NEWS

Silver Spout Cup
This rare Boston silver spout cup by John Dixwell is typical of the American Colonial period. With a narrow, sharply curving spout and handle set at a right angle, the cups were designed for a caregiver to easily feed an infant or a bedridden invalid. John Dixwell (1680-1725) was a Boston gold and silversmith who was an outstanding maker of early church silver for benefactors across Massachusetts. Dixwell was also a founder of the New North Church in 1714, to which he gave silver tankards, cups, a beaker, and a baptismal basin. Although he died a recognized Boston citizen, Dixwell spent the first nine years of his life living under an alias, due to the precarious life of his father.
John Dixwell (1607-1689) was a member of Parliament during Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate and one of 59 British judges who sentenced King Charles I to death in 1649. Upon the Restoration of Charles II a list of regicides targeted for execution was issued and Dixwell fled the country to Hanau. Royal agents scoured the continent, capturing regicides in Hanau, and Dixwell had to flee again. He arranged with compatriots Whalley and Goffe to sail for New England, sheltering at the Hadley, Massachusetts home of Reverend Russell in 1665. To avoid detection, Dixwell traveled under aliases and arrived in Hadley using the name James Davids. Whalley and Goffe had arrived in the colony as heroes and had not changed their names, a decision they may have come to regret. Boston magistrates received a royal order for their arrest, and colonists had to shelter them as they were pursued far and wide for the next two decades. Whalley and Goffe spent a summer dwelling in a cave, while “James Davids” settled down and started a family. Always in peril, Whalley and Goffe had to return to the cave yet again. In 1688, James II, the last Catholic monarch of England, was deposed, and the remaining regicides could finally live freely.
Lot 415 Boston, Massachusetts silver spout cup, ca. 1715, bearing the touch of John Dixwell.
By Cynthia Beech Lawrence

Go Green
This important Philadelphia Chippendale mahogany tall case clock, ca. 1770, is a rococo carved masterpiece representing the epitome of Philadelphia cabinetmaking. The carving is attributed to John Pollard (1740-1787), an English-trained master carver who was one of the most highly skilled and prolific artisans in Philadelphia, at the time employed by cabinetmaker Benjamin Randolph, and after 1772 in a shop of his own. The broken arch bonnet is adorned with applied acanthus scrolls and dentil molded border, surmounted by flame and suppressed ball finials, and encloses an eight day works with brass face inscribed David Paterson Sunderland, over a case with fluted quarter columns and ogee bracket feet. It was common amongst wealthy English Philadelphia Quakers to use English clock makers such as Paterson or Wagstaff, which they considered superior to American clockmakers. Provenance: descended in the family of Captain John Green of Philadelphia; Pook & Pook March 20, 2004, lot 440.
Continental Navy Captain John Green (1736-1796) was a Revolutionary War veteran. He was captured and held for nine months with 250 others in Mill Prison, Plymouth, England (see also lot 476, miniature portrait of Captain George Southward). Freed in an exchange, he immediately took command of the brig Duc de Lauzun, and was involved in the last naval battle of the War in 1783. On February 22, 1784, just six months after the Treaty of Paris was signed, Captain Green piloted the three-masted sailing ship The Empress of China out of icy New York Harbor. The first American ship to sail from the independent United States to China, it carried the first government envoy to the Qing Empire, as well as lead, animal skins, cloth, and ginseng to trade for tea and porcelain. Having lost favored trading status within the British Empire and barred from the West Indies, America now sought to stake its independent claim to the tea trade. Commissioned by Philadelphian Robert Morris, the venture returned a 25% profit amounting to $30,000, persuading Stephen Girard and others to follow, and establishing what is known as the Old China Trade.
After a voyage of 18,000 nautical miles and fifteen months, the Empress of China reached Canton, where it would have sailed up the Pearl River to an anchorage in Whampoa, where the Canton System trading compounds, or Hongs, were set up to house foreigners. During the four month trading season, Captain Green would have moved into the upper story of a Hong, the ground floor of which was used to warehouse trading goods. Foreigners were restricted to the Hongs, and permitted only to deal with one of thirteen appointed merchants known as Cohongs. Green might have crossed paths with a young Howqua, who was to inherit the reins of his father’s trading company in 1801 and become one of the world’s richest men. Captain Green had been commissioned by Morris to purchase for his wife a dressing box, fans, and window blinds. On his own account, Green purchased umbrellas, lacquerware, 600 ladies silk mitts, 6 pairs of satin ladies shoes, 113 pairs of satin breeches, and chickens. Upon the ship’s return in May 1785, laden with a cargo of tea, trousers, and porcelain, George Washington purchased a set of Chinese porcelain tableware, pieces of which still can be found at Mount Vernon. Captain Green completed a second trip to China before retiring to his farm in Bucks County.
Lot 337 Captain John Green’s tall case clock, ca. 1770
By Cynthia Beech Lawrence

The Sycamore Tree at the Moses Rice Farm
Captain Moses Rice (1694-1755) was a soldier on the Massachusetts frontier at Rutland garrison. In 1742 he purchased 2,200 acres from the City of Boston and became the first colonial settler in the area. According to family tradition, it was under this tree, the Rice Buttonwood, where Moses slept when he first arrived on his land. He built a farmstead along the main east-west travel route, the Mohawk Trail and named it Charlemont. During King George’s War (1744-1748) Charlemont was one of a line of farms used as forts and garrisons. From his outpost, Rice extended hospitality to fur traders, scouting parties, and soldiers. Burned to the ground in a 1744 attack, Rice rebuilt the farm during a lull in hostilities and returned with his family in 1749. As military action between the French and English escalated again in 1754, Charlemont was fortified and garrisoned by local citizens, and Moses petitioned for permanent troops. While plowing his fields in 1755, Rice was attacked by a Native American raiding party, taken to the woods, and tomahawked and scalped. He died shortly upon being found. His young son Asa was carried off to Canada and held for six years, after which he was ransomed and returned in 1761. In 1871 the great-great grandson of Moses Rice erected a monument at his gravesite on the hill behind the home. The tree was still standing on the farm when photographed by Henry Brooks in 1890, Rice’s Buttonwood, with a girth measuring a massive 16 feet.
The 19th c. farm depicted in the folk art painting shows a land long-settled, with a verdant landscape of rolling hills dotted with grazing cows and horses. The rich farmhouse, barn, and outbuildings are neat in their coats of white paint and stacked firewood. Under the ancient tree Rice’s Buttonwood , travelers on the Mohawk Trail water their horse, while another elegant carriage passes by. The scene evokes an aspect of American culture that appears often in 19th c. art, the taming of the frontier. Order has been imposed. The 1871 memorial has not yet been erected, and although there is no trace of past bloodshed or the savage wilderness, the land is shown to bloom with European civilization.
Lot 212 The Sycamore Tree at the Moses Rice Farm, Charlemont
By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence

Philotesia Owen
Philotesia Owen was born in Coulsdon, England, and in 1716 married Quaker merchant Robert Strettell (1693-1762). She is depicted in her portrait dressed in the typical attire of a young Quaker woman, unadorned, in modest brown silks, her shawl providing a touch of blue. Philotesia’s honeymoon was over in 1720, when Robert lost a great deal of money in the collapse of the South Sea Bubble. In 1736 they followed the lead of many fellow Quakers and emigrated to the religious freedom of Philadelphia. Arriving with a cargo of goods, Strettell opened a shop in Water Street facing Fishbourne’s Wharf, where he advertised for sale India velvet, muslin, flowered damask, blue and white China plates, Japanese tea kettles, Scotch snuff and “fine London tobacco.” Educated and prosperous, the Strettells bought a country house in Germantown to summer in. In later years Robert’s will also mentioned “proprietary rights in West Jersey” and a collection of Greek, Latin, and French authors. By the early 1740’s Strettell was a member of the Philadelphia City Council, the Governor’s Council, and served as Mayor of Philadelphia from 1751-1752. Robert’s public service career would have strained the patience and pacifism of Philotesia nearly as much as the collapse of the South Sea Company. Throughout the early 18th century, Philadelphia politics were so troublesome and the burdens of office so heavy that the mayors, appointed by the Council for one-year terms, had a history of absconding or refusing to serve. For nearly fifty years after Penn’s 1701 Charter granted government powers, mayors did not even receive compensation. Many selected candidates preferred to pay a fine rather than forgo a year of their lives. (Just four years before Strettell’s term, an annual salary of $100 was approved.) Strettell’s term coincided with a period of intense activity, largely due to the efforts of polymath Benjamin Franklin, who was completing work on the Post Office, the Hospital, and the College of Philadelphia all in 1752. Strettell was appointed one of the original 24 trustees of the College. Another Franklin endeavor, volunteer defense groups were being debated as the city discussed how to defend itself prior to the 1754 French and Indian War. Work on the Pennsylvania State House (begun in 1732) was completed in 1753. If there is a conversion ratio of Philadelphia mayor years to regular human years, it must be something like 4:1. Having prospered and performed their public service, the Strettells were both buried at Friend’s Ground in Philadelphia.
By Cynthia Beech Lawrence
Lot 133 Pastel portrait of Philotesia Owen (1697-1782)

Press Release – May 2023 Americana & International Auction
Pook & Pook is pleased to announce details of our Americana & International sale, May 4th & 5th, 2023. The antiques and artworks assembled for this sale are significant for their representation of hallowed makers, illustrious owners, and famous sales of the past. Many have been off the market for decades, some half a century or more. This sale affords the opportunity to purchase antiques from noted collectors Israel Sack, Titus Geesey, Ada Musselman, the Machmer family, the Garvan family, William K. duPont, H. Richard Dietrich, Jr., Margaret Berwind Schiffer, and famous collections such as The Pioneer Collection of Dr. Donald and Mrs. Shelley, of Drs. Donald and Patricia Herr, Howard & Jean Lipman, Edgar & Bernice Garbisch, the Fenimore Art Museum, and the Packwood House Museum. Seven of the thirteen colonies are represented by early craftsmen such as Nathan Star, William Will, Samuel McIntire, John Seymour, Henry Adam, John Dixwell, Lebbeus Dod, Thomas Affleck, Joseph Barry, and John Pollard. Historic owners include the Penn family, a 1732 Pennsylvania monastic settlement The Ephrata Cloister, the 1752 Mayor of Philadelphia Robert Strettell, Revolutionary War privateer Captain John Southward, The Empress of China Captain John Green, and a heroic Civil War U.S. Cavalry Colonel.
Day One launches with an exceptional Marklin clockwork New York paddle wheel river boat, early 20thc. Part of a New Jersey Educational Institution’s collection for half a century, this colorful and elaborate vessel is in excellent condition. Another highlight from the same institution is an important English Staffordshire slipware decorated doll cradle, dated 1698 and initialed MC.
Susan Fetterolf and Jeff Gorrin began their collection thirty years ago, developing a focus on the Oley Valley in Berks County, Pennsylvania. They acquired a number of rare and known provenanced works. One of the best-known is an outstanding Lancaster County, Pennsylvania pine drysink, late 18th c., found in the Ephrata Cloister and illustrated in Wendy Cooper and Lisa Minardi Paint, Pattern, and People. Another noted item is a Berks County pine hanging corner cupboard, ca. 1790, exhibited at Winterthur in Colorful Folk: Pennyslvania Germans and the Art of Everyday Life. A Pennsylvania German painted poplar schrank is exceptional for being one of the very few robust examples of early 18th furniture of German design. Six Pennsylvania bent arrowback side chairs attributed to the shop of Joseph Jones of Chester County, ca. 1820, are one of the finest sets we have ever seen. Other highlights include an important early 19th c. Pennsylvania painted two-part corner cupboard with original vibrant surface; an excellent New Jersey gumwood and walnut kas, ca. 1790 by Matthew Egerton Junior; an 18th c. Lancaster County Conestoga wagon box with elaborate tulip-form wrought iron hardware; a Franklin Eshelman oil on canvas of The Snyder Farm in Oley Valley, ca. 1895; a painted pine tavern table, mid-18th c. originally found in a Kintnersville chapel; and an early 19th c. Oley Valley pine blanket chest, with original abstract grain decorated surface and an arresting painted eye motif.
A rare Samuel Plank wall box, a last-minute addition to the sale from a private collection, is set to cross the block on day one.
Noted highlights from A Prominent Delaware Collector feature Chester County, Pennsylvania William and Mary banister back chairs, ca. 1720, including both a rare pair of side chairs and a rare armchair. A Chester County William and Mary walnut desk on frame, ca. 1755 is probably by James Milhaus of New Garden Township and descended in the family to at least 1854. Also noted is a superb Philadelphia Queen Anne walnut tall chest in two parts, ca. 1770, and a set of four Pennsylvania Queen Anne walnut dining chairs, ca. 1740. Philotesia Owen (1697-1782) gazes serenely from her pastel portrait. Wife of Robert Strettell, the Mayor of Philadelphia from 1751-1752, she was a prominent Quaker and appears unadorned, in modest brown silks with a touch of blue.
A selection of over forty quilts from the Packwood House Museum of Lewisburg represents one of the finest collections of antique Pennsylvania quilts. Founded in 1972 by a bequest from Edith Fetherston, the museum closed its doors in 2022.
Twenty-six artworks from the Fenimore Art Museum, sold to benefit the Acquisitions Fund, include fine art with storied provenance from the Howard and Jean Lipman collection, the Edgar and Bernice Garbisch collection, the Mr. & Mrs. William J. Gunn collection, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Boston Athenaeum. Works include Hudson River landscapes, an American oil on canvas folk art new England harbor scene, 19th c., a 19th c. Massachusetts folk art landscape of the Sycamore Tree at the Moses Rice Farm, Charlemont, a carved and painted cigar store Indian tobacconist figure, and a fine large painted pine fireboard, ca. 1800, depicting two armies before a city.
Closing Day One is Part III of the famous Pewter Collection of Drs. Donald Maurice and Patricia Thompson Herr. A decades-long labor of love, the collection includes some of the finest examples of American pewter. Within the twenty-six lots, the Will family is well-represented, with a rare New York quart tankard, ca. 1760 attributed to John Will, another teapot possibly by John Will, and a New York flagon, ca. 1770 attributed to Henry Will. Both a rare Philadelphia porringer and a footed teapot, ca. 1770 bear the touch marks of William Will, the most gifted of American pewterers.
Day Two takes flight with an exceptional Frank Finney folk art bird tree. Rising from a sprouting-leaf base, the tree branches bristle with the energy of eleven fluttering birds. Featured collections include Mr. and Mrs. Whitman Ball, Dr. and Mrs. Irving Williams of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, Dr. Larry McCallister, the Garvan Family, and the Estate of Max G. Bleiler. The marquee item is an important Philadelphia Chippendale mahogany tall case clock, ca. 1770 with carving attributed to John Pollard, and descended in the family of Captain John Green (1736-1796) of Philadelphia, famous for captaining the first American ship to trade directly with China. Another important lot is a Philadelphia Chippendale mahogany dining chair, attributed to the shop of Thomas Affleck, purportedly made for the Penn family and gifted into the Cresson family. Amongst antiques with famed makers and illustrious owners is a new discovery, a U.S. Cavalry silk swallowtail guidon American flag, ca.1860s, descended in the family of Colonel Walter Simonds Franklin of York, Pennsylvania, veteran of the Richmond and Shenandoah Valley campaigns, as well as the capture of Petersburg. The flag has never been out of the family. Other highlights include a scarce pair of knife blade andirons by famous gun and sword maker Nathan Starr of Middletown, Connecticut, a Philadelphia Chippendale mahogany tea table with carving attributed to Martin Jugiez, a rare pair of Pennsylvania Federal walnut semi-tall chests, a Boston silver spout cup bearing the touch of John Dixwell, and capering carousel horses and a goat by Gustav Dentzel. Artwork highlights include a Joseph Smith oil on canvas of the sloop yacht Eleanor, a large Ben Austrian canvas of a white hen with her fourteen chicks, and landscape Darby Creek in Winter by Elizabeth Washington.
Dr. Larry McCallister began collecting in the 1970s. While focused on Federal and Classical furniture, he acquired rare and notable pieces from all periods. A very rare Manheim, Pennsylvania Chippendale cherrywood tall case clock, ca. 1800, with works by Christian Eby (active 1793-1803) is one of the finest Rococo style tall case clocks ever made in Lancaster County, and retains original carved decoration and ogee feet. A rare Massachusetts William and Mary ebonized maple and figured walnut dressing table, ca. 1725, is another noted piece, exhibited at the University of Virginia in A Jeffersonian Ideal. Other notable lots include a large Chinese export porcelain mandarin palette hunting scene punch bowl, late 18th c., a fine Boston, Massachusetts William and Mary burl walnut and maple high chest of drawers, ca. 1725, a set of eight New York Federal mahogany dining chairs attributed to Slover & Taylor, an elaborate New York Classical mahogany two-part desk bookcase, ca. 1835, and work tables attributed to Duncan Phyfe, Joseph Barry, and Haines & Connelly.
From the illustrious Garvan family of collectors and scholars comes an incredible collection of rare peace medals, including a James K. Polk example, a James Monroe example, and a George III example. In addition to over a dozen medals is a rare slip-decorated redware bowl attributed to Henry Adam of Hagerstown, Maryland, early 19th c. A rare Lebbeus Dod engraved brass protractor and parallel rule, Mendham, New Jersey, late 18th c. retains its original wood case. Other measuring devices are two cased sets of hydrostatic bubbles, Scotland, late 18th c. A fine group of miniatures includes a watercolor portrait on ivory of Revolutionary War Captain George Southward, 18th c., who commanded the privateer Beggar’s Prize and was captured and held in Mill Prison, Plymouth, England.
As usual, the sale will conclude with an assortment of carpets, to include a Serapi, ca. 1900, from the Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Irving Williams.
For more information about this and other auctions coming up at Pook & Pook, please visit www.pookandpook.com.
by: Cynthia Beech Lawrence

Indian Peace Medals
The Garvan Family collection of Presidential Indian Peace medals, along with the George Washington medal from a U.K. collection, tell the story of westward expansion and European and Native American relations. Diplomatic gifts, Indian peace medals were intended to promote peace and friendship between European settlers and Native Americans. They were presented to Native American chiefs and dignitaries on significant occasions. While also struck by European governments and fur companies, the largest number were issued by the United States government between 1789 and 1889. The first medals created during George Washington’s term of office were engraved with figures of a Native American and Minerva, representing America. Later medals were struck by the United States Mint in Philadelphia, including the Jefferson medals Lewis and Clark famously took along on their 1804 expedition to the Pacific Ocean. These were the first to bear the image of an American president, with symbolic decoration on the reverse of clasped hands and a crossed tomahawk and peace pipe, with the words “Peace and Friendship.”
The medals provide material evidence of the rhetoric of a succession of government administrations as they sought to appear to be dealing fairly with the Native Americans. As European settlers expanded across North America, in the full belief that their dominion was destined by God, harmony and equality were hollow words. With successive years of Westward movement, the Presidential Indian Peace medals depict the progressive terms of peace through their iconography, as artists made decisions how best to portray the ideal of peace. In looking at the medals, the story is told in the background scenes on the reverse. As noted by Klaus Lubbers, the compositional rhetoric of the medals changed along two paths. First, the previously symmetrical depictions of Native American and white subjects became imbalanced, the European American figure moving towards a central position and the Native American pushed to the periphery. Secondly, representations of European ideas of civilization and commerce began to crowd the background, denoting that the terms of peace had evolved from agreement between parties to capitulation to European ways. On only the second Presidential medal issued by George Washington, the symbolism begins on the Native American half of the background. Formerly blank, Beatrice Garvan notes “Here the Indian is now on the white man’s ground… as seen by the team of oxen plowing in neat furrows, showing a further step in the white man’s taming of lands and people.”
By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence
Sources:
Garvan, Beatrice, “Philadelphia: Three Centuries of American Art,” Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1976.
Lubbers, Klaus, “Strategies of Appropriating the West: The Evidence of Indian Peace Medals,” American Art, Vol. 8, 1994.
Nash, Stephen, “Were Peace Medals the Price of Loyalty?,” 5 October, 2017, SAPIENS.org
Indian Peace Medals Lot numbers: 389 and Garvan collection Lots 480A-480O
Great Uncle George
Elizabeth Fisher Washington, born in Siegfried’s Bridge, Northampton County. She first studied at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art, and then at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Hugh Breckenridge and Fred Wagner. She was a successful artist, winning the Cresson Traveling Scholarship, the Toppan Prize, and the Mary Smith Prize on two occasions. A noted miniaturist and portrait artist, she also painted Pennsylvania Impressionist landscapes of the counties surrounding Philadelphia. Washington was a member of the Philadelphia Plastics Club and exhibited from 1923-1927 with the group of Philadelphia-trained women artists known as The Eight. Her work was later exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery, the Carnegie Institute, the National Academy of Design, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and PAFA. In 1949 Newman Galleries held a retrospective. Aside from her artistic renown, one of the most interesting things about Elizabeth Fisher Washington is that she was the great-grandniece of George Washington.
By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence
Lot 332 Elizabeth Washington (1871-1953) oil on canvas Darby Creek in Winter.
The Furniture of Margaret Berwind Schiffer
Margaret Berwind Schiffer was a scholar, collector, and an authority on the material culture of early Chester County, Pennsylvania. Researching local records such as wills, inventories, and ledgers, she collected data about early residents, craftsmen, domestic life and home furnishing. Of her first book, “Furniture and Its Makers of Chester County, Pennsylvania”, Charles F. Montgomery of Winterthur Museum wrote that it was “the finest study in depth of the furniture of one county ever prepared.”1 Pouring over countless primary documents, she recognized regional characteristics such as inlay and the production of spice boxes and raised panel furniture, sometimes even revealing the individual craftsmen. Acquiring specimens as she discovered them, over time Margaret Berwind Schiffer built the finest private collection of Chester County furniture known.
Chester County was one of three original counties established by William Penn in 1682. The same year, settlers began arriving from the British Isles, the majority of whom were Quakers escaping religious persecution, along with smaller numbers of immigrants from Germany and France, and non-Quakers. Purchasing tracts of land from Penn they settled into enclaves such as the Welsh Tract in Tredyffrin, the London Company holdings in the southern central region of the county, the Nottingham Lots in the southwestern corner, and Germans in the north. “Most of the early immigrants were middling or poor families from Wales and Cheshire,”2 and many who were not farmers were craftsmen.
According to Schiffer’s perception, “Perhaps the most notable characteristic of Chester County furniture is the decorative effect of a volute inlay.”3 Inlay designs using a series of half-circles scribed with a compass, the ends dotted with a group of three circles, has become known as line and berry. No templates or pattern books have been discovered, and each design appears original.4 The black walnut furniture, usually with oak and chestnut secondary woods (later replaced by oak and poplar), were inlaid with light holly, red cedar or cherry, and black locust. Line and berry production peaked in the 1740’s, and ended in the 1780’s. Line and berry includes other inlay designs such as herringbone borders, compass-scribed stars and flowers, hearts, and dates and initials. It was customary to have a piece of furniture made for a special occasion such as a wedding or anniversary with inlaid initials and dates. In Lee Ann Griffith’s study, of the known 128 line and berry examples, 73 were inlaid with the owner’s initials, and 47 with the date. (The same Chester County Quaker families also purchased initialed Delftware, all dated 1738. Lots #244-247 are part of this very important known group.)
There is now evidence that a number of the earlier examples of line and berry were produced in the Delaware Valley, particularly Philadelphia.5 Christopher Storb’s research has revealed the Delaware Valley/Philadelphia makers used secondary woods of hard pine, red cedar, gum, and Atlantic white cedar, with designs composed of single berries or clusters or four, and more elaborate volutes marked with many compass points.6 Following the migration of craftsmen, line and berry later spread westward and also to the south, down the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road.
Early inlaid William and Mary furniture indicates production began with the first English and Welsh settlers in 1682. While the identity of the first craftsmen to introduce the inlay technique is a mystery, evidence points to the Welsh. In a survey the collection of the National Museum of Wales, Griffith wrote, “While the Welsh designs were much simpler than those that were developed in Pennsylvania, they shared many of the same motifs.”7 Scrolling compass arcs with single berries run across drawer fronts, terminating in tulips, leaves, and diamonds. The Welsh Museum’s inlaid furniture has a history of ownership in southern Wales, in the Vale of Glamorgan, with other known pieces from Pembroke. Griffith finds it is “clear that this vernacular Welsh inlay tradition formed the basis for the school of inlay decoration that developed in Pennsylvania.”8 In “Welsh Furniture 1250-1950,” Richard Bebb attributes the distinctive Welsh inlay specifically to traditional makers of holly and bog oak inlay from the Vale of Glamorgan. (Bog oak, buried in a peat bog for centuries, is nearly black and semi-fossilized.) Other sources the Welsh technique draws upon are English William and Mary boxwood line and arc inlay, and the herringbone checkered banding of the Renaissance. Griffiths concludes the origins of Welsh line and berry inlay are ultimately Flemish. Large Flemish colonies in south Pembrokeshire, first established in the year 1100, influenced Welsh furniture style, making it more closely related to Continental furniture than English.
Griffiths found “only one Pennsylvania cupboard bearing any resemblance to a Welsh tridarn (three-part) cupboard”—Lot #24. “Although undated, its Queen Anne bracket feet suggest it was made well after the first Welsh settlement.”9 Of the cabinetmakers working in Chester County before 1720, Schiffer’s data reveals no fewer than twenty with Welsh surnames. The number of Welsh craftsmen is not disproportionately large, meaning the style quickly dispersed throughout the community. The conclusion drawn by Griffiths is that “the popularity of the inlay technique shows consumer demand for locally produced and conceived objects.”10 Of the 128 known line and berry pieces studied by Griffiths, only 31 had original owner or township provenance, with most known owners being of Quakers of English or Irish descent, and only one was signed by the cabinetmaker.
Schiffer writes, “For over two hundred years the population of the county was primarily rural, conservative, and middle class with a strong Quaker element.”11 Conservative Quakers preserved their Old World preferences in rural Chester County long after Philadelphia styles had moved on. “A regional material culture evolved in southern Chester County, manifesting itself in unusual furniture forms and detailing, as well as in the more widespread line and berry decoration.”12 Rooted in English and Welsh origins, Chester County’s Quaker material culture favored the form and construction methods of the late 17th c., with its baroque taste. “The demand for joiner-made furniture which often had raised panels, continued in Wales long after it had died out in England.”13 Likewise in Chester County, even with proximity to Philadelphia and annual trips for the Quaker Yearly Meeting, where craftsmen could see the latest flowing Queen Anne styles in the 1730’s and ornate Chippendale in the 1750’s, favored everywhere else in the colony and Britain, they continued the local tradition of joined furniture throughout the 18th c. Schiffer discerned the localism of line and berry inlay, raised panel tall chests and wainscot chairs, spice boxes, and Octorara furniture, and built her collection.
The ultimate form of Chester County furniture is the spice chest. Inherited from English furniture, “By the early 1700’s, the form had generally ceased being made outside of Pennsylvania, where it continued to flourish among Quaker families in Chester County.”14 These were inlaid with the most elaborate patterns, with pinwheels and compass stars, many with initials that can be traced to their original southern Chester County owners. William and Mary style turned ball feet on spice boxes otherwise in the Queen Anne style is typical of the conservative Chester County makers. Secret drawers are a favorite feature, spice chests actually functioning as diminutive valuables chests. Displayed in the home, they often bore inlaid dates and initials, reflecting their owner’s status. Lot #53, a cedar spice chest ca. 1725, is rare for being decorated on all sides, and is likely an early precursor made in Philadelphia. It opens to a nine-drawer interior, with a hidden tenth drawer. Its “flowerpot with tulips inlay (a motif common in painted Pennsylvania Dutch dower chests) is unusual for line and berry, which did not use objective representation.”15
An inlay motif used in Chester County furniture that has Pennsylvania German craftsmen origins is the parrot. Lisa Minardi’s research suggests that parrot influence may have come from marquetry traditions in Wurttemberg and Hohenlohe, where “bird motifs were so common that the term Papageieinschrank (parrot cupboard) came into use.”16 Parrots were a frequent Pennsylvania German motif because parrots were everywhere at the time. Sadly, that is not still the case, the Carolina parakeet, once native to Pennsylvania, is now extinct. (Lots 28 and 65 parrot) In contrast to the line and berry inlay, marquetry requires large pieces of pattern to be cut whole, with images such as birds or flowers pieced together. “The Continental marquetry style of inlay and the Welsh-derived line and berry style of inlay were practiced within close proximity to one another, influencing one another, but not merging.”17 A perfect illustration of this “interaction between two neighboring cultures” is Lot #14, a tall case clock with works signed B. Chandlee / Nottingham. Benjamin Chandlee, Jr., a Quaker clockmaker, evidently worked with cabinetmakers trained in the German tradition, or his clients bought their cases from German makers. The case is inlaid with marquetry compass pinwheel and tulips.
Herringbone inlay is “rarer than the berry and line inlay.”18 Schiffer’s study revealed it was sometimes combined with line and berry, sometimes with marquetry birds. No pieces bear dates, but the cases appear to be from the first half of the 18th c. Lot #42 has classic Chester County form, with three arched drawers over two, formerly secured with “Quaker” or spring locks, and raised panel sides. A brilliant herringbone pattern borders each drawer. Another technique long out of fashion elsewhere is found on three of the four lower drawers, which formerly hung on side runners. “This continued use of early forms and stylistic details parallels continued use of line and berry inlay in Chester County throughout the 18th c. and was part of the same vernacular tradition.”19 Far from being simply anachronistic, Chester County cabinetmakers were creating their own localized form of the tall chest. Octorara Valley furniture is another distinctive local form, from the western boundary of Chester County. The Queen Anne high chest, Lot #57 with the typical tall, tapering ogee feet with closed circle cut out, and raised panel sides.
Chester County line and berry inlaid, and raised panel furniture are unabashedly beautiful, so how did they satisfy the Quaker doctrine of plainness in material possessions? Given Chester County’s proximity to Philadelphia, the colonial center of culture, furniture making, and a city of very wealthy Quaker families, plainness was a relative matter. Some Quakers were more economically successful than others. Preferring their local styles, which were based on a shared cultural past, the Chester County Quakers chose furniture that was not ostentatious, but still of the very best quality. Chester County vernacular was based on origins, and on identity as a community. Craftsmen used the highest quality materials and anachronistic techniques to create furniture with a perceived honesty and integrity that reflected the values of the conservative, industrious community.
Notes:
1 Margaret Berwind Schiffer, “Furniture and Its Makers of Chester County, Pennsylvania”, 1966, University of Pennsylvania, Introduction.
2 Wendy Cooper and Lisa Mindardi, “Paint, Pattern, and People: Furniture of Southeastern Pennsylvania, 1725-1850”, 2011, University of Pennsylvania, p.8.
3 Schiffer, p.262.
4 Lee Ellen Griffith, “Line and Berry Inlaid Furniture,” 1988, University of Pennsylvania, p. 25.
5 Griffith, p.204.
6 Christopher Storb, “Lines and Dots,” 2021, WordPress.
7 Griffith, p.158.
8 Ibid, p.169.
9 Ibid, p.171.
10 Ibid, p.182.
11 Schiffer, p.10.
12 Griffith, p.156.
13 Ibid, p.170.
14 Cooper and Minardi, p.12.
15 Griffith, p.80.
16 Lisa Minardi, “Philadelphia, Furniture, and the Pennsylvania Germans,” Chipstone, 2013.
17 Griffith, p.194.
18 Schiffer, p.263.
19 Griffith, p.114.
The Lear Collection
The Collection of F.R. “Bud” Lear III is an exceptional lifetime assemblage of copper-alloy candlesticks manufactured before 1700, which illustrates the history of development of socket candlesticks and the relationships between different forms across Europe. The Collection is composed of notable and rare examples. A lifelong antique collector with a fascination for early lighting, Bud Lear met kindred spirit Christopher Bangs in London in 1985. Their meeting led to a great friendship and collaboration. The culmination of their studies, The Lear Collection: A Study of Copper-Alloy Socket Candlesticks A.D. 200 – 1700, was a significant addition to the study of early lighting. A thorough investigation, it included metallurgical tests and revealed previously unpublished finds. Sadly, Christopher Bangs passed away in 2022. He will be greatly missed.
Bud Lear was fascinated by the idea that so much of human history was spent in darkness illuminated by a single flame. The Dark Ages really meant living a dark life, especially during winter in Northern Europe, where twilight falls at half past three. The lights went out for much of Europe when the fall of the Roman Empire and breakup of international and regional trade meant the olive oil widely burned in lamps could no longer be obtained. Only wealthier households would have had a candlestick. A luxury item, it would have been carried from room to room. Although common in ancient Rome, socket candle holders were not widely manufactured again until the late 13th century, when the demand for domestic use rose, most likely an effect of the rise of the merchant class. Smaller households could make tallow candles from kitchen waste, and they were an easy byproduct for butchers and the main business of chandlers, who also offered the more expensive beeswax variety. Socket holders functioned better for small candles than prickets, which continued to be used for larger candles. For churches and monasteries, beeswax was not difficult to obtain, drawing upon their beekeepers and vassals. Throughout the Middle Ages, dependents were burdened with wax payments to ecclesiastical lords.1 Accounts of feasting long into the night occur frequently in secular Medieval and Renaissance records of the upper classes. The poorest homes were lit only by hearth and rush light.
Mr. Lear’s focus is on copper alloy candlesticks, which are primarily brass, composed of copper and zinc, plus whatever elements existed in the local materials. Due to varying geographic components and metallurgical imperfections, the nuances of color among the candlesticks in the collection range from pinkish to yellow to silver hues. Every piece has been tested, analyzed, and researched.
Among the earliest forms in the collection is a bronze lathe-turned socket candlestick from the Roman provinces, 2nd/3rd c. A.D. Collected in Maine, it was tested with X-Radiography for structural and metal analysis, and corrosion profiling. A millennia saw little advancement in lighting technology. With designs derived from the coeval lion aquamaniles, Lots 733 and 734 are two lion form candlesticks from the 13th/14th c. Both are designated North West European, yet Lot 734 was found in England and bears distinct resemblance to period English depictions of lions and leopards. A dredging of the Thames River revealed miniature tin alloy candlesticks, possibly once used in a religious context as votives, a continuation of a Roman practice. The miniature tripod pewter candlestick inscribed “ECCE AMCVS” (“Behold, Friend”) is in an excellent state of preservation. Tripod-based candlesticks are recognized as the earliest type of North West European socket candlesticks of the mediaeval period, their design derived from Romanesque prickets.
The early English group includes several fine 15th c. Three Kings form candlesticks, with Lot 735 one of only two known English detachable double-socket arm candlesticks in existence. Of Lot 732, another rare form, Christopher Bangs wrote, “this exquisite small candlestick exhibits a rare combination of austerity and adornment in its design,” its two castellated sockets on Gothic pierced arms. Acquired in England, elements of its form and alloy lean towards an English attribution, but it is classified as North West Europe on account of the shallow-lipped integral-drip base with conical skirt. A Safavid double-armed candlestick, is described by Bangs as a “tour-de-force.” Except for the sockets, it is a single casting. Its high cylindrical base, common in Near Eastern forms, directly influenced the circular-based European candle holders.
Arriving in the 16th century, English Tudor candlesticks inspire prose such as Hilary Mantel’s: “in the king’s chamber a gentleman brings in more tapers; the light flutters across the ceiling like an influx of cherubim.” The Chalice and Paten shape of Lot 753 was influenced by the growth of trade with the highly developed metal casting centers on the Continent. This particular example “epitomizes the excellence of both the design and the execution of this group,” (Bangs, p.89).
Lot 748 is extremely rare. It is the only known example of a copper alloy candlestick depicting Martin Luther, probably Nuremberg, 17th c. Luther symbolically holds the candle socket aloft, the light symbolizing his faith. In “Against the Antinomians,” 1539, in which Luther chronicled his struggles, he compared faith to the light of a candle, which the devil was continually trying to blow out, “I feared he would carry light and wax and wick away. But God again helped his poor candle and kept it from being snuffed out.” Lot 749 is a counterpoint, a bronze High Renaissance candlestick in the form of a standing satyr, from the workshop of Severo Calzetta da Ravenna (active ca. 1496 – ca. 1538). Severo specialized in small bronzes of mainly pagan subjects, which today can be found in the collections of major museums.
The English Trumpet candlesticks of the late 16th and early 17th century include rarities: Lot 737, a rare early English trumpet form, is one of only two surviving examples known, its elegant shaft with central knop resting on a graceful domed base. Lot 729 is an extraordinarily large, unique form with a highly unusual 5” removable bobeche, most likely used as a hand held pan light, perhaps for pacing, as Shakespeare might have done when devising a metaphor to reveal to Macbeth the brevity of life.
One of the jewels of the Collection is not a candlestick, but a Flemish brass lavabo of the 15th c., with zoomorphic spouts and female mask handle brackets. The form is straight out of the Merode Altarpiece (Robert Campin, ca. 1427-32, Metropolitan Museum of Art), in which a similar lavabo hangs in the background above the Angel Gabriel’s head.
Bud Lear and Christopher Bangs have assembled one of the finest candlestick collections in the world, representing a level of effort, erudition, and commitment that must be seen to be appreciated. To see the march of time and technology is to better understand humanity’s struggle against the dark. To hold an early candlestick in your hand is to touch the past. One can then well imagine being that early householder carrying a candle at night, its illumination throwing shadows against the walls, corners of the room deeply dark, the path lit by a single flame.
1 Heinrich Fichtenau, Living in the Tenth Century, 1991, University of Chicago Press, pp. 74-75, 270.
Bangs, Christopher, The Lear Collection: A Study of Copper-Alloy Socket Candlesticks A.D. 200 – 1700, King’s Hill, 1995.
Chinese Botanical Watercolors
On October 6th, Pook & Pook will auction Chinese botanical watercolors from the Estate of Peter Tillou. Three pairs of watercolors, lots #344, 345, and 346, attributed to Win Achun and other artists, have provenance from Peter Tillou, “According to an early auction catalogue clipping the collection was ‘executed expressly for the Late J. Roberts, Esq. (A Director and Chairman of the East India Company) and are sold by order of his executors. It would be difficult to convey an adequate idea of the taste, beauty and spirit with which the Drawings are executed, and I am assured by a very competent judge who was in China, when the Drawings were made, that their fidelity is equal to their beauty. All the Botanical Drawings were submitted by the Artist to the inspection and received the approbation of Mr. Kerr, the Botanist, who was sent from Kew to China by his Britannic Majesty.’ The collection was also listed in the auction catalogue of Wentworth Henry Canning, 2nd Viscount Allendale.” (Also see Christies London sale 5792, lot 14, The Property of the Beaumont Family, 29 April, 1997.) A fourth entry, lot #437, is a trio of Chinese watercolors of fruit trees, showing peaches, pomelos, and possibly loquats.
Beautiful products of a collision between worlds, the watercolors and gouaches were painted by artists of the ancient academic tradition of Chinese botanical painting, first recorded in the Han Dynasty; to the detailed specifications of Western naturalists and botanists fueled by the Enlightenment, who were exploring and attempting to understand the world through science.
In the scientific awakening of the Enlightenment, a knowledge of botany was part of a well-rounded individual’s education. In 1751 Carl Linnaeus published his system of taxonomy, giving scientists a common language of classification to use. After Captain Cook’s 1768 voyage, Joseph Banks convinced King George III to turn his royal gardens at Kew into a botanical collection and research institution for the nation. The first colonial botanic garden was established in 1765 by the East Indian Company on St. Vincent in the West Indies. In the effort to break the Dutch spice monopoly, a Calcutta garden was founded in 1787. Eventually a network of gardens spanned the globe, proving vital to the British Empire, allowing crops like rubber and quinine to be collected and grown. The botanical gardens were imperial tools, intended for the reproduction of useful plants for the military, colonists, and trade. Crucial to the future expansion of the British Empire would be a supply of quinine. Economic crops like tea, tobacco, cotton, and, infamously, opium, were grown. Also centers for research, their plants, seeds, and information sailed the high seas. The gardener-botanists from Kew transported spices, breadfruit, coffee, quinine, and rubber around the globe, as well as newly discovered ornamental plants. Enlightenment thinking also transformed economics, producing growth through the application of science. Enriching trade by the introduction of new plantation crops for colonies became one of the main sources of wealth for the British Empire. Local substitutes for imports stemmed the drain of silver from the exchequer. William Bligh, captain of the HMS Bounty, was transporting breadfruit tree cuttings from Tahiti to the St. Vincent garden for Joseph Banks when his journey was so famously interrupted.
Banks appointed William Kerr to be Kew’s botanist in China, making Kerr the first western professional plant hunter. Kerr was sent to Canton with the British East India Company, which held a monopoly charter on eastern trade. Banks equipped Kerr with a set of botanically accurate watercolors. Made in Canton in the late 1700’s by Chinese artists supervised by John Bradby Blake, an East India Company supercargo, the drawings detailed plant, flower, fruits, and seeds, and were labeled with names in both Western and Chinese characters. “He was to look out for unusual plants, or especially those that grew in China’s more northerly provinces, which would have the best chance of surviving England’s climate… the main document he entrusted to him was the Book of Chinese Drawings which, as Banks put it, ‘will Enable you to Enquire after many Plants that might not possibly have become known to you.” 1,2
The world Kerr sailed into was governed by the Canton System (1757-1842), a Qing protectionist arrangement designed to control trade with the West. All trade and movement of westerners was confined to a small warehouse district on the Pearl River in the southern port of Canton, specifically to thirteen large buildings called hongs, or Factories, and transacted only with officially licensed Chinese merchants, the Cohongs. Foreign merchants were not permitted permanent residence at Canton. They were allowed to stay at the Factories only during the shipping season, relocating to Macao during the offseason. Kerr lived in the British hong with the other officers of the British East India Company. The Cohongs maintained elaborate gardens and introduced their clients, who were otherwise confined to the Factory compounds, to many previously unknown plant specimens. A contemporary of Kerr in Canton, the Cohong Howqua had just inherited his father’s company in 1801 and was on his way to becoming the richest man on earth. Howqua’s famous garden was an impressive space for entertaining his trading guests, with a river entrance, a nursery and potting sheds on the grounds.6 Henan had been a popular location for garden making since the Ming dynasty, and the availability of potted exotic plants, flowers, and dwarf trees produced in the neighboring nurseries, explains why Howqua, and other local gardeners, possessed such a wide collection of plants. In Cantonese gardens, flowerpots were arranged in ever-changing combinations.3 Aesthetic gardens with precious specimens were traditionally a hobby of Chinese scholars, who deemed commercial gardening vulgar. “The Hong merchants’ motives for collecting plants were not so different from their Western associates. Foremost was a desire to acquire a status symbol – Chinese literati at the top of the social hierarchy in China frequently kept gardens with rare flowers, and the Hong merchants wanted to attain such social circles… For the Western plant enthusiasts and collectors, finding a new species and bringing it home carried significant prestige, sometimes accompanied by substantial monetary gain.”4,5 Foreigners had to rely on a network of Chinese contacts to gather local plants, which they then frequently grew in Macao. “Contrarily to scholar or imperial gardens the Hong merchants’ pleasure grounds and Guangzhou nurseries contained plenty of plants to buy, ready to be carried in pots.”4
“Kerr arrived in Canton in October 1803 and quickly settled down, growing plants in his own garden and choosing which to send to Kew, using the Book as a guide…” Facilitated by the Hong merchants, Kerr gathered specimens from the plant nurseries in Huadi.5 Robert Fortune later described Fa Tee Gardens, “the flowery land, as the name implies”, consisting of about a dozen small nurseries. “Potted plants were mostly placed in rows alongside narrow paved walks, with houses for gardeners at the entrance. There were stock-grounds where planting out was done and also here the first process of dwarfing their celebrated trees is put into operation… These gardens were most beautiful in spring with a brilliant display of tree peonies, camellias, roses and particularly azaleas… Every garden was one mass of bloom… and full of the scents of olea fragrans and Magnolia fuscata.” On New Year’s Day Fortune “saw boats on the river laden with branches of peach and plum blossom, camellias, cockscombs, magnolia and enkianthus brought down from the hills, and at every street corner jonquils grown in water with a few white stones were for sale. Large parties of young Chinese crowded floral boats bound for the Fa Tee Gardens.”6 China’s native botanical bounty included oranges, peonies, chrysanthemums, azaleas, rhododendrons, camellias, magnolias, lilacs, and tea, to name a few.
John Roberts (1739-1810) was no ordinary wealthy customer ordering a set of illustrations to boost the prestige of his library, and it is no coincidence that he ordered them from William Kerr. From 1764 to 1808, John Roberts was alternately the Chairman, or a Director, of the British East India Company. “In London, the Court of Directors, with Banks’s assistance and support, had something in mind for themselves. They wanted Kerr to put together a set of drawings of Chinese plants to be displayed in the newly-founded India Museum, adjoining the Company’s headquarters. In Canton, Kerr soon found a Chinese artist to produce the drawings… The first set of drawings was a big hit in London and Kerr arranged for a second set to be made. These arrived in 1806, two years after the first set – nearly 400 drawings in total. These were the first Chinese drawings the Company commissioned.”1 The most powerful corporation the world had ever known, the Company was at the peak of its power. Roberts became Director one year prior to the Mughal emperor relinquishing the right to collect taxes and duties to the Company, which laid it’s foundations of empire. By 1800, it ruled over millions of people and maintained a standing army of over 200,000 soldiers. It was more powerful than most countries, and Roberts and the Directors more powerful than many rulers. In the late 18th century, high-ranking Company employees commissioned their own collections of natural history paintings.8 Influenced by Banks, and commissioner of botanical works on behalf of the Company, Roberts would have naturally desired a set for his own library, reminders of the Company’s, and his own, role in botanical history.
Kerr worked in Canton for eight years, discovering many plants in local Chinese gardens and nurseries. The job was both challenging and lonely. “Despite the impressive title of Royal Gardener, William Kerr had ‘no one…to associate with’ in the Factory…the small salary Kerr received from Kew Gardens also trapped him in disgrace. While the sum of £100 a year might have been a passable income for a gardener in England, in Western China, it was a pittance.”5 A Company contemporary in Canton, John Livingstone later reported that Kerr had been “sent… with the most carefully contrived chests and boxes, but with so small a salary as to lose respect in the eyes of his Chinese assistants.”7 Kerr’s situation would have also been made difficult by the Company illegally smuggling opium into the local market, which began a decades-long conflict. Afterwards Kerr moved to Ceylon as the superintendent of its colonial botanical garden and died in 1814, reportedly from opium addiction. Writing about Canton decades later, Fortune visited “the garden which at one time belonged to the East India Company and which was still in existence: ‘It is but a small plot of ground on the river side, not more than sixty paces each way’, now neglected.”7 Kerr’s botanic legacy has been more lasting than his garden. He sent back to Britain 238 plants new to science.
Kerr also left an artistic legacy. In the botanical watercolors produced for Kerr, “the boundary between ‘fine art’ and ‘scientific documentation’ blurred.”9 Prized for their practical contributions to botanical science, they are also highly regarded as a continuation of an ancient and evolved art form. Nearly a millennia after the first Han bird and flower paintings, 12th century Sung Dynasty artists began to combine lyric poetry and flower painting, evolving a complex style as symbolic and metaphoric as it was aesthetic. Painted without background or setting, single blossoms or branches became objects of contemplation. Layers of meaning ranged from beauty, purity, scholarship, nobility, and asceticism to emotional expressions like resilience and the search for perfection on a personal level.10 Chinese artists applied their skill to the westerners’ requirements for botanic accuracy and comprehensive detail. The resulting art form of botanical illustrations are a synthesis of Chinese art and the scientific observation of the Enlightenment. In later years, “the botanical role for Cantonese artists in the 19th century was largely that of decorative ‘export’ art as upmarket souvenirs. These included flowers and fruits produced in huge quantities painted on the smooth, brittle surface of ‘paper’ made from the pith of Broussonetia papyrifera.”9 Future works were usually made from templates, based on the early originals. The nearly-translucent quality of pith paper facilitated a method of creation that included tracing, and then painting over the pattern. Here are four lots of early originals, works of both beauty and historical significance, the artists working in tandem with Kerr to get every last detail perfect for posterity. They are the results of the artists and botanist combined search for perfection—their lyricism beautiful to contemplate.
By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence
Sources:
Kew Botanic Gardens
1 Goodman, J. & Jarvis, C., The John Bradby Blake Drawings in the Natural History Museum, London: Joseph Banks Puts them to Work, Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, 2017, vol. 34.
2 Banks to Kerr, April 18, 1803, State Library of New South Wales, Papers of Sir Joseph Banks.)
3 Richard, J.C., Uncovering the garden of the richest man on earth in 19th c. Canton: Howqua’s garden in Honam, China, Garden History, 2015, vol. 43.
4 Richard, J. & Woudstra, J., “Throughly Chinese” Revealing the plants of the Hong merchants’ gardens through John Bradby Blake’s paintings, Curtis’ Botanical Magazine, 2018.
5 Fa-ti Fan, British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter, Harvard UP, 2004.
6 Fortune, R., Three Years Wanderings in China, 1847.
7 Le Rougetel, H., The Fa Tee Nurseries of South China, Garden History, 1982, vol. 10.
8 Archer, M., Natural History Drawings in the Indian Office Library, HMSO London, 1962.)
9 Williams, I. & Ching, May Bo, Created in Canton: Chinese Export Watercolors on Pith, Lingan Art Publishing, 2014.
10 Harrist, R., Ch’ien Hsuan’s “Pear Blossoms”: The Tradition of Flower Painting and Poetry from Sung to Yuan, Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 22, 1987.
The Father of Indonesian Modern Painting
Kusama Affandi (1907-1990), the father of Indonesian modern painting, was the first Southeast Asian artist to gain worldwide recognition. From his sponsorship of organizations for young artists to the inspiration of his self-taught expressionism, he helped raise future generations of Indonesian artists. Attracting international attention, he traveled the globe, in his earlier years studying in India, participating in the Sao Paolo and Venice Biennales, and in the US on a 1957 State Department scholarship. His career spanned the eras of Dutch colonial rule, Japanese occupation, early independence under Sukarno, and the dictatorship of Suharto. A resident of Java, he was involved in the struggle for Indonesian independence and acquainted with the major political and social actors of his time. His art was influenced early on by participation in artists’ guilds dominated by Lekra, the cultural arm of the Indonesian communist party, and its preference for Social Realism. In 1990 he was honored with a posthumous exhibit at the Smithsonian. Today his work is held mainly in private collections throughout the world, the Singapore Art Museum, the Neka Museum, and the Affandi Museum.
Affandi’s subjects were drawn from ordinary life, especially ones that carried emotional freight, and were painted from reality. His method of painting was all his own, squeezing pigment directly from the tube to create bold lines of impasto, and spreading with his fingers and hands. He believed that blending and swirling, possessed by the moment, would imbue the canvas with his own human spirit and convey more depth of humanity. His spontaneous and dynamic working style captured energy and emotion. Above his signature, he placed his “life symbol” summarizing his style: consisting of the sun, source of energy, life, and creativity; feet for connection to the ground; and hands, powered by his own life force, connecting him to the paint and canvas.
First visiting Bali to paint in 1939, Affandi returned often. The Balinese pastime of cockfighting was a frequent subject of his interest. The Indonesian government opposed the fighting, Islamic tradition being that roosters have the gift of being able to see angels, but allowed its continuation on Bali for religious ceremonies. Blood spilled onto temple grounds is an offering to evil spirits, a sacred purification ritual. Temples in Bali are the meeting place of humans and the gods, where cosmic harmony between humans and the gods above, and demons below, is maintained. Bali-Hinduism is animistic, everything is inhabited by spirits. The unseen spirit world coexists with the human, intertwining in everyday life (Eiseman). The earliest reference to cockerel fighting in the Hindu rituals of Bali is found in the 10th century. After a millennia, cockfighting has taken on a wider social context, to include village friendships, rivalries, notions of masculinity, and gambling. It is deeply rooted as a tradition and pastime. Men raise cockerels like athletes. Training, breeding, diet, and care are endlessly perfected. The cockerels become “symbolic expressions and magnifications of their owner’s self,” and also “of what the Balinese regard as the direct inversion, aesthetically, morally, and metaphysically, of human status: animality,” (Geertz). The blood spilled at cockfights is an offering to pacify the demons of human nature as well. “In the cockfight, man and beast, good and evil, ego and id, the creative power of aroused masculinity and the destructive power of loosened animality fuse in a bloody drama of hatred, cruelty, violence, and death.” The deep religious and social aspects of cockfighting were fertile ground for the artist Affandi.
This canvas, Balinese Cock Fighter, isolates one participant and his treasured cockerel as they wait for their turn to participate, all hopes and fears, in the excitement of the gathering. A shaft of light falls on the pair, the owner’s sinuous muscularity interlacing with curves of the cockerel’s plumage, the bodies appearing as one; as are their spirits, fates intertwined. The negative space in the painting is not empty. Affandi’s swirling fingers and smoky colors evoke the world unseen, the coexisting world of the spirits, the pulsating emotions, and the whirling of natural forces. Ghosts and ancestor gods would have indeed been very present in this unseen world Affandi painted in 1966.
In the summer of 1964, the young nation of Indonesia barely held together as communist, military, and Muslim factions vied for power. In his Independence Day speech, President Sukarno proclaimed the following year would be “the year of living dangerously.” And it was. A failed coup attempt on October 1st of 1965 gave rival Suharto his opening to ascend to power. State-sponsored purges of suspected communists, by both the army and civilian vigilante groups followed. The massacres were brutal, particularly in Java and Bali, with death squads moving from village to village hunting communists. Over the following 18 months, an estimated 500,000 Indonesians were killed and many more were dispossessed or incarcerated. Officially, the period has never been examined. Books about it were banned by the dictatorship. “Its shadow falls across islands where millions live side-by-side with former tormentors or victims.”(The Economist) Indonesians likewise live side by side with the ghosts of the hundreds of thousands slaughtered.
Affandi’s Balinese Cock Fighter, painted in “the year of living dangerously,” provokes a visceral reaction. There is fear, there is the suggestion of pain; it is dark and uncertain. The atmosphere teems with unseen spirits and ancestor gods. Those whirling natural forces that drive the emotions of the cockfight also drive the events of the world. Yet, standing there, their souls bared, they are calm, looking inward. The shaft of light illuminates the key to enduring it all. Amongst the dark clouds and uncertainties, burns the human spirit.
By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence
Sources:
Fred B. Eiseman, National Geographic, 1980.
The Economist, Open Wounds, Banyan, April 23, 1016.
Clifford Geertz, Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight, Daedalus, 2005.
Affandi Museum
Northern Lights
Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk (1567-1607) was an explorer. Before he captured the treasure ship Santa Caterina in the Straits of Malacca, and died defeating the Spanish fleet off Gibraltar, he was already a hero of an epic book, Nova Zembla. Published in 1598, the book was Gerrit de Veer’s first-person account of an ill-fated 1596 Arctic expedition led by van Heemskerk and navigator Willem Barents. Their objective was to find a northern passage to Asia, bypassing the Portuguese-controlled trade routes. After a harrowing journey through masses of ice, the expedition pressed on, in the mistaken belief of the time that sea water could not freeze. To the horror of the crew, at the onset of winter the ship became ice-bound in the Arctic Ocean. Hurriedly, a shelter was constructed from driftwood and what could be spare from the ship. For the next ten months of the Arctic winter, de Veer’s journal recorded harrowing details of the struggle for survival on the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya. The entire crew nearly expired from carbon monoxide poisoning when they burned coal indoors. The one time they dined richly on polar bear nearly killed them from hypervitaminosis A. They already had scurvy. Hauntingly, de Veer described “a natural phenomenon that is now known as the Novaya Zemlya Effect. Two weeks before the sun was due to re-appear he and others saw it rise. De Veer describes how he tried to verify his and other’s observations by making calculations of their position. He was not to know that the sun he saw was only a mirage.” (Marja Kingma, Overwintering: the Dutch search for the Northwest Passage). When the sun returned, the crew waited in vain for the ice to release their ship. Left with no option, they set out for home in the ship’s two small open boats. Completely exposed in the extreme climate, on the inhospitable sea, four perished, including Barents. Eight weeks later, the survivors were found off the Kola Peninsula. In the 1870s the expedition’s abandoned cache of goods, including pewter candlesticks, was discovered in Novaya Zemlya. The style of candlestick became known as Heemskerk. Heemskerk also had a ship named in his honor, Barents, the sea in which he perished.
By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence
Why do we all love blue and white china?
Why do we all love blue and white china? Perhaps because it is hard-wired into our system. Across history and continents, the love of blue and white Chinese porcelain has launched ships and industries.
For a thousand years, China had a complete monopoly on porcelain, which was traded along the Silk Route and the maritime trade routes of Asia. Around 1320, the kilns of Jingdezhen began using imported Persian cobalt, which was twice as expensive as gold, and blue and white china was born. In imitation, Middle Eastern potters developed a tin glazing technique to whiten their ceramics. The tin glazing technique spread to Europe via Majorca in Islamic Spain, and then to Faenza in Italy. Religious strife and the Eighty Years War pushed a wave of Protestant potters north to Delft and to England in the late 16th century. Their early majolica was rooted in the Italian style, polychrome, and with the expensive tin glaze used only on the front. But this style was to be influenced by China again…
On the other side of the globe, the Dutch continued their struggle against allied Spain and Portugal by attacking routes of the spice trade. To finance this venture, in 1602 the Dutch created the VOC, the Dutch East India Company, selling equity shares of ownership and bonds to public investors to raise capital. The VOC became the first real public company and the first to harness the massive potential of capitalism. Investment, and the ability to use military force, made it the greatest commercial enterprise in the world. Its first venture, led by Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk, was also a watershed event. In 1603 “the Portuguese carrack Santa Caterina fully laden with silk, musk and porcelain was captured near the shores of Singapore, and the cargo was sold in Amsterdam—this was the first big auction of Chinese porcelain in northern Europe.” (Thorsten Giehler, The Ceramics of the Maritime Silk Route). The 1604 auction was wildly successful, setting off a China Mania, proving the European elite were willing to pay enormous sums of money for blue and white porcelain.
Delft majolica potteries began manufacturing affordable imitations of Chinese porcelain. A refined faience was achieved for the higher end of the market, copying both the shapes and decoration of the Chinese porcelains, with white tin glazing on both sides and designs in cobalt blue. The Delft potters also created their own interpretations, melding Chinese and European design features into a new style, chinoiserie. Delft blue became famous, eventually becoming the name for all of the blue and white objects. Made in different locales, what it had in common was the white tin glaze and cobalt blue decoration. Delft tiles and pottery became fashionable and were in demand in the homes of the gentry and merchants to show prosperity. Tiles were used around chimneys, hallways, staircases, kitchens, and as lintels, and were often painted with scenes of daily life, or biblical or mythological figures.
In England, Delft production grew dramatically after 1688, when, on account of his marriage to Mary II, the Dutch William of Orange was crowned King of England. William and Mary brought designer Daniel Marot with them to their English court. Marot’s ornate Dutch style was highly influential, shaping both the design of Delftware and the way objects were used in interior design. Delftware was displayed all over the house, rather than solely inside cabinets. Rows of gleaming blue and white garnitures lined mantels, stepped chimneys, and furniture. In the words of Daniel Defoe, the new fashion, “spread to lesser mortals and increased to a strange degree afterwards, piling china up on the tops of cabinets, escritoires and every chimney-piece, to the tops of the ceilings… till it became a grievance.” Delftware was not only the tableware of choice for the middle-class clientele who could not afford Chinese porcelain, but also a prominently displayed status symbol in the homes of the elite, including Queen Mary, who commissioned Delft items in fabulous baroque forms, but also collected fine Chinese porcelains. While Mary died in 1694, the reign of Delft lasted until the creation of a European porcelain industry in the mid-18th century.
By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence
A Delft Touch in Colonial America
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, Delftware was the most common type of ceramic export to the American colonies, the wide range of products doing everything from adorning elegant tables and displaying flowers to serving utilitarian purposes in apothecary shops and beneath beds (Antiques and the Arts Weekly, Delftware at Historic Deerfield, 1600-1800). By the close of the 17th century, England controlled American colonial trade, but it was the Dutch who dominated global trade, and continued trading in the Americas long after their colonial presence. When England’s 1642 Civil War disrupted supply lines, colonists pivoted to Dutch and French traders. The desire to eliminate Dutch competition gave rise in 1651 to Britain’s Navigation Acts, mercantilist policies designed to protect colonial markets and trade routes. Only British ships were allowed to carry goods to the American colonies, cutting off trade with foreign powers. However, archaeological and archival evidence indicate that Dutch ceramics were common, if contraband. “A minute of the English Privy Council of 1662, concerning the ‘secret trade with the Dutch,’ charges that the plantations were ‘delivering tobacco at sea… carrying the same to New England… and thence shipping it in Dutch bottoms,’ and were committing other illegal practices contrary to the Navigation Acts,” (Charlotte Wilcoxen, Dutch Trade with New England). Colonial governors continued to allow Dutch, Spanish, and Venetian ships to trade in their ports, circumventing British trade policy- particularly with the Dutch. Dutch traders could provide a wide variety of goods needed by the colonists at lower prices. The Dutch were also the largest market for tobacco, colonial America’s most important cash crop. Once in Holland, the imported tobacco was stored in warehouses in Delftware jars designating origin and type, such as rappé for snuff.
By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence
Where there’s a Will
Pewter is undoubtedly the crown jewel in the Herr collection. Auctioneer and appraiser James Pook discusses a highly important Lancaster, Pennsylvania pewter flagon, ca. 1770, bearing the touch of Johann Christoph Heyne (Germany, Lancaster 1715-1781), 11 1/4″ h. James explains, “This Pennsylvania German ecclesiastical pewter flagon is the highlight of the sale. Only one other is privately owned.” Describing the mainly ecclesiastical output of Heyne, Donald Herr wrote, “His splendid flagons, with their strongly Germanic elements of cherub’s head feet and body combined with a cast hollow English handle, are remarkable examples of cultural assimilation of styles” (Pewter in Pennsylvania German Churches). Most American pewterers of the time were trained in the English tradition. After working in Sweden, the German-born Heyne immigrated to American in 1742 as a member of the “First Sea Congregation” of the Moravian Church. The provenance of a canteen, ca. 1770, bearing Heyne’s touch, was a memorable find at a flea market in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Due to protectionist British trade policies, the exportation of tin, the primary component of pewter, to the American colonies was prohibited. The export of unworked pewter was heavily taxed. Finished pewter imports were thus both a consumer and, eventually, a capital good. A soft metal with a low boiling point, pewter goods had a lifespan of only about ten years. Lacking an American source of tin, colonial pewterers melted old, worn-out British pewter to recast into new wares. The best American pewter exhibits simplicity, beauty, and innovation in the ways makers used their limited molds to create finely proportioned objects. One gifted pewterer stands above the rest. William Will (Germany, Philadelphia 1742-1798), patriot, statesman, and pewterer, was the son of New York pewterer John Will, who arrived in America in 1752. Donald Herr wrote, “Without question, no Colonial American pewterer equaled the variety of forms or had greater ability to make new designs from existing molds than the Pennsylvania German pewterer William Will” (Pewter.., p. 90). The Herrs collected the works of both father and son. Nine objects by William Will, include sugar bowls, mugs, a tulip tankard, a drum teapot, and the jewel of the collection, an important coffee pot, ca. 1780. While few examples of this form exist, it has remained one of the most iconic pieces of American pewter. Standing sixteen inches in height, its clean neoclassical lines and symmetry lend it visual impact. Tucked inside of many pieces of hollowware are Donald Herr’s handwritten notes, receipts, and other documents. A heavily lidded William Will sugar bowl contains a note that its lid “appears to be the base of a salt”. Of the works attributed to and bearing the touch of John Will (Germany, New York 1696-ca.1774), an important flagon and chalice, ca. 1760, has been traced to the Round Top Lutheran Church, Bethel, Duchess County, New York.
Pewter highlights include a New York, New York oval teapot, ca. 1745, bearing the touch Francs Bassett I, one of the rarest forms of American 18th c. design. Francis Bassett I was active in New York from 1720 until 1758. Of the seven Philadelphia items in the collection bearing the Love touchmark, a standout is a highly rare Queen Anne teapot, late 18th c. Only a few Love teapots are known. Of five works by Parks Boyd (Philadelphia ca.1771-1819), a pewterer who worked at various places, including Elfreth’s Alley, is a quart tankard, ca. 1805, in a style found only in the Philadelphia area, its high dome and multiple fillets exhibiting a strong Scandinavian influence. The Herrs explored connections between makers. Robert Palethorpe Jr. (Philadelphia 1797-1822) was Boyd’s neighbor, eventually purchasing his shop. The rare 3 ½ pint barrel mug, ca. 1820, is possibly the only known example by Palethorpe. Simon Edgell arrived in Philadelphia from England in 1713 or earlier, purchasing property on High (Market) Street. “Simon Edgell’s pewter is among the earliest and rarest of surviving American pewter,” with fewer than a dozen signed pieces known. (Herr, Pewter… p.131) A rare beaker, ca. 1730, bears his touch. It is likely the earliest marked American beaker and was purportedly used by the Bowmansville Mennonite Church. Of the twelve porringers featured are three with simple tab handles, a form made exclusively in Pennsylvania. There are two by Chester County makers Robert Porter, ca. 1780, and Simon or Samuel Pennock, ca. 1820, and a rare example from Yorktown maker Elisha Kirk, ca. 1785.
Furniture includes a Pennsylvania painted pine dower chest, dated 1829, with lid, front, and feet profusely decorated with stylized flowers, birds, and pinwheels on a red ground. A Johannes Baughman (Bachman) (Conestoga Township, Lancaster County (1746-1829), Lancaster County Chippendale walnut schrank, ca. 1790, is signed under a drawer and is topped with a bold stepped cornice over a case with raised arched panels centered by fluted pilasters, all resting on a base of two drawers. A Lancaster County Chippendale walnut tall case clock, ca. 1780, is signed Jacob Gorgas.
A selection of rare and important objects, The Collection of Donald and Patricia Herr exemplifies their love of Pennsylvania German decorative arts. In the words of the Herr family, “These items represent heritage, craftsmanship, scholarship, and above all, cherished moments
by: Cynthia Beech Lawrence
For more information on William Will, please read our earlier blog:
Upcycling 1800’s Style
Among his favorite items in the sale, owner Ron Pook selects an important John Palm Boyer (1833-1901), Brickerville, Lancaster County, painted pine seed chest, ca. 1860, retaining its original faux grain decoration, the case with a fall front lid over fifteen drawers, with a lower row of seven small drawers resting on bootjack feet. This cabinet remains in a remarkable state of preservation and is among the finest known examples of Boyer’s work. “A great decorative item, this seed chest exemplifies the Pennsylvania German love of color and decoration. The drawers are too small to hold enough seed for a farm, so it was probably used to hold garden seed or small household items. It is in great condition,” Ron explains. Donald Herr wrote in Antiques and the Arts Weekly, Sept. 3, 2006, “His pieces are most frequently painted with a sponge and finger decorated brown paint on a mustard-colored base,” and often used cigar boxes for drawers. Interestingly, Herr writes, “Boyer seed chests with desk-lid forms appear to be stylistically related to, but not identical to, at least one seed chest decorated in the Lehnware tradition. Joseph Lehn and John P. Boyer lived within a few miles of each other and likely were familiar with each other’s work.” Of twenty-three Joseph Lehn-related pieces featured, one is a painted poplar seed chest with decoupage decorated crest and sides and a brick red ground. Other Lehn items include a miniature blanket chest, a sugar bucket with lid, rare yellow and blue ground saffron and egg cups, a very rare purple ground lidded saffron cup, an exceptional salmon ground egg cup in pristine condition, and possibly the finest lidded cup known- a pristine saffron cup with salmon ground.
The most coveted makers of wooden boxes hold a special place in the collection. There are two 19th c. Lancaster Weber dresser boxes, one red ground and one blue, each with vibrant floral decoration, houses and trees. Two early 19th c. Lancaster County Compass Artist works are featured. One of very few known examples is a painted poplar slide lid box decorated with red and white pinwheel flowers on a dark blue ground. Another, of more traditional form, is a painted poplar dome lid box intricately and profusely decorated with compass and freehand flowers. An important John Drissel (Lower Milford Township, Bucks County, late 18th/early 19th c.) painted pine slide lid box, the lid inscribed Johannes Stauffer Anno 1797 John Drissel his hand, is decorated with tulips and white wavy lines on a brick red ground.
Highly desirable Pennsylvania German carvings include a Wilhelm Schimmel spread-winged eagle, with original polychrome surface and unusual gilt body, which sits alongside two spirited Peter Brubaker (Lancaster County, 1816-1898) carved and painted horses, one chestnut and one dapple grey. Engaging carved figural groups by George G. Wolfskill (Fivepointville, Lancaster County 1872-1940) include an entire foxhunt. Works by John Reber (Lehigh County, 1857-1938) rarely come on the market, yet here are five of them, including his most ambitious work, an important carved and painted figure of the celebrated Standardbred pacer Dan Patch. Reber captured the majesty of Dan Patch, undefeated holder of the world record for the mile, with a mien of justifiable arrogance. His competition was so hopelessly outclassed that it stopped racing against him altogether.
Metal works by artisans John Long (Sporting Hill, Rapho Township, Lancaster, 1787-1856) and Peter Derr (Tulpenhocken Township, Berks County, 1793-1868) exhibit the best qualities of their type. A rare John Long wrought iron and brass fat lamp, is inscribed Fanny M. Erisman Manufactured By John Long. John Long’s Betty lamps “are considered by many to be among the finest examples of Pennsylvania German smithwork… They exemplify the creativity and the love of form, function and design by the Pennsylvania Germans.” (Donald Herr, AAW, 2006) A Peter Derr iron, brass, and copper fat lamp is impressed P.D 1860, and is one of three Peter Derr works to be offered. A Willoughby Shade (Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, mid-19th c.) punched tin coffee pot is profusely decorated, not only with birds and flowers- a parade of elephants march around its flared base. An exceedingly rare item, a York, Pennsylvania copper saucepan and lid marked by John Lay is possibly the only example known.
By: Cynthia Beech Lawrence