Chapter I: Front Matter

THE
PLEASURES
OF
COLLECTING

_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_

Early American Mahogany Block-Front Cabinet-Top, Rhode Island Style
Desk, 1750-1775]

THE
PLEASURES
OF
COLLECTING

BY
GARDNER TEALL

Being sundry delectable
excursions in the realm
of antiques and curios,
American, European,
and Oriental

New York
The Century Company
1920]

Copyright, 1920, by
THE CENTURY CO.

TO
MY SISTER
FRANCES COTHEAL TEALL
IN LOVING MEMORY

DEAR READER

Your true collector does not apologize for his hobbies; he exalts their virtues. Necessity may occasionally compel him to resort to the camouflage of mid-interest, as when his family is not in sympathy with his pursuits; or, again, as when fate has placed him in arid communion with unsympathetic associates, individuals whose personalities have developed independently of their souls, leaving them pronounced in the directions they invariably select; directions, in consequence, invariably divergent from those paths which the true collector loves to tread.

While not secretive by nature, and by the same nature eager to share his joys with his fellow-beings, the true collector is endowed, more often than not, with a certain intuitive perception which enables him to appreciate the futility of hoping to convert the unequipped infidel to the solaces of his own faith in the delights of the lares and penates of another generation, an intuition which warns him to protect his peace of mind by harmlessly appearing to accept with good grace the commonplacenesses undoubtedly enjoyed by the many, but with no culpable renunciation of his own lively interest in the quaint and curious mementos of the world of yesterdays, a world into which our own to-days slip, one by one, silently, but as surely followed by our to-morrows.

Was it not Charles Lamb who exclaimed: “Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that, being nothing, art everything? When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity,--then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou calledst it to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we forever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being everything! The past is everything, being nothing!”

Your true collector may often maintain reticence in order that he may enjoy a normal place in the community, undisturbed by the merely idle curious, the undeft rummaging of the clumsy, the curt depreciation of the supercilious, the gushing of the undiscriminating susceptible, or the skepticism of those who measure the sanity of their fellows by the canons of their own irrevocable and undeviating limitations, those to whom no music but the echoes of caverns can appeal. Such are beyond the pale of any errand in missionary spirit.

The true collector is born, not made. Yet one cannot discover the mirror without knowledge of the reflection. The contentment to be found in the acquisition and in the contemplation of the things that are dear to the heart of the antiquarian and the art-lover is a contentment that is the gift of the gods, always awarded the intelligent, though not always disclosed to them.

A friend, then, will be he who discovers to one a treasure like that which the joy of collecting uncovers. What we read and what we see pictured for us is precious, indeed, if it holds up to us the image of that which we immediately know to be congenial to our natural tastes. And so it is that this little book is not devised for savages, but tenderly has been nurtured in sympathy with the interesting and the beautiful things of yesterday. May it find friends among those who love them as well as among those who love the things of to-day which have prospered in their heritage from the days of long ago!

The author wishes to express his grateful acknowledgments to those who have made possible the preparation of this volume--to Messrs. Condé Nast & Company, Inc., publishers of “House & Garden,” Messrs. Munn & Company, Inc., formerly publishers of “American Homes and Gardens,” the publishers of “The Cosmopolitan,” the publishers of “The House Beautiful,” and the publishers of “The Sun,” New York, for permission to include in this volume portions of the material contributed by him to those periodicals; to Dr. George Frederick Kunz, Mr. Richardson Wright, Mr. Charles Allen Munn, Mr. Robert H. Van Court, Mrs. Elizabeth C. Lounsbery, Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus, Mr. Robert Lemmon, Mr. H. E. Bauer, Miss Mary H. Northend, Mr. André M. Rueff, Mr. T. C. Turner, Mr. William A. Cooper, Mr. William Francis Phillips, Miss Elizabeth Robinson, Mr. William C. Clifford, Mr. G. H. Buek, Mr. Frederick H. Howell, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose photographs have been drawn upon for illustration, the Brooklyn Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the New York Public Library, and to those authors whose works are noted in the Bibliography.

GARDNER TEALL

NEW YORK June 4, 1920

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I THE PLEASURES OF COLLECTING 3

II COLLECTORS OF YESTERDAY 9

III AMERICAN TABLES 18

IV TEA AND ANTIQUITY 26

V CUP-PLATES 36

VI CHINTZ 42

VII PEWTER 51

VIII SAMPLERS 61

IX WAX PORTRAITS 68

X HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 74

XI CHAIRS 77

XII ENGLISH DRINKING-GLASSES 84

XIII STUART EMBROIDERIES 94

XIV DELFT 98

XV EARLY DESK FURNITURE 106

XVI CHELSEA 115

XVII WEDGWOOD 125

XVIII SAVING THE PIECES 130

XIX LOUNGING FURNITURE 134

XX SHEFFIELD PLATE 146

XXI STRAW MARQUETERIE 153

XXII CONSOLES 164

XXIII SÈVRES PORCELAIN 170

XXIV EUROPEAN ENAMELS 178

XXV THE ROMANCE OF A POTTER: BERNARD PALISSY 191

XXVI ITALIAN MAIOLICA 210

XXVII GLASS OF A THOUSAND FLOWERS 218

XXVIII ANTIQUES OF PERSIA AND OF INDIA 227

XXIX CHINESE PORCELAINS 238

XXX CHINESE AND JAPANESE LACQUER 246

XXXI CHINESE SNUFF-BOTTLES 253

XXXII CLOISONNÉ ENAMELS OF CHINA AND JAPAN 262

XXXIII JAPANESE SWORD-GUARDS 270

XXXIV MEDALLIC ART 278

XXXV ENGRAVED GEMS 286

XXXVI FRAUDULENT ART OBJECTS 299

BIBLIOGRAPHY 305

INDEX 319

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Early American mahogany block-front cabinet-top Rhode Island style desk, 1750-1775 _Frontispiece_

FACING
PAGE

American walnut gate-leg table, 1675-1700 24

American pine and walnut chair-table, 1700 24

American cherry and maple gate-leg table, 1675-1700 24

Late 18th century English tea caddy 25

Late 18th century English tea caddies 25

Ivory and two tortoiseshell 18th century tea caddies 25

Cup-plates 40

Early printed cotton 41

Chinese pewter jar with bronze cover--early 18th century 60

A Swiss pewter wine-flask, Zurich, dated 1766 60

American 18th century sampler 61

A dated English or Welsh sampler, 1787 61

Wax-portrait of Ferdinand I of Sicily, Italian, late 18th century 76

Wax-portrait, subject unknown, Italian, early 18th century 76

Model of an American peg-loom bearing the name of W. D. Fales of Providence, Rhode Island 77

Handwoven coverlet in bed-chamber of the John Howard Payne House 77

Chippendale mahogany arm-chair, 1760-1780 80

Shield back Hepplewhite arm-chair 80

Louis XIV arm-chair 80

Louis XV arm-chair 80

Three rare Williamite glasses 81

Two English glass rummers engraved with Nelson subjects 81

A small Jacobite Arms rummer 81

Tumbler commemorating coronation of George IV of England 81

Two 18th century tumblers 81

English 17th century stump-work embroidery 96

Dutch delft shelf ornaments 97

Four Dutch delft tiles, 17th century 97

A pair of candlesticks and a vase of 18th century Chelsea 120

Cabinet inset with Wedgwood jasper ware medallions 121

16th century Venetian glass covered cup 136

Double chair-back settee, Chippendale, 1735-1750 137

Settee, Adam style 137

Sofa of the William and Mary period 137

Sheffield plate tray and spoonholder 152

Sheffield plate teapot and coffee-pot 152

Straw marqueterie box, French, 18th century 153

Straw marqueterie box, English, 17th century 153

French console, Louis XIV period 168

French console, Louis XV period 168

Sèvres white bisque statuette of Voltaire 169

Sèvres white bisque bust of Franklin 169

A pair of Sèvres porcelain covered vases 169

Oval dish by Bernard Palissy, 1510-1589 188

Lumières by Bernard Palissy 188

Limoges enamel covered cup attributed to Pierre Raymond 189

Champlevé enamel casket, French, 13th century 189

Early Italian maiolica plates 216

Copies of Roman millefiori glass 217

Two ancient Roman millefiori glass bowls 217

Ewer and basin, Bindri ware, India, 18th century 236

Polychrome Persian tiles, 17th century 236

Chinese porcelain, Kang H’si period, 1662-1723 237

Chinese lacquer vase, 18th century 252

Japanese gold lacquer toilet stand, 17th century 252

Chinese snuff bottles of the Ch’ien Lung period, 1736-1796 253

Chinese cloisonné Palace Censer, Chia Ching period, 1522-1567 268

Japanese armour of the feudal period showing swords with their sword-guards (tsuba) 269

THE PLEASURES OF COLLECTING

THE PLEASURES OF COLLECTING