Understanding Fraktur

 

QUESTION: I live outside Philadelphia. About 45 minutes further west lies what the locals call “Pennsylvania Dutch Country,” a landscape filled with Amish farms. Browsing antique shops in the area, I often see elaborately decorated documents called fraktur. I understand these recorded births and deaths but would like to know about their origins.

ANSWER: Fraktur was a highly artistic and elaborate illuminated folk art that originated in Germany in the 18th century. Named for the Fraktur script associated with it, it reached its peak between 1740 and 1860.

Laws in what’s now Germany dictated that all vital statistics on a citizen be recorded, and the art of fraktur began as means by which people could document and preserve important family information.

This form of folk illumination was already a well-established tradition in Alsace and other parts of the Rhineland where it took the form of a Taufschein, a short greeting in verse with illumination recalling the baptism of a child and with only an oblique reference to time and place of the baptism. Its chief purpose was not to record baptism but to convey the wishes of the godparents who sponsored the child.

But Taufschein created later in Pennsylvania had another purpose. It was a formal record of birth as well as of the infant’s baptism. In a land where there was as yet no bureau of vital statistics this certificate became a legal document.. 

Fraktur styles were diverse and varied dramatically between artists. Some fraktur were extravagant documents that draw attention to an artist’s expert skill while others were simple drawings that contained little artistic flair. Most fraktur often had religious themes, though some did have secular ones. Men wrote most fraktur in German text, although they used English text on all types of fraktur after the early 1820s. . 

While Pennsylvania Germans created most fraktur for record keeping, they also made them just for fun. Some schoolmasters created drawings as rewards of merit for their students. Others were simply decorative pieces. Regardless of purpose, fraktur was a personal art that was extremely popular with 19th century rural families of Pennsylvania.

The first Fraktur typeface arose in the early 16th century, when Emperor Maximilian I commissioned the design of the Triumphal Arch woodcut by Albrecht Dürer and had a new typeface created specifically for this purpose, designed by Hieronymus Andreae.

The name Fraktur came from the Latin fractus, meaning “broken.” It was a blackletter typeface—a gebrochene Schrift in German, which meant “broken font”—which the bends of the letters were angular or “broken,” as abrupt changes in stroke direction occur. 

Although its roots lie in medieval Europe, fraktur was an art form that came into its own and flourished amid the Pennsylvania Germans, who brought it with them to the New World.

German-speaking immigrants brought their knowledge of Fraktur lettering to America. Members of the Ephrata Cloister—a religious community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania—produced some of the earliest American fraktur during the 1740s using inks, paints, and paper produced at the Cloister. Pennsylvania Germans made most fraktur between 1740 and 1850 in southeastern Pennsylvania, although many early German immigrants who settled in New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and even Canada made produced fraktur.

The Cloister’s brothers and sisters used fraktur letters to copy scriptures and hymn books. Some of the earliest frakturs done there were quite primitive. The written documents they created weren’t official in nature, but rather represented attempts at basic recordkeeping functions, such as birth and baptismal certificates, and marriage records.

Pennsylvania Germans made fraktur for a variety of reasons. The majority of fraktur were birth and baptismal certificates, called Geburts-und Taufscheine. Some of the many other types of fraktur include writing samples, rewards of merit, house blessings, bookplates, hymnals, New Year’s greetings and love letters.

In order to produce more fraktur in a shorter amount of time, the members of the Ephrata Cloister in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, began using a printing press in the 1780s to produce documents. Nearby cities of Reading, Lancaster, Allentown, Harrisburg, and Hanover soon developed important fraktur printing centers of their own.

Many professional fraktur artists used printed documents to keep up with customer demand. Even so, those living in rural farming communities continued to personalize each printed document. They filled-in customers’ personal information and often handcolored or embellished printed designs.

Pennsylvania German fraktur contained elaborate lettering and colorful drawings, along with intricate borders and scrollwork designs. Artists employed hundreds of different motifs to decorate these documents. Their drawings included vivid illustrations of people, buildings and animals, as well as complicated geometric patterns. The most favored designs were of angels, birds, hearts, and flowers. Some fraktur even depicted mythical creatures such as unicorns or the legendary Wonderfish. The American flag, the bald eagle and other political symbols of the newly formed United States became popular motifs at the beginning of the 19th century.

Prior to 1820, most Pennsylvania Germans belonged to the Lutheran Church or the German Reformed Church. Because of their larger population, followers of the Lutheran Church and the German Reformed Church produced most American fraktur, many of which were either  Geburts or Taufscheine, birth and baptismal certificates.

Berks County, Pennsylvania, families preferred “personalized” forms, and residents held onto the fraktur tradition longer than did neighboring counties. Fraktur artists and itinerants  crisscrossed the county producing birth certificates which by that time now recorded the details of births for vital statistic records. Reading printers created the printed source these artists and scriveners needed to expedite production.

Pennsylvania Germans usually made fraktur for personal use and put them in storage for safekeeping. The personal and religious information recorded on fraktur was of great importance to them. Only a few types of fraktur—such as house blessings or valentines—would have been displayed in their homes. More often, people rolled up fraktur documents and hid them away, pasting them underneath the lids of storage chests or keeping them neatly folded inside books and Bibles.

Fraktur thrived in Pennsylvania German communities for more than a century. By the 1850s, however, interest in fraktur began to decline. Prior to the Civil War, the United States experienced a surge in nationalist pride. With the encouragement of speaking only English,  traditional German-speaking parochial schools and their German schoolmasters, who created many fraktur, soon faded into the past. And baptism, a key force driving the mass-printing of fraktur birth and baptismal certificates, lessened in importance in favor of confirmation.

Ministers and school teachers created most fraktur on paper for individuals, although often more than one artist usually created them. A scrivener, or professional penman, wrote out the text of the document in the Fraktur scrips, then outlined drawings, and added scrollwork. A decorator, who may or may not have been the same person, applied the vibrant colors and motifs that decorated it. 

A variety of instruments filled the fraktur artist’s toolkit. Some of the most important tools included quill pens, brushes, straight edges, compasses, stencils, woodcut stamps, pencils and paper. Fraktur artists used laid paper during the 1700s. Woven paper—which has a smoother surface—became common after 1810. Decorators used imported pigments—carmine, vermilion, umber, gamboge and indigo—to make their colorful inks. They mixed these pigments with various binding substances to create glossy or muted effects. Scriveners usually wrote with iron gall ink—a standard writing ink blended from iron salts and vegetable tannins. Unfortunately, iron gall ink was very acidic and caused many fraktur to deteriorate.

Originally, the inks used to draw fraktur would had been concocted of natural ingredients such as berries, iron oxide and apple juice. However, the acids found in these inks led to deterioration and discoloration, or to brown stains left behind by the iron oxides. 

Perhaps because of these concerns, the Ephrata Cloisters’ fraktur artisans relied mainly on black inks and plainer styles of fraktur without the illumination and decoration of others produced at that time.

Images of the bird or distelfink were common on Pennsylvania German fraktur, and, as with most of the fraktur images, they had symbolic importance. Parakeets typically represented the soul, as people viewed the birds as liaisons between heaven and earth.

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Artful China

 

QUESTION: A friend of mine recently gave me a colorful vase that has two handles and a design of some sort of fruit on the front. The mark on the bottom says “Laughlin Art China” along with the image of an eagle. Can you tell me what company made this and when? 

ANSWER: Your vase is one of hundreds of pieces produced by the Laughlin China Company in the first decade of the 20th century. While the company made some of the pieces, such as soup tureens and platters, it made most of its pieces for display only.

At the turn of the 20th century, American potteries, formerly limited to the production of dinnerware and washstand toilet sets, took a cue from the vogue for American art pottery and began developing decorative "specialty ware" or art china.

Characterized by unusual decals surrounded by a background of solid color applied with an air brush or atomizer, these wares mimicked the standard glaze and hand-painted ware of such art potteries as Rookwood, Roseville and Weller. At first, manufacturers used a brown background but soon changed that to bright red, magenta, green, blue-green, pink and sometimes combinations of several colors. The first American pottery to popularize the style seems to have been the Warwick Pottery of Wheeling, West Virginia. 

Many potteries in the Ohio Valley quickly copied the art china concept. None, however, elaborated up on the idea with more verve and success than Homer Laughlin China of East Liverpool, Ohio, which began production if its art china in 1900. 

But neither Homer nor Shakespeare Laughlin, the founders of Homer Laughlin China Co., had anything to do with the development of Laughlin Art China. The brothers did develop a whiteware pottery on a subscription basis in East Liverpool in 1873, but Shakespeare dropped out in 1877. While Homer Laughlin expanded the company, beginning the production of semi-vitreous porcelain in the 1890s and incorporating the company in 1896, he retired two years later and moved to California.

During these early years, there was one notable and highly successful effort by Laughlin China to produce artistic china-ware. Around 1886, the company succeeded. Marked with the words "Laughlin China" in a horseshoe, workers frequently decorated it  using the French pate-sur-pate technique, with cameo-like white designs on a blue ground. But such ware is rare, as Laughlin only made it for three years.

Under new management, notably that of William E. Wells, the Laughlin pottery continued to expand, completing a second plant in East Liverpool's East End in 1900, soon followed by a third plant. In 1903,. it traded plants with the National China Co. and then enjoyed a combined capacity of 35 kilns.

Shapes that are known to have been used for Laughlin specialties include American Sweetheart, King Charles, Genesee, Hudson and The Angelus. A number of these shapes, notably Kwaker, continued in production as late as the 1940s, 

Beginning in 1903, Laughlin China marked its art china specialties with a gold stamp featuring an eagle trying its wings, over a script "Laughlin." The firm sold the first pieces that same year, but they didn’t appear in company sales literature until 1905. Actual production seems to have been limited to five or six years.

Laughlin produced more than 130 different shapes and sizes of its art china with a currant decal, the most common form of decoration. 

But the White Pets design, the best known, featured a series of dogs, cats and birds, the most common being a pair of pointers, usually shown amid a clump of cattails. The use of a decal showing a pair of white cockatoos may have been a response to Warwick China's striking use of white birds on a white ground.

Another popular Laughlin Art China pattern was Dreamland, bearing a variety of Kate Greenaway-like children's scenes, usually involving a goat, with a blended yellow, green and brown back-ground. Like White Pets, this line often lacked the Laughlin Art China eagle backstamp and simply bore the line name. Unlike White Pets, Dreamland was decorated not with a simple decal but by "pouncing," a process in which the design was enhanced by the addition of small particles of carbon pigment, particularly effective in the cartoon-like Dreamland and Holland decorations. Other cartoon-like decorative lines utilized a variety of frog decals, most likely inspired by Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows.

Other companies occasionally decorated Homer Laughlin blanks using different decals and decorating techniques. Perhaps most notable was the little-known McKean Pottery of Minerva, Ohio, which specialized in a faux wood grain decorative background, a line which they called Angora. 

With Laughlin art china, condition is very important, particularly in collecting art china decorated with the air-brushed background, since this type of decoration wears easily. Because Laughlin intended some of its art china to be used, the delicate nature of the decoration was a problem and may be part of the reason for its decline in popularity. However, some pieces are so rare that even substantial amounts of wear don’t rule out significant prices.

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Be There or Be Square

 

QUESTIONS: I really like the look of Mid-Century Modern design. I’ve started to gather furniture and accessories to decorate my apartment. I’ve been looking for a distinctive set of dishes to use in my kitchen. Can you recommend any?

ANSWERS: Yes, I can. While not many people are familiar with this, I recommend dinnerware from the Blair Ceramics of Ozark, Missouri. While often similar in price to its modern day counterpart, the 1950s dinnerware is superior in that it is often hand-painted and decorated. No two pieces are exactly alike 

Originally from Mount Vernon, Ohio, William Blair graduated from the Cleveland School of Art, after which he studied art and traveled throughout Europe. After returning to Ohio, he painted children’s portraits for a year before he apprenticed in ceramics for a pottery in Mount Vernon. His sister, Dorothy, and her husband, Bernard Purinton, opened the Purinton Pottery Company in 1936. Blair went to work for them painting decorations on their pieces. In 1941, Bernard and Dorothy moved their pottery to Shippenville, Pennsylvania.

Blair directed his artistic talent toward the production of pottery and was instrumental in the design of Purinton's characteristic handpainted wares. While there, Blair designed several of the most recognizable patterns including Apple which was the most popular while the factory was in operation. He also created the off-round shapes of the dinnerware lines with the Heather Plaid and Normandy Plaid motifs.

Blair believed that the design of American dinnerware needed to be overhauled. So he left Purinton and sought the help of his nephew Bart Higgins, who blueprinted molds while Blair worked on the designs. When they were ready, they traveled to the Springfield area and began searching for a building to convert to a factory. In Ozark, they found the old Fray Johnson Ford auto agency building, located just north of the Ozark square,  which was just the right size. For a year, they worked to convert it into a ceramic factory. They bought a $15,000 kiln from West Virginia and installed it into their factory. By 1946, they were hiring local workers and training them  to work in mixing, molding, glazing, painting, and kiln rooms. Each piece had to be painted by hand. 

By 1949, the company employed 32 workers, who produced as many as 3,600 pieces per week during peak production times. The firm shipped dinnerware to all 48 states, Hawaii, Cuba and Canada, to be sold by such retail outlets as Neiman Marcus and Marshall Field's department stores.

Blair Ceramics produced several lines of dinnerware, most with innovative square-shaped plates and platters. Blair frequently voiced objections to round plates and dinnerware while employed  by the Purinton Pottery. At his own company, Blair had the opportunity to produce what he considered more pleasing and appropriately shaped dinnerware. These distinctive pieces are also characterized by unique twisted handles and leaf-shaped knobs on the lids of serving pieces.

Blair had all his pieces hand-painted and marked most of them with an underglaze backstamp "Blair decorated by hand" The firm’s most popular pattern was Gay Plaid which it distributed and made continuously during its operation. This design featured horizontal forest green stripes and chartreuse and brown vertical stripes. Also produced were Rick-Rack with yellow stripes and brown zigzag bands; Yellow Plaid, similar to Gay Plaid except the predominant color is yellow; Bamboo, an ornately decorated design with multicolored leaves and bamboo in brown; and Autumn Leaf, consisting of a three deaf pattern in several shades.

The era of Blair Pottery came to and end in the Mid-50’s when lightening struck the factory building in Ozark and the resulting fire burned it to the ground. Bill Blair, who had overseen the operation each day, was weary of being tied to the business, and chose not to rebuild.

Prices for Blair dinnerware are still reasonable. For example. a coffee server sells for approximately $45; a five-piece place setting, $35; a creamer and sugar or 14-inch platter, $20; a stick-handled gravy bowl, $18; and ice-lip jug, $25. Prices for most patterns are approximately the same for comparable pieces.

While dinnerware produced in the 1940s-1950s was out of favor with the public for many years, recently it has been rediscovered by savvy collectors who see a certain charm in the quirky designs. 

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 "Antiques of Christmas" in the 2021 Holiday 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.

Potting Up Some Beauty

 

QUESTION: I love plants and for the last few years I’ve been buying a variety of colorful vintage ceramic flower pots at local flea markets and garage sales. Few of them have any makers’ marks. I’d like to have some idea who made some of the pots I have. Can you help me?

ANSWER: Unfortunately, many of the potteries that produced these pots didn’t mark them. But I should be able to give you some clues to their makers through descriptions of their patterns. Some things never go out of style. And so it is with vintage ceramic flower pots. 

Gardening furniture and accessories have become one of the hottest vintage collectibles. For the last several decades, decorating magazines have shown them in rooms adorned with vintage garden ware. Produced in many styles and colors, there’s a flowerpot available to harmonize with almost any decor.

Many American potteries, such as McCoy, Shawnee, Roseville, and Camark produced flowerpots from the 1930s to the 1950s. And people are still using many of them today to display their houseplants. Some even collect them.

The Nelson McCoy Pottery Company, which operated in Roseville, Ohio, from 1920 to 1967, made over 10 different patterns of flowerpots with attached saucers. Some of the most common patterns, available in three sizes and glazes including aqua, green, dark green, white, yellow, rust, plum and pink, were Basketweave, Beaded Tower Patch, Greek Key, and Stonewall. These are quite common and can still be found at garage sales, although prices have risen to $5 to $45 in the past few years. 

Roseville Pottery operated several potteries in Roseville and Zanesville, Ohio, from 1892 to 1954. Early on, they made utilitarian ware, but by 1902, the company had begun to produce art pottery, such as Rozane, Fuji, and Della Robbia. Talented designers such as Frederick H. Rhead and Frank Ferrell contributed to the success of these   lines. Roseville later produced molded flowerpots in a variety of glazes and patterns, including Apple Blossom, Bittersweet, Bleeding Heart, Bushberry, Clematis, Columbine, Corinthian, Cosmos, Donatello, Ferella, Foxglove, Freesia, Iris, Ivory II, Ixia, Jonquil, La Rose, Magnolia, Moss, Pine Cone, Poppy, Primrose, Rosecraft, Snowberry, Water Lily, White Rose and Zephyr Lily. These had separate, not attached, saucers and were usually available in several glaze colors. Most were 5 inches tall, although the Donatello and Rosecraft patterns came in three sizes—4, 5 and 6 inches. Roseville flowerpots cost more than others and are usually hard to find than those of other manufacturers. Most sell for $75 to $200.

Shawnee Pottery Company of Zanesville, Ohio, produced not only kitchenware but inexpensive flower pots from 1937to 196 for Samuel Henry Kress,  F.W. Woolworth, and Sears Roebuck. Patterns included burlap surface, diamond quilted, square, three-footed with embossed flower, scalloped rim, and five-petal flower around rim. Their flowerpots sell for under $15.  

The Vernon Kilns Pottery of Los Angeles, operating between 1931 and 1958, produced flower pots with separate saucers in several of their handpainted dinnerware patterns, such as Brown-Eyed Susan, Homespun, Organdie, and Gingham in three sizes—3, 4 and 5 inches. Though highly sought after by collectors, all are hard to find, especially the saucers, and prices range from $40 to $60.

Founded in 1926, Camden Art Tile and Pottery Company was the third and last producer of art pottery in Arkansas. By the end of its first year, its name had changed to Camark to include both the city of Camden and the state of Arkansas. The firm produced flowerpots that were similar to, if not exact copies of, those of other manufacturers. The bottom line for Camark was to keep abreast of market trends and either meet them or anticipate new ones as was the case with flowerpots. By the mid-1930s, Camark had introduced a line of flowerpots with attached saucers. Camark realized the potential for flowerpot sales and predicted that growing plants will be sold in very large quantities and flower pots will become a necessity—a prediction which definitely came true. To cut costs, Camark changed the types of clays it used for its flowerpots. Previously, the company relied on Arkansas clays but began to use clays from outside the state.

With flowerpots, it’s really not whether they’re worth anything as collectibles— although some are—but whether they appeal to you.

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Having a Little Fun

QUESTION: My mother loved to collect pottery odds and ends. Just about every week she’d stop at the Thrift Store in town and find something or other. One of the quirkiest pieces she found was a cup and saucer with an abstract design painted on it in bright colors. The stamp on the bottom says it’s by Clarice Cliff. I never heard of this artist. Is she American? Was this a type of novelty pottery? Please tell me what you can about her and her work.

ANSWER: Clarice Cliff was an English ceramic artist who created works from1922 to 1963. She began working in the pottery industry when she was just 13. She first gilded pieces, adding gold lines on traditional wares. Once she mastered this she learned freehand painting at another pottery while studying art and sculpture at the Burslem School of Art in the evenings.



Cliff was ambitious and acquired skills in modeling figurines and vases, gilding, keeping pattern books and hand painting ware, including outlining, enameling, and banding while working as an apprentice. In the early 1920s the decorating manager Jack Walker brought Cliff to the attention of one of the pottery’s owners, Colley Shorter, who offered Cliff an apprenticeship.

By 1925, she had begun modeling stylized figures, people, ducks, as well as floral embossed Davenport ware. But in 1929 at the same time as she started the colorful cubist and landscape designs, Cliff's modeling took on a new style, influenced by European Art Deco designers Désny, Tétard Freres, Josef Hoffmann and others, that she had seen in design journals.

A.J. Wilkinson’s gave her a second apprenticeship in 1924 where she worked primarily as a “modeler” on conservative, Victorian-style ware,. Eventually, the owners of Wilkinson’s recognized her wide range of skills and, in 1927 gave her own studio at the adjoining Newport Pottery which they bought in 1920. Here, she decorated some of the old defective “ghost,” or white ware in her own freehand patterns. For these she used on-glaze enamel colors which enabled a brighter palette than underglaze colors.

Cliff creatively covered the imperfections in the pieces in simple patterns of triangles, in a style that she called “Bizarre.” The earliest examples had just a hand-painted mark,  usually in a rust colored paint—“Bizarre by Clarice Cliff,” sometimes with “Newport Pottery” added underneath. To everyone’s surprise, it was an immediate hit. Soon, a young painter named Gladys Scarlett began helping her with the ware. Soon the company produced a more professional “backstamp,” which displayed Cliff's facsimile signature and proclaimed "Hand painted Bizarre by Clarice Cliff, Newport Pottery England." Bizarre became an umbrella name for her entire pattern range. The pottery referred to the first pieces Cliff produced as “Original Bizarre.”

In March 1927, Colley Shorter, one of the pottery’s owners, sent Cliff to the Royal College of Art in Kensington, London, to study in March and May.



After her studies at the Royal College of Art, Cliff’s shapes from 1929 onwards had a more Art Deco influence, often angular and geometric. Abstract and cubist patterns appeared on these shapes, such as the 1929 Ravel on Cliff's Conical-shaped ware, which was an abstract leaf and flower pattern named after the composer. Ravel was another of Cliff's Bizarre shape ideas which became popular in the 1930s.

In 1928 Clarice produced a simple, hand painted pattern of Crocus flowers in orange, blue and purple, each flower being constructed with confident upward strokes. Then green leaves were added by holding the piece upside down and painting thin lines amongst the flowers. Being made from the individual brushstrokes, the Crocus pattern was clearly completely hand-painted, and the vibrant colours instantly attracted large sales.

Crocus was unusual in that it was produced on both tableware, tea and coffeeware, and 'fancies', novelty items made primarily as gift ware. The pattern had many colour variations, including Purple Crocus (1932) Blue Crocus (1935), Sungleam Crocus (1935) Spring Crocus. It was even produced after the war, the final pieces with Clarice Cliff marks being made in 1963, though Midwinter (who bought the factory) continued to paint it to order until as late as 1968.

By 1929, Cliff's team of decorators had grown to 70 young painters, mostly women which she nicknamed her “Bizarre girls.”



Clarice Cliff’s visually explosive designs of the 1920s and '30s—her defining period of creativity according to many collectors—were never exported from her Staffordshire-based studios to the United States. However, it’s Americans, including a number of celebrities, who are among the most competitive buyers of her way-out wares. Further outrageous patterns, vividly colored, such as Melon and Circle Tree appeared in 1930.

"Having a little fun at my work does not make me any less of an artist, and people who appreciate truly beautiful and original creations in pottery are not frightened by innocent tomfoolery," said Cliff in an interview.

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 western antiques in the special 2019 Spring Edition, "Down to the Sea in Ships," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.  

Victorian Cottage Charm

QUESTION: I have a four-piece bedroom set that I believe may be Cottage Victorian. My mother bought it in a second hand store in Pennsylvania over 56 years ago, when I was around 8 years old. I still use it, but I have considered letting it go. But before I do anything with it, I want to learn more about it. Can you help?

ANSWER: Your bedroom set is in exceptionally good condition. It’s made in a style known as Cottage Victorian. What’s also interesting is that you have the entire set. And because it has been in constant Victorian furniture became popular in the United States, particularly along the East Coast, after the Civil War. Pieces began appearing in workshops and then homes of the wealthy in places like Martha's Vineyard, Cape May, and the Berkshires. But the popularity of these items didn’t remain exclusively with the upper class. As the middle class grew, equally elegant, but relatively reasonably priced versions began to appear in the homes of the nation’s growing work force, particularly in Pennsylvania and New England.

Homeowners purchased Victorian Cottage furniture in mostly bedroom "suites,"sold as coordinating groupings consisting of a double bed, a washstand, a dresser or vanity with an attached mirror, a small table, a straight chair and a rocker, and often a wardrobe. In this case, the set consists of four pieces. Cabinetmakers used pine or other inexpensive wood, then painted the entire piece with several layers of paint. The finished sets were colorful and whimsical. But not all sets were painted.

Cottage Victorian beds have high, decorated headboards, some as high as six feet. Finials and medallions constituted what little carving there was on most pieces. Most of the decoration took the form of painted flowers, fruit, and other plants, featuring a large painted bouquet-like medallion in a central panel on the headboard and a smaller, matching one on the foot-board.

Originally, local cabinetmakers, most of whom didn’t have any formal training, built these pieces from designs in pattern books, but towards the last two decades of the 19th century, manufacturers began to mass produce them. This set is one of those.

Those made by untrained cabinetmakers had decoration applied to them in a primitive, folk art sort of way. More expensive sets featured scenes of sailing ships or local wildlife. The same decorative motif appeared on all the pieces of a furniture suite. Those that were painted had a background color of tan, pale blue, pale green, pink, mustard yellow, and sometimes chocolate brown.



One of the biggest misconceptions was that Victorian homeowners loved the appearance of natural woods in their furnishings. That preference didn’t appear until the early 20th century. Cottage Victorian furniture was usually painted to brighten people’s dark, oil-lamp lit homes. As a result, many pieces of painted furniture have been stripped and finished to the often not so beautiful bare wood by well-meaning dealers and collectors.

Cabinetmakers fitted drawers and cabinet doors with wooden knobs instead of metal hardware. Even the boldly colored paint, didn’t have the look of value to it. Those pieces of Victorian Cottage furniture that have survived intact usually have a crackled surface from age-shrinkage, with flakes in spots due from dryness.

Manufacturers produced sets like this one as cheaply as possible. Made usually of pine with machine turned legs and finials, they featured as little structural decoration as possible. Even painted motifs were kept to a minimum to reduce the time it took to do them. Some even feature stenciled designs, so that the maker didn’t have to pay more for trained artists.

To the untrained eye, Victorian Cottage furniture looks as if it should be sold as junk or stripped to the bare wood. But this style of furniture has a charm all its own.

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