The Story of British Chests and Tea Caddies by ACC Art Books

Preface Anne Stevens

Acknowledgements

Notes on Presentation

Part 1: Setting the Scene 1. A Short History of Tea Drinking in Britain Richard Rose and Richard Dey

2. An Overview of Tea Chests and Caddies Kate Richenburg and Gillian Walkling

3. Making, Merchandising and Pricing Clive Edwards 48 4. Components of Tea Chests and Caddies Anne Stevens, Gillian Walkling and Kate Richenburg

Part 2: The Objects, Techniques and Materials 5. Wood, Plain or Inlaid Anne Stevens and Gillian Walkling

ISBN: 978 178884 146 7

The right of Marian Walecki to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Every effort has been made to secure permission to reproduce the images contained within this book, and we are grateful to the individuals and institutions who have assisted in this task. Any errors are entirely unintentional, and the details should be addressed to the publisher.

Frontispiece: A lithograph of a tea plant (Camellia Sinensis) surrounded by illustrations of its flowers and seeds and scenes depicting its cultivation, processing, sale and final consumption; mid-nineteenth century. Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)

7. Mauchline Ware Anne Stevens and Kate Richenburg

8. Japanned Wood Rufus Bird 178 9. Penwork Anne Stevens and Kate Richenburg

www.accartbooks.com

196

10. Ivory Gillian Walkling 210 11. Tortoiseshell Gillian Walkling 220 12. Mother-of-Pearl Gillian Walkling 230 13. Rolled Paper Work Anne Stevens and Kate Richenburg

236

14. Straw Work Anne Stevens and Kate Richenburg

248

15. Japanned Metal Anne Stevens and Kate Richenburg

264

16. Papier Mâché Anne Stevens and Yvonne Jones

282

17. Silver Jeanne Sloane 302 18. Pewter and Some Other Metals Kate Richenburg

320

19. Ceramic Tea Containers Sally Kevill-Davies

328

20. Glass Charles Hajdamach 358 21. Enamel Julia Clarke 376 22. Miscellaneous Materials Anne Stevens

386

23. Teapoys and Other Large Domestic Tea Containers Anne Stevens and Gillian Walkling

398

24. A Case Study of a Well-Documented Tea Chest Anne Stevens and Kate Richenburg

410

25. Fakes Mark Goodger Printed in Belgium for ACC Art Books Ltd., Woodbridge, Suffolk, England

158

416

Appendix: Comparable values of money in terms of purchasing power Kate Richenburg Author biographies

427

Index 428

426

Preface Anne Stevens

Acknowledgements

Notes on Presentation

Part 1: Setting the Scene 1. A Short History of Tea Drinking in Britain Richard Rose and Richard Dey

2. An Overview of Tea Chests and Caddies Kate Richenburg and Gillian Walkling

3. Making, Merchandising and Pricing Clive Edwards 48 4. Components of Tea Chests and Caddies Anne Stevens, Gillian Walkling and Kate Richenburg

Part 2: The Objects, Techniques and Materials 5. Wood, Plain or Inlaid Anne Stevens and Gillian Walkling

ISBN: 978 178884 146 7

7. Mauchline Ware Anne Stevens and Kate Richenburg

8. Japanned Wood Rufus Bird 178 9. Penwork Anne Stevens and Kate Richenburg

www.accartbooks.com

196

10. Ivory Gillian Walkling 210 11. Tortoiseshell Gillian Walkling 220 12. Mother-of-Pearl Gillian Walkling 230 13. Rolled Paper Work Anne Stevens and Kate Richenburg

236

14. Straw Work Anne Stevens and Kate Richenburg

248

15. Japanned Metal Anne Stevens and Kate Richenburg

264

16. Papier Mâché Anne Stevens and Yvonne Jones

282

17. Silver Jeanne Sloane 302 18. Pewter and Some Other Metals Kate Richenburg

320

19. Ceramic Tea Containers Sally Kevill-Davies

328

20. Glass Charles Hajdamach 358 21. Enamel Julia Clarke 376 22. Miscellaneous Materials Anne Stevens

386

23. Teapoys and Other Large Domestic Tea Containers Anne Stevens and Gillian Walkling

398

24. A Case Study of a Well-Documented Tea Chest Anne Stevens and Kate Richenburg

410

25. Fakes Mark Goodger Printed in Belgium for ACC Art Books Ltd., Woodbridge, Suffolk, England

158

416

Appendix: Comparable values of money in terms of purchasing power Kate Richenburg Author biographies

427

Index 428

426

Preface

y personal interest in tea chests and tea caddies1, especially in those from Britain, goes back to a chance visit in the late 1940s to the prestigious Art and Antiques Fair, founded in 1934 and held annually at Grosvenor House, London, though now, sadly, no more. By the time of my visit, the Fair was well on its way to recovery after the austere years immediately following the Second World War, and it provided an opportunity to see fine-quality antique furniture and other works of art gathered under one roof. As someone with only a modicum of knowledge about the fine and decorative arts, I was bowled over by the array of items mustered by the many top-notch dealers at the Fair, which to my inexperienced eyes appeared to be an Aladdin’s cave. A number of tea chests and caddies were on view, and I was struck by both their variety and their fine craftsmanship, with many of them representing in miniature the styles and techniques of the furniture of the period. In the 1940s and, indeed, for much of the twentieth century, such tea containers were not considered to be of great importance as antiques, but were regarded as attractive accessories: often they were used to enhance a larger desirable piece of antique furniture, such as a bow-fronted or serpentine chest of drawers, along with a tasteful flower arrangement. Although tea chests and caddies were not seen as meriting serious study, they had their admirers, some of whom assembled fine collections, as evidenced by a substantial donation to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1919: Thomas Sutton, a respected fine arts dealer from Eastbourne, presented the Museum with 87 caddies from the collection that had belonged to his late wife, who was described in a V & A memorandum as someone with ‘very considerable artistic knowledge and taste’2. Those caddies now form the bulk of the V & A’s holding of decorative domestic tea containers but, regrettably, they are seldom on display – perhaps because Thomas Sutton had requested that the caddies be shown as a group since ‘the whole of the interest is in seeing all the types and various styles together’3. Over the years since I first became aware of these items, many examples have cropped up in the London and provincial salerooms, often lurking in furniture auctions. Most have sold for modest sums, though some exceptional specimens have realised large amounts of money, like the spectacular rococo tea chest that had belonged to the legendary English antiques dealer Fred Skull, which sold at Christie’s in London in April 1952 for 260 guineas (approaching the price of a small family car at the time) and ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. However, in November 1984 there was a specialist sale in London devoted entirely to domestic tea containers, primarily of British origin, which attracted considerable interest. This landmark event was the sale of the collection of the late Calvert Wardley (a former Hertfordshire businessman) by the long-established firm of auctioneers, Phillips, Son and Neale (now Bonhams), in their main London salerooms. This remarkable collection consisted of 215 chests, caddies, and ceramic tea canisters and ranged from top-flight examples down to

relatively mundane pieces. The saleroom was packed (I was there) and bidding was brisk. The Daily Telegraph carried a brief account of the sale the next day and announced that the collection had realised £143,445 (excluding the buyer’s premium of 10%), a substantial sum at that time. The sale catalogue – well-illustrated, though with relatively few colour plates – shows that Calvert Wardley was a discerning collector who appreciated that, in addition to wood (the material most usually associated with chests and caddies), a whole range of other materials had been used in their construction and embellishment. These include the exotic (for example, aventurine glass, tortoiseshell and motherof-pearl), the quirky (like shells, split straw and rolled paper), and the more conventional materials (like silver and tinplate). It is this diversity of materials, coupled with a huge variety of forms and designs, that makes these tea containers so fascinating. The Calvert Wardley sale increased interest in tea chests and caddies. More people began to appreciate the delights of these small boxes. As demand grew, prices climbed and antiques dealers specialising predominantly in caddies sprung up, while advertisements in the Antiques Trade Gazette for forthcoming auctions now often included enticing photographs of chests or caddies. By the end of the twentieth century, these items were being more widely pursued by collectors, and in the last decades of that century and the opening years of the twentyfirst century, some astonishingly (and, at times, unrealistically) high prices were paid for individual pieces. More recently, there has been a levelling down of prices and now only outstanding examples in good original condition realise very large sums. The more ordinary ones – particularly those that have suffered over-restoration – have justifiably suffered a loss in value. Interestingly, desirability and quality do not always go hand-inhand. For instance, nineteenth-century caddies in the shapes of fruits – mainly, apples, pears and melons – which, though attractive, are just simple examples of wood turning, are greatly sought after and attract correspondingly high prices, whereas some elaborate Victorian pieces, such as a magnificent Gothic Revival tea chest made by the acclaimed London firm of George Betjemann & Sons, which is veneered with coromandel wood and embellished with gilt brasswork inset with Wedgwood jasper plaques, command a fraction of the price realised by the fruit examples – victims of the rise and fall of the merry-goround of taste, and now condemned as overblown and aesthetically inferior. Indeed, until relatively recently, my own taste in tea chests and caddies, like, I suspect, that of many collectors, was largely confined to the products of the eighteenth century. I never imagined that I would find myself appreciating a nineteenth-century piece. The first books devoted to British tea containers appeared in 1985, the year after the Calvert Wardley sale. Tea Caddies: An Illustrated History by Gillian Walkling was published by the Victoria and Albert Museum, and drew attention to the Museum’s relatively little-known collection. In the same year, Tea Caddies by Noël Riley was published by the

1. For an explanation of the difference between tea chests and tea caddies, see Chapter 2:

Brackett, Keeper of Woodwork, 13 May 1919. V & A archive reference MA/1/4085.

An Overview of Tea Chests and Caddies.

3. Letter from Thomas Sutton to Sir Cecil H. Smith, Director of the V & A, 16 June

2. Internal memorandum from Clifford Smith of the Department of Woodwork, to Oliver

1919. V & A archive reference MA/1/4085.

Lutterworth Press, Cambridge, and in 2002 was reissued in an enlarged and revised edition as Stones’ Pocket Guide to Tea Caddies, published by the antiques dealers Tony and June Stone. These books are useful guides, though, as slim paperbacks, they are limited in the number of examples that they can illustrate. Two more recent, larger and extensively illustrated volumes – Antique Boxes, Tea Caddies and Society 1700-1880 (Schiffer, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 2003) by Antigone Clarke and Joseph O’Kelly, and Antique Boxes Inside and Out (Antique Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2005) by Genevieve Cummins – deal with tea chests and caddies in the context of other antique boxes, as their titles indicate. Otherwise, no book dedicated to tea containers has appeared. This book presents a more detailed study of British tea chests and caddies; it also covers their much larger cousins – teapoys and tea stores – which, for the most part, have been overlooked by previous furniture historians. It concentrates not just on the aesthetics of the objects themselves, but also explores the materials and techniques involved in their making, as well as the contemporary social milieux. These factors are relevant in many other areas of the decorative arts, so this publication provides a wealth of transferable information and opens a wider window on the history of art and decoration. The book is based substantially on information that I have accumulated over more than 50 years of researching and recording items for storing tea; in addition, friends and acquaintances have also contributed their findings. Delving into primary source material from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has considerably increased the understanding of the social and commercial aspects of tea receptacles from these periods, and has added to knowledge of the materials and techniques used in their production. Trade directories, as well as advertisements in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century national and provincial newspapers, have provided details of businesses that made and/or sold tea chests and caddies. Trade labels on the objects themselves have also been a valuable source, although in many cases it can be difficult to determine conclusively whether the person identified is a maker or just a retailer. Another fruitful source of information has been women’s magazines, which became popular among the middle and upper classes in the second half of the eighteenth century. A number of these magazines published articles on creative pursuits suitable for ladies, and sometimes provided patterns, notably for rolled paper work and penwork, techniques that were both employed very effectively to decorate tea caddies. Other primary source materials examined include bills, trade manuals and pattern books, some of the latter from the archives of prominent firms like Wedgwood, Matthew Boulton, and Gillows. Relevant information has also been found in personal diaries and in the works of such writers as Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth (both of whom mention rolled paper work, known then as ‘filigree work’), and Harriet Martineau (papier mâché). The observations of such contemporary commentators as Daniel Defoe and Dr Richard Pococke, and instruction manuals relating to creative pastimes compiled by, for example, Hannah Robertson, have been enlightening. Provincial museums’ collections have yielded useful information about (and examples of) relevant local products, such as Tunbridge ware (Tunbridge Wells), papier mâché (Wolverhampton), and Napoleonic prisoner-of-war work (Peterborough). The cast of characters is wide, with glimpses of low life and high life. At the low end, there are the struggling fancy cabinetmakers who, according to interviews conducted by Henry Mayhew, the wellknown mid-nineteenth century chronicler of the London poor, lived in penury; they made run-of-the-mill wooden tea caddies in their garrets, often assisted by their wives and children, and were grossly exploited by middlemen. Then there are the Napoleonic prisoners-of-war turning

A wood-engraved bookplate by Richard Shirley Smith, executed for Anne Stevens in 1983 and showing some of her own collection of tea containers.

out caddies decorated with straw work and bone to sell at markets held outside the gates of their camps. At the other end of the social scale, there is, among others, the Duchess of Lauderdale who took tea in her private closet at Ham House in the 1680s, where, according to her household inventory she had a ‘Japan [lacquer] box for sweetmeats & tea’. There is also Princess Elizabeth, one of George III’s daughters, who is known to have acquired the articles needed to make a rolled paper caddy in 1790. In addition, a number of celebrity tea containers are illustrated, specifically the tea chests belonging to Admiral Lord Nelson and to the painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the tea caddy owned by the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. From the great range of information that has been gathered together, it is possible to follow trends and to make cross-connections. For instance, with regard to technological developments, one can follow the rise of one material against the demise of another, as exemplified by how japanned tinplate wares were ousted in the late eighteenth century by japanned papier mâché, which in turn was challenged by the newly developed technique of electroplating in the mid-nineteenth century. One can see how an individual style, say chinoiserie, was interpreted in different materials, such as in wood, silver, japanned tinplate, or ceramics. One can also discern patterns of consumerism, as reflected by

Preface

1. For an explanation of the difference between tea chests and tea caddies, see Chapter 2:

Brackett, Keeper of Woodwork, 13 May 1919. V & A archive reference MA/1/4085.

An Overview of Tea Chests and Caddies.

3. Letter from Thomas Sutton to Sir Cecil H. Smith, Director of the V & A, 16 June

2. Internal memorandum from Clifford Smith of the Department of Woodwork, to Oliver

1919. V & A archive reference MA/1/4085.

A wood-engraved bookplate by Richard Shirley Smith, executed for Anne Stevens in 1983 and showing some of her own collection of tea containers.

A Short History of Tea Drinking in Britain

Chapter One: A Short History of Tea Drinking in Britain

Figure 1.1: Engraving of a tea plant and its cultivation, from Johannes Nieuhof ’s An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham or Emperour of China, first published in 1665. Taken from the English version of the book (translated from the Dutch) which was first printed in 1669. The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford; Ashm. H16

Richard Rose and Richard Dey1

hen Samuel Pepys wrote on 25 September 1660 that he ‘did send for a Cupp of Tee (a China drink) of which I had never drank before …’ 2 he could not have foreseen that within the following one hundred years, tea drinking would become a social phenomenon and would be well on its way to being a daily occurrence in the homes of British people of all social classes. Over the years it would play a role in improving the health of the nation, in bolstering Government finances, and in stimulating the manufacture of an ever-increasing number of decorative tea-related accessories, including tea chests and caddies. So what is the history of the quintessentially British relationship with tea? The Oxford English Dictionary defines tea as ‘The leaves of the tea plant, usually in a dried and prepared state’ and as ‘A drink made by infusing these leaves in hot water, having a somewhat bitter and aromatic flavour, and acting as a moderate stimulant’3. It had first arrived in Britain in the middle of the seventeenth century; a precise date has not been identified but it is known that tea was available in London in the 1650s. Initially, it was regarded as an exotic novelty, and being extremely expensive, it was consumed almost exclusively by the affluent. It came from the Far East where it had been cultivated and enjoyed for many centuries. In China, tea had been a traditional beverage since the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), and in Japan it had been consumed since the ninth century. In both countries, tea-drinking rituals had developed at an early date, and in China in particular, tea was widely cultivated (Figure 1.1). The tea plant, Camellia sinensis, is an evergreen shrub and a member of the camellia family (Figure 1.2). For the best results, only the new growth at the top of the plants is harvested. Then, depending on how the leaves are processed, different types of tea are produced, the two main categories being black tea and green tea. The processing of the leaves involves several key steps, which are essentially the same today as in the past, but now with extensive mechanisation. From an historical perspective, the non-mechanised steps are well-illustrated in various series of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century watercolours and gouaches executed by Chinese artists for the European market (Figure 1.3). A closer look at these steps and the rationale behind them might be enlightening here. For black tea, the plucked leaves were first withered, traditionally by leaving them in the sun; this reduced their moisture content. Then they were bruised or gently crushed in a process known as ‘rolling’ (also referred to as ‘disruption’ or ‘maceration’), which involved rolling – in effect, kneading – a bundle of leaves between the hands or treading on them. In this way, the structures of the cells within the leaves were partially broken down and some chemical changes were initiated4. The next step was oxidation (also known as ‘fermentation’): the leaves were spread out in a cool, humid atmosphere with good aeration, thereby promoting a series of chemical reactions, most important of which was oxidation facilitated by enzymes in the leaves. This step, which caused the leaves to darken, was crucial for producing the chemical compounds that determined the taste and aroma of black tea, with the length of time that the leaves were left to oxidise influencing the ultimate taste of the tea. Next, the leaves were dried by ‘firing’ – heating in pans or metal baskets over a fire (Figure 1.4). This step also ‘stabilised’ the tea by denaturing the enzymes responsible for oxidation. Finally, after sorting and grading, the black tea was ready for packing. For green tea, the processing of the leaves was simpler. Crucially, the oxidation step was omitted and the leaves therefore remained green. Indeed, to prevent any chance of oxidation the leaves were ‘fixed’ by heating briefly – steamed or pan fired – soon after picking, so as to deactivate the oxidative enzymes. Then the leaves, which for the most part were still whole, were ‘shaped’ into strips, curls or pellets by cutting or twisting. Drying, sorting and grading followed.

1. The early part of this chapter is based on a manuscript by the late Richard Rose. After Richard’s death, Richard Dey kindly undertook to complete the chapter. Some additional material has been provided by Kate Richenburg and Gillian Walkling. 2. Samuel Pepys, Diary, R. Latham and W. Matthews (eds), G. Bell, London, 1970, Vol. I, p. 253.

3. Oxford English Dictionary Online, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010. 4. For an accessible summary of the chemistry of tea, see Katrina Megget, ‘The chemistry in your cuppa’, chemistryworld.com, The Royal Society of Chemistry, London, December 2016.

Besides black tea (oxidised) and green tea (unoxidised) there was also an intermediate category of tea called Oolong, where the leaves were semi-oxidised. Within the categories, there were many different varieties, determined by a number of factors – the area in which the tea was grown, environmental conditions (such as soil, altitude, sunlight and rainfall), the age of the leaves when picked, the length of time for which they were left to dry, their size after being broken up, and their eventual shape. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, both black and green teas were fairly evenly consumed in Britain: Bohea, Pekoe, Souchong and Congou were popular black teas, while Hyson, Singlo and ‘Gunpowder’ were fashionable varieties of green tea5. Since the early 1800s, black teas, which have generally been less expensive than green varieties, have been preferred by British tea drinkers. It is only recently that green teas have returned to favour, mostly for their suggested health properties. As to the sources of the tea consumed in Britain, it originally came either directly or indirectly from China, but India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) replaced China as the major sources of tea for Britain during the nineteenth century, and in the twentieth century some African countries, notably Kenya and Malawi, took over as the main suppliers. Although tea had been well-established in China and Japan long before the sixteenth century, knowledge of it in Europe was sparse to non-existent in the 1500s, and no reference to tea has been found in western literature before the middle of that century. This dearth of information is easily explained, especially in relation to the sixteenth century. Despite Europeans then being immensely curious about the customs and manners of the peoples they encountered in Asia, their overriding interest (unless they were Jesuits contemplating the religious conversion of the Japanese and Chinese populaces) was in commodities that could be profitably traded. In fact, tea – unlike pepper, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, rhubarb and other commonly traded drugs and spices – was at that time almost unknown in Europe and so was not an obvious commodity to import. Travellers, merchants and missionaries, who either wrote first-hand accounts of China or Japan or provided information for others, rarely mentioned tea. For example, An excellent treatise of the kingdome of China, and of the estate and government thereof, printed in Latin in 1590 at Macau, the Portuguese trading base in China, and translated in Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations … , deals with all manner of topics – the Great Wall, the structures of government and magistracy, gunpowder, printing, the growth of sugar cane and the manufacture of silk and porcelain, but makes no reference to tea. Given the author’s very detailed and specific observations, it seems likely that he and other such writers, although perhaps being aware of the existence of tea, did not think it worth mentioning6. Indeed, compared with more vivid aspects of oriental life, the drinking of a preparation of leaves in hot water was perhaps an unremarkable practice, so

5. ‘Gunpowder tea’ was so-named because the leaves were tightly rolled into small pellets which closely resembled the explosive.

6. Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages,Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation … , 2nd ed., 1599.

Figure 1.2: Hand-coloured engraving of a tea plant, Camellia sinensis, 1823. Photo 12 / Alamy Stock Photo

A Short History of Tea Drinking in Britain

Chapter One: A Short History of Tea Drinking in Britain

Richard Rose and Richard Dey1

5. ‘Gunpowder tea’ was so-named because the leaves were tightly rolled into small pellets which closely resembled the explosive.

6. Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages,Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation … , 2nd ed., 1599.

Figure 1.2: Hand-coloured engraving of a tea plant, Camellia sinensis, 1823. Photo 12 / Alamy Stock Photo

Making, Merchandising and Pricing

Chapter Three: Making, Merchandising and Pricing Clive Edwards

he making and selling of tea chests and caddies involved considerable amounts of craft and commercial activity – topics which are surveyed in this chapter, along with the prices of the items.

Making Because tea chests and caddies were made and decorated in many different materials, a great range of craftsmen undertook their production: these included, for example, silversmiths, enamellers and japanners, as well as those skilled in working with exotic materials such as ivory, tortoiseshell and shagreen. However, the majority of decorative tea containers were made and veneered in wood, so cabinetmakers were the predominant players. (For information about workers using other materials or techniques, see the respective chapters.)

Cabinetmakers Figure 3.1: Trade card of Henry Sidgier of London, c. 1760. Courtesy of Bishopsgate Institute, London

In Britain, the main woodworking crafts that came to be associated with the making of tea chests and caddies were all well established by the end of the seventeenth century. Although their individual characteristics changed over time, the general distinctions between carpenters (general woodworkers) and joiners (specialists in panelling, fittings, and furniture frames) had already been recognised by about 1600, and between chairmakers and upholsterers by the 1650s, with cabinetmakers emerging from the midcentury onwards. These distinctions did not mean the decline of one trade at the expense of another; it was rather that the products of each group were becoming tiered in terms of intricacy of workmanship and type of product made. Even so, specialisation was not universal and was probably a matter of scale. Some individual tradesmen undertook more than one function, as evidenced by the trade card of Henry Sidgier who operated as a ‘Carpenter, Joyner, and Undertaker’ at the Carpenters Arms in Great Shere Lane, near Temple Barr, London, in the mid-eighteenth century (Figure 3.1). The defining process associated with cabinetmakers was the construction of ‘case’ furniture, such as cabinets and chests for storage (the latter often fitted with drawers), and other items of furniture that required solid boards to be joined together. The cabinetmakers derived their basic techniques from the work of traditional trunk and coffer makers, who had long experience of making rigid boxes. But it was the introduction from the Continent of the dovetail joint, which provided greater stability in wooden structures, and the adoption of the skilful technique of veneering that helped British cabinetmakers to rise to prominence in their own right. The Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 and the return from the Continent of Charles II and his court encouraged demand for more sophisticated furniture made with imported luxury timbers, and so helped to extend the skills and raise the status of the makers. As early as 1664, John Evelyn could favourably compare English woodworkers with their foreign counterparts. He considered that ‘Locksmiths, Joyners, Cabinet makers and the like, [who] from very vulgar and pitiful Artists are now come to produce works as curious for the filing and admirable for their Dexterity in Contriving, as any we meet abroad’1. In addition, the Dutch craftsmen who came to England following

1. Roland Fréart, Pietro Cataneo, Giacomo Barozzi and John Evelyn, A Parallel of the Antient [sic] Architecture with the Modern; ... to Which Is Added an Account of Architects and Architecture, in

an ... Explanation of Certain Tearms [sic] Particularly Affected by Architects: with L.b. Alberti’s Treatise of Statues; Made English for the Benefit of Builders by J. Evelyn, London, 1664.

the accession of William and Mary in 1689 influenced the methods of embellishment used on cabinetwork, by promoting decoration in the forms of marquetry and parquetry – techniques that had been perfected in France. By the mid-eighteenth century, urban-based cabinetmaking was considered a respectable trade for a bright adolescent to enter. Joseph Collyer’s Parent’s and Guardian’s Directory (1761) advised that ‘The youth intended for this business ought to be able to write a good hand, understand arithmetic, and have some notion of drawing and designing. It requires more ingenuity than strength: a nice eye and a light hand are absolutely necessary as he is by far the most curious workman in the wood way. His success as a master must depend on the delicacy of his fancy and the neatness of his work’.2 Collyer’s conclusion that a cabinetmaker’s success depended, in effect, not only on his craft skills but also on his appreciation of contemporary taste, reflects the sophistication of this trade by the mid-eighteenth century and thereafter (Figure 3.2). In The London Tradesman (1747), Robert Campbell divulged the possible financial rewards of the business. He wrote that ‘a Master Cabinet-Maker is a very profitable Trade; especially, if he works for and serves the Quality himself, but if he must serve them through the Channel of the Upholder, his profits are not very considerable’3. Campbell considered the cabinetmaker to be the right-hand man of the upholder as he ‘furnishes him with Mahogony and Wallnut-tree posts for his beds, settees of the same Materials, Chairs of all sorts and prices, carved, plain and inlaid, Chests of Drawers, Book-cases, Cabinets, Desks, Scrutores [escritoires], Buroes, Dining, Dressing and Card Tables, Tea Boards and an innumerable variety of articles of this sort’4. The term ‘upholder’ had been used in the thirteenth century to refer to dealers in small wares and secondhand clothing, but the trade had gradually increased in status. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, upholders, also called ‘upholsterers’5, had embraced a new role, assuming responsibility for the supply of both new and secondhand furniture as well as the provision and refurbishing of household furnishings, particularly those that involved textiles. They expanded their services as the century progressed, supplying textiles and making them up into elaborate bedsteads, hangings, cushions and so on. When fixed upholstery became the norm in the second half of the seventeenth century, they were also responsible for the upholstering of chair frames supplied by chairmakers. 6 In addition, like many cabinetmakers too, they undertook the arrangements for funerals, not least providing the necessary draperies, feathers and other trappings. Some cabinetmakers rose to be entrepreneurs, as opposed to working as sub-contractors to retailing upholsterers. The German social theorist, Justus Moser, writing in 1767, observed the changes that were occurring in the nature of the business: ‘... the trading craftsman in England first learns his trade, and then he studies commerce. The journeyman7 of a trading cabinetmaker must be as qualified an accountant as any merchant. The master himself no longer touches a tool. Instead he oversees the work of his forty journeymen, evaluates what they have produced, corrects their mistakes, and shows them ways and methods by which they can better their work or improve their technique. He may invent new tools and will observe what is going on in the development of fashion. He keeps in touch with people of taste and visits artists who might be of assistance to him’.8 Descriptions of the prestigious London-based family firm of William and John Linnell, taken from an inventory of its business made in 1763, are revealing about the operation of a major cabinetmaking and furnishing enterprise. In this case, its premises included a cabinet shop, a glass room, a chair room, an upholsterer’s shop, a carver’s shop, a gilder’s shop, storerooms, a counting house, a joiner’s shop (with a sawpit), and retail showrooms9. Here is an example of virtually complete vertical control over all the processes of furniture making and selling, from primary timber conversion through finishing processes, to

2. Joseph Collyer, The Parent’s and Guardian’s Directory and theYouth’s Guide in the Choice of a Profession or Trade, printed for R. Griffiths, Strand, London, 1761, p. 86. 3. Robert Campbell, The London Tradesman: Being a Compendious view of all the Trades, Professions, Arts, both Liberal and Mechanic, now practised in the Cities of London and Westminster. Calculated for the Information of Parents, and Instruction of Youth in their Choice of Business…, printed by T. Gardner, at Cowley’s-Head in the Strand, London, 1747, p. 171. 4. Ibid. 5. One of the earliest known uses of the term ‘upholsterer’ is dated 1613. Oxford English Dictionary Online, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010.

6. Clive Edwards, ‘The upholsterer and the retailing of domestic furnishings 1600-1800’, in B. Blonde, E. Brot and B. Coquery (eds), Retailers and Consumer Changes in Early Modern Europe, Presses Universitaires François-Rabelais, Tours, France, 2006, pp. 53-69. 7. A journeyman was a fully qualified craftsmen who had served an apprenticeship, but rather than having his own business, he worked for someone else. 8. Quoted in Hans Huth, Roentgen Furniture: Abraham and David Roentgen, European Cabinetmakers, Sotheby Parke Bernet, London, 1974, p. 58. 9. Pat Kirkham, ‘The careers of William and John Linnell’, Furniture History, Vol. III, 1967, p. 31.

Figure 3.2: Detail from inlaid underside of lid of a cabinetmaker’s tool chest, showing a decorative tea chest on the left of the work bench, c. 1790. Courtesy of the Museum of Bath Architecture

Making, Merchandising and Pricing

Chapter Three: Making, Merchandising and Pricing Clive Edwards

he making and selling of tea chests and caddies involved considerable amounts of craft and commercial activity – topics which are surveyed in this chapter, along with the prices of the items.

Cabinetmakers Figure 3.1: Trade card of Henry Sidgier of London, c. 1760. Courtesy of Bishopsgate Institute, London

1. Roland Fréart, Pietro Cataneo, Giacomo Barozzi and John Evelyn, A Parallel of the Antient [sic] Architecture with the Modern; ... to Which Is Added an Account of Architects and Architecture, in

an ... Explanation of Certain Tearms [sic] Particularly Affected by Architects: with L.b. Alberti’s Treatise of Statues; Made English for the Benefit of Builders by J. Evelyn, London, 1664.

Figure 3.2: Detail from inlaid underside of lid of a cabinetmaker’s tool chest, showing a decorative tea chest on the left of the work bench, c. 1790. Courtesy of the Museum of Bath Architecture

Wood, Plain or Inlaid

Chapter Five: Wood, Plain or Inlaid Anne Stevens and Gillian Walkling1

Figure 5.1: Chest made of solid burr oak, c. 1750. Private collection

Figure 5.2: Chest veneered with imported satinwood, with oval panels of tulip wood, c. 1790-1800. Avon Antiques, Bradford-on-Avon

Figure 5.3: Miniature chest veneered with Virginia walnut and fitted with two tinplate tea canisters and a tinplate sugar canister, c. 1740. Private collection

rom their inception in the early eighteenth century until their demise around 1900, tea chests, and later caddies too, were made and finished in an enormous variety of materials. The great majority of examples, however, were constructed entirely of wood, and these display an almost infinite range of shapes, finishes and degrees of ornamentation. Some are extremely plain, while others have decorative features such as stringing, cross-banding, mouldings or carving and, on occasion, inlay or marquetry2 of contrasting woods or of other materials such as brass or mother-of-pearl. Many are fitted with metal handles, feet and escutcheons and, sometimes, other metal mounts; these can range from very simple to quite elaborate. A number of chests and caddies are crafted in novel forms such as fruits or piles of books, while others commemorate a well-known person or event, the latter occasionally being made of associated timber. Although most wooden chests and caddies conform to the basic shapes and types of decoration fashionable at any one time, there were always deviations from the norm. It would be impossible to cover all the variations here, but a chronological guide to the most common designs can be attempted.

Woods used in cabinetmaking In the eighteenth century, a relatively small number of chests and caddies – particularly those made by provincial cabinetmakers whose location meant that they had to rely largely on locally grown woods such as yew or elm – were made in solid timber, the grain of which alone provided a decorative finish (Figure 5.1). Burr woods, with attractive swirling or knotted grain resulting from distorted tree growth, were much favoured. The majority of chests and caddies, though, had a carcass of inexpensive oak or pine (or occasionally, low-grade mahogany) veneered with one or more finer-quality, and usually imported, timbers (Figure 5.2). For ease of presentation in this book, the simple terms ‘mahogany chest’, or ‘rosewood caddy’, for example, will, unless otherwise stated, describe both veneered items and those made in the solid. Interestingly, when tea chests first made their appearance in about 1720, cabinetmakers in London (the most influential city where the furnishing trades were concerned) used far more foreign woods than British

1. This chapter has been written with some input from Kate Richenburg. 2. The terms ‘inlay’ and ‘marquetry’ describe two different techniques, although the results may appear similar. Marquetry is the craft of cutting out small pieces of veneer to form a

decorative pattern before applying them to a flat surface; inlaying involves inserting a cut shape into a cavity of the same shape that has been cut out of a piece of wood, or other solid material.

ones. The most common of these imported timbers were walnut3, deal (principally pine), and wainscot oak – nearly all shipped from Norway and the Baltic region – followed by small quantities of Virginia walnut and mahogany from North America, and different species of mahogany from the Caribbean. The use of these woods was not just due to fashion, but to a combination of availability, cost and historic precedent. For both economic and strategic reasons, the British had been purchasing Baltic4 and Norwegian timber for many decades and it was considered easier, and politically and economically expedient, to continue transporting it over the relatively short distances to England via established sea routes, rather than to move home-grown varieties of wood (in large log form) from other areas of Britain overland. While London was the principal recipient of imported wood, quantities of Norwegian timber were also shipped to Hull and Newcastle upon Tyne, and to smaller ports along the east coast such as King’s Lynn, the sea journey from Norway to these destinations being relatively short. Although most of the oak and deal was destined for ship-building and construction purposes, a reasonable amount was used for furniture-making; deal, in particular, was considered perfectly adequate for the cheaper household furniture destined for poorer households and for use by servants. However, the Baltic shipping routes were under constant threat from competition and potential aggression from countries such as Holland, France, Spain and other parts of Europe, and in the early eighteenth century the Government turned increasingly towards its colonies in North America and the West Indies for its timber supplies, where vast numbers of woods suitable for all purposes were available. In An Account of the Province of Carolina in America5, a promotional pamphlet designed to lure more British settlers to South Carolina in the 1680s, Samuel Wilson, secretary to the Lord’s Proprietors there, wrote: ‘This Country hath the Oak, Ash, Elm, Poplar, Beech and the other Sorts of useful Timber that England hath, and divers sorts of lasting Timbers that England hath not, as Cedar white and red, Cypress, Locust Bay and Laurell Trees, equal to the biggest Oaks, large Mirtles, Hickery, black Wallnut, and Pynes big enough to Mast the greatest Ships, and divers other sorts, which I cannot enumerate’. Despite this abundance of timber, British shipping merchants trading with these areas initially showed little interest in it, concentrating on the much more lucrative slave trade6. They viewed timber only as a useful, and relatively inexpensive, product that was suitable for filling spare space in the hold at times when sugar or tobacco from the plantations was in short supply. When the Government removed all import duties on timber brought from these regions in 17217 and forbade the export of British colonial timber to anywhere other than the homeland, it became a more economically viable commodity and greater quantities began to be imported, albeit alongside timber still shipped from Norway and the Baltic. Although American black walnut (usually referred to as ‘Virginia walnut’ or ‘Black Virginia’8) and, indeed, European walnut, continued to be used by cabinetmakers throughout the first half of the eighteenth century (Figure 5.3), its popularity was quite quickly dwarfed by that of mahogany, a stable and extremely versatile wood with a rich, deep, reddish colour and a fine, straight grain, that was easy to cut into veneers and eminently suitable for carving (Figure 5.4). Moreover, unlike walnut, it was not susceptible to woodworm. Because it could be cut in wide planks, it was particularly popular with cabinetmakers for making sizeable items such as dining tables, bookcases and clothes presses. There were several types of mahogany, named according to their place of origin – Jamaican, Honduran (also called Central American mahogany, or Baywood), ‘Hispaniola’ (also known as Spanish wood, or St Domingo) from Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic), and Cuban, or Havan[n]a, from Cuba. In fact, mahogany had previously been imported into Britain during the seventeenth century, when it was sometimes used for doors, staircases and other interior fittings, but it was only after 1720 that it became common in the stock-in-trade of

3. Some British walnut was used, and it was also imported from France and Spain. 4. All countries that have shorelines along the Baltic Sea, but where timber imports are concerned, most notably Denmark, Germany, Russia and Sweden. 5. Samuel Wilson, An Account of the Province of Carolina in America. Printed by G. Larkin for Francis Smith, London, 1682. 6. The slave trade with America and the West Indies operated on a triangular basis. British traders took goods such as brandy and guns to West Africa to exchange for slaves, and the human cargo was then taken across the Atlantic for sale in the West Indies and North America. The ships returned to Britain with the produce from the slave-labour plantations there, mostly sugar, molasses, cotton, tobacco and rum. 7. The Naval Stores Act of 1721 was one of several attempts

by the Government to mitigate the disruption of supplies of essential naval stores (timber, tar, hemp etc.) from Scandinavia and the Baltic states that followed the wars between Britain and France (1689-97 and 1702-13), wars in Europe, and wars between the Baltic states themselves, as well as to encourage trade in these goods with America. The Act offered to pay shipping merchants a premium to offset the extra cost of importing goods across the Atlantic. Reliance on the Baltic trade for naval timber did not end, and problems with supply arose again with the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1795-1814) during which the Government imposed high tariffs on Baltic timber (rising to 275% in 1807), only to reduce them radically in 1820. 8. Virginia walnut is a generic term and does not necessarily mean that the timber came specifically from Virginia.

Figure 5.4: Mahogany chest of unusual form, with deep drawer for teaspoons below, its front carved with Chinese-style blind fretwork, c. 1765. Private collection

Wood, Plain or Inlaid

Chapter Five: Wood, Plain or Inlaid Anne Stevens and Gillian Walkling1

Figure 5.1: Chest made of solid burr oak, c. 1750. Private collection

Figure 5.2: Chest veneered with imported satinwood, with oval panels of tulip wood, c. 1790-1800. Avon Antiques, Bradford-on-Avon

Figure 5.3: Miniature chest veneered with Virginia walnut and fitted with two tinplate tea canisters and a tinplate sugar canister, c. 1740. Private collection

decorative pattern before applying them to a flat surface; inlaying involves inserting a cut shape into a cavity of the same shape that has been cut out of a piece of wood, or other solid material.

Figure 5.4: Mahogany chest of unusual form, with deep drawer for teaspoons below, its front carved with Chinese-style blind fretwork, c. 1765. Private collection

Tunbridge Ware

Chapter Six: Tunbridge Ware Brian Austen

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Figure 6.1: Engraved view of Tunbridge Wells, Jan Kip, 1719. The marble basin for the spa water is in the centre of the picture, with the Upper and Lower Walks leading to it. Tunbridge Wells Borough Council t/a The Amelia

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unbridge ware’ is a term usually associated with a range of small wooden items (including tea chests and caddies) that were produced in the nineteenth century and were characteristically decorated with wood mosaics. The term, however, encompasses a much greater variety of finishes. It was in use from the late seventeenth century, and for a period of over 150 years thereafter it served to describe ranges of woodwares finished in a number of ways. Initially, it was employed loosely to denote wooden items that were decorative and regarded as superior to purely utilitarian objects, but from the last decade of the eighteenth century, Tunbridge wares became more distinctive. Between about 1790 and 1830, they were either whitewood items with painted or penwork decoration, sometimes in association with applied prints, or they were wood-veneered pieces embellished with prints or with parquetry or, occasionally, with conventional inlay. After about 1830 the term related to the now more familiar mosaic-decorated pieces, as well as to items adorned with miniature parquetry, a precursor to the mosaic. The term itself derives from Tunbridge Wells, the spa town in West Kent that was the main centre for the production and sale of the woodwares. The spring that provided the curative waters for the spa was identified as beneficial by Dudley, third Baron North, in the early seventeenth century. His influence at the royal court helped to spread the fame of the waters, and Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, was attracted to them in 1630. The site of the spring was far from ideal, for it was at a point where the boundaries of three parishes met, two in Kent and one in Sussex, and this hindered cohesive urban settlement; furthermore, commoners’ rights prevented building on land to the north and west of the spa site. The nearest town, Tonbridge, was five miles away and no main road connected it with the well. At first, this isolation kept visitors away, as did the Civil War and its aftermath. Even after the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, there was little to attract visitors other than the well itself. A marble basin for the spa water had been installed and the area around the spring had been paved, but the only structures were two or three public buildings and a few booths set up by traders. All this changed in the 1680s, when London entrepreneurs saw the opportunity for profit and moved in, mainly for the summer months. Lodging houses were built close at hand and, from 1682, shops were erected near the well along the Walks (known as the Parade by the beginning of the nineteenth century, with the name changing again towards the end, to the present designation of the Pantiles). The fashionable society of London found Tunbridge Wells easier to reach than Bath, and royal patronage became frequent, with visits by Catherine of Braganza, James Duke of York, and the Princesses Mary and Anne. When Celia Fiennes arrived in 1697, she noted the existence of ‘Lodgings for the Company that drinke ye waters’, along with ‘two Large Coffee houses for tea, Chocolate &c, and two Roomes for ye Lottery and Hazard board’, plus a bowling green and an assembly room for dancing. She observed the goods on sale in the shops, ‘all sorts of toys, silver [and] China’; her attention was especially taken by the ‘curious wooden ware, which this place is noted for (the delicate, neate and thin ware of wood both white and Lignum Vitae)’.1

This is the first known reference to the sale of woodwares in Tunbridge Wells, and reflects the fact that visitors to the well would have required their own goblets (probably of lignum vitae) to drink the waters; they would have also sought gifts for relatives and friends prior to returning home. By the time of Celia Fienne’s visit, there were probably shopkeepers who resided in the town throughout the year, though business would have been limited in the months from November to April when the company was absent. The level of commercial development was such that by 1700 more than twenty-five shops fronted the Upper Walks, while the Lower Walks had an additional twenty establishments.2 The burgeoning activity in the vicinity of the well can be seen in a 1719 view by Jan Kip (Figure 6.1). For a slightly later picture showing the throng of visitors to the area in the 1740s, see Chapter 3: Making, Merchandising and Pricing, Figure 3.13. Initially, the goods aimed at the visitors were mostly sourced from London. In fact, the earliest known use of the term ‘Tunbridge’ in relation to woodwares is in a London context: in 1686 a Mary Ferguson, who is thought to have been involved in the making of such wooden articles in the capital, is recorded as sending whitewood boxes and some Tunbridge items to Holland to be lacquered3. Indeed, the name ‘Tunbridge ware’ may well have been coined in the capital to describe highly finished and decorated wooden boxes and turnery wares suited to the Tunbridge Wells trade. The manufacture of such items was well established in London by the late seventeenth century, and some London-based Tunbridge ware makers of the period can be identified from trade bills. In the eighteenth century the number of references to Tunbridge wares on offer in London increases. For example, Joseph Cooper, a turner trading from the Crown & Bowl near St Sepulchre’s Church in about 1760, was advertising an assortment of goods, amongst them ‘Tunbridge Wares’ and ‘Tea Chests of the Most Curious English & Foreign Woods’, and in about 1768, another turner, Gerard Crawley, located at the Coffee Mill & Nimble Ninepence in Cornhill, was offering ‘Tunbridge & all other Turnery Wares’ plus ‘a variety of Tea Chests’ and other items4 (Figure 6.2). In the second half of the eighteenth century and the early decades of the nineteenth century, Tunbridge ware makers in London are often listed in directories. So, it is not surprising that when Betsy Sheridan, sister of the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, visited Tunbridge Wells in October 1785, she declined to purchase a Tunbridge ware writing box until she returned to London ‘as I find they are chiefly made there and sold much more reasonable’5. Even so, London makers continued to set up shop in the spa town during the summer months until well into the early decades of the nineteenth century. The production of specialist woodwares in Tunbridge Wells and its vicinity had begun to develop by the early eighteenth century. One of the first records relating to woodworking in Tunbridge Wells dates from 1713, when Richard Vintman, described as a ‘hollow turner’, took an apprentice6. (Vintman’s trade would have encompassed the manufacture of wooden bowls, basins and drinking vessels.) As the century progressed, the names of local turners as well as of toy makers and sellers increasingly arise in leases for properties on the Walks in Tunbridge Wells. The earliest known reference to a Tunbridge ware tea container occurs in a letter written in 1762. Samuel Derrick, Master of Ceremonies in the Assembly Rooms at both Bath and Tunbridge Wells, was at the latter spa in September of that year and observed that ‘useful things, and some of the most curious toys I ever saw, are said to be the manufacture of the place: they are formed out of yew, cherry, holly, &c. of which this neighbourhood yields great plenty: their polish is high; the inlaying and veneering very beautiful’. Among his purchases was ‘the prettiest tea-chest I could lay my hands upon’.7 Thomas Benge Burr, the first historian of Tunbridge Wells and a contemporary of Derrick, noted that ‘tea-chests’ were one of the products traded in the town and listed a comparable range of woods being employed. He also stated that ‘The trade of Tunbridge-Wells is similar to that of the Spa in Germany’8, presumably because

1. Celia Fiennes, The Journeys of Celia Fiennes, 1702. Reprint, Christopher Morris (ed.), Cresset Press, London, 1949, pp. 132-5. 2. Christopher Chalklin, ‘The making of some new towns c. 1600-1720’, in C.W. Chalklin and M. A. Hammond (eds), Rural Change and Urban Growth 1500-1800, Longman, London, 1974, pp. 233, 248; Alan Savidge, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Midas Books, Tunbridge Wells, 1975, pp. 34-5, 41-4. 3. Calendar of Treasury Books: Preserved in the Public Record Office, HMSO, London, 1923, Vol. 8 (1685-1689), Pt 2, p. 1051, 8 December 1686.

Figure 6.2: Trade card of Gerard Crawley, a turner ‘At the Coffee Mill & Nimble Ninepence In Cornhill London’, c. 1768. Courtesy of Bishopsgate Institute, London

4. Ambrose Heal, The London Furniture Makers, Batsford, London, 1953, pp. 39, 41, 43. 5. William Lefanu (ed.), Betsy Sheridan’s Journal, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1960, p. 76. 6. Kent County Archives, U749/T16, P371/14/3-4. 7. Samuel Derrick, Letters written from Leverpoole, Chester, Corke, the Lake of Killarney, Dublin, Tunbridge-Wells, and Bath, L. Davies & C. Reymers, London, 1767, Vol. II, letter XXIX ‘To the Rev. Mr … …’, pp. 65-6. 8. Thomas Benge Burr, The History of Tunbridge-Wells, M. Hingeston et al., London and Tunbridge Wells, 1766, pp. 107-8.

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Figure 6.2: Trade card of Gerard Crawley, a turner ‘At the Coffee Mill & Nimble Ninepence In Cornhill London’, c. 1768. Courtesy of Bishopsgate Institute, London

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Mother-of-Pearl

Chapter Twelve: Mother-of-Pearl Gillian Walkling

nother foreign material used in Britain for decorating tea chests and caddies was mother-of-pearl, a hard, brittle substance with an iridescent surface displaying a wide range of subtle colours. Although, strictly speaking, mother-of-pearl comes from the pearl oyster – hence its name – the term is also used to describe the lustrous calcium carbonate lining found inside the shells of other molluscs1. In his Historie of the World, written in the first century AD2, Pliny the Elder referred to ‘the shell that is the mother of Pearle’ and to ‘Sundry sorts of other shell fish … that … beare pearles and therof be called Mother-pearles’. Mother-of-pearl has been highly valued in the West since Classical times, and in the Far East it was employed for the making and adornment of ornamental items much earlier. Chinese craftsmen used it particularly for carving, but also for decorative inlay on both hardwood and lacquered furniture. The Chinese introduced the practice of inlaying it to Japan, and consequently various forms of mother-of-pearl inlay were applied to lacquered items produced in both countries. By the sixteenth century, pearl shell was also in use in Europe, mostly for the manufacture of small articles such as knife handles, fan sticks and gaming counters. In addition, small pieces of cut pearl might be used to cover the exteriors of boxes and drinking vessels, and entire shells were sometimes polished and then mounted in gold. Alongside other exotic materials, motherof-pearl was occasionally utilised by European cabinetmakers for decorative inlays on wooden furniture, but, being brittle and therefore difficult to work, it was generally less popular with furniture makers than ivory or tortoiseshell3. Prior to the middle of the seventeenth century, such inlaid work was far more sophisticated in Continental Europe than in Britain, and particularly so in France, Italy and Holland. Shells were also valued in their natural state – as curios, as decorative objects and as items of scientific interest. Collecting precious natural materials and works of art and science became increasingly common practice in European noble and royal households in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and elaborate cabinets, suitably decorated with precious materials – which often included mother-of-pearl – were specifically designed to house such collections. Craftsmen in South Germany, and particularly in Augsburg, became famous throughout the Continent for making such pieces. Until the nineteenth century, the majority of shells used for ornamental purposes in Europe were harvested from the Indian and Pacific Oceans, in waters close to the established trade routes from China and India, and so were purchased by merchants alongside other Eastern goods. Peter Osbeck, who travelled to Canton on the Swedish East India Company’s ship, Prince Charles, between 1750 and 1752, noted that 2,165 pounds of mother-of-pearl were amongst the ship’s return goods.4 During the nineteenth century, when demand for mother-of-pearl substantially increased, particularly in Britain where craftsmen became more adept at working with the material, Australian and American coastal waters also became a major source of shells. John Phipps, writing about British trade with China and the Far East in 1835, commented that mother-of-pearl was one of the most important cargoes traded in that year. The variety of shells used by craftsmen at various times was wide-ranging, but those most commonly associated with the mother-of-pearl trade were the large Oyster, the black Tahiti, the Haliotis (a group of shells commonly known as Abalone), the Awabe or ‘Japan’ shell (sometimes called Aurora), the Trochus, and

1. Mother-of-pearl is sometimes known by the technical name ‘nacre’. 2. The Historie of the World, Commonly called, THE NATURALL HISTORIE OF C. PLINIUS SECUNDUS, Translated into English by PHILEMON HOLLAND, Doctor in Physic, Book IX, 1601. Quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, Vol. IX, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989. 3. Examples can be seen in Ralph Edwards and Percy Macquoid, The Dictionary of English Furniture, revised edition,

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Vol. 2, Country Life, London, 1954, and in Percy Macquoid, A History of English Furniture,Vol. I, The Age of Oak, 1500-1660, The Medici Society in conjunction with Lawrence & Bullen, London, 1923. 4. Peter (Pehr) Osbeck, A Voyage to China and the East Indies, translated from German, Benjamin White, London, 1771,Vol. II, p. 37. Quoted in M. Jourdain and R. Soame Jenyns, Chinese Export Art in the Eighteenth Century, Spring Books, Feltham, 1967, p. 60; first published by Country Life, London, 1950.

various snail shells, in particular the Green Snail5. The colour of the mother-of-pearl varies according to both the variety and, to a lesser extent, the geographical source of the shell, and may range from the lustrous milky white of the large Oyster to the slightly pink sheen of the Awabe, and from the faint greyish-green tinge of the Green Snail to the much deeper greens and turquoise blues of the Abalone. Until the end of the eighteenth century, British cabinetmakers used pearl shell for inlay on furniture only rarely, partly because elaborately inlaid furniture had never been very fashionable in Britain, and partly because, as a consequence, makers lacked the expertise and the necessary tools to exercise the technique. However, mother-ofpearl was increasingly employed from around 1750 onwards by specialist craftsmen working in the fancy goods trade – particularly in Birmingham – who used it to make small carved items such as snuff boxes, handles for cutlery, and buttons. Occasionally, pieces of shell were applied in the form of veneer to various other small boxes, including, after about 1770, tea caddies (Figure 12.1). Where eighteenth-century mother-of-pearl chests, rather than caddies, are concerned though, their history began a little earlier and followed much the same path as those made in ivory (see Chapter 11: Ivory). From around 1750, finely carved pearl boxes were acquired in China by East India Company agents and the officers and crew of their chartered ships, and then fitted out as tea chests on arrival in Britain. Surviving examples display considerable technical skill. Most have blindfretwork patterns of flowers and foliage (Figures 12.2a and b), but some examples have central panels on each side of shallow carving depicting Chinese figurative and landscape scenes; a few, such as that in Figure 12.3, display classical or mythological subjects that were copied from contemporary European engravings sent to China for the purpose. Later, around 1800, Chinese makers employed a slightly different style of decoration, in which large sections of the mother-ofpearl carving were fully pierced and then overlaid on coloured silk or paper. Some incorporate small panels of painted glass showing Chinese figures and animals. Unlike their Chinese ivory counterparts, mother-ofpearl tea chests were constructed with a wooden carcass. Many of these chests were equipped with British-made silver handles, feet and escutcheons, although examples are also known that are already fitted with mounts made of Chinese silver, a lesser-quality metal. The majority were given canisters made either entirely of silver (Figure 12.2b), or of glass, with silver lids. Examples of the latter appear in records of the sales of the London auctioneers, Christie’s. For example,

Figure 12.2a: Chinese mother-of-pearl chest, c. 1760. Panels of carved fretwork motherof-pearl; decorative silver mounts; contains three silver canisters by Samuel Herbert & Company, London, 1760-1. Thomas Coulborn & Sons Ltd

5. Sue Perfect, The Birmingham Pearlies, George Hook & Co., Smethwick, West Midlands, 2001, p. 19. George Hook & Co.,

Figure 12.1: Mother-of-pearl caddy, c. 1790. Veneered with mother-of-pearl engraved with neoclassical decoration. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Figure 12.2b: View of interior and canisters of chest in Figure 12.2a.

the last pearl working firm remaining in Birmingham, was established in 1824.

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5. Sue Perfect, The Birmingham Pearlies, George Hook & Co., Smethwick, West Midlands, 2001, p. 19. George Hook & Co.,

Figure 12.1: Mother-of-pearl caddy, c. 1790. Veneered with mother-of-pearl engraved with neoclassical decoration. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Figure 12.2b: View of interior and canisters of chest in Figure 12.2a.

the last pearl working firm remaining in Birmingham, was established in 1824.

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Chapter Sixteen: Papier Mâché Anne Stevens and Yvonne Jones

apier mâché is a substance with a long history. Made of paper bound with glue or paste, it seems to have originated in Asia – Persia is often cited as the country where it was first made1. It arrived in Europe sometime in the seventeenth century, and by the mid-eighteenth century was used extensively in Britain to make decorative architectural ornaments and articles such as mirror frames. Ornaments could be made more cheaply in this material because moulds, rather than labour-intensive wood-carving, could be employed to produce elaborate shapes. However, these were products of a branch of the papier mâché industry that was completely separate from the one being considered here – the use of papier mâché as a base for japanning. The idea of japanning on papier mâché began in France in about 1740. In 1747, The London Tradesman noted ‘a late French invention of Snuff-boxes … made of the same Materials as Paper; [which] are to be had at Paris of any Colour, but are most commonly Black … They are made of Linnen-Rags beat to a Pulp … [which once drained and dried] … coheres together in a hard uniform Lump, out of which they turn upon the Leath [lathe], Boxes, or any other kind of Toys, which for their Novelty fetch a large Price’.2 Against the background of these activities in France, the japanning of papier mâché was introduced in Birmingham in the 1750s and, by the 1770s, the process was on its way to generating a hugely successful industry which lasted for the next hundred years or so. It was centred on those towns where the japanning of metal was already established: first in Birmingham, then in Wolverhampton and later, and to a lesser extent, in London (see Chapter 15: Japanned Metal). Appealing to a more fashionable clientele, japanned papier mâché products soon overshadowed their less expensive metal counterparts. The material also attracted attention because it was comparatively light in weight but still strong, and so could be exploited in place of wood or metal when weight mattered; a notable application was in panels for coaches and sedan chairs, where less weight could mean greater speed. These uses are reflected in the comments of Georg Lichtenberg, a German traveller who, in 1775, visited the manufactory of Henry Clay, Birmingham’s leading japanner at the time. Writing to a friend in October of that year, he mentioned the japanned goods he had seen there, among which were ‘paper-boxes, tea-caddies, and panels for coaches and sedan chairs, for in London they are now driving in paper coaches’3. Throughout the course of the industry, a diverse range of objects was manufactured, varying from furniture to tiny buttons, and including tea trays, tea chests and caddies. The articles were frequently made in the same workshops as japanned metalwares and often decorated by the same hands, so, with their typical black grounds and gilded and painted decoration, there was a striking resemblance between the two products, although the decoration of papier mâché was generally superior. There is, however, a minor difference in terminology between the two: japanned metal is standardly qualified by the word ‘japanned’, whereas japanned papier mâché is not qualified in that way and is usually referred to just as ‘papier mâché’; initially, though, it was labelled simply as ‘paper’ as in the ‘paper-boxes’ mentioned by Georg Lichtenberg above, or alternatively as ‘paper ware’. Papier mâché items fall broadly into two main periods: the earlier wares, from the late 1750s until about 1830 when, in keeping with the prevailing taste, the shapes and decoration were quite restrained (Figure 16.1); and the later wares, generally associated with the Victorian era when, with growing awareness of the remarkable plasticity of this ‘new’ material, shapes became more curvaceous, and novel decorative techniques allowed for an abundance of elaborate ornament (Figure 16.2). The later period reached its apex at the time of the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, at which a number of firms exhibited papier mâché wares, some of which were criticised for being excessively ornate. Following the Great Exhibition, the quality of wares declined as manufacturers faced mounting competition over their staple product – the

1. Papier mâché items are still made, for example, in Kashmir and Russia. 2. Robert Campbell, The London Tradesman, Calculated for the Information of Parents and the Instruction of Youth in their Choice of Business, printed by T. Gardner, London, 1747, p. 125.

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3. Georg Lichtenberg, Lichtenberg’s Visits to England as described in his Letters and Diaries, Margaret Mare and W.H. Quarrell (trans and eds), Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1938, Letter 18, 16 October 1775, p. 98.

Figure 16.1: Papier mâché caddy, c. 1785. Black japanned ground; band of gilded neoclassical decoration around body, with gilded border of grapes and vine leaves on lid. Private collection

tea tray4: the development of electroplating5 meant that anyone with social aspirations could now own a ‘silver’ tray at relatively modest cost, so demand for papier mâché trays slumped. By 1880, papier mâché wares were no longer fashionable, and the demise of the industry became inevitable.6 During the last quarter of the eighteenth century and the early decades of the next, papier mâché articles like trays and tea caddies were made in considerable numbers and the majority were unmarked. Obviously, this makes attribution difficult. Significant exceptions were the well-known firms of Henry Clay in the earlier period, and Jennens & Bettridge in the later years, both of which assiduously marked many of their products. This has led to the mistaken belief that they were without rival and that all good but unmarked examples of papier mâché may be attributed to their factories, so much so that their names are used today as shorthand for the better pieces from each period. Notwithstanding, it will be seen from the chests and caddies discussed here, that tentative attributions to Clay’s factory, based on stylistic grounds, are not wholly unrealistic.

Figure 16.2: Papier mâché caddy, c. 1840-50. Black japanned ground; floral decoration on all sides and lid, highlighted with mother-of-pearl overpainted with coloured varnishes. Woolley & Wallis Salisbury Salerooms Ltd

Earlier wares (1750s – c. 1830) While Henry Clay was the outstanding maker of papier mâché wares in England during the eighteenth century, there were other contemporary makers also in Birmingham, the most noteworthy of whom were Stephen Bedford and Boulton & Fothergill. Although initially a japanner of metal, Stephen Bedford (fl. 1755-73) may have been responsible for introducing the japanning of papier mâché to Birmingham. Notwithstanding, it was certainly he who ensured the commercial future of the Midlands japanning industry by perfecting a varnish that would protect the decorated parts of japanned surfaces. The need for this was obviously a matter of concern, because in 1757 the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, & Commerce offered a ‘Premium’ (prize) to anyone who could make a ‘transparent and colourless varnish, equal in all respects to Martin’s at Paris7, commonly called Copal varnish; the properties whereof are great Hardness, perfect transparency without discolouring any painting it is laid over, being capable of the finest

4. Papier mâché (and japanned metal) tea trays were usually produced in matching sets of three in graded sizes. Affording ample area for high-quality decoration, they exhibit some of the finest ornamental work seen on japanned items. 5. Commercial electroplating was patented in 1840 by Elkington & Co., prominent Birmingham metalwork manufacturers. 6. For further details of the industry during both the earlier

and later periods, see Yvonne Jones, Japanned Papier Mâché and Tinware c. 1740-1940, Antique Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge, 2012, Chapters VII-XI inc. 7. Guillaume Martin, of the celebrated Martin family of artist craftsmen in Paris, had perfected a brilliant translucent varnish (vernis Martin) for which he was granted a patent in 1730. By 1740, he had begun to make decorated papier mâché.

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Figure 16.1: Papier mâché caddy, c. 1785. Black japanned ground; band of gilded neoclassical decoration around body, with gilded border of grapes and vine leaves on lid. Private collection

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Ceramic Tea Containers

Chapter Nineteen: Ceramic Tea Containers Sally Kevill-Davies

Figure 19.1: A Family at Tea by Richard Collins (active 1726-1732), c. 1727, showing a family taking tea from Chinese porcelain tea bowls and saucers with a tea equipage of contemporary English silver. A similar painting by Collins, showing the same silver equipage, belongs to the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

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hen tea drinking first became popular in the second half of the seventeenth century, ceramic wares in the form of imported Chinese porcelain tea cups and saucers began to feature on the tea table. By the end of the century, porcelain tea canisters were also being imported from China, but in much smaller numbers than other tea-related items. It would appear that although the higher echelons of Society preferred to actually drink their tea from porcelain cups, for the most part they favoured silver accessories for the remainder of their tea equipage. Eighteenth-century conversation piece paintings, which began to appear during the 1720s, invariably show figures drinking tea from Chinese porcelain tea bowls and saucers, but with silver teapots, milk jugs, sugar basins, teaspoons, and sometimes silver tea canisters, on the table (Figure 19.1). The period of greatest production of British ceramic tea canisters was the second half of the eighteenth century. During the early years of porcelain manufacture in England, about 1745-60, this fragile material was not capable of holding hot beverages and so relatively few teawares in the medium were made before the mid-1750s. At this date, the quantity of cheaper imported blue and white porcelain from China still far outweighed the number of teawares made in England, in porcelain and pottery put together. However, due to technological advances in both pottery and porcelain manufacture, and to the fall in the price of tea after the Commutation Act of 1784, the number of British ceramic canisters produced rose dramatically during the 1780s and 90s, only to fall away almost completely after about 1800-20, when canisters made of many less vulnerable and more practical alternatives were available. Interestingly, with the exception of some Chinese examples, ceramic tea canisters are not found encased in lockable wooden or other tea chests, despite being particularly susceptible to damage. Breakage was especially likely for the cap lids of the canisters, which were frequently taken off and used to measure out the tea, the canister necks being too narrow to accommodate a caddy spoon. When the lids were broken or lost, replacements were often made in wood, tinplate or even silver. Today collectors tend to be forgiving about absent or replacement lids, as they are very often missing altogether. Original lids are a bonus. Until the middle of the eighteenth century, teawares were not sold in complete services, but were most commonly put together by ceramics retailers – or ‘Chinamen’ – according to their customers’ requirements, and it is clear that not every tea equipage bought included a canister. In towns and cities the ‘Chinamen’ generally sold both local and imported ceramics at their shops and often stocked coffee, chocolate and tea, and sometimes other oriental goods as well. Joseph Collyer, in the Parent’s and Guardian’s Directory (1761) advised that the Chinaman ‘principally deals in foreign China, but sometimes in glass and the finer sorts of home made earthen ware. This is reckoned a genteel business, and requires a large stock to set up, especially if the China-men sell tea, as many of them do’1. ‘Toymen’, purveyors of bijouteries and fashionable trinkets, also sold such items, and members of the Glass Sellers’ Company were allowed by their Charter to sell pottery alongside their glass. John Gulliford, a Southwark merchant, included in his trade card of 1730 ‘all sorts of Red White and painted Earthen Ware, white and brown Stone Ware’, alongside glasswares, and tea, coffee, chocolate and snuff (Figure 19.2). In 1747, The London Tradesman stated that ‘The Earthen-Ware Shop is a Dependant on the Pot-House: They buy their Goods from several Houses in England, from Holland, and at sales of the East-India Company. They generally deal in Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate’2. Some dealers sold canisters ready-filled with tea. An invoice from John Fleetwood, a Chinaman and glass-seller

1. Joseph Collyer, The Parent’s and Guardian’s Directory, and the Youth’s Guide, in the Choice of a Profession or Trade, R. Griffiths, Strand, London, 1761, ‘Of the CHINA-MAN’, p. 101. 2. R. Campbell, The London Tradesman, Calculated for the

Information of Parents and the Instruction of Youth in their Choice of Business, T. Gardner, London, 1747, Chapter 35, Section 3, ‘Of the Earthen-Ware-Shop’, p. 188.

in Leadenhall Street, London, dated 10 October 1757, included ‘1 Pound Green Tea & Cannister £0. 10. 6’ and ‘1 Pound Bohea Tea & Cannister £0. 5. 6.’. Not all dealers restricted themselves to new goods. In 1740, Hannah Tatum, who traded ‘At the Sign of the Anchor and Chair, over-against the Castle Tavern in Fleet-Street, London’, sold ‘all sorts of new and old China, Delf and Earthenware’, and even part-exchanged ‘all Sorts of fine China for left-off Cloaths’3, adding weight to the notion that far too many London ladies were depleting their wardrobes to fill their china closets. In his tongue-in-cheek book Directions to Servants (1745), Jonathan Swift railed against ‘that execrable Custom got among Ladies of trucking their old Cloaths for China’4. In the same way that it was ladies who presided over the tea table, collecting ceramics, in particular oriental porcelain, had also been a feminine occupation from an early date: in the 18 March 1714 edition of The Spectator, Richard Addison noted that ‘China vessels are playthings for women of all ages’5. In fact, for some ladies both tea-drinking and porcelain-collecting had become something of an obsession, perhaps best-described as ‘China mania’. William Hogarth’s satirical painting, Taste in High Life, published (without his permission) as an etching in 1746 (Figure 19.3), includes a ridiculously-bewigged man and an over-dressed woman enthusing together over a tiny Chinese tea cup and saucer. British-made pottery and porcelain was offered to the public in sales organised by the manufacturers themselves at their premises or in their showrooms. Some of the most successful factories, such as Wedgwood and the Leeds Pottery, produced printed Catalogues of Shapes for their travelling representatives to show to shop owners in other parts of the country. Wedgwood, and some other large firms, opened showrooms in London to attract members of fashionable metropolitan Society. At the other end of the scale, itinerant ‘basket women’, as well as male sellers, carried baskets of cheap pottery on their backs and hawked them in rural areas, graduating to a donkey or pack-horse as their profits increased. Other venues for trade were the large number of markets and larger fairs that took place throughout England. Before British ceramic canisters are considered fully, it is important to understand the roots from which they sprang. Porcelain, or ‘China’, was first made in China from around the thirteenth century. In the 1290s, Marco Polo compared it to a cowrie shell, porcello in Italian, hence its western name.6 It is worth noting here that the word ‘china’ was used fairly indiscriminately during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to describe both pottery and porcelain, whether of oriental, Continental or British origin; confusingly, the term ‘China-ware’ could be used to describe any item that had been made in China, as well as referring more specifically to Chinese ceramics. Chinese porcelain was a white, hard translucent material which could be moulded or thrown to form vessels as thin as shell but, more importantly, it was tough enough to withstand the onslaught of boiling liquid. This made it ideal as a vessel for the new hot beverages of tea, coffee and chocolate when they were introduced into Britain during the seventeenth century. By around 1700, Chinese porcelain teawares had become extremely popular, and in the early eighteenth century began to be imported in bulk. In March 1721, the sale of tea porcelain brought back to Britain ‘By the Sarum’ (one of several Company ships to return from China that year) included 77,336 blue and white and 26,544 painted (coloured), cups and saucers, 2,819 sugar dishes (with covers and plates), 2,095 slop basins, 2,129 teapots, 2,878 milk ‘pots’, and 2,958 tea canisters (1,761 blue and white and 1,197 painted)7. The Chinese were very quick to adapt their designs to satisfy European demand; traditional Chinese potiche8 forms were combined with flask and bottle shapes borrowed from contemporary European metalwork and glass. Continental silver toilet sets in particular, which contained flat-sided flasks for powder

3. The London Evening Post, 10/13 May 1740, quoted in Nancy Valpy, ‘Extracts from 18th Century London Newspapers’, English Ceramic Circle Transactions, English Ceramic Circle, London, Vol. 15, pt. 2, 1994, p. 314. 4. Bevis Hillier, Pottery and Porcelain, 1700-1914, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, 1968, p. 190. 5. Ibid, p. 267. 6. Marco Polo (c. 1254-1324) was a Venetian merchant and adventurer who travelled from Europe to Asia in 1271-95. He

recorded his travels with the writer Rustichello de Pisa in a book Livres des Merveilles du Monde (commonly known as the Travels of Marco Polo) in about 1300. 7. British Library, Archives and Manuscripts, Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections, IOR/H/14, Sales of Goods in London, 1715-1722. 8. A tall, round vase that tapers at the top and has a removable cover.

Figure 19.2: Trade Card of John Gulliford, c. 1730, showing silver canisters of contemporary rectangular shape, a form much copied in ceramics. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London Figure 19.3: Etching by Samuel Phillips, first published in May 1746, after William Hogarth’s painting Taste in High Life. A man and woman are admiring a tiny Chinese porcelain cup and its saucer. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1932 (32.35/51)

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Information of Parents and the Instruction of Youth in their Choice of Business, T. Gardner, London, 1747, Chapter 35, Section 3, ‘Of the Earthen-Ware-Shop’, p. 188.

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Miscellaneous Materials

Chapter Twenty-Two: Miscellaneous Materials Anne Stevens1

number of tea chests and caddies were made or decorated with materials that do not fit readily into any of the categories covered in previous chapters. They range from sophisticated pieces made by professional craftsmen and ornamented using, for example, horn, marble or shagreen, to pieces decorated by talented amateurs with relatively inexpensive, and sometimes surprising, materials such as shells, birds’ feathers or embroidery. For such decoration, amateurs would have been able to purchase ready-made caddies with recessed panels designed specifically to accommodate the applied ornamentation, in the same way that they could for rolled paper work (see Chapter 13: Rolled Paper Work). With the exception of shagreen, the tea containers included in this chapter are now very rare, but they serve to illustrate the imagination and creativity of their makers.

Bone Although bone was now and again used instead of ivory to make escutcheons for tea containers, it was rarely employed more extensively to decorate the containers themselves. Only a few examples of such bone decoration are known and these are mostly attributed to Napoleonic prisoners-of-war, whose story is discussed fully in Chapter 14: Straw Work. In the introduction to a catalogue of his collection of Napoleonic prisonerof-war artefacts, Clive Gomshall-Lloyd drew attention to a tradition of ivory carving in France: ‘Dieppe was the centre of European trade with the Ivory Coast, and the port was famous for its ivory carvers and the ship models which had been popular long before the beginning of the Napoleonic wars’2. Building upon this tradition, some of the Napoleonic prisoners detained in Britain were able to use their skills to produce a wide range of articles from bone, which was available in large quantities from the prison meat rations.3

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Figure 22.1: Caddy decorated with bone, probably made by a Napoleonic prisoner-of-war, c. 1800. Carved and pierced bone mounted on a pine carcass covered with gold-coloured foil; iron lock. Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery

Figure 22.2: Caddy decorated with bone, probably made by a Napoleonic prisoner-of-war, c. 1800. Panels of engraved bone fixed to a wooden carcass; brass mounts. The right-hand panel at the front of the caddy, when moved to one side, reveals a small bone panel painted with a risqué image of a young woman. The Old Malt House, Hungerford

1. With additional material provided by Kate Richenburg, Noël Riley and Gillian Walkling. 2. Introduction by Clive Gomshall-Lloyd to The Lloyd Collection of Napoleonic Prisoner-of-War Artefacts, catalogue for an exhibition organised by John T. Rinaldi, Nautical Antiques,

Kennebunkport, Maine, USA, and held at Kennebunkport Maritime Museum, June-September 1986. 3. Clive L. Lloyd, A History of Napoleonic and American Prisoners of War 1756-1816, Volume 2, The Arts and Crafts, Antique Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge, 2007, p. 105.

The prisoners’ output in bone was extensive and included mechanical models such as spinning jennies and guillotines (the latter complete with beheaded victims and watching guards) and, perhaps best known, elaborate models of fully-rigged ships. Among the more useful items were needlework tools, watch stands, pipe tampers and apple corers. The prisoners also made an array of boxes, ranging from small containers for snuff and for miniature domino sets to larger boxes for needlework or games and, on occasion, for tea. As in the case of articles decorated with straw, the manufacture of these bone objects would have been a collaborative effort among the prisoners. Unskilled workers would have prepared the bones by first boiling them (a process that also produced a useful form of adhesive), then scraping and smoothing them ready for the semi-skilled to cut and slice into suitable sections. Next, the most skilled artisans would carve, turn, pierce or engrave the bone before returning the pieces to the unskilled workers for bleaching: because the bits of bone were now relatively small, bleaching could achieve a uniform whiteness which would not have been possible with larger chunks. Finally, the craftsmen assembled the end product which, in the case of caddies and other larger boxes, would have required a wooden carcass; this would have been provided by other prisoners who were engaged in woodwork.4 Many of the bone items produced by the prisoners were of very fine quality, as evidenced by the spectacular bone-decorated caddy shown in Figure 22.1. It was given to Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery in 1913 by a local resident and may well have been purchased at Norman Cross, the large depot for prisoners-of-war just outside the town, where inmates were able to sell their work to the public at a special prison market.5 The elaborate piercing, with its neoclassically inspired motifs, is backed with gold-coloured foil and is fixed in place with tiny bone pegs, a technique seen on other types of box and casket associated with Napoleonic prisoners-of-war. Whereas the caddy considered above is stylish and elegant, less sophisticated and somewhat risqué pieces were occasionally made. The unusual caddy in Figure 22.2 has panels of engraved bone on a pine carcass; when a section of the front is pulled aside, it reveals a panel decorated in polychrome with a saucy image of a young lady with her breasts exposed. Although no doubt this caddy would have caused much amusement, it would have been classified by the prison authorities as an ‘obscene toy’, the sale of which was strictly forbidden.

Horn Over the centuries the horns of cattle, sheep, goats and other animals have been used to make or decorate an assortment of articles, including snuff mulls, beakers, combs, hunting horns, lantern panes and, on occasion, tea chests and caddies (although sometimes only in the form of stringing).6 Horn is a tough semi-transparent substance composed of keratin, which is also the basis of hooves and finger nails. Its plasticity, especially when soaked and/or heated, makes it a versatile material that can be cut or pressed into a variety of forms. While it can be left in its rough state, more often it is cut and polished: it can also be dyed to provide variety or to simulate other materials. Its many qualities were succinctly summed up by Charles H. Read, a leading light at the British Museum, in Some Minor Arts as Practised in England: ‘The brilliancy and evenness of the surface, the wide range of colours that can be produced, its almost plastic nature, and under ordinary conditions its durability, point it out as an admirable vehicle for artistic expression, if not in the higher walks of art’7. The preparation of horn was a multi-stage process. Removed from the animal, the horn was separated, by prolonged soaking, from the boney core that had held it in place on the skull. The solid pointed end was then sawn off for use in making knife handles, buttons and other small items, leaving a hollow section of horn where the core had been. The resulting cylinder was either left whole, or sawn into cross-sections, depending on its intended use. To produce flat sheets or ‘plates’ of horn, these pieces were immersed in boiling water and then heated further over a fire so as to make them very soft before they were cut open lengthwise and flattened out as much as possible. They were then placed between heated, greased iron plates and pressure was applied to flatten them further and to reduce their thickness. The thickness could be reduced still more by repeating the process and/or by scraping down the surface. Very thin sheets, for

4. Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 105, 111, 113-16. 5. Prisoners were held in the depot at Norman Cross, near Peterborough, from 1797 to 1814. It was specially built for the Napoleonic prisoners-of-war and, at its height, could house at least 7,000 detainees. Thomas J. Walker, The Depot for Prisonersof-War at Norman Cross, Constable, London, 1913, pp. 1, 48.

6. For an alphabetical list of horn articles, see Paula Hardwick, Discovering Horn, Lutterworth Press, Guildford, 1981, Appendix IV, p. 180. 7. Charles H. Read, ‘English work in impressed horn’, Some Minor Arts as Practised in England, Seeley & Co., London, 1894, p. 1.

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