Forerunners to the Modern Bathroom

 

QUESTION: Several years ago, I purchased an antique washstand set at a local antique show. The pieces are marked “K.T.A.K. China,” but I’ve been unable to find the pottery that made it. I believe the set dates to sometime in the mid to late 19th century. Can you tell me who made this set and also about the origins of these sets?

ANSWER: Your washstand was definitely made between 1850 and 1860 by the Knowles, Taylor, and Knowles China Company of East Liverpool, Ohio. Isaac Watts Knowles and Isaac Harvey, who operated a store boat along the Ohio River selling pottery, established a pottery in 1854. Knowles bought out Harvey in 1856. He formed Knowles, Taylor, and Knowles in 1870 when his son-in-law John N. Taylor and his son Homer S. Knowles joined the firm. But the company didn’t become incorporated until 1891, at which time it employed 700 workers who operated 35 kilns.

Before modern plumbing, people washed themselves daily at washstands, using washstand sets. Typically, each bedroom contained a washstand cabinets or two-tiered table on which a person could set a wash bowl on the top and a water pitcher on the bottom. Commode washstands had a chamber pot stored in a small cabinet in the bottom.

Most early washstands, usually made of oak, had a round cut out in the top shelf in which a large ceramic basin rested. During the second half of the 19th century, manufacturers produced washstands with flat tops and by the 1880s, many came with white marble tops. 

Pottery companies around the world began producing wash bowls and pitcher sets around the last quarter of the 18th century. But the washstand sets, at least the ones seen in antique shops and shows, date from the early 19th to the early 20th century. Typically, these sets consisted of seven items—a large bowl or basin, a large pitcher, a small pitcher, a chamber pot with a lid, a cup with a handle for rinsing after brushing teeth, a cup without a handle to hold tooth brushes and straight razors, and a covered soap dish with ceramic insert to keep soap from getting waterlogged. Some sets also included a large covered container for waste water and a dish to hold combs or hair brushes. 

A person used the warm clean water in the larger pitcher to wash their face, hands, and even brush their teeth. The poured the used water from the basin into a bucket or large ceramic jar.

Potteries produced washstand sets in various colors, materials, and styles,  from plain white ironstone to decorative hand-painted sets.

Identifying the marking on an antique wash bowl and pitcher can help discover its  origin, manufacturer, and value. Potteries inscribed and embossed the markings on their pieces during the production process. So any manufacturer’s mark applied to a set is likely to still be visible.

Should a washstand set be devoid of a manufacturer’s mark, it’s possible to date it by the shape of its handles. Scrolled or high-arching handles with thumb spurs indicate mid-19th century Victorian styles, dating from to the 1840-1860s, while angular, bamboo-style handles indicate the Aesthetic Movement, dating to the 1870s and 1880s. A handle featuring organic, flowing “whiplash” curves that melt into the body of the cup or pitcher suggests the Art Nouveau style, dating from 1890 to 1910. And sharp, geometric angles, circles, and stepped designs indicate the Art Deco style, dating from 1925 to the 1935.

But before analyzing the handle’s shape, it’s important to see how it’s attached. Early 19th-century pieces generally had “applied” handles. The potter would hand-roll a strip of clay and attach it to the body of the cup or pitcher before firing. Applied handles with a small depression or “thumb-print” at the base of the handle suggests an earlier date, often pre-1860.

Conversely, if the handle has a visible seam line running down the center that matches the seam on the pitcher body, it had been molded as one piece. This mass-production technique became standard later in the Victorian era.

Handles produced from the 1850s to the 1870s were mostly in the Rococo or Gothic Revival styles. Potteries produced pitcher handles with elaborate scrollwork and often added a “thumb spur” or thumb rest at the top of the handle’s curve.

However, if a handle imitates a vine, branch, or stag’s antler, then it dates most likely to between the 1850s and 1860s. Segmented bamboo handles appear on pitchers from the 1870s to the 1890s. And rope-shaped handles have been found on pitchers made by potteries along the eastern seaboard.

Since these washstand sets were ceramic, they were open to breakage, even though most were made with thicker walls and handles, making finding a complete set more of a challenge.

For common pieces, broken handles and cracks can reduce the value of an entire set. However, even partial sets or just wash bowls and pitchers are often sold separately.

An antique washbowl and pitcher with matching patterns or in a set is more valuable than separate pieces paired together. This is because finding an antique matching set in recent times is quite tasking and almost impossible. Also, sets made by well known potteries are usually worth more.

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 50,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "Victorian America" in the 2026 Summer 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 Ancient Game of the Mandarins

QUESTION: My grandmother looked forward to getting together with her lady friends at the Jewish Community Center on Wednesday afternoons to play Mahjong. When I was little, she took me with her several times, but I couldn’t figure out what they were doing.  But I was fascinated by the colorful tiles they used to play the game.  Ever since then, I’ve always wanted to own a set, not of the inexpensive new ones, but a beautiful older set. I’d also like to learn to play the game. Can you help me?

ANSWER: Mahjong has been played in China for over 3,000 years, originating in Canton  during the Qing Dynasty before the days of Confucius. Only Mandarins played it, and the early tiles were handmade from ivory.

In 1911, when China became a republic, the game became popular with all classes of people. Mahjong maers produced tiles of bone and bamboo, or just bamboo, which was cheaper and easier to obtain than ivory. The British brought the game from China to England, and eventually to the United States in the early 1920s.

As a game of skill, strategy, and calculation, Mahjong became the rage. Soon there were as many variations to the rules of the game as groups of people playing it. During the Roaring `20s its popularity soared, but that didn't last long because no one could agree on which rules to follow. The National Mahjong League standardized the rules in 1937, but by this time most players had gone back to playing bridge.

At first glance, the game of Mahjong may seem confusing, even chaotic, especially if the players are experts. They use strange terms, and the rapidity of calling and discarding tiles appears maddening. The goal of Mahjong is to complete as many levels as possible until at least one player has no more moves left. At that point the game ends.

Players use a set of 144 tiles based on Chinese characters and symbols. Some variations may omit some tiles and/or add unique ones. In most variations, each player starts out with 13 tiles. In turn, player each draw and discard tiles until they complete a hand using the 14th drawn tile to form four melds, or sets, and a pair, or eye. Players follow standard rules when drawing tiles and robbing pieces from other players. Standard rules also apply to the use of “simples,” or numbered tiles, and honors, winds and dragons, the kinds of melds allowed, how to deal the tiles, and the order of play.



Mahjong tiles are divided into five groups—suits, dragons, winds, flowers and jokers. There are four winds—north, east, west, and south, and four pieces of each. Three dragons are green, white and red, and there are four of each color. There are three suits—dots, craks and bams, and each suit is numbered from one to nine, with four tiles of each number. Each set also includes eight flower tiles and, depending on the manufacturer of the set, these may depict flowers, mandarins, or seasons of the year. Eight jokers complete the pieces.

Players follow procedures. Each builds a wall 19 tiles face down, two tiers high, in front of each other seated around a table in positions set as points of a compass—North, East, West, and South. The player designated as East starts the game by dealing out the tiles to the others. Players pass the tiles between them In a specified sequence before the game begins, as each player gets rid of unwanted tiles, and hopes to receive pieces which fit a combination in his hand. The game proceeds with drawing and discarding tiles until one player completes a hand which contains 14 tiles in a specific combination, then that player calls "mahjong." Combinations include hands similar to a game of rummy—three of a kind, four of a kind, consecutive runs, etc. Each combination has a listed value for scoring. Sometimes, players draw all the tiles before anyone gets mahjong. It ‘s important for participants to play defensively so that other players don’t complete a hand. Only one player can mahjong.

Finding a complete antique set of tiles requires some perseverance. The completeness of a set depends on the variation of the game being played. As with a deck of cards, it’s essential that all tiles match. Early sets contained 144 tiles, a pair of dice, betting sticks which were used much like poker chips to represent money for wagers, markers portraying the seated players, a counter reflecting the four winds which the “bettor,” a fifth player, used to indicate his or her choice of the winner, and some kind of suitable box in which to store all the pieces. Craftsmen made these boxes of fine, carved woods, inlaid with mother of pearl or fitted with silver or brass handles. Sets made after 1923 often came with a small instruction book.

"Old Hong Kong Mahjong" uses the same basic features and rules as the majority of the different variations of the game. This form of Mahjong uses all of the tiles of the commonly available sets, includes no exotic complex rules, and has a relatively small set of scoring sets/hands with a simple scoring system.

By the early 1900s, Mahjong had become a craze in the United States. The first Mahjong sets came to America from China. Some came in handsome rosewood boxes with separate drawers for the stones, wind, flowers, and other Mahjong tiles. The best of these had fine joinery and ornate brass hardware and dice, but many sets came packed in handpainted cardboard boxes. While tiles in less expensive sets were wooden, those in deluxe sets could be ivory or jade.

Mahjong’s popularity continued into the 1950s, then waned in the second half of the 20th century, but surged again in the 1990s after the publication and film version of Amy Tan’s "The Joy Luck Club."




NOTE: There won’t be an antiques blog next week. Please look for the next one the week of Oct. 15.

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 Colonial America in the Spring 2018 Edition, "Early Americana," online now.