A Long Walk: Edward Payson Weston, Professional Walker

December 13, 2013 in Photography by hdavis

Carte de Visite [photograph] of “Weston the Walker” (Edward Payson Weston). Known primarily for his long distance walking.As the year draws to a close, various publications begin their “year in review” analysis, naming the most important and influential people of the year. With my work, I “meet” important and influential people all year too. It’s just that most of them are dead and many of them are forgotten, but all of them are still fascinating!

Take, for example, my recent acquaintance with Edward Payson Weston (1839 to 1929). Weston (not to be confused with Edward Weston the photographer who shot some “racy” nude images that probably would have stopped Edward Payson Weston in his tracks) was a “notable pedestrian” (a phrase I think might be on my short list for my own epitaph), who made (pun alert!) incredible strides in promoting walking for exercise. Weston specialized in long distance walking, setting records for trekking hundreds of miles between cities. At 21, he walked from Boston to Washington (in February…) in 10 days, 10 hours, and his last great walk was at 73 when, in just 51 days, he walked from New York to Minneapolis. Over the years, he was assaulted by bettors, involved in a coca leaf “doping” scandal, and walked backward around St. Louis. In an incident that can only be due to a dark sense of humor on the part of the universe, Weston was struck as a pedestrian by a New York City cab at the age of 88 and never walked again before his death at the age of 90. You can read more about him in the 2012 biography, A Man in a Hurry: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Edward Payson Weston.

Word of the Week: Monteith

December 9, 2013 in Pottery & Porcelain, Silver, Uncategorized, Word of the Week by hdavis

A Chinese Export porcelain blue and white monteith, circa 1690A monteith is a large center bowl (usually silver, occasionally porcelain, rarely glass) designed to be filled with ice and with a scalloped, shaped rim to allow a set of wine glasses to be suspended around the rim by the foot of the glass, so the bowl of the glass can be chilled. While extant silver monteiths can be dated to as early as 1666, the more “modern” version of the form, which is essentially a punch bowl with a removable rim, saw the height of its popularity from the 1680s to the 1720s. Obviously, the silver forms were often reworked as they lost popularity and the porcelain versions would of course have been quite vulnerable to damage, so as a result, the form is relatively rare.

Word of the Week: Cartouche

December 2, 2013 in Word of the Week by hdavis

An American sterling silver reticulated trumpet vase, Dominick & Haff, New York, 1898

The decorative arts world has many “squishy” and vague vocabulary words, but few are “squishier” and vaguer than cartouche. Originally, the term comes from Egyptology and is used to describe a oval enclosing hieroglyphics and having a horizontal line at one end. (The line denotes royalty.) The oval had significance not unlike that of a closed circle, in that it was believed that an oval around a person’s name provided protection to that person. The strong association with the god-like royalty of ancient Egypt and the “good luck charm” nature of the symbol meant that it was eventually co-opted by the rest of the population and, as a result, it appears on all manner of structures and objects from the era.

Centuries later, when Egypt was a land divided constantly by conflicts, soldiers, seeing these ovals everywhere, are said to have found them to resemble the paper cartridges used in muskets. (You can see a Civil War-era example here.) The French word for cartridge is cartouche and thus it became, in its original use, the term applied to this particular hieroglyphic element.

Before long, however, the word cartouche began to be applied to any “ornamental enframement” as the Getty’s Art and Architecture Thesaurus puts it. That resource defines the term as being used to denote a space for “an inscription, monogram, or coat of arms, or ornately framed tablets, often bearing inscriptions,” and cartouche is often applied in this sense for the ornamentation surrounding a monogram or inscription on a piece of silver. The piece pictured above has a classic example of a “blank cartouche.”

While to most people the most accurate definition continues to apply only to this ornamental frame around an open space, it is also often used for objects like oval mirrors, which might be described as cartouche form if they have a heavily ornamented and decorated oval frame. In its most diluted “area of ornamentation” usage however, cartouche has also become the term for the central decorative ornamental element at the top of forms like a desk-and-bookcase or a high chest, whether they are oval in shape or not.

A Santa by Any Other Name: Belsnickles, Santas, and Holiday Ornaments

November 27, 2013 in Holiday & Patriotic by hdavis

A Santa Claus Belsnickle figure of exceptionally rare form, likely made in Pennsylvania in the 1870sAs small children, most of us were likely threatened with lumps of coal or switches in our stockings,  but for the most part, modern-day Christmas celebrations focus far more on the nice than on the naughty.  This wasn’t always the case, and our jovial 20th-century Saint Nick and his comical elfin sidekicks have their roots in a much darker image: the ancient Germanic Christmas figure of Pelzsnickel, literally “furry Nicholas.”  The character of Pelznickel, known throughout Europe, followed the Germans across the Atlantic to Pennsylvania where he became Belsnickel or Belsnickle.  Crossing cultural lines, Pelznickel morphed into a variety of characters ranging from a dark, frightening whip-carrying figure in ghoulish costume to a gentle fur-clad woodsman dispensing toys and justice.  Somewhere along the line, however, he became “our” Santa and “belsnickle” became the word for a traditional Santa ornament.

Belsnickles, for the most part, are surprisingly uniform. Aside from the colorful character pictured here, who is saddled with toys and the accoutrements one might need when tramping through the woods on a snowy evening and whose uniqueness is reflected in his $25,000 price, most belsnickles take the standard form of a somber, robed Saint Nick. Occasionally, he is holding a small Christmas tree, but otherwise, the only thing that varies is the color of his robe. Not to worry, though, because his robe comes in a rainbow of colors from the traditional red or white to orange, yellow, blue, and even pink! Value is, as always, determined by condition but also by the rarity of the color of Santa’s robes. Nice or naughty, any Christmas collector can appreciate these colorful characters!

Word of the Week: Catafalque

November 25, 2013 in Miscellaneous Antiques by hdavis

French patinated bronze funerary monument of the Emperor Napoleon ICatafalque comes from the Italian word catafalco, which means scaffolding.  It is the term used for a bier or platform that supports a coffin, and catafalques are often, although not always, moveable.  In the image here, Napoleon’s body rests on the catafalque in the lower left of the image. The slant-sided base or table which supports his body is the catafalque.

In the United States, the most iconic example of a catafalque is the Lincoln Catafalque, which was created for Lincoln’s funeral in 1865.  This pine platform covered with black cloth remains in the Exhibition Hall at the U.S. Capitol’s visitor center, but has been called into service regularly (with new cloth and some additional supports) since 1865 for all those who have lain in state in the Capitol Rotunda.  Lincoln’s funeral train traveled back to Springfield, Illinois, stopping at a number of cities along the way, so many catafalques were no doubt built for the ceremonies held in those cities, but the one in Washington is the one created for his funeral service there.

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