While their homeland was Oliver Crom well’s Commonwealth, Royalists who had taken refuge in France experienced the French style of life. One of its features, which they copied on returning home after 166o, was the arrangement of rooms. The public, formal core of a house was the hall or vestibule and the main reception room, often called the salon (saloon) or great parlour. The private suite of rooms had its own slightly less formal reception room — the withdrawing room — which was an antechamber to the bedrooms. (more…)

Soft Touches

Carpets on the floor and curtains at the windows were rare through Elizabethan and Jacobean times — but carpeting and curtaining were profusely used for other purposes. Fine woollen fabrics, or silks and velvets from China and Italy were hung around the bed, while cushions and table coverings were often of harder-wearing turkeywork — wool knotted into a backing like Turkish rugs.

Many soft furnishings were made by the ladies of the house who worked pillowcases and bed coverlets, cushions and book covers, purses and bodices. Trellises set with flowers and animals wound across their fabrics. The needlewomen could use pattern books of motifs, pricking along the lines, then pressing powder through the holes onto the fabric. (more…)

Registration of marks for plated goods virtually ceased after 1836 because the new British plate could not correctly be termed Sheffield plate as silver was not fused onto copper. Yet again manufacturers resorted to marking their wares with unregistered symbols which looked very much like hallmarks. After 1765, and more so following the turn of the nineteenth century, a crown was sometimes used in addition to other marks. This was originally intended to show that the piece was of good quality, and its use grew at the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 to differentiate between English plate and cheap wares imported from France. Manufacturers used it increasingly throughout the nineteenth century until the public were in such a state of confusion, since it was also the mark for the Sheffield Assay Office, that its use was eventually prohibited in 1896. (more…)

Before the objects were placed in the vat they were generally made by the usual methods of silversmithing. Some of the earlier items were first cast in German silver or Britannia metal. Progress in stamping later hastened and cheapened production. When the vessel had been hammered up from the flat, spun or cast, its ancillary parts previously stamped out and joined by solder, it was ready for decorating. This might be achieved by the ancient method of hand-engraving, by the mechanical means of a lathe such as engine-turning, or by the technique of etching which emulated hand-engraving. Other types of decoration included piercing, usually punched automatically, speedily and cheaply. When all decoration was completed the object would be placed in the plating vat for electro-deposition. (more…)

Over three hundred years of tea-drinking in this country has left us a wonderful selection of things used in connection with tea—and also a wonderfulconfusion about some of them. So one ought first to try to distinguish between terms like tea caddy, canister, chest, and teapoy.

Tea was enormously expensive when it first arrived here, so it was put away in a canister, usually of silver. For more security, and also because it was much grander, these canisters would be kept in a trunk-shaped box covered with leather and shagreen, and later in a tea-chest. (more…)

SPATTER, STRIPE AND SPANGLE

Here are three more recognisable types worth collecting. Spatter is a term you will hear when you are shown pieces which seem to be made of coloured glass with a mottled effect, with clear glass overlay and often having applied decoration of clear glass as well. Apart from candlesticks, there are sugar bowls, lamps, nightlights, even the little hats and shoes mentioned under “Toys.” Then there is another type which comes in coloured stripes, opaque white in combination with pink, green or lemon. This also usually has an overlay of clear glass. Silvered glass gets its effect from having colouring matter between two skins of glass, the outer being cut away to reveal the silver. (more…)

This is a comparatively neglected field of collecting —and therefore with possibilities for anyone who has to make a few pounds go a long way. But for the thoughtful person it can also be a very rewarding one. Thefinest collection of tiles anywhere, I suppose, is in the British Museum: but it is surprising how often one sees specimens in ordinary junk shops, priced at a pound or less, which would certainly not be out of place there.

However, this is another of those subjects where one ought to talk about the arrangement first and the things themselves afterwards, for this will obviously affect the way one goes about the collecting.

There are three ways I know of collecting tiles. One is to gather them in sets of three, four, six, nine and so on, then have them framed. Well-chosen ones make excellent wall decorations, to many tastes preferable to pictures. Another way is to arrange them in one of those shallowdrawered “specimen” cabinets where they can be gloated over as occasion arises. This is the method for the serious student. (more…)

Some collectable things aren’t always easy to identify with a purpose, but this isn’t at all true of bottle tickets, or decanter labels. With their clear statement of Champagne, Red Port, Elder Flower, Shrub, Whiskey, Marsala, etc., they reveal themselves as labels made to hang round a decanter’s neck and indicate the contents.

Of the same race, and for a similar purpose, are those that refer to forgotten perfumes, sauces and flavourings. Some of these have fascinating names. Bergamot was an essential oil from a lemon-coloured fruit grown in Southern Calabria Frangipanni was originally a perfume for gloves, but later on the name seems to have been used for a flavouring for creams and pastries. Hungary water, a toilet water made from rosemary, was named after a Queen of Hungary who, it is said, at seventy years of age made herself so beautiful with it that, she received a proposal of marriage from the King of Poland. What a sensational recommendation in a modern advertisement! (more…)

Most of the things we have been talking about can also be found in Sheffield plate. This was a popular substitute for silver in the days before electro-plating. It became very popular with the early and mid-Victorian middle classes, and is now almost as much sought after by collectors as silver itself. It is made by fusing a thin sheet of silver on to a thicker piece of copper, then rolling it out so that it can be worked or stamped into the required shape. For this reason in worn pieces you will see the copper showing through the silver. Some people send their Sheffield plate to be electro-plated, but as this completely covers the article with a hard brightness totally foreign to the real quality of old Sheffield plate, it is not to be recommended unless the piece is very worn indeed. In fact a touch or two of copper is a great help in deciding that the piece is Sheffield plate: so, in the larger pieces, is a small shield of silver let into the plate for engraving a name or a crest. Sometimes one comes across pieces of plate which have been fused in precisely the same way as Sheffield plate, but using nickel silver, so that no copper colour shows through when worn. This is called German silver, after the country of its origin, but like Sheffield plate, it was eventually put out of business by electro-plating in the 1850’s and 186o’s. (more…)

When talking about cameos we had a look at the large conch shell, with its cameo carved out of the layers of the shell.

Another kind of shell is used for all that charming shell ware our forebears liked so much. Perhaps the most popular was mother-of pearl, the lining of pearl mussel shells, and everyone will surely have somewhere in a drawer some fruit knives and forks with handles of this shimmering material. There were also tiny pocket knives for the handbag, buttons (see page 61), fansticks, and one often sees in antique shops whole heaps of those mother-of- pearl counters used for playing games in Victorian evenings. Some were square, some oblong, others were fish-shaped and sometimes you will find them carved with the owner’s initials. Needle cases and thread winders in mother- of-pearl were mentioned under “Workboxes”. Bouquet holders, spectacle cases, album covers all used mother-of-pearl. But perhaps the most attractive pearl ware are the many trinket boxes and jewel caskets, sometimes in combination with tortoiseshell, sometimes inlaid into papier Bache, very often just plain, but skilfully arranged in panels of different shades. (more…)