Managing a Collection

QUESTIONS: I love collecting things and have been doing it a long time. But I now find I really don’t know exactly what I have. Can you give me some advice on how to manage my collections?

ANSWERS: Lots of people collect things, but unfortunately that’s where it stops. They love the act of collecting but do nothing to manage their collections. Collecting things can be addictive. And over time collections can become so large that people lose sight of what they actually have. To truly enjoy the entire collecting experience, it’s necessary to do three things—organize, document, and curate. 

Private collections often start with one or two items—perhaps a unique old lamp or an old crock. At first, a person will treasure a few objects and know their every feature. But as the objects multiply, they’ll forget where they found an object or anything about it.

The first step in managing a collection is to organize it. This can be as simple as displaying the objects in an attractive way or in groups by subject matter. If the objects aren’t placed on view, neither the collector nor his or her family and friends will get to enjoy them. Some people purchase expensive display cabinets for to hold their collections. Those with glass doors are especially good for small to medium-sized delicate or fragile pieces or those that are more valuable. Larger objects may have to be displayed on open shelves or in other ways. It’s important to allow room for the collection to grow. If most of the collection cannot be displayed, then it may be time to stop. Some collectors rotate their collections, so they can enjoy different pieces.

It’s also a good idea to display smaller groups of objects together in different locations within a home. Viewers can be overwhelmed if an entire collection appears together.

The next step in managing a collection is to document it. Taking an inventory of a collection is imperative for several reasons. A collector needs to know what’s in his or her collection, as well as the relative value of each piece. While this will increase or decrease over time, it’s good to have a general idea what a piece is worth.

Cataloguing a collection can record the details about each piece, document the artifacts for insurance, and form a framework to keep similar objects together. It’s also important to know where an object came from.

Some types of documents may already be available, or can be easily acquired, such as sales receipts, a note accompanying a gift, a snapshot, a printed description, a program from an exhibit, biographical information on the artist or maker, a description and picture of a similar object perhaps from a newspaper, magazine, or the Internet, and a copy of a mark on the object. 

If an object has been passed down within a family, then its family history should be noted—who first purchased it, who owned it and when. The objects in specialized  collections— furniture, dolls, quilts, kitchen utensils, guns, tools, even sports and music memorabilia—are prime candidates for documentation. Documentation is important for  insurance, family heritage, preparing for appraisal, certain types of tax benefits, and connoisseurship.

In case of theft, loss or damage by fire, flood or national disasters, you need to prove ownership of any object claimed, and provide descriptions with supporting information in order to be compensated or to help the police identify and recover your stolen valuables. 

There are three ways to catalogue your collections. All of them are rather simple. The first uses standard 3 x 5 or 5 x 8-inch cards and a notebook, or logbook. Another uses a three-ring binder with dividers for those who wish to keep all the information under one cover. The third way is to create a computer database. Some collectors record the information about each object on cards first, then transfer it to a database later. 

To keep everything in order, each object must be given a sequential number, beginning with the earliest to the most recently purchased. This number should appear on the object, on the card or in the logbook, and on every receipt, canceled check, and photograph that relates to it.

Although simple numbers will do, a three-part number is more useful because it includes the year the object was acquired and the source. Individual items purchased at the same time from the same source will thus each have this number.

Curating a collection is just as important as collecting the objects in it. Everyone knows museums have curators, but do they know why? While organization and documentation are important jobs of a curator, taking care of objects in a collection is just as necessary. This may be as simple as dusting the objects from time to time. But sometime it’s necessary to repair or restore an object because of breakage or environmental hazards like humidity. 

Thoughtfully arranging a collection is also part of a curator’s job. A collector can assemble a mini-exhibit based on a theme and invite family and friends to view it. Protecting objects in a collection from harm is another job of a curator. And once a collection gets large enough, it’s the curator’s job to refine it, culling out earlier not-so-good pieces and selling them to replace them with better ones.

And last but not least, it’s important for a collector to learn all he or she can about the objects in their collection, not just what they already know but additional information about objects in that category. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Ancients" in the 2021 Spring Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

The Delight of Bristol Blue

 

QUESTION: I recently purchased a piece of what was described as “Bristol Blue” glass through an online antiques auction. I collect antique glass but this vase struck me as something unique. Although it looked like Victorian enameled glass, it resembled porcelain and the description said it was made in England in the late 18th century. I would really like to know more about this piece. I didn’t think glassmakers produced enameled glass that early Was it produced in Bristol, England, and thus the name, and who made it? And just how far back does Bristol Blue glass go?

ANSWER: Those are all very good questions. Let’s begin with the name. Even though this type of glass has Bristol in its name, glassmakers throughout most of England produced it. The blue in the name refers to the coloring used in the glass.

In the first half of the 18th century, near Redcliffel Backs, Temple Meads, Bedminster and other suburbs of Bristol, England, the squat chimneys of glasshouses and potteries silhouetted the landscape like giant beehives. But it was the age of porcelain, and anyone who could afford to buy it did so. Porcelain factories enjoyed the protection of kings, and European elite emptied their purses for priceless porcelain treasures. The arrival of an affordable substitute in decorated rnilch glass from Germany delighted Bristol glassmakers. For the first time, they had a perfect porcelain substitute  within their reach. 

The Venetians first made glass as an imitation of porcelain prior to 1500. Experts believe they used tin oxide as the agent to produce the white opacity in their glass. Eighteenth-century English white glass, called enamel glass in advertisements of the 1760s, was an intensely white, brittle material, generally a potash-lead mix, rendered opaque by the addition of lead arsenate. The porcelain-like, opaque glass  produced by the glassmakers of Bristol, was soft and smooth to the touch yet retained the fine heaviness of English crystal. It was an instant success, forcing the Bristol glassmen to borrow decorators from neigh-boring potteries to keep up with the public's demand.

England's glass excise tax of 1746 raised the duty on clear glass but didn’t tax opaque and colored glass because there was so little of it being made. This offered an excellent economic incentive for its increased production.

Chemists long knew that a powdered coloring could be premixed and supplied to glassmakers for addition to clear glass of their own making. But it was 18th-century German chemists from Saxony, who refined impure oxide of cobalt to produce a blue powder of unparalleled purity and uniform consistency. They exported their product, called “smalt,” to England, where a British merchant distributed it under the name "Bristol Blue."

The Bristol glassmakers quickly added the new deep-blue color to their already successful line of opaque white glass. Vigor & Stevens, of Thomas Street and Lazarus Jacobs, and later his son Isaac, of Temple Street, produced pieces primarily in deep Bristol Blue.

By the end of the 18th century the manufacture of blue glass became fairly common throughout England and continued to be marketed under the name of Bristol Blue. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to identify glass made in Bristol from a piece manufactured elsewhere. The original term “Bristol Blue" referred simply to the coloring agent sold to glassmakers rather than to their finished products.

The early shapes, manufactured around 1770, emulated Chinese and English porcelain—pear-shaped covered vases, trumpet-mouthed beakers, and cruets—all   produced in sets. Glassmakers also produced scent or smelling bottles and snuff boxes, often facet-cut, with enameling and gilding, in both white and blue glass.

Early Chinese porcelain painters greatly influenced the 18th-century Bristol designs. The Chinese artists working at the Imperial Porcelain Factory excelled in delicate miniature enameled decoration on their opaque white glass. They often employed motifs of figures, birds, and European flowers much admired by the Emperor Chi’en Lung, who ruled from 1736 to 1795. Since most English glasshouses made their opaque white glass in competition with porcelain, most used the same styles and even the same artists to decorate both.

Glass decorator Michael Edkins linked the white and blue glass under the mutual name of "Bristol." At first, he apprenticed to an enameling firm in Birmingham, England, but at the age of 20, he took up residence in Bristol and settled down to decorate pottery dishes and tiles. At that time, artists painted the pieces with pencils made of bristles from the noses and eyelids of oxen. Graduating to glass, Edkins began decorating "enamel and blue glassware." He worked both independently and for Isaac Jacobs, Little & Longman, and Williams, Dunbar & Company from 1782 onwards. Instead of using enamel paints that needed to be fired, Edkins used standard oil colors, or plain gold gilt motifs, applied with unfired varnish, which he called "cold" decoration. 

Generally, artists decorated Bristol Blue ware with unfired or lightly fired gold varnish. Cruets and decanters often sported the name of their contents as well as intricate garlands and wreaths of plain gold. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Ancients" in the 2021 Spring Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

The Search for Comfort

 

QUESTION:  I inherited a couch from my grandparents. I have tried to do research online, but the multitude of antique items is overwhelming. The couch appears to resemble the Chippendale style, but not exactly from what I have seen. My grandmother said the couch was already over 100 years old when she purchased it in the 1960's. What can you tell me about this piece? 

ANSWER: Sorry to say, but someone gave your grandmother misinformation about her couch. It’s not uncommon for dealers in used furniture to do this because they really don’t know how old the pieces they’re selling are and just want to sell them.

This couch dates from the 1920s or 1930s. It’s a great example of pseudo styles that manufacturers created to fill the need in the early to mid-20th century middle and working class markets. At that time, most people were looking forward and didn’t want “old” furniture in their homes. To buy all new furniture was a big deal, especially during the Great Depression. It was a way people impressed their friends and neighbors. Those who could afford to buy new furniture were definitely going places. So manufacturers produced some truly ugly, ostentatious pieces to fill this need. 

The roots of Modernism, grew out of pre-World War II industrialism. This furniture style used little or no ornamentation and a function over form concept. Influenced by Scandinavian, Japanese, and Italian designs, it featured industrial materials such as steel and plastic.

What all of the above styles had in common was that they were mostly produced for those that could afford them. Newly wealthy industrialists, bankers, and merchants wanted furniture that was in fashion and were willing to pay great sums for it. However, the common person couldn’t afford such luxuries and ended up with mass-produced pieces that didn’t cater to any taste in design.

What ordinary people wanted was their own form of luxury—comfortable chairs and couches that they could fall asleep in after a hard days work but that would also impress guests. They wanted just enough decoration to make the pieces seem elegant but not so much as to make them hard to care for. These needs resulted in overstuffed chairs and sofas with springs in their cushions to give added comfort, extremely stylized shallow carving that was easy to clean, and generally little decorative woodwork since using more added to the cost of the piece. Manufacturers could use cheap woods to build the frames which they then covered with upholstery.

Sitting prominently in the living rooms and family rooms of many 30 to 50-year-olds today is the ubiquitous “comfy” sofa, It takes up a huge about of space and can seat at least four or more people comfortably. Some models feature built-in lounge chairs with pop-up ottomans. The precursor to these giants was the sectional sofa. This unique piece of furniture came in sections. Buyers could buy as many sections as they needed to create a monster seating “pit,” popular in the 1980s. In some homes, condos, and apartments, the giant sofa is the only piece of furniture in the room, besides the giant flat-screen T.V. hung on the wall opposite it. 

While the sectional sofa certainly rose to fame in the mid-20th century, it has a more complex past. Before built-in cup holders and powered recliners, sectional sofas solved other problems for homeowners in the early 19th century, back before the start of the Civil War. Only a few examples remain intact, and most of them are in Virginia.

Antiques experts believe that end pieces of sectional sofas have long been mistaken for corner chairs, but evidence is sketchy. The loss of furniture makers, workshops, and a shortage of timber halted furniture production in the South. And destruction by the Union Army in Virginia led to the loss of most of these pieces. Back then, a sectional consisted of two tufted, carved and laminated sofas pushed together. Corner pieces were virtually nonexistent. 

Jumping ahead nearly 100 years to the era of Mid-Century Modern, the sectional sofa became the perfect showcase for the furniture designs of Charles & Ray Eames and George Nelson when the sleek, industrial profile of contemporary-style furniture appeared. The sectional also  answered the question of standardization versus customization when considering high consumer demand, thanks to department stores and catalogs. By breaking a sofa down into sectional pieces, known as modular design, it was easier to manufacture and ship, as well as mass-produce standard, individual pieces that could then be customized once they were the home.

And while comfort is a good thing, style is something else altogether and often the twain do not meet. But this comfort phenomenon didn’t just begin yesterday. It actually started 100 years ago in the 1920s. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Sparkling World of Glass" in the 2021 Winter Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.