It’s What’s on the Reverse Side

 

QUESTION: Years ago, I purchased a banjo clock with an intricate scene painted on the clock glass. At several recent antique shows, I’ve noticed several other reverse paintings from the early 19th century. What is the origin of reverse painting glass? And when was the technique at its peak?

ANSWER: Reverse painting is done on the backside of the glass and has been done since ancient times. Though there are only some crude artifacts, art historians believe the process dates back to Egypt in 4 C.E.

During the Middle Ages in the 13th century, the art technique appeared in Italy. Shortly thereafter, the French and English also learn of this art-form.  By the 16th century Renaissance, reverse painting reached its peak. To meet the growing demand, glass artists on the Island of Murano in the Venetian Lagoon widely produced small reverse glass paintings to decorate church alters and for other religious purposes. Gradually they began to paint larger landscapes, portraits, and more, making Venice a center of the technique.  

Beginning in the mid 18th century, painting on glass became preferred by the Church and the nobles throughout Central Europe. By the early to mid 19th century, watchmakers used reverse painting for dials on their watches.

Reverse glass painting had been practiced in Europe for several centuries. In France, Rococo decorative arts influenced it. In Italy and Switzerland, landscapes and small figures dominated reverse glass painting. Persian miniatures inspired it in India, Syria, and Iran, drawing attention to Islamic religious themes. German, Italian, and Spanish artists specialized in allegories, regional costumes, and hunting scenes while iconographic painting influenced the technique in Eastern Europe. 

In America, reverse painting enjoyed its greatest popularity during the Federalist Period of the early 19th century. Old-country artisans in the colonial cities used reverse paintings to decorate clocks, mirrors and other items of the time. This art fashion reigned from about 1815 to 1850. Then, with the exception of a brief time before World War I when it enjoyed a comeback, reverse glass painting became all but extinct.

Before an artist can reverse paint on glass, all details must be known. Done with oil paint ground with shellac, varnish, or linseed oil. Often the colored pigments were back by a white ground which reflected light back through the paint and gave the painting a warm and brilliant color. The smoothness of the glass increased the painting’s richness and vibrancy. 

Not only is the painting done on the reverse side of the glass, it must be done in reverse, beginning with the finer details and ending with the background.

Subject matter was mostly religious with paintings done by peasants but also included allegorical subjects, heroes of the day, and landscapes. Many of these paintings, primitive in technique, included Vermillion red, blue, yellow. Religious scenes could be found in peasant homes. These had backgrounds embellished with floral decorations and scrolls. Early paintings had lots of gold but later ones just had accents. These primitive paintings had crude homemade wooden frames. 

During the reign of William and Mary in the 17th century, the frames of mirrors had moldings of glass painted with roses, tulips, and leaves touched with gold. Back in the 14th century, East India Traders brought courting mirrors from China. This type of painting became popular in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, secular subjects became popular, including portraits of women symbolical of spring, summer, fall, and winter, as well as portraits of kings and queens.

Reverse painting spread to America and was popular with the Pennsylvania German immigrants, who carried on the religious traditions. They also painted primitive portraits of famous Americans such as George Washington and Andrew Jackson. Copies of portraits of Washington by Gilbert Stuart were quite popular.

Still life was more popular than portraits in New England. Other subjects included naval battles, such as the Monitor and the Merrimac. Amateurs and itinerant artists painted these paintings, so they call into the folk art category.

One of the most common uses for reverse paintings was on clock pendulum doors. Popular subjects included a floral or fruit still life or a simple flag or eagle design. 

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 "The World of Art Nouveau" in the 2022 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.

Forecasting the Weather in Vane

 

QUESTION: I’ve noticed that old weathervanes are bringing some pretty high prices at high-end Americana antique shows and in online antique auctions. Why are they so valuable? When I was a kid, my family lived in a rural area with weathervanes on a lot of the barns. What is the origin of the weathervane? And if I find one that isn’t too expensive, should I be concerned that it isn’t restored?

ANSWER: It doesn’t really matter how old a weathervane is, as long as it’s not new. Old weather vanes atop old barns are an American tradition and today are worth a good deal of money, even if they’re weathered.

Weathervanes have been blowing into the wind for as long as farmers and sailors needed to know the direction of the breeze, but they have traditionally performed another function as well. A weathervane was often an emblem that showed the profession of the person who mounted it---a dory for a fisherman, a cow for a dairy farmer, a locomotive for a railroad engineer.

The earliest known weather vane, dating to 48 B.C.E., was an image of Triton—a Greek god with the head and torso of a man and the tail of a fish—mounted on The Tower of the Winds in Athens.

Weather vanes didn’t gain popularity until English nobles during the Middle Ages flew banners from their castle walls emblazoned with their coats of arms. After the Normans conquered England, these "fanes,” as the banners came to be known, were made of iron with designs cut into them. Since what wouldn't bend might break, fane makers soon rigged them to turn with the breeze. By the English Renaissance, the fane had become a vane, a simpler and more functional device affixed atop a merchant's shop as often as on a knight's battlement.

The colonists who settled America brought their traditions with them, including the weathervane. While the first colonists crudely cut vanes from wood, iron ones could be seen topping several Puritan meeting houses by the late 17th century. Boston's Old State House, erected in 1713, had a swallow-tailed vane with an arrow, and by 1740, America's first craftsman of weathervanes, Shem Drowne, had begun fashioning copper vanes for Boston's public buildings.

Prior to the 1850s, blacksmiths created most weathervanes. And though they devoted considerable skill and imagination to them, forging iron vanes or beating them out of copper was largely a sideline, something a blacksmith did on request.

Blacksmiths in coastal New England towns, where watching the wind has always been vital, made vanes in the shape of ships for sea captains, cod and flounder vanes for fishermen, and leviathans for the whale hunters on Nantucket and at New Bedford. Inland, farmers sawed crude wooden vanes in the shapes of plows and farm animals, or found a blacksmith who could fashion more sophisticated weathervanes for their barns.

After the 1850s, metalworkers like Alvin Jewell, of Waltham, Massachusetts, began manufacturing copper vanes using templates and molds, a process that was faster than the ancient repousse method, in which they pounded copper into the desired shape. Speedier manufacturing processes meant lower costs, and Jewell found that his patterns sold quite well through mail-order catalogs.

L.W. Cushing, perhaps the best-known weathervane manufacturer of the 19th century. He added them to a collection of over 100 silhouette and full-bodied vanes in his catalog. Other weather vane companies soon opened for business, including J.W. Fiske and E.G. Washburne, both of New York City, and Harris & Company of Boston.

It was during the height of the Victorian Era when weather vanes became one of the most sought after items. They began appearing on everything from stables to gazebos. Prices ranged from $15 to $400 for the weathervane, its brass turning rod, a copper ball, and a set of brass cardinals indicating the points of the compass.

The boom in weathervanes didn't last long, only 50 years or so, but during that time people bought hundreds of designs throughout the country, including fire engines, Statues of Liberty, clipper ships, river steamers, cannons, even sea monsters and dragons. Still, the traditional designs—roosters, horses, and other animals—remained the most popular.

By the early 20th century, changing tastes and simpler home design—particularly the decline of the cupola—caused a decline in weathervane popularity.           

People began to be collect weather vanes as folk art about 40 years ago. Many sought vanes made by factories that originally sold them through catelogs, so handmade vanes weren’t even an issue. The highest amount ever paid for a weather vane was for a factory-made, copper Indian chief vane from 1900 that sold for $5.8 million at Sotheby’s in October 2006. Others have sold for prices from four figures on up.

Collectors prefer scarce and unusual weathervane forms, such as mermaids, cars, trains, and firemen. The most common ones, however, are horses, roosters, and cows which tend to fetch lower prices.

The majority of collectors like old copper vanes that have a green or verdigris patina which helps to date it.  But the biggest problem are the vanes made now from original molds from defunct factories. Though manufacturers generally don’t conceal the replicas’ origins, subsequent sellers often do.

The weathervanes that command the highest prices have not been restored. They have a patina—often noticeably different on one side thanks in part to prevailing winds and decades of exposure to sun, sleet, rain, snow and birds.

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 "Pottery Through the Ages" in the 2022 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.

Under the Coverlets

QUESTION: I’ve long admired the colorful coverlets that are often on display in museum gift shops. Recently, I saw an exhibit of them at a museum in Indiana. The variety was astonishing. I know they were done on a special kind of loom, but I forget what it was called. Can you tell me more about how these coverlets were made and a bit about their history?

ANSWER: Coverlets originated in Europe. Early ones, woven on a four-harness type loom, didn’t have complex patterns like those made in the mid 19th century in the United States. Their unique designs were made possible by the invention of the “Jacquard” loom.

Household weavers usually women, produced these decorative and warm bed covers. They created simple but visually exciting geometric overshot coverlets. Complex, figural designs were more difficult to produce alone on the same loom. That changed in 1806 when Joseph Marie Jacquard of France invented a mechanical attachment that could be attached to most looms by professional male weavers. A series of punched cards  guided the raising and lowering of the warp threads to form complex designs. Repeated motifs could be endlessly varied and re-combined. Floral designs, birds, simple buildings and stars were common, with a central section usually framed by a border along the top, sides, and bottom. Many Jacquard coverlet weavers "signed" and dated their textiles on the decorative corner blocks at the bottom corners.

The Jacquard attachment first appeared in America in the early 1820s, probably by one of the many German, English and French hand weavers who had immigrated from their native countries in Europe. These immigrant weavers tended to settle in areas with populations of their own ethnic group and near sources of good quality wool. Many brought some type of Jacquard attachment or at least the experience to use one. Some even developed their own devices based on Jacquard's idea and patented them in the U.S.

The earliest American Jacquard coverlets appeared in New York and Pennsylvania in the late 1820s. As weavers saturated the market in the Eastern states, and weaving became more mechanized and moved into a factory setting, many weavers moved westward into Ohio and Indiana, and eventually to Illinois, looking for new markets as well as farmland. Raw wool and commercially spun yarns as well as natural and synthetic dyestuffs needed for weaving could easily be obtained throughout the state. The weavers settled in or near agrarian communities among people of shared backgrounds and familiar with folk motifs and designs used in coverlets, primarily those from Germany, France and England. The weavers made lasting contributions to the communities in which they settled, opening businesses and promoting weaving; perhaps most importantly, they brought a touch of color and technical design to an expanding 19th-century population on the western frontier.

Jacquard weavers derived the patterns and motifs they used from well-known folk traditions of Western Europe. The designs of most Illinois coverlets can be traced back to Ohio and Pennsylvania coverlets. The center field patterns were either a large, repeated symmetrical motif on two-piece ones or a centered medallion on single-width coverlets. Floral motifs appeared most frequently, in the Four Lilies and Sun-burst, Four Roses, Octagonal Four Roses, Four Leaves and Four Acorns, and Four Bellflowers patterns. Star and Sunburst designs were also common.

Illinois Jacquard coverlets, like their Pennsylvania counterparts, had borders along each side and the bottom. Popular traditional Germanic motifs include the distelfink, or thistle finch, and Grapevine. A corner block or name line identifies the weaver, his location, and usually the year of production.

Typically, weavers produced cotton coverlets for weddings and births. Wedding or bride coverlets or blankets were required items in a young woman’s hope chest. Starting around 1825, major towns had a resident weaver whose job it was to make blankets and accept work on commission. The weaver may have had an apprentice and the weaver’s loom was the site of his/her business dealings. Coverlets were double woven and produced with wool and imported indigo blue and madder red or brown dyes. A traditional early 19th-century woven coverlet would cost the buyer between $5 and $15. Coverlets were much more commonplace than quilts from about 1823 to the end of the Civil War in 1865.

Learn more about Jacquard coverlet and rug weaving by reading "Weaving their Way Into History" in The Antiques Almanac. This is the story of a family who has kept Jacquard coverlet weaving alive in Pennsylvania.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the early 20th century in the Fall 2018 Edition, "20th Century Ltd.," online now.

Who Will be Mother?

QUESTION: I love to drink tea. In fact, I began drinking it when I was about 10 years old. I love the aroma and the steam that comes from the cup as I put it to my lips. Of course, as a tea afficionado, I always brew loose tea. But what I can’t stand are the bits of leaves that always seem to end up in the bottom of my cup. A tea strainer is a necessity if brewing tea from leaves. I always had a simple one that fit over the top of my cup and let me pour the tea through it, collecting the dregs in the strainer as it went. Last year, I attended an antique show and treated myself to a beautiful sterling silver tea strainer. I love it. So much so that now I’d like to begin collecting them.                        

ANSWER: People have used tea strainers for centuries. During the 18th and 19th century, when having tea was an important social event, silversmiths made tea strainers for wealthy tea drinkers. Since no one liked fishing loose tea leaves out of their teacup, strainers became a popular tea accessory. Tea strainers enabled hostesses to filter the leaves out while pouring tea in each person’s cup.

After it’s introduction to Europe, tea drinking began to inspire elaborate serving conditions. Unlike in China or Japan where tea drinking had a religious significance, tea drinking rituals in the West emphasized tea’s exotic origins and the server's wealth. Over time, an assortment of locked storage containers, special serving vessels, measuring spoons and other implements became part of any tea service. And, unlike the Chinese, who simply dumped tea into the pot and poured carefully, Europeans devised strainers to remove not only the leaves but also stems, grit, and other debris often found floating in the tea.
                   
By the 17th century, strainer spoons to remove the "motes" or tea debris with perforated bowls and pointed ends for clearing teapot spouts became common.

Toward the end of the 18th century, the silver cup strainer, adapted from wine strainers and from larger two-handled silver punch strainers used to extract lemon and orange juice used in other beverages, appeared. For tea, the cup strainer had one or two handles of silver or other material and fit over the cup to filter tea as it was poured.

By the 19th century silver craftsmen experimented with various designs to secure the cup strainers to the teacup. Some had two handles that straddled the cup while others were made with clasps to clip onto the edge. They also developed stands to support the strainer when it wasn’t in use and to catch the drippings.

Teapot spout strainers, featuring a pierced basket or bucket-shaped strainer with long pins to be inserted in the spout, were another tea trapping device developed in the late 18th century. As a person poured the tea, it flowed through the strainer and into the cup. Although they dripped tea on tablecloths, their dainty appearance and intricate piercings made them a highly desirable tea accessory. Spout strainers were more fashionable in Europe than in America and silver manufacturers created many novelty forms such as helmets, buckets and shells.

In the mid 19th century a new development in brewing came in the form of the tea infuser, also known as a tea ball. Tea balls are perforated, spherical containers made in two parts and connected either by a hinge and clasp or by screw threading.

Tea balls not only trapped tea leaves, but contained them within the pot for the brewing. Tea balls weren’t made in America until after 1880, but they quickly became the most popular tea strainer form used in America. More than 60 prominent American companies, such.as Gorham, produced them in quantity and in whimsical shapes, such as grapes, walnuts, lanterns, faces, teapots, shells, cauldrons, fish, Earth, and the Liberty Bell.

There have also been square tea balls, both an oxymoron and a rarity. A particular favorite is a curled-up dormouse, recalling the unfortunate creature dunked into the teapot during the Mad Hatter's tea party in the children's classic, Alice in Wonderland.

The last form of tea strainer to be invented appeared in England in the 1890's and quickly found its way to the United States. The stick infuser or spoon infuser, consists of a covered spoon-like bowl perforated on both lid and bowl. Like tea balls, tea drinkers filled the stick infusers with tea leaves, but unlike the tea balls, people used them to brew one or two cups of tea. Like the tea ball, the stick infuser gained popularity in the United States. Again. manufacturers presented numerous design variations, replacing the spoon bowl with a ball or heart shape and using different handle forms made of bone, porcelain  and wood. Some stick infusers with upright handles resemble pipes, while others resemble a pair of tongs or an egg on a stick.

The development of the tea bag signaled the end of mass production of silver tea strainers. Today, the tea strainers of the 18th through the early 20th century stand as valuable reminders of the importance of aesthetic pleasure in a social ritual—the serving of tea.

Learn more about the tea experience by reading "The Origin of Afternoon Tea" in #TheAntiquesAlmanac and also about sterling silver tea sets in my Google+ Collection, Antiques and More.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the Victorians in the Winter 2018 Edition, "All Things Victorian," online now.  

Give Me Your Tired and Your Poor, Yearning to be Free

QUESTION: My mother collected Statue of Liberty memorabilia for a long time. She began when she was only a teenager with a little statue she bought on a class trip to New York. Seeing Lady Liberty up close inspired her to buy the statue. After that, she couldn’t get enough of her.  Her collection began with canceled stamps showing the Statue of Liberty which she tore off of envelopes. She added a postcard of the statue that a friend sent to her. Over the years, she amassed a collection of over 100 items, all depicting the Statue of Liberty.  My mother is gone now, but her collection lives on. I’d really like to know more about these collectibles and the Statue of Liberty, itself. Can you help me?

ANSWER: Statue of Liberty memorabilia is probably one of the more popular collecting categories. While some items are worth just a few dollars, others can reach four figures.

Although the French Government conceived the Statue of Liberty as a symbolic gesture, no one had any idea at the time just how important a symbol she would become. Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, her creator, envisioned her as a monument to the mutual love of the French and Americans for liberty, and as propaganda against the then conservative leaders of the French government. It was thought that building a huge monument for the United States would forever link that powerful democratic country, with France, and cement that country's new Third Republic. But not everyone shared Bartholdi's vision.

Fundraising, especially in the United States, proved difficult. The Statue of Liberty Committee had planned to unveil that the statue would be unveiled in 1876 for the Centennial of American Independence. But sluggish fundraising delayed the gift for at least 10 years. This resulted in a variety of wonderful memorabilia. Most souvenirs sold for pennies to dollars each to raise money to complete the big statue and bring her to America. The French, on the other hand,  raised money to complete the building of the statue piece by piece while the Americans raised  funds to complete the gigantic base. By 1884, The French had completed Miss Liberty an d were ready to ship her. But the American Committee was short the $100,000 needed to complete her pedestal. To raise additional monies, the Committee commissioned more than 100,000 models which it sold by subscription, and at Macy's and other department stores. Each $1 purchase added to the Liberty coffers. It sold some 12-inch models for $5. Today, the small metal models sell for $250 to $300 and the large ones from $500 to $1,000.

Meanwhile, the French disassembled the statue into over 300 pieces and shipped it in more than 200 wooden crates. The arm bearing the torch filled 21 boxes alone. On June 17, 1886, she arrived. Workers placed the statue on the immense supporting monument designed by Richard Morris Hunt. On Oct. 28, 1886, the Committee officially installed and dedicated the Statue of Liberty. There was a huge inaugural parade and President Grover Cleveland delivered a dedication address. Collectors covet the programs, tickets, and invitations from this gala occasion.
   
During the earliest Liberty years, many souvenirs appeared. During the 10 years before Liberty arrived, many publishers printed lithographs, including early pieces of sheet music. There are stereopticon photos from the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia of Liberty’s right arm, which appeared at the fair, showing visitors standing on her torch. These souvenirs now sell for $125. Visitors to the fair could purchase large, finely detailed bronze medals, crafted in Paris.
 

In 1878, Liberty had no body, but when Europeans gathered in Paris for the 1878 Expeditions, the head had been completed and was displayed on the banks of the Seine. Visitors filled her crown and for several francs, could take home a lovely 4-inch Liberty bust, a few of which found their way to America and today sell for upwards of $500. Other French souvenirs included tasseled, silks and ribbons made for the fair by B.B. Tilt & Son in Paterson, New Jersey.

For a substantial contribution to aid French fundraising, up to 100 zinc statuettes went on sale, including a small edition, finely detailed statuette in terra cotta, hand-finished by Bartholdi, himself. During the 1986 Liberty Centennial, several of these reached more than $100,000 at auction. In the United States, a New Jersey furniture maker named Follmer, cast a few detailed zinc statuettes carrying 1883 and 1885 patent dates. These are quite rare, much more so than the American Committee Models. Follmer's statuettes feature the original Hunt pedestal design that the Committee ultimately abandoned for the one actually under Liberty's feet. Today, these statues sell for over $5,000.

The 20th century witnessed many more souvenirs—some as works of art, some as advertising, some as satirical commentaries, some as cheap souvenirs for the hordes of tourists who visited her. Practically everything had the image of Miss Liberty reproduced on it, including clocks, lamps, statuettes, compacts, cigarette cases and boxes, cookie tins, pitchers, spoons, china and even trade cards satirizing Liberty in order to sell a product. Though some of objects were beautifully done, others appear cheap with muddied facial features and poor workmanship. But even the cheap ones are collectible.

During the Liberty Centennial in 1986, there was a rush of interest in Liberty collecting. At that time, there were thousands of souvenirs and "limited editions" sold, including watches, medals, limited-edition plates, rugs, cookie jars, mugs, and jewelry.

Most collectors agree that, although items are becoming more scarce, there are still plenty of them out there. Statue of Liberty items usually appear at flea markets. Since many aren’t that large, collectors often find them in glass cases with other small items.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the Victorians in the Winter 2018 Edition, "All Things Victorian," online now. 

Better to See You With My Dear

QUESTION: While recently going through some boxes in my attic, I discovered a pair of old spectacles that seem to be in rather good condition. Are these collectible?

ANSWER: While most people might just give these away or sell them at a yard sale, you should definitely hang on to these, as they’re very collectible.

Lots of people wear eyeglasses. With the advent of contact lenses, some don’t even show it. But these devices, first invented to magnify text, have become as ubiquitous as cell phones in today’s society.

Church sales and thrift shops often get plastic bags filled with old eye glasses, as people either get new ones or contact lenses. Today, eye glasses are not only a seeing aid but also a fashion accessory. And, what about the spectacles you found in an old family trunk and sold at your last yard sale? Believe it or not, just like other out-of-fashion accessories, those glasses are collectible.

Spectacles have been around since the late Middle Ages when wealthy people in Italy and China wore them. Another early form of sunglasses were goggles, first created by the Eskimos to protect their eyes from snow glare.

The use of eyeglasses grew by the 18th century as their technology improved. They became fashionable when famous Americans began wearing them. Everybody is familiar with the paintings of Benjamin Franklin wearing the bifocals that he invented. Franklin created the first bifocals in the 1760's while living in London.

Thomas Jefferson created the first oblong lenses for his reading glasses to increase his field of vision. Before that glass lenses were round or oval. Later, President Theodore Roosevelt started a fashion trend when he first wore pince-nez glasses—those held on a person’s face by a spring on the nose.


While women didn't wear glasses in public in 18th century America, one woman advertised in 1753, that she “grinds all sorts of Optic Glasses to the greatest perfection." Known in her ad only as "the widow Balthasar Sommer on Pot Baker's Hill,'' she became the earliest recorded American eye glasses maker. But it wasn’t until after the American Revolution that people recorded eye glasses as made in America.

By the early 19th century, glasses adjusted over the ears to fit the entire family. A device called a “Temple" slid back and forth. As with earlier versions, their sole purpose was to magnify.

Eye glass makers used gold and silver for early frames, mostly because they were the most common workable metals available. So a pair of glasses wasn’t cheap. If you think you have old ones, check the hallmark to learn date, country and maker.

Don't pass up examples in brass or steel. They could be 18th or 19th century. In this plastic age, look for authentic tortoise shell frames. Don't limit yourself to 19th and early  20th-century glasses. Remember, they’ve always been made in the fashion of their day.

The 1970's were a great time for unique styles. An example would be the tinted sunglasses designed by artist Peter Max, along with his Pop Art design cases. And don’t forget the outsize sunglasses in the Jackie Kennedy Onassis style. Celebrity styles with funky frame, like the ones worn by Elton John and John Lennon’s small,   round, black-rimmed ones, also debuted in the 1970's. Never mind that the frames are plastic. Like other 1970's objects, they’re also collectible.

If you wish to collect eye wear and related objects, you can build a collection of not only pairs of eyeglasses showing a variety of frames and clear and tinted lenses, but also  opticians' trade signs, related documents, and paintings of people wearing glasses. In most cases, you’ll find many eye glasses for sale for a song at flea markets, church and garage sales.

The First Lawn Chair

QUESTION: We’ve had a Windsor chair in our family as far back as I can remember. I believe it belonged to my great-great grandmother. Today, I use it as a chair at my computer desk. What can you tell me about this chair?

ANSWER: You have a standard bow-back Windsor chair, the kind found in just about every upper class household in Colonial America. While most people consider them delicate antiques, they’re quite sturdy and have many uses.

Today, the ubiquitous white modeled plastic patio chair appears on decks and patios throughout the world. It’s a serviceable chair, easily stacked and stored. But this isn’t the first chair of its kind. In fact, the lowly Windsor chair holds that honor.

One of the most graceful and usable of all traditional chairs, the Windsor is also the most successful piece of furniture in American history. Its origins, however, are English, dating back to the turned and joined stools of 16th-Century England. The name probably derives from Windsor, where a prolific chairmaker  produced and sold the chairs in the 18th Century. He sent them down the Thames River to London where people referred to them as coming "up from Windsor."

Wheelwrights rather than cabinetmakers made Windsor chairs in England. They remained farmhouse or tavern furniture for a long time. But here in America, homeowners embraced the Windsor as a sort of all-around chair. They could be stored in a hallway and brought into any room that needed more seating when guests arrived. They could be easily carried. And they could be brought outdoors to provide seating on the lawn on hot summer days. Even the most prominent members of Colonial communities used them. George Washington seated his guests on the East portico of Mount Vernon in 30 Windsor chairs.

As a piece of furniture, the Windsor holds historical significance. Thomas Jefferson sat in a bow-back. writing-arm Windsor while composing the first draft of the Declaration of Independence in late June of 1776. And when Benjamin Franklin and other members of the Continental Congress voted to secede from the mother country on , July 1, 1776 in Independence Hall, they sat in bow-back Windsors.

There are eight different kinds of American Windsors, including the low-back, or Philadelphia Windsor, named for the city where a craftsman constructed the first Windsor in the colonies, the comb-back, fan-back, bow-back, loop-back, arch-back or New England armchair, rod-back, and arrow-back. Each had its distinct use. Windsor makers socketed all parts together except for the shaped arms of the fan-back, arrow-back, and rod-back chairs. On these, they doweled the inner ends of the arms or screwed them to the back uprights.

Windsor makers preferred pine, whitewood, and basswood for seats, hickory or ash for spindles, maple. yellow birch, or beech for turned legs. stretchers, and supports, and hickory, oak, ash, or beech for hoops. bows, or combs. And because of this, makers gave their Windsors several coats of dark green paint. In the 19th century, small factory workshops produced Windsors of pine and maple. And even to this day, craftsmen still use the same time-tested techniques for constructing reproduction Windsors.

The most common form of Windsor is the bow-back with its elliptical seat and seven tapered spindles that pierce a semi-circular arm rail and bowed top rail.

I Scream, You Scream...We All Scream for Ice Cream

QUESTION: I have an old pewter or white metal cylinder form which stands about 8 inches tall and has three parts: a decorative molded top in the shape of a bunch of fruit, a long tube center that’s ribbed on the inside, and a screw-on base that supposedly belonged to my great-grandmother. Can you tell me what it is?

ANSWER: What you have is what’s known as a banquet ice cream mold, topped by a sculpted bunch of fruit with leaves. This type of mold, made of pewter, dates from the early 1900's and would have been used for parties or holiday gatherings.

Ice cream is a frozen dessert usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, often combined with fruits or other flavors. It’s origins can be traced back to at least the 4th century B.C.E. when people living in the Persia (in today’s Iraq and Iran) would place snow in a bowl and pour grape juice concentrate over it, inventing what has come to be known as the snow cone.

During the first century A.D. , Roman Emperor Nero had ice brought from the mountains and topped it with fruit. But it wasn’t until the reign of China's King Tang in the 7th century that the idea of icy milk concoctions became popular, a idea that would ultimately become fashionable in European royal courts.

Arabs were perhaps the first to use milk as a major ingredient in the production of ice cream. They sweetened it with sugar rather than fruit juices, and came up with ways to produce it commercially. By the 10th century, ice cream had spread to Baghdad, Cairo, and Damascus. Makers used milk or cream, plus some yogurt, and flavored it with dried fruits and nuts.

Charles I of England so loved his "frozen snow" that he offered his ice cream maker a lifetime pension in return for keeping the formula secret. But it was the Quaker colonists who first introduced ice cream to America in 1772. During colonial times, confectioners sold ice cream at their shops in New York and other cities and some of the founding fathers, including George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson regularly ate and served ice cream. First Lady Dolley Madison served it at her husband's Inaugural Ball in 1813.

In 1843, the U.S. Government granted Nancy Johnson of Philadelphia a patent for a small-scale hand-cranked ice cream freezer. Eventually, the creation of the ice cream soda by Robert Green in 1874 added ice cream's popularity.

Decorative molds, enhancing ice cream's presentation at the table, appeared at fancy parties in the late 19th century, a tradition borrowed from British molded puddings. The most notable of the American mold firms were Eppelsheimer & Co., Krauss Co. and Schall & Co. However, the first ones came from European makers. Makers used pewter, white metal or tin to create a variety of forms ranging from animal, human and bird figures to floral, architectural, and holiday-oriented themes that came in various sizes.
                               
Joseph Micelli, Sr., one of the country’s premier mold makers, sculpted them with remarkable details of animals, people, flowers, fruit and even vegetables for the Eppelsheimer & Co. of New York. Their molds have E & Co NY and the mold’s catalog number stamped on the bottom.
 
The molds produced by Krauss Company, also of New York, are distinguishable by their integrated mold hinges rather than soldered hinges. 

Ice cream molds are now highly collectible. The barrel banquet mold in question above sells for around $250, but smaller ones in the shape of individual bananas, pears, peaches, and other fruit and flowers sell for $30 to $70. From the outside, these molds often look plain, but inside they include minute details. While the barrel mold was meant to be unscrewed and lifted off, most ice cream molds, as with their chocolate counterparts, have hinges that allow them to be broken open to release the creamy confection.