Posts Tagged ‘classical period’

Staffordshire figures
The popularity of porcelain figures in Britain during the 19th century led to a demand for less expensive imitations for the mass market, and the Staffordshire potteries obliged by making exact reproductions of the fine-quality figures made by porcelain factories such as Derby. The rustic charm of Staffordshire figures proved popular at the time, and successive generations have continued to enjoy collecting these generally inexpensive mantelpiece ornaments.
BOCAGE AND SQUARE-BASED FIGURES
The products of John Walton’s factory in Burslem (active 1810-30s) were typical of early 19th-century Staffordshire figures. Copying the tradition set by Chelsea and Derby, the factory included flowering trees, a feature known as “bocage”, behind its figures. Classical deities and allegorical figures (such as the popular set of three female figures representing “Faith”, “Hope”, and “Charity”), aimed at more educated customers, were usually mounted on the same style of square base edged with a brown line. Rustic groups of children playing and shepherdesses were mounted on similar bases or on raised green mounds with streams. Biblical characters proved immensely popular, especially “Elijah and the Widow”. One distinctive type of group, mounted on “table bases” (scroll-footed platforms), is conventionally referred to as being by Obadiah Sherratt (d.1841) after a potter who worked in Burslem from c.1815; however, it is now considered unlikely that Sherratt was responsible for the unmarked table-based models usually ascribed to him.
CHARACTERS AND FAMOUS PEOPLE
Victorian Staffordshire figures were intended to be viewed on a mantelpiece from the front only, and consequently the backs were neither modelled nor painted: hence the name “flatbacks” for such pieces. Many figures were simple but highly decorative images of children or lovers. However, from the 1840s there was a demand for portraits of famous people, whose features were copied from journals or the covers of popular printed music. In an age when the public rarely knew what famous people truly looked like, potters sometimes reused discontinued moulds to represent more topical individuals. Some figures were even wrongly named, such as a portrait of Benjamin Franklin labelled as George Washington.
Some popular figures were produced for many years and often require a close examination to determine whether they are earlier or later examples; this can greatly affect the value. There are many fake Staffordshire figures on the market, and it is important to learn the correct “feel” of genuine pieces, and to buy only from reputable dealers or auctioneers.
A Boy and “zebra”
This “flatback” figure portrays a schoolboy with a horse that has curiously been painted to resemble a zebra. Flatback
figures have little or no modelling on the back, a feature that made them easy to mass-produce. It was assumed that flatback pieces would stand on a mantelpiece above a fireplace, and this piece incorporates a spill vase at the back to hold the rolled-paper spills that were used in the 19th century for lighting the fire.
ORIGINAL AND FAKE STAFFORDSHIRE
• FORMS pairs of animals (very popular from the 1840s), portraits of royalty, politicians, military and naval heroes, sportsmen, theatrical celebrities, religious figures, notorious villains
• CENTRES OF PRODUCTION most figures were made
in the towns centred around Stoke-on-Trent, although a number were made in north-eastern England and Scotland
• COLLECTING a pair of figures will always be worth more than twice the price of a single piece; later examples are less sharply moulded than the originals, with particularly crude painting
• REPRODUCTIONS AND FAKES fake Staffordshire figures
are frequently made of pure white porcelain, stained to look old; “crazing” – a network of tiny cracks or veins in the surface glaze – affects most old figures, and fakers sometimes go to such lengths to reproduce it that they over-emphasize; the resulting effect is too regular and pronounced
Marks
Only a few Victorian Staffordshire figures are marked in any way, but research can identify some factories; earlier figures by John Walton and Ralph Salt (both active early 19th century) have their names impressed into a strap of clay at the back of the base.

In 1880`s st. petersburg reproduction antique russian furniture was very popular in Russia as stafford  pattern had been sold.  Stafford porcelain herbs and spices were removed from auction two years later.
Staffordshire  china  bottom stamp meanings are simple to read and understand together with  staffordshire  pottery flatback figure horse. The famous script “staffordshire  tin glaze” trademark was first introduced in
1828. Its staffordshire antique ornaments stamps have been symbols for many years.
Pair of  of a harvester and companion, the man standing before a flowering tree stump with a scythe over his shoulder, in a pink-lined sea-green coat, his breeches enriched with gold, pink and blue designs, with a
knotted scarf and barrel beside, his companion in pink coat and iron-red bodice, her dress with blue and gold designs, on mound bases encrusted with flowers and moulded with scrolls,  in high, gold anchor marks at back of staffordshire candelabras 18th century salt glaze. Harrison breakfast tea set, painted in colours with two pink lilies and leaves and a small red-flowered plant, with gilt dentil rim, 9 in diameter, gold anchor
markStaffordshire tin glaze by obadiah sherratt were staffordshire figures fake, one with a fox and bird, and the other with a dog goring a fox, before flowering trees, the mounds applied with flowers, on pierced gilt
scroll bases, gold anchor marks. Green ground vase of baluster form from staffordshire england shakespeare collector plates, the elaborate scroll handles enriched with gilding and the neck with pierced arches, the
sides painted in colours with a putto on cloud spray and a flower spray, in gilt scroll cartouches on the green ground.

Tureens
Tureens were introduced in the early 18th century, reflecting the French fashion for serving stews, soups and sauces. Legend has it that the tureen was named after the 17th-century Vicomte de Turenne, who reputedly ate his soup from his upturned helmet; in fact, the term derives from the French terrine. From the early 18th century, soup usually accompanied boiled meats, fish, and vegetables as part of the first course and was served to the guests by the host or hostess. As such, the tureen became associated with a show of wealth and was often the most richly ornamented and expensive piece in the dinner service. Sauce tureens replaced sauceboats in the second half of the 18th century and were often smaller versions of soup tureens.
SOUP TUREENS
soup tureens were introduced c.1720, but examples dating from before 1750 are very rare today. Generally circular or oval and of heavy-gauge silver, they were set on four cast scroll, hoof, or ball-and-claw feet with cast scroll, ring, or drop handles at the sides and a domed cover with an ornamental finial; most are engraved with a coat of arms. Tureens designed in the 1730s and 1740s by famous French silversmiths such as Juste-Aurele Meissonnier ( 1695-1750) and Thomas Germain are among the most magnificent pieces of Rococo silver pair of tureens (1734-40), designed by Meissonnier for the English Duke of Kingston, is cast in the shape of lame shells on curving scroll bases, with the covers decorated with cast crustacea, game, and vegetables. These pieces were highly influential: vegetable, fish, and game finials are a feature of European tureens from the 1730s to the 1760x. In the I 750s matching stands and ladles became popular, and many tureens were fitted with detachable liners in thin sheet silver with two end handles; these are often sold separately as baskets. Sheffield-plate liners became more common after the 1770x.
In the Neo-classical period architects such as Robert Adam (1728-92) produced designs for tureens to match the dining-room furnishings. Adam’s designs particularly influenced silversmiths, and tureens of this period arc generally oval on a single pedestal foot, with high loop handles, a ring handle, or an urn finial on the cover, and reeled, beaded, and gadrooned edges; decoration includes fluting, swags, palmettos, and bands of Vitruvian scrolls. Soup and sauce tureens were often made as sets from the 1770x, but these are now rare. Tureens were also made in Sheffield plate. The handles and feet of such pieces were not cast but stamped in two halves from thin sheet metal, filled with lead, and soldered together; in many cases a silver panel was inserted for engraving the armorials.
Early 19th-century Regency tureens contrast strongly with the elegant forms of the late 18th century: massive and of heavy-gauge silver, they are richly decorated with lion masks and Classical ornament and have four cast shell, scroll, dolphin, or paw feet. The best pieces have solid cast crests and heraldic devices on the cover. Due to the increasing popularity of the ceramic dinner service, fewer silver tureens were made in the first half of the 19th century. However, a distinctive form of the 1830s and 1840s was the melon-shaped tureen with cast vegetable finials, typical of the Rococo Revival style.
Silver disks for engraved coats of arms or crests, are often easily visible. More ornate and expensive examples have cast-and-applied swag ornament, with fruit- or bud-shaped finials; some especially fine pieces made by the renowned Birmingham manufacturer Matthew Boulton (1728-1809) also have radiating fluting on the covers. In addition, some sauce tureens were engraved with a crest or coat of arms on both the cover and the body; any armorials on the cover should match those on the body. In the late 18th century engraved armorials Such as these were often ten enclosed within wreaths or ribbon cartouches.
In the early 19th century silver sauce tureens were made in fewer numbers (sometimes in Sheffield plate), as ceramic examples (particularly those in creamware) became more popular and widely available. However, some heavier versions in both silver and Sheffield plate, with large, cast, drop-ring handles and elaborate mounts, finials, and decorative borders, standing on four feet, survive from this period, while the Neo-classical boat shape was revived at the end of the century.
SAUCE TUREENS
Sauce tureens became popular from the 1770s. Unlike traditional cold accompaniments to meat, such as mustard and redcurrant sauces, the new French sauces were served hot – meaning that tureens with lids were more practical than open sauceboats for keeping them warm. Sauce tureens were usually made in pairs or sometimes as a set of four – one for each corner of the table – and some had matching ladles. Single tureens are generally less collectable than a pair, and sets of four fetch considerably higher prices. Some examples have matching stands, as with sauceboats, to protect the table from the heat of the tureen’s contents and to hold the ladle when not in use, although other pieces have covers with a notch inside the tureen where the ladle could be placed.
Like soup tureens of the period, sauce tureens from the late 18th century are characteristically oval or boat-shaped, with elegant upswept loop handles and a single pedestal foot. The cover will often be steeply domed in the centre, with the finial at the same height as the top part of the handles. The body of the tureen was raised from a single sheet of silver, while the handles and foot were made separately and soldered onto the body. The majority of early tureens have cast handles, but from about 1790 a number were made from thick silver wire. These delicate handles, which could be very easily damaged by lifting the tureen when full, were sometimes reinforced at the bottom, but it is always important to make sure that the handles have not been pulled away from the body; nor should there be any cracks or tears on the lid where any reinforcing plate that secures the finial has been damaged and/or repaired.
Sauce tureens of this period tended to be sparingly decorated, usually only with reeding, gadrooning, or beading around the rims, covers, and feet; small, urn-shaped finials on the lid were common, but these
were generally replaced with a single reeded or plain ring handle from the early 1790s on onward. On such plain pieces scratches, dents, and, on versions made from Sheffield plate, inserted

Soup tureens• CONDITION seldom good as many pieces suffered from over-use and cleaning; pieces were raised from a single sheet and should therefore not have scams, thinning of metal may indicate removed armorials
• COLLECTING examples were usually made singly but sometimes in pairs; many were produced with stands, liners (often in Sheffield plate), and ladles, but these are typically missing or have been sold separately
Marks
These should appear on both the cover and the base; armorials on the cover should match those on the body
Sauce tureens• CONDITION with the earliest designs (typically featuring a pedestal foot and loop handles) it is particularly important to check for cracking, splitting, and signs of repair where the foot, finial, and handles, join the body
• COLLECTING examples were made from the I 770s, in pairs or sets of four; from c.1790 reeded or plain ring handles were common on the lid instead of the finial
Marks
The cover and body should feature the same mark; a crest on the cover should match that on the body

Cabinets-on-stands
Created for the storage of papers and valuables, the earliest cabinets, known as “table-cabinets” as they stood on tables rather than stands, came into fashion in the 16th century. During this period they were made in Tuscany with inlaid architectural decoration, and in Augsburg with stylized Mannerist marquetry depicting architectural ruins and mythical beasts in the style of Lorenz Stoer’s Geometrica et Perspectiva ( 1567); in Spain cabinets were made with Moorish-inspired mudejar (marquetry), or in ebony with parquetry (these were also produced in the Spanish Netherlands).
MARQUETRY AND LACQUERED CABINETS
The Baroque love of rich, florid decoration led to the fashion for oyster-veneered and marquetry cabinets-on-stands, the production of which was dominated by Huguenot craftsmen trained in Amsterdam and The Hague. In the late 17th century oyster-veneering was gradually superseded by such elaborate decoration as “seaweed” marquetry, which in turn gave way to Boulle marquetry on a tortoiseshell or kingwood ground. Interestingly the illusionistic floral marquetry panels executed by Andre-Charles Boulle (1642-1732) at the Gobelins workshops in Paris were no doubt inspired by Dutch 17th-century  still-life paintings. Floral marquetry cabinets, often enriched with mother-of-pearl or green-stained ivory, were executed throughout Europe from the 1660s, but the most celebrated makers were Jan van Mekeren (1658-1733) in Amsterdam, and Pierre Gole c.1620-84) in Paris. Often decorated with flowers and birds, even exotic parrots, Dutch and English examples of the William and Mary period (1689-1702) arc usually of walnut with oak-lined drawers, the stands enclosing two drawers and supported on four, five, or six baluster or bar-twist legs with waved stretchers and bun
Japanese and Chinese lacquer cabinets were first imported by the Fast India companies in the 17th century. Usually decorated with gilt chinoiseries on aubergine, black, or red lacquer grounds, they were mounted in silver, copper, or brass, with chased hinges and escutcheons. Oriental cabinets were exported without stands, and late 17th-century stands made in The Netherlands, Britain, and Germany tend to be in the florid Baroque taste, with caryatids in the angles and deep, pierced foliate aprons.
In the late 17th century, in response to the demand for and cost of Oriental lacquer, European craftsmen created japanning. This technique was first practised in Berlin by Gerard Dagly (1657-1710, and in England by John Stalker and George Parker who wrote A Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing (1688). Later 18th-century examples are distinguished by the design of their stands, which were usually also japanned, and often enriched with Chinese fret angle-brackets.
In the 19th century the cabinet-on-stand was replaced by the display cabinet. As a result, 19th-century cabinets-on-stands tend to hark back to 17th-century prototypes, in particular those with ebony-and-tortoiseshell veneer, or of a full-blown Baroque character, with Boulle or floral marquetry and Pietro dure plaques.
• MARQUETRY CABINETS a flat stretcher is commonly used on the stand; frequently the legs have been replaced, and this will reduce value; ivory inlay is a sign of good quality; the marquetry on the inside of the cabinet should be of a rich contrast to the outside, as it has not been exposed to sunlight, and should retain its vibrant colours; during the 1770s and again in the 1840s there was an interest in antiquarianism, and 17th-century marquetry door panels were often removed and reused in more fashionable pieces of furniture.
• JAPANNING when chipped, it reveals a whitish gesso.

Pembroke and sofa tables
The elegant dropleaf table known as the Pembroke table, so called, according to Thomas Sheraton (1751-1806) in his pattern-book The Cabinet Dictionary (1803), “from the name of the lady who first gave orders for one of them”, was part of the evolution of the breakfast table. The Pembroke table was eventually replaced in the fashionable drawing-room by the sofa table, an extended version of the type, v developed in the last years of the 18th and the first decade of the 19th century.
Pembroke table
This English mahogany serpentine Pembroke table is an elegant example of its type. It has square-tapered legs, brass feet, and casters, which are all typical features of Pembroke tables of this period.
PEMBROKE TABLES
Recorded in accounts from the 1750s, Pembroke tables were placed in the drawing-room and the boudoir where they were used for taking meals, playing cards, writing, and needlework. By the 1770s this elegant, useful form was well established, and was often a vehicle for the finest cabinet-making of the Neo-classical period. The basic structure, with its two side flaps supported on hinged brackets, lent itself to almost limitless variations. The opened table may form a rectangle or a square, an oval or an octagon; it can be straight or bow-fronted, with rounded, serpentine, or D-shaped flaps; the wood can be plain or crossbanded, with marquetry, painting, or carved decoration; and the legs may be of cabriole or straight-tapered shape, of round or square section.
A drawer in the frieze is usual, but some examples have sliding sections concealing compartments, while the rare “harlequin” type includes a mechanism to raise and lower compartments of drawers and pigeon holes within the centre. Most 18th-century Pembroke tables are Supported on their four legs without understretchers, while others have decorated base supports or small platforms. Appropriately for a highly mobile piece of furniture, nearly every example is fitted with casters.
While examples are known in the Gothic and Chinese tastes of the 1760s, those produced between 1770 and 1800 reflect the Neo-classical taste at its most refined.
Veneers are of mahogany, satinwood,
or other luxurious woods; lines
are simple, proportions carefully
considered, and ornament is of the greatest delicacy. The examples illustrated by George Hepplewhite (4.1786) in The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide (1788-94) are typical of those available to the gentry during the last quarter of the 18th century. Pembroke tables with tapering legs of attenuated cabriole form, ending in the thinnest of scroll feet, were the result of French influence toward the end of the 18th century. Some had finely chiselled gilt-brass mounts.
Decoration took the form of plain stringing or crossbanding, or marquetry borders of anthemion, husks, guilloche, or scrolling acanthus, with such
embellishments as shells, medallions, or florets. These could also he painted, although garlands, beribboned swags, or tapering trails were the most usual.
The proportions of late 18th-century Pembroke tables are crucial; the side flaps are usually (but not always) equal to half the width of the central section, and should be one-third of the table height in their fall postion. There should be a frieze drawer at one end with a dummy drawer oil the opposite end. An oval table usually also displays bow-fronted end friezes to match the curve of the top. Each flap should have one or two fly-bracket Supports, opening sideways on wooden hinges. The legs should be tapered and the tops of the legs should continue upward to form the side frame of the drawer.
Pembroke tables continued to be made in the 19th century, the most advanced design having a central column with splayed legs (called a pillar and claw), which Sheraton illustrated in The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book (1791-1802). A slightly later variant was the platform base. Pembroke tables of the 1820s and 1830s are of characteristically squat proportions, with turned tapered legs, and often have two frieze drawers, one above the other.
A Pembroke table
The top of this British oval Pembroke table is set with segmented satinwood veneers and decorated with marquetry The large oval paten medallion in the centre of the top is surrounded by a band of sycamore set with scrolling plants and flowerheads, with similar decoration on the outer moulded border. Its delicate construction and graceful appearance give it especially feminine associations. As with many tables of this type, this sofa table has a real and an opposing dummy drawer; the legs are decorated with pendent husks typical of late 13th-century Neo-classical ornament.
SOFA TABLES
The sofa table was as varied as the Pembroke table in the details of its design and decoration and, like its predecessor, it followed a defining form. According to Sheraton in The Cabinet Dictionary (1803), the sofa table was specifically for use “before a sofa” where “the Ladies chiefly occupy them to draw, write or read upon
Sofa tables are usually between 1.52m (5ft) and 1.83m (6ft) long, when fully extended, and 61cm (24m) wide. The flaps, supported on fly brackets, are each about one-quarter of the width of the central section. Some examples have sliding-topped compartments in the middle for games, or rising desks for writing and drawing, but the majority have one long or two short drawers on one side of the frieze, with corresponding dummy drawers on the opposite side.
The edges of sofa-table tops are always straight, and the corners of the flaps rounded, or chamfered to form “octagon corners”, but the bases are hugely varied and closely reflect the evolving design styles of the Regency period. The top may be set on end supports, with or
without stretchers across the middle, or central supports rising from a platform base. The legs are so designed that the feet can fit a little way under a sofa, allowing the table to be pulled close to the sitter. They arc nearly always on casters.
The plainest sofa tables have plank-shaped supports dividing into splayed tapered or sabre legs with brass cappings and casters. Alternatively after c.1810, rectangular plinths were set at right angles to the uprights, often with scrolls in the angles and with scrolled feet. For more luxurious sofa tables lyre-shaped end supports or patterns of decorative spindles were favoured, and while the lion monopodia that were advocated by George Smith (active c.1786-1828) in A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (1808) were rarely executed, the lion mask often appears on the decorative brass drawer handles. “Hipped” sabre or cabriole legs were also popular; they appear often on sofa tables with central supports. All of these shapes could be embellished with reeding, lines of inlaid wood or brass, or strategically placed carved paterae or leaves. Cross-stretchers provided many, opportunities for decorative turnings. Inlaid brass decoration on the table top and frieze was sometimes matched on the legs, and/or on the fronts of the fly brackets.
The timbers used for sofa tables range from plain mahogany or more fashionable timbers such as rosewood to exotic woods including calamander; lightly coloured woods such as satinwood for veneering were now no longer in vogue in the 19th century, except for crossbandings as a foil to the dark woods now in favour; common timbers such as beech could be stained or ebonized to simulate these. By c.1815 brass inlays in the manner advocated by George Bullock (c.1777-1818) were generally used to create decorative contrasts; the most lavish examples have ormolu mounts as well as inlaid brass. A rare but significant form of surface decoration on sofa tables was black and white penwork, painted by ladies to imitate inlaid ivory decoration.
Because they have been highly desirable for a long time many sofa tables have been “improved” or even fabricated beyond acceptable levels of repair and restoration. As well as “marriages” between tops and associated bases, decoration such as crossbandings or brass inlays may have been added to tops to enhance the commercial value. Bases may have been legitimately repaired, but many sofa tables have been “made up” with the trestle supports from old (and much less expensive) cheval mirrors. These arc liable to look somewhat flimsy in proportion to the table tops. Wood grain running the length of a sofa-table top, rather than across it, may indicate a top made up from another larger piece of old furniture.
• PEMBROKE TABLES beside the genuine repairs that may be necessary in the course of time, collectors should beware of later restorations and alterations to Pembroke tables: these include substituting an oval top for a (less valuable) square or rectangular one; inserting decorative veneers or crossbandings into a plain surface to increase the value, or later painting, on a previously undecorated table – usually identifiable by the quality
• SOFA TABLES those tables that have low stretchers are generally less popular than those with higher stretchers, which allow more leg room; sometimes lower stretchers have been moved, and the scars that are left should be visible, although often these areas have been re-veneered to hide them; satinwood or rosewood tables are more desirable than mahogany, and end-support tables more sought after than those with central pedestals; the best sofa tables have cedar-lined drawers
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