The Personal Side of the Civil War

 

QUESTION:  Recently I discovered a well-worn copy of the Bible dated 1861 while going through an old trunk left to me by my father. He said it belonged to his father and his father before that. What’s intriguing about this Bible is the inscription inside: “Presented to John Harrington of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to take with him to the field of battle, June 1, 1861.” Can you tell me why my great grandfather would have had such a Bible and why it has been handed down all these years?

ANSWER: In the 19th century, Bibles often bound families together. Back then, each person may have had their own personal copy. But this Bible, I suspect, was special, for it belonged to a Union soldier who fought in the Civil War. It’s something he carried with him into battle and which he kept his entire life, passing it down to future generations, after one of the most traumatic experiences of his life. 

The Civil War continues to fascinate generation after generation. And with this fascination comes a desire to own a piece of the war, to hold on to a bit of its history. Unfortunately, most people visit Civil War battlefields and memorials and never really get to know the soldiers—the people—who fought in that war. Like all wars casualties are just numbers. But there’s a better way to learn about the war—collecting personal items that belonged to the soldiers, themselves.

Ironically, many collections of Civil War memorabilia often begin with the purchase of a 25-cent minie ball, picked up as an inexpensive souvenir after touring a battlefield. Other people  become collectors after participating in re-enactments, as they replace reproduction articles with the real thing. Still others, perhaps like yourself, become collectors because descendants have passed down items that they carried into battle.

Collections of Civil War memorabilia can be broken into three general categories. Most collectors focus on weapons. Others specialize in collecting military uniforms, as well as associated items such as buttons, patches, badges, buckles, and hats. 

And some collect the personal effects of those who left their homes and fought their neighbors on the battlefields of their own country. It’s often these homely objects that intensify the human side of that horrific war. Collecting what soldiers carried with them to war provides an intimate glimpse into their lives. 

Volunteers, assembled in a short period of time, comprised most of the armies of both of the Union and the Confederacy. Men—or more often boys in their teens—reported for duty with hastily gathered supplies, and there was little uniformity about what they brought from home. Although each state was expected to supply its fighting forces with necessities, it was often the mothers, wives, sisters, a and girlfriends who were responsible for the materials that the soldiers actually brought with them when they reported for duty. As a result, there was a great variety of items included in the soldiers' personal effects. 

Each soldier had a  “soldier's trunk” which was large enough to hold a his extra clothing, personal items, a gum blanket and shelter half, or “dog” tent with a rolled-up blanket or overcoat strapped on top. Union Soldiers were also issued a haversack made of painted canvas and with a removable cotton liner to carry food.

With little idea of how the war would eventually be fought, new recruits generally overpacked, and soon found it necessary to shed their excess personal belongings as the war stretched on. These early recruits often reported with items intended to create a home away from home. Consequently, silver knives and forks, pincushions, and even embroidered booties found their way into camp. The soldiers didn’t anticipate years of war—early recruits signed up for only a few months—and the ensuing movements resulted in the abandonment of these niceties.

Identifying Civil War personal effects has been made easier for collectors because most of the soldiers marked their belongings with their names and regiments.

In addition to the items which soldiers brought from home, camp visitors gave soldiers gifts of food, towels and soap, blankets, hammocks, tobacco and pipes, and pills. Soldiers traded their watches for some of these items. And even though the typical soldier would have appreciated more useful items, God-fearing visitors often distributed  religious tracts. Some gave soldiers sewing kits called "housewives," with which they spent idle hours mending and repairing their clothing. The soldiers played various games, including a primitive form of baseball, as well as poker and cribbage, chess and checkers, dominoes and marbles, and even bet on dice.

As the war stretched on and soldiers found themselves depleting their personal supplies brought from home, they turned to sutlers to replenish their need. Both Union and Confederate governors granted special permits to these civilian merchants. They accompanied the armies with horse-drawn wagons and sold, often at a great profit, the personal items a soldier would find in his pockets or haversack.

Articles owned by soldiers on either side differed little. Instead, social class and military rank were what determined the kinds of items the men carried,, Wealthier men, especially those with higher military ranks, were more likely to carry finer things, more things, and things not absolutely essential to day-to-day existence. On the other hand, many of the ordinary soldiers were poor men, often farmers, or recent immigrants from Ireland or Germany. Their possessions were far more modest.

One accessory common to most soldiers was a wallet, usually of folded leather, lined in linen and held together with a leather strap. Soldiers carried their money—generally not much, as a private's pay was typically $9 a month—and photographs of those at home in their wallets. Leather wallets in very good condition sell for about $65.

Another item that most soldiers carried into battle was a copy of the Bible. These  pocket-sized books are often found in poor condition today because of the amount of use they received. Inscriptions increase their value.  A typical Civil War Bible sells for about $75.

And they wrote. Soldiers of the Civil War kept extensive diaries, and maintained regular correspondence with friends and loved ones at home. Many of the envelopes they used are of particular note with patriotic scenes depicted on them, as are the many writing implements and accessories. Ordinary soldiers wrote on paper with wooden lead pencils, which they purchased from sutlers for a few cents or received as gifts.

Officers, however, often included writing sets in their holdings. Many carried bottles of ink—glass bottles covered in materials like leather to prevent breakage—and pens which, being made of a breakable material, rested in brass tube-like protective cases. Today, uncut Civil War-issued pencils can be had for $5 to $10, and fancy pens in brass cases bring $45.

Pens weren’t the only things transported in protective cases. Whiskey flasks were often covered in leather and encased in silver or pewter. Collapsible tin or pewter cups rested in little tin cases with snap-on lids. Other personally-supplied mess pieces commonly found include combination knife-fork-spoon utensils and plates.

On a more personal level were the items that soldiers carried in leather toilet kits tucked inside their haversacks. Toiletry items such as toothbrushes, tooth-cleaning powder (little more than baking soda), hand soap and shaving soap, brushes, and  mirrors were often packed in these kits. In many a soldier's pack was at least one straight razor with a bone or ivory handle, even though beards were in style.

Each article tells a story, has a message, is worthwhile keeping. The Civil War is about people. Those who fought it are no longer here to tell us about it. So the next best thing is to collect the items they carried. 

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.

It's All in the Pattern

 

QUESTION: I recently purchased a summer quilt with a sunburst pattern. It really brightens up my day to see the sun spread out on my bed. How did women come up with patterns like this? The patterns I’ve seen on quilts seem to be endless.

ANSWER: Quilts originated as a practical need but eventually they also became personal works of art. They served as window and door coverings. Hanging quilts on the dirt walls of a sod house made them seem more homelike. Quilts could serve as privacy walls, creating sleeping areas in a sod house or one room cabin. Quilts folded and laid on a board placed between two chairs became a sofa.

Patterned quilts have been around for a long time. While some appeared in Colonial times, the peak time for pattern quilts was the second half of the 19th century. Most quilts took hundreds of hours of work. Although some individuals did make the older ones, the most intricate ones were the result of a group of women sewing together in what became known as a “quilting bee.”

During the years between the American Revolution and the beginning of the westward migration, bedcovers blossomed with cotton cutouts salvaged from leftover bits of expensive European chintz. Women carefully snipped around the bird and floral motifs of the imported chintzes and appliquéd them on fields of plain domestic cloth to make the most of the patterned fabric available to them. Known as patchwork quilts, these served a practical purpose—to keep people warm in bed at night.

The pioneers spent up to a year preparing for their trip West. Besides drying and preserving foods and purchasing coffee and beans and barrels of sugar and flour, they packed dishes, clothing, utensils, needles and thread. And they made quilts. The emigration guides suggested that each family should bring enough bedding so that each man, woman and child would have two to three blankets or quilts. They packed some of their quilts in trunks and kept others for daily use.

But it was during the years of the westward journey, from 1840 to 1870, that women stitched the majority of patchwork quilts. As families moved west, fabric became scarce, so women creatively used what they had. While their Colonial forebearers used bits of leftover fabric, pioneer women also used pieces of old clothing and household linens. They stitched these scraps together in designated patterns with some pretty folksy names—the Hole in the Barn Door, Rocky Mountain Puzzle, Log Cabin, Galaxy of Stars, and hundreds of others that reflected the joys and sorrows of pioneer women’s lives. Only rarely did quilters use new pieces of cloth.

Another type of quilt popular at the time was the crazy quilt, a seemingly wild pattern made more coherent by a series of straight seams. Because of a lack of space and quilting supplies, individual pioneer women often assembled lap-sized quilts suitable for throwing over the legs when riding in a wagon or carriage in cold weather. 

The crazy quilt is the oldest quilt pattern. Early quilters used any scrap or remnant available, regardless of its color, design, or fabric type. They fitted and stitched together pieces of worn out clothing, women's calico dresses, men's pants and shirts, household linens, and other oddly shaped fabric scraps.

Crazy quilts, which Victorian women also used to decorate their parlors featured rich colors and textures and displayed fine embroidery skills. Victorian quilters filled their quilts with bits and pieces of their personal past; a piece of father's vest, a husband's tie, lace from a wedding veil, or ribbons commemorating political events. The result was a riot of color with a story behind each scrap.

The quilts of the late 1800s illustrate the extravagance of the Victorian age. In fact, the quilts that most typify those years aren’t really quilts at all, but thin parlor throws meant to thrill the eye—not warm the body. At home on the tabletops, sofa arms, and piano backs of overstuffed parlors, these throws had neither quilting nor batting. Yet, in their own splashy way, they were as much masterworks of American stitchery as their pioneer predecessors.

Pieced from the best silks, satins, and velvets—materials newly available to the growing middle class—the patchwork throws of this era are rich mosaics of color and texture, emphasizing proficiency in embroidery and the mastering of different types of stitches. Women's magazines of the day printed detailed embroidery instructions for anyone to follow.

Quilt patterns varied widely. While the patchwork quilt was usually more of an overall design, quilters created specific patterns that have been passed down to today. Four of them—the None Patch, the Pinwheel, the Double Wedding Ring, and the Eight Point Star, and all their variations–were particularly popular. 

The Nine Patch is one of the simplest and quickest quilts to sew, and because it was a good way to use up every small scrap of fabric available, it was used often. On the prairie, sewing was an essential skill. Young girls learned to sew blocks before they learned to read. At an early age, often as young as 3 or 4, girls were taught to piece simple blocks such as the Nine Patch. Many were very skilled at piecing a block by age 5.

The Pinwheel pattern first appeared in pioneer quilting during the 1840s. It developed as a  representation of the water pump windmills found on farms or small towns along the trails westward.  Water was not only necessary for cooking, drinking and bathing, but it was also a power source especially in timber and grain mills. Quilters considered the pinwheel quilt to not only be decorative, it also paid homage to the  windmill that allowed them to survive pioneer life.

During the early 20th century, women's tastes shifted from dark colors to a rainbow of pastel colors—mint greens, lemon yellows, and watermelon pinks. The Double Wedding Ring was a pattern that lent itself well to pastel fabrics. A feature of many Double Wedding Ring quilts was its scalloped edge created by the circles that made up the quilt.

The Double Wedding Ring pattern dates back to the 15th century. It was reminiscent of the “Gimmal ring,” a popular engagement ring in which the betrothed couple each wore one ring during their engagement, and then the rings were interlocked during the wedding ceremony and worn by the wife.

The quilt pattern can be found as early as the late 19th Century. It had long  long been a symbol of love and romance with its interlocking rings symbolizing marriage. The quilt was traditionally made by Mothers and grandmothers made these quilts for their children and gave them as gifts on their wedding day or anniversaries.

Stars were probably the most common pattern used on quilts. Homesteaders traveling West used the stars for guidance, plus they considered stars as religious symbols of their faith in God.

There were hundreds of star patterns. Some quilts had just one large radiating star, often called the Star of Bethlehem or Blazing Star, while in others, quilters used dozens of smaller stars. The simplest and most popular star pattern was the eight Point Star.

A star pattern wasn’t an easy design to cut or sew. Quilters had to be precise, as any inaccuracy in cutting or piecing became worse as the quilter added pieces. If poorly pieced, the quilt wouldn’t lie flat when finished. An intricate star pattern was one way for a quilter to show her needlework skills.

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.

Rustic Can be Beautiful

QUESTION: Recently I bought a pair of chairs at an outdoor antique show that seem to have been made of rough-hewn logs and branches. The dealer said they came from the Adirondack Mountains in New York State. They’re well-built and with a couple of pillows on each are rather comfortable. What can you tell me about this style of chairs?

ANSWER: Your chairs are what’s known as rustic furniture, also known as Adirondack furniture, even though it wasn’t restricted to just the Adirondack Mountains.

Rustic furniture is furniture made of sticks, twigs, or logs for a natural look. The term “rustic” came from the Latin “rusticus,” meaning “peasant”.

The idea for rustic furniture came about in the late 18th century at the beginning of the back-to-nature movement, a change from the world of classic, predictable furniture patterns to one of more fanciful design using natural materials.  

Little summer shelters appeared in city gardens, often covered in vines or surrounded by trees and shrubs. These summerhouses also provided a small green refuge that shut out the discomfort and ugliness of city life. 

Designers copied nature's lines in drawings for chairs and settees for these shelters and the garden paths around them. Their plans called for gnarled, distorted limbs of shrubs and trees to make a chair or bench, instead of the usual marble or plain wooden seats. Gardens, themselves, became more picturesque and less formal, with curving paths taking the place of straight ones. Designers strategically placed rustic chairs, benches, arbors and gates throughout the plantings. 

The rustic furniture movement reached its peak during the mid- to late-19th century. In the 1870s, several American firms specialized in rustic furniture. Adirondack craftsmen produced high quality pieces for new woodland camps of wealthy New Yorkers. These included Camp Pine Knot, Kamp Kill Kare, Camp Uncas and Great Camp Sagamore. The National Park Service also adopted the style for its park lodges. The first and largest manufacturer of such furniture was Old Hickory Furniture Co., established in 1890.

Although basic living conditions were the rule in the camps and cottages that sprung up  in the mountains, the original coarse, primitive furniture evolved into fanciful and rustic as camp owners updated their amenities. 

By the late 19th century, America’s millionaires filled these camp resorts, and although they considered themselves naturalists, they dressed and lived formally in the midst of the rustic furniture, for they had no intention of roughing it.

Some of these naturalists set up their own camps with tents and log cabins and built rustic furniture for them or had local craftsmen do it for them. Eventually, the log cabins became large log houses with all the latest amenities. Soon they became known as compounds or family camps.

Typical pieces of rustic furniture included chairs, love seats, tables, desks, smoking stands, clocks, chest of drawers, rockers, coat racks, mirror frames, beds and lamps.

Rustic outdoor furniture filled the porches of these camp houses and spilled onto the grass. Couches and chairs made of rough pieces of local woods, holding loose cushions, adorned the sitting rooms. Even the beds showed off the rustic style, often with fanciful patterns on the head and foot boards. 

Rustic furniture had a functional style and was made of organic materials, such as the tree or shrub limbs and roots or the trunks of saplings indigenous to the area of the maker. Although roughly made, the style was often sophisticated and imaginative. The more knots there were in the limbs, the more the furniture makers favored them. They even left the bark on the wood whenever possible to give each piece more texture and individuality.

Many of the rustic styles reflected the personality of their maker, with techniques such as chip carving, silver or gold brushwork, milk paint, peeled bark and other decorative enhancements. But people often referred to some rustic furniture as primitive because it displayed a lack of craftsmanship.

Furniture makers used two basic types of rustic-furniture construction—bentwood, for which they harvested fresh sticks or steamed them to make them supple, then bent into a variety of structures and decorative shapes and twig work, consisting of straight, curved, or forked sticks assembled into structures and decorative shapes within a structure. Sometimes, they employed both types in the same piece. Some rustic furniture makers also used mortice and tenon construction while others simply nailed or screwed pieces members together.

For their furniture, makers used many different woods, including willow, hickory, mountain laurel, and Alaska cedar. In the Deep South, some occasionally used palm fronds.

Makers used large, gnarly roots in their furniture designs, making them into table legs and chair arms. To produce a striking veneer for their pieces, furniture makers preferred birch, a slender tree with bark that peeled in strips. These pieces quickly became known for their geometric designs made of the white birch bark veneer, especially on case furniture, such as chests and cabinets. Also, many of the intricate veneered designs included various kinds of split twigs, carefully chosen by color to form patterns. 

Unlike their Adirondack counterparts, Appalachian furniture makers took pride in knowing how to get wood to work for the intricate twists, bends and weaving for their furniture designs. They knew just when and how to bend saplings while they were still growing, letting nature do some of the work before they were ready to use the wood. They preferred laurel, hickory, and willow because of their flexibility and strength. They built their furniture with graceful loops and interwoven curves, weaving each piece of wood to create tension, resulting in a hidden strength disguised by the fragile look of the design.

Today, rustic pieces often appear at higher-end antique shows. Occasionally, they appear at flea markets. But people consigned a lot of pieces to the bonfire after they went out of fashion in the mid-20th century. So prices tend to be on the high side because of the uniqueness of the pieces. Twig rockers can sell for $150 and up, while lounges and settees can go over $2,000.

Case pieces—chests and cabinets—rarely come on the market and when they do, their prices are exceptionally high, often in the four and five figure range. The most common pieces are various chairs and plant stands, priced anywhere from $75 to $600. 

As the 20th century moved forward, individual craftsmen found it hard to keep up with the volume of orders, so factories opened to meet the need. Business remained brisk for the rural craftsmen until the 1940s and by the 1950s, rustic furniture was no longer popular. 

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.

The Democratization of Ice Cream

 

QUESTION: When I was a kid, my family had an ice cream machine. Just about every Sunday afternoon, especially when it was really hot, my father would get out the machine and make ice cream. And I helped. We made all different flavors, depending on the kind of fruit that was in season. My job was to crank the machine. Boy, was that hard because I had to keep going for at least 45 minutes. When I got tired, my dad would take over. I haven’t had homemade ice cream for a long time but recently saw an old ice cream maker for sale at a flea market. What can you tell me about antique ice cream makers. Are they worth anything or are they just junk?

ANSWER: There’s nothing like homemade ice cream. With electric ice cream makers, it’s easy to make it. But there’s a nostalgia connected to the old hand-cranked machines. 

Until the early 19th century, ice cream remained a rare and exotic dessert enjoyed mostly by the wealthy. Ingredients and technology, including ice harvesting and the invention of the insulated icehouse around 1800, plus the increased affordability of sugar made making ice cream at home for ordinary people more affordable.

In 1843, New Yorker Nancy M. Johnson applied for a patent for her hand-cranked ice cream freezer, called the Artificial Freezer. It had a movable crank that rotated two  adjacent broad, flat slates containing an array of holes, which assisted in churning the cream, making the mixture more uniform, while also making it easier to remove the ice crystals in the interior walls of the cylindrical container in which the spatulas fit. These metal spatulas, attached to a pipe called the “dasher,” were then attached to the handle crank protruding out from the Artificial Freezer. And by inserting a border into the container that held the mixture, Johnson made it possible to create two flavors at the same time.

She invented her ice cream churn to cut down on the time it took to make ice cream, which was originally a labor intensive process involving many steps. President Thomas Jefferson used an 18-step recipe. However, the resulting ice cream had to be eaten immediately since people had no form of refrigeration at the time.

The machine sold fast, but despite Johnson’s success with the Artificial Freezer, she sold the rights of her patent to William G. Young from Baltimore for $200. He then improved on its original design, and others soon followed with 70 improvements of their own. 

Smaller domestic ice-cream makers made from the 1880s usually had a metal inner pail fitted with a paddle attached to a crank handle, which sat inside a wooden bucket containing a freezing mixture of ice and salt. The user poured cream into the inner pail where it was beaten and churned as it froze.

The same year as Nancy M. Johnson filed her patent, London resident Thomas Masters created the Ice Cream Apparatus which featured interchangeable parts. The machine could be set up for home use, producing blocks of ice, ice cream, flavored ice, and cooling drinks and wine. Thomas added special churns to his ice cream maker to ensure a proper beating process, creating the smoothness and fineness necessary to ensure the ice cream and flavored ice didn’t separate. The Ice Cream Apparatus had separate ice preserving containers for butter, fish, game, etc., plus cold storage spaces for beer and wine.

To make ice cream with one of these antique ice cream makers, the user needed to pour the ice cream mixture into the inner pail where it was churned and beaten as it froze. When filling the bucket, the user needed to layer the salt and ice, going heavy on the salt between the layers.

Mixing ice with salt lowered the ice’s melting point, so even when the ice melted, its temperature remained below the normal freezing point of 0 degrees Celsius---32 degrees Fahrenheit.

After adding the ice cream mixture and closing the metal canister, the next step was cranking to help aerate and smooth the mixture. This also prevented the separation of the ice cream’s  ingredients.

Ice cream makers stamped with the designer’s or manufacturer’s mark have a higher value than identical items with no signature. Antique White Mountain ice cream makers, for example, carry the company’s name. The manufacturer’s mark verifies that the antique ice cream maker is genuine and not a copy.

More than anything else, demand determines the value of an antique ice cream maker.  A 170-year-old antique ice cream maker could be worthless if no one wants it. However, a 120-year-old ice cream maker could have a higher value if demand for it is higher.

Condition is also very important in determining the value of an antique ice cream maker. It needs to be checked for flaws, including cracks, missing components, and excessive wear. And while a minor nick may be negligible, a major crack on the bucket that holds the ice may lower the value considerably.

Antiques made in the early 1900s may be less valuable than those made in the 1850s. The reason for this is that the antiques from the 1850s are rarer than those made in the 20th century. More antique ice cream makers from the early 20th century that are in good condition are available than are well-maintained antiques from the mid 19th century.

The White Mountain brand dates back to 1872 when Thomas Sands made improvements to Johnson’s design and started his company in Laconia, New Hampshire. White Mountain antique ice cream makers currently available date to 1923 and sell for $100 to nearly $400.

Acme started making ice cream makers in the early 1900s. Going by the name “Acme Ice Cream Freezers,” the brand featured a metal can surrounding the ice cream canister. Models currently on the market range in price from around $20 to $125.

As long as an antique manual ice cream maker is in good shape it can still be used. However, those that are part of a collection shouldn’t be used to make ice cream. In that case, it’s better to let the more efficient electric models to the work.

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.

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.

The Strength of Iron with the Hardness of Stone

 

QUESTION: My grandmother collected all sorts of odds and ends of antique china. Among all the pieces she had were a half dozen plates and jugs that had a special quality about them. She called them her stoneware and said they were probably from the early 19th century. Three of them had the name “Spode” on the back or bottom. Two were pure white with no decoration while the others had Chinese scenes painted on them. Can you tell me anything about them and when they would have been made?

ANSWER: The pieces your grandmother called “stoneware” are actually “ironstone,” a form of china with the look of porcelain. Ironstone china is a hard earthenware similar to porcelain. Although it has the hardness and fine surface of porcelain, it’s opaque while porcelain is transparent when held up to a light. 

Josiah Spode II first made ironstone in 1805. But before that, Miles Mason had been experimenting with a china formula that reproduced the appearance of Chinese porcelain. In 1813, Mason’s son, Charles, took out a patent, listing it as an improvement on ironstone china. Both Spode’s and Mason’s ironstone were equally fine. The blue-white color of both of their wares, as well as their patterns, were  imitations of Chinese wares.

Spode used his ironstone as a way to copy Lowestoft patterns. Lowestoft was a soft-paste porcelain produced in Lowestoft, Suffolk, England, made from 1757 to 1802. It was mostly used for pots, teapots, and jugs, with shapes copied from silverwork or from Bow and Worcester porcelain. The English nobility had their initialed tableware made in China but getting replacements was a slow process, so they called upon English potters to make them.

While these pieces usually had no marks, they sometimes had the name “Spode” impressed in small letters on their bottoms. These patterns included crests and coats of arms and initials in shields with borders of small floral or leaf patterns or delicate ribbons.

One of Spode’s early ironstone patterns, commonly known as “Tree of Life,” is a design of the famille rose type, painted in blue, green, yellow, brown and pink. The mark appeared in black with the name “Spode” set on a rectangle of fretwork.

Patterns on Spode’s Lowestoft also included Queen Charlotte’s pattern, selected for Her Majesty’s visit to the Spode factory in 1817. Decorated in blue, it featured a butterfly border and a Chinese landscape in the center. It was a version of the old willow pattern that was popular on Chinese wares.

Though Spode copied many of his patterns from imported Chinese wares, he adapted others by making them more elaborate than their Chinese originals. Two types of old Chinese porcelain influenced Spode. The first was the old blue-and-white Nankin designs with pagoda and landscape and the butterfly border. The second was the famille rose design of the Yung Cheng period 1734. These patterns were in polychrome with gold and had floral and bird motifs. However, Spode didn’t use these patterns exclusively on his ironstone.

Spode marked the pattern numbers in red on his ironstone in addition to the factory mark. Lower numbers indicate an early production date, enabling pieces to be placed within certain years even if the exact date cannot be identified.

Eventually, Spode’s ironstone came in a variety of patterns. The Cabbage pattern featured a large leaf and flowers. Printed in blue, workers then filled it in by hand in blue, gold, rose, and Chinese red. Another early pattern, Peacock, features birds and peonies in gold and other colors in the famille rose style with a border known as India edge.

Landscape was Spode’s most Chinese looking pattern. It featured Chinese figures in blue and gold in the border with a landscape of water and buildings painted in colors in the center. Bang-up, first produced in polychrome, was a pattern of Chinese flowers. Ship and Star featured a pattern of a ship, buildings and figures set in a center cartouche and has a star border printed in brown.

The pattern known as George IV, was first made for the Coronation of George IV on July 29, 1821. The center of the plate has a design of Chinese still-life motifs with flowers and vases in blue, Chinese red, and gold with a heavy border.  

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.