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.

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.

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 religious antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

A Bedroom Necessity

QUESTION: I found and fell in love with and bought this nightstand from a thrift store for $60.00. What can you tell me about it?

ANSWER: What you have is a nightstand which probably dates to the 1930s or 1940s. Nightstands are a new type of furniture. Back when people used didn’t have indoor toilets, they sometimes kept a porcelain potty in a cabinet in the lower part of a similar piece of furniture. This came to be known in America as a commode. It allowed a person who had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night to use it in the privacy of their bedroom and not have to go out to the outhouse. When indoor plumbing became more common, furniture manufacturers kept the piece of furniture but replaced the cabinet in the lower portion with drawers.

But to fully understand how the nightstand evolved, we have to go back to the Middle Ages. During that time, people used a simple setup consisting of a tripod stand or stool that could hold a washbasin. They would have placed a chamber pot either under the tripod stand or inside the stool for easy access.

By the 18th century, the washstand, also called a basin stand or washhand stand, had become more a necessity in the bedroom, not just for washing up, but for storage of a chamber pot to be used in the middle of the night when necessity called.

Cabinetmakers made some to fit in a corner, with a bowed door in front and flaps extending upwards from the sides to protect the wall from water splashes. These were simple pieces. By the 19th century, they had increased in size, becoming heavier and more substantial that often came with a marble top and drawers in front and a cupboard below in which to store a chamber pot.

More high quality washstands appeared in the second half of the 19th century. These were usually a part of a bedchamber suite, consisting of a bedstead, dresser, wardrobe of some sort, and bedside commode.

Wealthier people with servants could also use their bedroom for bathing. First, there was the convenience of a commode near the bed, a washstand with warm water supplied by the maid or even a nice hip bath set near to all the bedroom furniture and accessories that a person would have used for grooming and dressing. By heating the bedroom and perhaps an adjoining dressing room, a person could take care of all of his or her bathing needs at once in one warm area. This was especially true in big houses in cold weather.

The washstand, itself, became an essential piece of bedroom furniture. It came in varying designs which could easily accommodate a large basin, a pitcher, a toothbrush jar, and various other toilet accessories, frequently including a chamber pots housed in a cupboard at its base. Furniture makers usually used white marble for the top and the “splash back” set into a wooden frame. Sometimes, they cut a hole in the top so a basin could be suspended in it. They often used a special type of French marble known as “St. Anne’s,” as it resisted the action of the alkali in soap.

Basic washstand accessories included a seven-piece washstand set, consisting of a ceramic bowl and pitcher, chamber pot, toothbrush holder, shaving mug, soap dish, and comb and brush tray. People would often hang a mirror on the wall behind the washstand. Another common accessory was a wooden towel rail known as a “towel horse.”

Commode washstands served the same purpose as a simpler table washstand, made like a chest with a bottom cupboard to hold the chamber pot and a jar for dirty wash water.  Furniture makers added drawers in some models to store a razor, soap dish and towels. The top of some washstands could be lifted to reveal a well in which the wash basin and pitcher could be stored when not in use.

So how did washstand evolve into the nightstand? These convenient pieces of furniture are part of every modern bedroom set. Before indoor flushing toilets became commonplace, the main function of a nightstand was to store a chamber pot. As a result, early nightstands often had small cabinets below with a drawer above them. The enclosed storage space below may also have been covered by one or more doors. Americans eventually started called this bedside cabinet a commode, which after the installation of indoor bathrooms, they also called them.