A is for Antiques!

So, that show the other weekend, was possibly even more disappointing that I had feared, not only was it - as I suggested in my newsflash the day before - all  ". . . wooden games, barley-twist marbles, balding Teddy Bears and old dolls", there were in fact no marbles, few wooden games and really nothing beyond dolls and bears (and other soft toys), there were a few Gollies and Golly-related things, going under the evilBay police radar, but no tinplate, not even old carpet trains, not much dolls house stuff/furniture, just lots and lots of dolls and bears, which is fine if you're into that kind of thing, but a little disappointing, if you've come looking for other antique or 'properly' old toys other than those two genres?

 

However, the organiser's table (Daniel Agnew - ex-Christie's Auction House) did have a wider range, Adrian's table had everything but dolls and bears, and there were the odd tubs of interesting things, on some stalls . . . actually baskets, the antiquey-people use baskets! And I managed to find a few pieces of interest.

This was fascinating, obviously you find the same items in early Christmas crackers, but the five items are similar to those found, to this day, in Irish Halloween barmbrack cakes/puddings, which in the 'Brack are: a pea, a stick, a piece of cloth, a small coin (originally a silver sixpence), a ring, and a bean, the ring in both cases signifying marriage in the forthcoming year!

 

But it's also interesting is showing how traditions can be lost in a generation as well as created, as while in my childhood, the sixpence (not even included here, but maybe you provided the sixpence and bought the other five?) survived, we didn't have the rest, and now, apart from a few families putting a pound-coin in their Crimbo-pud', most people put nothing in their puddings or cakes?

 

In a similar vein, I bought these, probably also from Christmas crackers, but possibly from an actual charm-bracelet, but of a budget or penny-/market-stall variety? Some plated on a base-metal, the other items in the group-shot are a fancy 'brier' pipe, and two pairs of opera-glasses.

 

Obviously, these were on Adrian's stall and I grabbed both, just to have something substantial to take away from the day! We've seen the Thomas/Poplar plastic jobbie before, while the die-cast piece in front is from Morestone, and although rather tatty, does seem to come with the original gift-bag, nearly always missing, or replaced with some shiny-new thing, and it ticks a box!

 

This is also silver-plated, but on brass, and maybe an apprenticed smith's exam-piece, or just a small 'objets d'art' to be put in the family curio-cabinet or something, they were simpler times!

 

'A Gentleman in Kharki' (older spelling intended), the iconic figure of a Boer war soldier, which I will wax fully on, in the near future, but for now suffice to say this was made by Britains, but was a stand-alone figure, I believe, and probably sold with charitable intent, at a rate over the ordinary unit-price.

N is for New Name in the Tag List!

Carrington's the Jewellers of Regent Street no less! Taken from the Illustrated London News, May 1986 'Number' as posh people title their periodicals! A sliver centre-piece, for dining tables or sideboards, you can have him guarding the cheese board and grapes, or staring-down some of your dinner-guests!

 

The obvious question being, is it a Stadden piece? The horse looks a little too smooth in my humble opinion, but the figure has some of the sharpness of folds one expects from the master, and sometimes 'figure chaps' will work with an 'animal chap' (or chapess), as they often specialise in one form of physiognomy? Looks to be about four-inches in scale/size, but he could be as much as six? I'd paint him as a Horse Guard!

E is for Exquisite Emperor

As well as the twelve tazze we looked at yesterday, Brian also sent a couple of shots of this, which I far prefer, despite the Met's website being slightly dismissive of the likely (it's not 100% clear or known) maker, Reinhold Vasters of Aachen, Germany.

To quote the Met's website description in full;

"This Silver Caesars-inspired statuette was probably made by Reinhold Vasters, a nineteenth-century goldsmith famous for his forgeries of Renaissance objects. Vasters evidently admired the tazze - his personal collection included copies of the Augustus and Vitellius dishes. It is likely that he also manufactured the six replacement feet added to the tazze in the late nineteenth century."

Made of finely carved marbles and other semi-precious stone, the joins (which I suspect - with no evidence - are peg-and-hole with grout) hidden by finely wrought, gilded, silver-work, which - as well as hiding the joins - will also hold the pieces in place., flush against each other?

I'm not so convinced that this is necessarily inspired by the twelve Caesars as just a wider part of the Enlightenment's look back at the Renaissance's own referring back to the splendor of Rome (and Greece) as it was seen by the 'modern' men of those ages, where the monumental statuary was the 'big puller'.

A few samples of marble similar to those used on the Caesar, including the green and red stone which I believe is called blood-stone, as used on his kilt, a fine Calcutta/caramel-yellow (onyx?) similar to, but paler than the sample his breast-plate is carved from, the cherry-yogurt pink comes in various hues, our little marble having large flecks of black in it (probably another version of Bloodstone), while the statuette's own shirt-sleeves and cloak are flecked with paler grey splotches; the plinth pink having white flecks and striations.

Note also that the decorative fringe of his belt was once fully enamelled in a rich, translucent apple-green, now mostly flaked-away.

I couldn't find a green to match the main-body of the plinth, it looks like the same stuff they cut signet-rings and seals from (they also used bloodstone, but tended to use purer-red pieces for small works) while the boots seem to be the same near-all-black as the black in the above group, infused with white, fern-like fronds or 'ice-crystals', you also get streaks or spots; his left boot has one running across the front of the ankle, and it's not far-removed from the Carrara we were looking at a year ago - but it's not an exact science; they will all be Italian stones though.

Link

Metropolitain Museum of Art - from the other side

The exhibition has been made possible by The Schroder Foundation, Selim K. Zilkha, the Anna-Maria & Stephen Kellen Foundation, Nina von Maltzahn, and an anonymous donor.

I'm very grateful to Brian for sending us these, it's nice to have a bit of up-market content on the blog, and to see what we might be adding to the collection after we crack that all-important 'becoming a multi-millionaire' ceiling!

T is for Tazze

These have been pushed back a couple of times as far as the queue goes, but I'm glad they're here now as they are only on show for a few more days in the US (exhibition finishes on March 11th - next Sunday), before coming to the UK, so I can let you know about them with 'minutes to spare' as the saying goes.

All images from Brian B, although there is plenty more available on the web for those who's interest is for the wider sphere of figural-sculpture, or renditions of the human form or whatever the phrase [I'm not finding] would be! However; I wouldn't know anything about them without Mr. Berke's contribution, so many thanks to him.

This is a silver guilt tazza (plural; tazze) currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with its eleven brothers and a whole bunch of copies, derivative 'homage' and influenced pieces, one of which we will look at tomorrow.

It may look like a cake-dish to you, it certainly looks like a cake-dish to me, but they are apparently standing cups, and are collectively known as the Aldobrandini Tazze, after the Roman Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, who was known to have owned them, they are also known as the 'Silver Caesars'.

Anyway not knowing anything about them, all this is paraphrasing the Metropolitan's own blurb or that of the next destination for the exhibition; the National Trust's property at Waddesdon Manor in Aylesbury, Bucks'; the exhibition will open there on Wednesday April 18th.

Another of the originals; Vespasian. The tazze are thought to represent the 12 Caesars of Suetonius' famous work, with each cup (dish)'s bowl decorated with four finely wrought, engraved scenes, each of which can be tied to specific events or anecdotes as told by Suetonius in the The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. Incidentally: a bloody-good read.

Although credited to Aldobrandini (it is known/recorded that he had possession of them in 1603), it seems they were actually made for one of the Hapsburg rulers of the Holy Roman Empire further north, with the silversmiths being from or based-in the Low Countries, specifically the Southern Netherlands.

The clues (which are better explained on the websites or by visiting the exhibitions) point to Archduke Albert VII of Austria and the late 1590's as origin/owner. He may have subsequently gifted six of the tazze to the cardinal, the prelate having paid for the other six - according to his accounts?

Although it would be easy to use imagery (with proper acknowledgement and link-backs) from the websites, we're only going to look at Brain's images here, the websites are there and the exhibitions can be attended, albeit that the Met's is only running for a few more days.

These are copies made in the C19th, and have been left in their oxidised silver state, as the tazze were originally found when they resurfaced in London in 1826, the gilding added by the smiths of the day. Later still; some feet were changed . . . &etc . . . it's all on the websites.

And yes, if it wasn't for the known age and values, they could almost be a collection of unloved Stadden-clones on a table at a car-boot-sale!

Shot from the opposite corner; although there are 12 here, there seems to be a couple of duplicates (coloured dots) and there are signs of past gilding (white squares) on a couple of the pieces, but I believe there were quite a few copies made and there are more than these twelve on display alongside the originals as part of the whole exhibition.

The copies don't have the cup/dish, so presumably should be or are 'statuettes', but they are such accurate copies they are all referred to as silver Caesars. They (like the originals) would have been table centre-pieces for formal 'silver-service' functions and 'top-table' banquettes.

The naming of the parts! I would recommend that you follow the links and spend some time browsing the full story as it's quite interesting, and the Caesars are exquisite. Lovely things; thank you Mr B.

Links

Metropolitain Museum of Arts

Waddesdon Manor

The exhibition has been made possible by The Schroder Foundation, Selim K. Zilkha, the Anna-Maria & Stephen Kellen Foundation, Nina von Maltzahn, and an anonymous donor.

News, Views Etc . . . Shop Display

Just a quickie - SE Riordan's Halloween shop-display is worth a wider audience than the good burghers of the teeming metropolis of Fleet in Hampshire!

Big furry spiders, they were very effective, especially as the shop is in a set-back parade, and you come across them as you walk past a nearby advertising hording and get pushed toward the shop by a cut-in for buses and disabled parking!

O is for Ostentatious

A friend of my Mother's was up at Southeby's for a lecture the other week and they (the attendees) were invited to view the forthcoming action while they were there, Helen kindly thought of me and took these shots of a rather over-the-top chess set.

There is a history of chess sets linked to toy soldiers...well it's obvious isn't it, once you have a range of figures there is an almost natural thought-progression to making them into two sets of 16 and lining them up on a Victorian kitchen floor!

But a bespoke set is a different matter, and while the section on the subject in Garratt's encylopedia is well worth the read and we all know about the sets made by Crescent and Britains and so on, or the sets designed by Stadden, this is in a different league!

Silver, silver-gilt, pearls, precious and semi-precious stones, enamel, suede, fine engraving upon engraving...but piled-up. Do the bases need extra stones, more tooling, another line of enamel? It's like they couldn't stop themselves!

More pictures here, but a final hamer price of £17,000+ when things of rareity and beauty sell for much more these days would suggest the buyers found it a bit OTT as well?

The base is too busy, the four corner knights confusing...not that playing light blue against dark blue is going to make forward planning easy, especially when all the royalty are in red! A lovely thing for the blog, but leave it to new-money...this needs a marble sample-table in a footballer's Geoff's Oak mansion really...he says - judgementally!

A is for 'And'....And now for something completely different...

Occasionally you see something exquisitely HO-OO (as Airfix would have described them!), but way out of you comfort zone price-wise, not because they are old and rare but because like these from Link's of London; they are made of something valuable...

Silver and silver-gilt (gold-plated silver)! I photographed these one cold night back in 2007, walking up through Guildford from the station. I had to take scores of shots due to the reflections off the shop window or the display cabinets and the problem focusing through the glass, which the camera kept detecting etc...

As a result every time I've looked at them in Picasa I've just thought "can't be bollocked!", but as you can see; in the end I've been through them and rescued what I could.

Basically - if memory serves - there was a large and small Noah's Ark, Noah and his wife in front of their new house...old house? Lots of stand-alone pairs of animals, something nativity-looking and one or two other pieces with prices starting at around £20 for a pair of smaller animals.

Highlights are in gilt, or a gloss black I assume to be an enamel (proper kiln-fired [or blow-torched?] enamel, not 'hobby' paint). They also serve to reminded me of the number one item on my 'Wants List'...

...as you enter the British Museum, the Egyptian room is straight in front of you up some stairs from the main foyer. After a couple of large chunks of carved masonry there is (or used to be) a small glass cabinet about the height of a man, centrally placed, with several glass-shelves displaying little treasures, among which are an 18-20mm Pharaoh and his Queen sitting on their thrones, just like the Atlantic ones, but nicer, and made of pure gold...I want them! But I can't have them! Wouldn't you like a Noah's Ark with all the pairs of animals? I would!

Any generous millionaires reading this; you can get my bank details from Natwest...for donations to the Aspergics Toy Research Foundation! What do you mean, you've never heard of it?

B is for Barrels

V is for Very Small Elephants