Chats on Household Curios Part 10

The pomander box, the favourite perfume holder of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of England, was in the form of an apple, the perfumes and spices being made up like a ball. It is said that the perfume was prepared from a sixteenth-century recipe, the basis of which was sweet apples or apple pulp, and scented gums and essences. From the pomander box smaller receptacles were evolved, and more elaborately prepared scents were kept in them. Some of the preparations consisted of camphor, mint, rosemary, and lavender in vinegar, a piece of sponge being saturated with the liquid. Then came the use of aromatic vinegar, and gradually beautiful little silver vinaigrettes were introduced. Many of them were very ornamental in shape, highly decorated with miniatures and floreated embellishment, the monogram or name of the owner often being added. In the outer case was usually a cover of perforated gold which closed over a piece of sponge, upon which aromatic vinegar or some similar preparation was poured. The best vinaigrettes are those bearing the hall-marks varying from 1800 to about 1840, when the making of vinaigrettes declined and other scents took their place.

The burning of perfumes in bedrooms and the fumigation of wardrobes and chests by means of a fumador was a custom much resorted to by Portuguese ladies in the eighteenth century. Sweet lavender is still used in the linen cupboard, although its use was much more general in the days when London street cries were heard.

Dressing Cases.

When people travel and visit their friends their luggage includes among other things a dressing case, for there are many toilet requisites which are of a personal character, and cannot well be subst.i.tuted by others.

It is true that the need of portable dressing cases has increased of late years owing to greater travelling abroad. Dressing cases, however, are by no means modern, for some very beautiful examples with silver-topped bottles, hall-marked in the days of Queen Anne, are among the collectable curios. There is a still older example in the Victoria and Albert Museum--a case of tortoisesh.e.l.l, filled with a complete toilet set, consisting of four combs and thirteen toilet instruments, partly of steel and partly of silver. It is an historic case, having been presented by Charles II to a Mr. T. Campland, who is said to have at one time sheltered him. Many old families have interesting and valuable examples, and not infrequently isolated cut-gla.s.s bottles with Georgian hall-marked silver tops which have formed part of the equipment of dressing cases are met with.

Scratchbacks.

Old English scratchbacks are among the rarities of the curios a.s.sociated with the toilet table. It is unnecessary to comment upon the habits and customs of those periods when scratchbacks were found necessary, or to refer to the hygienic conditions of the toilet then conspicuous by their absence. It is sufficient to allude to these curious little instruments, mostly shaped like a hand, often of ivory, and always fitted with a handle in length from 12 to 15 in. The hand in some cases is large in proportion, measuring as much as 2 in. in length, sometimes as an open hand, at others with the fingers closed, often very beautifully modelled. Horn and whalebone were favourite materials for the handle, although some were of ebony and other woods. Scratchbacks appear to have been made both in lefts and rights in this country; but the scratchbacks of the Far East were invariably rights. The accompanying ill.u.s.trations, Fig. 65, show the usual types of these now obsolete toilet requisites, which it may be noted were sometimes duplicated by miniature scratchbacks carried about on the person, hung from the girdle.

Toilet Chatelaines.

The chatelaines worn by the ladies of olden time were bulky, and the various objects deemed necessary to carry about the person rendered them c.u.mbersome in the extreme. A bunch of keys was always in evidence, and a glance at a few old keys indicates how large the keys of even quite small boxes were in olden time. There were the keys of the store cupboard, of the linen chest, and of the larder and the wine cellar.

Drawers and cupboards and boxes, as well as the bureau or desk, were always locked, and to deliver up the keys was indeed to surrender one of the privileges of the matron and housewife which were jealously guarded.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 68.--FINE ORIENTAL LACQUERED BOX.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 69.--SMALL LACQUER CABINET.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 70.--A PAG.o.dA-SHAPED CASKET.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 71.--DECORATED JEWEL CASE.]

There were articles of toilet use, too, worn at the girdle. It is recorded that Queen Elizabeth carried her earpick of gold ornamented with pearls and diamonds. The little set, which was worn at a lady's chatelaine in the eighteenth century, shown in Fig. 66, consists of toothpick, earpick, and tongue sc.r.a.per of silver, whereas the set ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 67 includes tweezers, a nail knife, and other instruments. There are some charming manicure sets extant, as well as isolated nail files of ivory and steel, and curious little instruments for simple surgical operations, such as strong-nerved ladies were not averse to perform in the good old days.

Locks of Hair.

Although long since separated from toilet operations, mention of locks of hair so carefully preserved may not inappropriately be made here.

Many of these are a.s.sociated with happy memories of childhood, others of more saddened recollections. It has been a common practice to preserve locks of hair of departed friends and relatives. In former days these locks of hair were often enclosed in lockets, some of which were very large. The simple lock did not always satisfy, for there are many artistic plaits and beautifully formed sprays, imitating feathers and even flowers, which were in years gone by cunningly interwoven and artistically arranged on cardboard preserved by gla.s.s, often in golden lockets and frames. Some persons have made quite important collections, one of the most noted being that of Menelik II, the Abyssinian king, who possessed upwards of two thousand locks, varying from light to dark, and from fine to coa.r.s.e, each lock being labelled with the date and particulars of its acquisition. It would be well perhaps not to enter too closely into the source of some of these specimens, which had peculiar interest to the dusky king. It is said that some of them were chiefly admired for their settings, which included mounting with rare emeralds. The collection of emeralds, of which he had some of marvellous beauty and l.u.s.tre, was another of that monarch's hobbies.

Jewel Cabinets.

In a.s.sociation with the toilet table are the numerous boxes which have been made as receptacles for jewels. From the days when the dower chest contained a small compartment for valuable trinkets the furniture of the lady's boudoir has been incomplete without a jewel box or some article of furniture where the knick-knacks of the home could be kept, and more especially the wearable jewellery. The Chinese and j.a.panese have ever been clever in the fashioning of small cabinets, and many delightful little boxes, cabinets, and jewellery receptacles have been brought over to this country.

Some of the old lacquer ware is exceptionally interesting, the decorations upon such pieces being doubly so when the legends they depict are fully realized and understood. The accompanying ill.u.s.trations represent four j.a.panese jewel cases which are exceptionally fine curios.

Fig. 70 is decorated on the outside of the doors with a view of Itsukushima; and there are two peac.o.c.ks on the top, and the two elders of Takasago are depicted on the back. The bamboo and the plum are designs symbolical of longevity. This truly exceptional piece was sold in the auction rooms of Glendining & Co., who also disposed of the remarkable jewel box shaped as a paG.o.da, ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 71, a very beautiful piece elaborately decorated with birds and landscapes, and the box ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 68 and small cabinet, Fig. 69.

X

THE OLD WORKBOX

CHAPTER X

THE OLD WORKBOX

Spinning wheels--Materials and work--Little accessories--Cutlery--Quaint woodwork--The needlewoman--Old samplers.

Under the generic term of "workbox" the curios of the household a.s.sociated with the industrial handiwork of former days may well be reviewed. There is no record of when receptacles for ladies' work were first introduced, although, no doubt, in very early days small oak boxes, carved, and bearing the owner's initials, and other indications of ownership, would be the chosen receptacles for the numerous oddments which are required in the practice and pursuit of every home handicraft, and especially those connected with plying the needle. There was a time, however, when the fabrics used in the making up of clothing were home-made, when the seamstress and the needleworker st.i.tched and embroidered upon cloths spun if not actually woven by the housewife and her handmaidens. In the barrows containing remains of people of the Stone Age, and the peoples of the early Bronze Age, among the few ornaments and personal adornments buried with them were spinning whorls--the curiosities which remain to us of the earliest known form of textile craftsmanship.

Spinning Wheels.

In old pictures and woodblock engravings some curious ill.u.s.trations are met with showing Englishwomen using the distaff. St. Distaff's Day was formerly the 7th of January, for it was then that the women resumed work after the Christmas festivities were over. The distaff and the spindle belonged to an age little understood now, and the occupations of the women of that date are almost forgotten. The spinning wheel was the outcome of the simpler distaff and spindle, and although the spinning wheels we find among the most interesting of household relics look primitive indeed compared with the complex machinery seen in the spinning mills to-day, those dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries must have been considered ingenious contrivances when compared with the older models, just as the latest types of sewing machines show a wonderful advance from the early machines invented in the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Very clever indeed were many women in manipulating the spinning wheel, and there seems to have been some compet.i.tive contests for notoriety among country women, who found a pleasing though perhaps at times tedious occupation in spinning the wool for the local weaver who wove the home-made cloth. It is recorded that in 1745 a woman at East Dereham spun a single pound of wool into a thread of 84,000 yards. She was far outdistanced, however, a few years later, when a young lady at Norwich out of a pound of combed wool produced a thread computed to measure 168,000 yards.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 72.--OLD SPINNING WHEEL.

(_In the collection of Mr. Phillips, of the Manor House, Hitchin._)]

To secure a fine spinning wheel is the ambition of collectors, and many ladies point with pride to the old relic placed in a position of honour on an oak chest of drawers, or, perhaps, standing on a coffer in the hall. An exceptionally fine wheel is shown in Fig. 72; it is one of many secured by Mr. Phillips, of the Manor House, Hitchin. Another ill.u.s.tration is taken from a sketch of a spinning wheel in the Hull Museum (see Fig. 73). It appears that early in the nineteenth century Hull encouraged the training of domestic spinners, and at that time supported a spinning school. _Apropos_ of that inst.i.tution reference may appropriately be made to Hadley's "History of Hull," in which the historian, in reference to Sunday Schools, which had then quite recently been founded, says: "From the Sunday School reports for this year [1788]

it seems they did not take. To whatever cause this may be attributed, it by no means warrants the aspersions thrown upon the town on that account, which has with equal ardour and wisdom espoused that useful establishment of Spinning Schools, in preference to a preposterous inst.i.tution replete with folly, intolerance, fanaticism, and mischief."

In explanation it has been remarked that, "Evidently wheels were plentiful in Hull and Sunday Schools a novelty." To-day we can reverse the statement, for schools are plentiful but spinning wheels are rare!

Collectors eagerly secure anything in the way of a genuine antique wheel, although the fastidious have the choice of two distinct types--those worked by hand and those operated by a treadle. Sometimes a spinning wheel made for the foot could be worked independently by the hand, just in the same way as modern sewing machines are made for hand or treadle, and sometimes a combination of both methods. The very general use of the spinning wheel is accounted for by the fact that this useful machine was met with in every cottage in the days when homespun yarns and wools were prepared by hand, and they were also found in the mansion and the palace, where they served to amuse the ladies of the household.

There are many varieties of spinning wheels, among them the old oak spinning wheels used in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the more decorative used until quite late in the eighteenth century, from their ornament and lightness, apparently used more for preparing the material for fancy work rather than for really utilitarian purposes. Some highly decorative spinning wheels inlaid with mother-o'-pearl and ivory have been brought over to this country from Holland and other continental countries, perhaps the most decorative being those made by French workmen in the Chinese style, the wood being lacquered blue and ornamented with gilt.

Mr. John Suddaby, who presented the spinning wheel we have ill.u.s.trated to the Hull Wilberforce Museum, named after William Wilberforce, paid a high tribute to the famous philanthropist, who he declared to be a.s.sociated with the spinning schools of the town. The old wheels of early date were gradually improved until they were rendered obsolete by the greater inventions of machines which could be worked by steam engines, thus originating the factory system of textile production.

Among the sundry curios a.s.sociated with the spinning wheel are handsomely carved wood distaffs of boxwood, curiously turned spindles; and now and then a pewter vessel of circular form, puzzling in its ident.i.ty, turns out to be the rim cup from the distaff of an old spinning wheel.

Materials and Work.

Old workboxes appear to be very numerous. The older ones were mostly of wood, but the external decoration seems to have been a matter of taste, some preferring inlays. In early days moulded plaster ornament, richly gilded and coloured, was much favoured, and in still earlier times deep relief carvings in the oak of which the boxes were made. In the Stuart and later periods ladies worked the exterior ornament in silks and satins and embroidery. Among the workboxes in the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a painted box in distemper and gilding, the subject chosen for the ornamentation of the lid being the story of David and Bathsheba, round the sides being floral devices. This decorative workbox has drawers and compartments, a sliding front facilitating their use.

In the same collection there are workboxes overlaid with straw work in geometrical patterns relieved by colour. Straw-work decoration was much favoured at the commencement of the nineteenth century, its origin being traceable to the French military prisoners in this country during the Napoleonic wars between the years 1797 and 1814, when many officers and men were detained at Porchester Castle, near Portsmouth, and at Norman Cross, near Peterborough. The gra.s.ses, of which the boxes were covered, were collected and dried by the prisoners, who obtained the different shades and tints which render this cla.s.s of work so effective by steeping them in infusions of tea, according to a note by Dr. Strong, who visited the barracks at Norman Cross.

The workboxes, so rich in gilding and relief, came from Italy, when, as early as the year 1400, caskets were covered with a species of lime which was moulded, the gesso, as it was called, on a gilt ground of white compo, giving it a very rich effect. Leather was used with good effect, too, for the ornamentation of workboxes, red morocco being much favoured in England early in the nineteenth century. Fig. 76 ill.u.s.trates three very beautiful little fitted boxes with inlaid ornament and straw work.

Little Accessories.