. But his collection was not so rich in this way as
might have been anticipated, and his portraits, his china, and his
miniatures were probably his best possessions.
We must not judge Walpole’s virtuosity by all that accumulated in his
house--Wolsey’s hat, Van Tromp’s pipe-case, King William’s spurs, and, I
dare say, some chips of stone from the Parthenon and a vial of water
from the Jordan! But let it be remembered that these things were gifts
to Walpole, and as such were necessarily within reach, just as the
cut-glass wedding-present pickle-dishes of our own time must be given
shelter against the sudden appearance of their donors. Perhaps there is
merit in the discipline of such tender-heartedness.
Well, gone is Master Horatio, gone the wits and beaux and belles of his
day, but he remains in our thoughts as the Georgian master of Chelsea
china pseudo-shepherds and shepherdesses, the most elegant of
collectors, the most brilliant of subjects in the sovereign realm of
precious bric-à-brac. We are glad that he lent his presence to our
ranks.
So, you see, collecting is not merely a fad of recent generations. In
that which has gone before there is ever a peculiar fascination. The
field is unbounded, its possibilities limitless; things which to us of
to-day are commonplace, by reason of their niches in our every-day life,
will be treasures to posterity a hundred years hence. Thus will the love
of collecting go on from generation to generation, with new converts
always ahead.
CHAPTER III
AMERICAN TABLES
Among collectors in America there is an ever-increasing interest in
“things American.” One of the most attractive fields in which one’s
hobby may browse is that of old furniture. Nearly every one appreciates
the early furniture of good design and cares to know something of its
history. America, both in colonial times and in the period following the
Declaration of Independence, produced pieces of many sorts. Some of it
was excellent, most of it was good, and a little of it was wholly of an
indifferent quality. As table-makers the early American craftsmen
exhibited much skill, and such examples of their work as are to be met
with cannot fail to attract the attention of the alert collector who,
having a house of his own, knows that by some mysterious providence, no
matter how small that house may be, there will always seem to be room in
it and need in it for “just one more table,” if the table is a “find”
and of interest as an American antique of genuine authenticity.
With tables, as well as with other pieces of furniture, the early
American craftsmen who produced the finer examples did not allow
themselves any decided departure from European models that were
sufficiently numerous with the American furniture-makers by the close of
the eighteenth century and at the beginning of the nineteenth.
Naturally, much furniture from England came into the colonies throughout
the period of settlement and development, followed by many pieces of
French design and manufacture.
If we turn now to English reflections in American work we shall find
comparisons of decided interest. There is often little or nothing to
distinguish early American pieces from their English prototypes.
However, there was no “slacking,” in quality of material, workmanship,
of finish in American furniture. The colonial cabinet-makers were
thorough and conscientious, although not always “artistic,” perhaps.
Certainly these craftsmen had at their command the finest woods--maple,
pine, walnut, birch, chestnut, and the ships brought in quantities of
mahogany. Extant examples of this early craftsmanship show at once the
intrinsic merit of stanch construction and virile line that makes them
so much sought by collectors. Their sincerity of design, while not
always accompanied by the refinements of striking grace, compels our
attention and respect.
Previous to 1776 we must expect American native furniture to run
parallel in style (with natural lagging tendencies, of course) to the
English periods with which they were contemporary. In earliest colonial
times, times when voyages were few and far between, large shipments of
furniture were not to be considered. As the wealth of the individual
colonists increased, luxuries came to hold a place in trade which they
could not have held at an earlier day in the New World. With the advent,
too, of colonial officials, fat of purse, sent over by the mother
country, came articles to enhance as well as to continue their comfort.
One could be more contented with an easy-chair than without, and little
by little the rude bench furniture of the Pilgrims was locally developed
(reverting to English patterns) into a more attractive and acceptable
sort of furniture, or was augmented by importations. At the same time
this increased demand for cabinet-making invited English craftsmen to
seek their fortunes in the New World, and before long a very respectable
home industry, both in the North and in the South, was making its
influence felt.
Fortunately New England thrift (or perhaps it was conservatism) has
preserved to us many pieces of this early American furniture, some of it
dating back to the time of King James II. These New England Jacobean
pieces follow simple lines in general, with here and there a piece of
ornate type. In the reign of William and Mary and that of Anne a rapidly
increasing number of English craftsmen migrated to the American
Colonies, where they helped to perpetuate the styles of this period. It
is not at all uncommon to meet with very fine examples of the Queen Anne
period which were contemporaneously produced by American craftsmen; in
fact, some of the New England cabinet-makers became so proficient that
the products of their shops rivaled the output of British makers both in
staunchness of construction and accuracy of contour. The
well-proportioned cabriole legs of many pieces of this description
extant--the generic term for furniture with a “knee,” derived from the
French _cabriole_ (goat-leap)--are as well designed as any of the
examples then being produced in the mother country by the skilled
English cabinet-makers. Naturally, the local colonial production of
Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton styles was supported by the
affluence to which the colonies attained. During the troubles of the
Revolution the importation of mahogany by the colonies was diverted by
Great Britain. Substitutes, for the time--and this began to mark a
decline, with fluctuations in the materials used--had to be found, such
as that of the sweetgum tree, _Liquidambar Styraciflua_, which in
appearance and general character is very similar to mahogany, its
distinguishing features being a slightly lighter color and grain.
The Dutch influence seems less to have entered the traditions of
American furniture than that of England or of France. A fair amount of
furniture was imported by the Dutch of New Amsterdam from Holland, and
numerous authentic pieces of this Dutch furniture have come down to us;
such, for instance, as the gate-leg table which is preserved in the
Manor House at Croton-on-Hudson. But local cabinet-makers soon came to
blend features of the English styles with those of the Dutch designers
and finally purely English styles superseded the others.
Still another local division of colonial furniture was that introduced
by those settlers known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. This type of “Dutch”
must not be confounded with the Dutch of New Amsterdam. Coming to
Pennsylvania, these immigrants brought with them their gaily painted
peasant furniture, and in the early days of the colony they produced
much of that sort for their own use. Hence their furniture cannot be
said to have been a product designed for the market. Examples of it did
not stray far from the locality of their production, save in those
instances where the settlers emigrated to other parts of the country.
Even then it appears to have exerted little or no influence outside
Pennsylvania territory. Stiff, conventional flowers and fruits, birds,
and decorative bands characterize the decorations. Pieces of this sort
are still to be found in central and southeastern Pennsylvania, although
the majority of such decorated wood antiques extant consist of bridal
chests and small boxes.
In the North much of the early furniture, especially tables, was made of
maple, pine and birch. Walnut, of course, was a great favorite,
particularly with the earlier cabinet-makers of Pennsylvania, where
superb slabs of beautiful black walnut were milled from the wonderful
old trees, that so soon disappeared through this demand.
We must not be surprised to find so little early furniture of the South,
for, despite the wealth and culture of Virginia, the Carolinas, and
Maryland in colonial times, these Southern colonists were equally
fashionable, and discarded the old for the new before the dawn of the
nineteenth century, earlier than did the Northerners. A search of the
southern states will scarcely yield one piece of Jacobean design. A hunt
for original William-and-Mary will be equally fruitless. But in the
style of Queen Anne, many excellent pieces will be found.
No story of American furniture, no matter how brief, can be written
without mentioning the name of Duncan Phyfe, the New York cabinet-maker
whose artistic products justly won him the sobriquet of “The American
Sheraton.”
The period between 1795 and 1830 was marked by a persistent disinterest
in all “things English,” and an ardent admiration for all “things
French,” and this prejudice showed itself in the furniture. American
cabinet-makers adapted these French designs according to their lights,
and the result was not always unsuccessful. At the very end of its
influence the work sank to a low level of artistic merit. Before that
time it had known the apex of artistic line in the works of Phyfe, and
if we are to judge American Empire, it were better to use the high
standards set by his famous productions.
The tables of this period were usually made with square ends, the
dining-tables being of the extension type having drop leaves and other
leaves which could
[Illustration: _Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
American Walnut Gate-Leg Table, 1675-1700]
[Illustration: American Pine and Walnut Chair-Table, _cicra_ 1700]
[Illustration: American Cherry and Maple Gate-Leg Table, 1675-1700]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Mr. Frederick H. Howell_
Late 18th Century English Tea Caddy
Late 18th Century English Tea Caddies
Ivory Tea Caddy and two Tortoise-shell of 18th Century]
be inserted on pedestal tables. At this time centre-tables came into
vogue. These were ordinarily circular in shape and usually rested on
ornate pedestals rising from a plinth supported by winged claw feet.
Some of these tables were rectangular and some had double tops that
folded out or could be turned up against the wall. The “sofa tables” of
Phyfe’s design were oblong and had narrow drop leaves at both sides, the
ends supported by the _Lyre_ motif.
CHAPTER IV
TEA AND ANTIQUITY
One afternoon of a day late in autumn we were having tea in Camberwell.
The home of our English friends was a house redolent with memories. The
Brownings, Carlyle, and many others had in days gone by gathered beneath
the hospitable roof. It was one of those houses whose exterior gave hint
of an interesting history. Not all interesting houses do that. This one
particularly did, so much so that it lent much of its fascination (or
appeared to lend it) to its neighbors.
Perhaps we were in the mood for thinking so, for had we not dropped in
to a tea at another wonderful house a few steps away but the day before?
And what a house that had been! What a host!
I think all the treasures of the earth must have been gathered there to
commemorate the yesterdays of beautiful things, of interesting
personalities. There was the actual chair in which George Eliot sat when
writing “Romola”; I had sat in it drinking tea! A plate of delectable
biscuits was at my right--on Carlyle’s table! If I had been
ill-mannered enough to devour all the biscuits, I am sure that plate
would have revealed itself as equally delectable Sèvres; I guess as much
from its edge. What an afternoon that had been! Charles Lamb’s bookcase!
The Persian lacquered mirror that had belonged to Rossetti!
“And did you know,” said my companion, “that our host is the original of
Walter Pater’s ‘Marius the Epicurean,’ his best friend?” It was then
that I gasped forth something about a Mahomet in Mecca. “You must
remember,” said the other indulgently, “that you are in London.”
And here we stood, this other afternoon, on the threshold of another
happy adventure!
“Tea and antiquity seem to go amazingly well together,” said our host of
this second day, “but our friend Marius has probably shown you that.
Still, his hobbies are many. Ours are few. If we have not ridden in
every nook and corner of the world, we have ridden furiously in one
direction--tea.”
With curiosity piqued we followed to the library. “Arthur!” warned our
hostess, as the master of the house paused before the glass-encased
shelves to the right of a tapestry-hung doorway.
“No,” he laughed, “I’m not going to--yet! You see, every book on those
shelves has to do with tea, old tea, new tea, good tea, poor tea.
Everything any one has ever known and printed about tea is there. You
will find the first edition of Pepys’s Diary, in which that
indefatigable chronicler remarks ‘I did send for a cup of tee (a Chinese
drink), of which I never had drunk before.’ Then there is the rare first
edition of Philippe Sylvestre Dufour’s ‘Manner of Making Coffee, Tea and
Chocolate,’ a quaint little volume printed in 1685, and just there”--our
host pointed through the glass--“is Simon Paulli’s ‘Commentarius’ of
1665.”
“Arthur,” laughed our hostess, “remember the fate of Carleton and Lord
North in forcing tea down the throat of America, while Britannia wept!”
“I meant to go straight ahead!” our host replied with affected meekness,
holding back the tapestry to admit us into the very sanctum of this
entertaining collector’s worshiping.
The large room, despite its generous dimensions, was cozy. Although
filled almost to overflowing with rare bits of china, prints, brasses,
pewter--in fact, with a wealth of objects that would delight the heart
of any collector--there was order in it all. One did not tumble over a
Turkey-red tea-cozy or mistake it for a hassock. Nor did one have to
compress elbow to side to keep from precipitating precious tea-cups to
the floor underfoot. In this instance a remarkable collection of
antiques and curios furnished a whole room.
“I cannot vie with Marius in offering you the throne of George Eliot,”
said our host, “but here is a very comfortable arrangement once occupied
by Queen Anne.”
“Yes,” commented our hostess; “Arthur went threadbare to have it,
because Alexander Pope happened to have written:
Here, thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take,--and sometimes tea.
In fact, I once arrived just in time to prevent him from buying Leigh
Hunt’s spectacles just because--what was it Leigh Hunt said of tea,
Arthur? I never can remember.”
“‘Oh, heavens! to sip that most exquisite cup of delight was bliss
almost too great for earth; a thousand years of rapture all concentrated
into the space of a minute, as if the joy of all the world had been
skimmed for my peculiar drinking, I should rather say imbibing, for to
have swallowed that legend like an ordinary beverage without tasting
every drop would have been a sacrilege.’”
“No wonder you were keen for the spectacles!” I cried.
“But I’ve never heard of Leigh Hunt’s spectacles! I don’t believe he
ever wore them. You have to make allowance for the attitude my better
half holds toward tea!”
“No, my dear,” our hostess replied sweetly, “you know I love these
things as much as you do.” It was true.
Now, while we did not talk tea throughout all our little visit, we did
eagerly examine the old tea-furniture. There was Delft, pottery, and
porcelain of all sorts, marvelous tea-caddies, a collection of prints
and caricatures of the Boston Tea Party.
“There were other tea-parties over there in America,” our host
explained; “you neglect them terribly! There was the ‘Tea-party’ of
Philadelphia in 1773, the ‘Tea-party’ of Edenton in 1774 and the same
year the ‘Tea-parties’ of Cumberland County and of Greenwich, New
Jersey. I have them all in the library!”
We saw the books before coming away. Not the least interesting was
Chippendale’s “The Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers’ Director,” issued in
London in 1762, with its designs for tea-tables and tea-chests, and the
Hepplewhite book of 1787. Dr. Samuel Johnson was rated a prodigious
tea-drinker in his day, “beyond all precedent.” We did not compete with
his record, nor yet with that of Bishop Burnet, who thought nothing of
sixteen cups of a morning, but we did not find our tea taste stinted,
that delightful afternoon at Camberwell.
Venus her myrtle, Phœbus has her Bays
Tea both excels, which she vouchsafes to praise.
We found Waller’s lines coming to mind many times afterward, when we had
come to discover them in a dusty tome of 1662 which we found for a penny
in a book-stall and added it to tea-ana! And what response to the memory
of Camberwell adventures was evoked when, home again in our own country,
we chanced upon Thomas’s “Massachusetts Spy” and read therein that
touching farewell to tea!
Farewell, the teaboard with its equipage
Of cups and saucers, cream bucket and sugar tongs,
The pretty tea-chest also lately stored
With Hyson, Congo and best Double Fine.
We began then with enthusiasm to read up on tea. It behooved us to begin
with the “tea-party” episodes our host in Camberwell had hinted at as
neglected by our histories. For one thing, there were the autographs to
be sought of many of the revolutionary participants. We found a book on
the subject, long since out of print, and many a hint was contained
therein. This was “Tea Leaves” by Francis S. Drake, “Being a collection
of letters and documents relating to the Shipment of Tea to the American
Colonies in the year 1773, by the East India Tea Company.” There we
found many portraits, facsimile signatures, etc. It is a book worth
looking for. Our copy cost us but two dollars. On a fly-leaf some
one--not the poet himself, alas!--had copied these lines of Oliver
Wendell Holmes’s “A Ballad of the Boston Tea Party”:
No! never such a draught was poured
Since Hebe served with nectar
The bright Olympians and their lord
Her over-kind protector;
Since Father Noah squeezed the grape
And took to such behaving,
As would have shamed our grandsire ape,
Before the days of shaving;
No, ne’er was mingled such a draught,
In palace, hall or arbor
As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed
That night in Boston Harbor!
And how completely the old rancor of it is gone in these days when our
hearts beat in unison with the hearts of our British cousins! How
different are our tea-parties to-day, American and Britisher, brother
and brother!
When we began collecting tea things, we did not get _everything_ we
wanted! One of the tantalizing treasures beyond our reach was the
poetical effusion of Mr. Nahum Tate, who lived from 1652 to 1715 and
celebrated the beginning of the eighteenth century with “Panacea, a poem
upon tea, with a discourse on its Sov’rain virtues; and directions in
the use of it for health.” A greedy Mæcenas outbid us at the book
auction where we thought only ourselves had discovered or could possibly
wish to acquire it! With Dr. John Coakley Lettson’s “The Natural History
of the Tea-Tree,” printed in London in 1799, we were more fortunate.
Likewise Mr. T. Short’s “A Dissertation upon Tea, Explaining Its Nature
and Properties, Showing from Philosophical Principles, the Various
Effects It Has on Different Constitutions; Also a Discourse on Sage and
Water,” produced in 1730, was ours for the expenditure of ten shillings,
a rare piece of fortune coming to our door through the good graces of a
Birmingham book-seller’s catalogue. I fancy good Queen Anne set the pace
to second place for sage and water! We are still on the lookout for the
“Treatise on the Inherent Qualities of the Tea-Herb,” by “A Gentleman
of Cambridge,” whose scholarly effusion came from a London press in
1750.
In the course of our adventures at home we found that tea-collectors
were more numerous than we should have dreamed them to be, perhaps
because the subject embraced collecting in almost every
field--furniture, old silver, china and pottery, pewter, brasses, books,
prints, and what not; to say nothing of collectors of Oriental tea
things, as, for instance, the lady who has seven hundred and thirty-two
interesting Japanese tea-pots, the equally interesting lady who has a
collection consisting of as fine as possible a tea-cup of every sort of
porcelain and ware of which tea-cups have been fabricated since the
memorable days following the presentation of two pounds of tea to King
Charles II by the East India Company. Another collector has gotten
together a great number of fine Japanese color-prints, the subjects of
which have to do with the tea ceremony, and yet another gentleman “goes
in” for the Cha-no-yu (tea ceremony) pottery of Japan. Probably the most
interesting collection of tea-caddies in America is that owned by Mr.
Frederick H. Howell of New York. Tea-caddies offer to the collector an
entertaining hobby, for although they are by no means common, they are
still to be “discovered” in many of those nooks that long since have,
perhaps, given up other collectable things. I remember once dwelling
with enthusiasm on the pleasures of collecting tea things.
“I have a little hobby along that line myself,” remarked one of the
group, “teaspoons.”
“Don’t you have to be careful?” was the question the man next to him
could not refrain from putting.
But perhaps our friends are not always as sympathetic with the
collector’s pursuits or as courteously attentive, and there is always a
time to stop before one becomes a bore!
CHAPTER V
CUP-PLATES
It is surprising how rare the cup-plates of the eighteenth century and
the early nineteenth century have become, considering their universal
use during that period when they were regarded as necessary and
fashionable accessories to the tea-set. In the days of our
great-grandmothers the etiquette of tea-drinking was markedly different
from that which maintains in our own day. Then the tea-cup occupied much
the position that the tea-bowl still holds with the Chinese, and the
saucer that of the tiny Chinese cup. In other words--we blush to confess
it!--our tea-drinking ancestors used the saucers of their tea-cups to
cool their tea in, and while the saucers were so utilized, tiny plates
(like the plates of a doll’s tea-set) were employed as holders for the
cups, thus to protect the polished top of the tea-table or, perhaps, the
trays of satinwood from being stained by the moist cup rims.
Just why, when so many of these little cup-plates were in use, so few
have survived seems a mystery. While tea-cups, cream-pitchers and
sugar-bowls abound, cup-plates still remain elusive. This is because
these tiny objects, being truly plates in miniature, were, when they
fell into disuse (and before collectors of old china and old earthenware
began to take an interest in them), given to children to play with, thus
meeting the general destruction to which nearly all dolls’ dishes of all
periods succumb. This seems the plausible theory for accounting for the
scarcity of the cup-plate. Nevertheless, despite its rarity, the
collector need not be discouraged. In all parts of the country where
settlement has been early the collector of old china still stands a good
chance of picking up cup-plates of all sorts. Even the glass ones are
yet to be found.
True it is that any exceptionally fine cup-plates offered in the antique
shops generally bring high prices. For instance, a four-inch cup-plate
brought twenty-three dollars at auction a year ago, and another fetched
thirty-six dollars at private sale. Certain other cup-plates which have
come to the author’s attention have been held for prices running from
fourteen to forty-five dollars apiece. Although the collector of
moderate means may not expect to indulge in many purchases, he is apt to
run across fine pieces at bargain prices that will send his spirits to
the level of true elation. First of all, however, he must study the
subject and learn to know a cup-plate when he sees one, for the
successful collector is never a hunter of Snarks!
Only two hundred and fifty years ago the East India Company considered
the gift of a couple of pounds of tea a princely one to make the King of
England! Pepys gives us an inkling as to how uncommon a thing
tea-drinking was in his time. However, the use of cup-plates is a much
later one than Pepys’s day; they were not the fashion until tea-drinking
had become an almost universal custom.
The illustrations will give the reader an idea of the variety to be
found in cup-plates. While the pieces put to this use are nearly of a
size, their diameters vary by a fraction of an inch to an inch or more.
One of the best known cup-plate series is Hall’s “Hampshire Scenery,”
with borders of primroses, hepatica, and other flowers resembling many
of the Clews borders. Their color is rich blue. John Hall & Sons were
Staffordshire potters (1810-1820), whose marks on wares Chaffers places
in the “uncertain” list. Then there is a “Quadrupeds Series.” The mark
on this resembles an extended bell, on which appears the name “I. HALL”
in capital letters, with the word “QUADRUPEDS” in crude capital letters
below, on a curtain-like extension with inverted flutings. But far more
beautiful than either of these sets, and more interesting to the
American collector, are those of a series in rich blue, one of which
shows the Park Square Theatre, Boston, and bears the characteristic
oak-leaf and acorn border of R. Stevenson and Williams. All the designs
of Ralph Stevenson are eagerly sought by collectors of old china. The
Stevenson works were in Cobridge, Staffordshire, but all record of both
potter and pottery seems to have disappeared. Another cup-plate series
contains a view of the first United States Mint, Philadelphia, and has
the characteristic border--of scrolls, eagles, and flowers--of Joseph
Stubbs. This potter made comparatively few pieces for the American
market. From 1790 to 1830 he was owner of the Dale Hall Works at
Burslem. His cup-plates are among the most desired objects of the sort.
Many cup-plates bore mottoes and verses such as those of the Liverpool
type, a Romance Series, for instance, containing one known as “Returning
Hopes,” with the ardent verse appearing thereon as follows:
When seamen to their homes return,
And meet their wives or sweethearts dear,
Each loving lass with rapture burns,
To find her long-lost lover near.
These Liverpool cup-plates, by reason of their pictorial nature, have
always been popular with collectors, hence the scarcity of them in
antique and curio shops. Private collectors, too, seem loath to part
with specimens of such printed wares. The glass cup-plates in native
American manufacture are in no sense comparable esthetically with the
cup-plates of porcelain and pottery of foreign fabrique. Still they are
interesting historically. The majority of the glass cup-plates were
crystalline glass, though some were colored--blue, green, yellow, brown,
amber, rose, purple, etc. There were many glass factories in America in
colonial days as well as in the nineteenth century, and American
households were well supplied by them with cup-plates, although in
design these were, more often than not, of comparatively little beauty.
Among the patterned cup-plate wares the collector will find, many
varieties of the hundreds of varieties of the “Willow” pattern may with
reasonable certainty be traced to their various potters; but this is a
special study in itself, and one entailing the
[Illustration:
_Courtesy of Mary H. Northend and Mr. William A. Cooper_
Cup-Plates
Landscape, Wild Rose Border Landscape, Falls of Killarney
Pressed Glass Cup-Place
Portrait of Henry Clay
Floral Pattern Hyena Design]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy of Mr. Charles Allen Munn_
Early Printed Cottons
Allegory of Franklin, and Apotheosis of Washington]
surmounting of many difficulties. The _amateur_ need not concern himself
with the matter completely in order to enjoy the few examples that may
chance to discover themselves to him.
The lovely dark-blue Davenport ware, with designs in the Chinese style,
are worth looking for. Ware such as this is familiar to every collector
and is coming to be appreciated more generally than formerly. From even
a small collection of cup-plates much pleasure may be derived, and the
collector need not feel that it is hopeless to start getting together
examples of worth. If things are being picked up here and there on the
one hand, it is true that, on the other, examples of cup-plates fully
worth while are coming to the market as well as leaving it.
CHAPTER VI
CHINTZ
Chintz has been called the _tapisserie d’Aubusson_ of the cottage home.
Its place in the affections of the collector of antiques and curios has
long been secure. For fully fifty years and more lovers of household
ancientry have gathered to their appreciation bits of old printed
fabrics. Originally the word “chintz” was applied to the printed cotton
fabric from India, each piece being called in early days a _chint_, a
name which was derived from the Hindu _cint_, Bengal _cit_, and Sanscrit
_chitra_, meaning spotted or variegated. Afterward it came to be applied
to the glazed printed calicoes of European and American manufacture,
gaily patterned with flowers and birds and figures in diverse colors on
a white ground. Its calendered dust-shedding surface made the material a
great favorite with careful housewives. Cretonne, the French substitute
for chintz, a heavier material, was not introduced until somewhere
around the year 1860.
The old-time chintzes are not so easily picked up nowadays. However,
there are still excellent chances of occasional “finds,” even in
antique-combed America, where, happily, collecting has come to be one of
our chief pastimes. I know one collector who has been so fortunate as to
obtain many quaint specimens of old printed fabrics at small cost, from
an upholsterer in his own town. From time to time chairs and sofas were
brought to the upholsterer to be re-covered. Often these had several
layers of material under the outer one, and below those of later days he
would find, now and then, coverings of old printed cotton fabrics. Among
these were a lovely spray-pattern chintz of the Queen Anne period and a
hand-print of pastoral design by one R. Jones, manufacturer of Old Ford,
London, who produced patterned chintzes about the year 1760. Many of the
new printed cotton fabrics have borrowed their patterns from these
interesting textile ancestors, though nowadays, in the case of
monochrome and duochrome prints, the color effects are somewhat richer
than those that obtained in the printed fabrics of the eighteenth
century, with their cold chocolate browns, bottle-greens, and ox-blood
reds. For the collector there will naturally be an inimitable charm
about the original pieces, not to mention their historic interest,
while old multicolored chintzes cannot be surpassed in loveliness.
Chintz attained a beauty and a distinction of its own when it attracted
the fancy of the fashionables of the eighteenth century. To maintain its
favor, it did not rest content with being imitative but developed its
own resources with a consequent richness that marks its place among
decorative fabrics of the early days.
A sixteenth-century Portuguese writer, by name Odoardo Barbosa, gives us
an interesting early reference to printed fabrics: “Great quantities of
cotton cloths, admirably painted, are held in highest estimation.” But
even some two hundred years before his time the narrators of the romance
of commerce were celebrating the chintzes of the Coromandel India coast.
Doubtless these printed fabrics of the earlier centuries attained an
intricacy and beauty that were long denied the European printed textiles
which they inspired. Early examples of the latter are in no way
comparable, artistically or technically, with contemporary India prints.
Even to-day it would be difficult to improve esthetically on the
beautiful printed stuffs that come to us from the countries of the
Orient.
We do not know with certainty the circumstances attending the
introduction into Europe of the manufacture of printed fabrics. Long
before English weavers had undertaken the industry, the printing of
fabrics flourished on the Continent. The sixteenth century references to
printed cottons in England are so few and so vague that we are virtually
without knowledge of the earliest manufactories of these fabrics. We do
know, however, that veritable legions of skilled craftsmen in the
textile arts settled in the British Isles during the latter half of the
seventeenth century. It is to them, probably, that the art owes its
introduction there.
The Print Room of the British Museum exhibits a quaint old trade
card--itself the impression of a wood-block such as the cloth-printers
used--which bears the representation of a cotton-printer at work. In the
costume of his time--the reign of James II--he stands before a long,
broad Jacobean table, lengthwise of which lies a piece of cloth, one
third showing the pattern which the printer has impressed on it. Behind
the left end of the table is set a Jacobean stool on which rests a
circular basin containing the color, which a boy is waiting to apply to
the wood-block for printing. The master printer is in the act of
impressing a section of the pattern on the white cloth by means of the
wood-block, which he is hammering with a wooden mallet. The text (in
script of the period) reads, “_Jacob Stamps living at ye sighn of the
Callicoes Lineings Silkes Stuffs New or Ould at Reasonable Rates_.” This
old mode of block-printing obtained for fully two hundred years until
the inventive genius of the nineteenth century joined hands with
commerce, to the craft’s almost complete discouragement. However, a
revival of interest in the old arts was inspired by such enthusiasts as
William Morris. The hand-printed fabrics have been restored to favor,
and to-day they again play an important part in the decoration of the
modern home.
Richmond, Bow, and Old Ford, London, became the earliest centers for
printed chintzes in England. The few extant specimens of
seventeenth-century chintz show us that the early printed cottons were
crude enough. At first more than one color was not attempted. The next
step appears to have been to add to the monochrome effect by applying
washes of dye, either freehand or stencil application, to the outline
pattern. This was done by brushing the color on as required, a process
slow, laborious, and fraught with uncertainties. An examination of these
early pieces, treasures though they are from an antiquarian point of
view, reveals a smudgy appearance resulting from the thickness of the
dye-inks with which the patterns were printed. The early materials were
very coarse canvas-like cloths.
With the advent of the eighteenth century the cloth for receiving the
printed patterns was much improved, and it was not long before finely
woven textures supplanted the cruder ones. This greatly facilitated the
development of textile color-prints, and the Queen Anne chintzes were in
consequence infinitely superior to those of the Charles II, James II, or
William and Mary reigns. So popular did these improved patterned fabrics
become that the chintz industry not only rivaled that of the
silk-weavers but for a time threatened to drive the latter out of
business. Indeed, so bitter became the feeling on the subject, between
the two crafts, that riots resulted and an appeal was made to
Parliament, by the silk-manufacturers of Spitalfields, for protection.
History records that the silk-workers were so enraged because
Westminster did not immediately forbid the wearing of chintz that the
delegation which had carried the petition to London, gave vent to its
wrath by tearing off all chintz gowns whose wearers were encountered on
the homeward journey. Finally, in 1736, Parliament passed an act
prohibiting printed cottons and linens, an act which was soon repealed
and followed by an increased vogue in chintz. In France as well it was
at one time considered expedient to forbid the manufacture of printed
textiles; the restriction extended until 1759.
Authorities seem to be agreed in considering the middle of the
eighteenth century as the golden age of old-time printed chintzes.
Collectors eagerly seek specimens of this period, though they are all
too rare to encourage hope in this direction except for occasional
finds. It was during the years around 1760 that multicolored patterns
were so beautifully and satisfactorily wrought with superimposed
woodblock impressions. Chippendale furniture of the time naturally led
to the popularity of Chinese motifs in design, and lovely indeed these
were. The intertwining flower sprays that marked the printed fabrics of
Queen Anne’s day now gave way to motifs in separated positions. The
_famille verte_, _famille rose_, and _famille noire_ porcelains of China
furnished many a motif for the chintz designers of the seventeenth
century. In the Chippendale period buff grounds were introduced, whereas
in the earlier chintzes the grounds had been white or untinted.
The third quarter of the eighteenth century witnessed an innovation in
the manufacture of printed fabrics. Various mechanical devices were
perfected and led to an enormous increase in chintz manufacture.
Cotton-printing was taken up in the northern counties and soon the trade
center shifted thence from London, its old cradle-town. Engraved
copperplates and roller-printing came into use. Still, as has already
been said, hand-printing was destined to survive.
The collector of these various printed cottons will find the historical
group especially interesting. Take for instance, the “Apotheosis of
Washington” or the “Allegory of Washington and Franklin” subjects. In
both, the figures of Washington were taken from the famous Trumbull
portrait. In the “Apotheosis” chintz the medallions containing portraits
of thirteen famous personages of early American history are after
engravings by Du Simitière. “William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians”
forms the subject of another patterned chintz of especial interest to
American collectors. Then there are the later political subjects which
the nineteenth century’s early history inspired. The printed kerchiefs
also came within the province of the collector of printed cottons. Many
of these kerchiefs are especially well adapted for framing. Such as the
“Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor” kerchief and the one bearing the title of
“The Token or Sailor’s Pledge of Love.” Some of these old kerchiefs and
also many examples of printed chintzes of historic interest have found
their way into American public collections.
CHAPTER VII
PEWTER
There are many persons--some of them collectors of other antiques and
curios--who ask what the fascination of old pewter can be, frankly
declaring that to them it has no attraction. Perhaps to some the mention
of pewter suggests battered up, dingy, leaden-hued objects of metal,
more suitable for bullets than suited to buffets. Again, there are those
who, unacquainted with pewter lore, do not guess the wealth of
historical interest that invests the subject.
Relics of any age that are so damaged as no longer to command respectful
attention have no real excuse for perpetuation unless some highly
important historic association attaches to them, for surely mere age or
antiquity is not a raison d’être with the sensible. Pewter in a state of
dilapidation is no exception to the rule governing the forming of any
collection of quality, and no matter what its antecedents, it should
present good form to be worthy a place in the worth-while collection, if
it is to be regarded with other than the sentiment bestowed upon a
chipping from the Great Pyramid or a bottle of dust from Pompeii.
But truly fine pewter has attributes to justify its collecting. In the
first place, its decorative quality commends it to notice. Here,
however, one must remember that an esthetic taste will recognize this,
where one to which the artistic does not appeal will overlook it.
Secondly, the story of old pewter, as recorded by Welch Massé and other
authorities on the subject, authorities to whom the collector-student is
bound to be indebted for much information, is one that lends
entertainment to the pursuit of the hobby.
A few years ago a rage for old pewter swept over England and America,
following a notable exhibition--the first of its sort--held at
Clifford’s Inn, London. This was in 1904. To be truthful one must record
the “slump” that followed a few years later. But the true collector who
had taken up with pewter remained loyal and enthusiastic, and with the
appearance of a number of exhaustive and authoritative works on the
history of pewter in America and in Great Britain, there has been a
revival of interest in the subject which is bound to be permanent.
English pewter was much simpler than the pewter made in other parts of
Europe. This latter often attained to an ornateness from which,
fortunately, the pewter of England of the best period is free. The
manufacture of pewter in England was governed by the strict rules of the
Pewterers’ Company, which, as early as 1503, made it compulsory for the
pewterers of England to mark their wares, just as the French pewterers
of Limoges had been compelled to do a century earlier. Some of the early
English pewter was marked with the heraldic Tudor rose with crown above,
although the rose-and-crown is to be found on Scottish and on some
Flemish pieces also.
As for the individual marks of the pewterers, these marks were called
touches. Each pewterer was compelled to have his separate touch, which
was recorded at the Pewterers’ Company halls by impressions struck on
sheets of lead. Nearly all the plates of touches in London so formed
prior to 1666 were destroyed in the Great Fire, which also consumed
nearly all the records, although some of the audit books of the company,
dating from 1415, were saved. However, on the lead plates that have
survived we find some eleven hundred pewterers’ touches impressed. The
earlier touches were somewhat smaller than those of later date; some of
them, in fact were tiny. The mark X on old English pewter was permitted
on metal of extra quality, as one may learn from one of the company’s
rules of 1697, which gives notice that “none may strike the letter X
except upon extraordinary ware, commonly called hard metal ware.” The
various instances of misdeeds on the part of pewterers who tried to
evade the regulations kept the company busy for several centuries. The
very last regulation of the Pewterers’ Company concerning touches
directs that “all wares capable of a large touch shall be touched with a
large touch with the Christian name and surname either of the maker or
of the vendor, at full length in plain Roman letters; and the wares
shall be touched with the small touch.” A penalty of one penny per pound
was exacted from those pewterers who neglected to observe this rule.
While all the facts concerning the marking of old pewter should be
diligently studied by the collector, as he gathers them from this source
and from that, and will prove of great help, be of interest, and lend
zest to collecting, one must not forget that much imitation old pewter
has been fabricated with intent to defraud. However, such “fakes” (many
of them are very attractive!) usually unblushingly bear upon them the
ear-marks of their spurious nature, and the collector soon comes to have
command of the knowledge necessary to detect such reproductions.
The material of old pewter is variously compounded. Old fine pewter
consisted of 112 pounds of tin to 26 pounds of copper, or--in place of
the cooper--of brass. Again, a fine, hard resonant metal was made of 100
parts of tin to 17 of antimony. Distinguished from the fine pewter was
common pewter--or “trifle” pewter, as it was called. This was made of 83
parts of tin to 17 parts of antimony, or, with slight variations, of 82
parts of tin to 18 parts of antimony. These various alloys are
susceptible of a high polish and of retaining it well in ordinary
circumstances some time. This pewter, too, has a good measure of
hardness and possesses durability.
Britannia metal must not be confused, as often it is, with the real
pewter. It was a late eighteenth-century invention of tin, antimony,
copper, and zinc, which lent itself to fashioning on the lathe (a
process called “spinning”), having in this respect a decided advantage
over the less easily worked pewter. Naturally it did not take long for
the new Britannia metal to supersede pewter when it was discovered that
Britannia metal could be electroplated.
However, the general use to which pottery and porcelain, tinware and
enamel attained had come to have much, too, to do with banishing pewter
from general use, though it remained longer in favor in Scotland than in
England. “A whole garnish of peutre,” such as a lady of 1487 bequeathed
to one of her heirs, no longer came to be deemed fashionable. The master
pewterers suffered and, as time went on, found themselves forced out of
their trade.
With the waning of the popularity of pewter, vast quantities of it were
melted up for solder and for other purposes, which accounts for the
scarcity of really fine old pieces. Indeed, such articles as pewter
spoons are exceptionally rare; not, as some suppose, because they were
so small, but because they were especially serviceable to the traveling
tinkers, who could convert them into solder. The English pewter spoon
was seldom a small affair, if it ever descended in scale to the size of
a dessert spoon. In passing it is well to call the collector’s attention
to the fact that pewter spoons are imitated and often placed before
buyers as antiques. One needs especially to familiarize himself with the
shapes of the bowls and of the handles of the English ones, and with
other _minutiæ_, in order to determine intelligently the authenticity of
a piece of pewter of this sort. Other objects are much more common, and
ten genuine English pewter spoons would form a goodly collection,
considering their exceptional rarity.
The London pewterers guarded their trade secrets jealously. They
permitted no outsiders to loiter and watch them at work. As the various
molds for pewter objects were made at great expense, it was the custom
for the guilds of the Pewterers’ Company to own these and to let them
out. This accounts for the various standard shapes of articles, made by
quite different pewterers. Lists of such molds, dating as far back as
1425, have survived the vicissitudes of time and throw much interesting
light on the subject. Let the pewter-collector remember that pewter
objects appear to have come into vogue as a substitute for silver, and
that pieces of old pewter usually follow in form the shapes of the
contemporary silver objects of like use. Indeed, a study of old English
silver will prove of great help to the pewter-collector in solving
problems of chronology. One may not attempt to collect a whole garnish
of pewter of a single period--a complete garnish consisting of twelve
platters, twelve dishes, and twelve saucers--but it is quite possible,
without an appalling outlay. On the other hand, unless it is a “find,”
one may have to pay forty or fifty dollars for a fine and authentic
early English pewter spoon.
Whatever one collects in the way of old pewter of any period and of any
country, it should be displayed by itself and not mixed with silver,
glass, and other objects. As to what dealers sometimes call “silver
pewter,” let not the unwary collector suppose that it is more than
pewter of a fine quality (if the object proves to be that!). Silver
cannot enter into the composition of true pewter, as it takes 950° C. to
melt it, while the tin, melting at 230° C., would volatilize too greatly
to combine with the precious metal before the silver even reached the
melting-point. Perhaps because the finest pewter takes a silver-like
polish it was originally called “silver pewter,” without intent to
mislead.
Another point worth remembering is that, although all sorts of objects
have been fashioned of pewter--even a copy of the Portland Vase has been
fashioned in this metal--the collector will find very few old English
pewter tea-pots. Fully eighty-five per cent. of the tea-pots passing as
pewter are, I should say, either Britannia or Ashberry metal. Very early
ecclesiastical pieces of English make are rare, too. The Council of
Westminster forbade the fashioning of church vessels of pewter, as it
was thought not sufficiently precious to be dedicated to such use. But
in poorer communities exceptions must have been made, as we know of its
use in churches in 1194. The Council of Nîmes (1252) and the Council of
Albi (1254) in France had later to take up a like matter, then
permitting pewter in the manufacture of objects for church use under
certain restrictions.
Not only in early times (by the year 1290 Edward I had accumulated three
hundred pieces of pewter of fine quality) but as late at 1820, when
George IV had pewter placed upon the table at the coronation feast,
pewter has enjoyed the protection of royalty, which fact adds not a
little to its historic interest. But let the collector beware of certain
pewter plates with arms, portraits, etc., stamped in high relief, which
are now and then to be met with, marked with a crowned rose and N. D. in
the upper part of the crown, as well as a pellet in the center of each
petal (except in the center of the upper one, where there is a
six-pointed mullet). And let him beware of the marked pieces
distinguished by a St. George or by a St. Michael and a dragon in a
beaded circle and the letters A. I. C., as these are not old pieces but
appear to have been fabricated as “ornamental” antiques.
Of course there are many other tricks resorted to by the unscrupulous,
but the real collector, generally speaking, happily possesses that
instinct which enables him to learn his lessons quickly and
inexpensively; and there are plenty of reputable antique shops wherein
genuine things are to be found. As a matter of fact, the writer has
found that even where certain dealers have offered spurious objects as
genuine, they have done so through ignorance rather than through
cupidity. A dealer will usually be only too glad to have a collector who
knows point to him mistakes in attribution. Most of the small shops are
run by men who have little time for study, and who are far more likely
to be imposed upon themselves than to attempt to impose upon their
customers. After all, the dealer could not live without customers, and
the only safe way to hold any customer is to treat him honestly.
Early in the eighteenth century the lathe began to be developed, so any
specimens of pewter disclosing lathe marks would suggest a date
subsequent to that period. The pewter formed by the “spinning” process
is the most modern of all. The pewter collector should be careful how he
polishes his pewter, as this ware should never be subjected to rubbing
with brick-dust and like vigorous usage.
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Chinese Pewter Jar with Bronze Cover. Early 18th Century
A Swiss Pewter Wine-Flask, Zurich, Dated 1766]
[Illustration: American 18th Century Sampler]
[Illustration: A Dated English or Welsh Sampler, 1787]
CHAPTER VIII
SAMPLERS
Before the age of machine-made things, and of attire much more
conventional than in many of the earlier periods, there was, of course,
great need of skilled needlewomen, not only professionally but at home
as well, for it was in the home that most of the “finery” of our
forefathers originated. Stubbes’s “Anatomy of Abuses,” which appeared in
1583, tells of the raiment of the men of the author’s time who were
“decked out in the fineries even to their shirts, which are wrought with
needlework of silks,” etc. The good Stubbes also complains that it was
difficult to tell who were gentlefolk, because all men of that time
affected silks, velvets, “taffeties,” and the like, regardless of
station. Thus we may see how important it was that the little misses of
the days of long ago should be taught stitchery at the early age of nine
or ten years.
Samplers are among the most intimate of collectable old things.
...Bookless and pictureless
Save the inevitable sampler hung
Over the fireplace.
How patiently the little fingers toiled over these records of their
wonderful (even if enforced) application! Truly, samplers are the
needle-craft primers of yesterday. We have only to recall an old English
play, “Gammer Gurton’s Needle,” probably the very first of the earlier
English folk comedies, to understand the great importance attached to
the needle. This play, written about 1560 (and attributed to John Still,
Bishop of Wells, and formerly Master of St. John’s College, Cambridge,
where it was first produced) shows how, during the period of its
conception, a steel needle was treasured as few family treasures of
to-day, and so when Gammer Gurton lost hers--the only one she
possessed--the misfortune took on the importance of genuine calamity. As
collectors of samplers and writers on the subject of samplers have been
baffled in trying to discover why no samplers dated or positively known
to have been worked before the middle of the eighteenth century are
extant, this clue to the probable reason which we find in “Gammer
Gurton’s Needle” is of interest; the fact is that as needles were so
uncommon and such treasured possessions they were not to be entrusted
to tiny fingers. Later, when invention turned its attention to
needle-making, needles became common enough. I imagine many a little
girl of the eighteenth century wished that needles had never been
“born”!
Very fine samplers containing both names and dates prior to 1800 are not
to be found at every turn. Notwithstanding this, the sampler-collector
need anticipate no discouraging difficulty in getting together examples
for a fairly representative collection. It is only in comparatively
recent years that we have discovered the value of old samplers as
excellent decorative accessories on the walls of a room in which old
pieces of furniture are placed. Samplers may be mounted and framed for
hanging on a wall as a picture might be, and I know of few objects in
the line of antiques that seem so appropriate for use in this manner for
adorning the walls of a bedchamber.
While it is not always an easy matter to assign undated samplers to
their exact periods, approximate dates may without great trouble be
determined. Naturally, the earliest examples were more utilitarian than
ornamental in conception, more like a mere example of stitchery of
various sorts--a leaf from the scrap-book of needlework, as it were.
Later, pattern and design and pictorial composition were evolved.
Likewise, the earlier samplers seem to have been longer and narrower in
proportion than later ones. Threads of gold and silver are to be found
in needle-work of the Elizabethan and the Jacobean period, where we
should not look for them in the Georgian. Again, there are
characteristics of pattern that clearly denote the embroiderer’s time.
The design of the letters of the alphabet embroidered on a sampler also
forms a clue, inasmuch as it shares in common with contemporary dated,
printed, and engraved lettering the more distinctive period
characteristics of the latter. The earliest date of an alphabet sampler
is, I believe, 1643; of a sampler with a motto, 1651; of a sampler
having a border, 1726; of a representation of a house, 1763; of
numerals, 1655; of a verse, 1696; 1728 has been suggested as the
approximate date of the introduction of mustard-colored canvases on
which the samplers were worked.
“Sad sewers made bad samplers,” said Lord de Tabley in “The Soldier of
Fortune,” but the wonder is that the little fingers of yesterday should
have acquired skill not only in one sort of embroidery but in the varied
stitches often seen in a single sampler remarkable for its perfect and
exquisite handiwork. One is almost aghast, for instance, at the task
suggested by John Taylor’s “The Needles Excellency,” where one reads:
Tent-worke, Raised-worke, Laid-worke, Frost-worke, Net-worke,
Most curious purles or rare Italian Cut-worke,
Fine Ferne-stitch, Finny-stitch, Hew-stitch and China-stitch,
Brave Bred-stitch, Fisher-stitch, Irish-stitch and Queen-stitch,
The Spanish-stitch, Rosemary-stitch and Morose-stitch,
The Smarting Whip-stitch, Back-stitch and the Cross-stitch.
All these are good and these we must allow,
And these are everywhere in practice now.
With the infinitude of stitches it is not necessary here to be
concerned, although the enthusiast in sampler-collecting will find the
study of stitches helpful just as the expert will find it highly
necessary. As there is much confusion in the nomenclature, there will be
many stumbling-blocks, but the pursuit will be worth while. The earliest
seventeenth-century samplers of lace-like appearance were worked in
cut-and-drawn embroidery, with various additional lace stitches. Then
there was the eyelet-stitch, damask-stitch, the backstitch (these three
were used for alphabets), darning-stitches, tent-stitches, and
tapestry-stitch (unusual) and so on.
The foundation of early samplers was the hand-woven linen, either
unbleached or bleached. Sometimes this was almost as coarse as canvas
and again of closely woven texture. Linen thread or silk (somewhat
loosely twisted) was employed for the stitchery. The harsh yellow linen
of early eighteenth-century samplers came into vogue toward the end of
the first quarter of the century, but was soon discarded. Unfortunately,
tannery cloth was much in vogue at the end of the eighteenth century.
This unattractive material seemed especially devised to satiate the
appetites of moths! Most of the tannery-cloth samplers are worked in
silk. The muslin-like tiffany cloth was occasionally used before 1800
for small and fine samplers. Later the coarse linens came into fashion.
The crudely dyed threads marked the decline of the sampler from about
1800. Then cotton canvas and Berlin wool completed the fall of this one
of the gentlest arts.
The early American samplers had, of course, their ancestry and
inspiration in English samplers, with which I think they vie in interest
and attractiveness. Surely there could be no more delightful wall
decoration for a colonial house than one of the early American samplers!
These are less commonly found than English samplers and American
collectors naturally give them preference.
That the little misses of olden times managed at so tender an age to
produce such handiwork seems almost amazing. Little girls of five and
six years achieved marvels in sampler stitchery as extant examples
abundantly proves.
Poetry and samplers seem to have been good friends. In the second scene
of the third act of “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and in the fourth scene
of the second act of “Titus Andronicus,” Shakspere alludes to samplers.
So does Milton in “Comus,” and Sir Philip Sidney in “Arcadia.” If those
blest bards could but scan the verse of some of the sampler-makers! Here
is one which, in its way, is a gem typical of task and talent:
Sarah Bonney is
My Name, England is
My Nation; See How Good
My Parents is to Give
Me Education
There is rhyming for you! And may we not imagine that beneath those
sentiments lurked a fine humor?
CHAPTER IX
WAX PORTRAITS
Strange it seems that so many fragile objects have come down to us from
antiquity while cities of stone, statues of marble, and monuments of
bronze too often have appeared lost forever. On beholding a perfect
glass vase whose history dates back to Phœnician times, but which has
survived centuries of vicissitudes, one cannot but reflect upon the
extraordinary fortune of things apparently so perishable. In the
Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London, the museum of the
Art Department of Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere one may
find little wax models that have come down through hundreds of years,
and one wonders that Time has lent so kind a hand to things which were
constructed of materials that we have regarded as being so perishable.
Wax portraiture is one of the arts of the past so little known to many
collectors that examples of it are not often met with in American
collections. Ancient writers have given us a hint of the antiquity of
wax portraiture, not only in round sculpture, but in relief. Moreover,
we know that the Greek artists in Egypt were adepts in painting
portraits by means of powdered colors applied with rush brushes to slabs
of cedar-wood covered with wax, into which coating the color could
easily be worked when the sun’s rays were permitted to soften the wax.
Many of these ancient wax panels are extant, and they appear very much
like paintings in oil colors upon wood.
We know that Lysistratus, who lived in the time of Alexander the Great,
executed small busts in colored wax, and this is the earliest use of the
medium in color mentioned by history. Works of this sort were
forerunners of the later colored wax portraits of the seventeenth and of
the eighteenth century, with the old custom, which Pliny mentions, of
having ancestral portraits in the households of the Romans as connecting
links in the progress of the art. Moreover, the Romans were wont to
carry in funeral procession waxen portraits of the departed, as a
curious custom clinging to civilization as late as the seventh century
in England. Indeed, a visitor to Westminster Abbey may see the old wax
form of Queen Elizabeth gorgeously attired, which was carried in the
cortège at her burial!
More cheerful, on the other hand, are the remarkable wax portraits in
relief--some white or monochrome and others colored--which were modeled
(“painted” would perhaps be a better word) by the early artists of the
_cinquecento_--Leone Leoni, Antonio Abondio in Italy, later by Guillaume
Dupré and Antoine Benoit in France, and then by Isaac Gosset, Eley,
George Mountstephen, Joachim Smith, S. Percy, and Peter Ruow and others
in England.
How the ancients prepared their materials for working in wax is not
recorded, but probably they anticipated all of the processes employed by
the medieval artist in such portraiture, powdering the color, mixing in
oil, and adding it to pure wax in the state of fusion. To Pastorino of
Siena has been accredited the honor of having invented the particular
wax paste used by himself and his successors in representing the hair
and the skin.
In the sixteenth century the art of wax portraiture was practised in
Nuremberg and reached a high state of development under Casper Hardy,
prebendary of the Cologne cathedral.
Among the most interesting wax portraits by French artists are those
from the hand of François Clouet, in the sixteenth century, which are
among the treasures of the Cluny Museum, Paris. Under Louis XIV wax
portraiture attained so important a place in France that we find Antoine
Benoit given the royal appointment of “_Unique sculpteur en cire
colorée_.”
No material is more responsive to the artist’s touch than wax,
immortalizing as it does his individual handling in a manner peculiarly
its own. Perhaps no English portraitist has given evidence of greater
ability than did S. Percy, whose wax portraits, as well as those by
Peter Ruow, are prized by collectors. Artists in wax portraiture were
not unknown in America during colonial times. Among the names of early
wax-portrait artists in America that of Patience Wright stands forth
prominently. She was born in 1725, the daughter of Mr. Lowell, a Quaker
of Bordentown, New Jersey. When twenty-three years of age she married
Joseph Wright, and some years later was left a widow with three
children. In 1772 she went to England. Already she had become noted for
her excellent work in portraiture. A bust of Thomas Penn was one of her
earliest works of the London period and the wax-portrait of Washington
from her hand, modeled after an original from life by her son, Joseph
Wright, is now in the possession of Dr. Richard H. Harte of
Philadelphia. This is the work which she mentions in a letter to
Washington preserved in the Library of Congress:
You may have my most grateful thanks for your kind attention to my
son in taking him into your Family to encourage his genii and
giving him the pleasing oppourtunity of taking a Likeness that has
I sincerely hope gave his country and your friends, Sir,
satisfaction. I am impatient to have a copy of what he has done
that I may have the honour of making a model from it in wax work,
as it has been for some time the wish and desire of my heart to
model a likeness of General Washington.
To this Washington replied:
If the bust which your son has modelled of me should reach your
hands and afford your genii any employment that can amuse Mrs.
Wright it must be an honour done me.
Wax portraiture almost died out in the nineteenth century, but it is of
interest to note its recent revival by Ethel Frances Mundy and other
skilful artists.
Good old Giorgio Vasari, the gossipy chronicler of the Old Masters to
whom we owe nearly all of our knowledge of the lives of the early
Italian painters, wrote an interesting treatise on the technique of art
from which the following is quoted, as being of further interest to the
collector of wax portraits:
In order to show how wax is modeled let us first speak of the
working of wax and not of clay. To render it softer a little animal
fat and turpentine and black pitch are put into the wax, and of
these ingredients it is the fat that makes it more supple, the
turpentine adds tenacity, and the pitch gives it the black color
and consistency, so that after it has been worked and left to stand
it will become hard.
This was the wax probably used for the backgrounds. Vasari continues:
And he who would wish to make wax of another color may easily do so
by putting into it red earth or vermilion or red lead; he will thus
make it yellowish red or some shade; if he add verdigris, green,
and so on with the other colors. But well it is to observe that the
colors should be powdered and sifted, and in this condition mixed
with the wax afterward and made as soft as possible. The wax is
also made white for small things--medals, portraits, minute scenes,
and other objects in bas-relief. All this is accomplished by mixing
white lead that has already been powdered with the white wax as
already explained. I must not neglect to mention that modern
artists have discovered the method of working all sorts of colors
into the wax so that in taking portraits from life in half-relief
they make the flesh tints, the hair, the clothes and all so
lifelike that these presentments appear to lack only the power to
speak.
CHAPTER X
HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS
The collector who has been fortunate enough to make a pilgrimage through
the villages of New England, visiting the antique shops in search of
adornments to the shrines of their hobbies, will recall the occasional
hand-woven coverlet that chanced to be displayed as the background to
the ensemble of odds and ends. But one finds fewer and fewer of these
old-time examples of handicraft. There have been eager but quiet
collectors industriously seeking them out. Nevertheless the collector
has always a chance of coming upon an early woven coverlet, particularly
in those remote quarters where local auctions (occasioned by momentous
events and not merely foregone conclusions) still disclose the hidden
treasures of yesterday and bring them within reach of the moderate
purse.
From colonial times the art of weaving coverlet by hand was practised
wherever wool and industry suggested. The overseas traditions were
faithfully carried out by the housewives of New England, and then
southward. There came to be modifications in the old weaving patterns as
the ingenuity of those skilled in this handicraft developed. Indeed, an
enormous variety of patterns was evolved. Proportionately few of the
very old hand-woven coverlets have survived--precious they are to the
collector of household antiques!--but even these show remarkable pattern
variations. Of course, the time came when machine-weaving supplanted
hand-work, and before long coverlets hand-woven were of the discarded
arts, so far as the New England states were concerned. A few years ago,
however, the industry of making hand-woven coverlets was revived, for
the art had in a measure, fortunately, continued in the Southern
mountains of the country. Many of the old-time coverlets were carefully
copied and hundreds of new patterns also were devised. These later
hand-woven coverlets are, many of them, of great beauty and
intrinsically worth having, even when one can also acquire the earlier
specimens, for the modern hand-woven coverlet is more often than not
indicative of the same artistic spirit with which the colonial housewife
endowed her work.
Blue-and-white is the usual combination in the old coverlets, though
many of them introduced other colors, brown being the most commonly used
after blue. This blue was home-dyed--with indigo--and time has lent to
many of the old coverlets a coloring comparable to that of the blues of
Chinese porcelains.
With the aptitude for determining the details of the fabrics, of which
every woman seems intuitively to be possessed, the woman collector will
in all probability be able to distinguish a truly old coverlet from one
of modern fabrication. In a few instances some unscrupulous
antique-dealer may claim antiqueness for an obviously modern coverlet,
but the discriminating collector will be comparatively safe.
The collector will find old coverlets interesting as hangings,
lounge-covers, and portières, as well as when put to their original
uses. Fortunate indeed is one who chances to acquire a signed and dated
example. Such a discovery leads the happy collector to haunt
genealogical libraries until he has unearthed the mystery of its owner’s
place in history; for in the good old days the weaver was probably the
owner as well.
[Illustration:
Wax-Portrait of Ferdinand I. of Sicily, Italian,
Late 18th Century
Wax-Portrait, Subject unknown, Italian,
Early 18th Century
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Model of an American Peg-loom. Bearing the Name of W. D. Fales of
Providence, Rhode Island]
[Illustration:
_Copyright by G. H. Buek_
Handwoven Coverlet in Bed-Chamber of the John Howard Payne House,
Easthampton, Long Island, New York]
CHAPTER XI
CHAIRS
The old-fashioned idea that a collector must arrange his treasures
grouped in one spot no longer obtains. I recall asking one who had
returned from a visit to a very interesting house if the host and
hostess were collectors of antiques, curios, or rare _objets d’art_.
“Oh, no,” was the reply, “I don’t think so. They showed me many
beautiful things, but I didn’t see anything that looked like a
collection.” Later I learned that this home contained one of the most
notable collections of early furniture in America! All these pieces, of
course, had been considered as articles entering into the adornment of
this home and not merely as objects gathered clutter-wise into the
semblance of an old curiosity shop. Even our museums are now often
exhibiting their furniture collections arranged in such a manner as to
carry out a complete idea of the original intention of the various
pieces, displaying them in reconstructed rooms or in the counterpart of
a portion of a room.
Probably no piece of furniture holds greater interest for the
specialized or even the general collector than the chair. Its ancestry
is venerable, but its remote antiquity need not be dwelt upon at length
here. It is true that in a magnificent Louis Quatorze drawing-room,
perfectly appointed and historically correct, the introduction of a
cottage chair of the Windsor type would be as displeasing an anachronism
as putting a wild thrush to neighbor with all the parrots of an avairy.
On the other hand, the drawing-room of the average typical home in good
taste the world over might contain a Chippendale chair, a Carolean
settee, a Sheraton card-table, a Louis XIII stool, and an Italian
Renaissance table, and yet be agreeably pleasing and pleasantly inviting
if skill, good taste, and common sense had entered into the character of
arrangements.
The collector who wishes to devote some attention to old furniture would
do well to begin with old chairs. All the old chairs (the good ones and
the fine ones) have not been “collected up” in the sense that they are
permanently retired from business. When once they get into the museums,
of course, they stay there, but even museums are not omnivorous. The
acquiring of supremely rare or unique objects is by no means the only
pleasure to be derived from collecting. In fact, it is one of its least
thrilling forms, being measured more by dollars and cents and the
commerce of things than it is by the mere joy of acquisition.
Some one has estimated that every collection which does not go into a
museum changes hands every twenty years on an average. It is a fact that
collecting in America to-day is infinitely more easy of accomplishment
than it was a century ago. In New York, for instance, the auction sales
of a single recent season presented to the collector more opportunities
than could have come his way in six seasons years ago. It is a mistake
to suppose that all good “chances” have passed; they are, as a matter of
fact, just about beginning in America. We are told that collectors have
ransacked farmhouses and old houses in the East for interesting pieces
of antique furniture. That is true, but the process means only a change
of location and not an elimination of possibilities.
The collector of old chairs can easily become familiar with the various
forms of peculiarities of design which mark the different styles and
periods, as may be seen by even a passing glance at the accompanying
illustrations. Indeed, the ear-marks that distinguish certain pieces of
furniture of the historic periods and distinct styles from others are,
happily, so numerous that the art of identification becomes
comparatively an easy one. Beginners will, to be sure, often come across
modern reproductions of genuine old chairs. Not all of these--in fact,
comparatively few of them--were made with intent to defraud.
Occasionally some unscrupulous or ignorant person will offer a modern
piece as genuine, but your true collector need hardly be deceived,
except in rare instances, by attempted impositions. The form of the
master furniture designers of yesterday has never been surpassed. There
is nothing in modern design more beautiful or so beautiful as many of
the old chairs of Chippendale, Sheraton, and Hepplewhite, and likewise
of the early English and the French periods. Realizing this, the
furniture-makers of to-day at home and abroad have sought to reproduce
the best of these antique pieces for the service and the benefit of the
modern home-maker, obviously as undisguised reproductions.
The collector who studies old chairs will glean many a helpful hint from
these modern reproductions. The fine ones faithfully carried out are
really worth collecting in themselves, as accessory to a collection of
other pieces which the collector has been fortunate in obtaining in the
originals. If you
[Illustration: Chippendale Mahogany Arm-Chair 1760-1780]
[Illustration: Shield-Back Hepplewhite Arm-Chair]
[Illustration: _Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Louis XIV Arm-Chair]
[Illustration: Louis XV Arm-Chair]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Brooklyn Museum of Art_
Three Rare Williamite Glasses. Two English Glass Rummers Engraved with
Nelson Subjects, and a smaller Jacobite Arms Rummer. Centre Tumbler
Commemorates Coronation of George IV of England. Two 18th Century
Tumblers]
chance to come across an old chair fine in the lines of its design, do
not give it up as hopeless should you notice that it is disfigured with
paint, dowdy, broken-down upholstery, and the like. A good restorer of
old furniture will be able to work wonders with a piece of the sort. I
remember discovering an old chair so hidden under the disguise of paint,
putty, and car-plush as to have discouraged any but a discriminating
enthusiasm. When this chair was turned over to a restorer he delivered
it from its bondage of humiliation and it came forth an excellent and
treasured genuine example of the finest Hepplewhite style. The
“stuffing” had completely hidden a splendid ostrich-plume back.
To collect anything sensibly requires an interest in the available data
concerning it. One might as well collect buttons manufactured in 1920 as
to pay no attention to the study of things gathered together in
pleasurable pursuit. So, too, it is with chairs. A chair-collector looks
beyond the mere utilitarian fact that each chair can be sat upon with
comfort, or can’t be.
First of all he must acquaint himself with the various periods: Italian
Renaissance, French Renaissance, Flemish, Spanish, Elizabethan,
Carolean, and Jacobean (Tudor to Stuart), William and Mary, Queen Anne,
the Early Georgian, the French periods of the Henris, the Louis, the
Empire, the styles of Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton, and
the early American forms.
The collector will find many excellent works in English by eminent
authorities on furniture, all of which devote proper space to the
subject of the chairs of the particular period of which they are
treating. There the chair enthusiast will learn that walnut came to be
widely used in English chairs after 1650; that Hepplewhite suggested
haircloth for chair coverings; that the Carolean crown is a
distinguishing feature of the Restoration period; that Queen Anne chairs
are marked by simplicity, their beauty depending mainly on their fine
lines, graceful curves, delicate veneering, and restraint where inlay is
used; that mahogany came into use between 1720 and 1725, and not into
general use before 1730; that Chippendale’s best pieces were made
between 1730 and 1760; that in all _real_ Chippendale ball-and-claw
terminations the claw is carved to suggest vividly a gripping strength,
and not as merely resting passively on the ball as in the imitations and
in nearly all modern reproductions. These are but a few of the many
interesting facts every old-furniture collector should know, points that
enable one to collect chairs intelligently and with joy in the pursuit
of a delectable hobby that is also a very practical one.
CHAPTER XII
ENGLISH DRINKING-GLASSES
There are few general collectors who have not, at some time, come under
the enchantment of old glass. It is remarkable that objects so fragile
in fabric should have survived the vicissitudes of centuries, as have
specimens not only of European glass but of the ancient glass of Syrian,
Phœnician, Greek, and Roman manufacture as well.
Glass-making in England had an early origin, derived, it would seem
probable, from the Roman invaders. We know it to have flourished to some
extent at Cheddingfold in the thirteenth century, continuing there for
several hundred years, as we glean from a reference in Thomas Charnock’s
“Breviary of Philosophy,” published in 1557, wherein is written: “You
may send to Cheddingfold to the glassmaker and desire him to blow thee a
glass after thy devise.” An entry in Evelyn’s Diary for February 10,
1685, refers to “his Majesty’s health being drunk in a flint glass of a
yard long, by the Sheriff, Commander, Officers and Chiefe gentlemen.”
This reminds us that flint glass was discovered and came into vogue
prior to 1680; or in that year its fame had caused it to be so highly
regarded elsewhere in Europe that manufactories to compete with English
ones were established at Liège in that year. The early flint glass of
England differed somewhat from the later product. Probably the flint
glass as we know it now was not introduced before 1730, or perfected
until over a century later.
Of all the English glass none is more beautiful or attractive than the
drinking-glasses of this period. Particularly is this true of the
engraved and inscribed drinking-glasses which collectors now eagerly
seek. Rare, indeed, these glasses have become, and fortunate is the
collector who comes across a “find” of the sort. English glass of the
eighteenth century, though less ornamental than Venetian, was
nevertheless more utilitarian. In respect to the spirit glasses and
rummers, which succeeded ale-tankards of metal and of pottery, this is
particularly true. No “glasse of Venice” could have withstood the table
impact which the English eighteenth-century spirit glasses were designed
to survive, a virtue which gave them the name of “firing-glasses,” as
the setting down of them by a company surrounding the jovial board
produced a noise like a miniature cannonade. Some of these
“firing-glasses” in the Leckie Collection, now forming part of the
permanent collection of the Brooklyn Art Museum, are engraved with
grape-vine designs, and arms, and are inscribed. Of course such engraved
and inscribed glasses are of greater interest and rarity than those
which are without decoration or inscription.
The method of classification of English drinking-glasses takes into
consideration the types of the feet, the types of the bowls, and the
types of the stems. There is the plain-footed glass, the glass with the
folded foot (so called because the outer circle of the foot is folded
back beneath it to strengthen it), the domed foot (shaped as its name
suggests), and the domed-and-folded foot glass (a combination of dome
and fold). The folded foot is a type which indicates early origin, just
as those glasses which have the foot broader than the bowl indicate
their origin to have been prior to the first quarter of the nineteenth
century.
As to types of bowls, there are the drawn bowl (bowl and stem drawn from
a single piece of glass, as in the glasses of the seventeenth century);
the bell-shaped bowl, the waist-formed bell bowl, the waisted bowl, the
ovoid bowl, the straight-sided bowl, the straight-sided rectangular
bowl, the ogee bowl, the lipped ogee bowl and the double ogee form. The
waist-formed bell-shaped (waisted-bell) bowl is rarely met with--the
early eighteenth century marks its decline--and the waisted bowl is
uncommon also. The bell-shaped bowls seem longest to have maintained
favor. The Bristol Glass Works originated the ogee bowl shapes, which
date from the middle of the eighteenth century.
As to the types of stems, the earliest in design is the baluster stem,
in use as early as 1680, and popular till 1730; the plain stem, most
frequently met with in glasses from 1700 to 1750; the air-twist stem, in
vogue from 1725 to 1775, and perhaps later; the opaque white twist stem,
dating from 1745 till the end of the century; the air and opaque white
twist stem, the color twist stem, and the cut stem, dating from about
the middle of the eighteenth century. Air-bubbles imprisoned in the
stems of glasses have given to this type of glass the name of
“tear-glass.” Almost without exception the “tears” have their points
downward, although glasses showing the reverse of this have in rare
instances been met with.
The air-twist stems are an evolution of the tears. The glass containing
air-bubbles came to be heated and drawn out and ingeniously manipulated
in such a way as to produce the effect of twisted filaments which formed
such patterns within the glass as one now and then chances to find.
Before manipulation the bubbles were produced artificially by pricking
into the glass, softened by heat and covered over, in turn, with a film
of molten glass.
The opaque white twist stem, and also the color twist stem, were
obtained after the Venetian fashion of making Millefiori glass,
described in Chapter XXVII (page 221), as derived from the Roman glass
of antiquity. Rare specimens of stems are found with delicate tints of
blue and red among the filaments.
All these twist and tear stems are nowadays reproduced and are
occasionally fraudulently offered the unwary as genuine. But such glass
neither rings true nor is right in color, though the copyists are coming
to display their skill in the matter of tint likewise, even though
balked by specific gravity. A number of the cut-stem glasses were
coaching-glasses--that is, glasses without feet, which stood inverted on
the tray when brought to the coach traveler at a relay inn. After his
hasty drink the traveler would replace the glass inverted, hence there
was no need for a foot; and there was less likelihood of a tray of such
glasses, hurriedly carried, coming to grief through carelessness. With
the advent of railroads and the decline of coaching such glasses were
retired from service. Many of these old-time coaching-glasses were
engraved and inscribed, but few of them have survived and a specimen
would, indeed, be a _pièce de résistance_ in any collection of glass.
We see from these notes that there is less guesswork connected with the
study and collecting of old glass than one uninitiated in the rudiments
of its lore might suppose. Nothing is without a reason; the thing is to
find the raison d’être--that is a true collector’s pleasure.
Of all the engraved or the inscribed English glass none is more
interesting in its historical connection than the Jacobite
drinking-glasses. Their story, briefly, is this: After the flight of
James II left William of Orange firmly in possession of the government,
an act of Parliament, in 1701, formally excluded the house of Stuart
from the throne and settled the succession (after William and his
sister-in-law Anne should have died) upon the house of Hanover. Prince
Charles James Edward, Chevalier of St. George (the son of James II), was
recognized by Louis XIV of France as rightful King of England. This led
William to prepare to make war on France, when death overtook him, and
Anne became Queen of England. Queen Anne, thanks to Marlborough,
successfully carried out William’s policies, and every attempt of the
Stuarts to regain the throne was frustrated. Anne died in 1714, but as
early as 1710 the Cycle, a famous and factious Jacobite club, was
formed. Other Jacobite clubs followed throughout England and Scotland.
The Jacobites were, of course, those who sought to restore the house of
Stuart to the throne, a dangerous treason from the Crown’s point of
view, and those Jacobites who had any desire to keep their heads on
their shoulders had to proceed with care and secrecy. Nevertheless, even
after the rebellion of 1715 and the famous “disappointment” of 1745 the
Jacobites, when toasting the king, would hold their drinking-glasses
above a bowl of water to signify that they drank to “the king over the
water,” the Old Pretender or, after his death, to the Young Pretender.
The bolder Jacobites had their drinking-glasses engraved with Stuart
emblems: a heraldic rose and two buds were, for instance, emblematic of
James II, his son, and his grandson, while the star, oak-leaves, and
acorns, etc., were obvious in allusion. The very boldest Jacobites had
glasses inscribed with mottoes--_Fiat_ being the most general one, as
this “Let it be done,” was the motto of the Cycle Club, ancestor of
Jacobite activity. The more timid Jacobites contented themselves with
symbols or inscriptions engraved upon the under side of the foot of the
glass. One comes across specimens of the _Fiat_ Jacobite drinking-glass
with the two oak-leaves engraved on the foot. Others are engraved with
the heraldic rose upon the bowl and a star upon the foot. A large
glass--its owner must have been the very boldest Jacobite of all!--is
inscribed _Audentior Ibo_ and also bears the portrait of the Young
Pretender, whose death in 1788 did not, strangely enough, put an end to
Jacobite activities. Indeed, the “Stuart fascination” is one of
history’s great mysteries. On the foot of Jacobite glasses one sometimes
finds engraved the feathers of the crest of the Prince of Wales; the
rose and two buds of the Stuarts on the bowl. Still other glasses are
not heraldic, but have the heraldic Stuart rose engraved upon the foot.
It is truly remarkable that any of these Jacobite glasses should have
survived, for many of them must, in their perilous time, have had to
meet with destruction to escape serving as telltales when sudden and
unexpected raids upon Jacobite strongholds were made by the officers of
the Crown. Some of these engraved and inscribed Jacobite glasses were
probably decorated upon the Continent, but most of them are of English
workmanship in engraving as well as in manufacture. Probably many of the
Jacobite glasses were made at the glass-works of Newcastle-on-Tyne,
proximity to the border of Scotland making such a location convenient on
occasion. I think but few should be attributed to the Bristol
glass-workers. Probably the largest number of Jacobite glasses were made
shortly before the “Forty-five.”
As the Jacobites had specially engraved and inscribed glasses, so, too,
did the partisans of King William. Williamite glasses were to be found
in Ireland as well, where a number of them--some are extant--were
engraved with anti-Jacobite toasts. But when it was not likely that the
Irish could forget James II. Authorities are not agreed as to which were
first put forth, Williamite or Jacobite glasses, but I am inclined to
think precedence in chronological order should be given to the engraved
and inscribed Williamite ones. There were, of course, fewer Williamite
glasses than Jacobite glasses, just as later there were fewer Hanoverian
glasses, as the Williamites and the Hanoverians were in the ascendant,
and public loyalty considered itself beyond the necessity of
symbolizing its fealty in other than the simple toast.
One may also include mention here of the Hanoverian engraved and
inscribed glasses, one of which, for instance, was made to commemorate
the coronation of George IV. Finally we come to rummers engraved with
Nelson subjects, commemorating England’s naval hero. These, of course,
are early nineteenth century, as Nelson lived till 1805.
CHAPTER XIII
STUART EMBROIDERIES
The Stuart period of embroideries is one of great interest to the
collector. A few years ago comparatively little attention was paid to
examples of English embroidered work of the seventeenth century.
Specimens of the sort are now eagerly sought for, not only by private
collectors but by public museums as well. True it is that the English
embroideries of the seventeenth century are not comparable in artistic
quality with those of earlier periods, although the technical skill
displayed therein, particularly in the class known as stump-work, has
not been surpassed in English needle-work of any period since that of
the very early ecclesiastical embroideries. Certain of its
characteristic patterns survived the Elizabethan reign, only to
degenerate, during King James’s time, into what one must confess to be
some of the most uninteresting work in the whole history of English
embroidery. Some quilted work, inspired by Oriental design, and certain
crewels for hangings, were exceptions.
This Oriental influence was due to the rapidly developing intercourse,
through commerce, of England with India and China, which marked the
reign of James I and that of the two Charleses; a proclamation of
Charles I, in 1631, for instance, permitted the importation from the
East Indies of “quilts of China embroidered with gold.” Obelisks and
pyramids were favorite devices with the embroiderers of James I, just as
they were with woodcarvers and silversmiths of the day, a fact
interesting to note, as these devices often aid the collector in fixing
the period of an object he may be studying. Toward the end of this reign
it became fashionable to represent religious subjects in needlework. The
manufacture of tapestry in England flourished side by side with
embroidery throughout the reign of James I and those of Charles I and
Charles II, and it was from tapestry subjects that the needlework
pictures of the Stuart period derived their inspiration. So thoroughly
established had their vogue become, that although the fabrication of
tapestry rapidly declined toward the end of the reign of Charles II,
embroidered pictures still held their own.
The _petit point_ or tent-stitch was effectively employed in the
tapestry embroideries of this period. In its earliest form this stitch
was worked over a single thread and produced a massed effect of very
fine lines. The tapestry embroideries of the Stuart period often
mirrored with extraordinary fidelity the fashions in the dress of the
time.
Among objects in Stuart embroidery I have seen a little jewel-cabinet
carried out mainly in silk flosses and some wool worked on irregularly
woven tawny-white canvas, the material generally in use for petit point
work, though the stitch employed in carrying out the pictorial subjects
which adorned the sections of this cabinet is known as long-stitch.
Almost as precious as some of the jewels which once may have been
treasured in this cabinet are the embroidered sachets, jewel-boxes,
needle-case, pincushion, and two bits of beadwork which were tucked away
in its recesses. Next to the long-stitch work of the cabinet itself, the
stump-work sachet was perhaps the most important of these pieces.
Stump-work consisted of featherstitching (though all other stitches were
also employed) under which a padding was placed to form raised surfaces,
taking this suggestion perhaps from the ancient _opus anglicanum_. These
elevations or “stumps,” as they were called, were of cloth, of hair, of
wool, and sometimes of wood, paper, and parchment. In fact, their
materials were various. These stumps were glued
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
English 17th Century Stump-work Embroidery. Subject: “Judgment of
Paris.”]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Dutch Delft Shelf Ornaments, The Cow by Jacobus Holder, dated 1765
Four Dutch Delft Tiles, 17th Century]
or basted on a ground of (generally) white satin, and the stitching was
then executed to cover the stumping.
Quaint in conceit, though often crude enough in design, are the stitched
emblems in much of this stump-work. The twice-repeated caterpillar was
an emblem of the Stuart dynasty often employed, nor are other emblems
without intended significance. The eyes of the birds, animals, and
insects are often marked by seed-pearls, a practice of even earlier date
in England, as one finds from the inventory of St. James House, 1549,
wherein is mentioned a picture “of needlework, partly garnished with
seed pearl.”
Silver threads are also effectively introduced in Stuart embroideries
and edgings of silver lace surround many of the objects such as the
pincushion. Many Stuart embroidery patterns were copied from the designs
of the richly brocaded silks of the period.
CHAPTER XIV
DELFT
When Horace Walpole’s ceramic treasures at Strawberry Hill came by
inheritance to Lord Waldegrave they were sent to the auction room. It
took twenty-seven days of long sessions for the auctioneers to dispose
of them, notwithstanding the fact that there were eager bidders for
every lot in his extensive collection. Of Walpole it was said:
China ’s the passion of his soul.
A cup, a plate, a dish, a bowl,
Can kindle wishes in his breast,
Inflame with joy or break his rest.
And how many others there are of us who succumb to this same passion!
Pottery and porcelain have, I think, more devotées in the temples of
antiques and curios than almost any other of the household gods. Clay
feet we know them to have, but we display their shrines!
Dutch delft is one of the sorts of pottery that is especially dear to
the gatherer of things ceramic. Its popularity has brought it to be
uncommon, but if it is true that twenty years is, as statisticians say
it is, the average time for a collection to rest before it comes upon
the market again, we may take comfort in the fact that opportunities for
picking up old delft are not vanishing. We have only to lie in wait for
them, to be courageous in competition and alert in interest.
No faience has crept more winningly into literature than this to which
the quaint, quiet little city that lies between The Hague and Rotterdam
has lent its name. Here William the Silent dwelt and here he met his
tragic death. Here in the little church is the tomb of Admiral van
Tromp. Here, too, the Prince of Orange came to live. Knowles says:
With the advent of the Prince and the foreign missions, with their
extensive retinue of servants, came increased wealth on the top of
Delft’s own commercial and industrial prosperity. It did more; it
brought the cultivation of artistic feeling and luxury, and a
number of distinguished men of foreign culture and tastes--rich,
sumptuous, money-spending, arrayed in costly brocades, moving in
elegant carriages; notables and magistrates from neighbouring
provinces and towns--all with a train of officialdom pertaining to
their rank, with the strict precedence and etiquette, and the
ceremonies of the times.
The requirements of the well-to-do households of Delft gave
encouragement to the potter’s art. The Dutch were well acquainted with
the enameled and glazed pottery of Italy and of Spain. Such maiolica
ware undoubtedly inspired experiment. With the importation of the
Chinese blue-and-white porcelain--probably all that came to Europe at
that early period passed first to Holland--the distinctive faience we
know as old Dutch delft came into making, but it assumed distinctive
qualities immediately, differentiating it from either the porcelain of
China or the white-ground wares of Italy and Spain.
Some one once said to me: “I wish I could begin to collect real old
delft, but I am afraid it is so difficult to pass judgment on pieces
that without an expert to turn to constantly I should find my cabinet
full of spurious ware. Mr. Antiqueman tells me it is very difficult to
tell a piece of genuine old delft, unless one has had the years of
experience he has had with it.” Happening to have a slight acquaintance
with this Mr. Antiqueman, I did not find it difficult to understand why
he chose to throw such mystery around the subject. Personally I think
too many antique men lose more than they gain by so zealously guarding
those trade secrets that are no secrets at all.
Once to know old Dutch delft is never to forget it. The knowing of it is
not a difficult matter, once it is explained and one has contact with a
genuine piece as an object-lesson.
In the first place, old Dutch delft is a pottery, not a porcelain.
Pottery is _always_ opaque, while porcelain is always translucent. Break
a pottery object and it will be seen that it was formed of a baked clay
base glazed or enameled over with a substance that has given it a
coating which does not seem to be incorporated in substance with the
base. Break a porcelain object and you will discover that all the way
through it appears of a translucent substance. Old Dutch delft of the
earliest sort was composed of a soft, friable, reddish clay base. Dutch
delft of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had a body base of
yellowish or pale-brown color.
These bases instead of being glazed were coated with an enamel-like
slip. Tin entered into the composition of this coating and this
tin-enamel gave it a surface which I should describe as densely opaque,
with a metallic feel but without the metallic lustre, for instance, of
the maiolica wares of Italy and of Spain. The surface of old delft is
absolutely different from the glazed surface of porcelain, of modern
pottery.
The modern delft of to-day is not to be confused with the old Dutch
delft. The Dutch ware made to-day which passes with the old name is a
glazed ware and not, like the old, an enameled ware. In modern so-called
delft one can see through the glaze. As I have said, old Dutch delft
presents a completely opaque surface.
Just here I should say that in some of the later sorts of old Dutch
delft a glaze was added to the enameled surface, but as the enameled
coating is there, one will readily recognize it beneath the glaze. As
the clay base of old Dutch delft was so soft and friable, the surface of
a piece was entirely coated with the tin-enamel. While it was not
metallic in the sense of having a metallic lustre like the maiolica of
Deruta or of Gubbio, light glinted across the surface of a piece of old
delft reveals a tinny sheen. The surface will prove smooth to the touch,
but it will not feel glassy as does that of a glazed ware.
So friable is old delft that it is prone to crip at the edges, there
revealing the brown body base of the under clay. A drop of strong acid
dropped on the body clay thus exposed will effervesce, since there is
carbonate of lime in the understructure of old delft. This body clay is
so soft that it is easily cut with a knife. This cannot be said of the
English Lambeth delft, which English ware, though inspired by the old
Dutch delft and contemporary with much of it, was of a much harder body
base, denser and more glossy than the Dutch clay. The enamel lay much
more closely and evenly to the body base in old Dutch delft than it did
in the English delft.
Dutch delft rarely crazed in the kiln; English delft often did so and in
consequence its enameled surface came to be glazed to prevent this.
Then one often finds the colors of the decoration of old Dutch delft to
have run--neither under nor over the enamel surface but _into_ the
enamel. This is because the colors were put upon the Dutch delft while
the enamel was still wet and fixed in it during the liquefaction and
fixing of the surface coating in the firing of the piece in the kiln. In
such pieces of English delft as show the colors of their decoration to
have run, it will be seen distinctly that these colors have run upon the
enamel of the surface and not into or with it.
Finally the color of the clay body of the Lambeth delft of England is
buff.
While nature has given us a sense of blue skies, scientists will tell
you that she has been overly sparing with blue in flowers and in bird
life. The Chinese had long placed this color as the first of the five
nominated in their popular traditions. To blue they gave a symbolism
rich and varied. They associated it with the East, for instance, and
again with wood. It is natural that it should have been a favorite color
for the Chinese ceramicist. The palace china of some of the early
Chinese emperors reserved the privilege of blue decoration, a blue, as
an old Chinese writer tells us, as “seen through a rift in the clouds
after rain.” It was not until the sixteenth century that the Chinese
obtained cobalt. This bright and vivid blue made speedy headway as
against the grayer blues that until then had alone been produced by the
Chinese ceramic artist. Cobalt was introduced into China by either the
Jesuits or the Mohammedans; the Chinese themselves named the color
“Moslem Blue.”
The blue-and-white porcelain of China appears to have made a direct
appeal to the Dutch potters. Blue was the earliest color used by them in
their delft decoration. Purple followed, and after that the green,
yellow, brown, and red of the polychrome delft pieces that we know.
We do know how popular the Dutch blue-and-white became. Every year
quantities of it found their way to England. Much of it was sold there
at the Dutch Fair held annually in Yarmouth. King Charles II soon came
to fear the effect on local potteries of the extended importation of
Dutch delft into England and in consequence issued a proclamation
against this commerce, declaring the sale of Dutch delft in England to
be “to the great discouragement of so useful a manufacture so late found
out” at home, presumably by the potters of Lambeth, who naturally would
not be slow in attempting to imitate the Dutch ware so flourishingly in
vogue. Probably Dutch potters had come over to work in the English
ateliers. In the British Museum are interesting examples of English
delft, a particularly fine set of plates having a line of poetry on
each, so that when the six are arranged in proper order they form a
little five-line verse.
CHAPTER XV
EARLY DESK FURNITURE
The appeal of old furniture which has the merit of form, design, and
workmanship of high order is one that is not the reflection of a passing
fad or fancy; it has come to be one of attachment and genuine sincerity.
If it took the greater part of the nineteenth century to teach us the
futility of fixing our affections on exaggerated novelties, such as
those which dimmed the reign of Queen Victoria and boomed the Bunthornes
of the ’eighties, the twentieth century finds us discriminatingly
chastened. We are taking out of our houses, those of us who can, the
pieces of furniture that ought not to have been made, putting into their
places old-time things of beauty, or, when it is not possible for us to
acquire veritable antique pieces, the high-grade reproductions of old
furniture that now grace the market and show no abatement in popular
esteem.
In classifying the hobbies of several thousand collectors who stated
their preferences, I found that a greater number were interested in old
furniture than in any one other subject. This fact is not strange, when
one comes to consider the utilitarian phase. Generally, the collector of
old furniture starts in with the chance possession of two or three
antique bits which, by inspiring interest and appreciation, lead him to
wish to bring the other house furnishings into harmony with the
loveliness of the old pieces. Few collectors of antique furniture, of
course, are without homes of their own, or the modern substitute--the
long-lease apartment. The skill of the modern restorer of old furniture
accomplishes wonders with the battered derelicts of the houses of
yesterday by making the old pieces to shine forth in their glory anew;
all of which lends encouragement to the collector and new zest to his
traditional delight in the “hunt.”
Upon first thought, a collection of desks might seem like a mastodonian
assemblage. So it would be if the collector placed them all in a row or
all in a single room! But the house of to-day can accommodate--indeed,
finds necessary--more than a single desk in its furnishings. And so the
collector of old furniture has another impetus in his search, a
utilitarian one. Under the term “desk” we may include the various
escritoires, bureau-bookcases and the secrétaires. All of these, in
common with our cabinets, tall-boys, and so on, had their origin in the
chest or coffer of the Middle Ages. To the bottom of the chest came to
be added a drawer. Next, side doors instead of a top lid came into
fashion, and in this manner followed the many steps that led to the
development of the piece of furniture we designate, for convenience, the
desk.
It is not possible to tell just when the earliest desks were made. The
desk is a composite affair, combining a cabinet, a bureau, drawers, and
a writing-table. In Ghirlandaio’s painting “Saint Jerome in His
Study”--a work of about 1480, found in the collection of the Ognissanti
in Florence--we see depicted a portable desk of the “schoolmaster” type;
and another painting of the same period and in the same collection, the
“St. Augustine” by Sandro Botticelli, depicts a desk with drawers. In
other paintings by the old masters, and in very early engravings, we see
delineated the various pieces of furniture in contemporary use designed
for writing purposes, as well as others for the account-keeper. All
suggest to us the probable units which combined to produce the
escritoire and the secrétaire of later centuries, and lend interest to
the collector’s enthusiasm for searching out pieces of the sort.
When living was so much less complex in the matter of domestic doings
than it is in our own time, there was far less need of such objects as
desks. Whole families, even of the prosperous classes, could get along
without them very well. Your Mona Lisa of the Renaissance could have
carried her household accounts in her head, and probably did, while the
housewife of the Northern countries had little use for a place to keep
quires or reams of correspondence paper. Nor had they, in all
probability, entered into the sphere of feminine prowess in home-banking
matters that made necessary a writing-bureau sacred to personal command.
The finest examples of the craft of the old master cabinet-makers of the
seventeenth century and the eighteenth were originally produced for
wealthy patrons who paid well for the master’s skill. While such pieces
must naturally be beyond the reach of the collector of moderate
means--except in rare instances where complete ignorance of their value
is combined with a desire to part with them--they are still always
interesting to note, and many of them have been reproduced with
wonderful skill by some of the leading masters of the craft of
furniture-making to-day.
Of course, no reputable dealer will attempt to pass off a modern copy of
anything as an original. At the same time, one may take great pleasure
in acquiring a truly fine copy of a Queen Anne secrétaire or a
Hepplewhite bureau, if it is knowingly purchased as a copy, whereas if
deception is practised, the result must be a disappointment and
discouragement to the owner, however fine the piece.
Unfortunately, all dealers are not reliable and occasionally fraud is
perpetrated in connection with antique furniture. Even the metal
trimmings--knobs, handles, etc.--are given the appearance of antiquity
by all sorts of devices at the command of skilful craftsmen who produce
worm-holes with buck-shot, antiquity with acids, and a worn appearance
with friction.
The general furniture-collector is not likely to come across anything in
the way of a find in a desk of the Renaissance, seventeenth-century, or
even early eighteenth-century Italian periods; nor is he be likely to
meet with the finer pieces of other early continental furniture, as
nearly all of these, if not in public or great private collections
already, would be justly held at a very high price by dealers into whose
stock such pieces might come. However, there are frequent public sales
of old foreign household furnishings, and great bargains may, indeed, be
met with at these. In any event, the collector must cultivate
alertness, decision, and intuition for opportunities to buy--and once in
a while to sell, too!
To the European the name bureau, from its French derivation, is
understood to be associated with writing. In America we connect the term
with a piece of furniture designed to hold articles of clothing in its
various drawers. It was somewhere about the middle of the seventeenth
century that the drawer was added to the lower part of the chest. Later
in the century further drawer capacity was developed, and by the
beginning of the next we find the complete chest of drawers in use. In
view of this we shall not expect to find Jacobean desks, though we may
find cabinets for writing-materials and documents and even occasional
desk-like pieces.
In the William and Mary period (1688-1702) cabinets, secrétaires, and
bureaus came rapidly into use. Simplicity and an unobtrusive elegance
marked the designs of this period. The desks displayed distinct
characteristics which differentiate several groups. In the first
division may be placed the cabinet with bracket (straight) feet or bun
feet; a whole front flap, which when let down displayed the drawers and
the pigeonholes; a top either single-hooded or straight with ovolo
frieze. In the second division we have the bureau-desk with its
slant-top desk-plane. Here we find the taller desk styles, sometimes
with double-hooded tops, with or without vase-shaped finials. The third
division includes the narrow slant-top desks on cup-turned legs, flat
stretchers, and bun feet. The knee-hole desks (desks with the center
portion arranged to permit the knees of the writer to go below the
desk-plane) constitute the fourth division, while a fifth sort of desk
had gate-legs braced by serpentine flat stretchers. The two center legs
(there were six in all), pulled out as a support for the desk-flap when
its plane was let down.
In the William and Mary period and in the Queen Anne period succeeding,
the middle classes had come to a state of education undreamed of in the
time of Elizabeth. Letter-writing, pamphlet-writing, and diary entries
occupied many hours of the day and many candle-lit ones as well. This
scriptorial activity called for more accessories than had been needed
earlier. These newly devised bureau-desks combined solidity and dignity.
They were distinctly architectural in design, with their moldings,
cornices, and broken pediments. _Bombé_ fronts came in with the Dutch
influence. Walnut was the favorite wood employed, either solid or as a
veneer for the wood bases.
The furniture-makers of the time of George I were beginning to find a
demand, and to supply it, for writing-tables with tiers of drawers at
each side of the knee-hole. From about 1720 mahogany entered into
furniture-making extensively. Its use by the American furniture-makers
in the colonies was coincident with, and possibly antedated, lacquer,
which had been the rage and as a fashionable fad continued to hold the
popular favor.
Of course, no writing-furniture is more eagerly sought than that of
Chippendale. There were the writing-tables with bombé fronts, the
bureaus, standing on legs that supported low bases, the bureau-bookcase
style of desk (bureau-desk), the slant-top secrétaires, etc. In American
desks of the period we find the block-front to have been very popular.
The writing-furniture of the brothers Adam exhibited the originality and
excellence common to their other articles. They introduced the more
general use of satinwood and others of the lighter-colored woods, and a
contour of line in design that struck a new note. Painted ornament, too,
was used by them more extensively than ever before it had been used in
English furniture.
With the furniture of Hepplewhite we find the three section bookcase
desk in vogue, and the pull-over top (tambour) which was ancestor to
the modern roll-top. The Hepplewhite desks are in great variety and of
much beauty and practical utility as well. Sheraton included in his
desks all the forms brought into fashion by Hepplewhite or modified by
him. All these various periods were reflected in American desks, some of
them with local modifications and variations.
CHAPTER XVI
CHELSEA
Old Chelsea--with what associations is the name endowed! Hither came the
wits--Smollett, Steele, Swift, Horace Walpole, and others of the
_monde_. Those were the days when Chelsea was still a village of the
eighteenth century, boasting of Ranelagh and its gaieties on the one
hand, and Cremorne Gardens on the other. Here was the manor Henry VIII
had given to Catherine Parr when Chelsea was completely rural; in
Walpole’s time it was just beginning to be truly suburban, while now it
is so integral a part of London that it might long ago have had its
identity swallowed up but for the perpetuation of its literary,
artistic, and historical atmosphere by Carlyle and his circle and by
Whistler and his.
The fifteen years from 1750 to 1765 comprised the period of old
Chelsea’s social heyday, though the aftermath was not without its
distinctly brilliant though somewhat irascible flashes. These were years
demanding fine things for the fashionables. Horace Walpole and others
had stirred up the passion for chinaware and the English porcelain and
pottery-manufacturers were kept busy not only to supply the demand but
to meet the exacting quality of that demand, which called for perfection
in _fabrique_. With this in mind it is not at all strange that some
enterprising potter with a provident eye to business should have decided
on establishing a porcelain factory at Chelsea. Just when this venture
was established, history has neglected to disclose, but it must have
been somewhere around 1740. We do know that the Chelsea porcelain-works
were already celebrated for their wares in 1745. Some students of
ceramics believe a very early date should be assigned to Chelsea
productions. It is even possible that porcelain was being made in the
village as early as 1682, the year in which was begun the old hospital
for invalid soldiers, designed by Sir Christopher Wren. Of course as
Oriental porcelain had been introduced into England some fifty years
before that--in 1631, to be exact--it is likely enough that works for
the purpose of imitating it were established in Chelsea. Horace Walpole
made note of very early “specimens of Chelsea blue-and-white.” Perhaps
these were the sort of crude porcelain which Dr. Martin Lister referred
to in an account of his visit to France, in 1695, wherein he mentions
the superiority of the “Potterie of St. Clou” over the “gomroon ware” of
England, although he observes that the English were “better masters of
the art of painting than the Chineses,” a statement that might have
applied to Chelsea porcelains of the _gomroon_, or imitation Oriental
genre, productions perhaps antedating the native English development in
decoration.
The French manufacturers of 1745 had become concerned over the strides
taken by the English potters and they petitioned, accordingly, for the
privilege of establishing a soft-porcelain factory at Vincennes,
complaining of the competition of English wares of Chelsea. Such early
porcelains as are extant and ascribed to a period coeval with that of
the porcelain of St. Cloud exhibit clumsiness and lack of finish.
Already the village of Chelsea had become well known in the industrial
world through its glass manufactory established there by Venetian
glass-workers under the patronage of the Duke of Buckingham, in 1676. It
may be that the Chelsea pottery was evolved as an outcome of this
experiment, an experiment so successful that Elers joined it in 1720.
The early bits of Chelsea were, almost entirely, copies of Oriental
wares and mainly decorated with Chinese designs. Queen Anne does not
appear to have bothered her head particularly about the Chelsea
porcelain. The Hanoverian Georges paid more attention to it. In their
minds porcelain was too intimately connected with the table to escape
royal patronage. George II especially encouraged the manufactory at
Chelsea. Frederick II had early borrowed and taken from France the art
of porcelain-making and had initiated his several hundred princes in the
mysteries of its allurements. Naturally the Hanoverians were interested
and George II had everything, from models to workmen, brought over in
the hope of rivaling the wares of Sèvres and of Dresden. The Duke of
Cumberland took an especial interest in the Chelsea factory and made it
an annual allowance.
Soon the fame of Chelsea porcelain had become so great that the demand
was far in excess of the supply and the prices soared accordingly. In
1765 contemporary reference informs us that the china of Chelsea was in
such repute “as to be sold by auction, and as a set was purchased as
soon as baked, dealers were surrounding the doors for that purpose.
Watkins in his “Life of Queen Charlotte” writes:
There are several rooms in Buckingham Palace full of curiosities
and valuable moveables, but not ranged in proper order. Among other
things, I beheld with admiration a complete service of Chelsea
china, rich and beautiful in fancy beyond expression. I really
never saw any Dresden near so fine. Her Majesty made a present of
this choice collection to the duke, her brother, a present worthy
of so great a prince.
Indeed, Horace Walpole, in writing to Sir Horace Mann in 1763, had said:
I saw yesterday a magnificent service of Chelsea china, which the
King and Queen are sending to the Duke of Mecklenburg. There are
dishes and plates without number, an epergne, candlestick,
saltcellars, sauceboats, tea and coffee equipage. In short, it is
complete, and cost £1,200.
After the death of the Duke of Cumberland and that of the director of
the works, Nicholas Sprimont, the porcelain of Chelsea declined.
Grosley’s “Tour to London,” as we have it in Nugent’s translation, noted
this. Apropos of earthenware he wrote:
The manufacturers of this sort lately set on foot in the
neighborhood of London have not been able to stand their ground.
That at Chelsea, the most important of all, was just fallen when I
arrived at that capital.
The last proprietors had pleaded in vain for further state protection,
but it was not forthcoming. It closed its doors, while the models,
materials, etc., were carted off to Derby, followed by the forlorn
workmen who witnessed the dissolution.
In Smith’s “Life of Nollekens” we find the following reference to the
porcelain of Chelsea:
The factory stood just below the bridge upon the sight of Lord
Dartery’s house. “My father worked for them at one time,” said
Nollekens. “Yes,” replied Betew, “and Sir James Thornhill designed
for them. Mr. Walpole has at Strawberry Hill half-a-dozen china
plates by Sir James which he bought at Mr. Hogarth’s sale. Paul
Ferg painted for them. The cunning rogues produced very white and
delicate ware, but then they had their clay from China, which when
the Chinese found out, they would not let the captains have any
more for ballast, and the consequence was that the whole concern
failed.”
Nevertheless, although decorated by Sir James Thornhill, these plates
were probably of Dutch _fabrique_, and not Chelsea.
We learn from Faulkner’s “History of Chelsea” that Dr. Johnson
“conceived the notion that he was capable of improving the manufacture
of china. He even applied to the directors of the Chelsea China Works,
and was allowed to bake his compositions in their ovens in Lawrence
Street, Chelsea. He was accordingly accustomed to go down with his
house-keeper, about twice a week, and stayed the whole day, she carrying
a basket of provisions with her.”
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
A Pair of Candlesticks and a Vase, Chelsea, 18th Century]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Cabinet Inset with Wedgwood Jasper Ware Medallions]
One could hardly imagine the good doctor’s adventuring without the
provisions! But alas! the doctor’s mixtures all yielded to the intensity
of the heat, while the clays prepared by the company came forth
irritatingly whole. Faulkner says:
The Doctor retired in disgust, but not in despair, for he
afterwards gave a dissertation on this very subject in his works;
but the overseer (who was still living in the spring of 1814)
assured Mr. Stephens that he (the overseer) was still ignorant of
the nature of the operation. He seemed to think that the Doctor
imagined one single substance was sufficient, while he, on the
other hand, asserted that he always used sixteen; and he must have
had some practice, as he had nearly lost his eyesight by firing
batches of Chine, Chelsea, and Derby, to which the manufacture was
afterward carried.
The collector of old Chelsea will find it rare indeed. But as with so
many things worth while, an occasional find will cause thrills of a
quality scarcely to be compared with the ordinary excitement of coming
upon a bit of commoner ware. As the Chelsea porcelain was of very soft
paste, the pieces do not withstand refiring, in consequence of which it
is not redecorated or patched up as often is the case with many wares.
The color charm of old Chelsea is very definite. Where, for instance, in
any other porcelains, will one find just its own peculiar claret color?
The earliest forms were Oriental, undoubtedly, but the early forms of
Chelsea within the period of its history which is clear to us were
French. Under the Georges, Dresden exerted its influence in form, color,
and decoration. I have seen pieces of Chelsea that appeared comparable
with Royal Sèvres, whose influence was so distinctly in evidence from
1750 to 1765. Especially fine are the pieces which bear the landscape
decorations painted by Beaumont.
The Chelsea figure pieces began to appear about 1750, at least the
earliest mention of them extant is dated about that time. While they
were influenced by the Dresden and by French figurines, they developed
qualities of their own and their greater naturalness and freedom from
affectation at once lends them an unmistakable distinction. Not only
were gentle shepherds, demure shepherdesses, and swains and sweethearts
modeled in old Chelsea porcelain, but portrait busts as well came into
fashion. Field-Marshal Conway, Walpole’s friend, and others intimate
with the master of Strawberry Hill “sat” to Chelsea. The George II
portrait bust is one of the best of the series.
The early figure pieces were usually ungilded. On those that were gilded
the gilt was sparingly used. With the advent of 1760 gorgeous coloring
and a lavish use of gilding came into play. Scent-bottles, cane-handles,
knife-and fork-handles, breloques, bonbonnières, and patch-boxes are a
few of the many things to which Chelsea porcelain lent itself. As to the
texture of the ware, it has already been said that all genuine Chelsea
is of very soft paste, requiring all decoration to be done at one time,
as it could not withstand a second firing. In body it is uneven, the
paste having the effect of poor mixing, as one will see by holding a
piece of Chelsea to the light, when the spots can be detected. The glaze
of the earliest pieces is thick and was applied unevenly. Nearly all
bits of Chelsea porcelain display stilt marks.
A crudely drawn triangle marks the Chelsea ware of the 1745-1751 period.
From 1749 to 1753 inclusive we find the embossed anchor, a raised anchor
upon an embossed oval. Then followed, through 1759, the anchor mark in
red or gold painted on the glaze. Sometimes Chelsea pieces were marked
with two anchors. When the Derby Works acquired the Chelsea manufactory
and continued the Chelsea porcelain for a while, the mark used was a
combination capital letter D and an anchor. From 1773 to 1784 the mark
was a crown over an anchor, or a crown over a D, and a combination D
and anchor. In the early pieces, which were copies of Oriental ones,
various pseudo-oriental marks were used at Chelsea, but nearly all
introduce an anchor-like mark. This anchor was probably suggested by
some early Venetian workman in Chelsea’s first porcelain manufactory.
Fine Chelsea is rare enough to lead one to consider a few good pieces,
even four or five, a “collection.” But whether or not one is a
collector, every lover of beautiful porcelain should know something of
Chelsea’s interesting story.
CHAPTER XVII
WEDGWOOD
The mention of the name Wedgwood naturally suggests to the general
reader those blue-and-white pieces which made famous England’s greatest
potter--Josiah Wedgwood. We picture to ourselves the beautiful vases,
flower-holders, jardinières, tea-pots, cups and saucers, cream-ewers,
and the like, and are not aware, perhaps, that many other ornamental
uses were served by jasper ware (as Wedgwood called this ceramic
product), not only in the blue-and-white, but in yellow-and-white,
green-and-white, lilac-and-white, pink-and-white, and also in some seven
solid body colors. Among these the small cameos in jasper, designed
mainly for settings of jewelry, and the cameo medallions and cameo
plaquettes are of particular interest to the collector of English
earthenware.
While the cameos were mainly of the blue-and-white jasper, there were
also those in other colors and white. The same is true of the larger
cameo medallions and cameo plaquettes, though the color pieces, other
than the blue-and-white, are of great rarity. The cameo medallions had
great vogue for ornamental decorative purposes. Jewel-boxes,
writing-cases, furniture, etc., were decorated with them. An example of
the sort is a drawer-and-chest cabinet in the collections of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In this instance both small cameos
and larger cameo medallions were employed in the decoration.
The cameo medallions and the cameo plaquettes were also in great demand
for architectural embellishments, for setting in mantels, over-mantels,
door-casings, door furniture, etc. The small cameos ranged in size from
one fourth to two and a half inches in diameter. Josiah Wedgwood’s
genius produced many useful and ornamental wares, among them cream ware
(1761) called Queen’s ware from 1765; white stoneware (1759); black
basalt ware (1766); fine white ware (1773-1775); jasper ware
(1775-1795); rosso-antico ware (1776); pearl-lustre ware (1776-1779),
and cane-colored jasper ware (1787). In perfection and fineness the
various colored jasper wares led them all, and the jasper cameos were
hardly surpassed by other pieces in this clay.
As the old firm founded by Josiah Wedgwood has continued in business
uninterruptedly from the eighteenth century, the recently revived modern
Wedgwood cameos which have appeared in some of the most attractive
recent jewelry awaken even a greater interest on the part of the
collector in the study of the old pieces. Beautiful as are the cameos of
modern Wedgwood jasper, those of Josiah’s own period (1775-1795) can
readily be distinguished, not only because of the somewhat less
soft-to-the-feel surface but also because all foreign wares imported
since 1891 are required by the tariff law to be plainly marked with the
designation of the country of their manufacture.
Josiah Wedgwood probably was inspired to experiment with his cameos and
cameo medallions and plaquettes through having come in contact with
James Tassie, celebrated for his copies of engraved gems in sulphur and
in vitreous compositions, some of which Josiah had purchased in 1769.
His fertile brain set to work on the problem of creating cameo
productions from his own ceramic materials. After surmounting untold
obstacles Wedgwood finally achieved complete success in his undertaking.
Immediately there was a great demand for the cameos, by the
manufacturing jewelers of Birmingham and Sheffield (who employed such
artists to mount them as Boulton and Watt), and elsewhere. The
mountings were of gold, of silver, and of cut steel. These last
mountings were the most in demand. This jewelry also became much sought
abroad and the demand in America was great.
The name cameo was first applied by Wedgwood in 1772. Nearly four
hundred and fifty objects were catalogued by 1777. Their best period was
from 1780 to 1795, 1787 being the year when Wedgwood had completely
mastered the art of the jasper cameos and cameo medallions. There were
then one thousand and thirty-two subjects listed--subjects drawn from
Egyptian mythology, Roman and Greek mythology; sacrifices; ancient
philosophers, poets, and orators; sovereigns of Macedonia, the fabulous
age of Greece; the Trojan War; Roman history; masks, Chimaeras;
illustrious moderns, and so on.
Even originally the small cameos were not cheap in price. In wholesale
lots of ten some five shillings apiece was asked for them by Wedgwood.
Unfortunately, all the cameo subjects are not now to be identified
completely, even where given in the old catalogue, as no descriptions
were placed on the subjects sold to the general public to identify them
with the catalogue entries.
Cameos and cameo medallions and plaquettes were made both in solid
jasper and in dip jasper. The former ceramic paste was colored clear
through, while the latter was surface-colored only. Wedgwood employed
some of the most famous designers of his day, among them John Flaxman,
William Hackwood, Roubillac, James Tassie, John Bacon, Thomas Stothard,
Webber, Pacetti, George Stubbs, William Greatback, Davaere, Angelini,
and Dalmazzoni; and such gifted amateurs as Lady Templeton and Lady
Diana Beauclerk drew for him.
The small cameos were fired but once; the large cameo medallions and the
plaquettes were given a second firing. Fine old Wedgwood is as soft as
satin to the touch, and most of it was left with a dull _matt_ surface,
although jasper is capable of receiving a high polish on the lapidary’s
wheel. While some few pieces of Wedgwood were not marked, nearly all of
it was. The collector should be told that many imitated pieces have
borne the name spelled with an _e_ after the _g_, thus: _Wedgewood_. No
genuine Wedgwood, old or modern, bears other spelling of the name than
“Wedgwood.”
CHAPTER XVIII
SAVING THE PIECES
Old porcelain and earthenware, and even old glass, may be skilfully
mended so as almost to pass as whole; and lost parts may be “restored”
to a condition that will leave an object not to be a reproach to one’s
collection. Of course, the collection should entrust such mending and
restoring to the hand of an expert, at least where broken or damaged
pieces are of particular rarity. Probably the famous Portland Vase, now
in the British Museum, is the most remarkable example of mending and
restoring we know of.
This celebrated vase, it will be remembered, was discovered in a
sarcophagus in an ancient tomb not far from the Frascati Road, near
Rome, about the middle of the seventeenth century. From its first
owners, after its discovery, it was known as the Barberini Vase until it
passed from the hands of Sir William Hamilton (who had purchased it for
a thousand pounds) into the possession of the Duchess of Portland.
Thenceforth it was known as the “Portland Vase.”
This vase, which was of a deep, blue-black glass, decorated with
semi-translucent cameo figures of white, cut in relief upon a dark
ground in a truly marvelous manner, was one day dashed to pieces in 1845
by a crank named Lloyd, a visitor to the museum. Fortunately the
hundreds of fragments were immediately gathered up and placed in the
hands of the official restorer, a Mr. Doubleday, who accomplished the
remarkable feat, aided by an engraving of the vase by Cipriani and
Bartolozzi in 1786, and especially by a remarkable copy of the vase
which Josiah Wedgwood had made.
Fifty such copies were originally made for subscribers at fifty guineas
each, and all were disposed of. These first copies are among the rarest
and loveliest examples of Wedgwood’s wares. As the original molds
survived, recent copies have been made, with black and also with
dark-blue grounds. While Wedgwood’s copies were remarkable ceramic
achievements, they may seem to lack the intrinsic beauty of the original
material, but they are pleasing and fine in themselves.
At the sale, in 1786, of the antiques and curios collected by the
Duchess of Portland, her son, then duke, was present in the auction
room as a bidder. Wedgwood was bidding on the Portland Vase and the
price went soaring up. Finally the duke discovered that Wedgwood’s sole
reason for desiring the vase was to reproduce it. On condition that he
was to have one of the copies, free of charge, the duke offered to lend
Wedgwood the treasure if Wedgwood would withdraw from the competition
and allow the duke to bid it in. The matter was amicably arranged, and
the vase was handed to Wedgwood for the purpose stipulated. He himself
wrote:
I cannot sufficiently express my obligation to his Grace, the Duke
of Portland, for his entrusting this inestimable jewel to my care,
and continuing it so long--more than twelve months--in my hands,
without which it would have been impossible to do any tolerate
justice to this rare work of art. I have now some reason to flatter
myself with the hope of producing in a short time a copy which will
not be unworthy the public notice.
Wedgwood is said to have looked upon his copy of the Portland Vase as
his masterpiece.
Those who have been fortunate enough to see the original vase in the
British Museum--where, restored, it is now safely guarded in the Gem
Room--will appreciate how much can be accomplished in the hands of a
skilful mender and restorer, and will realize, too, the value of
“saving the pieces” when accident appears to have destroyed a rare
specimen of pottery, porcelain, or glass.
CHAPTER XIX
LOUNGING FURNITURE
Should any one with a taste for antique furniture also find interest in
old-fashioned verse, he might some day come across Cowper’s lay which
elegantly hints at the evolution of lounging-furniture, culminating in
the development of the delectable sofa. I suppose few read old Cowper
nowadays. I myself confess to no propensity in this direction beyond a
liking for the ballad of “John Gilpin.” Poor, gentle, melancholy Cowper,
who tamed hares for diversion and gave to English poetry of the late
eighteenth century a cast more earnest and more simple than had come to
be its wont before his pen expressed his gift! But Cowper, mild and
quiet though he was, had yet a keen sense of humor. This crept into
certain lines that the lover of antique furniture may enjoy having
brought to his notice:
Ingenious fancy, never better pleased
Than when employed to accommodate the fair,
Heard the sweet moan with pity and devised
The soft SETTEE, one elbow at each end
And in the midst an elbow, it received
United, yet divided, twain at once.
So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne;
And so two citizens who take the air.
Close packed and smiling in a chaise and one,
But relaxation of the languid frame,
By soft recumbency of outstretched limbs,
Was bliss reserved for happier days; so slow
The growth of what is excellent, so hard
To attain perfection in this nether world
Thus, first necessity invented stools,
Convenience next suggested elbow chairs,
And luxury the accomplished SOFA last.
The couch has an ancient and classical ancestry. The Egyptians, the
Greeks, and the Romans utilized it extensively. The settee evolved from
the double chair--love-seat, it was often called--while the
“accomplished” sofa combined, or was supposed to combine, all the
advantages and virtues of couch and settee, not omitting the
attractiveness of the love-seat! An understanding of these relationship
adds not a little to the interest of collecting.
The collector will not concern himself with the couches of the ancients,
but will come within the early English forms of this article of
furniture. The name “day-bed” was earlier used for English couch
furniture of the Jacobean period (1603-1688). The seventeenth-century
day-bed allowed a person to recline comfortably at full length. It was
either laced or caned for cushioning. At one end the head-piece sloped
back. At first this head-piece appears to have been stationary, but no
doubt comfort soon suggested the later movable head-piece--a device more
popular with the English than with the continental makers of day-beds or
couches, as far as I have been able to discover.
In height the best day-beds were slightly lower than chair seats. The
Jacobean pieces have the characteristic carved or turned legs.
Undoubtedly many of these couches found their way to the colonies during
the early period of American history. Captain William Tinge (1653) had
inventoried such a couch, and a cane-bottomed one belonged to the
Bulkelys and is now in the Antiquarian Society, Concord, Massachusetts.
John Cotton (1652) was another early colonial couch-owner, and one might
call attention to many others who made mention of such household objects
in their carefully drawn inventories now preserved to us by the various
antiquarian societies throughout the country.
The couches of the William and Mary period (1688-1702) conformed to the
simpler forms that succeeded the Jacobean carved furniture. Not only
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
16th Century Venetian Glass Covered Cup, Skillfully Restored by an
Expert Mender]
[Illustration: Double Chair-Back Settee, Chippendale, 1735-1750]
[Illustration: Settee, Adam Style]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Sofa of the William and Mary Period]
were the rarer woods employed in their manufacture, but as the couch had
come to be looked upon as a necessity in the cottage as well as in the
mansion, the more ordinary woods were utilized also. Many of these
couches were exported to the American colonies, which, in their turn
copied their forms and otherwise adopted them. Upholstered couches now
began to come more commonly into use than the earlier couches, which
were designed to be fitted with cushioned seats.
During the period of Queen Anne (1702-1714) the houses of the rich were,
as a rule, beset by ultra-decorative fashions and in them luxury was
expressed in much of the furniture as well as in other furnishings.
However, such delightful specimens of the walnut furniture of the period
exist--simple, elegant, and truly beautiful in line--that we may rest
assured that good taste was enjoyed in the homes of the middle classes.
Couches of this period will therefore be found to reflect the extremes.
The cabriole leg, the leading characteristic of Queen Anne furniture,
soon made its appearance in the couch support.
Upholstery became more popular than ever, as enormous quantities of
silks and velvets were being produced during Anne’s reign. Chintzes,
and printed cottons, too, were in demand for couch covers. Lacquered
couches and marqueterie couches were also in vogue during this reign,
but few of these appear to have survived, and such as have are treasured
accordingly.
About 1720--two years after Anne’s death--mahogany came into general use
in furniture-making. Cabinet-makers lost no time in employing this wood
in the making of couches. Seven years after this, Thomas Chippendale and
his father were established in London. In 1749 Chippendale opened his
conduit Street shop in the Longacre section. Here he worked until his
removal to St. Martin’s Lane. A year after, in 1754, he brought out his
famous book, “The Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers’ Director.”
The couches were being supplanted to great extent by the sofa during the
time of the Georges, in which Chippendale lived, but such couches as
remain show the various Chippendale lines. The brothers Adam
(1672-1792), following their taste for Italian things, and designing for
lighter woods and forms, gave more attention to the couch, perhaps, than
Chippendale had done. Unlike the Chippendale couches, the Adam couches
were without the end supports. George Hepplewhite, who died in 1786,
gave to English furniture a well-defined style. The first edition of
“The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide” was published by his widow,
Alice Hepplewhite, in 1788. Hepplewhite, as had the brothers Adam, came
strongly under the influence of the classic. Hepplewhite couches employ
an end such as that which upholstered sofas had suggested. They also
received inspiration from the French furniture of the time. In his book
Hepplewhite gives on Plate XXXII, “Two designs of couches or what the
French call _Péché Mortel_.” It has not been my good fortune to come
across a Sheraton couch in the strict sense of the word, though I
presume such were made by Thomas Sheraton (1750-1806). His
“Cabinet-maker and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book” first appeared in 1791;
but it concerned itself more with settees than with dwelling
particularly on true couch designs.
The couches of the French periods--Louis XIV (1643-1715), Louis XV
(1715-1774), Louis XVI (1774-1793), and the Empire (1792-1830)--all
follow the well-known lines of these Louis Quatorze, Louis Quinze, Louis
Seize, and Empire styles, and it will not be necessary here to go into
detail concerning them. The English and American cabinet-makers of the
years 1792 to 1830 adapted French Empire styles and as a result produced
furniture which we may designate as English Empire or American Empire,
as the case may be.
The settee of the Jacobean period was a development of the double chair
or love-seat. It followed the general styles of the period in legs and
stretchers. The back usually was upholstered. It was not in general use
until walnut had come to supersede oak. For this reason the Jacobean
settees are for greater part of walnut.
The William and Mary period settees found the double chair back in
favor, and comfortable indeed were these settees, many of them being
provided with squab cushions in addition to their upholstered seats,
backs, and ends. The William and Mary settees were somewhat shorter than
the generously long settees of the Jacobean period.
Queen Anne settees were designed with straight backs, these backs doing
away with the double-hoop backs of the settees of the reign that
preceded Anne’s. These backs were considerably lower, and, as with the
couches, the cabriole leg formed a distinctive characteristic. In the
Queen Anne settees of a later time the double back without upholstery
came in again. The seats of these settees were depended upon for
occasional use at the back.
Chippendale’s settees followed the lines of his designs for chairs. His
window-seats did likewise. Colonel Wentworth’s “Chinese Settee” of the
Chippendale style is now in the Ladd House at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Very elegant indeed were the settees and the window-seats of the
brothers Adam. Both coincided in lines with Adam chairs. The
window-seats, though so often following Chippendale forms, were a
refinement of these latter. They were supported by four or by six legs,
usually, though several window-seats of Adam style have eight legs.
These settees bear the characteristic fluting on the front rail.
The Hepplewhite settees are, for the most part, double backs or triple
backs and follow in design the chair styles of this type. A Hepplewhite
settee of 1780 upholstered in silk brocade has the vase detail in the
arm-post and the legs are turned and reeded. Other Hepplewhite settees
were cane-seated and cushioned, and with these squab cushions were used.
Sheraton himself tells us that cane-work as applied to furniture again
came into favor with cabinet-makers about the year 1773. A very fine
Sheraton two-back settee painted with medallions by Angelica Kauffmann
is extant to test the skill of the eighteenth-century furniture-maker in
the reintroduction of the use of cane for seating, and for the backs.
Some of the Sheraton settees were upholstered and some were designed for
cushion coverings.
The settees of the various French periods followed the general
chair-furniture lines in their styles, as did the settees of the English
and the American Empire styles.
“Ingenious fancy” now brings us again to the “accomplished sofa.” The
settees and love-seats of the Jacobeans, and the couches that had long
preceded even them, united in the achievement that Cowper immortalizes
and which no early Victorian novelist could have dispensed with in
creating his “atmosphere.” The sofas of William and Mary and of Queen
Anne were expanded and upholstered settees in effect. Chippendale
devoted much attention to the sofa and came to use rolled-over arms in
the larger one. Several of these are illustrated in his “Gentleman and
Cabinet-Makers’ Director,” already referred to. Plate XXX shows two such
sofas, and that on Plate XXXI is described by him as follows:
A Design of a Sofa for a grand Apartment, and will require a great
Care in the Execution, to make the several Parts come in such a
Manner, that all the Ornaments join without the least Fault; and if
the Embossments all along are rightly managed, and gilt with
burnished Gold, the whole will have a noble Appearance. The Carving
at the Toe is the Emblem of Watchfulness, Assiduity, and Rest. The
Pillows and Cushions must not be omitted, though they are not in
the Design. The Dimensions are nine Feet long without the Scrolls;
the broadest Part of the Seat, from Front to Back, two Feet, six
Inches; the Height of the Back from the Seat, three Feet, six
Inches; and the Height of the Seat one Foot, two Inches, without
Casters. I would advise workmen to make a Model of it at large,
before he begins to execute it.
The Adam sofas closely fall in with the general features of the Adam
style, and the same may be said of the sofas of Hepplewhite and
Sheraton. Hepplewhite in his book tells us that the dimensions of sofas
“should vary according to the size of the room, but the proportion in
general use is, length between 6 and 7 feet; depth about 30 inches;
heighth of the seat frame 14 inches; total in the back, 3 feet 1 inch.
The woodwork should be either Mahogany or japanned to suit the chairs in
the room, and the covering must match that of the chairs.” Four designs
of sofas appear in Hepplewhite’s book. Plate 27 therein shows a
confidante. Of this he says:
This piece of furniture is of French origin, and is in pretty
general request for large and spacious suites of apartments. An
elegant drawing-room with modern furniture is scarce complete
without a confidante; the extent of which may be about 9 feet,
subject to the same regulations as sofas. This piece of furniture
is sometimes so constructed that the ends take away and leave a
regular sofa; the ends may be used as Barjier chairs.
Of the Duchesse sofa Hepplewhite says:
This piece of furniture is also derived from the French. Two
Barjier chairs of proper construction, with a stool in the middle,
form the Duchesse, which is allotted to large and spacious
ante-rooms; the covering may be various as also the framework, and
made from six to eight feet long. The stuffing may be of the round
manner as shown in the drawing, or low-stuffed with a loose squab
or bordered cushion fitted to each part; with a duplicate linen
cover to cover the whole, or each part separately. Confidantes,
sofas and chairs may be stuffed in the same manner.
In the rooms of the Antiquarian Society, Concord, Massachusetts, is a
sofa which once belonged to Samuel Barron and which shows mixed
Hepplewhite and Sheraton characteristics.
In Girard College, Philadelphia, one may see a Sheraton sofa that once
belonged to Stephen Girard, the founder. Sheraton himself describes one
of his own sofas as follows:
A sofa done in white and gold, or japanned. Four loose cushions are
placed at the back. They serve at times for bolsters, being placed
against the arms to loll against. The seat is stuffed up in front
about three inches high above the rail, denoted by the figure of a
sprig running lengthwise; all above that is a squab, which may be
taken off occasionally.
Sheraton also tells of the Turkey sofa “introduced into the most
fashionable homes as a novelty, an invention of the Turkish mode of
sitting. They are, therefore, made very low, scarcely exceeding a foot
to the upper side of the cushion. The frame may be made of beach, and
must be webbed and strained with canvas to support the cushions.”
It would be interesting to go on dwelling upon a subject so rich in
lore, but I fear, so little studied. The author has generously refrained
from the harrowing mention of haircloth, as he imagines there is little
he could add to a subject that all readers are probably too familiar
with already.
CHAPTER XX
SHEFFIELD PLATE
Every one is familiar with the name “Sheffield Plate,” and many have a
vague idea as to what, superficially, marks its distinction; there are
fewer, however, who know its story. It is interesting. A few years prior
to the middle of the eighteenth century--1742 is the generally accepted
date--there lived in a little house on Sycamore Hill in the English town
of Sheffield an ingenious mechanic, Thomas Bolsover by name. His knife,
which had a handle made partly of silver and partly of copper, had been
broken, and one day in a leisure moment Bolsover took it to his attic
room to repair it at the little work-bench he had fixed up there. In the
course of this operation an unusual accident brought about the fusing of
the copper and silver parts of the knife-handle. To Bolsover’s surprise
he found the metals had cohered, forming a copper basis with a surface
of silver.
To a stupid mechanic this would have given rise to no reflection, or
only to futile and passing curiosity. To Bolsover it at once brought
the reflection that a process developed by experiment from the results
of this accident would be of definite utility. In view of the fact that
the value of silver at that time was three times what it is to-day, the
discovery of a substitute for the solid precious metal was of great
commercial importance.
Bolsover was a cutler by trade and steel-working was Sheffield’s chief
industry. So little silver-working had been attempted in the town that
there was not even an assay office there; in fact, one was not
established until some thirty years subsequent to Bolsover’s discovery
and inventions. Although Bolsover was only a struggling workman, he had
the good fortune of interesting a Mr. Pegge of Beauchief, who furnished
him with the capital to set up a manufactory of articles produced by the
new process. Buttons, buckles, snuff-boxes, and knife-handles were
turned out from the new shops on Baker’s Hill. This business Bolsover
conducted in conjunction with one, Joseph Wilson. During this period
Bolsover was probably so concerned with his work and the manufacture of
the small articles mentioned that it never occurred to him that his
process was capable of greater developments. Changing conditions open
new channels that are to be anticipated only by imaginative minds.
Bolsover’s mind was, I think, less imaginative than of a generally
intelligent and practical turn. It was sufficient for him, in all
probability, that he had stumbled on material which would replace silver
in the manufacture of the small articles that appealed to his commercial
instinct.
The middle of the eighteenth century was a period in which only the very
well-to-do could afford articles of silver for household use. The middle
class still contented itself with pewter. It apparently remained for
Joseph Hancock, a brazier who had been in Bolsover’s employ, to realize
the possibilities of Bolsover’s copper rolled-plate process (as it was
then and for a long time afterward called), as a suitable material for
silverware. Hancock produced tea-pots, coffee-pots, candlesticks,
tankards, waiters, and so on.
It may seem strange that neither Bolsover nor Hancock followed the new
industry for long. As astute business men, they might be expected to
have anticipated the vogue that the copper rolled plate was later to
enjoy. On the other hand, I think one should take into consideration the
fact that the well-to-do of the day sought no silver substitutes, and
that on the tables of the middle class such things as epergnes,
bread-baskets, and cake-baskets were hardly to be found before 1750,
while coffee-pots and milk-jugs were rare even in silver, and
tea-kettles and tea-urns even more so. As these various articles came
into more extended use in silver form, they suggested to the immediate
followers of Bolsover and Hancock the greater commercial field that
would open to their manufacture in copper rolled plate. Still the old
Tudor & Leader firm, founded by Dr. Sherburn in 1758 and existing till
1814, a firm advertising “the best wrought silver plate,” devoted most
of its attention to the making of buttons and snuff-boxes.
Authorities generally assign to about 1760 the earliest table pieces,
except those (and they were very few) which Hancock produced. After this
time the copper rolled plate, the manufacture of which Bolsover and
Hancock found less remunerative than the metal rolling business they
entered, developed rapidly. By 1774 there were some sixteen firms
engaged in the hollow-ware making in Sheffield alone, and Boulton had
established a factory for copper rolled plate in Birmingham. We may
assume that Sheffield plate, as the ware came to be called then, became
widely popular, for Ashworth, Ellis, Wilson, and Hawksly opened branches
away from Sheffield--in Paris and in Dublin. There were, of course,
many improvements in Sheffield plate, such as the method of preparing
for and applying the ornamental silver edges which was under the patents
of Mr. Roberts of Roberts & Cadman in 1824.
To another discovery we may credit the decline of the fine copper rolled
plate after 1840. It seems that a medical student, Wright by name,
studying with Dr. Shearman of Rotherham, near Sheffield, discovered a
process of depositing silver on copper by electro-decomposition. He sold
his discovery to Messrs. Elkington in Birmingham, who took out patents,
March 25, 1840. Those who have not studied the matter usually rest under
the impression that Sheffield plate, as collectors know it, is an
electroplated ware. On the contrary, although many of the beautiful
original Sheffield-plate forms have been imitated in electroplated
articles, it is not the latter that hold a collector’s interest.
Moreover, the true Sheffield plate so treasured to-day has the silver
rolled on copper and not on nickel or white metal. I suppose tons of
machine-made copper articles, electroplated, pass to-day with the
unknowing as true Sheffield plate. Such of these as imitate the fine old
forms that have been unsurpassed are certainly preferable to other
modern wares that lack the beauty of form and the traditions of design.
However, the electroplated wares should be declared such, and should not
be fabricated to deceive.
Another point is that the cost of making copper rolled plate is twice
the cost of making electroplate. It is, I think, better for the home
furnisher to pay twice as much for a few excellent things than to have
twice as many inferior ones at the same price. Modern Sheffield
plate--that is to say, the rolled plate of to-day--is nearly all worth
having. The old Sheffield pattern-books and many of the dies for the
forms survived the capricious fortune that for so many years led the
older art to give way to the commercial aspect of electroplate. Now,
electroplating does not wear well unless it is done on nickel; a hard
copper basis, moreover, enhances the beauty of the silver coating, and
brings out a quality which nickel and white metal do not.
As it was not until 1784 that Parliament repealed the act that
prohibited marking plated ware, no Sheffield plate that is genuine is
found with a mark antedating 1784. From 1784, to, say, 1880, Sheffield
plate may bear mark and maker’s name beside it. The firm of W. Green &
Co. was the first to have its mark and name registered for Sheffield
plate; this was September 8, 1784. However, the collector finds pieces
bearing names and marks together very rare. Marks are generally so
inconspicuously placed as often to be missed even when they do occur.
Careful examination is necessary to discover them.
It should be borne in mind that the genuine Sheffield-plate metal
consisted of silver and copper sheets inseparably joined and pressed out
to the required thinness by being run cold through rollers. The metal
was then cut and shaped by hand-hammering into the forms desired.
Electroplated ware consists of a baser metal form already shaped before
being coated with silver in galvanic solution. The possessor of any
pieces of genuine Sheffield plate will subject them to ruin if he is, at
any time, so ill-advised as to have them replated. Such a renovation
will utterly destroy the beauty that intrinsically resides with even
worn pieces of Sheffield plate that show copper traces.
[Illustration: Sheffield Plate Tray and Spoonholder]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Sheffield Plate Teapots and Coffee Pot]
[Illustration: Straw Marqueterie Box, French, 18th Century]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Straw Marqueterie Box, English, 17th Century]
CHAPTER XXI
STRAW MARQUETERIE
On traveling to the Adriatic coast some years ago, I stopped for several
days in a little Italian town not far from Ancona. I suppose few
visitors have ever alighted there; at least that is the impression I got
from the profuse welcome accorded me at the primitive _albergo_ where I
put up. Just why even the slow-creeping trains of the Marche ever
bothered to stop here at all I have yet to determine. With myself I seem
to have established a precedent. No errand other than that of the spirit
took me there. It all happened because, when journeying eastward, I had
asked a fellow-traveler what there was of interest in this town, and,
then, why the train made so short a stop.
“No one ever gets out here,” he explained; “there is nothing to see.”
From that moment my curiosity was aroused, for experience has taught me
that the most interesting places are those which most people find
uninteresting.
One of the things I found in this little town will, perhaps, dear
reader, interest you, and so I will make mention of it as introduction
to my subject. The room to which I was assigned by my host of the inn
was, I have reason to believe, the _chambre de luxe_ of the
country-side. The high beamed ceiling was painted much after the manner
of the great ceiling of the Florentine church of San Miniato al Monte,
although I saw nothing of it all by the flickering candle which lighted
my arrival at this medieval hostelry. In the morning a burst of golden
sunlight awakened me, and in through the windows was wafted the
fragrance of the grape flowers in blossom outside. My sleepy eyes
followed the walls around. And then opened wide on beholding a quaintly
framed canvas of beautiful freshness, the picture of a group of saints.
Jumping out of bed and going over to inspect the painting, I observed on
an old marqueterie secrétaire which stood just below it an array of
curious, golden-hued objects. On closer examination I found some to be
boxes, some jewel-caskets, others yarn-containers, while needle-cases,
frames, book-covers and the like completed this odd assemblage of
curious antiques. Then I discovered that they were all examples of straw
marqueterie, but finer, of them, than any pieces of the sort that ever
before had happened to come to my attention.
I suppose being a collector makes one a discoverer. At any rate, a
discovery it was, and I asked myself how on earth these things happened
to be here. That morning my host explained.
“All these,” said he, “I have been collecting as a hobby for
years--things made by prisoners of war, interesting and worth
preserving. The inlaid straw objects are but part of what I
have--ivories, carved cocoanuts; jewelry, paper models, embroideries,
and so on, all made by prisoners of war, mostly in Italy, I presume, as
I have picked them up here in my own country in traveling around. I
would not part with them for the world!”
This declaration dashed my hopes to the ground, but one can forgive much
in a landlord who collects things more spiritual than rent, and a
landlord in Italy who “travels around” also commands one’s respect for
his ability to be so independent. That is why I listened instead of
bargaining, and in that morning I learned many interesting facts about
my host’s unusual collection. Perhaps there were few kindred collecting
souls in the neighborhood who deigned to listen as sympathetically as I
did or who made no effect to conceal an enthusiasm which these things
awakened within me. At any rate, the amiable innkeeper who would not
part with his treasures for the world proved finally willing to sell a
few of them for considerably less than a hemisphere, which gave me a
chance to weave tales of my own in the years that were to follow.
Dr. John Eliot Hodgkin, F.S.A., a renowned English antiquarian, had a
collection of some eighty pieces of straw marqueterie, a collection
exceeded in extent at that time by two French collection only. Probably
not over a hundred pieces of straw marqueterie are to be found in all
the British museums combined. Dr. Hodgkin’s interesting volumes under
the title of “Rariora” are, unfortunately, out of print. In one of these
he reproduced some of the specimens of straw marqueterie in his own
extensive collection, and the reader who wishes further to interest
himself in the subject is referred to the pages of those erudite tomes,
which he may be fortunate enough to find on the shelves of some of the
more important art libraries in America.
In Europe the earlier centuries brought into existence many small arts
of which we have well nigh forgotten the very existence. It was thus
these straw marqueterie objects of the sixteenth century, the
seventeenth and the eighteenth, objects whose form of decoration is so
rare as to be almost unknown to dealers in antiques and curios. Indeed,
I have failed to find a single specimen of _early_ straw marqueterie in
any shop in America, or to discover any dealer who really knew anything
about it.
This decoration, composed of filaments of colored wheaten or oaten straw
applied to small cabinets, pictorial panels, mirror frames, caskets,
bookbindings, étuis, bonbonnières, plaques, etc., boasts of an early
origin. Possibly it was known in the fifteenth century, but I have not
found any examples that can with reasonable precision be attributed to a
period earlier than the first quarter of the sixteenth century. In
certain instances the straw filaments composing the mosaics or
marqueterie covering of the objects was highly colored originally, but
time has softened and toned them down. The finest specimens of this work
resemble chiseled gold, and nearly all examples of straw marqueterie
show a play of light on the grain of the fabric that produces the most
exquisite effects imaginable, which one must see really to appreciate.
Very crude modern Japanese trays, boxes, etc., are technically akin to
this old marqueterie, but are not worthy to be classed with it or placed
near these rare old European specimens. Indeed, the Oriental
artist-craftsmen have never appeared to grasp a full realization of the
resources of straw as a material for producing the exquisite effects to
which the earlier European workers attained, except in a few instances.
This seems strange, considering the ingenuity of Oriental craftsman. The
European artist-craftsman appears to have developed the art
independently of Oriental suggestion, or at least independently of
Oriental influence.
In all probability straw marqueterie started in a humble way with the
peasantry. The materials for working it out lay at hand without cost,
infinite patience being all that was required, with skill and inherent
taste and a sense of design, which peasant art invariably exhibits.
Probably the early Italians were the first makers of objects in straw
marqueterie and the French were probably the next ones to take it up,
borrowing the art from the Italians.
As no straw-work of this sort is being made in Europe to-day, one can
but venture to guess at the details of the process. Such old volumes as
Barrow’s “Dictionarium Polygraphicum,” and the “Handmaid of the Arts,”
in which one might reasonably look for some hint on the subject, are
strangely neglectful of the matter, which leads to the conclusion that
though straw marqueterie was at one time one of the flourishing small
arts on the Continent, it was less generally known in England. In fact,
nearly all the English work of the sort dates from the eighteenth
century.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum is an ingeniously constructed work-box
of pine, decorated on the outside and the inside with colored straw-work
arranged in panels containing checkers, diagonal lines, and other
devices. The front is fitted with a revolving shutter, behind which is a
panel ornamented in the center with buildings and fitted below with a
small drawer. Below the shutter is a larger drawer, divided into four
lidded compartments, two of the lids being of glass; under this drawer
is another small drawer. At the top of the box is a lid fitted inside
with a mirror and covering two compartments with hinged lids. The word
“HOPE” appears on both the front and the back of the box. There are four
turned bone handles and a lozenge-shaped lock-plate of the same
material.
In the author’s collection is a cabinet of straw marqueterie, measuring
8½ inches in height, 9 inches in breadth, and 4¾ inches in depth.
There is one wide, deep drawer at the bottom, above which six narrower,
shallower drawers are placed in two sections of three each. From the
shape of the handles, the proportion of the cabinet, the quality of the
black lacquer inside finish of the drawers, and the design of the panel
across the bottom, one is led to conclude that this is an uncommon
example of Japanese workmanship.
A number of small boxes with figure subjects, all carefully and
wonderfully worked out in filaments of colored straw, are extant to
attest to the durability of straw marqueterie, which is not nearly so
fragile as its name suggests it to be. Some of these were executed by
French prisoners of war as Norman Cross in 1810.
From times immemorial, I suppose, war prisoners who have not been
enslaved by their captors but have been treated without barbarity have
sought to enlighten their tedium by various sorts of handicraft,
exerting to the utmost their ingenuity in the matter of tools and
materials. To-day the subject is one of immediate interest to us.
Already have art objects made by prisoners of war interned in Holland
and in Switzerland reached us. In time they will come to be as treasured
as the antiques made by the prisoners of war of the Napoleonic period
and of earlier times. To catalogue the variety of such things would
require page after page. Naturally, nearly all such objects are “handy”
in size and one does not look for particularly large specimens of war
prisoners’ art work. One begins to realize, after visiting the
convalescents’ ward of a military hospital, what a blessing to the
soldier some knowledge of an art handicraft may be. I have seen several
marvelous things whittled out of wood by prisoners of war--bone
carvings, beadwork, jewelry--that indicate the godsend the work must be
to the soldier prisoner detained in the enemy’s camp. But of all these
objects I know of none that are more beautiful than those of straw
marqueterie.
I do not know where the art originated. Mr. Hodgkin confessed to a like
hiatus in his knowledge of the subject. However, I have no doubt that
artistic straw inlaying was practised in the Orient at a very early
date. Thence it may have been brought into Europe. I feel sure that it
was known and practised during the period of the Renaissance in Italy,
and I consider the old Italian examples of this craft to be the earliest
European ones.
This early Italian straw marqueterie is distinguished by its golden
hues, suggesting the richness of Venetian paintings. The objects to be
covered by the artist in straw were of various materials, such as wood,
paper, papier-maché, cloth, and occasionally glass, metal, or bone. The
design, pattern, or picture was worked out by pasting filaments and
little sections of straw (stained to various colors) on the surfaces of
the objects to be covered, which were then varnished. The minuteness of
some of this straw-work is extraordinary. It would seem to have
necessitated the use of a glass of high magnifying power as well as to
have required almost super-human patience and ingenuity to put it
together. Moreover, these early pieces in straw marqueterie were so
faithfully fabricated that they have come down to us in excellent
condition.
I imagine the French learned the art of straw marqueterie from their
Italian cousins. I feel sure that the Spanish craftsmen did. At any
rate, French prisoners of war have shown themselves wonderfully
proficient in this art in the past. The French prisoners of the
Napoleonic Wars who were quartered in England were prolific in their
output of this sort. Numerous tea-caddies have I seen from their hands,
here and there preserved in the cottages of the country round about
Peterborough. At near-by Norman Cross was one of the chief camps of the
Napoleonic prisoners of war. We are told that a regular market for the
art wares made by French prisoners at Norman Cross was held daily in the
camp. Perth was another prisoner-of-war concentration center and
contemporary writers tell us that the objects made by the French
prisoners there were of a finer design and quality than like things
produced by the English townsmen, in consequence of which there was
brisk market rivalry. At Dartmoor, Stapleton, Liverpool, and Greenland
Valleyfield the French war prisoners exhibited their skill. At the
Liverpool prison they constructed little straw marqueterie cases to
contain miniature ships and like articles.
What stories the objects of straw marqueterie made by prisoners of war
could tell could they but speak! What silent testimonies of grit,
patience, and fortitude! But perhaps we may be glad that we do not know
all they might tell, for to-day has sorrow enough and we should be
grateful that time has been kind enough to leave us just the beauty and
not the life details of these objects from the hands of those who
suffered in the yesterdays of other wars.
CHAPTER XXII
CONSOLES
At first thought it would appear both ambitious and somewhat
futile--this hobby of collecting consoles. But that depends on how you
consider collecting in general; on whether you realize that you may make
a collection of purely practical objects or of curios with uncertain
decorative value. For both of these are prized by the collector. Thus,
one might not be inclined to consider house furnishings as collections
at all. But when some order enters into their selection and arrangement,
they virtually become collections, just as, on the other hand, an
aggregation of medals, a cabinet of jade, or a chest of Georgian silver
can be made to play a decorative rôle in the house when well placed. It
would, of course, be absurd to expect a cottage to provide the proper
setting for Louis XIV consoles, but just how lovely some of the Adam
console tables appear in the home of moderate aspects can well be
understood.
The use of the term console in this connection has been a matter of
some dispute. It is reasonable to suppose that it was borrowed, because
of the bracket supports--as distinguished from tables with four
legs--from the French architectural term _console_, a bracket support.
Since the idea came from the French, we must expect to find some of the
earliest and most beautiful consoles in French period furniture. Some of
the most notable ones are to be found in the great museums of America.
Fortunate it is that these are available for public study; for many
modern furniture-makers have been able to reproduce with fidelity the
designs of these wonderful consoles. Collectors, of course, do not
primarily seek reproductions, but many of the foremost among them
realize that where originals are not obtainable, unusually fine
reproductions are to be welcomed. The desirability lies not only in age
but in intrinsic beauty. I for one believe that much pleasure can be had
from the possession of fine reproductions of certain things, consoles
among them.
Genuine antiques are the things we naturally strive for first of all,
and consoles present a field that is, as yet, by no means prohibitive,
even for the moderately filled purse. To be sure, the rare French
consoles of the early Louis periods are not to be had at every turn (the
war has rendered them still rarer), but there are English consoles and
console tables and others by early American furniture-makers that are
surely worth hunting out. Their appropriateness to the scheme of the
small house commends their preservation and insures a revival of
interest in their modern use.
Virtually all of the eighteenth-century furniture-makers constructed
console tables. Gilded furniture in all its gorgeousness found favor in
England shortly before 1720, and the consoles and console tables were
unusually well adapted to finish and decoration of the sort that
suggested the magnificence of Louis XIV and, later on, the elegance and
richness of Louis XV. During the Empire period some were elaborately
decorated in white and gold. With the advent of the Napoleonic era, the
console and the console table still held sway. Indeed, I do not think
they have ever lost favor, and the last few years have seen a remarkable
increase of interest in both furniture forms on the part of decorators
and collectors of fine old furniture. Moreover, the console has not only
interested but influenced many of our present-day architects.
The console and the console table are by no means confined to the
furniture-makers of France, Great Britain, and America. We find both
forms in early eighteenth-century Italian furniture, and in Spain,
Austria, Germany, and Russia one also comes across types of consoles
that, dependent as they nearly always are on French models, still
exhibit occasional variations in design that link them to the art
traditions of the land of their manufacture.
Formal apartments and the smaller reception rooms of the
eighteenth-century houses of more or less pretension came to feel the
need of what one furniture-lover aptly called “a table that was not a
table.” In fact, Sheraton insisted that “portables,” as he called
consoles, were indispensable in the drawing-room. Marble shelves the
width of small--and sometimes, indeed, of very large--tables were
supported by brackets along the wall, bringing the shelf to the height
of a table top. In earlier examples the bold florid and exaggerated
types in soft wood, carved and gilded, often carried decoration to
extremes. The consoles found place beneath great mirrors and,
occasionally, beneath large paintings, tapestries, and the like.
In early consoles there was great variety in their supporting brackets,
the motifs of ornament being taken from flowers, foliage, parts of the
human form, animal and bird forms, rococo vagaries, and so on. During
the Empire the eagle came to be popularly employed as a console support
by the French furniture-designers of the time. In the collection of the
Duke of Beaufort are a number of the finest examples of the eagle
consoles. There are also some fine examples in the state dining-room of
the White House. Before long the earliest forms of console supports gave
way to more extensive supports and finally these reached the floor, as
in those consoles which have the cabriole form of support.
Sideboards were unknown during the first part of the eighteenth century,
but when the console table was introduced into England, it rapidly
developed from the French idea of the luxurious console for ornament’s
sake into the generous console table for utility’s sake, which we soon
find in the English dining-rooms. It did not take long for this to
suggest the sideboard.
Reference has already been made to the interest in consoles on the part
of the architects of to-day. This brings to mind the fine console tables
of the brothers Adam--pieces which the collector will do well to acquire
whenever the opportunity presents itself--for Robert Adam was an
architect who designed furniture but was not himself a cabinet-maker,
though his influence on the classical taste in the furniture of the late
eighteenth century was
[Illustration: French Console, Louis XIV Period]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
French Console, Louis XV Period]
[Illustration: Sèvres White Bisque
Statuette of Voltaire]
[Illustration: Sèvres White Bisque
Bust of Franklin]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
A Pair of Sèvres Porcelain Covered Vases]
decided. Robert Adam made exhaustive researches in France and Italy and
reached as far as Spalato in Dalmatia, whither his interest in classic
design took him.
In finding a place for the console in the modern house, it is well to
remember its original use. Under a long mirror in the drawing-room was
where it was generally placed, the tables being used in pairs to effect
a studied balance. It can be advantageously placed in the hallway, where
its dignity will add to the character of the entrance and at the same
time take up but little room. In dining-rooms consoles are arranged to
serve as sideboards. The type of console will naturally determine the
type of mirror or decoration suitable to hang above it, all of which the
furniture-collector should bear in mind.
CHAPTER XXIII
SÈVRES PORCELAIN
There is no continental porcelain better known by name to every one than
the French porcelain of Sèvres. Nevertheless, fewer chance collectors
and lovers of old china appear to know as much about it as they do about
old Worcester, Derby, Chelsea, or Dresden. Over fifty marks for Sèvres,
nearly two hundred and fifty marks of painters, decorators, and gilders
of the Sèvres manufactory, as well as over thirty-five of the marks of
some of the modelers are known. The principal marks of fabrication from
1753 to the present number some thirty-five. From this it will be seen
that Sèvres forms a group in the history of ceramic art that requires
some study to master its _minutiæ_ and the _indicia_ that will enable
the collector to pass intelligent judgment on pieces that come to his
notice. While it is true that the collecting of Sèvres can hardly be a
“poor man’s hobby,” it also is true that knowing something about even a
single piece in one’s general collection of old china, or of less
specialized antiques and curios, justifies giving attention to the
ramifications of the particular phase of the subject that may, for the
moment, more definitely apply to the piece in hand. Thus if one
possesses a bit of modern Sèvres of fine quality, the interest of that
possession cannot but be intensified by a knowledge of earlier examples
of the fabrique to which it is allied.
Fatal improvements have often marked the progress of the arts. It was so
with that of the Royal Porcelain of Sèvres. The early pieces were of
soft paste, but in 1804 the director, Monsieur Brogniart, was so pleased
with the introduction of the hard paste instead that he utterly banished
the soft paste, going so far as to destroy the secret formula for its
making, and burying alive, as one might say, all the soft-paste material
then on hand in the Parc de Versailles! Poor, deluded mortal! Probably
he died unaware of having murdered the Sèvres porcelain of the finest
type! Thus one begins to understand why the examples of the pâte tendre
of the year 1753 through to the change for the hard pâte are so rare and
so highly prized.
By old Sèvres we comprehend the pieces made from 1753 to 1804. This is
the true _vieux Sèvres_. From 1753 to 1777 inclusive the letters of the
alphabet, singly, from A to Z, (W omitted), indicate the years of
manufacture. The year letters were placed between the two script L’s
(one reversed). The letters A, B, and C indicate the pieces made at
Vincennes (the original site of the manufactory) in 1753, 1754, and 1755
respectively, while the year of the removal of the manufactory to
Sèvres, near St. Cloud, 1756, is indicated by the letter D between the
double L’s. The L’s, of course, stood for the royal cipher of Louis XV,
the first year, and then of Louis XVI of France from 1754 to September,
1792, when the French Republic was proclaimed and R.F. in monogram or in
capital letters took its place.
In the study of any porcelain pieces the _amateur_ should acquaint
himself with the difference between soft and hard porcelain of any sort.
The eighteenth-century porcelain has a soft, velvety “feel,” the glaze
not being so glassy as that of hard porcelain. A pen-knife can cause
abrasion on soft-paste porcelain, while hard paste will nearly always
repel even the pressure of a steel point drawn over it. With soft paste
one can see through the glaze, as it were; with hard paste one cannot.
The enamel of the soft paste of Sèvres presents a delicate, milky glaze,
exquisitely distinctive. The colors, too, show forth with velvety
freshness. _Bleu du roi_--king’s blue--is the name given the cobalt blue
of the decoration; _turquoise_ designates the sky-blue which dates from
1752, when Helbot first compounded it; _rose Pompadour_ and _rose
Dubarry_ are the names given the reds during the domination of those
court favorites; _violet pensée_, the name for the pansy color; _jaune
clair_, the name for the pale yellow (_jonquille_ was as often used);
_vert pomme_ and _vert jaune_ designated the apple-green, while _vert
anglais_ and _vert pré_ was applied to the color we term grass-green.
There is also a velvety “feel” about the unenameled portions of
porcelain, owing to its fine texture, which distinguishes it from hard
porcelain. Looked at obliquely against the light so that a portion of
the white surface and a portion of the painted surface equally receive a
beam, there appear no differences in surfaces. With a soft porcelain the
enamel seems so to incorporate with the soft paste as to present a
surface of identical substance. Hard porcelain will exhibit a distinct
difference in the lustre of the white surface and in the colored glazed
surface. The color surface will invariably appear less brilliant.
In Sèvres porcelain of the first period the white ground predominates.
The flowers and wreathes, etc., are delicately scattered over but do not
crowd the white field. In later pieces the decorations came by degree to
be the more assertive. Likewise, more gilding was employed. After 1770
portraits came into the decoration, and the designs of the Louis Quinze
and those of the Louis Quatorze periods were superseded by designs which
followed more along Egyptian and Etruscan lines. With the soft porcelain
of Sèvres very large pieces could not be produced, but of the later
hard-paste porcelain huge vases were often fabricated, marvels indeed of
ceramic skill, though seldom as artistic and perfect in technical
qualities.
The bisque statuettes of early Sèvres eagerly sought by museums and
collectors are one of the interesting phases of this manufacture, though
these objects scarcely can be said to approach those of Saxony. Their
manufacture at Sèvres was almost given up after 1777. We have, however,
from our own day, the much-treasured statuettes modeled for Sèvres by
modern sculptors, among whom was the late Auguste Rodin.
From 1778 to 1792, inclusive, the year mark was indicated by the double
letters AA to OO, within the interlaced L’s. During the period of the
First Republic (1792-1804) the mark was, first, the interlaced F.R. (for
_République Française_), then the letters R.F. with the word “Sèvres”
below (“Sèvres” being written with or without the accent mark), or just
the word “Sèvres,” and finally in the Consular period of this epoch
“MNle” over the word “Sèvres” (from 1803-1804). The years IX (1801),
X (1802), and XI (1803) were designated by “T^{9},” “X,” and “II” in
addition.
The mark of the first imperial epoch (1804-1814) was “M. Imple” over
“de Sèvres,” two ornamental strokes below without accent mark, and then,
later, the imperial eagle crowned with the legend, “_Manufacture
Imperiale. Sevres_,” without accent mark (1810). The years XII (1804),
XIII (1805) and XIV (1806) were marked by distinguishing symbols (1804
by two horizontal dashes, a dot above and one below; 1805 by two short
lines aslant, a horizontal dash to the left and one to the right; the
year 1806 by a mark resembling the prong of a trident, point upward).
The Sèvres marks of the second royal epoch consisted of the restored
interlaced L’s of Louis XVIII and the fleur-de-lys between (1814-1823);
of the interlaced C’s of Charles X, with the X between, or the
fleur-de-lys or without (1824-1829); of just the fleur-de-lys (August
30th to December, 1830) and other marks in circles (1831-1834) and the
cipher L.P. of Louis Philippe (1834-1848).
With the advent of the second republican epoch, 1848-1851, the “R.F.”
was restored, only to be displaced by the imperial eagle (1852) with the
letter S to left and “52” to the right of the eagle, and the crowned N
of 1854 of the second imperial epoch (1852-1872), with the letter S to
left and the year numeral to right of the N. The Third Republic brought
back the “R.F.” again, followed by other marks, the one introduced in
1888 showing a potter at work, the whole within a double circle bearing
the legend _Nationale Sèvres Manufacture_. From 1817 date marks were
designated by the last two numerals of the year number only, as the date
1807, 1808, 1809, and 1810 had been designated by 7, 8, 9, and 10. The
years 1811 to 1817, inclusive, had been designated by the small letters
o.z, d.z, t.z, q.z, q.n, s.z, and d.s, standing, respectively, for the
French _onze_, _douze_, _treize_, _quatorze_, _quize_, _seize_, and
_dix-sept_.
The output of the Sèvres works in recent years has been very small, that
institution having become a place for the education and training of
French potters who will carry on the Sèvres traditions in other lines
of their work. Such examples as are being made to-day take the form of
presentation sets of ware especially designed and made as a gift to a
potentate, a diplomat, or as a token of the French Government’s regard
on such occasions as the marriage of a princess or a president’s
daughter. Various quantities of it have been brought to this country at
the time of expositions, and much of that has passed into the hands of
the American collectors. It is still possible to pick up here and there
good pieces that are genuine and thoroughly worth while.
Notwithstanding the advanced collector’s greater eagerness to collect
Sèvres of the pâte-tendre period, later Sèvres is an alluring,
interesting, entertaining, and possible field for the collector to enter
without discouragement, and the pieces of this later fabrique well
deserve a place in the cabinet or as a decorative feature in the home of
good taste.
CHAPTER XXIV
EUROPEAN ENAMELS
While it is true that few collectors of the present day can aspire to
any goodly number of really fine examples of European enamels, the
subject is nevertheless one of great interest, and the author believes
there are many who will find pleasure in a study of the enamels of
European fabrication, particularly those objects familiarly known as
Limoges enamels but more properly to be called painted enamels to
distinguish them from the cloisonné and the champlevé enamels. It may be
well to indicate here the characteristics of the several groups.
_Cloisonné_: As early as the time of the ancients it was found that to
prevent the running together of molten glass enamels, little boundaries
of metal wire could be devised for soldering on to the metal base to
mark the divisions of the pattern, or merely to bound areas, thus
forming a number of diminutive shallow “pans,” into which the melted
flux expanded, and when cooled and polished revealed a surface level
with the height of the wire cloisons, giving them the appearance of
being metal wires that had been imbedded in the glass. Gold, being
neutral to every known color, is the harmonizer paramount, and thus when
gold cloisons were used, the various colors were knit together into
esthetically pleasing surfaces. The little metal threads running through
modern Japanese enamels are such cloisons. Cloisonné enamel is the
earliest sort of true enamel known to us. It was the favorite Byzantine
process, and also that of the Greeks, the Anglo-Saxons, the Chinese, and
later of the Japanese and the Russians.
_Relief Cloisonné._ This term is used to designate those pieces wherein
the enamel either is below or above the tops of the cloisons, or where
only certain cloisons enclose enamel, or a combination of the three
sorts, giving to the surface of an object completed in this manner an
interesting uneven ground of smooth but unpolished enamel. The cloisons
of much of this work, especially the Hungarian and the Russian, are of
filigree wire, or twisted wire, instead of flat wire such as was used
for this purpose by Byzantine craftsmen.
_Champlevé._ This is the name given to the process of gouging out of a
field (_champ_) of metal a number of hollows (_lévées_) or “ditches”
for the pattern, in which cut-out depressions the vitreous color is
fused and becomes enamel. It is akin to the ancient Egyptian method of
scooping out surfaces in gold, soapstone, wool, and other materials,
inserting therein bits of colored glass. Had the Egyptians practised
true enameling, doubtless their process would have begun with champlevé,
for they did not anticipate the Greek goldsmiths, who worked patterns on
gold in cloisons long before they had any idea of applying vitreous
color thereto. Indeed, the early Greeks and the Etruscans were
wonderfully skilful at soldering gold. This champlevé process might be
termed Gothic, succeeding in introduction though not superseding the
Byzantine cloisonné. However, centuries before Byzantine or Gothic works
appeared, the Celts produced champlevé enamels.
_Repoussé._ This term is applied to the base of those objects wherein
the ornament is beaten out, in silhouette as it were, in the metal and
the details marked by cloisons let in. Much of this work is easily
mistaken for champlevé, but where the pattern is scooped out in
champlevé, it is beaten out in repoussé. One who has visited the
treasury of St. Mark’s in Venice will recall that the plaquettes from a
Gospel cover to be found there were executed in repoussé--the pattern
simply hammered in the silver, which afterward was filled with
translucent enamel. In Oriental repoussé work the metal divisions
between the fields of enamel are beaten up, the reverse of the process
just described. In modern Chinese enamel-work the repoussé process has
superseded champlevé for effects of the sort.
_Basse Taille._ This is the process of engraving the ground, which is to
receive translucent enamel, so that the lines made by the graver will
show up through the translucent vitrified coating and produce a greater
play of light, or define patterns, the veining of leaves, the marking of
petals, the lines of draperies, etc. The French enamelers of the
eighteenth century habitually employed the process, and Indian enamelers
preceded them by at least a century, while its invention is ascribed to
an Italian, John of Pisa, in 1286. This chasing or engraving upon gold
or silver for the purpose of showing graduation in the vitreous color to
be applied is akin to champlevé.
_Plique à Jour._ Enamels of this sort consist of certain screen-like
objects in filigree with their unbacked cloison divisions filled up with
translucent enamel. _Plique à Jour_ enamel may be compared to
stained-glass windows, the principle being the same, only carried out on
a miniature scale. An excellent example of this is a fifteenth-century
cup in the Victoria and Albert Museum, while the Crown of St. Stephen,
dating from 1072 A.D., would appear to be the earliest known work of the
sort that has survived. The Russians of the nineteenth century so
perfected the process that _plique à jour_ enamel is often called
Russian enamel. Doubtless the forming of cups, caskets, and other
precious objects of gems in unbacked mosaic suggested the style, and the
jeweled cup of Chosroes to be seen in the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris,
may well be considered a forerunner of it.
_Encrusted Enamel._ This may be defined as enamel used to enrich raised
and modeled gold-work where this vitreous color is neither entrenched,
as in cloisonné or in champlevé, nor painted, like Limoges work, on a
flat field. The craftsmen of the Renaissance, both in Italy and in
France, produced exquisite jewels of encrusted enamel, imitated by the
Florentine jewelers of to-day who display their wares along the shops of
the Ponte Vecchio. Painted enamels in this group may be sub-divided as
follows:
(A) Those works which have vitreous colors added here and there to
subdue, to correct, or to outline and decorate enamel surfaces, such as
the pale yellows added to soften glaring whites, red to restore a color
unsuccessful in the firing, outlines of plants and other forms and
inscriptions. Used in combination with both cloisonné and champlevé, and
later to add further decorations to basse taille surfaces.
(B) Those works painted with successive firings of translucent or
transparent colored enamels over a primary enamel ground that first has
been fused to its metal field of gold, silver, or copper. Limoges
enamels of this sort, whether in color or in grisaille (gray), as also
are the much-neglected enamels known as Venetian enamels.
* * * * *
So much for the general broad divisions of enamels, though it must be
borne in mind that there was often employed in the working out of a
single object more than a single process. As color plays so important a
part in the evolution of the history of enamels, the following table may
prove useful to the collector as determining the more important colors
of the enameler’s palette at different periods in the history of the
art:
COLORS AND PERIODS
_Greek Work._ The colors used by the Greeks were opaque white,
blue, and green.
_Barbaric Work._ British, Gallic, Celtic, and Roman-Provincial
enamelers used scarlet, cobalt blue, dark green, yellows through
light shades to orange and to ochre; white, black, and possibly
turquoise.
_Early Byzantine Work_ employed opaque scarlet, coral, white,
black, and translucent sapphire blue, emerald, green, ruby red, and
manganese violet.
_Later Byzantine Work._ Added to the above colors, toward the
eleventh century, cobalt blue and turquoise, pale yellow, and a
flesh tint.
_Early Limoges Work_ relied upon blue, green, red, with purple and
iron gray, and the lighter half-tones known before the twelfth
century.
_Later Limoges Work._ Its full palette is composed of deep blue to
lapis blue and light blue; scarlet, a red approaching chocolate,
green, greenish yellow, white, and a semi-translucent manganese
purple. In thirteenth-century work blue is the dominating color.
The twelfth-century translucent colors give way to the consistent
use of opaque ones in the years following.
_Germanic Work._ This contains less cobalt blue, but employes the
colors of the Limoges workers, introducing, however, a great deal
of turquoise and much more green and pale yellow than the French
enamelers used. The German enamelers were fond of black, also.
Nearly every writer upon enamels quotes the convenient commendation of
the Greek sophist, Philostratus, who went to Rome in the reign of the
Emperor Severus, about 200 A.D., to teach rhetoric. In the description
of a boar hunt in his “Icones,” wherein he describes the trappings of
the horses of the barbarians (Gauls or Britons), Philostratus writes:
“For the barbarians of the region of the ocean [islanders?] are skilled,
as it is said, in fusing colors upon heated brass [copper?] which become
as hard as stone and render the ornament thus produced durable.” The
Romans in Italy knew nothing of such things. Labarte and other
authorities would have it that this passage refers to Gallo-Roman work,
though such is rarely to be met with; while others claim for it
reference to the work of British craftsmen, perhaps under
design-influence of the Romans. Probably enameling was known to the
Celts and to the Britons independent of Roman occupation. Certainly the
Scoto-Celtic and the Britanno-Celtic tendency in design has little in
common with that of the ancient civilized world of Greece, of Rome, or
of Egypt. It is just possible the ingenious Celts invented champlevé.
With the rise of the Eastern Empire in the fourth century A.D., with its
capital at Byzantium, came in that style of art known to us as the
Byzantine, just as the North Italians produced the Lombardic style and
western Europe the Gothic. Byzantine enamel was rigid and conventional
in design but highly decorative and symbolical. At first the direct
influence of Greek and Roman art affected their pictorial
representations, as we see Christus in earlier work depicted as a
clean-shaven, beautiful young man, an ideal that soon gave way to the
sad representation of the Man of Sorrows. From the tenth century on,
Byzantine ecclesiastical art was barren of invention. With the waning of
the empire in 1057, the art of the Byzantine enamelers declined, and
that of the Italians and the western Europeans blossomed forth
untrammeled by stiff convention. Lombardic architecture and Gothic
carving had helped to pave the way for the broader art of the Middle
Ages, which no longer confined itself to cloisonné but began to put
forth champlevé enamels of great beauty likewise. Indeed, in Gothic
times western craftsmen rarely made use of cloisonné except for personal
ornaments and jewelry. The famous “Lindauer Evangeliar,” one of the
chief treasures collected by the late J. Pierpont Morgan, exhibits upon
its covers superb examples of early enameling.
With the revival of classical learning which brought about the
Renaissance, and the subsequent development of secular thought, art
ceased to be what it had been throughout the Middle Ages--merely the
handmaid of the church. No longer did the enamelers, Byzantine, Gothic,
or Lombardic, work solely to adorn religious works; and ecclesiastical
design broadened into secular application, a return of classical usages
to a heritage of beauty and unrestraint from which, for some centuries,
art had been kept by ecclesiasticism. By the twelfth century the art was
well established to Cologne, Trèves, Huy, Maestricht, and Verdun, thence
traveling perhaps to Paris. Limoges and the Rhenish provinces of France
became prolific in champlevé enamels by the end of the twelfth century.
It is to 1189 A.D. that the earliest known enamels of Limoges are
ascribed. There an enormous quantity of work, good, bad, and
indifferent, was turned out during the thirteenth century, an art
turning to a trade thereafter, and declining to neglect in the
fourteenth, and then going out of fashion altogether.
However, toward the end of the fifteenth century the public in general
had broken through Byzantine, Gothic, and Lombardic esthetic domination
and breathed the clearer air of the Renaissance, becoming imbued with a
desire for gentler, more beautiful things; and the old town of Limoges,
ever awake to the commerce of demand, again started up her enameling
ovens and went at the art with renewed vigor, retaining a supremacy that
has handed down to us priceless treasures of the sort, exquisite and
satisfying. This fine style may be said to date from 1530 to 1580 (being
preceded by the early style 1475-1530), followed by a minute style,
1580-1630 preceding the decadence that dated from 1630 to the close of
the manufactory in the eighteenth century.
Limoges enamels immediately bring to mind the names of such great
artists in enamels as the Pénicauds, Courtoys, Limousin, Raymond, Martin
Didier and Jean Court, dit Vigier, and in the decline Jean Laudin.
The painted enamels of the early style are executed with much white
painting over purplish-brown grounds, the figures bearing strong
resemblance to the Flemish type. The coloring in these examples is very
beautiful. The painted enamels of the fine style exhibit the great
advance achieved by draftsmen under Italian influence. The glazes are
finer and the finishing process a more careful one. At this period
painting in grisaille became popular. By this term is meant monochrome
painting in enamel the light being worked up over a dark
[Illustration: Oval Dish by Bernard Palissy, 1510-1589]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Lumières by Bernard Palissy, 1540-1590]
[Illustration: Limoges Enamel Covered Cup Attributed to Pierre Raymond]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art._
Champlevé Enamel Casket, French, 13th Century]
ground, stage by stage, in white, leaving the chiaroscuro to be
determined by the effect of the ground showing through. Shading was
often further emphasized by black lines or hatchings. The resulting gray
tone gives the style its name. Later, relief from the monotony of gray
was found by the addition of one or two tints, such as flesh tint, as
may be seen in the work of Jean Pénicaud, Pierre Raymond, and Léonard
Limousin. Perhaps Pierre Raymond distinguishes himself as exhibiting the
finest color sense, though he may not have possessed Léonard Limousin’s
qualities of bold and direct handling. This latter artist, who worked
from 1532 to 1574 and advertised himself in a little panel introduced
into one of his works as “Enameller and Painter to the Chamber of the
King,” was a consummate portraitist, and executed some splendid
portraits in enamel. Any one who is acquainted with Italian faience will
be struck by the relationships in effect between maiolica ware and
Limoges enamels.
After Jean Limousin, descendant of the great Léonard, and his school,
enameling as a truly fine art began to die out at Limoges, in 1610.
Colin, Martin, Poncet, Laudin, and the Noalhers carried on the work, but
Jean Limousin stood shoulders above them all. Toutin introduced
enamel-painting on gold in 1732 and the products became daintily and
insipidly delicate, quite in the taste of Louis XIV and his successors,
until at last enameling became little better than a rivaling imitation
of china-painting.
CHAPTER XXV
THE ROMANCE OF A POTTER: BERNARD PALISSY
Far better it is that one man or a small number of men should make their
profit from some art by living honestly, than that a large number of men
should struggle, one against the other, so that they cannot gain a
livelihood save by profaning the arts, leaving things half done. So said
Master Bernard Palissy, born some four hundred years ago--in 1510, to be
exact--near Château Biron in Périgord, France.
Where in the whole history of the arts will a more interesting figure be
found? His was not the swashbuckling career of a Cellini; nevertheless
the serious-minded would not exchange him for the volatile Italian who
seemed ever and anon to be swallowing diamond dust or crossing a
cardinal for copy. Palissy’s was romance of a different sort, but
romance of a fine type.
I have often wondered why we of to-day have almost forgotten about
Master Bernard, Master Bernard whom the readers of our grandmothers’
generation immortalized. I suppose the cultivated virtue of novelty
which in this restless era demands incessant changing of school-books
from term to term failed to bring old Palissy along with it. In earlier
days it was part and parcel of one’s polite education to know something
of Master Bernard, at least to know that there had once lived such a
person. In those less curriculumed yesterdays the story of Palissy the
Potter was always a welcome one. Perhaps we ourselves have merely
overlooked the matter, and so I make here this venture, believing time
has intended no slight to Master Bernard’s memory.
How well I recall a certain lower shelf in a library which regaled a
rainy autumn day in my tender years! There were treasures here
convenient to the hand of one aged nine, treasures fitting the
advancement of learning laboriously attained under the unflinching
persistence of an all-too-faithful governess. In this sanctuary I
chanced in childhood to come upon a tiny octavo bound in blue, stamped
with gilt morning-glories, morning-glories such as I have always
associated, for some unexplained reason, with the long-late Prince
Albert and the equally long-late Lucy Larcom! Within the covers of this
little book was a highly embellished frontispiece, hand-stenciled in
colors of saffron, scarlet, and azure, with an overwhelmingly deep dash
of bottle-green. I imagine this volume emerged from the press at a time
when aniline dyes self-proclaimed their advent to the mediocrity of the
day. Beyond that I do not venture a date.
This giddy frontispiece seemed, even in my childish eyes, profanely gay
for the subject it presented. Here was depicted the figure of a bearded
man in foreign dress, visage forlorn, person unkempt. The artist
pictured him in the act of destroying a quantity of furniture of a sort
that might have given distinction to an early Victorian parlor.
Just what seemed so terrifying about the situation I do not know, unless
it was that, as I distinctly recall, I myself had occasionally been
regarded as somewhat destructive in the furniture line--as when, quite
unintentionally, I scratched my great-aunt’s mahogany sofa in making a
desperate attempt not to slide off its hair-covered plateau at a moment
when the peculiarly poignant texture of this revered fabric had caused
me unwittingly to squirm about in manœvering for a less irritating bit
of the area. From that time on a certain Miss Solander, occupying the
important post of governess, could not adjust her perspective to
considering me other than a menace to mahogany in the front of the
house or black walnut in the rear.
Thus you can well imagine how heroically there loomed forth from that
frontispiece the figure of one who was deliberately breaking up chairs,
tables, stools, four-posters, and what not--and a grown man at that! But
the thrillingness of the situation was further enhanced by the fact that
not only was he breaking up the furniture but he was feeding it to the
flames! There was no doubt of it: a copious employment of carmine and
saffron made that point clear. That any one should have dared to be so
deliberately destructive at once awakened my curiosity, and I am not
sure it did not awaken my admiration as well. I hope not, for as we grow
older we like to think that our Golden Days were paragon in their
virtues.
It was not long before I discovered in the background of the picture the
figure of a woman in a Breton cap--inexcusable anachronism, though I did
not know it then. Who was she? The furniture-breaker’s governess,
perhaps; no, that could not be, for he was older than she. From the
corner of my eye I took a swift visual dart at Miss Solander. The lady
in the picture appeared timid and weeping. No, it would not be a
governess.
Just then a voice interrupted: “What are you looking at, child?”
“I do not know,” I replied.
“You do not know!” exclaimed Miss Solander in expected disapproval.
“Pray, why do you not know?” She moved near, to be serviceable.
Now, Miss Solander never cared for pictures, at least only for painted
ones of forget-me-nots and buttercups in water-color and sheep by Mauve
in oil, so I hurried on to spell out the title-page. I gave it up.
“P-a-l-i-s-sy,--Palissy. Master Bernard Palissy the Potter,” coached
Miss Solander.
“What is a potter?” I asked. And then it began.
In these after years I have always been glad that Miss Solander’s
embroidery chenille gave out at the first question, and that a gentle
rain kept us indoors. Undoubtedly, too, this little book had been known
to _her_ childhood, for she extended it a more approving greeting than
it was her wont to vouchsafe many of my other early literary
discoveries. At any rate, I have forgiven her much, for that afternoon
she read me the story of Master Bernard from beginning to end.
How it all came back to me yesterday when my friend Cleon, at whose
house I was dining, took me into his library and showed me, not a book
about the old potter but an actual bit of his craft, a sauce-boat in the
enameled faience which Palissy struggled through so many years of
vicissitude to produce. Tenderly I took it in my hands and gazed
intimately upon its lovely soft blues, grays, browns, wonderful greens,
and the soft and well-fused marbled colors on the back of the piece, all
of which, together with the sharp modeling of the relief and “neatness”
of its workmanship gave unmistakable evidence of its authenticity. It
had not the crude greens, the glaring yellows or the bright purples that
betray imitations of Palissy’s ware.
I have seen the fine collections of Master Bernard’s handiwork in the
Louvre, the Hôtel Cluny, the Sèvres Museum, the Victoria and Albert
Museum and the Wallace Collection in London, the Metropolitan Museum of
Art in New York, and the other collections of note, public and private,
at home and abroad, but the little _saucière_ which my friend Cleon
permitted me to gaze upon--nay, dear reader, to hold in my hands!--there
was not a finer bit anywhere. Master Bernard must have given a chuckle
of contentment when he drew it from the kiln!
One might, with a princely purse, collect a few examples of Palissy ware
in the course of a lifetime keenly devoted to collecting! But so rare is
Palissy ware that even in Cleon’s house I had not expected to see such a
treasure. Strangely enough, it had been discovered, not just bought;
discovered in London, and, unromantically enough, though exultingly, in
a shop whose keeper ought to have known what it was, who ought to have
known enough not to let it go for the mere pittance of--but that is
Cleon’s secret!
My own flair for collecting has often fed my pride, but it is tempered
with a happy contentment from an interest in the things I cannot have,
may never hope to have! I cannot, perhaps, describe to you the delight I
experienced in coming upon that _saucière_ at Cleon’s or the joy I felt
in being permitted to take my time in gloating over it unhurried by a
museum curator, whose official anxiety must of necessity ever play false
to his kindly attempt to conceal it. When I came home I looked over all
my photographs of Palissy ware, and took down from its shelf in my
library a volume in French of the Works of Master Bernard, a volume of
the date of 1636, followed by one of 1777 and one of 1884. Master
Bernard was not only a notable potter, but, as both Lamartine and
Anatole France observed, he holds a high position among French writers
in the field of natural philosophy, agriculture, and religion.
Master Bernard’s early life is wrapped in mystery. We know nothing of
his parentage or of his early education. Probably, as Henry Morley
observed, “As a child he rolled upon the moss and ripened with the
chestnuts.” In later life Palissy himself declared that he had had “no
other books than heaven and earth, which were open to all.”
Yet he learned reading, writing, and something of figuring, besides
something of design and also of geometry, after the simple methods of
his time. It is doubtful if any of the learning of his day was
communicated to him in his youth, and it seems more probable that he
drew inspiration for his philosophy from the trees and the earth, and
that nature herself taught him those many lessons he applied so
perfectly to future problems which confronted him. But we know that at
an early age he became apprenticed to the art of painting and working at
glass. Inasmuch as this art was considered very honorable in those days
and practised by members of the lesser nobility, it is possible that
Palissy may have sprung from that class who did not lose their dignity
of station by following this vocation.
But under Francis I there came a certain disassociation in the crafts.
The architect separated from the builder, the sculptor from the
stone-worker, and the glass-painter from the glass-worker. It was then
the art fell into decay somewhat, and like many another disappointed
worker, Palissy turned aside to seek some other field for his abilities,
as now he was scarcely able to eke out a living by the old means. For a
time he commanded better fortune. In a document by him preserved in the
Bibliothéque Nationale we read: “They thought me a better painter than I
was, which caused me to be often summoned to draw plans for use in
courts of law. Then when I had such commissions I was very well paid.”
However, his superb improvidence--for one may almost call it
such--delayed anything like his establishment in life, for we find him
at the age of twenty-one years journeying through France as a sort of
free-lance; at the very time, indeed, when Paracelsus the philosopher at
thirty-seven was wandering, quite as ragged, through Germany. Finally he
returned to his own country and settled in Saintes, about 1542, promptly
married, and in the course of time became father to a goodly family,
which he supported by his work of surveying the salt marshes of
Saintonge when his skill as a worker in glass and in designing was not
in demand.
I imagine that Master Palissy, Madame and the little Palissys got on
very comfortably for a time. Had not the Council of King Francis decided
to impose a salt tax on the Saintonge, and had not Master Bernard been
commissioned to make the surveys of the salt marshes in the neighborhood
of Saintes?
Probably he spent much of his time in “tracing lines of geometry,” of
which things he wrote, “It is well known that, thanks be to God, I am
not altogether ignorant.” He had also added portrait-painting to his
accomplishments. A more provident man than he might have prospered and
his name have been forgotten. While the impecunious are not always to be
rated wise, it is certain that Palissy’s poverty drove him to the
achievement of his fame as a potter in his desperate struggle to be free
from its bonds.
One day as Palissy sat disconsolate outside his door, no work in hand,
nothing ahead and the larder growing empty through his own extravagances
and likewise those of his wife, he remembered to have seen, sometime
about the year 1541, during his wanderings at Avignon or at Nîmes, a cup
which, as he described it afterward, “was turned and enamelled with so
much beauty that from that time I entered into controversy with my own
thoughts, recalling to mind several suggestions some people had made to
me in fun when I was painting portraits. Then,” continued he, “seeing
that these were falling out of request in the country where I dwelt, and
that glass painting also was little patronized, I began to think that if
I should discover how to make enamels I could make earthen vessels and
other things very prettily, because God had gifted me with some
knowledge of drawing.”
Now, Luca della Robbia had been dead some twenty-eight years, but not
only was his work well known throughout Tuscany and other Italian states
but specimens of it and of other Italian faience had been brought into
France by Leonardo da Vinci, who died when Palissy was in his eighth
year, and later by Benvenuto Cellini, who was but nine years Palissy’s
senior. However, Palissy had not visited Paris before this and probably
he knew nothing of the Della Robbias, of Leonardo, or of Cellini, and
less of the Italian faience. It was enough for him that he had seen a
wonderful cup, made he knew not how, but produced by a process which, it
is quite possible, he imagined to be a lost one, a process which now his
ingenious imagination was seeking to recover. Had fate or fortune taken
him to Reims instead of to Avignon, he would never have thought of
competing with the work introduced by the Florentines. But in those days
of different intercourse he had seen only the one cup, and that he
imagined to be unique; consequently, as we have seen, he resolved to set
about becoming a potter himself.
How the imagination wreaths around that mysterious cup which inspired
Master Bernard! What was it, maiolica of Italy or of Spain, or an
enameled cup of southern France? Neither of these, I think. I cannot
imagine it could have been anything short of some such treasure as a
porcelain cup fetched from China by some Marco Polo!
At any rate, Master Bernard set about the business diligently and
persistently. Once he had made up his mind to a thing there was no
changing him, so long as the thing he had set his mind to appeared to
him better, more wise, or more righteous than that which would take its
place. He became as persistent a potter as he had been (and as he was!)
persistent a Protestant. Luckily it was for him that the Constable de
Montmorency, who was sent by the king to quell an uprising in Saintes,
was later to come across Master Bernard and to take up with his
ingenious compositions.
Eight long, tedious, heartbreaking years succeeded this resolution,
during the course of which his powers of endurance and splendid physical
strength were put to a severe test in his attempts to find a suitable
enamel for the objects he made out of the earth of the neighborhood, a
sort of pipe-clay. Month after month and year after year came sorrowful
failures when he was seemingly just on the point of success. Without
caring that he knew nothing concerning argillaceous earths, he set
himself to search out enamels, like a man who gropes in the darkness.
Whatever else he may have been, we can rest assured that he was thorough
and practical in his craft. That so long a time elapsed before the
results he hoped to attain were reached seems a proof to confute the
theory often advanced that he had learned the secret of his enamel from
the Hirschvogels in Nuremberg. If they disclosed any part of their craft
to him when he was roving through Germany, they zealously guarded that
of making white enamel, since for this he sought so long and
arduously--indeed, through fifteen years of patient toil and
discouragement. Abaquesne, at Rouen, had anticipated him, it is true,
but it is just because it chanced to be his lot to have to seek out
these things for himself that his works were endowed with marked
originality.
All this time his family suffered in poverty. We can sympathize with his
wife, certainly. That Palissy was quite out of his right mind she had no
doubt. Was he not sacrificing everything for--what seemed in the face of
his failures--nothing? It is hard enough to believe in genius in our own
day, when miracles are no longer surprises. What, then, must have been
the alienating doubts of Master Bernard’s whole family as they saw him,
day after day, absorbed with his clays, his enamels, and his ovens,
while they stood by, hungry and neglected! The colossal selfishness of
the men who win against all odds is forgotten afterward and forgiven,
and one is inclined to think Palissy’s plaint about the lack of
encouragement of his friends and family more of a screen to his troubled
conscience than anything else. When a man gives up the employment which
supports his wife and children for the sake of obstinately attempting to
discover the secret of making ornamental dishes like one he has seen
years before, is there any wonder he is thought to be mad? Even in these
days a family would ask that a commission in lunacy be appointed to look
into his sanity.
And listen to his own testimony: “Another misfortune befell me, causing
me great annoyance, which was that, running short of wood, I was obliged
to burn the palings which maintained the boundaries of my garden, the
which after being burned I had to burn the tables and the flooring of my
house in order to cause the melting of the second composition. I was in
such agony as I cannot express”--not a word about the agony of wife and
children!--“for I was utterly exhausted and withered up by my work and
the heat of the furnace; during more than a month my shirt had never
been dry upon me; even those who ought to have helped me ran crying
through the town that I was burning the planks of the floors, so that I
was made to lose my credit and was thought to be mad. Others said that I
was trying to coin false money, and I went about crouching to the earth,
like one ashamed.” I think that what Madame Palissy did not say places
her in the hierarchy of our marveling esteem! Howbeit I write of a hero
and not of heroines. Here, surely seemed to be a second Columbus tossed
on the stormy seas of derision.
But finally, in 1549, the success of the secret formula for which he had
been striving was attained as the fires of his experimental oven cooled.
It had been his agonized hope--the last straw held out by Providence.
How differently they all regarded him now! Wife and children forgave
him, friends returned to him, tradesmen were eager to give him credit,
for Bernard Palissy had brought renown to their town, and they hailed
him as a great man where but the day before they would have driven him
to a madhouse. Quickly the fame of his achievements spread far and near,
and almost immediately he found a munificent patron in Anne de
Montmorency, the great constable, while to the king and the queen mother
he became “worker in earth and inventor of figulines” by royal patent.
Is it any wonder he felt justified for all his sacrifices? He could now
give his wife a prouder place than any she had ever dreamed of, and his
children would be educated beyond all their companions. Surely it was
worth these fifteen years of sorrow and suffering, he argued.
Ah, little blue book with the gilt morning-glories, the aniline
frontispiece! Courageous, unflinching Master Bernard; brave, suffering
madame!
When one remembers all these things every bit of Palissy ware becomes
endowed with a double interest. It is distinguished in the earlier
examples by its close adherence to natural forms, not, perhaps, to be
considered exactly beautiful according to the canons of art in our day,
nevertheless admirable in many of its qualities; and its fidelity to
nature is so remarkable often that one forgives it its lack of esthetic
attributes. One of the extant examples is a large plate executed in
enamel faience. It is covered with fishes, reptiles, crustacea, and
mollusks in the midst of the modeled representation of water, together
with herbs and marine plants. It is remarkable for the minute execution
of its details and also for the richness of the enamel giving life to
these wonderful studies from nature. Indeed, these rustic pieces, so
admirable in their original way, exhibit Palissy’s tendency to imitate
nature with exquisite realism and a naturalist’s love for accuracy of
detail. He himself was so pleased with his success that he tells us live
lizards often came to admire his fabrications, and that a dog which he
made (the same is now in the Dresden Museum), caused many real dogs “to
growl on coming near it, thinking it to be alive.”
Palissy’s work was eagerly sought by all the great nobles, and the
illustrious constable gave into his hands the task of decorating the
Château d’Écouen, thereafter one of the marvels of its time. Alas! there
remains nothing of this work, nor of the famous grotto in the gardens
of the Tuileries, with the decoration of which Catherine de’ Medici had
intrusted him. This was about the year 1565, after Palissy had taken his
family from La Rochelle (where he had been for several years after
leaving Saintes), to Paris to live. It was during the period that Master
Bernard discoursed to the learned on topics in natural philosophy and
was respectfully listened to at a crown a head, a large lecture entrance
fee for those days. Palissy’s sons, Nicolas and Mathurin, were working
with him in Paris, as entries in the royal accounts for the year 1570
show. Only a few decades ago workmen excavating in the gardens of the
Tuileries unearthed the remains of Palissy’s old workshop, and later
discovered some of his ovens.
But Master Bernard was to fall upon evil days. He was a Huguenot, and a
former coreligionist denounced him, which led to his arrest in 1588. His
property had previously been destroyed. Owing to royal protection he
survived the terrible Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve. But the manner
in which a man should say his prayers was of more importance to Henry
III than the making of “figulines of earth,” so Master Bernard traveled
from the Tuileries to the Bastille. His friend the Duc de Mayence
obtained respite for him through clever artifice; finally the king
agreed to grant him a pardon if he would recant the heresy of his
Huguenot faith. Palissy indignantly scorned these ignoble terms.
Shortly after Henry IV succeeded Henry III. Probably kings had ceased to
be interested in gray-haired potters and their expenses. At any rate,
Master Bernard was condemned to death. Before the fragile clay that God
had modeled into the cup of his life had a chance to be dashed to earth
by hideous bigotry, his soul was liberated from his worn-out body, and
the headsman’s block was cheated of the grace of being Master Bernard’s
last pillow on earth. May heaven rest his soul!
I shall never forget, little blue book, how Miss Solander shed a tear
over those last pages, how my own eyes were not dry. Somehow I think
everything must have its story, and when I am in Cleon’s house or in my
own, looking at this thing or at that with the love a collector holds
for the things of yesterday, I am not content with the thing alone, but
my thoughts seek out the memory of its story. At least it was so with
that inimitable _saucière_ of Master Bernard of blessed memory!
CHAPTER XXVI
ITALIAN MAIOLICA
Whether one is a general collector or a collector of pottery and
porcelain in particular, Italian maiolica will be found to be one of the
most interesting of “lines,” historically as well as intrinsically.
Pottery, both soft and hard, is distinct from porcelain, although the
term “old china” is commonly used to embrace the whole field of
ceramics--unfortunately, I think, as it is of importance to the
collector to be precise in the matter of definitions.
Pottery, as distinguished from porcelain, is formed of potter’s clay
with which an argillaceous and calcareous marl and sand have been mixed.
The wares usually designated as earthenware are soft pottery. It may be
scratched with a knife or file, and it is, generally speaking, fusible
at porcelain furnace heat.
Soft pottery may be divided into four sorts: unglazed, lustrous, glazed,
and enameled. The greater part of Egyptian, Greek Etruscan, Roman
medieval and modern pottery is unglazed, lustrous, or glazed, while the
centuries-later maiolica of Italy is of the fourth sort; that is, an
enameled or stanniferous glazed ware, the art of making which was
originally learned, we may suppose, from either Moorish potters of
Majorca (one of the Balearic Islands) or perhaps from certain Persian
sources.
Italian maiolica was originally called _maiorica_, a name which later
gave way to _maiolica_, as the Tuscans more often wrote it that way,
even when referring to the Island of Majorca, as one may guess
from the _rime_ of Dante, where is to be found reference to
“_Tra l’isola di Cipri è Maiolica_.” The coarser ware of
half-maiolica--_mezza-maiolica_--is not to be confused with the true
maiolica, which is a tin-enameled pottery, lustred, although the term
maiolica is generally used to designate the ware of both sorts.
The Italians ascribe to Luca della Robbia the discovery of the tin-glaze
sometime prior to 1438. We have no dated piece of Florentine or Tuscan
maiolica antedating 1477, and of this year but one dated example. The
next earliest dates--1507 and 1509--appear on maiolica of the Cafaggiolo
_fabrique_.
In the eighteenth century, as Chaffers tells us, Italian maiolica was
called Raphael Ware, as it was believed, for a time, that Raphael
himself had taken a hand at decorating some of it--an idea which quite
naturally originated, as a great many designs from compositions by
Raphael and other great masters appeared on maiolica ware. These,
however, were copied from drawings and engravings. The best period of
this pottery was subsequent to Raphael’s death, which took place in
1520.
A Cafaggiolo plate in the Victoria and Albert Museum possibly depicts
Raphael and La Fornarina watching a maiolica-decorator at work,
suggesting, I think, that had Raphael himself taken a hand at
maiolica-painting that fact would have led the artist of the plate to
show Raphael at such occupation instead of portraying him merely as an
onlooker. Again, Raffaello dal Colle, who designed maiolica for the wife
of Guidobaldo I, Duke of Urbino, may have been confused by early
students with Raffaello Sanzio, the great Raphael.
Of the development of maiolica in Italy, Fortnum says: “In the twelfth,
thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries native wares were produced in
various places, some of which still exist in the towers and façades of
churches, and in the façade of a palace at Bologna. These are
lead-glazed, rudely painted or with single colors, and in some
instances ‘sgraffiato,’ proving that the use of a white ‘slip’ or
‘engobe’ was known in Italy at that period, as affirmed by Passeri, who
further asserts that in 1300 the art assumed a more decorative character
under the lords of Pesaro, the Malatestas. An even, opaque white surface
having been obtained, the development of its artistic decoration
steadily advanced. The colors used were yellow, green, blue, and black,
to which we may add a dull brownish red, noticed in some of the Pisan
‘bacini.’ Passeri states that the reflection of the sun’s rays from the
concave surfaces of these ‘bacini’ at Pesaro was most brilliant, and
hence it has been wrongly inferred that they were enriched with metallic
lustre.”
For many years after the discovery or at least the application of
tin-glaze to pottery in Italy, large works were popular. But before the
end of the first half of the sixteenth century this practice had lost
its vogue. There was, on the other hand, an increased demand for the
tiles, plates, etc., of the maiolica, an encouragement that led to the
establishment of numerous maiolica potteries throughout northern and
central Italy, Romagna and Tuscany leading, and Urbino and Pesaro rising
to importance in the manufacture of this enameled ware. Both Pesaro
and, later, Gubbio, had attained fame for the pearly, the golden, and
the ruby lustre glaze given their wares, that of Gubbio proving the
finest in this respect. Deruta has also laid claim to the introduction
of the beautiful madreperla lustre. A few years ago the author visited
this tiny, out-of-the-way village to inspect the _botega_ of the modern
maiolica-makers, and well recalls the ingenious arguments advanced by
the gifted director in support of Deruta’s claim, which left one
convinced until Pesaro savants in turn sought to appropriate the glory
for their own town.
Fortnum says “the Piedmontese and Lombard cities do not appear to have
encouraged the potter’s art to an equal extent in the fifteenth and the
sixteenth century, and that neither can we learn of any excellence
attained in Venice till the establishment of Deruta and Pesaro artists
in that city in the middle of the latter period.” Fortnum says: “Perhaps
commerce did for the Queen of the Adriatic by the importation of
Rhodian, Damascus, and other eastern wares what native industry supplied
to the pomp and luxury of the hill cities of Umbria; for it must be
borne in mind that the finer sorts of enameled or glazed pottery,
decorated by artistic hands, were attainable only by the richer class
of purchasers, more modest wares or wooden trenchers and ancestral
copper vessels contenting the middle class.” The art of maiolica
flourished likewise in Ferrara, Rimini, and Ravenna. The Umbrian potters
probably did not adopt the use of white stanniferous glaze before the
close of the fifteenth century.
Federigo, who succeeded to the Duchy of Urbino in 1444, was a patron of
the arts and a great collector. After his death, in 1482, his son
Guidobaldo continued Federigo’s patronage of the ceramic art. The
introduction of the maiolica enamel did not, happily, lead to the
abandonment of the metallic colors and prismatic glazes of the earlier
potters. Authorities are agreed that the retention of these metallic
colors and prismatic glazes stimulated maiolica manufacture in other
localities. The botega which Maestro Giorgio established in Gubbio at
this period was probably the great center for the golden and ruby
metallic lustre maiolica. In his handbook, “Maiolica,” Fortnum says:
“Some technicality in the process of the manufacture, some local
advantage, or some secret in the composition, almost a monopoly of its
use was established at Gubbio, for we have the evidence of well-known
examples that from the end of the first to the beginning of the last
quarter of the fifteenth century many pieces painted by the artists of
Pesaro, Urbino, and Castel Durante were taken there for the lustre
embellishment.”
In Urbino the manufacture of maiolica reached its culminating point in
1540, in which year Orazio Fontana, Urbino’s greatest maiolica artist,
entered the service of the duke. From 1580 Urbino maiolica declined.
There are exceptionally fine examples of early Italian maiolica in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art and in other public and private collections
in America. These the collector may study to advantage. While the pieces
of supreme importance, like the canvases of the old masters, are not to
be had for a song, still, “finds” are possible, and even later pieces of
maiolica are beautiful and fully worth while. Such pieces, too, with the
interesting history of the earlier objects that inspired them, should
appeal to the collector. Perhaps if Italian maiolica were more studied
and understood in this country it would be more popular with collectors,
but just because so few of them are versed in its evolution the
advantage accrues to the collector who is wide awake enough to look
about him in time. In passing it
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Early Italian Maiolica Plates
Pesaro, 1520-1535 Deruta, 16th Century
Urbino, 16th Century
Gubbio, 16th Century Castel Durante, 16th Century]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Copies of Roman Millefiori Glass Made in Murano, 19th Century
Two Ancient Roman Millefiore Glass Bowls]
should be noted that there is much--one may well say quantities--of
modern maiolica to be found in the shops. Much of this is very
beautiful, but the collector will soon have no trouble in distinguishing
it from the old, even when the modern happens to reproduce the forms and
designs of the early pieces.
CHAPTER XXVII
GLASS OF A THOUSAND FLOWERS
Time has crumbled many a granite monument erected to the memory of
monarchs of early Egyptian dynasties, but a tiny scent-bottle of yellow
glass, with the name Amenophis worked upon it in blue, has come down to
us from the Golden Age of the Pharaohs. King Amenophis little guessed
that his fragile gift at life’s parting from his Queen Thi would survive
the vicissitudes of the unguessed ages that have treated the pedestal of
his Colossus at Thebes with such scant courtesy. Yet here we may hold it
in the palm of a hand, a lovely trinket whose fragility has defied the
boast of bronze or the strength of stone! As Pliny says, it is no easy
matter to give novelty to old subjects, authority to new, to impart
lustre to rusty things, light to the obscure and mysterious. Yet he who
writes of antiques and curios may find the subject of old glass so wide
a field in which to browse that its restraints seem few indeed and its
interest of broad appeal.
The millefiori glass of yesterday and to-day offers to the collector a
fascinating study. It is the “Glass of a Thousand Flowers,” a pretty
name the Italians gave it centuries ago--_mille_, a thousand, and
_fiori_, flowers. Don’t you remember when you were little, very little,
the round, heavy glass paper-weights into which you could look like a
crystal-gazer and find mysteriously embedded flower-like forms of
colored glass? How you puzzled grandfather’s head, too, when you asked
him questions about it. These old millefiori paper-weights--long out of
fashion, alas!--were bought on faith as curiosities, and only the
sophisticated age that decreed such marvels unfitting the dignity of
maturity relegated them to hiding-places now for the most part
forgotten. The wonderful striated marbles, the attractive “glassies” of
our own Golden Age, maintained with us the tradition of attachment; and
now we have once more begun to display the paper-weights of the Thousand
Flowers, and antiquarians are doing such brisk business in them that
manufacturers are almost encouraged to place on the market again these
interesting objects of millefiori glass.
Since the time when the observing Herodotus wrote that the sacred
crocodiles of Memphis wore ear-rings of melted stone, the collecting of
glass has encouraged its finer development. The ancient glass-workers
were proud enough to sign fine pieces, though these are excessively
rare. There was, for instance, “Africanus, citizen of Carthage, artist
in glass.” Nero was an ardent collector of fine pieces of glass,
collecting them in his own peculiar manner, as we may infer from such
anecdotes as that which has already been related of Petronius having
broken a precious bowl (probably of murrhine) to atoms just before his
death, to prevent the possibility of its falling into the grasp of the
Emperor. So greatly was it prized at the time that its value had been
placed at a sum now equivalent to $250,000! The very high prices paid
to-day by museums for bits of antique glass are very likely to be far
less than the same objects brought in Roman times; this, of course,
refers only to glass of high artistic quality, such as would have
commanded the attention of connoisseurs contemporary with its product.
“Who,” says Dr. Johnson in “The Rambler,” “when he saw the first sand or
ashes by a casual intenseness of heat melted into metallic form, rugged
with excrescences and crowded with impurities, would have imagined that
in the shapeless lump lay concealed so many conveniences of life as
would in time constitute a great part of the happiness of the world?
Thus was the first artificer of glass occupied, though without his own
knowledge or expectation. He was facilitating and prolonging enjoyment
of light, enlarging the avenues of science and conferring the highest
and most lasting pleasure; he was enabling the student to contemplate
nature and the beauty to behold herself.”
We need not go into the early history of glass here, more than to say
the ancients were highly skilled in the making of mosaic and millefiori
glass, their products inspiring the millefiori glass of the Venetians
and their followers in Europe and America. One cannot do better than to
quote here M. A. Wallace-Dunlop’s “Glass in the Old World,” a most
interesting and instructive work, unfortunately long out of print. In
this volume the author says:
No method of glass working has probably excited more attention than
the wonderfully minute mosaics found scattered over the world both
in beads and amulets. Old writers have exhausted their ingenuity in
conjecturing the secret of their manufacture. Many of them are far
too minute for human eyes to have executed, but like many other
marvels the explanation is simple when once discovered. They were
made (and are now successfully imitated in Murano) by arranging
long slender glass rods of various colors so as to form a pattern,
a picture, or the letters of a name, and then fusing them together
and while still warm the rod or cane so formed could be drawn out
to almost any length, the pattern becoming perhaps microscopically
small, but always retaining its distinctiveness. A tube of glass
treated in the same manner never loses a minute hole in the middle.
Thin slices cut off such a rod would present on each side (face)
the exact picture (just as the pattern appears when slicing a
cucumber) or pattern originally arranged. When this idea had been
once suggested, thousands of patterns could have been invented, and
slices from these rods placed in liquid blue or other colored
glass, and cast in a mould and ground into shape, gave rise to the
endless combinations of Greek or Roman workers--The Millefiori
glass of the Venetian republic was simply a revival of this old
industry.... Under the Ptolemies the Egyptians acquired a rare
perfection in mosaic! We have, so far as I know, no Roman mosaic or
millefiori glass antedating the reign of Augustus. It is in the
Augustan age that we first learn the name of a mosaic glass artist,
Proculus of Perinthus, to whom the Alexandrian merchants erected a
statue.
The building of St. Mark’s in Venice, begun in 1159, gave impetus to
Italian glass manufacture. With the fall of Constantinople nearly a
half-century later, many Greeks, skilled artists in glass, undoubtedly
made their way to Venice and took thither the secrets of their trade.
Certain it is that the early glass-workers of Venice and of Murano,
where later the glass industry centered, gave curious and interested
study to the old mosaics of the ancients and in due course rediscovered
the art of millefiori and perfected it in a manner that would have
caused the Romans to open their eyes in astonishment. We must not forget
that with the ancients a crystalline glass was of great rarity, though
colored glass was common enough. Thus the crystalline products of the
Venetians were an achievement reserved for later centuries, and this
white glass, in combination with the colored glasses was so skilfully
employed by the workmen and artists of the Murano glass factories that
nothing has surpassed the Venetian products in millefiori for sheer
ingenuity and beauty. Often, of course, millefiori work was carried to
the extreme of becoming less a thing of beauty than a tour de force.
However, the collector will find interest in all pieces of the sort, and
their range was enormous. The glass of Venice was famous for its
extraordinary lightness and this added to its vogue. The Chaplain of
Louis XIV, Réné François, amusingly warned the world that Murano was
filling Europe with its fantasies of glass; but rare enough are the
early specimens of Venetian manufacture, more precious now than their
weight in gold.
After all, there must always remain the zest of the chase in the spirit
of the true collector, without which wonderful finds would never have
been made, though we need not to go to the extent of the Countess of
Fiesque, a lady of Louis XIV’s court. This lady died at Fontainebleau in
great poverty at an advanced age. Historians of the gossip of the day
have laid her indigent circumstances at the door of the rascally man of
business, but I fancy her passion for mirrors had something to do with
it. When almost in need of bread she astonished her friends by
purchasing an enormously expensive mirror. “I had a piece of land,” she
said in extenuation, “which brought me in nothing but corn. I sold it,
and the money procured this mirror. Have I not managed wonderfully to
possess this beautiful glass instead of dull corn?” Doubtless the
countess did manage wonderfully; contentment is a great thing!
Seven hundred years of glass-making in Venice produced an experience
that was useful to the rest of Europe and finally to America. Much
millefiore glass has been manufactured in the United States. The
Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia is especially rich in examples of
it. There are also many private collectors of millefiore glass in this
country, some collecting specimens in general, others confining
themselves to examples of American manufacture, while others specialize
in millefiore paper-weights already referred to. The late Dr. Edwin
Atlee Barber, a noted authority on American glass, gave in the
Pennsylvania Museum Bulletin the following information concerning the
process of its making:
The glass rods used in the preparation of modern millefiori glass
are usually made in metal moulds of comparatively large size. The
interior may be circular or scalloped. Into one of these moulds
ropes of colored glass are arranged in the pattern desired, to
which, when taken out, two workmen attach iron rods, one at each
end of the mass, and draw it out until it is of the requisite
slenderness. The design retains its exact proportions through the
entire length and is as perfect in a rod of an eighth of an inch
diameter as in the original thick cylinder. If an animal is to be
represented the mould is cut into the exact shape and when the
glass is released and drawn out each detail of legs, tail, ears and
other parts is uniformly reproduced in solid color so that even in
the tiniest representation of the figure every part appears to be
perfectly formed. Sometimes a cane will be composed of many threads
of various colors and designs, each of which has been formed in
this manner, arranged around a central rod and welded together.
When the rods are finished they are broken into small pieces, or
cut into uniform lengths or into thin slices, according to the sort
of paper-weights or other objects to be made. Into an iron ring the
size of a paperweight a cushion of molten glass is dropped and
while soft, the sections of rods are laid on the surface or stuck
in it side by side in a regular pattern, the tops of the rods being
pressed into a rounded or convex form. Over all more of the melted
glass is poured and the surface rounded into hemispherical shape by
means of concave spatula of moistened wood. The last process
consists in polishing the surface of the curved top and the flat
base after the ball has been again heated.
Dr. Barber was authority for the statement that the millefiore
paper-weights found their way into America from St. Louis in
Alsace-Lorraine (first to produce paper-weights of the sort, _circa_
1840) and from Baccarat in France. To the manufactories of the latter
town we look for the finest of the European millefiore paper-weights. At
first the filigree rods, cut or uncut, were imported; but soon American
glass-workers turned their attention to the complete production, and we
may mark the period of 1860 to 1875 as that of the heyday of
American-made millefiori glass.
It must not be thought that all the American millefiori glass has been
picked up or picked over; there is much of it remaining to reward
vigilant search and the collector will find it well worth going after.
Out-of-the-way villages in the East and South still secrete many such
pieces, and so does the householder of the Middle West; while one finds
Pacific-ward examples of the old Glass of a Thousand Flowers that had so
great a popularity before the Centennial turned the country to fresh
ingenuities.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ANTIQUES OF PERSIA AND OF INDIA
Once upon a time an old gentleman moved into the house across the
street. Whence he came no one knew, no one ever came to know. His name
was Kyttyle--Major Kyttyle. As midsummer marked his advent, he probably
felt properly attired when he appeared on the lawn that first day, to
survey his new domain, in a basket-shaped hat of straw and a suit of
East-India-looking stuff. Major Kyttyle’s face was seamed and bronzed. I
imagine his hair would have been as white as the snows of Dhawalaghiri
had it not been as extinct as the Hippuritidæ, revealing a shining pink
dome as reflecting as the pool of Anuradhapura at sunset, visible as now
and then he would lift his hat to mop his brow.
Major Kyttyle’s installation was followed by the arrival of countless
foreign-looking trunks and boxes and the neighborhood naturally wondered
what on earth the major had in them. Mrs. Minch was of the opinion that
a lone man could have no use for such a lot of truck. Mrs. Bittles
ventured the opinion that Major Kyttyle might not be so “lone” after
all; he might have a family and it might arrive later. “Families”
usually did. Mrs. Minch only sniffed. “I can tell a bachelor anywhere,”
she declared with conviction. And she could.
However, although no family came upon the scene, a whole menagerie
arrived one by one, from distant parts, to keep the major company and to
scandalize the town. There was a pet monkey, a poll parrot, a Persian
cat, and a globe of diaphanous-tailed goldfish the like of which had
never been dreamed of thereabouts and which quite put to rout the two
gilded minnows owned by the Pickhams, which till then had been the only
exotics in the district and had lent a certain distinction to the
Pickhams to which, socially, their breeding did not entitle them.
As time went on Major Kyttyle brought to him a few congenial spirits and
yet the little group really found out nothing about the major’s past
beyond the fact that he had lived in the Far East for years. Why he had
come to America no one knew. Why he had settled in our uneventful valley
no one could guess. In fact, deliberately to choose the spot was thought
to be an indication of mental weakness. But if there is anything that
the major was not, that thing is mentally weak. No one else could have
had the will power and ingenuity to evade as successfully as did this
gentleman of mystery, the life-history disclosures sought by the Minches
and others who came to “know” the major.
Notwithstanding Mrs. Minch’s earlier disapproval of the number of trunks
and boxes which the “lone man” appeared to have accumulated, she came in
time to revise her opinion when it was discovered that, though decent,
the major’s wardrobe had not comprised his luggage, whereas wonderful
objects of Oriental art at once made it clear that the trunks and boxes
had been put to a very excellent and approved good use when their
unpacking found the major’s house adorned with treasures in the way of
pottery, brasses, rugs, damascened arms, Persian miniatures, Indian
enamels, gem-encrusted jades, and what not.
Frankly, Major Kyttyle might have been as miserable with his treasures
as was Midas with his enchantment had it not been that some of his
neighbors were persons of culture and themselves not only appreciative
of art but versed in some of its branches. Otherwise the major would
have had to depend on whist, which, by the way, he played poorly and to
which he was devoted.
As for the menagerie, it served to bring out the fact that the major
adored children. His yard was always full of them after school let out.
At first those fond mothers who could not be persuaded that the major’s
several East-Indian servants were not one and the same with the tribe of
the son of Hagar, were much distressed, but when these did not steal
forth like pied pipers, they concluded that perhaps they weren’t gypsies
after all.
Good old Major Kyttyle, how grateful I am that, mysterious though you
were, you permitted me to browse for hours among the curious and
beautiful things of the Orient that appealed to my child-fancy! And the
marvelous tales you would tell us of their history! How patient you were
with our eager queries! You should have been attached to some great
museum, to interpret its hoardings to the soul of the people.
It was in your house, in the house of the stranger who had come among
us, that I formed some knowledge of the arts of India and of Persia, a
knowledge that made some of the beautiful things which had found their
way from the Far East into my own home greater joys to behold than ever
before.
I suppose I might have taken down one of the heavy volumes of that vast
encyclopedia which so formidably thwarted youth’s enterprise though
advertised to foster it, and have read therein much of what was told me
in less pedantic and less academic style by the major.
If I have seemed to linger beyond the limits of a preface it is not that
I started out to write a eulogy of Major Kyttyle, but rather that in
what I am saying I hope there can be found some hint of the truest sort
of collecting, the noblest sort of a collector--one who uses his
collection as a preacher uses his text, happily discoursing to attentive
ears and not shutting himself up with his treasures, like a medieval
monk of old with book in cell.
The good major went to his rest long since. We had supposed him out of
the land of India, not only because we gleaned from his stories that he
had spent long years in service there, but also because of his
attachment for the arts of India, which he seemed to hold above those of
Persia. But when his grave was marked, the granite shaft provided in his
will as a last luxury bore simply this legend, “_Kyttyle of Khorassan_.”
Mrs. Minch was jubilant. “What did I tell you? A Persian! One never
knows what with these mysterious people.”
It is only within the last half-dozen years that the arts of India and
of Persia have attracted much attention with Americans in general.
Happily, we are out of that stage where everything Asiatic is classed as
either “Turkish” or “Chinese.” The field here for collection is a broad
one and naturally embraces a myriad of objects. Private collections and
public collections of the arts of Persia and of India, including those
of Ceylon, are growing apace. Good things and fine things are appearing
in public sales and are still to be picked up in antique-shops by the
discriminating one who has taken the trouble to study the subject.
Fortunately, the collector now has at hand such excellent books for
reference as the various works by Ananda Coomaraswamy, Vincent Smith,
Martin, Birdwood, Havell, Hendley, and others.
Of Persian objets d’art an anoymous writer in the article on Persia in
“The Everyman Encyclopædia” has said:
The arts and crafts of Persia have suffered terribly from the state
of misrule. Always artistic by nature, many beautiful arts were
theirs, the secret of which has been forgotten through the years of
civil war and trouble. Among them the exquisite lustre-ware,
charming in design and coloring, is now difficult to obtain. The
enamel work for which they were once famous is a lost art; formerly
tiles of this work, exquisite in color and beautiful in pattern,
were freely produced, and many wonderful specimens have been saved
from ancient ruins, and many are still the glory of mosques and
shrines; the predominating color was a very beautiful turquoise
blue in various shades, and a red-golden lustre which gave the work
a peculiar iridescence. Jugs and basins in this enamel work have
been saved, exceedingly beautiful in form and pattern. Silver work
and brass work was an ancient industry; very little is done now.
Carved wood, inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, is still made
to some extent, also seal-cutting. The Persian art which flourished
in ancient times influenced Greek, Roman and Byzantine art, and was
the father of Saracenic art and architecture, which has travelled
far since its birth.
Persia has ever been famed for its textiles--not only embroideries and
printed cottons but marvelous rugs which stand supreme in beauty. The
old rugs of Persia were ancestors of the carpet of other lands. In this
connection it is worth noting that the Persians never made themselves
ridiculous by the application of inappropriate design. You will not find
an old Persian rug patterned with formal bouquets tied with blue
ribbons, suggesting a gift being trodden underfoot. A Persian floral
patterned carpet will suggest flowers and verdue in their wild state as
the stroller might chance to find them.
Although the impress of the art of the Chinese ceramicist and of the
shawl-weavers of Cashmere exerted some influence upon the Persians,
still the art of Persia from earliest times has retained a national
distinction. Nearly all are objects from the earlier periods now to be
met with date from the reign of the shah Abbas the Great (1586-1628)
when the native art manufacturers reached their greatest degree of
excellence. Thence onward came the decline.
We have only to consider the fact that artistic ornamentation was
applied to innumerable objects in daily service to realize how widely
diffused was the taste for art among the Persians. They have truly been
always an art-loving people. Some one has aptly remarked that every home
in India is a nursery of art, and I think this must once have been true
of the home in Persia. Apropos of Persian ornament it may be remarked
that the native artists have always delighted in varied and symmetrical
patterns of great intricacy. External beauty, too, seems to have been
sought, rather than intrinsic thorough excellence of fabrique,
excepting, of course, the products of the Persian looms and the works of
the masters in metal.
As to Persian pottery, it has always been more or less of a puzzle to
antiquarians. The ancient pieces in a perfect state of preservation are
exceedingly few and rare, and all have been recovered from ruined areas.
There yet remain vast areas to be excavated by enterprising antiquarian
expeditions and later efforts are sure to be productive.
The ancient lustre faience dates back many centuries. Its genre was
carried down as late as 1586. The finest Persian ware resembles Chinese
porcelain somewhat, having a white ground with azure-blue decoration in
bold, free designs. The paste is hard and the color is not blended with
the glaze. Later specimens of this genre have less good design, blending
color, and a glaze showing greater vitrification.
A second sort of Persian faience is thicker, shows a departure from
Chinese influence somewhat, has a softer and more porous paste, is
brighter in the blue, has a less even glaze, and a less well-drawn
design. Red enters, as also relief and gaufrures.
A third sort of ware is denser and harder, of blackish color on a white
ground, with thick glaze, and some pieces have been varnished with
single color. Such pieces in this genre as exhibit figures in the
decoration show these without faces, which would suggest that this class
of pottery was the product of Persian potters of the Mussulman Sunnis
sect, a sect more rigidly opposed to presenting the human face in art
than that of the Shiahs.
A fourth sort of ware is white and translucent, of still harder paste,
and bearing no marks or makers. I have seen this ware only in small
pieces. It is rare and is usually styled _porcelaine blanche de Perse_.
A fifth sort of faience is also translucid, very thin, and ornamented
with lacy designs.
The ruins of Rhages have yielded examples of the sixth sort of faience,
a common pottery of reddish clay varnished with single color, and all
somewhat in imitation of the celadon porcelain of China. The green and
bronze varnish is often very beautiful. Some of these pieces have
designs in relief and gaufrure.
The faience tiles of Persia are among its most interesting and beautiful
ceramic remains. Most of these tiles date from such Seljuk or Mogul
rulers as Malik-Shah (1072), Hulagu Khan (1256), and Ghazan Khan (1295).
India has never produced anything like a porcelain. Even pottery of the
glazed sort rarely appeared previous to the Mussulman tile products,
which tile products were the forerunners of the modern glazed wares
fabricated in Multan, Jeypore, and Bombay. However, unglazed pottery has
been common throughout India for countless centuries.
In speaking of Hindu and Buddhist art Ananda Comaraswamy writes (“The
Arts and Crafts of India and Ceylon”):
[Illustration: _Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Ewer and Basin Bindri Ware, India, 18th Century Polychrome Persian
Tiles, 17th Century]
[Illustration: _Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Chinese Porcelain of The Kang H’si Period, 1662-1723
Jar, Famille Rose Jar, Blue Hawthorn
Vase, Famille Noire Vase, Celadon]
I do not forget that in almost every art and craft, as also in
music, there exists in Hindustan a complete and friendly fusion of
the two cultures. The non-sectarian character of the styles of
Indian art has indeed always been conspicuous; so that it is often
only by special details that one can distinguish Jain from Buddhist
_stupas_, Buddhist from Hindu sculpture, or the Hindu from the
Mussulman minor crafts. The one great distinction of Mughal from
Hindu art is not so much racial as social; the former is an art of
courts and connoisseurs, owing much to individual patronage; the
latter belongs as much to the folk as to the kings.
The alluring arts of the East are well worth one’s study, well deserving
of one’s enthusiasm. Perhaps the illustrations of some of the antiques
of Persia and of India here reproduced from photographs of some of the
fine examples to be found will awaken an interest in the subject in some
who chance upon them. I only hope the world holds more Major Kyttyles of
revered memory, and that you, too, may have the good fortune to be
brought into communion with such treasures as made the major’s home vie
with our conceptions of the palace of Aladdin, treasures which in time
brought even the Pickhams to forgive the major his diaphanous-tailed
goldfish, to feel no longer the sting of the insignificance of their
poor little gilded minnows.
CHAPTER XXIX
CHINESE PORCELAINS
Not to know something of Chinese porcelains, their history and their
periods, is to be denied a pleasurable interest. The old porcelains of
China are the ancestors of all china-wares of the world, and never have
the finest antique fabriques of the Celestial Kingdom been surpassed or
even equaled in beauty and texture.
The potter’s craft, as we all know, had its origin in the dim ages of
the past. Even the discovery of true porcelain must be dated so far back
that we have no authentic record of the era of its origin.
The literature of China ascribes the invention of true porcelain to some
twenty-five hundred years before Christ, but we cannot be certain that
the art of porcelain-making was known and practised until, perhaps,
after the seventh century. While Chinese literature of the early periods
abounds in references to porcelain, we have not a single authentic dated
piece of the very early dynasties. It seems plausible to advance the
theory that true porcelain was an invention or discovery of the Han
dynasty (206 B.C.). The Japanese writer Okakura-Kakuzo has suggested
that to the alchemists of the Han dynasty came accidentally the
discovery of the wonderful porcelain glaze. The literature by Chinese
authors of the T’ang dynasty is rich in references to porcelain. The
poet Tu (803-852), for instance, says:
The porcelain of the Ta-yi kilns is light yet strong,
It rings with a low jade note and is famed throughout the city.
The fine white bowls surpass hoar frost and snow.
The white bowls of Hsing-chou in Chihli and the blue bowls of Yuen-chou
in Che-kiang were highly esteemed and celebrated in song and story.
Their resonance of tone was such that musicians were said to have
utilized them.
The Arabs and Chinese were conducting a flourishing trade during the
eighth and ninth centuries. To Soleyman, one of the early Arabian
traders who wrote an account of his journeyings, we owe the first
mention of China in the literature of the world outside the empire. “In
China,” said he, “they have a very fine clay which they manufacture
vases from, as transparent as glass; water is seen through them.”
Bushell (“Chinese Art,” vol. II) tells us that in the time of the
Emperor Shi Tsung (954-959) of the brief Posterior Chou dynasty
established at K’ai-fêng-fu prior to the Sung dynasty, an imperial
rescript ordered porcelain “as blue as the sky, as clear as a mirror, as
thin as paper and as resonant as a musical stone of jade.”
All the porcelains of the times we have referred to seem long since to
have disappeared and the only knowledge of them which we have to-day is
through the literature of their contemporary writers. The Sung dynasty
(960-1280), the Yuan dynasty (1280-1367), and the Ming dynasty
(1368-1643) open up to us surer knowledge as specimens of the time are
available to students. The porcelains of the Sung and Yuan dynasties may
be classed together. The ceramic production (_yao_) made in the province
of Honan in the town now called Ju-chou-fu--a Sung dynasty porcelain
therefore designated as _Ju-Yao_--stands famous for the qualities of its
blues, which Chinese poets assure us rival the blue blossoms of the
_Vitex incisa_, the Chinese “Sky Blue Flower.”
The imperial ware of the Sung dynasty was the _Kuan Yao_ (two Chinese
words signifying “official ceramic kiln”). Then there was the _Yo Yao_
porcelain, the early crackled ware; and the _Ting Yao_, a porcelain
having a delicate resonant body. This seems to be the most commonly met
with among the wares of the Sung period. The _Lung-ch’üan Yao_ of the
Sung wares is the famed Celadon ware made in the province of Che-kiang.
The Celadon ware of this dynasty is distinguished by its onion-sprout
green color. The Celadon wares of later periods turn more either to
greyish greens or to sea-green hues.
The _Chün yao_ faience was the product of _Chün-chou_, now Yü-chou, a
town of the province of Honan. Marvelous indeed were its glazes of
unsurpassed brilliancy and beauty of color. The transmutation _flambés_
were especially notable.
In the reign of Yung Cheng (1723) the emperor sent a list of Chün-chou
pieces to be reproduced by the imperial potteries in Chung-te-chen, from
which (record of this being extant) we are able to glean some knowledge
of the great variety of glaze colors of the earlier period. In this list
appeared crimson-rose, japonica-pink, sky-blue, plum-color, dark purple,
millet-yellow, flambés, etc. Early in the eighteenth century all these
glazes and colors were reproduced with marvelous skill, but the new
white body was probably infinitely superior to the early body.
The Chien Yao Ware of the Sung dynasty was produced in Fu-kien
province, where lustrous black-enameled tea ceremonial cups were
manufactured. These were dappled with specks of white resembling the
effect of hare’s fur and partridge breasts. The Japanese treasure these
pieces, to which they have given the name “Hare-fur Cups,” above almost
any other varieties of Chinese porcelain.
We now come to the Ming dynasty, and in the reign of Wan-li (1573-1619)
the art of making and decorating porcelain had so advanced that native
contemporaries were fond of declaring there was nothing that could not
be made of the porcelain. The cobalt blues came into favor in this
period, and it is also the time of the famed “Mohammedan blue.” European
and American collectors have given a great deal of attention to the
blue-and-white porcelains that came in with the close of the Ming
dynasty. It was between 1662 and 1722, however, that the very flower of
the blue-and-white porcelain was produced. This marks the reign of K’ang
Hsi.
The K’ang Hsi period (1662-1722) was the culminating one of Chinese
ceramic art. Of this porcelain, Bushell says:
The brilliant renaissance of the art which distinguishes the reign
of K’ang Hsi is shown in every class; in the single-colored
glazes, _la qualité maîtresse de la céramique_; in the painted
decorations of the _grand feu_, of the jewel-like enamels of the
muffle-kiln, and of their manifold combinations; in the pulsating
vigour of every shade of blue in the inimitable “blue and white.”
He also tells us porcelains of the _famille verte_ class pervade the
period while those of the _famille rose_ class may be said to have
ushered in its close. The greens that give the porcelains of the
_famille verte_ and the _famille rose_ classes their names are indeed
gem-like in their beauty. Precious, too, to the collector are the
Blue-and White or the Black Hawthorn Jars of the period. Hawthorn is a
misnomer, for the prunus blossom and not the Hawthorn blossom furnishes
the _motif_ of the decoration. It is interesting to note that the
_Prunus_ blossoms in the white on the blue ground crossed by white
zigzag lines represents to the Oriental fancy the flowers falling on ice
breaking up in the springtime.
The master quality of fine porcelain is its glaze and the glazes of old
Chinese porcelains have never been surpassed. The reigns of Yung Chêng
and his celebrated son, Ch’ien Lung, who lend name to the period from
1723 to 1796, sustained the perfection of Chinese porcelain. The
decadence of the art begins with the modern period, from 1796 to the
present.
The marks on Chinese porcelains are various in character and come under
one or more of the following divisions: marks of date, hall-marks, marks
of dedication and good wishes, marks in praise of the piece of porcelain
inscribed, symbols, and other pictorial marks and potters’ marks. It is
not necessary here to go into the intricacies of these, but they furnish
a fascinating study. This, too, is true of the designs that are to be
found on the decorated pieces of Chinese porcelain. The casual observer
will pick up a piece and admire or dismiss it on the judgment of the
general impression it makes upon his artistic sensibilities. Not so with
the connoisseur, who takes into consideration color, texture, glaze,
and, quite as much as these (so far as intellectual interest is
concerned), the story the design tells.
The porcelains of China, like the sword-guards of Japan, offer the
native artists a vast wealth of mythological and folklore subjects. Then
symbolism and occasion are closely cemented in Oriental thought, and if
the collector of old Chinese porcelains finds their decoration puzzling
at times in its significance, how absorbing are its unravelings!
Since the time of Queen Elizabeth the Western world has recognized the
beauty and the decorative value of the porcelains of China, and at no
time have they sunk in regard. Rarities are no longer likely to be found
hidden away, or acquired for a posy. At the same time, the possession of
a single object and some knowledge of the evolution in ceramics that led
to it are interesting.
CHAPTER XXX
CHINESE AND JAPANESE LACQUER
Few pieces of the lacquer of China and of Japan reached the hands of
collectors before the beginning of foreign trade by China and the
opening of Japan in the mid-nineteenth century. Just how few may be
guessed from the fact that the Orientals who allowed over sixteen
thousand pieces of porcelain to be exported to Europe in one of the
years of the eighteenth century permitted but twelve pieces of lacquer
to leave their shores. And how eagerly these bits were sought by the
collectors of the time! Marie Antoinette was one of them, and the
Marquise de Pompadour another. The collection of the former of some
hundred pieces is preserved in the Museum of the Louvre. Madame de
Pompadour was, in all probability, a collector of greater
discrimination. She possessed rare artistic sense, and the hundred and
ten thousand livres the marquise expended on her collection tempted even
the shut doors of Asia!
Lacquer undoubtedly originated in China. Just when, we may not know, but
it is of ancient ancestry. In fact, lacquer as a material has been used
for centuries by the Chinese in industrial art. We can imagine that
lacquer was at first employed as a preservative for the woodwork on
which it was used as a coating, developing as time went on into a medium
for artistic work of the highest order. Lacquer is not an artificial
mixture such as our copal and other varnishes but is principally the
natural product of the _Rhus vernicifera_, the Chinese lac tree, _Ch’i
shu_. Therefore it is virtually “ready-made” when extracted. The tree
abounds in central and southern China and is assiduously cultivated for
its valuable sap.
Usually wood, most frequently cedar or magnolia, thoroughly dried and
seasoned, forms the basis of lacquered objects. The form is thinly but
securely constructed and primed. The surface is carefully ground down
and coated thickly with a prepared varnish. This surface, when dry, is
in turn made smooth by abrasion. Next this base is very skilfully
covered with a layer of specially prepared silk, paper, or a cloth woven
of hemp fibers, all depending upon the size and projected quality of the
article. Successive coats of the prepared varnish are then applied,
each being allowed thoroughly to dry. Finally the _lac_ is applied,
layer after layer, spread on at first, and then added to by means of
fine brushes of human hair. Those parts of lacquer-work which stand
forth in relief are first built up with a lacquer “putty” of special
preparation.
There are never less than three or more than eighteen layers of lacquer
employed, thorough drying requisite to each separate layer. It is
interesting to note that several hundred hours may be taken up with the
preparation of the grounding before the actual lacquering is begun! With
a paste of white lead the artist outlines his design. Next he fills in
the detail with gold and colors, over which a coat of transparent
lacquer is applied.
In the reign of the founder of the Ming dynasty in China, Hung Wu, there
was published the “Ko ku yao lun” (A.D. 1387), a learned antiquarian,
art, and literary work written by Tsao Ch’ao, and comprised in thirteen
books. From this we learn of the following sorts of lacquer then held in
esteem: ancient rhinoceros horn reproductions, carved red lacquer,
painted red lacquer, lacquer with gold reliefs, pierced lacquer, and
lacquer with mother-of-pearl incrustations. Tsao Ch’ao’s erudition
enables us, I think, to trace Chinese lacquer-work back to the Sung
dynasty with reasonable certainty. Another Chinese writer, Chang
Ying-wen, wrote a little book, the “Ch’ing pi ts’ang” or “Collections of
Artistic Rarities,” which describes objects shown in an art exhibition
held in the province of Kiang-su in the spring of 1570. After references
to lacquers of the Yuan and the Sung dynasties he says in effect:
In this our Ming Dynasty carved lacquer of the reign of Yung Lo in
the Kuo Yuan Ch’ang factory, and that made in the reign of Hsüan Tê
was surpassing in its color of cinnabar hue and also in its
craftsmanship as well as in characters of the calligraphic
inscriptions incised underneath the pieces.
There was a notable revival of interest in lacquer-work in the years
that followed the upset condition of China during the close of the Ming
period, when lacquer-work was of necessity neglected. During the
lifetime of Emperor Ch’ien Lung (1736-1796), Père d’Incarville, a member
of the French Academy and a Jesuit savant of note, wrote a “Memoire sur
le Vernis de la Chine,” published with illustrations in 1760. We find
him saying: “_Si en Chine les Princes et les grands ont de belles pièces
de vernis, ce sont des pièces faites pour l’Empereur, qui en donne, ou
ne reçoit pas toutes celles qu’on lui présente._” This, in itself,
stimulated European interest in collecting lacquer at the time.
In recent years Canton and Fuchow have been centers for the manufacture
of painted lacquer, called _hua ch’i_, and Peking and Suchow for carved
lacquer, or _tiao ch’i_. However, the collector must not look for any
pieces of finest quality in the _tiao ch’i_ since the reign of Ch’ien
Lung, who lent carved lacquer-work his warmest approbation. We are told
of a certain celebrated Arabian traveler, Ibn Batuta by name, who was in
Canton about the year 1345 and made note of the excellence of the
lacquer-work he found there at that time. That of Fuchow is described in
the words of Monsieur Paléologue as “most seductive to the eye from the
purity of its substance, the perfect evenness of its varnished coat, the
lustrous or deep intensity of its shades and the power of its reliefs,
the breath of the composition and the harmonious tones of the gold
grounds and painted brushwork.”
Of late years the collecting of the lacquers of Japan has engaged many
of the most enthusiastic and discriminating connoisseurs, and there are
many public as well as private collections of lacquer objects in
America. Probably the favorite objects in Japanese lacquer are those
interesting and beautiful little inrō or compartment box, indispensable
to every Japanese gentleman’s attire in earlier days, and to which was
attached by a silken cord the netsuke, or button, by means of which it
was suspended from the obi, or sash. These lacquered inrō have not been
surpassed for their beauty and are of literary interest.
Of the varieties of Japanese lacquer one may make mention of the
_nashiji_, generally known to Western collectors as “avanturine,” so
named by Europeans from its resemblance to avanturine Venetian glass.
When _kirikané_ (torn gold leaf) is employed the lacquer is called
_Giobunashiji_. The _togidashi_ lacquer is that in which the pattern is
produced by grinding and polishing, revealing the gold ground.
_Hiramaki-ye_ is the Japanese term used for all those lacquers which
have design not raised above the surface more than the thickness of the
lines that trace it. Then there is to be found a combination of the
flat-gold lacquer with the relief-gold lacquer. The red Japanese lacquer
is known by the native name of _tsuishu_, and the black lacquer is
called _tsuikoku_; those in which the design is carved out of the
lacquer-formed or superimposed layers which are exposed by the incisions
of the graver are called _guri_. The _chinkinbori_ lacquer, in imitation
of the Chinese lacquer, is a sort of patterned lacquer, the design of
which is produced with a rat-tooth graver and the incision filled up
with gold.
Honnami Kōyetsu (1556-1637) is one of the earliest Japanese lacquerers
of importance whose work has come down to us. Koma Kiuhaka, who died in
1715, was another lacquerer of great distinction, the founder, in fact,
of a “school.” Bunsai, Kōrin, Yastuda, and Yasunari were brilliant
followers. Kōrin (1661-1716) was the most famous lacquerer Japan has
ever produced. It was he who first extensively used mother-of-pearl and
pewter ornament in Japanese lacquer in combination with the decoration.
Collectors will find few signatures on pieces of lacquer; the work
itself must be the guide.
[Illustration: _Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Chinese Red Cinnabar Lacquer Vase, 18th Century]
[Illustration: Japanese Gold Lacquer Toilet Stand, 17th Century]
[Illustration: _Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Chinese Snuff-Bottles of the Ch’ien Lung Period, 1736-1796]
CHAPTER XXXI
CHINESE SNUFF-BOTTLES
Fifteen hundred years ago there lived a Chinese painter, Wu Tao-tzu,
famous in Celestial lore, of whom it was said that it seemed as if a god
possessed him and wielded the brush in his hand. This greatest of all
Chinese masters was held in high esteem by the emperor. One day, wishing
to possess a landscape of one of his favorite bits of scenery, the
emperor directed Wu Tao-tzu to go forth and paint it. In the evening Wu
Tao-tzu returned, but empty-handed.
“Why!” exclaimed the emperor; “where is the landscape? You have
nothing!”
“O august Serenity, Son of Heaven!” replied Wu Tao-tzu, “I have it all,
all the landscape, here in my heart.”
Perhaps he made some discreet concession to the material side of the
adventure, for straightway he proceeded to cover a wall of one of the
apartments in the palace with a marvelous scene, such as the one he had
spent the day in contemplating. The next morning it was finished.
Delighted, the emperor came to view it. “Ah,” said he, “wonderful,
wonderful! It is the river, the bamboo, and there those majestic rocks!”
At the word, Wu Tao-tzu clapped his hands, and lo! there in the rocks of
the picture a cavern appeared. Wu Tao-tzu stepped into it, the entrance
closed, and Wu Tao-tzu disappeared from earth. Surely no legend better
illustrates the Chinese point of view, that a painting is the home of
the painter’s soul.
That is the story which was told to me one day when, happening into a
Chinese shop where some antiques and curios were offered for sale, I
chanced to pick up a tiny bottle. It was not over two and a half inches
high. Its weight proclaimed it crystal. A miniature scene and
inscription were skilfully and beautifully painted inside.
“This,” said the intelligent Chinese attendant, in answer to my
question, “is little bit painting. Story one man artist man very much
great. Him name Wu Tao-tzu.”
Then he told me the story, a golden nail on which to hang a bottle!
Surely enough, there was depicted Wu Tao-tzu entering the cavern. The
inscription vouched for the incident.
“But what a tiny bottle! What was it used for?”
“Much little bottle China old time fine like this. More other bottle
kinds use snuff for, medicine for. Look yes you please.”
The Celestial showed me how the ivory “spoon,” running the depth of the
bottle and fastened in the coral stopper, was manipulated to fetch forth
portions of anything a vial of this sort might contain. In snuff-taking
the “spoon” was emptied on the thumb nail and the “sniff” deftly taken.
That was my introduction to the fact that snuff-taking in the Orient had
fostered a fashion that produced objects of virtue fully as interesting
and beautiful as, and certainly more curious than the snuff-boxes
affected by the Europeans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
After this is it any wonder that the collector’s instinct should have
led me to be enthusiastic about Chinese snuff-bottles as a field for
browsing? And soon I found that the fascination of these little objects
of art had exerted no small influence on other collectors.
Fine snuff-bottles were not to be found at every turning. Nevertheless
they were not so rare as one might imagine, although, as with any other
class of art objects, supreme examples were difficult to obtain at any
price. If China has a population of four hundred million souls it must
not be assumed that her craftsmen have produced anything like four
hundred million snuff-bottles. True it is that men, women, and children
of China smoke, but they do not all take snuff.
Nearly all of these bottles that we see in collections are, perhaps,
snuff-bottles, though many of them were used for medicines, as the
Chinese were great medicine-consumers. They used medicines when
well--which was most of the time--in diminutive doses, perhaps as
charms, and when ill in quantities that would amaze and frighten us.
Hecate and her witches never prepared caldron more terrific than the
Chinese physician of yesterday devised for his certainly suffering
patient. The famous _materia medica_ of herbal which Li Shi-chin spent
thirty years in preparing, a work published in 1590, contained over
eighteen hundred prescriptions dear to the heart, though I fear
disastrous to the well-being of the Chinese invalid pro-tem. Gallon
containers would not have sufficed for some of these prescriptions,
while others--the least virulent, and therefore to be toyed with--were
harbored in the tiny bottles that snuff was, later, to usurp.
Miniature Chinese bottles found in Egypt and in Asia Minor--bottles of
porcelain bearing inscriptions in Chinese from the Chinese poets--show
that in the tenth century communication already existed between the
extreme boundaries of Asia. Arabs traded at Canton and Hangchow to the
end of the Sung dynasty, 1279. These little bottles were probably used
by the Arabs for kohl, the black substance with which they painted their
eyelashes. Sixty years before Li Shi-chin’s herbal--“Pun tsao” was its
title--tobacco was introduced into China, and before long tobacco as
snuff became popular and fashionable.
Among the ornamental articles of Chinese adornment, says an authority on
eastern costume, in none do they go to so much expense and style as in
the snuff-bottle, which is often carved from stone, amber, agate, and
other rare minerals with most exquisite taste. Jade, of course, was most
precious of all and often imitated in glass, as were topaz, amethyst,
tourmaline, amber, and other stones and substances.
Collectors in Europe and America are beginning to realize what
interesting things in the way of snuff-bottles the Chinese glass-worker
produced.
All Occidental methods of glass-working have long been known to the
Chinese. They have proved themselves skilful with blown, pressed, and
molded glass. However, their fame as glass-workers rests chiefly with
their cutting, deep chiseling, and undercutting objects of glass. In
this respect they have not been surpassed. Their work in this field was
undoubtedly inspired by their wide and varied experience with glyptic
work, a field in which their accomplishments in fashioning jade and
other hard stones served them a good turn.
As glass presented a somewhat less resisting mass than that of nephrite,
jadeite, or rock crystal, the Chinese lapidary found in it ready
response to his craftsmanship. The carved glass objects of the Chinese
usually are small. They generally suggest by skilful coloring and
tinting the hard stones they imitate. The Chinese snuff-bottles are
especially remarkable in this respect, as they are also in the marvelous
fertility of invention bestowed on their decoration, though in form they
are nearly of one general type and do not vary greatly in size. From the
plain crystalline glass bottles decorated with landscape or figure
subjects (by deftly painting the interior walls of the bottle so that
the scene shows through) to the much-bejeweled bottles, all these gems
of Chinese fabrication are triumphs of the art, patience, and ingenuity
of the Oriental hand and mind.
It is interesting to note that the Chinese have never made claim to the
discovery of glass. The historical work, “Wei Luo,” based on
third-century records, chronicles that ten colors of opaque glass were
imported by the Chinese from Rome between the years 221 and 264. The
Chinese themselves did not learn the art of glass-making until the fifth
century.
The fine porcelain snuff-bottles of the Celestials are indeed things to
be treasured. We find them in endless colors and designs. Some are
plain, some with under-glaze decoration, some cased with pierced
porcelain casing, others with molded decoration, and still others with
painted decoration. Occasionally one finds a porcelain bottle whose
glaze intentionally simulates glass.
The Chinese are skilful lapidaries. Their work in shaping jade and other
hard stones has not been surpassed. The Celestial craftsman likewise
shows great ingenuity in taking advantage of any irregularity in form or
color of the stone he is working. The various quartzes are worked by the
Chinese on the same treadle bench which they use in fashioning jade, and
they work quartz stones along the same general lines.
A study of Chinese snuff-bottles will indicate the unlimited range in
the decoration, form, etc., of these objects. It will be seen, however,
that they are all nearly of a size dictated by general convenience in
carrying in pockets and pouches. The stoppers of these Chinese
snuff-bottles are scarcely less beautiful in many instances than the
bottles themselves. As a general rule the stoppers are of material more
precious than that used for the bottle. Pearls and precious stones are
less often employed, and I have never seen a Chinese snuff-bottle
stopper inset with diamonds. The diamond is a stone the Chinese have
never appeared to regard highly except for its utilitarian
possibilities. Coral is a favorite for the snuff-bottle stoppers. Ivory
is not uncommon for stoppers, but fine ivory snuff-bottles are very
rare, as likewise are fine cloisonné enamel bottles.
There is no gainsaying that Chinese snuff-bottles cannot fail to attract
the collector by reason of their esthetic interest. At the same time,
few objects open up a more interesting intellectual treat than is
afforded by a study of these tiny bottles in respect to the subject of
their decoration. Colors, too, are to be studied. Five colors enter
popular Chinese tradition: black, white--the Chinese regard these as
colors--blue, yellow, and red, to each of which is attached definite
symbolism. Colors are, for instance, associated with the points of the
compass--black with north, red with south, blue with east, and white
with west. Yellow is the color associated with the earth, and so on.
Surely the treasured snuff-bottles of the Celestials offer the collector
much that is intellectually delectable; and as really interesting
specimens are not beyond the moderate purse, their enjoyment does not
necessitate the sacrifices that might deter the collector since these
little objects of art are not as hopelessly out of reach as were the
grapes to Tantalus!
CHAPTER XXXII
CLOISONNÉ ENAMELS OF CHINA AND JAPAN
The art of the enameler throughout the ages has ever proved to be a
subject of interest to connoisseurs and collectors. While learned
monographs in many languages have been written on the fascinating
subject of European enamels, less appears to have been written
concerning those of Asia and particularly those of China and Japan. The
real collector, as distinguished from the mere gatherer or hoarder of
art objects, finds a great part of his pleasure in acquainting himself
with the processes of manufacture as well as with the history of the
things he collects. It is this acquaintanceship with the minutiæ of a
subject that enables one to collect with judgment.
The basis of all enamels is the application of fusible silicate or
glass, colored with metallic oxides, all upon a metal ground. The
varieties of enamels have already been described at length in the
chapter on European enamels, but it will be convenient to summarize the
processes here as they apply to Oriental as well as to Occidental
enamels.
In cloisonné enamel-work a metal base--of gold, silver, copper, or some
other metal--has its design traced upon it by means of thin metal wires
or strips soldered to the base and forming a number of divisions. These,
when filled with the colored silicate (subjected to amalgamation by
heat, and afterward polished) produce a beautiful patterned surface, the
design of which appears traced in metal filaments. The Byzantine and the
Greek enamelers executed their cloisonné enamels in gold, as likewise
did the Anglo-Saxons, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Japanese in
their finest work.
In the plique à jour enamels we find what is really a variety of
cloisonné rather than a class, as the plique à jour is cloisonné
unbacked by a metal ground but much like a leaded stained-glass window
in miniature. That is, if one holds a piece of plique à jour work to the
light he will find it allows the light to pass through, whence its name.
Champlevé enamel resembles cloisonné, but its pattern, instead of being
traced by cloisons soldered on a metal base, is scooped out by a sort of
deep engraving upon the metal base, these depressions being filled up
with enamel, which is fired and then polished. The Celts, the Persians,
and the enamelers of India worked in this manner.
Respoussé enamel is, one may say, a variety of champlevé, or at least so
closely akin to it that it is seldom considered as composing a class by
itself, though I think it should be. In such enamel-work the design is
wrought upon the metal base, not with cloisons as in cloisonné, nor by
scooping out by a graver, as in true champlevé. Instead, the design is
worked upon the metal by hammering out--respoussé--the depressions to be
filled with the enamel. This is then fired and polished, as all enamel
of any class has to be. Some of the enamels of India are such fine
examples of work of this sort that they have passed as true champlevé.
Finally, we come to the _painted_ enamels, such as those of Limoges. In
the earliest examples of the painted class one finds the design applied
directly to the metal base, grain by grain and layer by layer, in such a
manner that the various fusings and glazings produce the results one
finds in the marvelous old Limoges enamels; while in later work the
enamel is fused upon the metal base, the designs being painted (in some
instances printed) on the enamel.
This brief survey of the characteristics of the different classes of old
enamels will the better enable the collector to confine his attention
for the moment to the subject of cloisonné enamels, and in particular to
those of China and Japan. Of late years the cloisonné enamels of these
countries have been extensively exported, more especially to America.
Many of these modern examples are very beautiful, some of them very
trashy, and none of them comparable in beauty with early Chinese work,
though, from a technical point of view and an individuality of their
own, I fancy some of the modern specimens would have made the
seventeenth-century enamel-workers of China rub their eyes in
wonderment. This great and difficult art is surely one of the glories of
Chinese craftsmanship. One might not think that the outlook for
collecting these old enamels in America very encouraging. Nevertheless
it is a line of collecting that has not been overdone, and genuine old
objects are to be found, here and there, by those who know them when
they see them.
As color is the very soul of enamel, the rich, soft colors of the early
Chinese work help to distinguish it. This is especially true of the
varied and beautiful blues employed by the Chinese enamelers.
Occasionally the Chinese employed both cloisonné and champlevé in the
same piece as certain pieces of the Ch’ien Lung period (1736-1796) show.
In genuine old pieces it often happens that corrosion has made its
appearance around the cloisons. While the early history of Chinese
cloisonné is lost to us, we know it to have been in favor in the early
fifteenth century, as a vase in the Victoria and Albert Museum attests.
Not only for its blues is Chinese cloisonné noted, but it possesses
characteristic reds, lilacs, violets, pinks, greens, and orange as well.
The Chinese enameler’s palette was medieval in its selection. The blues
of turquoise and of lapis lazuli were great favorites likewise. A
sang-de-bœuf and a sealing-wax red, opaque in quality, were further
employed. In fact, the Chinese enamelers employed the colors of the
early European cloisonné workers. Their whites, however, were always
inferior and in early work exhibit air-hole pit marks.
The collector will understand from this how necessary it is for him to
give careful attention to the subject of color in determining the early
enamels. The metals employed by the cloisonné-workers should also be
studied. Where gold was used it had to be fine gold, as alloys would not
withstand the heat of the enameler’s furnace. Enamel does not hold so
well to silver as to gold or copper. Then there is the distinctive
polish of the earlier enamels. These were polished by hand, in
consequence of which their surfaces did not present the mirror-like
polish which modern contemporary cloisonné enamels exhibit. The surfaces
of the old pieces is more like that of an egg-shell. Again, few of the
antique cloisonné enamels show any transparency, a fact probably due to
the oxide of tin in the solder. In recent work the cloisons have, in
many instances, been fastened to the metal bases by means of a paste
instead of by the soldering method--surely a shifty mode, and one
marking the decline of the true excellence of the ancient art.
Rudyard Kipling’s “From Sea to Sea” gives us a careful account of the
art of enameling as he saw it practised by the _minakari_ or enamelers
of Kyōto. This account is worth looking up. While the work described by
Kipling was that of the modern Japanese craftsmen of some thirty years
ago, the process was the same as practised in earlier times not only in
Japan but likewise in China, and everywhere that cloisonné enamel has
been made. The process in use to-day follows the same tradition.
The Koreans probably acquired the art of cloisonné from the Chinese, and
the Japanese from the Koreans (perhaps not before the fifteenth
century). Captain Brinkley says: “One thing is certain, that until the
nineteenth century enamels were employed by Japanese decorators for
accessory purposes only on wood and porcelain as well as on metal. No
such things as vases, plaques or bowls having their surface covered with
enamel in either style.” This at once enables the collector to
understand at how late a period, comparatively, cloisonné enamel became
popular in Japan. It is believed that early in the nineteenth century a
Japanese craftsman, Kaji Tsunekechi, produced the first vessel covered
completely with cloisonné in Japan. This was at Nagoya. It won him great
fame and many pupils. The earlier pieces of Japanese cloisonné followed
in pattern, to a great extent, the Chinese enamels, and though they are
somewhat less fine in color, they often excel in technique. Until 1890
the cloisons of Japanese work were soldered to the metal. Since that
date a vegetable gum has often been employed for the purpose. In some
modern work there appears to be no evidence of cloisons whatsoever, but
some of these pieces have hidden cloisons. The Japanese cloisonné
objects are usually enameled on the back or on the inside with blue
enamel Tōkyō, Yokohama, and Kyōto are the main sources of the modern
product.
Thirty years ago Louis Gonse, a French authority, wrote that the
Japanese had done little in cloisonné,
[Illustration: _Courtesy Brooklyn Museum of Art_
Chinese Cloissonné Palace Censer, Chia Ching Period, 1552-1567]
[Illustration: _Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Japanese Armour of the Feudal Period, showing Swords with their Sword-Guards
(_Tsuba_)]
but since that time its production has increased enormously. While much
of this modern work is inferior in quality, that which is truly _fine_
is well worth the collector’s attention. With the rapidly changing
conditions, both in China and Japan, such objects will greatly enhance
in value in a few years hence and come to be properly esteemed.
CHAPTER XXXIII
JAPANESE SWORD-GUARDS
Small objects beautiful to contemplate, exquisite in workmanship,
intrinsically valuable, and at the same time rich in historical
associations have attracted men of all ages. Little wonder it is that
the collector of the objects for art of the Japanese craftsmen finds in
them an ever refreshing delight. The _tsuba_, or sword-guards of Japan,
are famed for their workmanship, beauty of design, and historic
interest, while their rarity is not such as to discourage the collector.
A few years ago, indeed, these remarkable examples of the skill of the
old-time Japanese metal-workers could have been picked up in the
Japanese shops in America and Europe for a song. Though the price has
advanced precipitously, fine specimens of sword-guards may still be had
at far from prohibitive prices, when one considers that almost every
tsuba can be counted a supreme example of the metal-worker’s art. There
are no two genuine Japanese sword-guards precisely alike. Each is
distinctly an original and unique object into whose fashioning has gone
the best effort of those tirelessly patient and conscientious craftsmen
of the Flowery Kingdom.
Feudal Japan has disappeared, and with it the need of the old armorers’
art. Fifty-eight years ago a noted Japanese official sought in vain
throughout Yedo--now Tōkyō--for a countryman who might prove to be
conversant with the English language, a fact that gives one an
intimation of the rapidity with which the old order of things has been
thrown off and the new taken on. It was just forty years ago that an
imperial edict abolished the wearing of swords. The edict was obeyed
without a single known instance of resistance, and the shops of Kyōto,
Tōkyō, and Ozaka dealing in art objects soon bristled with ancient
swords and sword “furniture” from those samurai who a few months before
held their swords as sacred as their persons.
It is clear that, as a result of this edict, a vast number of swords
were brought into the market. Naturally enough, as collectors had not
then discovered the tsuba, countless sword-guards were thrown into the
melting-pot. Later, when European, American, and Japanese connoisseurs
came to rescue the tsuba from oblivion, the native craftsmen, still
possessors of a recent heritage of skill, fell to making sword-guards
for the market. Yet even these late nineteenth-and, one must suspect,
twentieth-century tsuba are often beautiful, ingenious, and interesting
enough to be desirable acquisitions on their own account.
In a land where the regard for the honor of the sword had evolved an
etiquette and almost a religion it is not strange that the art-loving
nation which conceived this regard should have applied its finest
ability to the decoration of the sword accessories, until finally these
became veritable treasure-troves recording the history and traditions of
the country as well as its symbolism and even its physical aspect.
The “furniture” of a Japanese sword consists primarily of the tsuba, or
guard,--a circular or oval (sometimes square and occasionally irregular)
piece of metal, with a triangular aperture to receive the sword-blade.
On each side is a smaller opening to receive the top of each of the two
smaller implements that accompany many of the Japanese swords--the
_kozuka_ or handle of the short dagger, or _kokatana_, and the _kogai_,
a skewer-shaped instrument. After the tsuba or sword-guard come the
smaller ornaments placed one on each side of the hilt to enable the
wielder of the sword to have a firmer grasp of it. These small metal
ornaments are called _menuki_. We find them, too, on the scabbards of
swords, especially on the daggers or _wakizashi_. Of great beauty and
interest are the _kashira_, metal caps fitting the heads of the
sword-handles, secured in place by means of cords laterally placed. The
_fuchi_ are oval rings through which the blade passes; they encircle the
bases of the handles where the blade is secured. The _kurikata_ are
cleats for securing the cords (_sageo_) which held back the warrior’s
sleeve whilst he was fighting. And finally there is the _kojiri_, the
metal endpiece of the scabbard.
There is not one of the ornamental decorations of a Japanese sword that
would not have awakened the admiration and envy of Benvenuto Cellini.
And to think that after the edict of 1877 there were, literally,
millions of them relegated to the rubbish heaps of the Japanese junkmen!
Too few of the menuki escaped being melted up. Theirs is a fascination
difficult to resist; but the tsuba more directly engages our attention
for the present, and the smaller ornaments have been referred to here
only in order that the reader may have some suggestion of their
relationship to the tsuba.
The earliest name of a sword-guard maker to be met with is that of
Mitsutsune (1390), Kaneiye of Fushimi, Umetada, Shigeyoshi (a renowned
swordsmith), Gōtō Yūjō (died 1504), Miochin Nobuiye (1507-1555), Iranken
Yamakichi (1570) and Hoan were all renowned for their tsuba at a later
period. Nobuiye’s work was distinguished for the thin soft iron with a
thick patina, reddish in hue. His tsuba bear traces of the hammer, as do
the tsuba of his followers for a considerable period. To Gōtō Yūjō
(1426-1504) and other members of the Gōtō family Japanese connoisseurs
give preference. A Japanese expert at once recognizes in the Gōtō tsuba
the _iyébori_ or style of the family whose genius produced them.
The work on those sword-guards whose surface is punched into a texture
of small dots until it resembles fish roe is called _nanakoji_, and for
tsuba so finished the Gōtō family were without rivals. Moslé suggests
that one of the requisites in the Japanese connoisseur’s education is to
recognize the iyébori (personal style) of the first thirteen generations
of the Gōtō!
Piercing, chasing, and, in a few instances, inlaying and damascening
came into the practice of the metal-workers with the advent of the
sixteenth century. Umetada Shigeyoshi, who has been called the “master
of masters,” began the free use of the graver in ornamentation. To him
mainly are due the decorative changes that marked the tsuba which were
made during this period. The close of the sixteenth century brought a
stretch of two hundred and fifty peaceful years after the turbulence
that had shaken Japan until then. Naturally, in the years of war the
sword of the Japanese fighter called for guards practical and tough in
texture, something that would deflect the powerful blow of an opponent.
In the years of peace the tsuba were mainly adapted to court use and for
the adornment of the person. The tsuba-makers of Ōsaka produced marvels
of damascening in gold and silver on iron. The second Kaneiye encrusted
his sword-guards with copper ornament, and Hirata Dōnin introduced the
use of translucent enamels. The pierced work of Kinai of Echizen is
supreme in its elegance of form.
The close of the seventeenth century gave rise to three schools of tsuba
decoration--the Nara School, revolting against the academic style of the
Gōtō, as did the Yokoya School, and the Omori School. In the work of the
masters of all three of these schools, the Gōtō influence may still be
traced, even though these metal-workers tried to get away from it.
The School of Ishiguro, Yedo, of the early part of the nineteenth
century came to be famous for its flat incised work, introducing
colored surfaces. Kano Natsuo may be mentioned as the last tsuba-maker
of distinction. The tsuba of the period between 1840 and 1870 were very
elaborately decorated, and obviously could never have been used for
their professed purpose. However, the collector will wish to acquire
specimens of them, if only as examples of the marvelous handicraft of
the Japanese metal-workers.
Nearly all of the imitations of genuine old tsuba can be detected by
holding the guard on one’s fingertip and striking it sharply with
another piece of metal. The genuine tsuba will emit a bell-like sound,
the cast imitation a dull one. A perfect patina is always to be sought
for in a tsuba.
One of the most important styles of ornamenting metal is _Zogan_, a
process which includes damascening and is sub-divided into: _Honzogan_
work, in which an undercutting retains the hammered-in inlay (if flush
with the surface, this is called _Hirazogan_, and if it is in relief,
_Takazogan_), and _Nunomezogan_ work, which derives its name from a
surface incised to represent linen mesh. The second style of ornamental
working is included under the names _Kebori_ and _Katakiri_. With kebori
work the lines are finely cut, and the word designating this class of
work signifies “hair lines engraved.” Katakiri work produces engraved
lines varying in depth to produce the effect of painting. The Japanese
hold this style in high favor. The third style of ornamental metal-work
is _Nikubori_; work in this style is carved in relief, low relief being
distinguished by the name, _Unsunikubori_, and high relief, _Takabori_.
The final style is _Uchidashi_. This metal-work is repoussé, and is
often to be found in combination with nikobori.
The subject of Japanese metal-work must ever prove one of fascination to
the student or collector, and even a very small collection of tsuba will
serve to cover the general field of representative styles. Like so many
other articles of collection appeal, they combine the two interests of
former utility and present beauty.
CHAPTER XXXIV
MEDALLIC ART
What a marvelous field for enjoyment is opened to the collector by
medallic art! To the uninitiated any coin or medal a hundred years old
will seem instantly to suggest an almost prohibitive value. Nothing
could be more of a mistake. As a matter of fact interesting coins and
medals are within the reach of almost any one for a remarkably small
outlay. Of course tremendous prices are given for tremendous rarities,
but coin-and medal-collectors in America seem more interested in early
coined United States cents which exhibit this slight variation or that,
than in collecting for purely the beauty and the historic charm medallic
art exhibits.
Perhaps I should not quarrel with such, for this state of affairs has,
in times past, permitted my acquiring for pennies lovely medals and
marvelously beautiful coins, while they were paying out, in the same
sales, small fortunes for ugly broken-down coppers whose sole virtue
(in my sight) lay in their containing half their face-value of pure
copper!
But we need not linger over these. Let us take thought of the _real_
masterpieces of the times that were and the times that are. We must
include the remarkable productions of our contemporary medalists,
inheritors of the skill and best traditions of past masters.
In the first place, medallic art, more than any other, perhaps, nearly
always displays prominent national characteristics; so it is
comparatively easy to distinguish between the medals of various
countries.
The debt history owes to coins and medals, for the clues to the past
they have given it, is enormous. Cities and sites have been identified
by their means, dates of dynasties made certain by their evidence, and
forgotten deeds of heroes recalled through their records. A few years
ago a Sicilian peasant is said to have discovered the only specimen
extant of a rare coin of antiquity that adds certainty to our knowledge
of the site of Abacænum, whose ruins lie outside the walls of Tripi.
As Vasari observed, the art of the medalist is “a work most difficult by
artists as it holds the mean between painting and sculpture.” That it
does, truly, as any collection of early medals and the best medals of
to-day conclusively proves. At the end of the fifteenth century the
making of dies as it was then practised permitted only designs for very
low relief to be struck and of small circumference--such a size as we
see in the coins of that time. Coins like the United States double eagle
designed by Saint-Gaudens could not then have been attempted. Stamping
from the die was a process yet in its infancy and was not then able to
meet the requirements of striking the larger medal forms; hence these
were invariably cast. First a model in wax was made and embedded in some
fine molding-substance, such as earth or charcoal. Having fitted itself
perfectly into every crevice of the wax model, this mold of earth was
stiffened by a lye solution; the wax was melted out, and molten metal
was poured from a crucible into the mold which was left behind. Whether
or not replicas were made from the same mold is a question that remains
unsolved. Probably not, but instead they may have been made from the new
molds of new wax models formed in plaster molds from plaster casts of
the originals. When removed from its mold the medal was worked over with
a fine gritty substance, and often with finishing instruments. Moreover,
the edges had to be filed smooth, as the casting always left them
rough. In many cases it is apparent that engraving was resorted to in
order that outlines might be emphasized, especially in indicating hair.
In very early days medals afforded a convenient kind of portrait for
transmission to distant friends; large numbers of medals, too, were
buried under the foundations of buildings erected by a prince or a
state, as in our own time coins are placed under the corner-stone of a
public edifice. For instance, in the cellar walls of the Palazzo Venezia
in Rome, built by Pope Paul II, twenty medals of that pope were found.
Some bore on the reverse a representation of the palace, others the arms
of the pope with the legend: “Has Ædes Condidit.” They were enclosed in
an earthenware case that had to be broken in order to release the
contents. It is safe to assume that nearly all early medals bearing
representations of buildings were cast for like commemorative purposes.
It remained for the beginning of the sixteenth century to witness the
inauguration of the art of striking medals from engraved dies. In the
British Museum there is an example of a medal of Pope Julius II by
Francesco Francia the painter, who besides being a painter and a
medalist was also a goldsmith and likewise designed the font of italic
type for Aldus Manutius the printer. This medal of Pope Julius was
probably struck about the year 1506. It and the medals of Benvenuto
Cellini in the Museo Nazionali in Florence (which latter medals are
perhaps the finest examples of struck medals of the period, though by no
means the most artistic) occasionally turn up in public sales. They, of
course, command top-notch prices, although a truly fine gold coin from
Cellini’s dies, a coin of undoubted authenticity, was purchased in
London by the author for two pounds, and from a dealer of international
reputation.
When Francia and Cellini were engraving their dies the new method was
still confined to medals of smaller circumference, for all the larger
ones as yet continued to be cast, even down to the end of the sixteenth
century; and of course casting is a method in very general use to-day.
The modern process of reducing models by means of a clever mechanical
instrument enables the medalist to work out the relief without size
restrictions, from which the reduced size desired for the medal is
finally obtained with absolute fidelity. In fact, modern medals are
often produced in various sizes by an ingenious mechanical process,
without any loss in effect from the same original. Roty’s medal for the
French Alpine Club is such an example.
One may see that the change from casting to striking medals greatly
affected the art of the medalist. The preparation of the model for
casting required a technique almost identical with that of the sculptor
preparing for a bronze statue, the sculptor in marble of course having
to take into account further matters incident to the substance he was
finally to work in. On the other hand, the die-engraver’s art required a
totally different technique, a skill akin to the requirements of
gem-engraving and also to the craft of a goldsmith. When cast medals
became reduced to the size of struck medals, the reduction required
finer workmanship in the original modeling and in the finishing. This
again brought the medalist nearer the goldsmith. Accordingly, we find
Francia, Cellini, Valerio Belli, Cesati, Annibale Fontana, Leone Leoni,
and others at once goldsmiths or gem-engravers and medalists.
It is interesting to visit some museum collection and compare a _cast_
medal by Pisano with a _struck_ medal by Cellini, or with one by
Bernardi, in order to note their differences. Very often the extreme
fineness in finish of early Italian medals makes them appear at first
sight struck when in reality they have been cast. This is especially
noticeable in the medals of Pastorino of Siena, who very nearly brought
medallic portraiture to its perfection. His manner is full of delicacy
and beauty, but it just misses the mark in requisite vigor.
There are various medals intimately connected with American history,
though many of them have been executed by alien artists. However, with
the example set by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Frederick Mac Monnies, Victor
D. Brenner, Paul Manship, James Earle Fraser, John Flanagan, and others,
it is to be hoped that more of our artists will turn to this field and
that more encouragement, public and private, will be given in it. We
might well emulate the attention that has been given to the subject in
France.
Fine medals and coins should be tenderly treated. Every scratch mars
their beauty. Each should be kept protected from abrasion. It is
vandalism to subject a medal or coin to an unskilled scouring or
scraping. The early Italians were greatly interested in medallic art and
appreciated beautiful medals as perhaps no other people has ever done.
There are, of course, those soulless persons who find in a medal or an
uncurrent coin only a suggestion of something that might once have been
spent but which cannot be now, and who, with a shrug, refuse to share
the enthusiast’s pleasure. The collector must not hope to win such to
the interest with which medallic art is invested.
CHAPTER XXXV
ENGRAVED GEMS
In Beau Brummel’s time not to know all about gem-engraving, the intaglio
and the cameo, was thought to be devoid of one of the most important
cultural attributes of every eighteenth-century gentleman. Those were
the picturesque days of post-riders and sealing-wax, days that scarcely
anticipated the letter-writing necessities of our own time, when we can
scarcely stop to put on the stamp and one lick of the flap has taken the
place of the perfumed elegance of yesterday’s wafer, leisurely impressed
with some exquisite seal.
It was only natural then that the seal should be a factor in the
diversions of polite society while possessing a utility not yet
exterminated by demands on man’s time. Not only did every gentleman have
a seal ring, but often he had several, and sometimes many for different
occasions. Frequently these seals or _sigilii_, as the Latins called
them, were engraved with devices directly upon metal. However, the far
more popular method was that which is one of our chief heritages from
antiquity--engraving on gems or on semi-precious stones by means of the
intaglio process. _Intaglio_, derived from the Italian _intagliere_ (to
cut into), means _incised_ engraving, as opposed to the _cameo_ process,
or engraving _in relief_. Cameo-engraving is a later art, as generally
practised, and cannot compare with that of intaglio-engraving, with
which it has nothing in common but its subject and the material on which
it is cut. An intaglio is the product of a reverse and much more
difficult process than that by which the cameo is evolved. An impression
from a well-cut intaglio leaves a very fine design in relief, and it is
marvelous to behold the results obtained by the infinite pains of
gem-engravers. In our own day the masters of the art can be counted on
the fingers of one hand, so greatly has the demand for work of the sort
diminished. Indeed, there is almost no call for it in America. Probably
this is due to the fact that so few people really either understand the
importance of the subject, the history of glyptic art, or realize the
beauty of the fine works of the sort.
It should be borne in mind that although engraved gems, unlike Greek
painted vases, are chiefly valuable as handmaids to history in
preserving to us contemporary portraits of their times, they still make
known to us, as Collingnon says, a whole phase of Greek thought that was
developed in the Macedonian epoch.
The Greeks never greatly favored the Egyptian scarab beetle-form for
engraved gems and later introduced the oval, which is known as the
scaraboid form, especially popular from 600 B.C. to 500 B.C., in the
Archaic Period. With primitive engraved gems and scarabs (2500 B.C. to
900 B.C.) as well as with later ones, the archæologist has to move
cautiously, since imitations were manufactured at a very early time. The
researches in Crete by Arthur Evans brought to light great numbers of
engraved seals and stones that are unquestionably of remote antiquity,
and, by the form of their engraved characters, indicate the existence of
a system of writing of a far earlier date than had been assigned to
calligraphy on Greek soil. The most interesting examples of this class
were found in the Palace of Minos at Cnossos, and were used for sealing
documents in the Cretan script, while others were used in sealing
storage vessels. That there is nothing new under the sun seems again to
have been demonstrated in the discovery at Mycenæ of a massive engraved
signet portraying three ladies in modern-looking divided skirts, a
subject quite as up-to-date as the beflounced corseted, frilled, and
bonneted ladies that the Cretan frescos disclosed a few years ago, to
the bewilderment of the Parisian dressmakers.
However, the intaglii which typically mark the early Mycenæan period are
the Island Stones (900 B.C. to 600 B.C.), a name given to a lenticular
stone of steatite, rock crystal, carnelian, or chalcedony, such stones
being chiefly found in the Greek islands and in the Mediterranean
region, where Mycenæan remains are to be found. The decorative devices
employed were nearly always animals, such as the lion, deer, bull, goat,
singly or quasi-heraldically arranged in pairs, facing in or facing out.
Their artistic merit was often of a high order, though this excellence
was somewhat over-balanced by the figures being arranged to occupy the
entire area of a gem’s surface. As Dr. Walters of the British Museum
observed, “this _horror vacui_, or dread of leaving a vacant space, was
characteristic of Greek artists at all periods.”
The Transitional Period proper, from 500 B.C. to 450 B.C., produced very
fine gems with genre subjects. These were probably influenced somewhat
by the freedom acquired by the Greek vase-painters, whose art reached
its perfection in that era. From thence onward no subject seems to have
daunted the gem-engraver who reproduced the most intricate details and
reduced to miniature marvelously well the beauties of those groups of
colossal statuary that particularly inspired him, subjects from
paintings or his own devices, or figures, heads and portraits of his
contemporaries, men, women and children--portraits which must have been
possessed of the virtue of likenesses to an extraordinary degree, else
they would not for centuries have continued in such favor. As Renton
says, “we are forcefully reminded of the extreme durability of engraved
gems when we reflect that some at the present time contained in our
museums and collections have been buried in tombs or in the earth;
others have been thrown upon the shore, washed by the sea or exposed to
fire, pillage, and other dangers, but still appearing with the engraving
in some instances as clear, sharp, and defined as it was the day they
left the artist’s hands.” It is this careful and peculiar finish to the
work that distinguishes the truly antique gems from the spurious.
We have little reliable data concerning the artists in glyptic art from
the primitive period represented by the Samian Theodorus, who made the
famous ring for Polycrates, to the period of the art’s perfection, 450
B.C. to around 400 B.C. To the latter period belongs, by right of his
excellence, Pyrgoteles, who engraved the seals of Alexander.
The least doubtful names, perhaps, are those of Agathopous, Apollonides,
Aspasios, Athēniōn, Boēthos, Dexamenos, Dioskouridēs, Epitynchanos,
Hērakleides, Hērophilos, Hyllos, Mykon, Nikandrus, Onēsus, Pamphilos,
Prōtarchos, Solōn, and Teukrus, tedious to catalogue perhaps, still a
small number out of proportion to the vast quantity of intaglii that
have been recovered from the past. We are sure of Dioskourides under
Augustus, but even in antiquity names were forged upon gems at a later
date or by an alien hand, such forgeries being especially common from
the time of the Renaissance on. Indeed, it became quite as much the
fashion to mutilate antique gems by adding bogus signatures as it did
later to imitate the glyptic art of the ancients and attempt to pawn off
forgeries and fabrications on the enthusiastic but indiscriminating. Of
this the reader will find further mention in the chapter on Fraudulent
Art, which follows. In ancient times intaglii were also imitated in
glass and much affected by the poorer classes, so early had the idea of
cheap imitation jewelry taken root.
However, such work was obviously false, while there have been some very
clever imitations engraved on very fine gems. The famous Poniatowski
Collection was the greatest of the gigantic frauds of the sort
perpetrated. In the happier days of the First Empire the patronage of
the Empress Josephine had brought appreciation of the glyptic art to a
pinnacle, whence it fell from mere discouragement by the exposition of
the Poniatowski Collection fraud in a London market. These gems might
best be described as regular pictures in stone and portraits of all the
celebrated men of antiquity, each blandly “authenticated” with his
proper name and the artist’s signature! No wonder collectors and
amateurs turned, frightened, to scan their own collections. If such
traffic was fostered by dealers of their time, what recourse had they
outside careful and arduous scholarship? Still, minute rudimentary
knowledge of gem-engraving and its chronological phases should at once
have set them at ease. The amateur of to-day knows that a signed gem is
an exception to the rule and rests secure in the knowledge.
Although the various periods of Greek glyptic art have been indicated,
it may be helpful to repeat them here in tabulated form, following
mainly Walter’s scheme of classification.
I Prehistoric Period--2500 to 900 B.C. Primitive seal stones,
imported cylinders.
II Early Period--900 to 600 B.C. Island gems. Mycenæan era.
III Archaic Period--600 to 500 B.C. Scaraboids supersede scarabs.
IV Transitional Period--500 to 450 B.C. Finely engraved gems and
prevalence of genre subjects.
V Culminating Period--450 to 400 B.C. Perfection in engraved gems.
Greek gems of the latest period are rare in comparison with those of
periods preceding and following.
That Greek influence reached Etruria has been shown by full evidence in
many ways, and we have large numbers of engraved gems from Etruscan
tombs of the fifth and fourth centuries, these intaglii having for their
subjects most commonly incidents from legends of the Greek heroes. It is
well to note that deities are rarely portrayed on Etruscan gems, whose
form was usually that of the scarab. The fourth century finds their
workmanship greatly deteriorating.
The Romans were very fond of engraved gems and practised the glyptic art
from early times. When Constantine the Great removed the seat of the
Roman Empire to Constantinople in 329 A.D. this art, like the other
arts, followed him thither, of course; but for over a thousand years
succeeding the intaglii produced seldom attained great excellence and
the taste for engraved gems followed other esthetic tendencies into the
obscure retirement of the dark ages. In fact, the glyptic art almost
became extinct, but with the expulsion of the Greeks from Constantinople
by Mahomet in 1453 A.D. it found itself again on Italian soil,
thereafter to grow strong and flourish from the root it had taken.
Just as the ecclesiastics converted Greek painted vases to altar use and
sculptured sarcophagi into containers of holy water, they now turned
their attention to engraved gems and rescued these baubles from the
reproach of being mere vanities by clothing their subjects with
Christian legends. Probably to this fact we owe the preservation of some
of our finest examples. It was a difficult task to rechristen the gems
and endow them with a sacred character quite out of keeping with their
conception. However, the early church was ingenious and gave to Jupiter
with his eagle the significance of St. John the Evangelist, while
Melpomene did very well for Salome with John the Baptist’s head.
However, gem-engravers arose to help truth out with veritable subjects,
and the church became a powerful patron of the art of gem-engraving.
Prelates and princes hastened to have their fancies carried out in
intaglii, until the cinquecento produced a host of clever engravers
capable of catering to any taste or to any fad or fancy. About this time
the forms of intaglii were greatly enlarged.
Lorenzo de’ Medici and his successors were munificent patrons of the
gem-engraver, and not only formed splendid collections of intaglii but
encouraged engravers in Florence, and by the middle of the fifteenth
century a graceful classic style had been revived. Giovanni, surnamed
Della Corniole, was one of the most excellent artists of the time, and
in his everlastingly entertaining “Memoirs” Benvenuto Cellini speaks of
Micheletto, who was “very clever at engraving carnelians, an old man and
of great celebrity.” This was the engraver whom Vasari calls by the
affectionate diminutive “Michelino,” but Cellini himself later calls him
“Michele.”
The gem-engravers of the sixteenth century were prolific, and their work
appealed immensely to the French taste. Francis I was a liberal patron
of the glyptic art and had at his court the renowned gem-engraver,
Matteo del Nassaro of Verona. Probably the first French gem-engraver of
note was Julien de Fontenay, sometimes known as Coldore, who executed
an intaglio portrait of Henry IV, and was later invited to England by
Queen Elizabeth. Subsequently a taste for the art developed in England,
although the culmination of encouragement was not reached until the
middle of the eighteenth century, when collecting engraved gems became a
mania with many and good examples brought huge prices. Up to the
beginning of the nineteenth century the influence of classic designs
obtained. King George III was a liberal patron of gem-engravers, and to
the foresight of the Duke of Devonshire and Marlborough the world owes
the preservation of some of the finest examples extant of intaglii of
any time.
The works of such classicists as Marchant, who studied in Rome many
years, and of his successor, Burch, a Royal Academician, extending over
a period of years from 1750 to 1815 or thereabouts, are well worth
while, and would reveal an excellence of execution unsurpassed. Then
followed such men as Weigall, Bragg, Grew, and in our own day the
Rentons, who engraved intaglii for members of the royal family.
Since the heraldic style has followed the classic, interest in the art
of intaglio-engraving has waned tremendously and can be brought back
only by the revival of that classic spirit which, after all, underlies
everything that is best the world over, in art or in literature.
The substances employed by the gem-engravers are amethyst, hyacinth,
agate, carnelian, chalcedony, crystal, and other precious gems. In our
own day almost every stone is employed. The lapidary must not be
confused with the gem-engraver. The first prepares the stone to receive
the work of the second, just as the wood-sawyer prepares the material
for the carpenter, or the man at the quarry the block for the sculptor.
Pliny described at some length the process of gem-engraving in his day.
As to the ancient mode of engraving gems, in which the drill wheel and
diamond point were used, the use of the wheel is especially noticeable
in the lenticular Island gems; it was a small bronze disk set on a shaft
of metal worked like the drill with a bow and tube of emery powder; its
purpose was for cutting lines to connect the points made by the drill,
or else for broad, sunken surfaces. The diamond point, on the other
hand, was used like a pencil, with the hand alone; it resembles the
modern glass-cutting diamond and was employed for giving an artistic
finish to the design, which could of course be best done with the free
hand. The use of this tool required great technical skill, the results
of which may clearly be seen on some gems of the best period.
In passing it is interesting to note the devices to which makers of
fraudulent “antique” intaglii have been known to resort. As an instance,
that misty dullness of the stone which only age is supposed to give is
produced in Italy by forcing the smaller engraved gems down the
unwilling gullets of defenceless turkeys, whereupon the action of the
gastric juice and the gritty substances in the gizzard outdo the devices
of Time himself, as the funeral of the unhappy bird reveals to the
dissecting and dishonest fabricator.
CHAPTER XXXVI
FRAUDULENT ART OBJECTS
The detection of fraudulent antiques and curios and other bogus works of
art has become a science. Phædrus, who lived and wrote in the time of
Tiberius Cæsar, tells in his fiftieth fable of how his contemporaries
carved the name of Praxiteles on their marbles and the name of Myron on
everything they wrought in silver, in order that their productions might
pass as masterpieces of those supreme Hellenic artists.
Though the Romans were an art-loving people, they openly connived at
art-fraud, but for esthetic reasons, as we learn from Pliny. He tells us
that in his time the coins of Rome were so clumsily modeled and so
basely cast that several artists made new molds, treating the designs of
the mint more carefully, and produced spurious coins which were eagerly
sought in place of the inartistic legal tender.
Michelangelo, piqued at the extravagant attention paid the antiques (to
the exclusion of interest in his early struggles for recognition),
conceived the clever idea of doing an Eros in marble after his own
design, burying the work in mud for some months, and then digging it up
in the presence of certain noble collectors. These gentlemen went mad
over its beauty, proclaiming it to be the greatest relic antiquity had
left them. Michelangelo finally disclosed to them his own initials,
which he had carved in a hidden fold of the wings, and was highly amused
at the discomfiture of his companions. They, however, came to their
senses and had the good grace to recognize the towering genius who stood
laughing before them. Indeed, one of them became his foremost patron.
This was a harmless trick conceived for salutary purposes, and not at
all to be classed with the exploits of Gambello, Bassiano, or Giovanni
del Cavino, whose forgeries of Roman medals were particularly skilful,
though not proof against modern scientific methods of uncovering frauds.
No wonder one of the ancient writers declared that, “the very nerves and
sinews of knowledge consist of believing nothing rashly.” This was
especially true in the days of the Renaissance, when a study of the
antique came so quickly into fashion, and in the train of it such
efforts to collect ancient objects of art that some of the unscrupulous
but skilful artists and artisans of the time could scarcely resist the
temptations offered by the ease with which clever art-forgeries were
palmed off upon the gullible, who paid enormous prices for them. We know
how Andreini of old-time Florence forged Greek signatures to ancient
unsigned intaglii and how Flavio Sirletti lent his skill to it with the
aid of Pliny’s record of ancient sculptors. The collection of Prince
Poniatowski, nephew of the last King of Poland, contained some three
thousand fraudulent engraved gems! As all of these gems were very
beautiful in themselves, and as nearly all of their subjects were
original with their engravers, it is unfortunate that such excellent and
exquisitely done work could not have stood forth on its own merits to
cast fame and not shame on the cunning hands that produced them.
Some counterfeiting is too laborious for profit, but it is marvelous to
see some of the things that emanated in the early days from the
shameless fake-factories of Pietro Fondi and others at Venice and in
Corfu. The Sienese, too, were skilful copyists of the various trecento,
quattrocento, and cinquecento objects of art. Terra-cotta figurines and
Greek and Etruscan vases have ever been subjects for the hand of the
forger and fabricator of antiques.
Pottery and porcelain have always seemed to tempt art-forgers and
imitators. The way of the collector of Chinese and other Oriental
porcelains and pottery has been made especially difficult in
consequence. Even Bernard Palissy is believed by some to have imitated
the wares of Briot, and in turn imitations of these imitations were once
acquired by a museum. In our own day Palissy’s own ware has been
imitated by Lesnes, Barbizet, and M. Pall. Perhaps the London Jarman was
the prince of fakers. He obtained undecorated Sèvres pieces from France
and had a Quaker potter from Staffordshire, one Randall by name, add all
sorts of delightful scenes. They were purchased by the royal family, who
took the pieces on good faith as being Sèvres decorations.
European enamels and early ivories have not escaped attention at the
forger’s hand. When Sir A. W. Franks was innocently attempting to
arrange the purchase of the _Diptychion Leodiense_ for eight hundred
pounds in England, he discovered that this object was nothing more than
a clever combination of copies of two other panels of unquestioned
authenticity.
And so things go merrily on, even in this day and generation. But your
_true_ collector is one who studies the objects he collects and he is
not likely to be easily deceived. Photography has stretched forward a
helping hand and by means of enlarged photographic prints of a subject
in dispute, the minute comparisons between authenticated and merely
attributed works of a period may be studied. It was Juvenal who coined
the name “_rara avis_”; and the impatient collector who would acquire a
“rare bird” of art as it flies toward him from the horizon of
opportunity must be sure he knows something of its “ornithology” before
he rushes recklessly forth, perchance to put the salt of good money on
some worthless tail.
There is told the story of a certain Bavarian collector who began to
doubt the authenticity of a little statuette in his possession. Finally
he sent for a noted authority on the subject, who tried to reassure him.
As the collector did not seem convinced, the expert, as a last resort,
made mention of a certain test that might, though with danger to the
object, be applied. The collector insisted on the attempt, in the course
of which the statuette was hopelessly defaced, though the accident
confirmed the expert’s opinion. “Ah,” moaned the owner, “why did I let
you touch it!” “Ingrate!” replied the other with grim humor. “Have you
not now the satisfaction of knowing your fears to be groundless, and my
own knowledge to be trustworthy? Look at the pieces--without doubt the
statuette was genuine!”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. THE PLEASURES OF COLLECTING
_The Connoisseur._ By Frederick S. Robinson. New York. 1897.
_The A B C About Collecting._ By Sir James Yoxall, M. P.
Philadelphia. n. d.
_First Steps in Collecting._ By Grace M. Vallois. London. n. d.
_Antiques and Curios in the Home._ By Grace M. Vallois. New York.
n. d.
_By-Paths in Collecting._ By Virginia H. Robie. New York. 1912.
_The Lure of the Antique._ By Walter A. Dyer. New York. 1916.
II. COLLECTORS OF YESTERDAY
_The Lives of The Twelve Caesars._ By C. Suetonius Tranquillus.
Bohn Edition. London. 1909.
_Horace Walpole._ By Austin Dobson. New York. 1893.
_The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects._ By Giorgio
Vasari. Translated by A. M. Hinds. London. n. d.
_The Connoisseur._ By Frederick S. Robinson. New York. 1897.
_Anecdotes of Painting in England._ By Horace Walpole. London.
1849.
III. AMERICAN TABLES
_Early American Craftsmen._ By Walter A. Dyer. New York. 1915.
_Old Furniture Book._ By N. Hudson Moore. New York. 1903.
_The Practical Book of Period Furniture._ By Harold Donaldson
Eberlein and Abbot McClure. Philadelphia.
IV. TEA AND ANTIQUITY
_The Book of Tea._ By Okakura-Kakuzo. New York. 1919.
_The Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers’ Director._ By Thomas
Chippendale. London. 1762.
_Tea Leaves._ By Francis S. Drake. Boston. 1884.
V. CUP-PLATES
_Old China Book._ By N. Hudson Moore. New York. 1903.
_Chats on Old Earthenware._ By Arthur Hayden. New York. 1909.
_The Earthenware Collector._ By G. Woolliscroft Rhead. New York.
1920.
_Staffordshire Pots and Potters._ By G. Woolliscroft Rhead and
Frederick Alfred. London. 1906.
_The Art of the Old English Potter._ By L. M. Solon. London. 1883.
VI. CHINTZ
_Chats on Cottage and Farmhouse Furniture._ By Arthur Hayden. New
York. n. d.
VII. PEWTER
_Pewter and the Amateur Collector._ By Edwards J. Gale. New York.
1909.
_Chats on Pewter._ By H. J. L. J. Massé, M. A.
VIII. SAMPLERS
_English Embroideries._ By A. F. Kendrick. London. n. d.
_Samplers and Tapestry Embroideries._ By Marcus B. Huish. London.
1900.
_The Lace Book._ By N. Hudson Moore. New York. 1904.
_History of English Secular Embroidery._ By M. Jourdain. London.
1910.
IX. WAX PORTRAITS
_Wax Portraits and Silhouettes._ By Ethel Stanwood Bolton. Boston.
1914.
X. HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS
_Quilts._ By Marie D. Webster. Garden City. 1915.
XI. CHAIRS
_Chats on Old Furniture._ By Arthur Hayden. London. 1905.
_The Furniture of our Forefathers._ By Esther Singleton. New York.
1900.
_The Practical Book of Period Furniture._ By Harold Donaldsen
Eberlein and Abbot McClure. Philadelphia.
_Decorative Styles and Periods._ By Helen Churchill Candee. New
York. 1906.
_Chats on Cottage and Farmhouse Furniture._ By Arthur Hayden. New
York. n. d.
_Antique Furniture._ By Fred W. Burgess. New York. 1915.
XII. ENGLISH DRINKING-GLASSES
_The Glass Collector._ By Maciver Percival.
_Early English Glass._ By Daisy Wilmer. 1910.
_Glass._ By Edward Dillon. London. 1907.
_Collecting Old Glass._ By Sir James Yoxall. London. 1916.
_Old English Glasses._ By Albert Hartshorne, F. S. A. London. 1897.
_English Table Glass._ By Percy Bate. London. n. d.
XIII. STUART EMBROIDERIES
_English Embroideries._ By A. F. Kendrick. London. n. d.
_History of English Secular Embroideries._ M. Jourdain. London.
1910.
XIV. DELFT
_The Earthenware Collector._ By G. Woolliscroft Rhead. New York.
1920.
_A B C of Collecting Old Continental Pottery._ By J. F. Blacker.
Philadelphia. n. d.
_Dutch Pottery and Porcelain._ By W. Pitcairn Knowles. London. n.
d.
_Delftware: Dutch and English._ By N. Hudson Moore. New York. 1908.
XV. EARLY DESK FURNITURE
_Old Furniture Book._ By N. Hudson Moore. New York. 1903.
_Chats on Old Furniture._ By Arthur Hayden. London. 1905.
_Antique Furniture._ By Fred. W. Burgess. New York. 1915.
XVI. CHELSEA
_Chelsea and Chelsea-Derby China._ By Egan Mew. London. n. d.
_Bow, Chelsea, and Derby Porcelain._ By William Bemrose, F. S. A.
London, 1898.
_Porcelain: a Sketch of its Nature, Art and Manufacture._ By
William Burton, F. C. S. London. 1906.
_English Porcelain Made During the Eighteenth Century._ By Sir
Arthur Herbert Church. London. 1904.
_Chats on English China._ By Arthur Hayden. New York. n. d.
_The China Collector._ By H. William Lewer, F. S. A. New York. n.
d.
XVII. WEDGWOOD
_Chats on Old Earthenware._ By Arthur Hayden. New York. 1909.
_The Earthenware Collector._ By G. Woolliscroft Rhead. New York.
1920.
_The Ceramic Gallery._ By William Chaffers. London. 1907.
_Josiah Wedgwood, Master Potter._ By A. H. Church, F. R. S. London.
1894.
_The Wedgwoods._ By Llewellyn Jewitt, F. S. A. London. 1865.
_The Life of Josiah Wedgwood._ By Eliza Meteyard. London. 1865.
_A Catalogue of Plaques, Medallions, Vases, Figures, etc., in
Coloured Jasper and Basalte, produced by Josiah Wedgwood, F. R. S._
By Arthur Sanderson. London. 1901.
_The Art of the Old English Potter._ By L. M. Solon. London. 1883.
_Staffordshire Pottery and Its History._ By Josiah C. Wedgwood.
London. n. d.
XVIII. SAVING THE PIECES
_Glues and Cements._ By H. A. S. Cassal.
_The Barberini Vase._ Tiffany & Co. New York. 1904.
XIX. LOUNGING FURNITURE
_Old Furniture Book._ By N. Hudson Moore. New York. 1903.
_Chats on Old Furniture._ By Arthur Hayden. London. 1905.
_The Practical Book of Period Furniture._ By Harold Donaldson
Eberlein and Abbot McClure. Philadelphia.
_Decorative Styles and Periods._ By Helen Churchill Candee. New
York. 1906.
_The Furniture of Our Forefathers._ By Esther Singleton. New York.
1900.
_Antique Furniture._ By Fred W. Burgess. New York. 1915.
XX. SHEFFIELD PLATE
_Sheffield Plate._ By Bertie Wyllie. London. n. d.
_Sheffield Plate._ By H. N. Veith. London. 1908.
_Old Sheffield Plate._ By Julia W. Torrey. Boston. 1918.
_The History of Old Sheffield Plate._ By Frederick Bradbury.
London. 1912.
XXI. STRAW MARQUETERIE
_Rariora._ By John Eliot Hodgkin, F. S. A. London. 1900.
_Chats on Military Curios._ By Stanley C. Johnson, M. A., D. Sc.,
F. R. E. S. New York. n. d.
XXII. CONSOLES
_Decorative Styles and Periods._ By Helen Churchill Candee. New
York. 1906.
_Chats on Old Furniture._ By Arthur Hayden. London. 1905.
_A History of Furniture._ By Albert Jacquemart. Translated by Mrs.
Bury Palliser. London.
XXIII. SÈVRES PORCELAIN
_Pottery and Porcelain._ By Frederick Litchfield. London. 1880.
_Porcelain, Oriental, Continental and British._ By R. L. Hobson, B.
A. New York. 1906.
_The New Chaffers._ By William Chaffers. London. 1912.
_History of the Ceramic Art._ By Albert Jacquemart. Translated by
Mrs. Bury Palliser. London. 1873.
_Royal Sèvres._ By Egan Mew. London. n. d.
_French Pottery and Porcelain._ By Henri Frantz. London. 1906.
XXIV. EUROPEAN ENAMELS
_Enamels._ By Mrs. Nelson Dawson. London. 1906.
_Jewellery._ By Cyril Davenport. London. 1905.
_Art of Enamelling on Metals._ By H. Cunynghame. London. 1906.
_Art of Enamelling on Metals._ By A. Fisher. London. 1906.
_Chats on Old Jewellery and Trinkets._ By MacIver Percival.
_Handbook of the Benjamin Altman Collection._ Metropolitan Museum
of Art. New York. 1915.
XXV. THE ROMANCE OF A POTTER: BERNARD PALISSY
_A History of Old French Faïence._ By L. H. Solon. London. 1903.
_Œuvres Complètes._ By Bernard Palissy. Paris. 1880.
_Bernard Palissy._ By Philippe Burty. Paris. 1886.
_Palissy the Potter._ By Henry Morley. London. 1852.
_Monographie l’Œuvre de Bernard Palissy._ By MM. C. Delange and C.
Borneau. Paris.
_French Pottery and Porcelain._ By Henri Frantz. London. 1906.
XXVI. ITALIAN MAIOLICA
_A History and Description of Italian Maiolica._ By M. L. Solon.
London. 1907.
_Maiolica._ By C. Drury E. Fortnum, F. S. A. London. 1892.
_Maiolica._ By C. Drury E. Fortnum, F. S. A. Oxford. 1896.
_A B C of Collecting Old Continental Pottery._ By J. F. Blacker.
Philadelphia. n. d.
_Maiolica._ By L. H. Solon. London.
XXVII. GLASS OF A THOUSAND FLOWERS
_Glass._ By Edward Dillon, M. A. London. 1907.
_Glass in the Old World._ By M. A. Wallace-Dunlop. London. 1882.
XXVIII. ANTIQUES OF PERSIA AND OF INDIA
_The Arts & Crafts of India & Ceylon._ By Ananda K. Coomaraswamy.
_A B C of Collecting Old Continental Pottery._ By J. F. Blacker.
Philadelphia. n. d.
_Chats on Old Copper and Brass._ By Fred W. Burgess. New York. n.
d.
_The Industrial Arts of India._ By Sir George C. Molesworth.
London. 1880.
_Persian Art._ By Major R. Murdock Smith, R. E. London.
_Indian Painting._ By Percy Brown. London. n. d.
_A Catalogue of the Collection of Persian Manuscripts.... Presented
to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, by Alexander Smith
Cochran._ By A. V. Williams Jackson and Abraham Yohannan. New York.
1914.
_Miniature Painting and Painters of Persia, India and Turkey._ By
F. R. Martin. London. 1912.
_A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon._ Oxford. 1911.
_Porcelain, Oriental, Continental and British._ By R. L. Hobson, B.
A. New York. 1906.
XXIX. CHINESE PORCELAINS
_Chinese Art._ By Stephen W. Bushell, C. M. G., B. Sc., M. D.
London. 1914.
_Chinese Porcelain._ By W. G. Gulland. London. 1911.
_Porcelain, Oriental, Continental and British._ By R. L. Hobson, B.
A. New York. 1906.
_Description of Chinese Pottery and Porcelain. Being a Translation
of the T’ao Shuo._ By Stephen W. Bushell, C. M. G., B. Sc., M. D.
Oxford. 1910.
_Handbook of the Benjamin Altman Collection._ Metropolitan Museum
of Art. New York. 1915.
_Catalogue of The Morgan Collection of Chinese Porcelains._ By
Stephen W. Bushell and William M. Laffan. New York. 1909.
_Chats on Oriental China._ By J. F. Blacker. New York. 1908.
XXX. CHINESE AND JAPANESE LACQUER
_Chinese Art._ By Stephen W. Bushell, C. M. G., B. Sc., M. D.
London. 1910.
_Japan and Its Art._ By Marcus B. Huish, LL. B. London. 1892.
_The Arts of Japan._ By Edward Dillon. Chicago. 1911.
_L’Art Japonais._ L. Gonse. Paris. 1883.
_Handbook of the Benjamin Altman Collection._ Metropolitan Museum
of Art. New York. 1915.
_Le Japon Illustré._ By Félicien Challaye. Paris. n. d.
XXXI. CHINESE SNUFF-BOTTLES
_Chinese Art._ By Stephen W. Bushell, C. M. G., B. Sc., M. D.
London. 1910.
_Chinese Art Motives Interpreted._ By Winifred Reed Tredwell. New
York. 1915.
_Handbook of the Benjamin Altman Collection._ Metropolitan Museum
of Art. New York. 1915.
XXXII. CLOISONNÉ ENAMELS OF CHINA AND JAPAN
_Enamels._ By Mrs. Nelson Dawson. London. 1906.
_The Arts of Japan._ By Edward Dillon. Chicago. 1911.
_Japan and Its Art._ By Marcus B. Huish, LL. B. London. 1912.
_Chinese Art._ By Stephen W. Bushell, C. M. C., B. Sc., M. D.
London. 1910.
_Japanese Enamels._ By James Lord Bowes. London. 1886.
_Notes on Shippo._ By James Lord Bowes. London. 1895.
_Arts and Crafts of Old Japan._ By Stewart Dick. Chicago. 1905.
_From Sea to Sea._ By Rudyard Kipling. London. 1899.
_Le Japon Illustré._ By Félicien Challaye. Paris. n. d.
XXXIII. JAPANESE SWORD-GUARDS
_The Arts of Japan._ By Edward Dillon. Chicago. 1911.
_Japan and Its Art._ By Marcus B. Huish, LL.B. London. 1912.
_Japanese Art Motives._ By Maude Rex Allen. Chicago. 1917.
_Japanese Sword-Mounts._ By Henri L. Joly. London. 1910.
_Japanese Sword-Guards._ By Kakuya Okabe. Boston. 1908.
_Japanese Sword-Fittings._ By Henri L. Joly. London. 1912.
_Japanese Marks and Seals._ By James L. Bowes. London. 1882.
_Legend in Japanese Art._ By Henri L. Joly. London and New York.
1908.
_Le Japon Illustré._ By Félicien Challaye. Paris. n. d.
XXXIV. MEDALLIC ART
_Portrait Medals of Italian Artists of the Renaissance._ By G. F.
Hill. London. 1912.
_Select Italian Medals of the Renaissance in the British Museum._
London. 1915.
_Pisanello._ By G. F. Hill. London. 1905.
_Biographical Dictionary of Medallists, Coin-, Gem-, and
Seal-Engravers, etc., Ancient and Modern._ By L. Forrer. London.
1902.
_Coins and Medals; Their Place in History._ By the Authorities of
the British Museum Official Catalogues. Edited by Stanley
Lane-Poole. London. 1894.
_Coins, Medals and Seals._ By W. C. Prime. New York. 1861.
_The Art of the Medal._ By Victor D. Brenner. New York. 1910.
_Catalogue of the International Exhibition of Contemporary Medals._
American Numismatic Society. New York. 1911.
XXXV. ENGRAVED GEMS
_Intaglio Engraving._ By Edward Renton. London. 1896.
_Greek Art._ By H. B. Walters. London. 1903.
_Engraved Gems._ By Duffield Osborne. New York. 1912.
XXXVI. FRAUDULENT ART OBJECTS
_Trucs et Truqueurs._ By Paul Eudel. Paris, n. d.
_The Connoisseur._ By Frederick S. Robinson. New York. 1897.
_L’art de reconnaître les fraudes._ By Émile Bayard. Paris. 1914.
The following magazines devote pages monthly to articles of especial
interest to collectors:
House & Garden. New York.
Arts & Decoration. New York.
The House Beautiful. Boston.
The Connoisseur. London.
The Burlington Magazine. London.
INDEX
A
Abacænum, site of, 279
Abaquesne, 203
Abbas the Great, Shah of Persia, 234
Abondio, Antonio, 70
Adam, Robert, 168
Adam, the brothers, 138
Africanus, glass-worker, 220
Agathopus, gem-engraver, 291
Albi, Council of, 59
Aldus Manutius, 282
Alexander the Great, 291
Amenophis, King of Egypt, 218
Ancona, Italy, 153
Andrieni, art-forger, 301
Angelini, 129
Anne, Queen of England, 118
Apollonides, gem-engraver, 291
Ashberry metal, 58
Ashworth, 149
Aspasios, gem-engraver, 291
Athenion, gem-engraver, 291
auctions, art, 11, 12, 13, 98, 118, 120
Avignon, 200
B
Baccarat, France, 226
Bacon, John, 129
Barber, Edwin Atlee, 225
Barberini Vase, 130
Barbosa, Odoardo, 44
Bartolozzi, F., 131
basse taille enamels, 181
Bassiano, art-forger, 300
Bastille, 208
Beauclerk, Lady Diana, 129
Beaufort, Duke of, 168
Belli, Valerio, medallist, 283
Benoit, Antonio, 70, 71
Bernardi, medallist, 283
Bibliography, 305
Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, 14, 182, 199
Birdwood, 232
Boethos, gem-engraver, 291
Bolsover, Thomas, 146, 147, 148
bombé front, 112
bookcase, Charles Lamb’s, 27;
bureau, 107
Boston Tea-Party, 30, 32
Botticelli, Sandro, 108
Boulton, 149
Bow, England, 46
Bragg, gem-engraver, 296
Brenner, Victor D., 284
Brinkley, Captain, 267
Bristol glass-works, 87
Britannia metal, 55, 58
Brogniart, 171
Brougham, Lord, 3
Bunsai, 252
Burch, gem-engraver, 296
bureau, 107, 111;
-bookcase, 107
Burnet, Bishop, 31
Bushell, Dr. S. W., 239, 242
C
cabriole legs, 21, 137
Cadman, Roberts &, 150
Carlyle’s table, Thomas, 27
Camberwell, England, 31
cameo gem-engraving, 237
Canton, 250, 257
Castel Durante, 216
Cavino, Giovanni del, 300
Caylus, Comte de, 15
Cellini, Benvenuto, 191, 201, 273, 282, 295
Cesati, medallist, 283
Ceylon, antiques of, 232
Chaffers, William, 211
chairs, 77-83;
Windsor, 78
Champlevé enamel, 179
Chang Ying-wen, Chinese art-critic, 249
Charles I of England, 15;
II of England, 34, 105
Charlotte, Queen of England, 118
Chelsea ware, 115-118, 124
Ch’ien Lung, Emperor of China, 243
china-mending, 130
Chinese porcelains, 238-245
Chinese Taste, 48
chintz, 42-50, 137
Chippendale, Thomas, 30;
chairs, genuine, 82
Cipriani, 131
Cliffords Inn, Pewter Exhibition, 52
Chosroes, jeweled cup of, 182
cloisonné enamels, 179, 262, 267;
Chinese, 262;
Japanese, 262;
relief, 179
Clouet, François, 70
Cluny, Musée de, 196
cup-plates, 36-41
Coomaraswamy, Ananda, 232, 236
Colin, 189
Constantine the Great, 293
Corniole, Giovanni della, 295
Consoles, 164;
English, 166;
American, 166
cotton-printing, 48
cottons, printed, 137
couch, 135
Court, Jean, 188
Courtoys, 188
coverlets, hand-woven, 74-76
Cowper, 134
Crown of St. Stephen, 182
Cumberland County, New Jersey “Tea-Parties,” 30
Cumberland, Duke of, 118
D
Dalmazzioni, 129
Dante, 211
Dartmoor, England, 163
Davaere, 129
Davenport ware, blue, 41
day-bed, 135
Della Robbia, Luca, 201, 211
Delft, English, 105;
Dutch, 98-105;
Lambeth, 103;
modern, 102
Derby, 120
Deruta, Italy, maiolica of, 214
desk furniture, early, 106-114
De Tabley, Lord, 64
De Thou, 15
Devonshire, Duke of, 296
Dexamenos, gem-engraver, 291
diamond, 260
Didier, Martin, 188
Dioskourides, gem-engraver, 291
Dobson, Austin, 16
Dōnin, Hirata, Japanese armorer, 275
Drake, Francis S., 32
Dresden porcelain, influence of, 122
Drinking-glasses, English, 84-93
Dupré, Guillaume, 70
Du Simitière, 49
E
East India Company, 34
Écouen, Château de, 207
Edenton Tea-Party, 30
Edward I of England, 59
Eley, 70
Eliot’s chair, George, 27
Elizabeth, Queen, 296
Elkington, Messrs, 150
Ellis, 149
Embroideries, petit point, 95;
Stuart, 94-97;
Opus Anglicanum, 96
Empire Style, American, 140;
English, 140
enamelers, Byzantine, 186, 263;
Celtic, 264;
Chinese, 262;
Japanese, 187, 268;
Lombardic, 187
enamels, brass taille, 181;
champlevé, 179, 264;
Chinese, 262;
cloisonné, 178;
encrusted, 182;
Gothic, 187;
Greek, 263;
grisaille, 188;
Indian, 264;
Japanese, 267;
Limoges, 264;
painted, 264;
plique à jour, 182;
relief cloisonné, 179;
repoussé, 180, 264;
Russian, 182;
Venetian, 183
Epitynchanos, gem-engraver, 291
escritoires, 107
Evans, Arthur, 288
Evelyn’s Diary, 84
F
Federigo, Duke of Urbino, 215
Ferrara, 215
Flanagan, John, 284
Flaxman, John, 129
Fondi, Pietro, art-forger, 301
Fontana, Annibale, 283;
Orazio, 216
Fontenay, Julien de, gem-engraver, 295
Fortnum, C. D. E., 212, 214, 215
France, Anatole, 3, 198
Francia, Francesco, 281, 282
Francis I of France, 295
François, Réné, 223
Franklin, Allegory of, 49
Franks, Sir A. W., 302
Fraser, James Earle, 284
fraudulent art, 299
Frederick II of Prussia, 118
fuchi, 273
Fuchow, 250
furniture, early desk, 106-114;
lounging, 134-145
Fushimi, Japanese armorer, 274
G
Gambello, art-forger, 300
Gammer Gurton’s Needle, 62
gems, archaic Greek, 288;
Cretan, 288;
cameo, 237;
culminating Greek period, 293;
early period, 293;
engraved, 286-298;
Etruscan, 293;
fraudulent, 301;
intaglio, 287, 296, 301;
Poniatowski, 292, 301;
prehistoric, 293;
Roman, 293;
transitional Greek period, 289
George II of England, 118;
III of England, 296
Ghirlandaio, 108
Giorgio, Maestro, 215
Girard, Stephen, 144
glass, American, 224;
carved, 258;
Chinese, 257;
flint, discovery of, 85;
mending, 130;
millefiore, 88, 218-226;
Roman, 220;
Venetian, 221, 222, 223
glasses, English-drinking-, 84-93;
Leckie Collection of, 82;
Jacobite, 90;
Williamite, 92
glyptic art, Greek, 292
gomroon, 117
Gonse, Louis, 268
Gosset, Isaac, 70
Goto Yujo, Japanese armorer, 274
Greatback, William, 129
Green, W., & Co., 151
Greenwich Tea-Party, 30
Grew, gem-engraver, 296
Grolier, Jean, 15
Greenland Valleyfield, England, 163
grisaille enamels, 188
Gubbio, Italy, maiolica of, 214, 215
Guidobaldo I, Duke of Urbino, 212
H
Hackwood, William, 129
haircloth for sofas, introduction of, 82
Hall & Sons, John, 38
Hamilton, Sir William, 130
Hancock, Joseph, 148
Hardy, Casper, 70
Harte, Dr. Richard H., 71
Havell, 232
Hawksley, 149
hawthorn jars, Chinese, 243
Helbot, 173
Henry III of France, 208;
IV of France, 209
Hepplewhite, George, 30, 82, 138
Herakleides, gem-engraver, 291
Hedodotus, 219
Herophilos, gem-engraver, 291
Hirschvogels, the, 203
Hodgkin, Dr. John Eliot, 156, 161
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 32
Hsūan Tê, Emperor of China, 249
Howell, Frederick H., 34
Hung Wu, Emperor of China, 248
Hunt’s Spectacles, Leigh, 29
Hyllos, gem-engraver, 291
I
Incarville, Père d’, 249
India, antiques of, 227-237;
enamellers of, 264
intaglio gem-engraving, 287, 296, 301
Island Stones, 289
Iyebori, 274
J
Japanese straw marqueterie, 157
Jarman, art-forger, 302
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 120, 220
Jones, R., 43
Josephine, Empress of France, 292
Julius II, Pope, 281
K
Kaufmann, Angelica, 141
Kipling, Rudyard, 267
Kyōto, 268, 271
K’ang Hsi, Emperor of China, 242
kashira, 273
Kiuhaka, Koma, 252
Kojiri, 273
Knowles, 99
Kinai, Japanese armorer, 275
Kaneiye, Japanese armorer, 273
Kokatana, 272
Korin, 252
kozuka, 272
kogai, 272
kurikata, 273
Koyetsu, Honnami, 252
L
lacquer, Chinese, 246-252;
composition, 247;
Japanese, 246, 251
Lamartine, 198
Lamb’s bookcase, Charles, 27
La Rochelle, 208
Laudin, Jean, 188, 189
Leader, Tudor &, 149
Leckie Collection of glass, 86
Leoni, Leone, 70
Limoges enamels, 183, 187-189
Limousin, Jean, 189;
Léonard, 189
Li Shi-chin, Chinese physician, 256
Lister, Dr. Martin, 116
Liverpool, England, 163
Lounging furniture, 134-145
love-seat, 135
M
MacMonnies, Frederick, 284
mahogany, 22, 117
maiolica, Italian, 102, 210-217
Majorca, Island of, 211
Manship, Paul, 284
Marchant, gem-engraver, 296
Marie Antoinette, 246
Mariette, Pierre Jean, 15
“Marius the Epicurean,” 27
marks, Sheffield Plate, 151;
on Chelsea, 123;
on Chinese porcelains, 244;
on Derby-Chelsea, 123;
on Italian maiolica, 211;
pewter, 59;
Sèvres, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 176
Marlborough, 296
Martin, 232
Marqueterie, Straw, 153
Mayenne, Duc de, 208
Massé, Welch, 52
Mazarin, Cardinal, 15
medallic art, 278-285
medals, 278-285;
care of, 284;
cast, 283;
struck, 283
Medici, Catherine de’, 208;
Lorenzo de’, 14;
Piero de’, 14
mending glass, pottery and porcelain, 130
menuki, 273
Michelangelo, 299
Micheletto, gem-engraver, 295
millefiore glass, 88
Mitsutsune, Japanese armorer, 273
Montmorency, Constable de, 202
Morris, William, 46
Mountstephen, George, 70
Mundy, Ethel Frances, 72
Murano, Italy, 222
Museums, British, 45, 281;
Cluny, 196;
Dresden, 207;
Louvre, 196, 246;
Metropolitan 126, 196;
Nazionale, 282;
Pennsylvania, 224;
Sèvres, 196;
Victoria and Albert, 196, 266;
Wallace, 196
Mycenæ, 288
Mykon, gem-engraver, 291
N
Nîmes, 200;
Council of, 59
nanakoji, 274
Nassaro, Matteo, gem-engraver, 295
Natsuo, Kano, Japanese armorer, 276
Nero, 12, 220
Nikandrus, gem-engraver, 291
Nobuiye, Miochin, Japanese armorer, 274
“Nollekens, Life of,” 120
Norman Cross, England, 160, 162
Nuremberg, 203
O
Ognissanti, Church of the, 108
Okakura-Kakuzo, 239
Old Ford, England, 46
Onesus, gem-engraver, 291
Opus Anglicanum, 96
Orange, William of, 99
Osaka, Japan, 272, 275
P
Pacetti, 129
Palissy, Bernard, 191-209, 302;
Mathurin, 208;
Nicolas, 208
Palissy ware, imitations of, 302
Paléologue, M., 250
Palazzo Venezia, Rome, 281
Pamphilos, gem-engraver, 291
paper-weights, glass, 226
Paracelsus, 199
Passeri, 213
Pastonino, medallist, 70, 284
Pater, Walter, 27
Paul II, Pope, 281
Pegge, Mr., of Beauchief, 147
Pepys’s Diary, Samuel, 38
Pénicaud, Jean, 188, 189
Penn’s Treaty With the Indians, William, 49
Pennsylvania Dutch, 22
Peterborough, 162
Percy, S., 70, 71
Persia, antiques of, 227-237
Pesaro, Italy, 213
petit point embroideries, 95
Petrarch, Francesco, 9, 10
Petronius, 12, 220
pewter, 51-52;
care of, 60;
composition of, 55;
exhibition at Cliffords Inn, 52;
marks, 59
Pewterers’ Company, London, 53;
French, 53
Phyfe, Duncan, 24, 25
Phædrus, 299
Philadelphia Tea-Party, 30
Philostratus, 185
Pisano, medallist, 283
Pliny, 69, 218, 297, 299;
the Younger, 9, 11, 12
plique à jour enamels, 263
Polycrates, 290
Pompadour, Madame de, 15, 246
Ponset, 189
Poniatowski gems, 292, 301
Pope, Alexander, 29
porcelain, Chelsea, 170;
Chinese, 48, 235, 238-245;
Derby, 170;
Dresden, 170;
hard, 173;
imitation Sèvres, 302;
influence of Sèvres, 122;
mending, 130;
Sèvres, 170-177;
Vincennes, 117;
Worcester, 170
Portables, 167
Portland, Duchess of, 131;
Duke of, 131;
Vase, 130
Pottery, mending, 230;
Persian, 234
Prisoners of War, 160
Proculus of Perinthus, 222
Protarchos, gem-engraver, 291
Q
Queen Anne, 118
R
Raphael, 212
Raphael ware, 212
“Rariora,” 156
Ravenna, Holy, 215
Raymond, Pierre, 189
Renan, 10
Repoussé enamels, 180;
oriental, 181
Richmond-on-Thames, 46
Rentons, gem-engravers, 296
rhus vernicifera, 247
Rimini, Italy, 215
Robbia, Luca della, 201, 211
Roberts & Cadman, 150
Roty, 283
Roubillac, 129
Rouen, France, 203
Ruow, Peter, 70, 71
Russian enamel, 182
S
sageo, 273
Saint Cloud faïence, 117
Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, 280, 284
Saintonge, France, 200
San Miniato, Florence, 154
Samplers, 61-67
Scarabs, Egyptian, 288
secretaires, 107
settee, 135
Sèvres porcelain, 170-177;
imitation, 302;
influence on Chelsea, 122
Shakespeare, William, 67
Sheffield Plate, 146-152;
imitation, 150;
modern, 151
Sheraton, 167
Sheraton, Thomas, 139
Smith, Joachim, 70
Smith, Vincent, 232
snuff-bottles, 253
sofas, 135;
introduction of haircloth for, 82
Solon, gem-engraver, 291
Soleyman, Arab chronicler, 239
spectacles, Leigh Hunt’s, 29
Sprimont, Nicholas, 119
St. Bartholomew’s Eve, Massacre of, 208
St. Louis, Alsace-Lorraine, 226
St. Stephen, Crown of, 182
Stapleton, England, 163
Stothard, Thomas, 129
Stevenson & Williams, Ralph, 39
Still, John, 62
Straw Marqueterie, 153-163;
Japanese, 157;
Italian, 161;
French, 162
Strawberry Hill, 7, 16, 98, 120
Stuart embroideries, 94-97
Stubbs, George, 129
Subbs, Joseph, 39
Stubbe’s “Anatomy of Abuses,” 61
Suetonius, 13
sword-guards, Japanese, 270-277;
styles of, 276
Symbolism, Chinese, 260
T
Tables, American, 18-25
tambour-top, 11
Tassie, James, 127, 129
Tate, Nahum, 33
Taylor, John, 65
tea and antiquity, 26-35
“Tea-Leaves,” 32
Templetown, Lady, 129
textiles, Persian, 233
Thi, Queen of Egypt, 219
Thackeray, William M., 6
Theodorus, 290
Thomas, Isaiah, 31
Thornhill, Sir James, 120;
tiles, Persian, 236
Tōkyō, 268, 271
Toutin, 189
Tsao Ch’ao, 248
tsuba, 270-277;
styles of, 276
Tsunekechi, Kaji, 268
Tu, Chinese poet, 239
Tudor & Leader, 149
Tuileries, 14;
Gardens of the, 208
U
Umetada, Japanese armorer, 274
Urbino, Italy, 213, 215
V
Vasari, Giorgio, 72, 279, 295
Vase, Barberini, 130;
Portland, 58
Venetian enamels, 183
Venice, St. Mark’s, 180
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 159, 182
Vigier (Jean Court), 188
Vincennes, soft porcelain of, 117
Vinci, Leonardo da, 201
Voltaire, 15
W
wakizashi, 273
Wallace-Dunlop, M. A., 221
Waller, 31
walnut, 82
Walpole, Horace, 7, 16, 98, 115, 116, 119, 122
Walters, Dr., 289
Walton, Isaac, 3
Washington, George, 71, 72;
allegory of, 49;
apotheosis of, 49;
Trumbull’s portrait of, 49
Watkins, 118
wax portraits, 68-73
Webber, 129
Wedgwood, Josiah, 125, 126, 131
Wedgwood ware, 8, 125-129;
designers, 129;
marks, 129;
medallions, 127
Weigall, gem-engraver, 296
willow-pattern, 40
Wilson, Joseph, 147
Wilson, 149
woodblock printing, chintz, 45
Wright, 150
Wright, Joseph, 71, 72;
Patience, 71, 72
Wu Tao-tzu, Chinese painter, 253
Y
Yamakichi, Iranken, Japanese armorer, 274
Yokohama, 268
Yoxall, Sir James, 3
Yung Cheng, Emperor of China, 241
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Pleasures of Collecting" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.