Edwardian Promenade » Antiques

An Edwardian Drinks Cabinet

Evangeline Holland — Fri, 27 May 2011 11:00:39 +0000

It isn’t easy to find an Edwardian drinks cabinet, so this one, labeled with the name of a well-known English company, Mappin & Webb, brought $7,380 at Neal Auction Co. in New Orleans. Inside the top section were an ice bucket, cocktail shaker, decanters, glasses and other utensils. Bottles were behind the lower cabinet doors.

Drinks before or after dinner have been part of the ritual of dining in America since the 1800s. By then, the wealthy lived in houses that had a dining room, living room and perhaps a parlor or library.

Men and women enjoyed “4 o’clock tea” during Victorian times, but it was usually a ladies’ get-together. After a dinner party, however, it was customary for the men to go to the library for brandy and cigars.

In the 1700s, alcoholic drinks were served to everyone. It was the safest thing to drink; clean water was not always available.

In the years since, there have been times when drinking was an important part of social events and times when it was illegal.

Through all of these years, furniture, decanters, glasses and other things were made to use when serving drinks.

Some dining-room sideboards in the early 1800s had a closed section deep enough to hold a bottle of wine or brandy to serve at dinner. In Victorian times, bottles and glasses often were kept on a tabletop or inside a closed cabinet.

Closed cabinets with hidden sections for bottles and glasses were popular after 1900. They often were made in a formal style from an earlier period. The end of Prohibition in 1933 brought whiskey out of hiding and back onto the table.

By the 1950s, drinks often were served from a built-in bar in the recreation room. [Source]

Found Object Art: Lady Monson

Evangeline Holland — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:00:42 +0000

Ms. Moore is a found object artist (definition according to wikipedia: “art created from the undisguised, but often modified, use of objects that are not normally considered art, often because they already have a non-art function.”) whose interest in and fascination for the Edwardian period dissects with mine. Her interest in Lady Monson (nee Romaine Stone) stemmed from an article in The American Almanac Year-Book Cyclopaedia and Atlas, which listed pages of American heiresses married to European noblemen.

In tribute to Romaine, who was a woman of intelligence as well as beauty, I was inspired to create a high collar necklace with her portrait. Her face, from the Cyclopaedia, is collaged on a scroll-patterned oval pendant, suspended from a fine antique cut steel and brass button, and a cockaded band of lustrous recycled sari silk of a royal hue, layered with natural brass chain and antique cut glass beads.

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Visit her Etsy Shop.

1913 Stevens-Duryea shown at Biltmore Estate

Evangeline Holland — Mon, 03 May 2010 23:34:22 +0000

From the Biltmore Estate:

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – A rare 1913 Stevens-Duryea Model “C-Six” seven-passenger touring car will be placed on display for the first time beginning May 20 at Antler Hill Village on the Biltmore Estate. The car is one of 10 motor vehicles on the estate that was registered in North Carolina in June 1916, and the only one purchased by George Vanderbilt that remains in The Biltmore Company’s collection. This particular model is believed to be one of only 10 known existing in the world today.

Conservation work will take place over the next several months, and then the car will be on exhibit in a closed, climate-controlled space just outside Biltmore Winery in the new Antler Hill Village Like many objects in historic collections, guests will not be able to touch the vehicle, but they will be able to see it up close and get a sense of the Vanderbilts as a family who enjoyed one of the most exciting new inventions of the 20th century – the automobile.

While Biltmore conservators enjoy the daily work of caring for objects, furniture and art in the Biltmore House collection, using their skills to conserve an automobile is especially interesting. The team will begin work on the vehicle’s interior and exterior this month, using a wide variety of techniques to prepare the car for its debut to Biltmore guests. The undercarriage and mechanical components of the car will be conserved by B.R. Howard & Associates, a team that specializes in historic transportation objects based in Carlisle, Pa.

About the company and the car:

In 1901 J. Frank Duryea, after breaking up with his brother Charles E., built the Hampden automobile which proved to be a pilot model for the first Stevens-Duryea automobile, built as part of the J. Stevens Arms & Tool Company in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts. This five-passenger car has Westinghouse air shock absorbers, and a spring-loaded front bumper, and when introduced was the only car with a one-piece windshield.

Specifications: Model C-six; engine six-cylinder in-line, water-cooled; bore 4 9/16 in., stroke 5-1/2 in., displacement 495 cu. in., 48 hp. Price new $4,500.

Further Reading:
A restored 1913 Stevens-Duryea
A look at Biltmore

Serio-Comic Maps of International Tensions

Evangeline Holland — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:30:23 +0000

Any serious study into the Edwardian era will unearth a stunning array of double-dealing, back-biting, secret treaties, war-mongering, and imperialistic dreams between European, American, and Asian nations, which resulted in tension so thick, you could cut with it a rattling saber. I plan to discuss more of what GD Falksen so cleverly called “the steampunk cold war” (which it is, in the context of both steampunk and real life history), but for now, I leave you with a few tragically funny maps drawn by political satirists of the day. Click on the maps for a closer look.

Serio-comic Map of Europe, 1877

Angling in Troubled Waters, 1899

A Humorous Diplomatic Atlas of Europe and Asia, 1904

Chinese view of the world, 1912

Map 1 from here, Map 2 from here, Map 3 from here, Map 4 from here.

Vesta Cases

Evangeline Holland — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:48:57 +0000

As I browsed the antiques section of ebay, I stumbled upon a number of listings for small, rectangular silver items called “vesta cases”. This unknown item, apparently quite popular in Victorian/Edwardian eras, made me curious and I immediately went on a hunt for more information.

These pocket-sized cases for carrying matches took their name from ‘Vesta’, the deity that presided over the domestic focus (hearth) in Ancient Rome. A ‘match’ was the modern representation of Vesta’s symbolic flame and was known as a ‘vesta’ up until the twentieth century when ‘match’ and ‘matchbox holder’ became the favored term. Though they came into use in the 1830s, the explosion of popularity for smoking–with both sexes–found them produced extensively between 1890 and 1920.

The first “friction match” was invented by English chemist John Walker in 1827. He named the matches “congreves,” but the process was patented by Samuel Jones, who then sold them as “lucifers.” Early matches had a number of problems: the flame was unsteady, the odor produced was decidedly unpleasant, and they were reported to ignite explosively. However, these issues didn’t deter the popularity of smoking. Charles Sauria amended the odor by adding white phosphorus, and these new matches had to be kept in an airtight box.

Vesta cases were available in thousands of patterns and types. They could be plain and decorated square, oblong and round cases, or made of the myriad of novelty shapes created, most popular being vesta cases in the form of Mr. Punch, skulls, musical instruments, boots and shoes, ladies’ legs, brass pigs with hinged heads, etc. They were also made in every conceivable material including pressed brass, pressed tin, gunmetal, nickel silver, ivory,wood of varying types and ceramics. Although the majority were made of these inexpensive materials, some were made of precious metals or enameled. These precious metal cases would often be gilded to protect the metals from the sulfur head of the matches, which would otherwise tarnish them.

Some vesta cases even featured a strike side for lighting the match, and other versions could incorporate a small knife blade. They were carried predominantly by men in a waistcoat pocket or on a ‘double Albert’ chain, which held a pocket watch on one side and a vesta case on the other. When worn by women, they were usually held by a delicate chain or bracelet around their wrist to be discreetly slid in and out of a sleeve.

The decline of the vesta case came during WWI, when soldiers found the petrol lighter lasted longer and was easy to refill–most important when the difference between life and death in the trenches could hinge upon a number of seconds.