Object of the Day, Museum Edition: Pendant in the Form of a Non-Working Watch, 18th Century

Pendant
Eighteenth Century
Crown Copyright
The Royal Collection
Image Courtesy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

This circular pendant is designed to look like a watch. Made by a now unknown Eighteenth-Century jeweler, the bezel is bordered by rubies spaced with white enamel spheres which simulate pearls. The obverse shows a false clock face set of gold and enamel behind glass. The reverse is adorned with a foliate pattern of green and gilt enamel. From the Collection of Lady Carnarvon, the pendant was given to the Royal Collection, I’d say, sometime in the 1930s.

Crown Copyright
The Royal Collection
Image Courtesy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

The Home Beautiful: A Cowtan & Sons Wallpaper Frieze, c. 1830

Click image to frieze in place.

Frieze
Cowtan & Sons
London, c. 1830
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Cowtan & Sons, a celebrated early-to-mid Nineteenth-Century producer of wallpaper, created this frieze to augment the crown molding in a room. The border, printed with woodblocks, depicts various fruit and cereal crops. The design is framed by an edge which duplicates beaded trim. It dates to about 1830. This specimen would have served as a showroom example and is one of fifty-five such pieces which remain from the stock of Cowtan & Sons.

Unusual Artifacts: The Feeding Pig Dummy Board, 1750

The Victoria & Albert Museum

We’ve looked at Dummy Boards before, but never one shaped like an oinker. Just to refresh your memory, dummy boards are life-size, flat, wooden figures which are painted to resemble figures (usually servants, soldiers, and children, but sometimes animals).

These novelties were fashionable as a form of decoration (which originated in the trompe l’oeil) in the early Seventeenth Century, but they were made well into the Nineteenth Century. These items were placed in corners and on stairways to surprise visitors. I think a pig on the stairs would certainly surprise me. Sometimes they were placed in front of empty fireplaces in the summer. Usually, these were the work of professional sign-painters.

This one is quite a triumph of perspective. The figure of a piglet feeding from a bowl has been angled to slope away from the spectator so that the bowl appears horizontal.

Her Majesty's Furniture: The Tatham Stool, 1800

This majestic footstool from the Victoria & Albert Museum has a design similar to that of a marble seat that been discovered in Rome. Though it appears to be made of marble, the stool is made from beech wood, painted in white and grey to simulate the appearance of stone. The use of beech wood allowed for easier carving and much less costly (and less weighty) medium to marble. 

The stoolmwas designed by Charles Heathcote Tatham (1772-1842) who studied ancient architecture in Rome in July 1794 under the patronage of his employer and mentor, Henry Holland (1745-1806)--architect to the Prince of Wales.

This stool is one of a pair from the Neave Collection.  Its twin is at Temple Newsam House, Leeds. 

Mastery of Design: Pendant in the Form of a Non-Working Watch, 18th Century

Pendant
Eighteenth Century
Crown Copyright
The Royal Collection
Image Courtesy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

This circular pendant is designed to look like a watch. Made by a now unknown Eighteenth-Century jeweler, the bezel is bordered by rubies spaced with white enamel spheres which simulate pearls. The obverse shows a false clock face set of gold and enamel behind glass. The reverse is adorned with a foliate pattern of green and gilt enamel. From the Collection of Lady Carnarvon, the pendant was given to the Royal Collection, I’d say, sometime in the 1930s.

Crown Copyright
The Royal Collection
Image Courtesy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

The Home Beautiful: A Cowtan & Sons Wallpaper Frieze, c. 1830

Click image to frieze in place.

Frieze
Cowtan & Sons
London, c. 1830
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Cowtan & Sons, a celebrated early-to-mid Nineteenth-Century producer of wallpaper, created this frieze to augment the crown molding in a room. The border, printed with woodblocks, depicts various fruit and cereal crops. The design is framed by an edge which duplicates beaded trim. It dates to about 1830. This specimen would have served as a showroom example and is one of fifty-five such pieces which remain from the stock of Cowtan & Sons.

Unfolding Pictures: The Tea Party Fan, 1760s

Fan of Painted Kid Leather
C. 1760
The Victoria & Albert Museum

The image of a lady and an African servant was quite fashionable in the Eighteenth Century.  Such images graced everything from paintings to snuffboxes, but this one is unusual since it’s the only one thus far found on a fan.

This image is called “The Tea Party,” which is rather queer since she’s not drinking tea. The fan is made of kid leather. Painted on one side is a trompe l'oeil pattern of white lace, blue fabric and pink striped ribbons.  The piece was made around 1760 in Britain.

Object of the Day, Museum Edition: The Ginger Girl Dummy Board , 1630-50

Dummy Board, 1630-50
East Sutton Park, Kent
The Victoria & Albert Museum

We’ve looked at dummy boards—life-size, painted wooden cut-outs met to play a visual trick—several times before.  Here’s an exceptionally well-painted one which was made in England between 1630 and 1650 by a professional sign painter.  The figure depicts a ginger-haired female in a style of dress which was popular with wealthy women about 1640.  Curiously, the figure is holding a broom—unlikely for the lady of the house.  It’s possible that this is meant to represent a servant girl wearing her mistress’ hand-me-downs, and therefore suggests a later date of creation.  A companion board, also at the V&A, shows the same titian-haired female figure holding a mirror, so the pair probably represents the concepts of  “industry” and “vanity.”

This dummy board and its mate came from East Sutton Park, Kent, the family of Sir Robert Filmer, a prominent royalist who died in 1653. The pair was purchased in 1898 at the sale, near Maidenhead, of one Mrs. Sankey-- a daughter of Sir Edmund Filmer.

It’s important to note that there is a similar figure of a sweeping woman at Lullingston Castle, Kent, and another related figure at Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire. The example we see here, and its mate, are said to have faces which are supposed to be copies of family portraits of the family of Sir Robert Filmer.

Unusual Artifacts: The Feeding Pig Dummy Board, 1750

The Victoria & Albert Museum

We’ve looked at Dummy Boards before, but never one shaped like an oinker. Just to refresh your memory, dummy boards are life-size, flat, wooden figures which are painted to resemble figures (usually servants, soldiers, and children, but sometimes animals).

These novelties were fashionable as a form of decoration (which originated in the trompe l’oeil) in the early Seventeenth Century, but they were made well into the Nineteenth Century. These items were placed in corners and on stairways to surprise visitors. I think a pig on the stairs would certainly surprise me. Sometimes they were placed in front of empty fireplaces in the summer. Usually, these were the work of professional sign-painters.

This one is quite a triumph of perspective. The figure of a piglet feeding from a bowl has been angled to slope away from the spectator so that the bowl appears horizontal.