Posts Tagged ‘Italy’

Auction Prices for Various Antique Items

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

Dishes
Pair of George III oval meat dishes by Frederick Kandler, London, 1765, 73 oz 2 dwt Pair of Victorian octagonal entree dishes and covers with
vegetable dividers for each and ball finials, Sheffield, 1880,
120 oz 14 dwt 450 0
George III circular vegetable dish with ivory grips, pierced sides and four scroll and foliate feet, by W.S., London, 1809, 80 oz 2 dwt 360 0
William IV shaped oblong entree dish and cover with engraved armorials and foliate ring handle, by J. C. Eddington, London, 1835, 61 oz 5 dwt 260 0
George III muffin dish and cover, the domed cover with urn
shaped finial, by Henry Chawner, London, 1791, 15 oz 1 dwt        210 0
Jugs—Cream and Milk
George III helmet-shaped cream jug with ‘bright-cut’ engraving, loop handle and square pedestal foot, by George Smith, London, 1790, 3 oz 7 dwt 80 0
George II cream jug of conch shell type with serpent handle and
three coral-like supports. Circa 1755, 3 oz 5 dwt 80 0
George III oblong milk jug engraved with crests and with gadroon lip and scroll handle, by R. and S. Hennell, London, 1808, 6 oz 2 dwt 70 0
Victorian baluster milk jug chased with flowers and scrolls and on three feet. Possibly by William Brawn, London, 1845, 5 oz 7 dwt 52 0
Jugs—Water
George III pear-shaped hot-water jug, stand and lamp, the jug with rams’ masks and laurel festoons, the stand on three claw feet with female bust terminals, by Andrew Fogelberg. The jug 1776, the stand 1775, 40 oz

780 0
George III vase-shaped hot-water jug, plain with wood handle and on circular foot, by William Fountain, London, 1801, 25 oz 11 dwt 460 0
George II baluster hot-water jug chased with scrolls, leaves and flowers, raffia-covered handle and rim foot, by Gurney and Cook, London, 1755, 19 oz 15 dwt 270 0
Jugs—Wine and Ale
Queen Anne ale jug, die ground embossed with foliage and flowers and a satyr spout, by John Wisdom, London, 1712, 35 oz 280 0
Victorian wine ewer with baluster body and engraved with Grecian figures and leaves, entwined snake handle and butterfly finial, by E. and J. Barnard, London, 1862, 27 oz 11 dwt        170 0
Marrow Scoops
Queen Anne scoop of typical form by Charles Jackson, 1713,
1 oz 10 dwt 68 0
Early George III scoop, the larger bowl engraved with initials,
probably by William Tuite, London, 1767, 1 oz 12 dwt 20 0
Mustard Pots
George III drum mustard with moulded borders, flat hinged lid and simple scroll handle, with spoon of earlier date. Pot by Ernes and Barnard, London, 1813, 5 oz 10 dwt 165 0
some auction room prices : 1968-69
William IV mustard with ribbed baluster body and hinged domed lid with floral finial, scroll handle and shell thumbpiece and spoon of same date but different maker. Pot by C.G., London, 1830, 6 oz 17 dwt
George III oblong mustard with domed cover, urn finial and angular handle on four bun feet, London, 1813, 3 oz 11 dwt
Salts
Four George I plain oval trencher salts with incurved sides, by
Mary Rood, 1723, 6 oz 15 dwt Pair of George III boat-shaped salts, reeded at the lips and
pedestal feet, gilt interiors, by Peter and Ann Bateman, 1792,
4 oz 6 dwt
Pair of George II compressed circular salts, with plain engraved bodies below gadroon lips each on three shell-headed hoof supports, possibly by Isaac Cookson, Newcastle, 1747, 8 oz 1 dwt
Salvers
George II large circular salver on four lions’ mask and shell bracket feet, the shaped border pierced and chased, by George Wickes, 1744, 137 oz
George I plain circular salver on central foot with moulded border, by W.P., 1720, 13 oz 12 dwt
George III circular salver, engraved with initials, chased wave border and gadroon rim, on three claw and ball feet, by Robert Rcw or Rugg, 1766, 24 oz 3 dwt
Victorian salver engraved in the centre with an initial and also with scrolls and foliage, moulded border, by J. and J. Angell, London, 1845, 25 oz 14 dwt
Sauceboats
Pair of George II plain sauceboats each on three shell and scroll feet with gadrooned rims and double scroll handles, by Peter Archambo and Peter Meure, 1754, 29 oz
George II two-handled plain double-lipped sauceboat on collet foot, with double scroll handles and waved rim, with a moulded drop beneath the spout, by Peter Archambo, 1732, 17 oz 5 dwt
Pair of George III sauceboats, each on fluted shaped lozenge foot, with gadrooned borders and double scroll handles, by William Sampcl, 1766, 25 oz
Snuff Boxes—See Small Decorative Antiques Sugar Basins—See Baskets—Sugar Tapersticks—See Candlesticks Tankards
William and Mary tankard on three lion couchant feet, scroll handle, cylindrical body and moulded base, by Robert Cooper, 1692, 31 oz
George II baluster tankard with domed cover, openwork thumb-piece and double-scroll handle, on moulded spreading foot, by William Grundy, 1755, 34 oz 5 dwt 650 0
George III baluster tankard, with domed moulded cover and heart-shaped lower terminal to the scrolling handle, by William Caldecott or Gripps, 1765, 27 oz 15 dwt 570 0
Tea Caddies
George III oval caddy, the body with two bands of bright-cut engraving in beaded borders and the plain hinged lid with urn finial, by Hester Bateman, 1781, 14 oz 10 dwt 900 0
George III shaped oval caddy, the body fluted at intervals, decorated with bright-cut engraving, hinged domed cover with wood finial, by Robert Hennell, 1787, 14 oz 17 dwt 480 0
Teapots and Stands
George II bullet teapot with engraved shoulder decoration of satyr masks, leaves and flowers, straight spout, loose lid, ivory handle and finial, by Isaac Liger, 1729, 15 oz 1 dwt 2,100 0
George III teapot stand on four fluted panel supports, by Hester
Bateman, 1789, 4 oz 15 dwt 280 0
George III oval teapot with moulded girdles and a matching stand, supported on four feet, by Crespin Fuller, London, 1800, 16 oz 15 dwt 270 0
George III oval, semi-lobed teapot, with swan-neck spout, ivory handle and finial, by P. A. and W. Bateman, 1799, 17 oz 3 dwt 170 0
George IV teapot, compressed circular body, ivory handle and
finial, curved spout, by Eley and Fearn, 1823, 25 oz 16 dwt        150 0
William IV compressed circular teapot with moulded girdle, wood finial and similar wood handle, by E. E. J. and W. Barnard, 1830, 14 oz 2 dwt 135 0
Early Victorian bullet-shaped teapot with engraved body, Edinburgh, 1840, 24 oz 82 0
George III oval teapot stand, gadroon border on four panel
supports, but George Fenwick, Edinburgh, 1806, 5 oz 14 dwt 80 0
William IV small melon-shaped teapot, with slightly domed cover and ivory finial, scroll handle and curved spout, London, 1833, 13 oz 18 dwt 60 0
Tea and Coffee Services
Victorian tea and coffee service of compressed circular form, decorated with embossed flowers and foliate handles and on scrolled feet with shell motifs, by Rawlins and Sumner, London, 1838, 72 oz 600 0
George IV three-piece melon-shaped tea service with scroll handles and shell decorated panel supports, by E. E. J. and W. Barnard, London, 1829, 44 oz 7 dwt 500 0
George III circular three-piece tea service with curved lobes, gadroon rims and leaf decorated handles, on paw supports, the pot with rose finial, by John Angell, 1819, 41 oz 6 dwt 380 0
Victorian three-piece tea service of compressed circular form,
the plain ground richly chased, by I. J. Keith, London, 1840, 48 oz
Vinaigrettes—See Small Decorative Antiques Waiters
Pair of George III plain oval waiters each on four shell and beaded bracket feet, beaded rims, by John Scofield, London, 1777, 27 oz
George II plain shaped square waiter on four hoof feet, moulded border, by Thomas Farren, London, 1734, 6 oz 17 dwt
Early George II square waiter with raised border incurved at the angles, 1727, 3 oz 18 dwt
SHEFFIELD PLATE Candelabra and Candlesticks
Pair of candelabra, each for three lights, with reeded scrolling arms, gadroon bordered knops, detachable nozzles and circular bases, 17i in high to centres
Pair of three-light candelabra, the tapering vase stems, circular bases and campana-shaped sconces decorated with chased borders, each fitted with two detachable scrolling branches, one converting to form a

five-light and bearing flame finial, 20 in high
Pair of table candlesticks with V-shaped stems, gadroon shoulders, circular bases and detachable nozzles, llj in high
Pair of table candlesticks with circular bases, vase-shaped stems and gadroon borders, detachable nozzles, 11 in high
Coffee Pots
Vase-shaped coffee pot on pedestal foot with reeded borders, ball finial and wood handle, 13 in high
An oval coffee pot on pedestal base, with reeded shoulder, gadroon borders and angular wood handle, 9] in high
Urn-shaped coffee pot, body semi-lobed between ribbed panels, on pedestal base, ball finial and wood handle, 27 in high
Coasters—Wine
Four circular wine coasters with lobed sides below gadroon lips, the wood bases centred by crested bosses, 5J in diameter
Pair of circular coasters with beaded and ovolo rims, wood bases, 6 in diameter
Caddies—Tea
Two caddies of bombd form embossed with shell motifs Serpentined caddy with hinged lid and beaded borders
Dishes
Set of four entree dishes and covers on heater bases, oblong with scrolling foliate borders, 14 in wide over handles
Pair of entree dishes and covers with gadroon borders and
detachable foliate handles, 11 in wide 22 0
A rectangular entree dish and cover complete with liner, gadroon and leaf borders, wood end handles, on four supports, 141 in wide 20 0
Teapots
An oblong teapot, body semi-Iobed between gadrooned borders, short spout, ivory finial and angular wooden handles, 5J in high 25 0
A compressed circular teapot engraved with swirling leafage,
fruit finial and scroll handle, 5J in high 18 0
Tea and Coffee Services
Oval three-piece coffee service with vase-shaped pot, oval jug and basin decorated with bands of sprays and foliage, 10 in high the pot 160 0
Three-piece tea set with compressed circular bodies, fluted,
foliate collars, scroll handles and foliate panel supports 38 0
Tea Trays
Oblong two-handled tray, engraved with armorials within a chased surround of scrolls and floral sprays, gadroon border, 30 in wide 220 0
An oblong tray, gadroon bordered and reeded end handles
springing from chased foliage, 28 in wide 95 0
Tea Urns
An inverted compressed pear-shaped urn, the body engraved
with a crest, foliate handles and flower finial, 16 in high 75 0
An oviform urn with an applied plain shield, the cover with vase finial, reeded loop handles, on square base with ball feet, 221 in high 45 0
Tureens
Large shaped oval sauce tureen on four feet below heavily
chased floral motifs, detachable liner, 16J in wide 230 0
Pair of oval sauce tureens and domed covers with gadrooned rims, decorated with acorns and oak leaves at the handles, 8Ј in wide (end handles missing from one tureen) 120 0
Wine Coolers
Set of four coolers, the campana-shaped bodies engraved with contemporary armorials above lobing reeded handles and gadroon borders, on pedestal bases, 9i in high 520 0
Pair of coolers with campana-shaped bodies, reeded handles and
on pedestal bases, 9J in high 200 0
NON-PRECIOUS METALS
Brass
Pair of eighteenth-century andirons, with spherical finials, and
masks, 29 in high 100 0
SOME AUCTION ROOM PRICES ! 1968-69
A club fender
A Corinthian column floor standard
An embossed fire kerb
A two-handled log tub on paw feet
An alms dish with lobed centre and inscription border, the rim
with punched rosettes, 15} in diameter Pair of spirally-turned candlesticks on domed feet, 20J in high A hanging oil lamp Pair of chambersticks, with snuffers A heavy log tub with lion mask handles on paw feet Brass

and steel semi-circular fender
An oval fire insurance plate with a crest of a stag, dated 1774 Pair of carriage lamps A helmet coal-scuttle
A warming-pan with turned wood handle Pair of baluster candlesticks, 9 in high
Bronze
Figure of a racehorse and jockey after Isadore Bonhcur, I0j in
high
The Capture of Alexander by G. Halse. Two warriors hold a
struggling youth. Signed and dated 1860, 24 in high Eighteenth-century Italian figure The Dying Gladiator signed
Canova
Figure of a dancing fawn, holding up a bunch of grapes and
balanced on his left foot, 14 in high Figure of an infant satyr playing a set of pipes, 9j in high Pair of busts of Henry IV and Sully, three-quarter length, both
wearing ruffs and decorations, on rouge marble socles, 20} in
high
Pair of Art Nouveau winged figures stamped A. Moreau, 9J in
high
Pair of five-light candelabra on bulbous stems Italian figure of Venus, 7 in high
Copper
Early nineteenth-century tea urn on a square base
A street lamp
Three large saucepans (one with lid) Two coal scuttles A large kettle
Coal helmet with swing handle
Large two-handled urn and cover
A copper and brass tea urn with tap
A long turned wooden-handled warming-pan
Iron and Steel
Steel and brass basket grate with pierced frieze and baluster
uprights, 20 in wide Seventeenth-century Sussex wrought-iron fireback, 2 ft 10 in
by 1 ft 8 in and a log fork Wrought-iron shaped fire-back Regency iron and brass stick stand on paw feet
Victorian cast-iron corner stick stand 5 10
Victorian cast-iron oil heater 3 10
Pewter
A charger with secondary touch of Thomas Lanyon, circa 1730,
20 in diameter 36 0
Five quart tankards 35 0
A four-branch candelabrum, 24 in high 22 0
Eighteenth-century circular charger, 20 in diameter 22 0 Pair of altar candlesticks, baluster-shaped stems on triangular
bases, 20 in high 16 0
Pair of baluster and cup candlesticks, 18 in high 15 0
A hot-water meat dish with two handles and a grill, 22 in wide 15 0
A travelling chamber-pot, stamped Jas. Dixon 14 0
Two tankards and a mug 6 0

Auction Prices. CLOCKS, WATCHES AND BAROMETERS. SILVER

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

CLOCKS, WATCHES AND BAROMETERS Bracket Clocks
Repeater clock by Edwardus East with signed and engraved
backplatc in cboniscd case 600 0
A three-train musical clock by Moore of Ipswich with eight tunes in ebony case with gilt metal mounts in mid-eightccnth-century style, 2 ft 2 in high 440 0
George III fruitwood clock by Recordon, late Emery, London, with painted dial and frets at side and front of case, 1 ft 2 in high 290 0
George III walnut clock, the dial signed Joseph Smith, Chester,
and of pronounced Continental character, 1 ft 6 in high 210 0
George III ebonised clock, the 7-in dial signed William Smith, with calendar and strike/silent dial. The movement is contained in an inverted bell-topped case, 1 ft 4 in high 190 0
Louis XV contra-boullc clock with enamel dial signed Darmezin, Paris, and movement signed Crepaux, Paris, in cartouche-shaped case, 3 ft 1 in high 190 0
Louis XV Boulle clock by Pcrrache, Paris, with an enamelled dial, the case surmounted by a youthful figure of Jove, richly mounted in ormolu, 2 ft 6 in high 170 0
George III mahogany clock by Massey, Bridge Road, Lambeth, the circular white-painted dial with a central calendar hand, 1 ft 4 in high 140 0
George III mahogany clock, the 7-in circular dial signed Lamb and Webb, London, with calendar and engraved backplate in bell-top case, 1 ft 4 in high 120 0
Mid-eighteenth-century veneered ebony clock signed John Small-wood, Lichfield, with pull quarter repeat, 1 ft 4 in high (later dial) 85 0
George III mahogany clock, the 8-in arched silvered dial signed Gravell and Tolkien, London, with engraved backplate and tic-tac escapement in broken arch-topped case, 1 ft 6 in high 60 0
Regency rosewood clock signed on dial John P. Smith, 1 ft 3 in
high 20 0
Carriage Clocks
Clock in gilt case by James McCabe, London 675 0
Repeating French brass clock with white dial signed Gibson
and Co Ltd, Belfast, 6J in high 68 0
French brass clock with white dial signed Rowel, Oxford, 4Ј in high
Repeating brass clock with white dial and glazed brass case, 5 in high
Gilt metal timepiece, the glazed case with pierced floral frets at the sides and front, 5 in high and with travelling case
Miniature silver-cased repeating clock with white dial. The case stamped J. Keller, 3J in high
Lantern Clocks
Brass clock with engraved copper dial and an alarm disk, 1 ft 1 in high
Late seventeenth-century brass clock, the dial engraved with flowers and with pierced dolphin cresting, 1 ft 3 in high
Longcase Clocks
Late seventeenth-century marquetry clock, the 11-in dial signed Robt. Williamson, London, with calendar aperture in a walnut case inlaid with shaped panels of birds and flowers, with a bullseye in the waist door and with spirally turned columns at the corners, 6 ft 7 in high (frieze of a later date)
Tall mahogany cased clock with chimes. The elaborately foliated brass dial with a silvered chaptered ring. The case inlaid with classic urns in coloured woods, the arched hood has brass spires and the waist has a bevelled glass door
A carved mahogany cased clock with a grotesque satyr mask to the hood over a brass floral scrolled dial. Westminster, Whittington and St Michael chimes, 7 ft 7 in
Mahogany clock made by Manley of Chatham
Eighteenth-century walnut clock with domed canopy and brass face, the movement by William Stapleton, London, 7 ft 4 in high
Walnut clock, the early eighteenth-century movement signed
Andr. Dunlop, London, the 12-in dial with chestnut and
flower spandrels, 7 ft 4 in high Georgian lacquer clock with brass face and striking movement.
The case, with ‘bullseye’ door, decorated with gilt chinoiseries
on a simulated tortoiseshell ground Eighteenth-century small clock by John Lee, Gookham; with
brass dial and foliated spandrels, in a black lacquer case
decorated with chinoiseries in red and gill
Mantel Clocks
An ormolu clock, the painted dial signed F. Linke, Paris, the movement in a glazed case in well chiselled ormolu with drapery, acanthus leaves and groups of fruit and ending in double cloven-hoof feet, 2 ft 11 in high
Bronze and ormolu mounted clock, the movement contained in a drum upon which is seated a Chinaman holding a parasol, the whole on the back of an elephant, 1 ft 4 in high
A French clock, inscribed Bonniere a Clermont, in a rococo porcelain case. The blue and gilt ground painted with musicians, lovers and flowers. On a similar stand
Louis XVI marble and ormolu clock, the striking movement with enamel dial signed Hessen. The arched architectural case with drapery festoon, pineapple finials, an urn and fluted columns, 1 ft 5 in high 110 0
Regency rosewood clock, the movement by Dwerrihouse &
Carter, Davies Street, 2 ft high 70 0
Philippe clock with glass panels in gilt metal case with corinthian columns and surmounted by an urn. Decorated with coloured enamels, 18 in 68 0
An Empire marble clock mounted in ormolu, the movement with outside count-wheel, the dial surmounted by a white marble urn and suspended between fluted columns capped by ormolu pineapples, 1 ft 4 in high 55 0
Watches
Gentleman’s 18-carat gold half-hunter watch 20 0
Early nineteenth-century verge watch by D. Nevern, in a tor-
toiseshell case, the dial enamelled with a wharf-side scene 13 0
Gentlemen’s 18-carat gold pocket watch by George Harvey,
Wellington 13 0
George III verge watch by William Fowler, London, in a silver
case, London 1783 9 0
Nineteenth-century verge watch by Nicoll, Great Portland
Street, in a tortoiscshcll case 7 10
Barometers
Early   Victorian   mahogany  stick   barometer  by  E. Davis,
Shrewsbury, 3 ft 3 in high 70 0
Regency rosewood inlaid with mother-o’-pearl banjo barometer
and thermometer 46 0
George III mahogany banjo barometer and thermometer with engraved scales by A. M. Ortelli, Godalming, the case outlined with fruitwood lines, 3 ft 2 in high 38 0
Georgian mahogany stick barometer and thermometer by Rout-ledge, Carlisle 38 0
Mahogany stick barometer and thermometer by Salmon, Bath 38 0
A Regency rosewood banjo barometer and thermometer by
Aprile Sudbury 34 0
Early nineteenth-century mahogany banjo barometer by Lione and Tarone, London, with a thermometer and the case inlaid with Prince of Wales plumes and a whorl pattern, 3 ft 2 in high 30 0
Early nineteenth-century mahogany banjo barometer by A.
Celti, Reading, the case inlaid with shells, 3 ft 2 in high 22 0
SILVER
(Troy weight: 20 pennyweights [dwt] = 1 ounce [oz])
Baskets for Bread, Cakes, Fruit, Sugar or Sweetmeats George II oval-shaped cake basket on four cherub mask and scroll feet. The sides pierced and engraved with flowers and
scrolls and the base engraved with a coat-of-arms, by Paul
Crespin, 1753, 62 oz 3,600 0
George III oval pedestal cake basket by John Ernes, London,
1804, 24 oz 10 dwt 400 0
George III boat-shaped pedestal sugar basket with engraved border, reeded edge and swivel handle by Peter, Ann and William Bateman, London, 1793, 5 oz 10 dwt 320 0
Victorian oval basket, the pierced panels embossed with beading
and garlands, London, 1895, 19 oz 62 0
Candelabra and Candlesticks
Pair of George I dwarf table candlesticks, the baluster shafts upon square terraced bases by William Darkeratt, 4J in high, London, 1726, 20 oz 1,500 0
Victorian tabic candelabra with two tiers of six scrolled branches issuing from a bold Corinthian column supported on a square terraced foot, with neo-classic rams’ mask and husk swags by R.H. over R.H., London, 1877, 30 in high 355 0
Pair of George III table candlesticks, the tapering baluster shafts upon half-fluted circular bases by John Green & Co, Sheffield, 1800 195 0
George III chamber candlestick and snuffer, the gadrooned edge
witli shell motif by William Cafe, London, 1761, 12 oz 130 0
Casters
Garniture of three George II vase-shaped sugar casters of plain
design by John Delmester, London, 1758, 15 oz 10 dwt 930 0
William IV Scottish baluster caster engraved with a crest above floral decoration on a granulated ground, by Elder & Co, Edinburgh, 1832, 4 oz 7 dwt 90 0
George III baluster caster with pierced cover and wrythen
finial, by Thomas Satchwell, 1780, 2 oz 4 dwt 85 0
George III vase-shaped caster the otherwise plain body engraved with contemporary crest. The mark of George Giles struck over another, 1783, 2 oz 8 dwt 65 0
Coasters—Wine
Set of four partly fluted circular coasters with gadrooned rims and engraved with crests by John & Thomas Settle, Sheffield, 1818 410 0
Pair of George III coasters with pierced waved galleries, London, 1794 270 0
Pair of William IV circular-shaped wine coasters with foliate borders and crested silver bosses to the wood base, by Henry Wilkinson & Co, Sheffield, 1831 150 0
Pair of George III coasters with beaded rims, the pierced sides stamped with arcading, urns and laurel festoons, maker’s mark missing, 1794 100 0
Coffee Pots
George I small plain cylindrical coffee pot with octagonal spout and low domed cover with baluster finial, by Paul De Lamcrie, London, 1725, 11 oz 3 dwt 1,900 0
George II baluster coffee pot, plain with foliate decorated spout, wood handle and hinged domed lid, probable maker Fuller White, London, 1759, 21 oz 1,350 0
Late George III tapering cylindrical coffee pot, the plain body engraved with contemporary armorials and a crest, by Peter, Ann and William Bateman, London, 1802, 35 ox 2 dwt 1,200 0
George IV coffee pot, vase-shaped, with moulded bands at the neck and waist, leaf-capped scroll handle and foliate finial on lid, by Pearce & Burrowes, London, 1826, 22 oz 5 dwt 210 0
Victorian vase-shaped coffee pot engraved with key pattern
decoration, London, 1872, 24 oz 135 0
Cruets
George II five-bottle cruet frame on four shell feet with detachable baluster handle. Five cut-glass silver-mounted bottles. By Jabez Daniel, 1750, 28 oz 7 dwt 105 0
George III cruet frame for six bottles with reeded loop end handles, ring holders, on four feet. Five glass bottles all chipped, one broken. By Henry Chawner, London, 1792 16 0
Cups and Goblets
Elizabeth I secular wine goblet, the bowl decorated with tulips and strapwork motifs, on a slender baluster stem and circular fluted foot, London, 1593, 5 oz 10 dwt 2,000 0
Pair of George III goblets of plain design, probably by William
Sumner, London, 1800, 20 oz 520 0
Pair of George III two-handled pedestal challenge cups and covers with reeded decoration and urn knops, by Samuel Hcnnell, London, 1806, 32 oz 5 dwt 400 0
George III tumbler cup engraved with armorials, gilt interior and the base with contemporary initials. Possibly by John Garter, London, 1766, 2 oz 1 dwt 150 0
Victorian wine cup, the beaker-shaped bowl and pedestal base cast and chased in low relief with grape-laden vine tendrils, by Hunt and Roskell, London, 1875, 10 oz 1 dwt 52 0
Cutlery—Canteens
George III fiddle thread pattern table silver: 24 tablespoons, 36 table forks, 12 dessert spoons, 12 dessert forks, 12 teaspoons, 6 sauce ladles, 2 soup ladles, 1 marrow scoop, majority by Richard Crossley, 1798/1800/1804, 146 oz 9 dwt 750 0
Victorian fiddle pattern table silver: 12 tablespoons, 12 table forks, 12 dessert spoons, 12 dessert forks, 6 teaspoons, 2 salt spoons, by George Angell, London, 1863, 116 oz 14 dwt 260 0
Cutlery—Forks Dessert
Twelve George I  three-pronged  forks with crest, different
makers, 1718, 14 oz 1 dwt 1,500 0
Twelve George IV fiddle pattern forks by James Scott, Dublin,
1822, 15 oz 75 0
Six George III fiddle pattern forks by G.D., London, 1794,
8 oz 14 dwt 65 0
SOME AUCTION ROOM PRICES ! 1968-69
Cutlery—Forks Table
Twelve Queen Anne three-pronged forks engraved with a crest,
by David King, Dublin, 1708/10, 28 oz Four George II three-pronged forks engraved with two crests,
1755, 7 oz 18 dwt Eleven Victorian fiddle shell pattern forks by George Angell,
1857/61, 36 oz 16 dwt
Cutlery—Forks Toasting
George III fork with knopped shaft and scrolled handle, probably by R. Preston, London, circa 1767, 7 oz 10 dwt. 17f in long
George III fork with knopped shaft and scrolled handle by John Deacon, London, circa 1775, 8 oz. 19i in long
Cutlery—Knives
Forty-eight Victorian table knives and twenty-four dessert knives, kings pattern, steel blades by J.A. or T.S., 1884
Twelve eighteenth-century dessert knives, the multi-faceted bloodstone handles with knopped urn finials and mounts engraved, the scimitar blades of steel. Circa 1700, (Some handles cracked)
Cutlery—Ladles
Four George III sauce ladles, crested Old English pattern by
Hester Bateman, 1783, 5 oz 19 dwt Pair of George III sauce ladles with ribbed and punched beaded
bowls, by Michael Keating, Dublin, circa 1780, 2 oz 16 dwt
Cutlery—Spoons Dessert
Nine engraved spoons, seven by William Soame, 1741, two 1748, 12 oz
Ten Hanoverian spoons engraved with crest, 1760, 11 oz 5 dwt Cutlery—Spoons Serving
Pair of George III Old English pattern spoons by Steven Adams,
London, 1772, 5 oz 15 dwt Pair of Victorian spoons by George Angell, 1854, 10 oz 14 dwt
Cutlery—Spoons Table
Six George I Hanoverian pattern spoons with rat-tail bowls
by Charles Jackson, 1723, 11 oz 2 dwt Six George III Old English pattern spoons with contemporary
initials J.G. by Hester Bateman, 1780, 11 oz 17 dwt
Cutlery—Spoons Tea and Coffee
Six William IV ‘bright-cut’ spoons, 1836, 3 oz 7 dwt Eight George IV fiddle shell pattern spoons by J. McKay, Edinburgh, 1827, 4 oz 8 dwt

WINE-GLASS ENGRAVED, DRINKING GLASS IN COLOURLESS GLASS WITH ENGRAVED DECORATION

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

covered goblet with engraved portrait ok carl
Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, by Franz Gondelaeh,
Germany, c. 1700.
Spillcr’s contemporary and pupil was
Jager, an outstanding glass-
engraver. He was born at Reichenberg in
Bohemia, appeared in Berlin in 1606 and
was made a member of the Berlin glass-
cutters’ guild in 1606. Both Spiller’s and
Jager’s glasses often show crisselling (a
network of tiny cracks in the glass), a
defect found in the Potsdam glass used at
the Berlin workshop. The third engraving
workshop to be set up for a German court
was that of Franz Gondelaeh (or Gunde-
lach) for the Court of the Landgrave Carl
of Hesse Cassel. Gondelaeh, sometimes
called the greatest German master of the
art, was born at Gross-Almerode in Hesse
in 1663 and becameJiirstlicheGIasschneider
to Carl in 1695. It is not known when he
died, but he was still described as Hof-
glasschneider at Cassel in 1716. He some-
times used Potsdam glass for his work,
occasionally marking his pieces with an
eight-rayed star.
It is only towards the end of the 17th
century that a genuine distinction between
glass-cutting and glass-engraving can be
made. For the first time it is obvious that
different types of equipment were being
developed for cutting and for engraving.
The glass-engraver’s equipment was light
enough at this period to be carried, where-
as the glass-cutter’s equipment, used for
facetting, intaglio (deep cutting) or rough-
ing out for finer engraving, was hardly
portable. The large interchangeable
wheels for cutting were rotated on a heavy
hand-turned cutting machine, a form of
equipment which survived until the
modern period. By the end of the 17th
century, water power was in use for turn-
ing the wheels, and was probably used to
do the all-over facetting as an obligatory
prelude to the engraving on glasses of
Bohemia and Silesia in the 18th century.
Intaglio or Hochschnitt cutting would not
have been possible without this extra
power.
The Bohcmian-Silcsiart glass-engraving
industry produced glasses that were event-
ually exported as far as Persia and the East,
as well as all over Europe. The Bohemian
workshops were predominant in the late
17th and early 18th centuries, but after
1725 Silesia overtook them in importance.
There were workshops in Schreiberhau,
Hermsdorf, Kynast, Warmbrunn, Peters-
dorf and Breslau, as well as other places in
the Hirschberger Tal. The finest Silesian
work occurs partly in the Rococo period,
when characteristic forms appear, such as
shell-shaped, lobed and scrolled cups,
which were frequently gilded as well. Most
of the work remains anonymous, but some
of the finest work is known to have been
done by an artist of Warmbrunn, Christian
Gottfried Schneider (1710-73). All other
German centres remained subordinate to
the Bohemian-Silesian workshops, but the
name of Anton Wilhelm Mauerl (1672-
¦737) of Nuremberg should be mentioned
for his work with its accent on Chinoiserie.
By the beginning of the 18th centur;
wheel-engraving as a decoration on glass
(often of English manufacture) was be-
coming established in popularity in Hol-
land. The chief exponent of the art there
was Jacob Sang, a Saxon who worked in
Amsterdam. Dutch wheel-engraving was
very German in style, and certainly at first
was the work of German craftsmen resi-
dent in Holland. Jacob Sang engraved and
signed a number of glasses with dates
between 1752 and 1769 during his stay at
Amsterdam. He was probably related to
Andreas Friedrich Sang, the Thuringian
glass-engraver. In 1738 A. F. Sang was
recorded at Weimar, as Hoch/iirstlich
sdchsiscke Glasschneider. His son was the
Brunswick Court glass-engraver, Johann
Heinrich Balthasar Sang. Wheel-engrav-
ing had already been practised in Holland
in the first half of the 18th century,
possibly by another member of the Sang
family.
WINE-GLASS ENGRAVED 165 mm (6-5 in.)
DRINKING GLASS IN COLOURLESS GlASS WITH
ENGRAVED DECORATION
John Frederick AmelungGlassworks, L.S.A. 1703
III. 220 mm (805 in)
A group of engraved glasses thai enjoys
great popularity with collectors comprises
the so-called Jacobite glasses, all engraved
with symbols of the Jacobite cause in
England. The various emblems include the
star, oak-leaf, butterfly, caterpillar, grub,
carnation, forget-me-not, lily-ot-the-val-
ley, daffodil, honeysuckle and sunflower.
The most important symbol, however, is
undoubtedly the Jacobite Heraldic Rose,
which may have six, seven or eight petals,
representing, it is thought, the Crown of
England. Other glasses have actual por-
traits of Prince Charles Edward, the Young
Pretender, engraved (not very skilfully) on
their bowls. The words FIAT, AUDEN-
TIOR UK) and REDEAT are often found
on these glasses. The exact significance of
each symbol, including buds in relation to
the roses, is the subject of much discussion,
bin no one yet knows all the answers. The
majority of the glasses have air-twist
stems, but baluster stems and opaque
twists are also lound.
Some of the most noteworthy engraved
glass of North America was produced at
John Frederick Amelung’s glass-works
which was established at New Bremen
near Frederick, Maryland, in 1784. Efforts
to establish a glass industry had been made
during the 17th century, notably at James-
town in Virginia, where the first attempt
was made around 1608. However, the first
successes in the business were scored
mainly by Germans and Englishmen in the
18th century, when several important
glass manufactories were started, the
Amelung glass-house being the most
successful. It operated for only one decade,
but its clear glass decanters, glasses and
goblets set a high standard. The glass
illustrated is European in style, showing a
sturdy form and restrained engraving,
with foliage and a finely drawn inscription
‘George Trisler’ and the date 170.!, en-
closed in the foliage. The shallow wheel-
engraving found on these glasses often
features commemorative inscriptions and
dales
The period of prosperity after the Napo-
leonic wars known in Germany as the
Biedermeierzeil brought about the revival
of the art of glass-engraving, particularly
in Bohemia. Massive feet and bold poly-
gonal facetting are characteristic of these
heavy engraved pieces. The commoner
examples arc somewhat clumsily engraved,
but the finer pieces are equal to anything
from the previous periods. Glass-engravers
tended to work independently and to move
about; thus Dominik Bimann (1800-57)
worked at Prague, but went to Franzens-
bad during the season, and August Bohm
(1812-90) visited England and America.
Romantic landscapes and hunting scenes
showing faithful perspective were popular.
The Pelikan family of Meistersdorf near
Kamnitz and the Simms of Jablonec were
also notable engravers in this style.
Engraving through a silver stained surface
to clear colourless glass was popular, as in
the goblet illustrated, which has engraved
panels flashed with clear yellow glass.
It is worth while taking a close look at 19th
century English wheel-engraving, since so
much of it is still to be seen. As Hugh
Wakefield points out, the early years of the
century could truthfully be called the
heyday of cut glass, and engraving was
only used where cutting could not reason-
ably be used on a glass vessel. Simple
wheel-engraved motifs appeared often
enough on wine-glasses, and larger vessels
might have lettering in the form of mottoes
and inscriptions. Floral and other plant
motifs were used effectively as in the loving
cup illustrated. On the other hand, repre-
sentatives of figures were unusual, and
appeared only on the more special pieces.
Difficult subject matters were avoided, and
it could be said that engraving in the early
years of the 19th century was considered
suitable only for commemorative pieces
and for the bowls of wine-glasses, where
cutting could not be used.
Kngraved by a member of the Wood family of
Brettell I ..me, Kngland, 1840-50
Hi. 209 mm (117; in.)
JUG WITH  DECORATION
Shown ai the 1851 exhibition by J. Ci. Green,
Kngland. Ht. 337 mm (13*25 in.)
In the early 1840’s surface stains were
being used in the Stourbridge area on
glassware, broad flute cutting being added.
The stain was normally ruby-red, derived
from copper rather than the yellowish-
brown given by silver. The bottle illus-
trated is ruby-red stained and was en-
graved by a member of the Wood family of
Brcttell Lane, near Stourbridge. The
bottle forms part of the movement in the
1830*1 and 1840’s, when the scope of
engraved work seems to have widened in
England. The Wood family had an im-
portant engraving shop in Stourbridge
around the 1840’s, and Thomas Wood was
established enough to produce an inde-
pendent display for the 1851 exhibition.
\i the firm of Thomas I lawkes in Dudley,
near Stourbridge, William Herbert and
the rest of his family were becoming noted
during the 1830’s for the engravings they
produced for the firm. It was soon to
become apparent that wheel-engraving
was a technique well suited to Victorian
taste.
Shapes popular for wheel-engraving in
Victorian times included globular decan-
ters and water carafes. These forms were
developed in the early years of Victoria’s
reign, and proved so suitable to the
technique of wheel-engraving that they
probably helped to popularise it. The
hemispherical champagne glass introduced
about this time could only be whccl-
engraved and not deep-cut. At the 1851
Exhibition the most significant engraved
glass was that exhibited by the London
dealers, particularly by the firm of J. G.
Green. Their ‘Neptune’ jug, a large Greek
oinochoe shape elaborately engraved, was
much illustrated at the time and is
illustrated here. The oinochoe shape be-
came very popular in the later part of tlu-
cent ury, but the most usual shapes for
engraving for the late 1850’s, 1860’s and
1870’s were footed ovoid shapes used lor
decanters, claret jugs and vases. These
were blown thinly, and offered a large ana
By Frederick E. Kny, Thomas Webb & Sons,
England, probably later 1870’s
Ht. 308 mm (12-13 in.)
The decanter illustrated was engraved by
the Bohemian Frederick E. Kny, one of
the most distinguished engravers in Eng-
land in the 1860’s, who remained prom-
inent for the rest of the century. He had a
separate workshop on the premises of
Thomas Webb & Sons at Stourbridge.
He, like other artists, favoured the well-
known three-lipped decanter shape for
engraving. This shape, as seen in the
illustration, with its high shoulder and
spherical stopper, often with a tiny ball
finial, was a result of the current admira-
tion for Greek pottery forms. It looked
best when blown thin, and called for the
lighter work of wheel-engraving for decor-
ation. The shape came into its fullest
popularity in the early 1870’s, appearing
in the Stevens & Williams pattern books in
January, 1871, and in the Thomas Webb
and Richardson firms at roughly the same
time. By the last decade of the century it
was one of the best-known international
shapes.
The Techniques of Taking Away
JIG WITH ENGRAVED FERN PATTERN
John Eord, Scotland, about the i88o’s
Hi. 247 mm (075 in.)
Another shape that was most popular for
wheel-engraving in England in the 1860’s
was the tankard-shaped water jug, with
straight, slightly tapering sides. This style
of jug was used for fine engraving until
near the end of the 19th century, but since
then the shape has become too common-
place for such elaborate treatment. Motifs
for engraving in the 1860’s were Renais-
sance arabesques and Greek-inspired de-
signs, while in the later 1860’s and 1870’s
naturalistic designs of flowers, birds and
hunting scenes became more common.
The fern patterns on the jug illustrated
originated with the Scottish firm of John
Ford of the Holyrood glass-works. To-
wards the end of the 1850’s an emigrant
Bohemian, J. H. B. Millar, set up a work-
shop for engraving glass in Edinburgh,
closely connected with the firm of John
Ford. He introduced the fern patterns at
the London exhibition of 1862 and they
remained very popular for a long period.
VASE WITH ‘ROCK CRYSTAL.’ ENGRAVING
by Frederick K. Kny, Thomas Webb & Sons,
Kngland, abou” 1880. Hi. 235 mm (0/25 in.)
WINE-GLASS WITH INTAGLIO FLORAL ENGRAVING
Slcvcns & Williams, Kngland, about 1000
Hi. 159 mm (625 in.)
A new style of decoration appeared in
England towards the beginning of the
1880’s, which was called ‘rock crystal’
engraving. What differentiated the new
technique from normal wheel-engraving
was that all parts of the work were
polished, instead of the engraving being
kept unpolished to contrast with the
surrounding surface. This uniformly
bright appearance led to a new approach
in the design of the engraving. Instead of
the engraving being a pattern on the glass,
it took over the whole surface of the vessel
and became deeper cut, and more in the
character of carving. The effect was an
even more sumptuous method of decorat-
ing English lead glass, in line with the
international trend for brilliant cut glass,
and it was also in keeping with the
simultaneous development of carved cam-
eo glass. The workshops of F. E. Kny
(see illustration) and of William Fritsche,
which were attached to Thomas Webb &
Sons, produced ‘rock crystal’ glass
throughout the 1880’s and 1890’s.
‘Rock crystal’ glass was produced in
France in this period, and possibly Thomas
Webb’s work was inspired by the work of
the French glass-makers. Stevens & Wil-
liams at Brierley Hill near Stourbridge
also produced ‘rock crystal’. In the early
1880’s there was a phase when ‘rock
crystal’ pieces were made to imitate
Chinese jades. The final fling for Victorian
engraving came with Stevens & Williams
intaglio work of the 1890’s, as in the wine-
glass illustrated. Intaglio is deep engraving
carried out on wheels that would normally
be used for cutting, a technique some-
where between cutting and engraving. The
names of John Northwood and Joshua
Hodgetts are particularly associated with
the development of this method. The
technique was worked out at the beginning
of the 1890’s, and was an established part
of the Stevens & Williams output by the
later 1890’s. It was also being used by
American firms, such as T. G. Hawkes of
Corning, New York.
Intaglio work was produced notably by the
firm of L. C. Tiffany at the factory at
Corona, Long Island, in the U.S.A.
towards the end of the ioth century and
the beginning of the present century.
Their ‘intaglio’ glass differed from English
intaglio, since besides referring to the
cutting and engraving of glass, the term
also referred to the practice of applying
contrasting coloured glass in the engraved
parts and re-cutting so that engraved work
appears on decorative inlays. The flower
and leaves on the vase illustrated have been
treated in this manner, being in contrast-
ing colours to the base glass. Glass that
had been cut or engraved either in intaglio
or in cameo relief by the Tiffany factory
was always referred to as ‘Carved’ in their
brochures and catalogues. The glass fac-
tory also produced simpler relief-cut
objects without colour contrasts and used
coppcr-wheel-cngraving on many of their
vases, bowls, lampshades and tablewares.
The finest achievement of Wilhelm v. Eiff
(1890-1943) was his work in high relief
(Hochschnitt) on glass. He raised it from a
miniature art, giving the technique the
dignity of sculpture. Von Eiff was the son
of a craftsman at the Goppingen branch
of the Wiirttembergische Metallwaren-
fabrik, and at a very early age mastered the
techniques of engraving both metal and
glass. He worked for a time in Lalique’s
jeweller’s studio, and also with the famous
glass-engraver Charles Michel in Paris. In
1913 he paid a short visit to the Art School
in Stuttgart, and in 1921 he worked for a
while with the glass designer Stephan
Rath. In 1922 he was appointed professor
in cutting and engraving on glass and
precious stones at the school in Stuttgart.
He had a great influence on his pupils, who
now can be found from Scotland to Japan,
doing work in many different ways, from
each other’s products as well as from v.
‘GIRLS PLAYING BALI-’
engraving by Edward Hald, Orrefors, Sweden, 1019
BOWL IN PALE BILE GLASS ENGRAVED WITH ANGEL
AND DANCING MAIDENS
By Simon Gale, Orrefors, Sweden. 1927
Hi. 160 mm (63 in.)
Of great importance to the history of art
glass were the appointments in 1916 and
1917 respectively of Simon Gate and
Edward Hald as designers to the glass-
works at Orrefors. Edward Hald (b. 1883)
was a painter who had studied with
Matisse in Paris, and had already designed
pottery for the factory at Rorstrand.
Orrefors, founded in 1898, is situated in
Smaland, the main glass-producing dis-
trict in Sweden. Here, Hald had to learn
the very basics of glass-making from K nut
Bergqvist, master glass-blower at the
factory from 1914. It was the engraved
glass produced at Orrefors which won the
factory its first international fame. There
was already an engravers’ shop at Orre-
fors, with Gustaf Abels at its head, before
Gate and Hald were appointed. As soon
as they settled in, they began to experi-
ment with this technique. Hald preferred
a more delicate approach to engraving
than Gate’s style, producing exquisite
objects like the vessel illustrated, directly
inspired by the art of Matisse.
Simon Gate (1883-1945) the first glass-
designer employed by the Orrefors glass-
works, was the son of a prosperous farmer
and trained as an artist in the grand
classical manner at the Academy in Stock-
holm. Like his contemporary Hald, he had
to learn glass-making from the beginning
when he joined Orrefors, and he concen-
trated first on the art of engraving. The
style of the early engraved work of the
Orrefors glass-works reflects the taste for
luxury products in prosperous post-war
Stockholm —an elegant nec—classicism.
Within this tradition both Gate and Hald
developed their own styles. Gate’s work is
noted for the heaviness and large dimen-
sions of the vessels, decorated in deep
carving with figure subjects from the
Bible, classical mythology and like sources.
It is claimed of Orrefors that no other
glass-works has had such an international
influence over glass-production. For the
first three decades of this century the
attention of the glass-works was directed
to the art of engraving glass.
Jarosla Horejc (b. 1886) is a glass designer
of Hungarian origin. One of Drahoftov-
sky’s pupils, he produced for the Paris
Exhibition in 1925 four vases with en-
graved decoration, one illustrated here,
decorated in magnificent classical style
with figures cut in very high relief
(Hochschnitt). The well-known Viennese
glass firm, J. & L, I.obmeyr was estab-
lished in 1823; since that date three
generations of Lobmcyrs had worked as
dealers in and refiners of glass in Vienna.
In 1918 Stephen Rath, a nephew of
Ludwig Lobmcyr, established a branch
cil the firm called ‘J. & L. Lobmeyrs Neffc
Stephan Rath’ in the North Bohemian
town of Steinschonau (or Kamcnicky
Seno). Here glass was made to Rath’s
specifications and decorated to the design
of artists by the finest engravers of the
district. Horejc’s work is a direct result of
this; in 1962 he was still continuing his
classical tradition of engraving with richly
varied figure subjects from the Lobmeyr
Studio.
John 1 lutton was born in New Zealand in
1906. He is probably best known for his
work in England, at Guildford, and for the
engraved panels he produced for Coventry
Cathedral. The freencss of his style of
engraving owes much to his equipment, a
movable wheel driven through a sheathed
flexible shaft by an electric motor. Water
is fed to the wheel by a wet piece of cloth
held in a bracket attached to the hand grip.
Instead of applying the glass to a stationary
wheel in the conventional manner of
engraving, Hutton is able to move his
wheel at will over the whole surface of the
glass. The result is a fine, shallow, light
engraving with rather a rough finish.
Hutton has translated some of the Coven-
try figures on to large vessels produced by
Whitefriars, one of which is illustrated.
His art is forceful and dramatic, and
reveals a new facet to the technique of
engraving glass.
Steuben Glass Works, U.S.A., 1045-50
Hi. 1525 mm (6 in.)
Frederick Carder (1863-1963) of the
Steuben Glass Works at Corning, New
York, developed the ancient cire perdue
(lost wax) process for the production of
Diatreta. In this process a wax model of
the object was made from a gelatin mould
taken from a plaster of Paris replica of the
object. The wax model was covered with a
ceramic mould. After a drying period of
twenty-four hours the mould was placed
over boiling water which melted the wax,
leaving the moulded impression in reverse
of the original model. Cold glass in the
form of rods or lumps was placed in the
mould, which was then fired in a kiln until
the glass had run into every part of the
mould. The mould and glass were next
slowly annealed, and finally the mould was
broken away, leaving a glass casting of the
original model. The Diatretum pieces
made between 1945 and 1959 show how
Carder had perfected this method of
glass-casting.
ENGRAVED BY Ј. JANE WEBSTER
England, 1963
One of the more successful modern free-
lance wheel-engravers of Britain is Jane
Webster, a former student of Stourbridge
College and Royal College, where she
gained the Princess of Wales scholarship.
Her chief concern, as it also is with her
contemporaries Laurence Whistler and
David Peace, is the satisfactory relation-
ship between the design on one side of the
glass and the part that shows through from
the other. Her husband, Cyril P. Aron,
designed her copper wheel-engraving
lathe. She specialises in commemorative
presentation pieces such as the one pre-
sented to Princess Anne on the occasion of
her visit to Pilkington Brothers’ St. Asaph
factory in Wales in 1972. She has also
engraved a set of twelve windows in a
synagogue at Stanmore, and an overdoor
panel for the Edinburgh Weavers’ show-
room in London. The chalice and paten
illustrated were commissioned by the
architect, Harry M. Fairhurst to be pre-
sented by the academic staff for the chapel
of the St. Anselm University Hall of
Residence at Manchester.

WINE-GLASS WITH LAMP-WORKED DECORATION, TULIP-SHAPED JUG, SHALLOW BOWL

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS
Nevers, Prance, 1777. Hi. 210 mm (8-25 in.)
Verre de Nevers: This technique origin-
ated in Nevers in the late 16th century, and
it is more closely allied to lamp-working
than to the normal techniques used for
creating glass objects, such as blowing and
moulding. It flourished in Europe for
some two centuries. This delightful group,
depicting the judgment of Paris, was made
in Nevers in the heyday of the glass
figurine, between the late 17th and early
18th centuries. The figures were made by
softening rods of glass of different colours
and winding them over a metal armature.
Every fold of the garments on this group
has a metal base below the glass. When the
glass was sufficiently thick, and after
repeated reheating, it was modelled to
shape with the aid of prods and pinchers. I n
Verre de Nevers groups, decorative details
such as leaves are made entirely of glass,
with no supporting core, while such forms
as birds might be blown.
WINE-GLASS WITH LAMP-WORKED DECORATION
Saxony? early 18th century. 111. 140 mm (55 in.)
Lamp-working is a technique used by
glass-makers to make objects by using only
a single flame as a source of heat. Glass
rods are normally used, held over the
flame and melted or softened to the
desired shape. In modern times, the most
popular lamp-worked objects are small
animals made out of coloured glass rods
melted down, bent and joined to the
required form. Details like eyes are made
by putting a small drop of molten glass on
the object, with possibly another centred
on the first drop to form the pupil. The
ornate stem-work on Venetian and /aeon
de Venise wine-glasses is closely allied to
this technique. One of the rare instances of
true lamp-working on a blown glass is the
wine-glass illustrated, which is one of a
series that have a band of lamp-worked
decoration round the centre of the bowl.
The work stands out in three dimensions
from the bowl, the small Cupid being
almost free-standing; he holds a garnet in
his hand. The provenance of these vessels
is not certain.
TULIP-SHAPED JUG
Karl Kopping, Berlin, c. 1900
I It. .120 mm (126 in.)
Karl Kopping (1848-1914) was a painter
and etcher in Berlin. Between 1892 and
1900 he designed some tall decanters and
goblets made at the lamp from tube glass.
At that time Germany had lor some ten
years been under the influence of the style
for naturalism created by Emile Galle of
France. It became known in Germany as
the Jugendsttl, and Karl Kopping’s exag-
gerated Art Nouveau glass vessels form a
part of this movement. The starting point
for his designs was the flower on its stalk,
and the colours he used could be both bold
and delicate. The stem of the glass
illustrated is in blue, the leaves are in
copper-green glass and the tulip-shaped
bowl has a metallic finish. The piece is
signed on the foot: ‘C. Kopping’. 1 lis work
became popular, and several museums
bought examples of it, but today they are
regarded more as period pieces.
BIRD FOUNTAIN
England, it»th century. III. 4H9 mm (1925 in.)
(See also colour photograph 16))
It has always been the custom for glass-
blowers to amuse themselves in spare
moments by creating fantasies in glass.
These are known in the trade as ‘friggcrs’
—a word which possibly derives from the
Old English ‘Jrician’, to dance. In Scotland
they are called ‘whigmelccrics’. In the
19th and early 20th centuries friggcrs
included elaborate fountains surrounded
by birds with tails of glass fibres and fully
rigged sailing ships on spun glass seas, as
well as the objects mentioned on page 100.
The more elaborate friggcrs are usually
protected by a large glass dome. Friggers
were made for amusement, for family
presents, as an extra source of money, or
even for fully mercantile reasons. Travel-
ling glass-makers who visited fairs and
private houses produced many of these
novelties, having as their kit a bundle of
multi-coloured glass canes and a little
furnace heated by a tallow flame.
The ‘taking away’ or abrasive techniques of
glass-making have as long a history as glass
itself Even earlier, hieroglyphic inscriptions
had been engraved on hard stone vessels, and
we definitely know that as early as the 16th
century B.C. glass was being engraved in
Egypt. Most of this engraving was probably
done with pointed instruments or possibly
with a rotary wheel. Wheel-culling and
wheel-engraving are the two terms most
commonly encountered, and though they are
thought of as almost separate methods,
basically the techniques are the same. In
both, a rotating abrasive wheel cuts into the
glass surface. The mam distinction is that
large wheels are used for cutting, where the
worker holds the glass on lop oj the wheel,
between himself and his tool; and small ones
for engraving, where he holds it below the
wheel, so that he can see what he is doing.
Culling is characterised by large-scale,
geometric designs, usually relatively deeply
incised, and engraving by jine, detailed,
usually pictorial work.
Grinding and Cutting from a Raw Block of
Glass: This was the only ‘taking away’
technique that was used to produce a com-
plete vessel or other object. The method,
which was covered in the first chapter,
dealing with techniques before blowing
was invented, continued in use for a short
time after the 1st century B.C. The ring
illustrated is a good example of the method
used to produce a single decorative object.
One might imagine that a gem or even a
glass cameo was once set in the concavity
left by the glass-cutter at the front of the
ring. (lasting glass in moulds and blowing
glass were so much easier, that this tech-
nique, using rotary abrasion to shape an
object, fell into disfavour. It was con-
tinued primarily as a means of finishing off
already made glass forms, or as a means of
embellishment.
GOBLET BEARING THE NAME OF TUTHMOSIS III
(1504 1450 B.C.)
Egypt III. 130 mm (5-1 in.)
Early Wheel Engraving: The goblet illus-
trated, made of turquoise-blue opaque
glass with a gold ring at the rim and base,
is a famous example of early incised work.
Some glass vessels from the 18th Dynasty
in Egypt are decorated with incised
inscriptions such as that found by Sir
flinders Petrie at Tell el Amarna. A frag-
ment of a bowl at The Corning Museum of
C1 hiss bears a fragmentary inscription
relating to the wife of Amcnhotep III
(1412 1375 B.C.), and is said to reveal ‘the
characteristic tapering ends of wheel cuts’.
Whether the engraving on these early
vessels was done with a point or by means
of a rotating instrument has been tho-
roughly discussed by R. J. Charleston (see
Bibliography). For the most part it seems
that just a pointed instrument was used,
and it was only in the later Egyptian
period that there is evidence of wheel-
engraving on the glass, probably by the use
of a bow-lathe.
SHALLOW BOWL WITH PETAL DESIGN
Roman Empire, 7ih 5th century B.C.
Hi. 39 mm (155 in), diam. 174 mm (685 in.)
In the general Mesopotamia-Assyria-Asia-
Minor region, rotary abrasion was used to
sharpen up decorative motifs, which were
first produced by moulding processes.
There is a large family of bowls with
radiating petal motifs—one being illus-
trated here—the earliest of which is known
to date from not later than 700 B.C. These
were produced by being cast into moulds,
and finished by grinding and cutting. As
abrasive powder on the wheels, emery was
probably used; this was apparently known
in Egypt at least as early as the 18th
Dynasty. The known use by the Egyptians
of tubular metal drills in cutting granite
was probably paralleled further East in the
first millenium B.C. Some such means
must have been employed in the hollowing
out of vessels like the famous ‘Sargon vase’
(see first chapter).
It is not known what type of abrading
equipment was used in Roman times to
decorate glass. It has been suggested that
an all-purpose tool could have been used,
which could be adapted as lathe, drill or
engraving wheel as needed. The Romans
definitely used abrasives such as emery for
cutting, and pumice stone for polishing the
cuts. Probably from Egypt came a group
of facet-cut and ‘diamond’-point engraved
bowls from the ist and 2nd century A.D.
(See Diamond-Point Engraving.) These
are the parent group from which are
descended all late Roman cut and engraved
glasses with figured scenes. The quality of
Alexandrian engraved work deteriorated
during the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D.
However, in the west, from some time in
the 3rd century A.D. onwards, a great
quantity of figured cut or engraved glass
began to be produced in Italy and the
neighbouring provinces, of which the dish
illustrated above is an example.
Figured decoration in engraved work was
not altogether abandoned by workers in
the eastern workshops, as is seen in some
later exports to the west from the east.
However, in general they began to con-
centrate on easier designs, suited to less
skilful engravers, and presumably for more
speedy production. The jug illustrated,
with geometric decoration in friezes, is an
example of the rather rough designs the
West Syrian/Egyptian workshops fav-
oured. It is in dark yellowish-green glass,
which is of rather poor quality, being
bubbly and streaky with impurities. The
fine linear and facet cutting of the earlier
period is not in evidence. Wheel-engraving
was now used to imitate facet cutting, with
designs of curved lines, circles and ovals.
The style took particular root in Egypt,
and probably in Syria also. Many of the
vessels of this type found in the west must
have been imports from these areas.
Diatreta are the most extraordinary and
most outstanding examples of the tech-
nique of abrasion ever made. From experi-
ments carried out by Fritz W. Schafer in
Germany and Barbini and Fuga in Italy it
has been proved with almost complete
certainty that these delicate cage cups were
produced by lapidary means, and not by
any other technique (see Bibliography). A
small battery of wheels and readily avail-
able abrasives, plus the skill of the en-
graver, are all that is needed to make a
diairelum from a solid, carefully annealed
blank. Diatreta are the finest product of
the Cologne and Trier glass-makers in the
4th century A.D. They have been found
in the Rhineland, on the Danube, in
Northern Italy and in Greece. The three
most beautiful, all with inscriptions, came
to light in Cologne. The inscription on the
one illustrated is in Greek, and conveys an
exhortation to drink.
With the decline of the Roman Empire in
the West, glass engraving died out. This
was largely because there was no (ine-
quality glass made after this time that was
suitable for engraving. In the East the
technique never ceased, and glasses with
cut decoration can be traced in unbroken
continuity through Sassanian to Islamic
times. Baghdad and Basra were noted for
cut glass in the 9th century A.D. and later.
In the 9th and ioth cerfturies, after a
renaissance under the dynasty of the
Samanids, a school of relief-cutting flour-
ished in Persia and probably in Meso-
potamia, which in Europe was not rivalled
until the end of the 17th century. The flask
illustrated is an early example of a shape
that was to remain popular throughout the
Islamic period. The scrolling engraved
design was to exert a great influence on the
mind of the Islamic artist.
Hedwigsglas in light brown clear glass, the
gilt-copper foot a later addition
So-called Hedwigsgldser represent the last
wheel-cut glass vessels to be produced in
the Orient, and are recognised as master-
pieces of Egyptian skill. Their origin is by
no means absolutely certain. These thick-
walled glasses carved in hochschnitl (deep
cutting) are maintained by B. Shelkov-
nikov to be the work of a 12th-century
White Russian workshop in Novogrudok,
which was presumably under the influence
of Byzantium. They are certainly a con-
tinuation of the art of rock-crystal cutting,
and more probably originated in Egypt.
The motifs used include stylised lions
and griffins between palm branches, as in
the illustrated example. Two of these
glasses reputedly belonged at one time to
St. Hedwig (1174-1243), wife of the Duke
of Silesia, and it is from her that the glasses
take their name. (Legend has it that the
saint caused water to change into wine in
one of these glasses.) Her niece, St.
Elizabeth (1207-31) also had a Hedwigs-
glas, reputed to give strength to women in
labour, which eventually came into Martin
Luther’s possession.
clp with facet-cltting
Barnwell, Cambridgeshire, England, lasi quarter of
1st century or early 2nd century A.D.
Ht. 90 mm (355 in.)
Facet-Culting is a form of decoration that
goes back certainly to the early Roman
period. Large, broad wheels were needed
to make the facets in the glass. R. J.
Charleston points out that Pliny mentions
some of the abrasives used for grinding in
Roman times, such as ’sand of Naxos’ for
emery, ’sands’ from India, Egypt and
Nubia, and certain stones from Armenia
and Cyprus. He also points out that
Theophrastus mentions pumice and also
emery in his History of Stones. Pliny
mentions Thebaic stone from Egypt and
pumice for the final polishing of marbles.
A wheel with a broad cutting or grinding
edge was certainly used to produce the
facet-cutting on this cup, which is in clear
glass with a greenish tint. Cups like this
found in England and Cyprus are thought
to originate from Western Syria or Egypt
and, in the later 2nd century A.D., from
East Syria.
During the 2nd century A.D. the East
Syrian glass-makers and decorators devel-
oped their knowledge of the art of glass-
engraving including facet-cutting. The
art lived on through Sassanian to Islamic
times. The flask illustrated, in clear glass
with a slight blue tinge, is a typical example
of the continued tradition of wheel-cut
decoration. Oval concave facets cover the
body of the flask, and the neck also has a
ring of facets. Previous to this, in Sassanian
times, wheel-cutting, particularly facet-
cutting, resulted in some striking glass-
ware. Most of the surviving examples from
this period arc cither facet- or linear-cut,
including characteristic shapes such as the
hemispherical bowls with concave cut
facets which were exported to the West
and East, even as far as Japan.
Facet-cutting, particularly for stem-work,
became popular in the second half of the
18th century. Facetted tumblers and
bottles were current in Bohemia, and in
Germany facet-cut knops appear on wine-
glasses from the Laucnstein and other
Hessian glass-houses in the first half of the
18th century. In England at the same time
glass-grinders were facetting the edges of
mirrors, and simple diamond-facetting
was beginning to appear on some glasses.
Scent bottles of opaque white glass and
blue glass, and snuff bottles dating from
about 1770, had all-over facetting and
were often enamelled and gilt. Once
thought to have originated from Bristol,
they more probably came from the Birm-
ingham, South Staffordshire or even Lon-
don area. From the middle of the 18th
century, facet-cutting became an estab-
lished form of decoration in England,
appearing particularly on wine-glass stems,
between c. 1760 to f.1810. Examples can be
found through to the modern period.
VASE WITH FACET CUTTING
By Keith Murray. Stevens & Williams, England,
1939. Ht. 206 mm (8-13 in.)
The architect Keith Murray (b.1893) first
began to take an interest in glass after the
Exhibition in Paris in 1925. He asked
himself why he found the conventional cut
crystal of England so unsatisfactory. After
analysing old English glass, he decided the
glass was better if left plain, or when it was
cut, if the cutting was in a ‘well organised
decoration’, flat cutting being particularly
appealing. The idea of an artist designing
for industry was beginning to be accepted
in England, and in 1932 it was arranged
that Murray should act as designer for
glass for Stevens & Williams at Brierley
Hill, near Stourbridge. During the seven
years he worked in glass he produced
designs for simple unornamented table
services and for some larger pieces. His
most important works are the large vases
and dishes in heavy metal decorated with
facet-cutting reminiscent of early Georgi-
an work. They powerfully express his
architectural feeling, and the decoration
matches the material superbly.
BOWL WITH  FACETTING
By Miluse Roubiekova, Borske sklo, Czechoslovakia,
1958. Diam. 450 mm (17-7 in.)
After the political revolution in Czecho-
slovakia in 1948 the glass industry was
nationalised. The Creative Glass Centre in
Prague was set up in 1952, in order to
establish contact between the glass-works
and the artists and designers, and to
encourage research into new methods of
decorating glass. Czechoslovakian glass
has long been known for its great tradition
in lead crystal cutting, and like its British
counterpart, Bohemian crystal still enjoys
a large public all over the world. The
tradition continues, but finds new expres-
sion in less rigid cut-glass patterns, softer
patterns of a gently formalised character
being increasingly favoured. A good exam-
ple of the new trend is the free irregular
facet-cutting on this bowl designed by
Miluse Roubiekova made at the Borske
sklo, Novy Bor. The usual diamond or
star motifs are no longer in evidence, but
the unsymmetrical lines of the bowl still
enhance the brilliance of the glass.
Later Wheel Engraving: In gem-cutting,
wheels of various materials were certainly
being used by the 15th century to engrave
and polish. By the 16th century, the prin-
ciple of continuous rotary movement had
been established. Engraving equipment
driven by a foot treadle was in use by glass
engravers in the early 17th century. Caspar
I.ehmann, the greatest name in the revival
of glass-engraving in Europe in the late 16th
century, was an engraver of hard-stones
before he was a glass-engraver, and one-
can assume his equipment was more or less
the same for both crafts. Lehmann was
‘Imperial gem-engraver’ to the Emperor
Rudolph II at Prague in 1601, and in 1608
was described as ‘Imperial gem-engraver
and glass-engraver’. From the very begin-
ning, then, the glass-cutter undoubtedly
borrowed his ideas from the gem-cutter,
whose art was so closely allied to his own.
This was a tradition that was to continue
into relatively modern times.
Caspar Lehmann’s engraving is shallow—
because of the thinness of the glass—two-
dimensional and unpolished. Prague was
one of the centres for rock crystal cutting,
and this is reflected in the style of the
engraving, which is flatly cut and gains its
effect from the contrast between the white
engraved lines and the’dark background of
the clear glass. In 1600 I.ehmann obtained
an Imperial Privilege conferring on him
alone the right to practise the art of glass-
engraving in the Imperial domains I le
bequeathed his privilege to his pupil
Gcorg Schwanhardt the Elder, born in
Nuremberg, who worked with him at
Prague. In 1622 Schwanhardt returned to
Nuremberg, where he founded a brilliant
school of wheel-engraving which flourished
to the 18th century. The new potash-lime
glass developed in Bohemia and Germany
in the early 17th century was eminently
suitable for the technique of wheel-
engraving.
COVERED GOBLET IN GREEN GLASS WITH CLEAR GLASS
STEM (DETAIL)
Probably engraved by Hermann Schwinger,
Nuremberg, Germany, about 1665- 80
Hi. 394 mm (15-5 in.)
Schwanhardt’s work in rock crystal and in
glass shows a complete mastery of the
technique of wheel-engraving. His work
was both polished and unpolished, and he
often used as motifs landscapes with
figures, with formal baroque scroll work.
He sometimes added delicate diamond-
point work to his glasses. Among his
pupils were members of his own family,
his sons, Georg the younger and Hcinrich,
and three of his daughters. Other notable
artists among the Nuremberg engravers
were Hermann Schwinger (1640-83) and
Georg Friedrich Killinger (first recorded
1694, died 1726). They all engraved the
same characteristic type of tall goblet,
with hollow knopped stem. The family
of Johann Hess at Frankfort-on-Main
engraved similar glasses in the second half
of the 17th century. Johann Heel (1637-
1709) glass-engraver, silversmith, faience-
painter and engraver of prints in Nurem-
berg also engraved glass in a somewhat
different style, following the motifs he
used in faience painting.
COVERED GOBLET WITH HOCHSCHNITT CUTTING
By Friedrich Winter, Silesia, end of 171I1 century
Ht. 280 mm (11 in.)
{See also colour photograph iH)
During its most flourishing period (c. 1685-
1775) German glass-engraving was done
mainly by unknown artisans working for
themselves in north-eastern Bohemia and
Silesia. However, the best-known work
was done by the engravers to three German
courts. Friedrich Winter set up the first of
these workshops in 1687, with permission
from Count Christoph Leopold von Schaff-
gotsch, at Petersdorf in the Hirschbcrger
Tal. He used water power, and produced
many glasses in the Hochschnitt technique.
Under the patronage of Friedrich Wilhelm,
Elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich Win-
ter’s brother Martin (died 1702) set up an
engraving workshop in Potsdam near
Berlin in 1687. This was also run by a
water-power mill specifically to produce
works in Hochschnitt (deep cutting) and
Tiefschnitt (intaglio work). Martin Win-
ter’s highly gifted nephew Gottfried Spiller
worked here, becoming a partner in 1683.
His engraving included flowers, allegories,
portraits, coats of arms, sometimes in
Hochschnitt, and occasionally he used the
ruby glass of the Potsdam glass-house.

Antique Glass. VASE WITH ENAMELLED DECORATION, SPOUTED WINE-GLASS IN CLEAR COLOURLESS GLASS, WITH GILDING AND PAINTING

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

The blank was then subjected to an acid
bath, to give the surface a matt finish.
Knamels were applied somewhat thinly,
except in areas that were to have a raised
design, and these were fired on. The most
popular colours were whiles, tans and soft
pastel shades, though occasionally brighter
colours were employed. The usual floral,
figural, animal, bird and fish motifs of the
Mt. Washington Glass Company were
used on this ware. Ornate handles, finials
and prunts were also to be found. The
initials ‘C apd ‘M’ one upon the other,
with a five-pointed crown above, was the
trademark, though occasionally the crown
was omitted. Thomas Webb & Sons of
Kngland produced a similar ware some
time between 1880 00, as illustrated
above. The New Bedford works may have
produced the so-called ‘Shiny Crown
Milano’, a glossy white opal glass, usually
with gold-coloured floral decoration. It is
found with a red laurel wreath fired to the
bottom of the glass.
In 1870 I lenry Cielhing Richardson of the
firm of Hodgetts, Richardson & Son of
Stourbridge, Kngland, patented a method
for ‘Improvements In Producing Orna-
ments, Designs, And Inscriptions On Or
In Glass’. A wide open-mouthed vessel in
clear glass was made, and when it had
cooled, had a design enamelled on its
inside. The thin-walled vessel was then
heated to a low redness while a second
smaller bubble of opal or other coloured
glass was lowered into it. This was blown
until it attached itself to the inside of the
vessel, thus covering and imprisoning the
enamelled design between the two layers.
The designs were painted so that when the
paraison expanded they did not distort too
much. The same effect could be made by
painting a design in coloured enamels on
an opal or coloured glass and then
immersing this in clear colourless glass to
lock the design in. Once the design was
imprisoned, the glass could be shaped into
the article wanted.
mary gregory vase in green glass with girl and
butter ely net enamelled in white
Atlributcd to Boston & Sandwich Glass Company,
U.S.A., iqth century
So-called ‘Mary Gregory’ glass is a trans-
parent coloured glassware with white or
coloured enamel designs painted and fired
on to the surface. It was a cheap imitation
of English cameo glass, but with a certain
merit of its own. Such wares were made
more prolifically on the Continent than in
America. However, much of the ware has
been erroneously attributed to one of the
older American glass factories in Sand-
wich, Mass., the Boston & Sandwich Glass
Company. The firm is known primarily
for its pressed wares of the early 1830’s,
but later it produced some decorated
glasses, possibly including enamelled glass
of this type. A Mary Gregory is supposed
to have been employed in the decorating
department of the Cape Cod works, which
is the reason for the name given to the
glass. Some genuine Boston & Sandwich
pieces depict young children engaged in
butterfly-collecting, the detail, including
the childrens’ facial features, being beauti-
fully finished.
vase with enamelled decoration
Signed Moser, Bohemia, early 20th century
Ht. 26c mm
Bohemian sources continued to search for
a cheaper method of producing work with
the same surface decorative effect as
English cameo work. They usually
achieved this in Mary Gregory style, with
simulated cameo decoration in extremely
fine white enamel work on overlay vases.
Their work was good, but unfortunately it
depressed the fine English cameo market,
since the genuine cameo work was expen-
sive to produce. In a different category of
enamelling technique comes the work of
Kolo Moser, a Bohemian designer as well
as decorator of glass in the early tooo’s,
who was counted as one of the finer
European glassmen of this period. His
pieces can be recognised by their very fine
enamelling, as in the vase illustrated.
Moser’s work included the introduction to
the market of an amethyst dichroic trans-
parent glass called ‘Alexandria (not to be
confused with the three-coloured ware of
Thomas Webb and Stevens & Williams of
England, which went under the name of
‘Alexandrite’).
VASE WITH ENAMELLED DECORATION
by Maurice Marinoi, France, c. 1920.
Hi. 343 mm (13 50 in.)
Maurice Marinot (born 1882), the most
decisive personality in the history of art
glass between the wars, began as a painter.
Between 1905 and 1914 he was exhibiting
regularly, already showing a tendency for
clear and orderly composition and an
imaginative use of colour. He was intro-
duced to glass-making in 1911, when he
visited the glass factory of Viard near
Troyes, and started to direct the produc-
tion of glass, which he himself decorated
with enamels. His glasses became col-
lectors’ items almost immediately, espec-
ially after his exhibition at the Salon des
link-pendants in 1912. Simple in shape,
they were decorated with the heads and
figures of women. As he began to under-
stand better the technique of enamelling,
his colours became even richer and the
texture finer. The pieces he made after the
First World War showed extraordinary
freedom and refinement, and the colours
had great subtlety, though his pre-war
pieces had a youthful zest which was all
their own.
SPOUTED WINE-GLASS IN CLEAR COLOURLESS GLASS, WITH
GILDING AND PAINTING
Hall-in-ihe-Tyrol, 1536. Ht. 335 mm (1315 in.)
Cold Painted Glass: Unfired colours, such
as lacquer, varnish and oil pigments, have
all been used to decorate glass, but they
easily rub off, and must therefore be con-
sidered a poorer form of coloured decora-
tion than fired enamels. Examples of
Roman glass with unfired paintings have
been found. It is also known that at about
the middle of the 16th century, after
enamelling had gone out of fashion, a form
of decoration in unfired oil colours was in
favour in Italy. Elaborate pictorial sub-
jects were used, often based on Raphael’s
work, with elaborate gilt scroll-work, but
the decoration was naturally very liable to
damage. Unfired lacquer painting and
gilding was used as decoration at the Hall-
in-the-Tyrol glass-house, which flourished
in the third quarter of the 16th century.
The spouted ewer illustrated is typical of
this work. In England, cheaper glass
products of the 19th century, such as
rolling pins and sugar basins, bore unfired
painted decoration.
Adding: The Skill of the Decorator
Lustre-painted Glass: An old technique
which was neither cold painting nor
enamelling, but did involve the firing-on
of a film of pigment to the glass, was known
as lustre painting. Depending on the
firing, the film became more or less
lustrous, and was almost imperceptible to
the touch. Exactly how it was done has
never been discovered, but there is reason
to connect the technique with that of
lustre-painting on tin-glazed pottery which
was practised first in Mesopotamia in the
9th century A.D. The method depended
on the reduction of metallic compounds
such as silver, copper or gold to the
metallic state by means of the carbon in
smoke. Generally speaking, the lustre
produced was reddish-brown in colour.
The technique was first practised in
Egypt, in either the late Byzantine or early
Islamic period, and was probably known
to Syrian glass-makers. In more modern
times platinum and bismuth have been
used as metallic compounds to produce
lusires on glassware (see Iridescent Glass).
Gold Decoration: Gold Sandwich Glass:
Apart from gold included in mosaic glass,
some of the earliest examples of gold
decoration are the gold sandwich glasses
found at Canosa in Apulia, Italy, dating to
the 3rd century B.C. (see Techniques
Before Blowing). After blowing was in-
vented in the 1st century B.C. the tech-
nique of sandwiching gold foil between
two glass layers was not abandoned, but
reached its most prolific period in approx-
imately the 4th century A.D. The majority
of these gilded glasses of the 3rd and 4th
centuries A.D. were found in the cata-
combs around Rome, embedded in the
plaster of the loculi, probably put there by
the relatives of the dead. These early
Christian fondi <f oro, as they are some-
times called, arc in fact the bases of
shallow bowls or dishes. The gold leaf
which was put inside the base ring of the
glass was engraved and sometimes, as in
the above example, had additional painted
decoration. This was covered with a
further protective layer of glass, which
was fused or cemented’to the base of the
bowl.
fragment of a bowi. in gold sandwich glass
depicting christ
lialy, 4ih century A.D. Diam. 90 mm (3′55 >n-)
The glass was broken away to the edge of
the gold decoration, so that a medallion-
like effect was achieved. Sometimes the
outer layer was coloured, but usually both
layers of glass were colourless. The sub-
jects depicted were taken from Jewish and
Christian symbolism and Biblical history,
but pagan motifs also appeared, such as
scenes from games and Classical myth-
ology, and dedications can be found to
circus heroes as well as to saints. The ware
was almost certainly manufactured at a
workshop in or near Rome. The name of a
4th-century A.D. bishop, Damasus, ap-
pears on several fragments, which helps
to date them, and since no more burials
took place in the catacombs after about
410 A.D., this could be assumed to be
their latest date. The workmanship on the
gold sandwich glasses is not usually of high
artistic merit. A disadvantage of the
technique was that air bubbles might get
between the two layers of glass and
disfigure the design.
tumbler in ‘/.mschengoldglas technique
Bohemia, about 1730. Ht. 89 mm (35 in.)
(See also colour photographs /(j and 14)
The gold sandwich technique is believed
to have been used in Rhenish glass
factories in Roman times. Fragments with
painted decoration have been found in
Cologne, in a style not seen on the glasses
from Rome. A series of Byzantine tiles
dating from somewhere between the 6th
and the 12th centuries A.D. differs in
being made up of fused gold glass covered
with a film of colourless glass. The method
was revived in the 18th century in Ger-
many, the products being called Zwischen-
goldgldser. Gold leaf was applied and
engraved on the outside of a tumbler,
which had previously been ground down
for about three-quarters of its height, a
projecting shoulder being left at the top.
A polygonal bottomless glass was then put
over the gold decoration, fitting neatly to
the shoulder. This outer glass projected a
little below the base of the tumbler, and a
further disc of glass, similarly gold-
engraved, was fixed in the space left.
Obviously, perfect precision was needed
if an airtight fit was to be achieved.
Bohemia, about 1710. Hi. 241 mm (9*5 in.)
Silver leaf as well as gold was used in
Zwischengoldgldser, and additions of ruby,
pink and green transparent lacquers occur
on some of the more elaborate later
examples-. This renewal of the gold sand-
wich glass technique seems to have been
concentrated in Bohemia at one or two
workshops. The best specimens date from
the 1730’s, but less skilled work was done
until about 1755. The glasses were deli-
cately engraved in gold with hunting
scenes, figures of saints and shields of arms,
usually of Bohemian families. That the
artists were aware of their early Christian
predecessors seems apparent from the
motifs used for the base discs of their
tumblers, such as the IHS monogram, and
Christian emblems comparable to those of
the early gold sandwich discs. Views of
monasteries and of local Bohemian saints
are among the decorations, the detail on
the gold leaf being scratched on with a
point. Though tumblers were the com-
monest shape used, other forms are found,
such as the covered goblet illustrated.
iimkik with medallions in TwiuhtWtUfUii
Johann Joseph Mildncr, Lower Austria, 1800
Ht. 102 mm (4 in.)
The gold sandwich glass technique was
also used in a highly personal way by
Johann Joseph Mildner (1763-1808) of
Gutenbrunn in Lower Austria. His finely
decorated gift tumblers have medallion
panels, decorated with red lacquer and
gold leaf in the Zwischengoldglas technique,
let in flush with the surface of the glass in
spaces cut exactly to receive them. Por-
traits, monograms, arms, allegories, land-
scapes, still life pieces and representations
of saints were used by him as motifs.
he inserted in his medallions
miniature portraits painted in colours on
parchment. Sometimes the medallions
were inserted in the bottom of the tumblers
as well as on the sides. A poem might be
scratched on the reverse side of the
medallion. Signed works are known be-
tween 1787 and 1808. The glasses arc
usually cylindrical, and are among the best
work produced in the Kmpire period.
Mildner’s technique continued the tradi-
tion established by the ancient Roman
medallions and the Zwischengoldgldser.
Stevens & Williams, England, beginning of 20th
century. Ht. 220 mm (q in.)
Stevens 6k Williams of Brierley Hill,
England, produced a glassware akin to the
gold sandwich glass technique at the
beginning of this century. John North-
wood II was its inventor, and he developed
it about 1000, calling it ‘Silveria’. It was
made by sandwiching a layer of silver foil
between two layers of clear colourless or
coloured glass. Northwood’s method was
to blow the first bubble of glass to almost
full size before the foil was picked up from
the marver on the bubble. It was then
plunged into a pot of hot metal, which put
a protective film of glass over the foil.
Trails of coloured glass, often transparent
green, were put on the surface somewhat
haphazardly. The original silver lustre is
retained as long as no air gets between the
two layers of glass. Pieces of Silveria are
often marked ‘S’ and ‘W’, and the word
‘England’ or a small fleur de lys may
sometimes appear.
picture in verre eglomise
By Zeuner, Netherlands, late 18th century
Ht. 201 mm (8 in.)
Verre Eglomise: When gold or silver leaf
is fixed to the back of a sheet of colourless
glass and etched with a point, the work
known as ‘verre eglomise’ is produced. This
can be backed with colour, e.g., lacquer or
oil pigments, to show through the areas
where the foil has been scraped away. To
protect the unfired painting and gilding, a
layer of varnish or metal foil or another
sheet of glass can be laid on the back of the
object. The term ‘eglomise’1 is taken from
the name of an 18th-century French
picture-framer called Glomy, who used
the technique extensively. It was also used
by an Amsterdam artist, Zeuner; little is
known of him, apart from his signed work,
though he did visit England in 1778, when
he exhibited a ‘landscape in metals’ at the
Society of Artists of Great Britain. Both
Dutch and English scenes can be found,
usually signed by the artist. Some English
views date to the early years of the 19th
century.
PLATE IN verre eglomise
Kngland, early 19th century
Diam. 219 mm (8-6? in.)
SEGMENT OF DISH WITH GILT DECORATION
Italy, first half of the 16th century
Diam. 191 mm (75 in.)
The pictorial and decorative engraving of
gold leaf on glass has been practised since
before the Roman era, although the name
verre eglomise is fairly modern. Early gold
sandwich glasses can be considered to be
a form of verre eglomise, as can the later
forms of gold-glass, such as the Zwischen-
goldgldser. A variation on the theme was
suggested by Johann Kunckel in his book
Ars Vitraria Experimental!! (1679). In this,
in effect, two beakers were made to fit
exactly together as in the Zwischengold-
glaser, the inner surface of the outer beaker
being painted with delicate veining to
resemble marble. The outer surface of the
inner beaker had gold leaf applied, and was
engraved in the usual manner. When the
two were fitted together, a double effect of
marbling and gilding in the glass could be
achieved. The plate illustrated is a skilful
example of verre eglomise belonging to the
early 19th century.
Gilding on the Outer Surface: Gilding is so
often found in conjunction with enamelling
on glass that it is difficult to separate the
two techniques completely. Both gilt and
enamelled decoration are fired to the glass
in an enameller’s kiln. Islamic artists, who
were such great enamcllers, also produced
gilding on their glasses, though true gild-
ing did not usually appear until after the
fall of Fatimid Dynasty in 1171. It was
during the 12th century that the Egyptian
art of gilding glass was transferred to Syria,
when artists from Egypt took service at the
courts of the rulers of Syria and North-
West Mesopotamia. The Venetians also
notably combined gilding with enamelling
on their glasses, the gilding having a
peculiarly light, soft quality. Occasionally
they used gilding on its own for decoration,
as in the dish illustrated, which has an
inscription appearing through a ground of
light gilding.
Gilding put on the outer surface of the
glass was always in danger of being rubbed
off, and with use many poorly gilded glasses
lost all traces of their original decoration.
Unfired gilt decoration (see next column)
would almost certainly rub off. When gold
in powdered form or as thin gold leaf was
stuck to the glass with an oily or adhesive
medium (as described) it could be fired to
it in an enameller’s kiln. This was a far
more durable way to gild glass, but was
rarely entirely successful. Even the gilding
on 18th-century blue, green and opaque
white Bristol glass, which is notably good,
has suffered a little with the passage of
time. The best-known motifs on Bristol
glass are the gilt fret border as on the dark
blue wine-glass cooler illustrated, and a
chain and label inscribed with the names
of drinks, such as Shrub, Rum, Hollands,
Gin and Brandy which are found on many
decanters; the stoppers of the decanters
often bore the initial of the drinks con-
tained.
DSCANTO WITH ENGRAVED AND GII.T DECORATION
France, end ol the 18th century
Ht. 327 mm (12-88 in.)
A somewhat simplified description of the
process of gilding was given first by
Haudicquer de Blancourt in his De F Art
de la Verrerie (1679). The second and more-
convincing method he described involved
painting the surface of the glass with gum-
water, applying gold leaf and washing the
leaf over with a solution of borax. Glass
ground to an impalpable powder was then
sprinkled over the borax, and the vessel
was put into the furnace and fired. Unfired
gilding was described by an English author
in 1735. A combination of chalk, red-lead
and linseed oil was laid on the glass, gold
leaf was applied and, when the solution
had dried, was polished. Dr. W. Lewis,
writing in 1763, recommended a solution
of amber combined with oil of turpentine
and a small amount of white lead and
minium. When this varnish had been
painted on the glass the gold leaf was
applied, the varnish allowed to dry, and
then the gold decoration was polished.
EWER IN BLUE GI.ASS WITH GII.T DECORATION
India, 18th century A.D. Ht. 280 mm (11 in.)
Unfired gilding could never match the
toughness of gilding which was burned
into the surface of the glass. For this, gold
leaf alone could be applied, or a flux could
be used with it. Gold leaf on its own, as
described by Blancourt, demanded an
extreme nicety in the firing of the glass.
When a flux was used under the gold leaf,
the firing was not nearly so difficult, but
the gilding tended to stand out from the
surface of the glass. Instead of gold leaf, a
precipitate of gold could be mixed with the
flux and fired, but the brightness of the
gilding suffered. For polishing the gold,
wolf, bear or hog’s tooth, or polished agate
and Venetian soap and water, were recom-
mended in an 18th-century manuscript.
Among the striking glassware produced in
India between the late 17th and the 19th
centuries were examples of fine gilding.
The glass illustrated is characteristic of the
Mughal industry, the poppy sprays being
a motif much used during the reign of
Shah Jahan (1627-58) and later.
VASE WITH COVER WITH ENGRAVED
DECORATION
Granja de San lldefonso, Spain, second half of
the 18th century. Hi. 508 mm (20 in.)
{See also colour photographs 1$ and 2;)
This vase is an example of the fired gilding
practised at the Spanish royal glass factory
near the palace of La Granja de San
lldefonso, near Segovia. Spain wished to
rival the French and German glass indus-
tries, and thus encouraged foreign work-
men to establish glass-houses from the late
17th century. There was little success until
Juan Goyeneche, with the help of foreign
workmen, managed to produce a good-
quality clear colourless glass. Encouraged
by Queen Isabella, Buenaventura Sit, one
of Goyeneche’s workmen, set up a glass-
house in 1728 near the palace of La Granja,
where he specialised in mirrors and vessels
in the Catalan tradition. First a French-
man, then a Swede, took charge of hollow-
ware manufacture, until 1768, when a
German, Sigismund Brun, took over the
direction of the factory, introducing fired
gilding and cut and engraved decoration.
After a period of expensive mismanage-
ment, the factory passed in 1829 into
private hands, and thenceforward made
only common glass.

19TH CENTURY GERMANY EMPIRE FURNITURE.

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

19TH CENTURY GERMANY EMPIRE FURNITURE

ROYAL INFLUENCES
It was the Bonapartes themselves who really made Empire furniture fashionable in Germany. The Emperor’s brother, Jerome Bonaparte, became King of Westphalia in 1810, and he furnished the Schloss Wilhelmshohe with Empire-style pieces. These included pieces ordered from Georges Jacob-Desmalter (see p.201), and an imposing desk which was decorated with marble reliefs designed by
Friedrich Wichmann. In 1806, Napoleon had a suite of Empire furniture made for his Resident at Wurzburg, Franconia. These pieces were inspired by the work of French architects Percier and Fontaine, whose work Napoleon favoured. Their ISO] pattern book, Recueil de decorations interieurs comprenant tout ce qui a rapport a l`ameublement, was well received and highly influential in Germany, inspiring local craftsmen to produce their own publications.
WHEN NAPOLEON BONAPARTE became
ruler of Germany in 1806 he brought the Empire style to the region. Germany and Austria retained
close stylistic links with France, as many German
craftsmen trained and worked in Paris, and became familiar with the Empire style. The grand, Classical motifs
used in Empire style furniture, including eagles, mythical creatures, laurel
Gift bronze embellishes the interior fittings.
VIENNESE SECRETAIRE
This exquisite secretaire is made of fruitwood and mahogany. It has a lyre-shaped case which is decorated with partial inlay and gilding. The case has a single arched pediment, flanked on either side by gilded Classical figures. A rectangular, fall-front writing surface opens to reveal a fitted interior with an
arrangement of drawers and arched compartments, luxuriously decorated with gilt bronze. The lower section of the secretaire consists of two graduated drawers which are decorated to give the appearance of the strings of a lyre. The whole piece is raised on a rectangular plinth which is supported on carved paw feet. c.1807.
Fall-front writing surface
The body of the desk is modelled on a lyre.
The applied bronze decoration includes gilded stars and lion’s heads.
A rectangular plinth supports the piece.
Carved paw feet
VIENNESE GUERIDON
This mahogany-veneered and partially carved gueridon has an overhanging table top with a gilt-edged round frieze below. The three tapering legs are topped by lions’ heads and terminate in a tripartite base with paw feet. c.1810
BEECHWOOD CHAIR
This chair has a scrolled back and rose-coloured upholstery on both the back and seat. The chair has tapering front legs and cabriole back legs. The design is attributed to Leo von Klenze and the chair is thought to have come from the Resident in Munich. c.1818.
GERMAN INTERPRETATIONS German furniture was often larger and grander than its French Empire equivalents. Locally-produced pieces tended to have heavy columns and be rigidly symmetrical.
Empire furniture was predominantly a style for the nobility and was soon adopted by the rulers of the monarchies and princedoms that made up the German Confederation after the Vienna Congress in 1815. These rulers showed off their power by building new castles or by lavishly refurbishing existing ones, and the exuberant interiors of the palaces were designed in the Empire style.
Anterooms and throne rooms were furnished with gilded Empire pieces. Gifted court cabinet-makers produced various ensembles with matching sofa tables and console tables based on French designs or adapted from the fashion magazines that were popular at the time. Private rooms were furnished with mahogany pieces ornamented with gilt-bronze mounts. Decorative motifs were influenced by those of ancient Egypt.
Seating furniture was also directly inspired by the designs of the ancient world. The influence of the Greek Klismos chair, for example, can be seen in the chairs designed by Leo von
Klenze, who worked for the Bavarian King Ludwig I in Munich and whose Neoclassical buildings form much of the city of Munich today.
VIENNESE DESIGN
Vienna was a leading centre for the production of furniture. It was here that some of the most inventive designs were developed, including the lyre-secretaire, which often took on unusual shapes. Unlike the designers and craftsmen working in the German
states, Viennese designers favoured the striking contrast of ebonized wood and gilt bronze and created finely cast and chased gilt bronze mounts that equalled the work of French craftsmen.
One of the most gifted Viennese cabinet-makers was Josef Ulrich Danhauser. He ran the first Viennese furniture manufacturers, from 1804 until his death in 1829, and made his name by decorating his furniture with wood paste moulded to look like expensive bronzes.
This table has a rectangular top with rounded corners, which rests above a single frieze drawer. The piece is raised on sharply tapering, square-section legs. c.1810. H:77crn
AUSTRIAN CHERRY WOOD TABLE

KARL FRIEDRICH SCHINKEL (1781-1841)
THE MOST INFLUENTIAL GERMAN MASTER-BUILDER OF THE EARLY 19th CENTURY,
SCHINKEI_ WAS ALSO A CITY PLANNER AND ARTIST, AND A FAMOUS FURNITURE DESIGNER.
Karl Friedrich Schinkel was born near Berlin, and originally trained as an architect as one of the first students at the new Berlin Bouakademie. He studied under the architect Friedrich Gilly, whose plans for a monument to Frederick the Great of Prussia greatly inspired the young Schinkel.
He travelled to France and Italy, and was influenced by the Classical-style architecture and furnishings he saw. His theory was that new designs should draw on the ancient world for inspiration, rather than slavishly recreate it. On his return to Germany, he worked for the Prussian state, including working as a
stage designer for the National Theatre.
One of Schinkels earliest works was a bed with bedside table, designed for Queen Louise for the Charlottenburg castle in Berlin. His use of light-coloured veneers anticipated the Biedermeier style (see pp.216-17). He was not
afraid to experiment with shape and created pieces designed for specific places within a room. Typical Schinkel designs are for architectural secretaires and comfortable armchairs. His publication Vorbilder fur Fabrihanten and Handwerker (Role Models for Makers and Craftsmen) in 1835 had a widespread influence. In later years, Schinkels work drew less on the
Neoclassical style, and more on the designs of the Renaissance.
Schinkel armchair This generously upholstered armchair has a curvaceous frame with a high backrest and is decorated with motifs from the ancient world.
Schinkel in Naples This oil painting, by Franz Louis Catel, shows Karl Friedrich Schinkel in Naples in 1824 during his second Italian journey. 1824
This rectilinear commode is made from mahogany veneered with maple. It has canted corners and three drawers with ebony stringing. The commode is supported on square, tapering legs. Early 19th century.

empire antique hall bench
empire bohemia china
empire bureau mahogany
empire chair reproduction claw foot
empire chairs with brass  feet
empire chairs with lions paw brass  feet
empire chamber pot
empire chest of drawers+acanthus
empire claw foot sofa
empire couch prince of wales emblem
empire desk with claw feet
empire dining chairs antique
empire drop leaf
empire drop leaf lyre base mahogany table
empire drop leaf pedestal table
empire era+leather top+pull out side extensions+mahogany+violin/harp shape on sides of coffee table
empire folding chair
empire furniture co
empire furniture drawer handles
empire furniture dressers with large mirror
empire furniture with scroll feet
empire gateleg table
empire mahogany antique bureau
empire mahogany chest of drawers bureau
empire mahogany table with one drawer
empire oak buffet
empire oak buffet with mirror
empire period / lebrun clock
empire period furniture
empire period restauration extension dining tables
empire period restoration extension dining tables
empire period sideboards
empire pillar and claw table
empire porcelain 1960’s  trinket holder
empire rectangle library table
empire revival buffet
empire sheraton bureaus
empire sideboard
empire state art deco lamp
empire style chest
empire style dining chair
empire style display cabinet french influence
empire style dresser birds eye maple
empire style drop leaf desk
empire’ style drop leaf desk
empire style furniture values
empire style furniture with scroll feet
empire style settee floral marquetry
empire swan egyptian chair antique

german “baroque cabinet” “18th century”
german 18th century porcelain figures
german 1930 furniture
german 1930’s burled walnut sideboard
german 1940 art deco
german 19th century furniture
german antique china cabinets
german antique farmers trestle tables
german antique fold-up game table
german antique inlaid wood table
german antique shrunks
german antique sugar and creamers from the 17th century
german antique wood chair 1800’s carved
german antique woodworking bench
german armoire oak 19th century
german art deco cabinet
german art deco furniture value
german art nouveau writing desk
german austrian baroque cabinet 18th century
german cabinet doors metal inlay
german candlesticks
german carved inlay cabinet
german ceramic figurines 1930
german coat of arms +horoldt
german copy of derby porcelain figures
german deco furniture
german dining table with slide leaves
german dish makers 1920″s
german furniture antique
german furniture characteristics 1920 - 1930
german furniture design art deco
german furniture makers whose name starts with c
german furniture movements 1930 leather chrome
german furniture styles
german hand painted cards dated  1702
german heubach bisque piano babies
german industrial art deco furniture buffet
german made antique wooden medicine desks
german made display cabinet
german majolica marks
german meissen antique figurines
german oak furniture
german oak sideboards late 19th century
german oakleaf
german ornamental vases and plates
german pewter tea pot wood knob held by a pin
german porcelain lace makers
german porcelain mother of pearl china
german porcelain teapots
german porcelain with qeen of james i image
german pottery - jugs
german pottery 17th century
german pottery marks export
german religous porcelain
german silver candlesticks find value
german table top patterns
german unglazed porceline figures
german victorian settee value
german vintage linen press cupboard
german wood inlay art
german wood inlay work
german wooden inlay art
germany, lacquer furniture, cherry

EARLY 19TH CENTURY ITALIAN FURNITURE.

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

EARLY 19TH CENTURY ITALIAN FURNITURE.

LIKE MANY OTHER European states,
the majority of the Italian states and kingdoms followed the lead of Paris. The greatest French-style furniture and interiors were created during the period of Napoleonic patronage, in the first decade of the 19th century. The French Emperor installed his brothers as rulers in Italy: Joseph became King of Naples and Lucian became Prince of Canino. Napoleon’s sisters also created significant interiors in the area: Elisa Baciocchi in Lucca and Florence, Pauline Borghese in Rome, and Caroline Murat in Naples. But it was not just aristocratic patrons who commissioned the cabinet-makers: one of the period’s characteristics was the emergence of middle-class buyers. This widening of the market coincided with the beginnings of mechanization and the gradual organization of the workshop – a trend that continued throughout the 19th century.
ITALIAN EMPIRE
In some ways, the French Empire style did not suit Italian furniture-makers. Its emphasis on large expanses of high-quality timber was a significant problem in an area where this was difficult to find. Also, its rectilinear forms and strict, sober lines seemed antithetical to a furniture tradition that favoured sculptural qualities. However,
symmetry and balance, with few curves and little ornament apart from Neoclassical gilt-bronze mounts, eventually dominated Italian furniture production. To overcome the problem of poor-quality timber, many pieces were painted – white, pale blue, and eau-de-nil were popular colours. Classical architectural forms were favoured, along with motifs from Imperial Rome, such as trophies of instruments or weapons, fasces (banded rods), laurel wreaths, and antique lamps.
FRENCH IMPORTS
The Grand Duchess of Tuscany (one of Napoleon’s sisters) actually brought French ebenistes to Florence to establish workshops and impart their skills and techniques to the Italians. Mounts were also imported from France. Consequently, it is almost impossible to differentiate between the French Empire furniture in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence and the Italian variants. The Empire style remained in fashion after 1815, sometimes combined with French Restauration styles, but the use of mahogany declined in favour of walnut or lighter-coloured timber.
During this period, Italy was made up of a patchwork of small states and kingdoms, dominated by Austro-Hungary in the north. Regional diversity was, therefore, far greater than in Britain or France, and much of the furniture produced echoes the traditions for which they are famous: Classical in Rome, Baroque in Florence, and Rococo in Venice. Lombardy produced some of the greatest innovators of the era, particularly Giocondo Albertolli, who trained at the Accademia di Brera and who published his influential Corso
elementare d’ornamenti architettonici in 1805.
The study of Umberto I This shows a room in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. Under Elisa Baciocchi, Napoleon’s sister and Grand Duchess of Tuscany, several rooms in the palace were redecorated to reflect Paris fashions.
CARVED MIRROR
This carved and gilded mirror frame is decorated with masks of grotesques at the corners. The pediment is richly decorated with baskets -overflowing with flowers. c.1800.
MURANO MIRROR
This mirror has an applied crystal pediment and a frame with C- and S-scrolls at the corners. The oval mirror is surrounded by mirror sections engraved with leaves and divided with moulding. Early 19th century.
GILTWOOD SIDE CHAIR
two Neoclassical giltwood side chairs
part of a set of six Cardinal Fesch chairs; Fesch. a Corsican cardinal, became French ambassador to Rome in 1804. Each chair has a richly carved, domed back depicting a pair of
carved griffins above a stylized serpentine floral carving on a punched ground. The upright back supports are in the form of fluted pilasters with a frieze of running husks. The padded seats have fluted seat rails and are raised on gilded lion’s-paw legs. c.1810.
MAGGIOLINI
THE MOST FAMOUS NEOCTASSICAL FURNITURE-MAKER OF THE
LATE 18TH AND EARLY 19TH СENTURY, MAGGIOLINI’S NAME
IS ASSOCIATED WITH A PARTICULAR STYLE OF MARQUETRY.
Giuseppe Maggiolini (1738-1814) made furniture that was austere, boxy, and unpretentious in form, with no carving and few mounts. However, its characteristic pictorial marquetry lent his work a brilliant opulence. Maggiolini used many different types and colours of timber to create his marquetry pictures, shunning Stains, artificial colouring, and other tricks to achieve decorative effects. In the tradition of Piranesi and, more recently, the ornamental designer and interior decorator, Giocondo Albertolli, he produced marquetry trophies, still lifes, Chinoiserie and caprici. As a result, his name is used to refer to all work of this type, whether produced in his workshop or not.
Maggiolini started his career as a carpenter in a Cistercian monastery, where he established his first workshop in 1771. He later founded a second workshop in Milan, which was inherited by his son, Carlo Francesco, and Cherubino Mezzanzanica. He crafted some of his most brilliant furniture for the Archduke
Ferdinand of Austria, who was the Governor General of Lombardy, and the King of Poland was also one of his clients.
In keeping with the tastes of his age, Maggiolini’s furniture is simple in design and follows late 18th-century French prototypes. Its defining difference is the intricate marquetry, in Italy this had a long tradition stretching back to Renaissance intarsia works.
Louis XVI commode This rectilinear, marble-topped piece, from the studio of Guiseppe Maggiolini in Milan, is made from rosewood and several exotic woods with inlays of Classical figures in medallions and interlacing festoons. The commode has three drawers with bronze mounts and is supported on square, tapering legs. c.1800.
The frieze drawer is inlaid with a row of interlaced festoons.
The top is not made of marble, unlike French commodes.
The two case drawers are inlaid sans traverse with a symmetrical diagonal pattern centred by a medallion containing Classical figures.
The complicated marquetry patterns are typical of Maggiolim’s work.
ARMCHAIR AUX TETES DE LION
This mahogany armchair has a gently curved top rail, an X-frame back, and armrests terminating in carved and gilded lions’ heads. The X-frame base has gilded paw feet. c.1810
Stop-fluted corner
GILTWOOD AND VERDE ANTICO SIDE TABLE
This rectangular table has a verde antico (old green) veneered marble top above a frieze inset with matching marble panels and fluted corners. The square, tapering legs are also inset with marble panels and are surmounted by carved caryatids, whose hands support the table top. c.1800.
The massive table top is veneered with marble.
The frieze is inset
with marble panels
that match the
table top.
The table legs are inset with marble panels
Caryatids support the table top.

FRANCE: ANTIQUE DIRECTOIRE/CONSULAT FURNITURE.

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

FOLLOWING THE REIGN OF TERROR in France, the Directoire was established in October 1795. It was followed by Napoleon’s first government, the Consulat, which he established after a coup d’etat in November 1799, appointing himself as First Consul. This survived until the declaration of the Empire in 1804. The styles that take their names from these political arrangements arc difficult to tell apart, and represent a transition between the light, aristocratic Louis XVI style and
the proud, austere Empire manner of the early 19th century. However, Directoire style or, as it was sometimes known, le style republicain, shows the effect of the Revolution on the style of Louis XVI, while the Consulat style lays the foundations of the Empire style.
DESIGN INFLUENCES
Directoire style shows the effect of a weakened economy and the position that cabinet-makers found themselves in after the period of the Convention (1792-95). The Revolution had deprived furniture-makers of their traditional patrons; furniture had even
been burnt beneath a Tree of Liberty in front of the celebrated Gobelins factory. The Corporation des Menuisiers- Pbenistes (Guild of joiners and Cabinet-Makers), which had regulated not only standards but the organization of the industry, had also been disbanded in 1791. As a consequence, the Directoire style is simplified, smaller in scale than Louis XVI, and less costly, with minimal decoration and usually no marquetry or parquetry
In the Consulat style the design became more confident, reflecting France’s pride in the new Republic and the slow return to stability and
prosperity. The style was formal and rectilinear, and often included symbols of the Revolution such as the Phrygian or Liberty cap, bound fasces, arrows, spikes, clasped hands, and wreaths.
PATTERN BOOKS
In 1801, the architects Charles Percier and Pierre-Francois-Leonard Fontaine published their Recited des Decorations Intericures. This became the seminal pattern book of the period, and
established them as the chief exponents of the nascent Empire style. The Recueil established strict and sober Classicism as the official style of the time: plain mahogany furniture with bold, antique-inspired gilt-bronze mounts became fashionable. Percier and Fontaine owed much to JeanDemosthene Dugoure, who had designed strict Neoclassical interiors for both royal and private residences during Louis XVI’s reign. Percier and Fontaine had both studied architecture in France and Italy and so had firsthand experience of the ruins of ancient Rome. In the very last years of the 18th century, they oversaw the redecoration of the Music Room and Library of the Empress’s house at Malmaison, and supervised the design of the furniture, which was made by Napoleon’s favourite furniture-makers,
the Jacob brothers. It was this commission that earned them the role of quasi-court designers.
ANTIQUE MOTIFS
The orators and pamphleteers of the Revolution praised the moral values of the ancient world, which found visual expression in the work of the great revolutionary artist, Jacques-Louis David. This filtered into the decorative vocabulary of the styled I’antique.
Consular furniture is full of Greek and Roman devices that became the stock repertoire of Empire designers. The purity of Classical design, epitomized in the work of Jacob-
Desmalter, became a hallmark of the Furniture of the period. As in Britain, this was occasionally combined with Egyptian motifs inspired by Napoleon’s campaigns and his victory at the Battle of the Pyramids. This was supplemented by Baron Denon’s publication, Voyage daps la Busse et Haute-Egypte, in 1802. The archaeologist and engraver (who later became director of the Musee
Napoleon at the Louvre) became the leading authority on antiquity, and had a considerable influence both in France and Britain.
This taste for all things Egyptian commonly manifested itself in sphinx heads, which were often used to top pilasters, terminate armrests, or
support console tables, as on a fine, mahogany example supplied to the Elysee Palace.

SECRETARIE A ABBATANT
This Consulat secr6taire j abbatant is made of walnut and is designed in the Egyptian-revival style. The body of the piece is flanked by Egyptian female masks above tapering pilasters in bronze brasses. The upper section has a grey
CONSULAT BERGERES
Each of this pair of mahogany and mahogany-veneered berg&es has an upholstered back, side panels, and seat. The chair backs themselves are slightly reclining. The loose cushioned seats are supported on square-
section, tapering legs, which are surmounted by stylized Egyptian female heads and terminate in outsplayed, square-section feet. Originally, the chairs would have been covered in silk and would have formed part of a large, similarly
styled suite. Early 19th century.
marble top above a long drawer. The fall front drops down to reveal a leather-lined writing surface. The lower section consists of three long drawers with lion’s mask handles. The secr6taire still retains its original bronze mounts. The piece terminates in carved claw feet. c.1800.
The surface of this mahogany desk is faced with gilt-tooled black leather. Below is a long kneehole frieze drawer, flanked by two deeper drawers; all are edged with ebony stringing. At each corner of the frieze is a mount in the form
of a satyr. The table is supported on four octagonal, tapering legs with ormolu collars and ball-shaped sabots. c.1800.

DIRECTOIRE RECAMIER
The shape of this carved, walnut recamier, or day bed, is essentially rectilinear. It has a padded, out-curved backrest, which is flanked on either side by leaf-capped, reeled cornucopias surmounted by finialed paterae. Below, the
cornucopias terminate in dramatically carved ram’s heads. The r6carrher has a panelled footboard surmounted by a barrel vault, while the padded, drop-in seat is raised on panelled rails. On either side, the panelled rail is centred by a tablet. The whole is raised on turned, leaf-capped feet, terminating in brass casters. c.1800.
The recamier is
decorated throughout
with pierced metal
mounts.
DIRECTOIRE COMMODE
This commode is veneered in rosewood, kingwood, and a number of stained tropical woods. The rectangular case has a veined grey-white marble top with rounded corners above three drawers with geometric filets and inlay, and gilt-bronze mounts. It is supported on short, tapering legs. c.1800.
DIRECTOIRE CHIFFONIER
This small table-chiffonier is made from walnut and has two drawers, with an additional shelf below. The rectangular case has brass filets and is supported on fluted legs joined by a shelf and terminating in small, toupie feet. c.1800.

19th Century Empire Furniture. A ROYAL FRENCH CENTRE TABLE

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

19th Century Empire Furniture.

A ROYAL FRENCH CENTRE TABLE
Centre tables became increasingly popular in the early 19th century Designed to stand in the middle Of a room, this piece was intended to be seen from all angles. Consequently, the tessellated marquetry top is decorated on all sides, and the top even
swivels. Placed over planks, which make up the top, the veneers include alternating petals of maple and mahogany. The outer border is crossbanded with tulipwood and encloses several thuyawood panels “inlaid” with trophies of Science, Painting, Gardening, Architecture, Music, and Navigation.
Technically the use of the word “inlaid” is inaccurate here as the trophies and the thuyawood ground are cut from veneers of equal thickness and pieced together (more like parquetry). In other words, the trophies are not laid into a thick piece of timber but are veneered on top of the secondary carcase of the table top. The pentagonal column and the concave-sided plinth are veneered in burr elm. This local light-coloured wood, like the maple veneers on the top, is typical of the taste for boil (lairs during the Empire period.
Equally typical of this style are the ormolu mounts on the column and plinth, depicting
winged figures of victory. This choice of subject is of great significance, as the table bears a print label inscribed Chateau des Tuileries/1929 and 1047 Salon dc la famille du Roi.
This table was made for
Louis XVIII of France by LouisFrancois-Laurent Puteaux around 1815. The victory
figures could, therefore, refer to the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy after the final exile of Napoleon in that year.
An exceptional piece, it is unusual for the period, as most pieces relied on well-figured veneers for decoration rather than parquetry.
A burr-elm and marquetry centre table This piece has a circular swivelling top, with a central geometric-inlaid rosette and broad border. It is raised on a pentagonal column and supported on a concave-sided pentagonal plinth. The table rests on bun feet. Made by Puteaux
Table top
The trophies of Science, Painting,
Gardening, Architecture, Music,
and Navigation are divided by
green-stained wreaths.
A GREAT DEAL OF the furniture produced in Europe,
the United States, and South Africa from the time of
the French Revolution to around 1830 owes some closely
stylistic allegiance to the French Empire style. The
British Regency and German Biedermeier styles (see
pp.206 and 216) were both highly idiosyncratic and,
although indebted to the Napoleonic manner, were
influential in their own right. It is one of the ironies countries France had conquered,
of the period that countries so hostile to Napoleon including Spain, Italy, and the
and French rule, including Britain, Germany and Netherlands.
Russia, adopted a style derived from Paris fashions.
NEW CUSTOMERS Napoleon famously failed to conquer, still
The period is also notable for a subtle shift in market
from the aristocratic patrons of pre-revolutionary
France to the bourgeoisie. It is sometimes argued that
the rise of the middle-class buyer heralded a decline
in the quality of furniture, but the discerning eye
will appreciate that fine Empire furniture is of an
equal quality to that which preceded it. The Industrial
Revolution also affected furniture workshops, which,
throughout the 19th century were increasingly
mechanized. This process was aided by the disbanding
of the guild system in France early in the Revolution,
freeing cabinet-makers and bronze founders from the
restrictive procedures formerly enforced upon them.
style remained the height of fashion until 1815 when the Emperor
was finally exiled for
good. Thereafter, it became heavier in porportion and freer of decoration such as ormolu mounts.
However, as the Empire style was taken up in various other countries in Europe, it was combined with the local traditions and
techniques. In the American furniture, which was largely Influenced
by British style: the shaped back panel, bowed front
and tapering legs display the Classical influences of the period.

Mid 19th Century Italian Furniture. WALL MIRROR. MAHOGANY ARMCHAIR. CABINET-ON-STAND.

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Mid 19th Century Italian Furniture

Despite a nationalistic fervour that eventually resulted in the creation of the modern Italian state in 1861, furniture production in mid-19th century holy was a fragmented affair, concentrated around the cities of Rome, Milan, Venice, and Florence, in the north. The poorer states and kingdoms of the south of Italy, with the exception of Naples seemed
content to continue using simpler, vernacular forms of furniture.
PERSISTENT FRENCH INFLUENCE Until the Risorgimento movement gathered pace, climaxing in the revolutions of 1848, Italy lived in the Cultural shadow of France, her more powerful neighbour to the north. The
prominence of the Rococo and Empire styles in Italy is a direct consequence of this relationship and, despite a wave of anti-French feeling following
Napoleonic occupation during the early 19th century, this influence persisted. The growing importance of Piedmont as the cultural and political apex
around which the emerging Italian state revolved, only served to protract this lingering Francophilia. The
Rococo- revival style was,
therefore, one of the most prominent in mid-19th-century Italy. Fussy forms, such as the canape en cabriolet, a padded sofa, were richly carved and enveloped in gilt. Side tables with pierced and scrolled detail were covered with marble tops in a typically Italian twist. The grotto or fantasy style, originating in medieval France, was one that Italian craftsmen had adopted with relish. Meticulously detailed representations of timber and shell forms characterized this look, which was particularly indebted to the work of French designer Bernard Palissy (1509-90). Although examples of- fantasy furniture from the mid-19th century are generally considered interior to earlier pieces, it was nevertheless a popular revival style.
ITALIAN TRADITIONS
The Renaissance revival was more representative of Italian history, and
the quality of furniture made in this style by Italian craftsmen demonstrates the high esteem in which it was held. The Florentine cabinet-maker Andrea Baccetti and the Sienese wood-carver Angelo Barbetti both produced
particularly fine pieces in the Renaissance style. Archaic forms, Stich as the settle and architectural wall mirrors, were made in walnut, with deep carving depicting Classical and grotesque forms.
Blackamoors, an 18th-century Venetian invention, remained popular well into the 19th century, either as bases for torcheres or as decorative objets in their own right. Venetian glass-makers continued to produce mirrors of the highest quality Particularly fine examples of mirrors with intricately etched glass frames
speak of the greatness of the glass-masters of Murano. Elaborate decorative techniques, such as micromosaic, provided a forum for the most accomplished artisans to demonstrate their proficiency.
In the later 19th century, the regional Italian furniture industry began to flourish, and regions such as Brianza and Pesaro, which are
famous today for their line
work, started to develop the
infrastructures and traditions
that would ensure their
future success.
Round table Designed by Michaelangelo Barberi, the micromosaic table top features a medallion design on a red, square-shaped cartouche and a black marble ground. In the centre is a view of St Peter’s Square, which is surrounded by ovals, representing
the four epochs of Rome. The ebony base has ornate ormolu mounts. c.1850. Dorn:102cm (40%in). DN
Four epochs of Rome
Micromosaic was developed within the Vatican in the 17th century as an alternative means of decorating altars with devotional tableaux. The paintings in the vast basilica of St Peter’s had been damaged by damp, and the enamel tesserae used in micromosaic overcame this problem. They became known in Rome as la vera pillura per eternita, meaning “eternal paintings”.
The technique is an evolution of the ancient architectural mosaics developed in the Greco-Roman period. An image is built up using tiny components, or tesserae, of different-coloured enamel or glass. Each tessera is a thread about 3mm ong with a diameter slightly wider than a hair. The thread is pushed into the putty of the mosaic base, leaving the end visible. The attention to detail and level of expertise
involved in then creation are remarkable –the finest examples include 775 tesserae per cm2 (5,000 per in’).
European gentlemen on the Grand Tour would purchase trinkets, such as boxes and jewellery decorated with micromosaic as mementoes of their time in Rome. The
wealthiest tourists brought home table tops made by craftsmen operating in work-shops in the Vatican. Typically, these table tops depicted scenes from antiquity or famous Roman vistas. They were highly prized throughout Western Europe as Fine-art objects. Other tables might have plain marble tops with panels of micromosaic incorporated within them.
There is a collection of micromosaic artefacts in the Gilbert Collection Museum in London and another in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia.