Chats on Household Curios Part 6

The clay crust could then be broken and would, of course, have been destroyed.

No doubt the crock antedated the bronze pot, which was at first made of metal plates hammered and beaten into shape, and then riveted together.

This method was followed by the craft of the founder, who cast vessels after the same model first in bronze and then in iron. The cooking pot was indispensable when the food of the common people was chiefly such as necessitated a vessel containing liquid; the name of this ancient vessel has furnished us with many apt quotations, and it is still the pot so many find difficult to keep boiling.

There have been many contrivances by which to suspend the pot over the fire. Years ago the usual method of suspension was from a beam of wood or a bar of iron placed across the chimney opening--the name by which the bar was known in the North of England was a "gallybawk." Simple contrivances of metal followed, the suspension hooks and chains leading to improved cranes with rack and loop handles.

No doubt many have noticed the apparent indiscriminate use of the term "kettle"; the tea kettle as we understand it to-day is a modern invention. The old kettle was a boiling pot with a bail handle, its modern survivor being the three-legged kettle of the gipsies, and the boiling pot or fish kettle of the modern household. a.s.sociated with the early use of tea kettles slung over a fire is the now scarce lazy-back or tilter, at one time common in the West of England and in South Wales.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 47, 48.--TWO WOODEN FOOD BOXES.

(_In the Cardiff Museum._)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 49.--A COLLECTION OF IRON FAT BOATS AND GREASE PANS.]

In "Chats on Old Copper and Bra.s.s" some very interesting ill.u.s.trations of old copper and bra.s.s saucepans, skillets, and pipkins are given. The skillet has survived for several centuries. Those made in the seventeenth century were frequently inscribed with various religious and sentimental legends; one in the National Museum of Wales is inscribed "LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR." Frying pans have been in common use for a great number of years and are still daily requisitioned. Bakestones, on which cakes were formerly baked, are, however, becoming obsolete. They were called girdle plates in the North of England, and bakestones in Wales and elsewhere.

Grills and Gridirons.

The gridiron or "griddle" was an appliance used extensively all over the Continent of Europe from the sixteenth century onward. In this country it was formerly made by the village blacksmith, and, like the iron stool, kitchen fender, and other iron and bra.s.s kitchen utensils and furnishings, was often made quite decorative. It would appear as if the smith filled up his spare moments in designing intricate patterns with which to decorate the grid. Some of the sixteenth and seventeenth-century European gridirons were quite elaborate, serving the double purpose of ornament and use, for when finished with for cooking purposes they were carefully cleaned and polished and hung up over the kitchen mantelpiece.

Some of the characteristic types met with are shown in the accompanying ill.u.s.trations. In Fig. 43 is seen the light and lacy Italian style; in Fig. 44 the openwork design of the Flemish; a formal Dutch pattern being ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 45; whereas the heavy German floreated type is shown in Fig. 46. Contrasting with these Continental types the English gridiron was strong and serviceable, and essentially a grid or grill, the smith putting his best work in the handle rather than the grid.

Cooking Utensils.

Besides pots and pans there are many cooking utensils which may now be reckoned among the domestic curios. There are, of course, ewers and basins, water-carrying and retaining vessels, and colanders of bra.s.s and earthenware, strainers and graters which have been used from time to time in the kitchen. Sometimes the metal worker appears to have gone out of the way to produce curious forms not always the most convenient for the purposes for which they were made--such, for instance, as the aquamaniles, several of which may be seen in the British Museum (see Fig. 26).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 50.--WOODEN COFFEE CRUSHERS AND PESTLES AND MORTAR.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 51.--APPLE SCOOPS OF BONE.]

Some of the minor kitchen utensils include flesh hooks and forks and carving knives. There are spoons of every kind made in all metals, some of the earlier examples being of bra.s.s and latten. In this connection also may be mentioned ladles, fish slicers, and scoops. There are also many curious little pastrycooks' knives, and knives used for cutting vegetables and preparing a repast in olden time, many of them quite decorative, even the common pastry-wheel frequently being carved. It was at one time customary to expend much skill in decorating apple scoops, those shown in Fig. 51 being very choice specimens in the National Museum of Wales, in Cardiff. The one on the left hand of the picture is made of bone, and is inlaid with a small bra.s.s name-plate; that on the right-hand side is of ivory delicately turned, the scoop being exceedingly thin; and those in the centre are all home-made out of the metacarpal bones of the sheep, being slightly ornamented with cut X-shaped lines and hatchings. In the same museum there are some remarkably interesting coffee crushers and mortars and pestles, several of these being ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 50. In Fig. 53 we show a representative selection reminiscent of the days when wooden spoons and wooden platters were in common use. The trencher takes its name from _tranche_, the old name of the platter which replaced the piece of bread on which it was formerly customary to serve up meat; like the bread, it was at first square. The minor kitchen accessories formerly in constant use included many objects of wood, such as the charming little nutmeg mills of turned rosewood, some of which are to be seen in the British Museum. There are also antique pasteboards and rolling-pins for rolling shortbread, pot stirrers of wood, and other utensils such as sand gla.s.ses.

In Figs. 47 and 48 we ill.u.s.trate two wooden food boxes, such as were formerly used to carry food to men working in the field. They are now deposited with other curios in the Cardiff Museum, where also may be seen some little wooden piggins, and bowls used for porridge; the piggin was an ancient vessel often mentioned in mediaeval days (see Fig. 52).

Warming Pans.

There are some household appointments which, like some of the bra.s.s skimmers, platters, engraved foot and hand warmers, chestnut roasters, and the like, have always served the double purpose of use and ornament.

Among these are warming pans which in modern days have been brought out of their hiding-places, repolished, and hung up in conspicuous places by the fireside. In the Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as some of the provincial museums, there are many very fine examples, those having dates and names upon them being especially valued. As an instance of an exceptional specimen in the Victoria and Albert Museum we may mention one on which there is an engraving of reindeer, ducally gorged, the inscription upon this pan reading: "THE EARL OF ESs.e.x. HIS ARMES. 1630."

Another elaborate warming pan is engraved with figures of a cavalier and a lady, richly embellished with peac.o.c.ks and flowers. The pan is of copper, but the handle is of wrought iron with bra.s.s ornamental mounts.

Some pans have wooden handles, either walnut or oak, some of the more modern being ebonized (see Fig. 40).

This brief review of kitchen utensils by no means exhausts the varieties of old metal work and other curios which may still be found in kitchens.

There appears to be no end to the minor varieties in form and decoration. This is natural when we remember that years ago kitchen utensils were not made in quant.i.ties after the same pattern as they are nowadays. They were the product of the local maker, the smith and the village woodworker being frequently called upon to supply new kitchen utensils, and it would appear that they did their best to make their work successful in that the vessels they fashioned were lasting, and during their use contributed in no small degree towards the ornamentation of the home.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 52.--WOODEN PIGGINS AND PORRIDGE BOWL.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 53.--WOODEN PLATTER, BOWL, AND SPOONS.

(_In the National Museum of Wales._)]

VI

HOME ORNAMENTS

CHAPTER VI

HOME ORNAMENTS

Mantelpiece ornaments--Vases--Derbyshire spars--Jade or spleen stone--Wood carvings--Old gilt.

We are apt to wonder sometimes what it is that makes the house homelike, and why there are such strong attachments to the old home. Surely it is the familiar aspect of the furnishings, rather than the bricks and mortar, that makes the old home so dear! To the original owners there was an individuality about every piece, although to the collector the same characteristics of well-known objects tell that in days gone by the cabinet-maker followed stereotyped lines, and there were but few who moved out of the regular ruts and made distinctive designs in home ornaments and sundry furnishings. It is noteworthy, however, that however much alike in furniture no two houses were alike in their ornamental surroundings. The pictures and portraits on the walls have peculiarities recognized and understood by those who have dwelt for many years among them. Familiar table appointments, however humble, have a homelike look, and there are odd bits of old china in the cabinet and silver or pewter on the sideboard which distinguish one house from another; and it has ever been so. Chimney ornaments, which may be quite commonplace, have well-known characteristics which cannot be duplicated.

It is undoubtedly among the home ornaments that the tenderest thoughts linger, and it is the trinkets of comparatively little value to an outsider that members of the family store when the old home is broken up. There are such ornaments in every household; and whenever there is a sale there are those who gladly buy them because of their a.s.sociations with those by whom they were owned and valued. The collector rarely gathers them on sentimental grounds, securing them as curious specimens or characteristic styles wanting in his collection. Some specialize on old china cups and saucers; others on rare porcelain figures; some on the beautiful gilt and ormolu knick-knacks which looked so well on the early Victorian drawing-room table, and others prefer odds and ends, some of which are mentioned in the following paragraphs. It is, perhaps, from the old ornaments of the home that we learn most about the true home-life lived in former years. Wood carvers, silversmiths, leather workers, gla.s.s blowers and potters fashioned their ornamental things after the living models they saw about them, in the days in which they worked. Thus in the groups of Staffordshire figures, now much sought after, we learn something of the story of life in the Potteries in the closing years of the nineteenth century. The story is recorded in the earthenware "landlord and landlady," "lovers arm in arm," and rustic cottages with which collectors are familiar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 54.--BRa.s.s CHIMNEY ORNAMENT (ONE OF A PAIR).]

Mantelpiece Ornaments.

There are many quaint bra.s.s chimney ornaments which were popular in many parts of England fifty to sixty years ago much sought after nowadays.

They were of polished bra.s.s, usually in pairs, and when several were arranged on a mantelpiece they presented a bright array. The one ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 54 is of the type much favoured in country districts. It represents a shepherd with his crook, the companion bra.s.s being a shepherdess. On the sea-coast fishermen were much fancied, and in mining districts the miner with his pick and other industrial models were extensively sold. These were varied with birds and animals and miniature replicas of household furniture. The older ones are not very common, and therefore have been much copied, for of these goods there are many modern replicas.

Vases.

Ornamental vases have varied much in form, until a collection seems to cover every style of art. Thus Egyptian and Roman influence is seen in some; others of French origin, dating before the Empire period, are a combination of French art with Egyptian ornament, brought out during the Directoire, when after the Battle of the Pyramids French artists introduced the sphinx and other Egyptian ornaments into their art designs. During the Empire period, the style that is said to consist of a blending of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian prevailed. Many of the continental countries have been noted for gla.s.s ornaments--especially vases. The beautiful Venetian gla.s.s is rich in colour, and the vases are varied and graceful in form, especially those of ewer-like shape.

Bohemia has always been a noted centre of the gla.s.s industry. Then in our own country some beautiful vases have been produced.

There are other materials which are met with in curiously shaped vases.

At one time the beautiful Derbyshire spars were much used. There are biscuit china and Parian vases, and many exquisite vases of silver and other metals. Much might be written of the Oriental vases and enamels, especially of the artistic treasures of Old j.a.pan and China, from whence so much of our early vases and beautiful porcelain came. Of the products of Chelsea and Bow, of Coalbrookdale and Derby, and of Bristol and Nantgrw, writers and collectors of rare ceramics have had much to record of the many-shaped vases with which the homes of the middle cla.s.ses were made beautiful in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These are preserved with care, but many of the vases produced by the pioneers of the potting industry in this country serve their original purpose still, and gla.s.s and china and rare Wedgwood jasper ware ornament the home of the twentieth-century reader of the "Chats" series, as they did the "withdrawing" rooms of their original owners in the eighteenth century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 55.--BLACK AND GOLD DERBYSHIRE MARBLE VASE.

(_In the Author's collection._)]

Derbyshire Spars.

The Derbyshire spars and inlaid marbles just referred to were very popular, some exceedingly ornamental and decorative pieces being produced. Others were stiff and formal, and can scarcely be regarded as beautiful. The variety of marbles quarried in Derbyshire gave the artist ample opportunity of displaying taste in colour. The most beautiful are those made of fluor-spar, the celebrated Blue John Mine providing the most beautiful specimens. The purple shades present delightful tints, and some of the old workers in Derbyshire mosaics were exceptionally fortunate in their schemes of arrangement of the tiny pieces they inlaid so carefully. The marble workers in this country have never been able to produce those beautiful effects for which the Florentine school of artists was famous, although it has been claimed by some that the artists of the Peak produced in their larger works some equally as effective. Among old household ornaments small Roman mosaics, so called, are often met with. At one time the Florentine artists used gems and real stones, whereas the Romans chiefly employed gla.s.s. Many will be familiar with the Vatican pigeons and the fountain so frequently copied.

It is said that the Derbyshire workers in mosaic excelled themselves in the production of a beautifully inlaid vase covered with flowers, foliage, and birds, prepared for the late Queen Victoria, in 1842. Half a century ago fancy shops were filled with the products of the Derbyshire mines, but most of the best pieces are now among household curios. The wide-topped vase shown in Fig. 55 is made from Derbyshire black and gold marble, and was produced in Matlock about sixty years ago. It may be interesting to collectors to mention that although the Romans are believed to have worked the Blue John mines, it was not until 1770 that the lovely purple spar was rediscovered in the Hope Valley, a workman pa.s.sing through the Winnats being attracted by the pieces of spar he saw lying about, eventually bringing them under the notice of the owner of a Rotherham marble works. Besides the smaller objects there are the larger tables, worked in the same materials, some of which are sometimes met with second-hand for quite trifling sums.