Chats on Household Curios Part 4

The separate bottles or cruets, casters, mustard pots, and very rarely salts, were gradually gathered together and placed in a frame which grew big in late Georgian and early Victorian days. For convenience the stand was placed in the centre of the table, and often made to revolve. Such cruets are met with in silver and other metals, also in papier-mache, often ornamented with mother-o'-pearl and painted flowers. The greatest interest, however, is found in collecting separate bottles, such as those charming Bristol gla.s.s cruets, ornamented with flowers and lettered with the names of their contents, such as "VINEGAR," "SALAD OIL," "MUSTARD," "PEPPER."

There is a greater variety of form in the metal cruets and casters, which followed the prevailing styles silversmiths were then employing.

Especially graceful are the old pepperettes and vase-shaped casters. The woodturner, too, contributed to the table appointments of the eighteenth century, and the carver made some curious and even grotesque figures, the heads of which took off, and thus formed pepper casters. One of the most noted grotesque sets reminds us of the Toby fill-pot jugs in form, a complete set consisting of two salts, two mustards, and two pepper pots. Genuine specimens are very difficult to meet with now, although those Staffordshire cruets have been reproduced, and are offered either singly or in sets; but the difference between the genuine antique and the modern replica ought not to deceive even an amateur.

There are varieties of mustard pots, which were in turn round, oval, square, hexagonal, and cylindrical, some being like miniature well buckets with perforated sides and blue metal liners.

Punch and Toddy.

A hundred years ago the punch bowl was inseparable from the convivial feast. It was a favourite sideboard ornament, and found in frequent use on the dining table, round which smokers and card players drew up and filled their gla.s.ses with punch and toddy. Ladles were indispensable, and were varied in form and in the materials of which they were composed. Punch ladles were in earlier days made of cherry-wood, mounted with a silver rim and fitted with a long handle, often made of twisted horn. The horn, which was somewhat pliable, was secured to the bowl by a silver socket. Other ladles were made entirely of silver, some having a current coin of the realm, a guinea preferably, fixed in the bottom of the bowl--for luck. Some of the ladles were beautifully decorated in repousse, others were shaped like sauce boats; there were ladles without lips, others deep like the porringers, and yet others were quite round like a drinking bowl. Some are family heirlooms, others have been purchased in curio shops, and unfortunately during the last few years so great has been the demand for them that many modern copies have been palmed off as genuine antiques. The hall-mark on the rim is in many instances a guarantee of age, although some of the genuine specimens do not appear to have been hall-marked at all. The fact that an old coin is found fixed within the bowl is no criterion of antiquity, and does not always indicate that the punch ladle itself is contemporary with the coin, for old coins are common enough and readily fixed in new ladles.

Collectors of old china simply revel in punch bowls. Punch was at the height of its popularity when most of the domestic porcelain and decorative china, now rare and valuable, was being made. The best known potters in Worcester, Derby, Bristol, Liverpool, and the Potteries made punch bowls, some ornamented with their characteristic decorations; others were specially emblematical, such, for instance, as the bowls covered with masonic signs; some were nautical in design, and many were enriched with coats of arms and crests. Several of the punch bowls belonging to the old City Companies are on view in the Guildhall Museum, and isolated specimens are seen to be in other places.

Oriental china was at that time being imported into this country very extensively, and some remarkably delicate bowls, contrasting with Mason's strong ironstone, are obtainable. These bowls, ladles, and the charming little egg-shaped boxes which formerly contained a nutmeg and a tiny grater are household table furnishings of exceptional interest. It may interest some to learn that punch, which came into vogue in the seventeenth century, derived its name from a Hindustani word signifying five, indicative of the five ingredients of which it was composed--spirit, water, sugar, lemon, and spice.

Porringers and Cups.

Although sterling silver and other materials from which drinking vessels are usually made have been exhaustively dealt with in other volumes of the "Chats" series, as table appointments drinking cups must be referred to here. Caudle cups were in use in the sixteenth century, and throughout the century that followed they were used along with porringers, which differed from them only in that the mouths of the porringers were wider and the sides straight. The caudle cup, sometimes called a posset cup, is met with both without and with cover, and in some instances it is accompanied by a stand or tray. Caudle or posset was a drink consisting of milk curdled with wine, and in the days when it was drunk few went to bed without a cup of smoking hot posset. Many of the early cups were beautifully embossed and florally ornamented, although others were quite plain, with the exception of an engraved shield, on which was a coat of arms, crest, or monogram. Many of the porringers which followed the earlier type were octagonal, and in some instances twelve-sided. In the reign of William and Mary the rage for Chinese figures and ornaments caused English silversmiths to decorate porringers with similar designs. The style which prevailed the longest was that known as "Queen Anne," much copied in modern replicas. Very pleasing, too, are eighteenth-century miniature porringers.

There is much to please in the work of the silversmith and potter, as well as the gla.s.s blower, in the cups they fashioned; and the artist admires the chased engraving or the rich colouring, and perchance the etching and cutting of the cup. Some, however, show preference for the earlier cups and drinking vessels of commoner materials, and for those eccentricities of the table found in curious hunting cups, vessels which had to be emptied at a draught, or to be drunk under the most difficult conditions like the puzzle cups of Staffordshire make. The peg tankards of ancient date, a very fine example originally belonging to the Abbey of Glas...o...b..ry, afterwards in the possession of Lord Arundel of Wardour, held two quarts, the pegs dividing its contents into half-pints according to the Winchester standard. On that remarkable cup the twelve Apostles were carved round the sides, and on the lid was the scene at the Crucifixion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 21.--TWO WOODEN CUPS.

FIG. 22.--WOODEN FLAGON, WITH COPPER BANDS.

(_In the National Museum of Wales._)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 23, 24.--COCOANUT CUPS (SILVER-MOUNTED).

FIG. 25.--COCOANUT FLAGON.]

It is said that the pegs were first ordered by Edgar, the Saxon king, to prevent excessive drinking, the tankard being pa.s.sed round, every man being expected to drink down to the next peg. Heywood, in his _Philocathonista_, says: "Of drinking cups, divers and sundry sorts we have, some of elm, some of box, and some of maple and holly." According to the quaint spelling of those days there were then in use in Merrie England: "Mazers, noqqins, whiskins, piggins, cringes, ale-bowls, wa.s.sel bowls, tankard and kames from a pottle to a pint and from a pint to a gill." The leather cups and tankards or black jacks (see Chapter VIII) were mostly used in country places by "shepheards and harvesters." A writer in a work published in the early years of the nineteenth century says: "Besides metal and wood and pottery we have cups of hornes of beasts, of c.o.c.ker nuts, of goords, of eggs of ostriches, and of the sh.e.l.ls of divers fishes."

A simple cocoanut, mounted in silver and made into a cup, perhaps a century or more ago, is by no means to be despised. Some are beautifully polished and ornamented with incised work. Contemporary with the earlier specimens are pots made of ostrich eggs, mounted in silver, regarded of great value in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some of the university colleges possess fine examples, and there are many in the hands of London silversmiths. Figs. 23 and 24 represent two cocoanut cups with feet of silver, one engraved with the owner's initials, the foot being decorated with bead ornament. Fig. 25 is a cocoanut mounted as a flagon with handle of whalebone and rim and foot of silver. The use of such cups seems to have been very generally distributed all over the world, for there are many South American examples, as well as the English varieties. The gourd, too, was used for similar purposes; the Mexicans made such bowls and cups, finishing them off with silver mounts and sometimes adding silver feet. There are French flasks made of small gourds, sometimes scent flasks being made in the same way, not infrequently decorated with incised inlays of coloured composition on a black ground. Some of the English silversmiths engraved hunting scenes on small flasks made of the rind of a gourd, choosing hunting scenes and birds and familiar outdoor objects.

In Figs. 21 and 21A are shown two curious old wood drinking cups, and Fig. 22 represents a wooden jug bound with copper.

Horn was a favourite material for cups, sometimes surmounted by elaborate covers and feet of silver. One of the rarest drinking horns, now in Queen's College, Oxford, was presented to the College by the Queen of Edward III in 1340. Of later types there are beakers and tumbler cups, the latter rounded at the base so that they were easily upset, the idea being that they must be emptied at the first draught.

From these cups sprang the quaint hunting cups in porcelain, modelled in the form of a hare's head, or like a fox, some of the scarcest being evidently modelled for the fisherman's use, to take the form of a fish's head.

The very remarkable drinking cup shown in Fig. 27 is made of walnut; the ridges, carved in deep relief, stand out boldly, each one being carved, the letters forming a complete metaphor, to which is added the name of its original owner, the inscription reading as follows:--

"TAKE . NOT . FROM . ME .

AL . MY . STOR . AXCP . YE .

FILL . ME . VEE . SVME . MOR .

FOR . AV . TO . BORROV .

AND . NEVER . TO . PAY .

I . CALL . THAT .

FOVLL . PLAY .

ION WATSON 1695."

Trays and Waiters.

In olden time not very far from the dining table stood the cupboard or buffet from which evolved the sideboard. On it were displayed the cups and flagons and table appointments not actually in use. It is true the servants carried the great dishes from the kitchen, and removed the lesser vessels on trays and "waiters," and it is such trays, especially those in silver and Sheffield plate used in the last century, which are now valuable. The waiter or serving man or woman has been an essential feature in domestic service from the earliest times, for the history of society invariably records those who wait at table:--

"The waiters stand in ranks; the yeomen cry 'Make room,' as if a duke were pa.s.sing by."

SWIFT.

It is an easy remove from the waiter to the tray or vessel on which the waiters carried the things they served up to those on whom they waited.

The name "salver," commonly applied to a tray or waiter, seems to have originated from the old custom of tasting meats before they were served, to salve or save their employers from harm. Among the more valuable are the trays or waiters of silver and Sheffield plate. Trays made of iron and j.a.panned after the fashion of j.a.panese metal lacquer wares, which towards the close of the eighteenth century were so largely imported into this country, are often neglected, yet many of them are truly antiquarian and by no means unlovely.

One of the chief seats of the industry was at Pontypool, but the business drifted to Birmingham. It was when the j.a.pan wares, so called from the attempt of the makers to copy the lacquers of j.a.pan then much imported, were being successfully made amidst surroundings then exceedingly romantic in the little town singularly situated on a steep cliff overhanging the Avon Llwyd, that dealers found trays, breadbaskets, snuffer trays, knife trays, caddies, and urns much in request. In Bishopsgate Street Without, in London, there is a noted wine house known as the "Dirty d.i.c.k." This curious t.i.tle was derived from the owner of a famous hardware store who kept it, and was dubbed "Dirty d.i.c.k" because of his untidy shop. The wild disorder of the establishment gave rise to a popular ballad of which the following are two of the first lines:--

"A curious hardware shop in general full Of wares from Birmingham and Pontypool."

In addition to j.a.panned wares there are trays of paper pulp ornamented with mother-o'-pearl and richly decorated with gold.

The Tea Table.

The modern tea table presents a much less formal array of china and good things than that of a generation or two back when high tea was an important function, and the good wife of the household loaded her table with many substantial dishes. The best china was taken from the cupboard, and family heirlooms in silver were arrayed on either side of the teapot. Needless to say the teapot was an indispensable adjunct, and some of the teapots belonging to the old sets are ma.s.sive and gorgeous, rather than beautiful, although the earlier teapots made in this country in the eighteenth century, a time when tea was expensive and a real luxury, were quite small.

There are many curiosities, too--such, for instance, as the Chinese teapots of the Ming period, when the potters seem to have vied with one another in producing grotesque forms, and from china clay fashioned objects which typified their mythological beliefs. Some of these teapots took the form of curious sea-horses represented as swimming in waves of green and amidst seaweed. Some of these fabulous beasts are spotted over with splashes of colour, and others have curious twig-like formations upon their sides, said to denote pieces of coral and water plants from the ocean. The teapot was at one time most frequently filled from the pretty little oval copper or bra.s.s kettle on the hob, or from a swing kettle on a stand on the table. The table kettle was generally heated by a spirit lamp which kept the water boiling ready for use. Of later years silver table appointments of early eighteenth-century make have become very scarce, and the curio value of the larger pieces has steadily risen. It would seem as if the maximum figure had been reached for silver of that period, for at the sale of the Fitzhenry collection a plain kettle and stand, an example of Ambrose Stevenson's work in 1717, realized 697.

Cream Jugs.

The cream jug included in the tea and coffee sets of silver or metal, and in the tea china of which so many beautiful sets are still extant, has almost an independent position in connection with table appointments, for ever since tea drinking became general it was regarded as a necessity, and was made in accord with the then prevailing styles.

It is almost the commonest collectable antique in this particular group.

In silver it was always hall-marked, and its date can, therefore, be fixed. Briefly outlining the development of its form, it may be mentioned that it was quite plain in the reign of Queen Anne, when tea drinking came into fashion. When George I came to the throne it was widened somewhat and made a little shorter. At that time the silver cream jugs were hammered into shape out of a flat sheet, there being no seam; after the body was formed a rim was added and a lip put on. There was a deeper rim in the reign of George II, and then feet took the place of rims.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 26.--EARLY ENGLISH BRONZE EWER.

(_In the British Museum._)]

Gradually Chippendale carving and the shaped legs of the furniture then being used were reflected even in the cream jug, the lip in those days being hammered out of the body of the vessel with a graceful curve. Rims again took the place of feet in the reign of George III, and the tall legged cream jug came into vogue. The body was decorated with repousse work or engraved, and the shape gradually changed until the familiar helmet-shaped cream jug resulted. The helmet cream jugs were beautifully engraved with ribbon and wreath decoration, and frequently there was a beaded pattern round the rim and the handle. The same styles prevailed both in Sheffield plate and in Britannia metal, often misnamed pewter.

The decoration on the china cream jugs was frequently floral, but in those made in the leading potteries there was a distinct following of the public style.

Sugar Tongs and Nippers.

With the use of lump sugar late in the eighteenth century sugar tongs were added to the table appointments, and their decoration and ornament usually followed that of teaspoons. They were sometimes engraved with the crests or initials of the owners, and occasionally, in the case of wedding presents, with the initials of both the master and mistress of the household, one being placed inside the sugar tongs and the other on the arch outside. In connection with the cutting of lump sugar steel sugar nippers were much used in the kitchen before lump sugar was bought from the grocer ready cut up. These nippers, some of the earlier ones being chased and engraved, have now pa.s.sed into the region of household curios.

Caddies.