The Art of Play: A Silver Toy Coffee Pot, 1720

The Victoria & Albert Museum

This miniature coffee pot is a toy in the sense that, in the Eighteenth Century, any knick-knack or fashionable trinket for adults, as well as a child’s plaything, was called a toy. If you think about it, the same idea is still true today. Whether it’s a plush animal or a diamond ring, something that amuses us is still a toy—luxurious or not.

This particular “toy” is made of silver and the maker took great care to copy the exact details and proportions of a full-size coffee pot. Silver toys like this might have been designed to furnish dolls’ houses. Some might have been miniature trade samples. Others were made as practice pieces for apprentices.

However, more so than anything else, these items were made as fashionable novelties for adults to collect and as playthings for the children of wealthy families. Because they were light and small, silver toys are not fully hallmarked, so it’s hard to say who the maker of this particular example might have been.

Painting of the Day: Lion and Lioness—Rocky Background, 1776

Lion and Lioness--Rocky Background
George Stubbs, 1776
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Today’s theme—other than Duke and Duchess of Windsor—is “showing off” despite a rocky background. And, look, here’s a painting that very neatly summarizes this. This animal-themes painting is the work of the Eighteenth Century artist, George Stubbs.

Stubbs was essentially a self-taught artist though he did study briefly with Hamlet Winstanley (1694-1756), before becoming disgruntled and returning to his native Liverpool. Later, he would study anatomy in York. Stubbs became fascinated with the anatomy of animals, but had a hard time depicting them when they were alive—especially horses. So, he practiced by borrowing dead horses and posing them so he could figure out how all of their parts fit together. Sounds like a fun guy.

I don’t think the lions depicted here were dead. By 1776, Stubbs had gotten the hang of what he was doing. This painting was one part of a series of paintings that Stubbs began in 1770 of lion and lioness against varied backgrounds. The lions here strut about in greedy splendor against a rocky background.

Later, Stubbs would branch out and study such exotic animals as monkeys, zebras and yaks.

The Art of Play: A Silver Toy Coffee Pot, 1720

The Victoria & Albert Museum

This miniature coffee pot is a toy in the sense that, in the Eighteenth Century, any knick-knack or fashionable trinket for adults, as well as a child’s plaything, was called a toy. If you think about it, the same idea is still true today. Whether it’s a plush animal or a diamond ring, something that amuses us is still a toy—luxurious or not.


This particular “toy” is made of silver and the maker took great care to copy the exact details and proportions of a full-size coffee pot. Silver toys like this might have been designed to furnish dolls’ houses. Some might have been miniature trade samples. Others were made as practice pieces for apprentices.

However, more so than anything else, these items were made as fashionable novelties for adults to collect and as playthings for the children of wealthy families. Because they were light and small, silver toys are not fully hallmarked, so it’s hard to say who the maker of this particular example might have been.

Sculpture of the Day: A Figural Group with Birds and Strawberry Leaves, 1755

Figural Group
1755
Unknown French Maker
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Finding an Eighteenth Century French figural group such as this work of glazed porcelain and gilt metal in its original condition is quite rare. Most of them seem to have been made into lamps. And, most of those lamps have been surmounted by ugly shades for the last forty years or more. I blame Joan Crawford.

This delicate sculptural group features a pair of birds—facing each other--upon a tree stump next to a peculiarly small dog. The group is mounted in gilt metal and fitted with white hard-paste porcelain flowers. As was the fashion of the time, the stump is encircled with leaves and flowers applied in relief. The metal mounting consists of supporting structure of curved and pointed stems to which are attached flat strawberry leaves of gilt metal, five roses and a tulip which serves as a candle holder.