Posts Tagged ‘french silver serving dish to keep food warm’

MID 19TH CENTURY CHESTS OF DRAWERS

MANY OF THE CHESTS made and sold in this period were direct descendants of their 18th-century counterparts. The chest was still in widespread use, both in the bedroom as a clothes store and in the salon, very often for display purposes only. Examples with specialist uses, such as music cabinets and folio chests, augmented the range of commodes, cabinets, and vitrines already found in the home. The traditional low, broad chest was frequently of very fluid form, incorporating serpentine, bombe, or bowfront curves reminiscent of 18th-century styles. Elaborate commodes were rare, however, and, in the drawing room, were often replaced by credenzas, or side cabinets.
CONTRASTING STYLES
A more contemporary look was provided by a new generation of tall and slender, rather elegant, filing cabinets, precipitated by the bestselling Wellington chest. These filing
cabinets tended to be less fussy than the more old-fashioned chests of drawers, particularly those in the Rococo-revival style, which were often excessively ornamented. Profuse use of gilt-metal mounts, sabots, and inlays combined with marble tops, carved skirts, friezes and aprons, and intricate marquetry decoration often made these very busy items of furniture. Neoclassical and Gothic forms sat alongside chests in the Rococo style, although these labels often referred to little more than token applied decoration, used by cabinetmakers to distinguish an otherwise plain piece of furniture.
FAVOURED WOODS
Tropical hardwoods, such as mahogany and rosewood, were frequently used for chests, although Dutch cabinetmakers often substituted walnut for their marquetry-decorated pieces, and cherry wood was sometimes used in the United States.
FRENCH COMMODE
This 18th-century-style commode has a moulded, veined marble top above a Rococo-style, rosewood- and walnut-veneered bombe case with polished, gilded, bronze mounts. The front of the piece is inlaid with colourful
marquetry, and shows an asymmetrical floral pattern. The case is set on cabriole legs. It is an accurate copy of a Louis XV commode and uses expensive materials. However, this mid 19th-century example was constructed by
machine rather than by hand.
ITALIAN PARQUETRY COMMODE
This kingwood parquetry commode is of bombe form and has a moulded Siena marble top above two chequer-veneered drawers. Each drawer has a flower-head motif centred over
the escutcheon plate. The same motif appears on the sides of the case. It is raised on square, cabriole legs, terminating in sabots. Although almost an exact copy of an 18th-century piece, its excessively slender legs reveal its 19th-
century origins.
DUTCH CHEST OF DRAWERS
The moulded top of this Dutch, Empire-style, walnut and marquetry tall chest of drawers has an outset frieze drawer. Below this are five equal-sized drawers, decorated sans traverse with fine floral marquetry inlaywork, which
exhibits a mixture of mid 18th- and late 18th-century styles in its overall design. The oval border is Neoclassical in inspiration, while the floral design within it is asymmetrical and, therefore, more Rococo in style. The case is supported on tapering, square-section feet. 1880.
FRENCH FILING CHEST
This late Louis XVI-style ebony and brass filing chest has a moulded edge above eight drawers. The drawers have leather fronts and brass catches and are supported on a plinth base. c,1900.
ANGLO-INDIAN WELLINGTON CHEST
Made of the distinctively striped coromandel wood — a type of ebony from the Coromandel coast of India —this Wellington chest also features surface carving typical of the subcontinent. c.1880.
BRITISH WELLINGTON CHEST
The moulded top of this figured maple chest protrudes above its frieze. Beneath the frieze are seven graduated drawers, flanked on either side by a locking flap. At the top of each flap is an applied scroll-leaf decoration. 1860.
GERMAN COMMODE.
This mahogany commode has a protruding rectangular top above four flame-mahogany veneered drawers. The front of the case has canted corners, with a carved scroll and acanthus top and bottom. The case is supported on carved scroll, bracket feet. c.1850.
FRENCH COMMODE
This bowfront kingwood commode has a moulded, veined marble top. The four drawers have veneered fronts, and are divided and flanked by brass-lined flutes. A veneered herringbone pattern is on each side. The commode has a shaped apron with gilt mounts and stands on bracket feet. c.1900.
AMERICAN CHEST OF DRAWERS
This chest has been grain-painted in ochre and yellow with dark green mouldings and recessed side panels. The backboard is dark green with the initials “A” and V’ in gold and copper. The chest has two short above four long drawers. Each side panel is stencilled with a vase of flowers.
AMERICAN BUTLER’S CHEST
This cherry wood chest has panelled sides and four dovetailed drawers with glass handles. The top drawer has a drop front with spindle columns and opens onto a fitted interior with four drawers, eight cubbyholes, and a central prospect door. Mid 19th century.
BRITISH CREST OF DRAWERS
This rectilinear chest of drawers has two short above three long, equal-sized drawers. Each drawer is decorated with laurel swags, and the long drawers also feature a central carved rosette. The chest is supported on a shaped plinth base. Late 19th century.
GERMAN COMMODE
This small commode is made from solid mahogany and veneered in various exotic woods. There is a single frieze drawer below the moulded top and two additional, bombe-form drawers decorated, sans traverse, with flowers, figures, and rocaille. c.1900.

Flatware, or cutlery, remains among the most popular antique silver today. Spoons, owned and valued by all classes of society, are among the earliest utilitarian silver to survive in any quantity – being small, they had a relatively low value as bullion and were not as readily converted into coin as larger items. Forks were only used for sweetmeats or desserts until the 16th century in continental Europe and the late 17th century in Britain. It was not until the 18th century that matching sets of silver spoons, forks, and knives were produced, but thereafter they were made on a large scale and in an extensive range of patterns. Complete and original sets of flatware are rare and expensive, since individual pieces were often very heavily used and then replaced.
APOSTLE SPOONS
English apostle spoons were made in London and the provinces from the mid-15th to the mid-17th century. They have a fig-shaped bowl and faceted hexagonal stem, and are so called because the cast finials depict the
12 Apostles; originally they were made in sets of 12 or
13 (the thirteenth spoon usually representing Christ), but very few full sets survive today. Spoons were often given as christening presents, the child receiving the spoon representing the saint after whom he was named. Each Apostle can usually be identified by the symbolic object in his right hand – for example keys or a fish for St Peter or a saltine cross for St Andrew. The bowl and stem were created from a single piece of silver, one part being drawn out for the stem and the other hammered into a shaped die for the bowl; the finial was attached with a “V”-joint on pieces made in London; provincial makers used a lap joint. The position of marks on apostle spoons is also distinctive – the town mark is in the bowl; other marks appear on the back of the stem.
Apostle spoons tend to fetch high prices on the market today, as they have been of interest to collectors and antiquarians from as far back as the 18th century. Many fakes were created by cutting off the stem from a similar spoon and adding a reproduction apostle finial. Indistinct features of the apostles are not always a sign that the finial is a fake, because in the 15th and 16th centuries a single mould may have been employed to cast hundreds of finials, so some genuine examples lack sharpness.
SETS OF SILVER FLATWARE
French styles of silver were popular in England after the Restoration in 1660, when King Charles II returned from exile in France. Among the new forms introduced was a type of spoon with an egg-shaped bowl and broad, flat stem ending in a simple trefoil, known as a “trefid” spoon. The bowl was joined to the stem by a tapering rib, or “rat-tail”, and sometimes the back of the spoon was decorated with scrolls in low relief or engraved with a crest or initials. By c.1690 the trefid pattern had flattened out into the “dognose” – the end of the stem had a central curve with a smaller one on either side. Dining forks, used in France and Italy since the 16th century, were also introduced to England at the Restoration; these followed the styles of trefid and dognose spoons and usually had two or three prongs, or tines. Early forks are rare and much sought after. Some fakes have been converted from spoons, but the proportions are slightly wrong and the tines too thin. Usually, early forks were thick and heavy.
By the early-18th-century forks, knives (with rounded cannon- or pistol-shaped handles), and spoons were made as a set – a trend probably influenced by the fashion for dinner services with matching ornament. The first pattern for matching flatware was the “Hanoverian”; it features a flat, rounded end turned upward and a ridge along the front of the handle. Coats of arms or crests were engraved on the back of the stem, since flatware was laid face down on the table in the French manner.
The Hanoverian pattern evolved by the 1760s into the “Old English” pattern, with a plain, rounded end but turned down instead of up (on spoons), according to the new fashion of placing cutlery face up on the table. In the same period, forks were made with four instead of three tines. With increasingly elaborate dining habits, special silver-gilt services for dessert became popular.
Flatware was made in a huge variety of patterns from the late 18th century, especially with the development of mechanized manufacture in Sheffield, which became the most important centre of cutlery production in England. The more popular styles in the late 18th and 19th
centuries included the “fiddle” (with the end of the handle in a fiddle shape), and the more ornate “King’s” and “Queen’s” pattern. Flatware of this date was often supplied with a fitted case.
Today, complete and original sets of flatware, even from the 20th century, are very rare, as pieces were often replaced due to heavy use. When buying flatware, it is important to check for forks that have been trimmed off (this is difficult to detect) and for spoons whose bowls have been reshaped to disguise wear.
CADDY AND MOTE SPOONS
Before the 1770s tea was measured out using the domed caps on tea-caddies; when these were replaced by larger lids a small spoon was kept in the caddy. From the late 18th century thousands of caddy spoons were produced in a diverse range of designs, especially by manufacturers who specialized in “toys” – wine labels, boxes, buckles, and other small items. Like wine labels, caddy spoons are popular with first-time silver collectors.
Among the earliest and most common designs was a spoon with a shell-shaped bowl; other popular novelty forms included a vine leaf with a vine tendril as a handle, a shovel or scoop, and, most coveted by collectors, an eagle’s wing and a jockey cap. Most spoons were made by die-stamping, but heavier and more expensive pieces might be cast. Filigree and handles of bone, ivory, or in other- of-pea rl were also used. In recent years many reproductions of earlier designs have been produced.
Mote silver spoons, or skimmers, were used to skim tea leaves off tea. Made from the early 18th century, they usually have a pierced bowl, with a pattern of circular holes or crosses and scrolls, and a slender, tapering, pointed stem, for unblocking the spout of the teapot. Mote spoons were often made en suite with teaspoons. Some fake mote spoons have been converted from teaspoons, but teaspoons have larger bowls and no pointed end and are shorter.
LADLES AND FISH SLICES
Ladles for serving soup, sauce, punch, and sugar were produced from the 18th century, sometimes en suite with tureens and punch-bowls. The styles tend to follow flatware, but some soup ladles were made with deep-fluted shell bowls. Punch ladles had circular or oval bowls with a lip and a handle of wood, whalebone, or silver.
Fish slices, produced from the 18th century, have a broad pierced blade and turned wooden or silver handle. Early pieces are pierced with simple patterns, but some Victorian ones depict fishing themes. Fish slices are easily damaged, especially on the piercing and where the blade joins the handle.

Apostle spoons
• CONSTRUCTION the finial is joined to the stem on London-made spoons with a “V”-joint and on provincial pieces with a lap joint
• COLLECTING very few complete sets survive today; most are provincial pieces
Marks
The town mark is typically found in the bowl; other marks may appear on the back of the stem
Flatware
• COLLECTING it is important to check patterns closely because of small variations in design; complete and original sets are now rare; those with an equal amount of wear on each piece are most collectable; early forks are valuable; knives made before 1800 are abundant but few have survived in good condition
Marks
These were struck near the stem in the early 18th century but near the handle by the 1770s
Caddyspoons
• CONDITION check for badly repaired pieces, with spoons that have snapped where the bowl joins the stem; filigree spoons tend to be very fragile
• COLLECTING designs are extremely varied
STYLES OF FLATWARE
Sets of flatware with matching decoration were first produced in the early 18th century. These are some common styles.

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