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Gilding the Lily: Vermeil and Decorative Objects

June 13, 2013 in Decorative Accessories by hdavis

Gorham silver urn-style compote“Vermeil” is a French word co-opted by the English in the 19th century for a silver gilt process. Vermeil is a combination of silver and gold, although other precious metals are also occasionally added, that is then gilded onto a sterling silver object. The reddish (vermilion) hue of the addition of the gold gives the product its name. Vermeil is commonly found in jewelry, silver tablewares, and small decorative objects and a standard of quality (10 karat gold) and thickness (1.5 micrometers) has been set with regard to jewelry.

Vermeil was initially created through fire or mercury gilding, a technique developed in the 18th century, which requires the application of a solution of mercury nitrate to the object and then the application of a silver and gold/mercury amalgam. In order for the gilding to adhere to the surface, the coated object is placed in a kiln and exposed to extreme temperatures, which burns away the mercury. (This is similar to the technique used to produce ormolu, a form of gold-gilt.) As a result of the intense and prolonged exposure to mercury, it has been estimated that most mercury gilders died before the age of 40. Mechanical or chemical gilding techniques were largely replaced by electroplating by the mid-19th century, and the process was banned in many countries in the mid-1800s.

The White House has a room known as the Vermeil Room, so named for a collection of vermeil tableware.

 

 

Written in Stone: Collecting Lithographs

June 11, 2013 in Ephemera, Works on Paper by hdavis

Lithograph of George Washington

Lithograph of George Washington based on a Gilbert Stuart portrait.

The word lithography comes from Greek lithos, meaning “stone” and grapho, meaning “writing.” Although “stone writing” is sometimes done today with a metal plate, traditionally the process gets its name from the use of limestone.

Lithography is made possible by one of the simplest scientific phenomena – the repelling relationship between water and oil. A hydrophobic (water-repelling) substance with a fat or oil base is used by the artist to draw the image directly on the plate, and then the plate is washed with a hydrophilic (water-drawing) solution. The plate is kept wet during printing, and the water moves to the hydrophilic blanks, repelling the oil-based printing inks toward the hydrophobic design. While a variety of options exist for hydrophobic materials, the key to success is a substance with oils that stand up to the presence of water and acid. A weak hydrophobic substance contributes to a lack of crispness in the plate image and thus in the resulting printed images.

This process was invented by Aloys Senefelder, a Bavarian writer, in the 1790s, and Senefelder predicted, but did not truly pioneer, the successful use of color that would blossom in the early 19th century. Introducing color to the process was the work of Godefroy Engelmann in the 1830s. Color lithography, known as chromolithography, requires the artist to break the image down into colors, creating a separate plate for each color to be applied. The challenge with chromolithography, and one of the key measures of quality, is how carefully the plates are aligned for each application. This is referred to as “registration” or being “in register,” revealing the care and attention to detail supplied by the printer.

While originally intended mostly for the creation of images, lithography soon became a popular method for printing texts, especially those in Arabic and other scripts where the characters are linked in a way that makes movable type less than ideal. The richness of chromolithography was not lost on artists, however, and found popularity throughout the 19th century, especially among French artists like Edgar Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec and in nature prints like those inspired by John James Audubon.

Bien chromolithograph of mallard ducks after John James Audubon.While stone is no longer the basis for the process, making “lithography” somewhat of a misnomer, lithographic printing is still widely used today. In fact, it is the method by which most modern mass printing is done. Today, the process involves a photographic process and flexible plates of aluminum, polyester or even paper. A photographic negative of the desired image is created and applied to a plate coated in a light-sensitive emulsion. Exposure to ultraviolet light creates a reverse of the negative reverse – a positive of the original image – on the plate. This transfer of images is also sometimes accomplished with the use of laser technology, but in the end the process remains the same: water is applied and rejected by the emulsion, hydrophobic ink moves toward the areas of design, and the basic conflict between oil and water continues to produce most of our books, newspapers, and magazines!

Call of the Wild: Collecting Antique Bird Calls

June 5, 2013 in Miscellaneous Antiques, Sports by hdavis

A carved [duck hunting] duck call by Charles Perdew (1874 to 1963) of Henry, Illinois.My brother came to visit recently and because he is intent on being the best uncle ever, he arrived with four stuffed birds (all of them play the appropriate bird song and all of them must now travel up and down daily with my daughter for naps and bedtime) and his turkey call. It’s spring and the wooded strip between our house and the creek bottom is alive with birds, including our local flocks of turkeys who are all atwitter for mating season. They were eager to talk and my daughter, who loves all things birds, was, of course, transported.

But she’s not apt to start collecting bird calls soon – and not just because of my sanity, but because various hunting calls are actually one of those classic examples of when it’s important to take a closer look. Many of them are commonplace, of course, and mass-produced, but certain ones could finance a college education! You’ll find handcrafted calls for a variety of birds in the antiques marketplace, including goose, turkey, and even crow, but duck calls are, by far, the most prevalent.

American Indians had likely used mouth calling for generations, but mechanical calls came into being around the mid-19th century with the first patent recorded in 1870. Several family names became associated with the production of mechanical calls – yes, before the Robertson family of Duck Dynasty came along. Fisher, Beckhart, Turpin, Perdew (see above) – and many others – are apt to show up at yard sales for pocket change, but a Perdew call, for instance, can bring anywhere from $200 to $8,000 or more at auction, depending on type, age, and condition. These are the kinds of little yard sale finds that the database can turn into big money, so when in doubt, it definitely pays to search!

Nuts about Antiques: Tagua Nuts in Material Culture

June 3, 2013 in Miscellaneous Antiques, Uncategorized by hdavis

Ferrotype photograph images of Civil War Union Generals Meade, Rosecrans, and Sherman set in tagua nut braceletOne of the things I love about this job is that I never know what it will involve next.  Sure, much of the time I tend to putter along in my own little world, dealing with historical ephemera and documents, 19th-century photography, and American stoneware, but smack in the middle of a group of photographs, I find myself unexpectedly staring a botany lesson in the eye.  Even the simplest of questions can drift off into uncharted waters.  You never know where what seems like a small voyage will take you.  (Of course, I had my share of questions that were akin to the Minnow‘s “three-hour tour,” too, but those are other stories….)

This happened last month when I was working on a sale of photographic material.  In the midst of fairly normal albumens and daguerreotypes was the odd little bracelet pictured above – a bracelet with three tintype images of Civil War generals (all Union – Meade, Rosecrans, and Sherman) strung with blue glass beads and set “in tagua nut.”  Because I can never just leave well enough alone, I went off to find out just what tagua nuts are.  Turns out, tagua nuts are the endosperm of a genus of South American palm trees, and for small little things that grow thousands of miles away, they actually appear fairly often in American material culture, for the simple fact that they resemble elephant ivory, both in appearance and in their ability to be carved into durable useful objects.  Elephant ivory has been long been fashionably ambiguous, either because it’s difficult or expensive to procure or just ethically distasteful.  Tagua nuts solved that problem and show up in a number of places that one would also find ivory, including cane handles and clothing buttons.  “Nutty,” but true!

Piecing Together the Past: Friendship & Album Quilts

May 30, 2013 in Crafts & Folk Art by hdavis

A Baltimore applique album quilt, dated 1855Quilts are some of the most ubiquitous antiques – made for generations, still made, sometimes in the same ways, and still being sold or handed down in families. And perhaps more than many objects, they’re often completely detached from their history – no provenance, no history of a maker – and thus are reduced just to condition and whatever details can be drawn out from the age of the fabric, the pattern, and the technique.

For this reason, history can make a great difference in prices. A quilt like this one, which descended in an early Virginia/West Virginia family with family provenance, fetched easily three times what it likely would have as just an “old quilt” with no specific origins. Friendship quilts were also popular and help researchers make genealogical and historical connections. Friendship quilts are typically quilts with a traditional pieced structure, but they are often signed (and the pieced pattern often incorporates a “clear” white space for a signature and/or an embroidered inscription). Tradition indicates that friends would each make a pieced section to contribute.

A better documented, if more isolated tradition is that of the Baltimore album quilt. Album quilts (like the one pictured above) appeared in the 1840s in the Baltimore area (eventually spreading to other regions, including documented examples in the Miami River Valley area of Ohio), and unlike more traditional quilts which are made up of pieces of the same composition stitched together to create a pattern, album quilts are typically comprised of larger individual blocks, all with a separate design, style, or motif. While they were later often sold in kit form, early ones were individually designed, and while they occasionally appear to have been made by one person, the majority – and the most desirable – album quilts were, instead, often made by a group of women with each contributing a block that was either designed by the future owner or that was designed by the individual contributor. Oftentimes, the blocks are also signed by the makers, either in indelible ink or embroidery. The genealogical gift of more than one name (and, frequently, a date) is a great one to researchers.

Both friendship and album quilts were periodically also made for very specific occasions or causes, to commemorate weddings, birthdays, or other milestone events. While it appears to have been done all in one hand, this quilt, for example, marks Ohio’s contribution to the Civil War, being presented in 1884 to the mother of a soldier and listing the names, companies, and regiments of around 300 Ohio soldiers. So many quilts probably carry great stories, and the marketplace definitely appreciates those still in a position to “speak up”!

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