Word of the Week: Campeche Chair

April 29, 2015 in Uncategorized by hdavis

Furniture: A Louisiana carved cherrywood campeche rocking chair, early 19th century, distinctive architectural half-round crest, continuous back and seat with leather [sling] upholstery and nailhead trim, serpentine arms and supports over curule rocker base, pegged and tenoned construction. The Campeche chair (also sometimes spelled “Campeachy” based on period spellings) is a lounge chair, also sometimes referred to as a plantation chair or a Spanish chair. In Britain, they’re often referred to as an X-frame chair, because of the form, comprised of two X-shaped sides, with one leg of the X making the curve of the back and the other making the rail for the seat, which is a leather sling that forms the seat and back. Campeche refers to the Campeche region of the Yucatan Peninsula, where the form originated. (The chairs were made throughout Mexico and the Caribbean and the Campeche region was known for mahogany, from which the chairs were traditionally made. They are not, as sometimes described, from Campeche wood.)

The chairs were popular at almost any point along Spanish trade routes, but they also found their way further north. They were very popular in New Orleans, where they arrived in regular shipments, and were also manufactured. The majority of American Campeche chairs are believed to have been made in Louisiana, but Thomas Jefferson was given one as a gift and had at least two at Monticello, where John Hemings, the enslaved son of Sally Hemings, copied them in his shop, while James Madison also had a Campeche. And demand slowly spread with a few emigres, with Campeche chairs showing up in catalogues and price books in Philadelphia and later in London.

Today, Campeche chairs can bring anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $70,000 or more at auction. While as always condition and style are important, the two key factors are age, as the form experienced a Victorian-era revival so newer chairs are of course less valuable, and provenance. Because the chairs were all along the Spanish trade route and were usually made of mahogany, rather than American woods like walnut (some are found in cherry and walnut and thus clearly American), provenance is key for collectors wanting to ensure they have an American-made Campeche chair.

The Heisey Glass Company, An American Success Story

April 14, 2015 in Glass by hdavis

Some stories are the microcosms of larger ones, which is certainly true for August Heisey and his glass company. Heisey himself is the story of the original American dream – an immigrant who worked his way up to incredible wealth and his company’s success and productivity would mirror the rise and fall of American manufacture, for a time supplying a growing middle class with quality goods at affordable prices, giving them successful mimicry of the lavish things in the homes of the industrial tycoons who employed them.

In 1861 August Heisey (1842 to 1922), a German-born immigrant, would find work as a clerk at the King Glass Company. Aside from a disruption caused by the Civil War (in which he enlisted as a private, mustered out as a brevet major, and in between was wounded at Little Round Top), Heisey would spend much of the rest of his life in the glass business. Five years after the war, he would marry Susan Duncan, whose father was an owner of the Ripley Glass Company (later Geo. Duncan & Sons), and in time Heisey himself would become a part owner and the general manager.

Heisey, looking for an opportunity to begin his own business, moved to Newark, Ohio in 1895 and opened a glass factory that began operation in 1896. He himself would go on to prominence, holding a variety of prestigious titles and positions, while his company, operated by Heisey and then his sons until its closing in 1957, would play a part in revolutionizing glass production in modern America.

Like many successful glass and pottery companies in the Ohio Valley at the time, Heisey would experiment with forms, design and color, while having a staple that would help steady the business. For the Heisey Glass Company, that was making lighting fixtures and glass headlights for cars. They would become known for their glass tablewares and glass figurines, making an impressive array of both pressed and blown glass. Their glass animal figures in particular were popular with collectors from the beginning and Heisey’s pressed glass was of such quality that pieces can often easily pass (at least at a glance) as cut crystal.

Heisey produced glass in dozens of patterns, including Greek Key, Plantation, Stanhope, and Old Sandwich. They manufactured colored glass for the company’s entire run, but the best years are generally considered to be between 1925 and 1938. Early colors, like Flamingo (a soft pink) and Moongleam (a green), were typically softer and more pastel, with a move in the 1930s toward darker colors like their Tangerine (vibrant orange) and Stiegel Blue (a cobalt shade). They are also thought to have made milk glass and did produce some vaseline glass. Alexandrite, a blue-green that becomes a lilac/lavender in ultraviolet light, is considered their rarest color.

In 1957, after the Christmas holidays, Heisey ceased production, the beginning of a wave of changes that would sweep through the ‘60s and ‘70s, altering the face of American manufacturing. The Imperial Glass Company bought the molds and continued producing pieces based on some of them through 1984, when Imperial too closed.

Heisey’s collectability remains fairly steady today, aided by a strong museum and collector association, as well as an annual collectors’ auction, although volume keeps prices low for many of the less desirable pieces. As is always the case with glass, condition is key, as well as pattern and color.

Taking in the View: Collecting Stereoview Photographs

April 7, 2015 in Photography by hdavis

Anthony [E. & H. T. Anthony & Co] Civil War view [stereoview photograph], 2507, (Negative by Brady) Wounded at Fredericksburg, VirginiaStereoview photographs (also called stereoscopic photographs or stereographs) did not come into existence until the 1850s, but, as is often the case with scientific advancements, the imaginative vision that gave birth to them was in place years earlier – in this case more than two hundred years earlier. As far back as the early 17th century, visionaries were making drawings of what would develop into the stereoviewer, but stereoviewers (or stereoscopes) would not become a reality until the early 19th century.

Stereoviews are composed of two images that are nearly identical, images that are taken from viewpoints that are a few inches apart, and then mounted on cards. By viewing them through lenses set about eye-width apart, the brain is tricked into combining the images in a way that creates a three-dimensional effect. (All the technology that drives 3-D movies today is largely derived from and built upon the same principles and technology that led to stereoviews.) Sir David Brewster designed the classic box-shape stereoviewer and Sir Charles Wheatstone created the first stereoview in 1833. For the twenty years or so before photography became more widely available, stereoviews were typically drawings. Oliver Wendell Holmes’ invention of a handheld stereoviewer in 1859, which would be manufactured by Joseph Bates, would make stereoviews more convenient and accessible at the same time that stereoviews were becoming more popular due in large part to their ability to make images more widely available, as it would be several decades yet before photographs could be reproduced in newspapers. Victorians would gather in their parlors and pass stereoviewers around, allowing them to be transported to faraway places and to see the wonders of the world that they might otherwise never have seen.

Stereoviews would appear in several different formats before the years of mass-produced curved card mounts in the late 19th century. Photographers experimented with daguerreotype, tintype and albumen stereoviews, in the process recording the rapidly changing physical and historical landscape of the late Victorian years. For instance, images of the landscape of the American West, the development of the railroad system, Native American Indians and their culture, and various mining booms were wildly popular. Stereoviews allowed Americans in particular to see the vastness and diversity of the country. Virtually every small town had a photographer, many of whom were taking stereoview photographs in between the portraits that kept their businesses afloat, and many of these scenes are very rare and very collectible today, in part because they show landscapes that are otherwise often lost to us.

In the mid-1880s, manufacturers found methods to increase the production and availability of stereoviews, with large companies like Underwood & Underwood and Keystone (which would eventually buy out most of the American stereoview market) in America and the London Stereoscopic Company (which was founded in the 1850s and produced hundreds of thousands of stereoviews) in England actively marketing stereoviews to schools as educational tools. Stereoview popularity would begin to wane in the early years of the 20th century, as technological advances made photographs more easily reproduced, particularly in newspapers and magazines, and by the 1920s, even the largest companies had generally ceased production.

Stereoviews remain widely collectible today however and a number of factors influence their value. Rare images are, naturally, more desirable, whether they are rare because few were produced or because they are of a place or event that is not otherwise well-documented. Certain photographers’ work is also collectible, often because of their particular skill at composing the elements that make a good three-dimensional effect, while other collectors focus on glass-plate stereoviews. The quality of the effect itself is also a factor, although to a lesser degree, and early stereoviews are often more desirable because of their scarcity and the quality of the three-dimensional effect. (Stereoviews were initially mounted on flat cards but in later years, in the era of mass production, it was discovered that the three-dimensional qualities of a photograph could be enhanced by cupping the card. The former are flat mount views and the latter are known as curved mount views.) Highly collectible stereoviews can sell for more than $1,500 at auction, but on average, most individual stereoviews sell for anywhere from $5 to $300.

Gone to Pot: The Rise and Fall of Chocolate Pots

March 24, 2015 in Pottery & Porcelain, Silver by hdavis

A French Rococo silver tea and coffee service with spiral ribbed pyriform, tab feet; consisting of teapot, coffeepot (6556), creamer (6559), covered sugar bowl, chocolate pot with wood handle side.Crack open a container of cocoa mix today and what you have would be unrecognizable to centuries’ of hot chocolate lovers. And yes, centuries. Cocoa beans made the trip to Seville, Spain from Mexico in 1585, but that would have been unrecognizable to us, as it was not the cocoa powder we use (stripped of the rich cocoa butter) but something more akin to melting a chocolate bar and thinning it with cream. And then adding things like anise and chiles!

Naturally, it didn’t take long for something like an exotic, expensive drink to spread and the first chocolate factory was opened in London in 1657. On the Continent, chocolate drinking was pretty much exclusively reserved for aristocrats, but in England, where coffeehouses had opened only five years before, “chocolate houses” opened as well making the drink available to the middle class. (The English would also invent the process of solidifying chocolate.)

By the end of the 17th century, chiles were moving out of chocolate recipes and sugar was moving in in greater quantities, for, it’s posited, the very same reason chocolate became popular in the first place – scarcity equals exclusivity equals wealth equals status. Sugar, simply put, was a mark of prosperity and thus social standing.

It took roughly another hundred years, but by the end of the 1700s, chocolate had become something that would be at least a little more familiar to modern consumers. The processes of grinding the beans and integrating milk and sugar had been refined, but making chocolate was still an ordeal: the beans, which first had to be roasted and shelled, were crushed and then ground on a hot stone. Because of tastes and expenses, chocolate of the period was not nearly so sweet as modern chocolate and because of technological limitations it was not nearly so smooth either. People began molding chocolate in the 19th century.

Meanwhile however, drinking chocolate was the most common way to consume it and, as one would assume, with its associations with wealth and social standing, the drinking of chocolate (and coffee) required specialized pots, sets and cups. While the terms are now muddled, chocolate pots, coffeepots and teapots were distinctly different forms that were easily identified in the period. (All three are visible in the picture above with coffeepot, teapot, and chocolate pot from left to right with the cream pitcher and sugar bowl in front.) Teapots are easier – they are short and round-bellied to give tea the necessary room to brew and to keep water hot longer, because unlike their counterparts, tea was prepared in the teapot, not simply served in it. Coffeepots are more slender and taller with elongated, often arching, spouts. Chocolate pots are also taller than teapots, but their spout is typically shorter with the opening often just below the rim. Another difference between chocolate pots and coffeepots can be observed inside the pot: filters. A coffeepot has a screen-like filter over the base of the spout to catch grounds while a chocolate pot does not. Chocolate pots are also often distinguished by their odd handles. Unlike the loop handle on a coffeepot, chocolate pots frequently have turned handles sticking straight out of the side of the pots. Less commonly observed, early chocolate pots often had a hinged or removable finial, sometimes attached by chain, to allow for the insertion of a stirrer.

While eating chocolate has only grown in popularity, drinking chocolate never achieved the staying power of drinking coffee, due in large part to how much more complicated the production of processing cocoa beans is versus that of processing coffee beans. Drinking chocolate dropped out of fashion by the mid-18th century, to be replaced nearly one hundred years later by the use of cocoa powder to make something closer to the hot cocoa we know today.

In terms of market value, chocolate pots can fetch anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand dollars, with the value resting heavily on their age and material (silver, of course, has a steadier price). The terminology is often muddled as well, with chocolate pots not necessarily being clearly identified as such or with coffeepots being called chocolate pots. Ultimately well-wrought ones in silver with marks for known silversmiths are the most desirable.

A Jug By Any Other Name

March 10, 2015 in Pottery & Porcelain by hdavis

A Frechen stoneware Bartmann krug, Germany, 16th/17th century, bearded mask to neck above foliate trim and portrait medallions, and with central banded verse, hinged pewter lid. Bartmann jugs, sometimes called Bellarmine jugs, are European stoneware pieces that were produced during the 16th and 17th centuries. They are so called because of their typical decorative detail – an applied molded bearded face lower on the neck of the jug, right above the shoulders. Bartmann decoration was used on jugs, pitchers, and bottles or flasks of all sizes.

“Bartmann” means, quite literally, “bearded man” in German and it was in Germany, particularly in the western area, in the Rhineland region around Cologne, that Bartmann pieces were manufactured. Molded decoration was the norm, but the bearded figure (also sometimes referred to as the bearded mask or Bartmaske) was most commonly associated with Cologne. A bearded figure appears throughout Germanic folklore as a sort of wild man of the forest and is thought to be the inspiration for the stoneware Bartmann. Throughout the years of manufacture, the decoration styles would change – early ones often just have the molded face decoration, later they were sometimes decorated with medallions, sometimes with a coat of arms, sometimes the body of the vessel itself was decorated, sometimes it bore religious sentiments, but the face is a constant.

These pieces are also sometimes referred to as Bellarmine (bell AR meen), which is believed to be a reference to Robert Bellarmine (1542 to 1621), a cardinal who vigorously opposed Protestantism, although the reason for this reference (ridicule from Protestants who were purchasing the exports and his equally firm opposition to alcohol are both suggested explanations) seems to remain a mystery.

However, exported they were. Archaeological sites around the globe have unearthed evidence of Bartmann jugs, which speaks both to the massive amount of pieces produced and to their longevity. There is also some speculation that they were used to hold charms, with the faces (which grew increasingly fantastical and grotesque during the decades of production) warding off evil spirits and that they helped spread the association and tradition that would lead to the more dramatic face jugs like those produced in America centuries later. Bartmann jugs were also popular enough to inspire English potters to copy the effort and to prompt a revival of their production in the 19th century.

Today at auction, Bartmann pieces can fetch anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand dollars. Because of their age, condition can play a role in the price, as can the extent of the decoration and the size, but perhaps the most significant factor is their actual age – they were manufactured over so many years that the earliest ones, those from the early 1500s, for instance, can command very different prices from those produced more than two hundred years later in the early 18th century.

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