Chinoiserie

A French chinoiserie inkwell, ca. 1880 April's painting for the
Parvum Opus 2013 desk calendar

Happy Valentine's Day All! Today, in honor of the day, I'm sharing the painting I did for the month of April in the Parvum Opus 2013 desk calendar along with several other Valentine-hued chinoiserie pieces. April's painting features a 19th century French chinoiserie inkwell of painted metal, or tole, with beaded gilt metal fittings.  As you can see in my illustration, this inkwell is a bit on the shabby side, with some chipping to the paint and dents to the fittings.... But that color! I simply couldn't resist including it in this year's collection, and from what I hear so far, many of our clients have chosen it as their favorite.  

A  similar 19th Century French inkwell, with smooth gilt fittings,
recently sold on 1stdibs

In the preface to her inspiring book, Chinoiserie (Phaidon, 1993), Dawn Jacobson writes:

"Chinoiserie is an oddity. It is a wholly European style whose inspiration is entirely oriental. True chinoiseries are not pallid or incompetent imitations of Chinese objects. They are tangible and solid realizations in the West of a land of the imagination: an exotic, remote country, fabled for its riches, that through the centuries remained cloud-wrapped, obstinately refusing to allow more than a few foreigners beyond its gates."

A French chinoiserie inkstand by the same maker as the inkwell in my painting,
from Susan Silver Antiques

Ms. Jacobson continues: " Those few travellers to make the long voyage to Cathay, as China was known in the Middle Ages, returned with tales that surpassed the imaginings of their fascinated audience in Europe. This fanciful vision of a quasi-mythical land was fuelled by the inimitable nature of those few objects brought to the West by the returning adventurers who had penetrated Cathay's mysteries. The notion that China was a land unlike any other, inhabited by people  whose manners and conduct were unknown elsewhere, found fertile soil in the western mind. In the seventeenth century, evidence of the Orient's prodigious wealth buttressed western imaginations. Porcelain, lacquer, ivory and silk, unloaded from the great ships of the East India Companies, filled the wharfs and warehouses of Europe's maritime powers." 

An English red lacquer chinoiserie chest, 1850-1900,
from Susan Silver Antiques

"To meet the growing demand for Eastern imports, inventive artists and craftsmen from all over Europe began to produce their own alternatives--chinoiseries-- which while evoking the products of China did not imitate them. Indeed the means of imitation were not at hand. So pottery factories throughout Europe strove to produce versions of blue-and-white Ming porcelains, local 'japanners' lacquered furniture with wayward designs, English needlewomen reproduced the Indian Tree of Life design in crewel embroideries, and imaginative tapestry makers represented the life of the Chinese emperor. The taste for chinoiserie became ubiquitous and affected every area of the decorative arts from complete interiors to needle-cases..." 

An English lacquer tea trolley, ca. 1880,

from Susan Silver Antiques

"In the nineteenth [century], chinoiserie's high point was furnished by the Prince Regent's Royal Pavilion at Brighton, and the adoption of a new style by the new middle classes invigorated and extended its role."

The Banqueting Room at the Royal Pavilion,
from John Nash's Views of the Royal Pavilion, 1826

"Chinoiserie continues to flourish. Its ability to bob along with the changing tides of fashion has made it an abiding, if often unrecognized leitmotif in the design of everyday objects. When we drink tea from a blue-and-white china cup, choose paeonies and plum-blossom to flower on our curtains, or conceal the television behind a lacquered screen, we are its unconscious heirs, followers of the passion for the arts of China that consumed the West for hundreds of years and led its artists and craftsmen in an exhilarating pursuit of its charms."

If, like me, you can't get enough of the exhilarating pursuit, you may enjoy perusing Ms. Jacobson's thoroughly researched and beautifully illustrated book...and don't forget the tea, of course!

The Glass Flowers by R. & L. Blaschka at Harvard's Natural History Museum

Panicum boreale: Panic Grass by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka
Photograph by Hillel Burger,courtesy The Botanical Museum, Harvard University. 

Remember, no matter what your eyes may tell you, they are not real. 

They are made of glass. From a taped tour of the Ware Collection


Tucked away in the Natural History Museum at Harvard is a cultural treasure: several thousand exquisite flower specimens, perfectly correct in every detail, blown from glass by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka. The story of how these masterpieces of artistic and scientific observation came to be is as fascinating as the pieces themselves. German glass artists Leopold Blaschka (1822-1895) and his son Rudolf (1857-1939) came from a long line of glassblowers. When asked by an incredulous admirer and patron of their work if they had invented specialized tools or new technologies to produce such miracles of craft, Leopold replied:

"Many people think that we have some secret apparatus by which we can squeeze glass suddenly into these forms, but it is not so. We have tact. My son Rudolf has more than I have, because he is my son, and tact increases in every generation. The only way to become a glass modeler of skill, I have often said to people, is to get a good great-grandfather who loved glass; then he is to have a son with like tastes; he is to be your grandfather. He in turn will have a son who must, as your father, be passionately fond of glass. You, as his son, can then try your hand, and it is your own fault if you do not succeed. But, if you do not have such ancestors, it is not your fault. My grandfather was the most widely known glassworker in Bohemia, and he lived to be eighty-three years of age. My father was about as old, and Rudolf hopes my hand will be steady for many years yet. I am now between sixty and seventy and very young; am I not, Rudolf?"(Leopold Blaschka in a letter to Mary Lee Ware, 1889
)

Echinocereus engelmannii: cactus family by Leopold and
Rudolf Blaschka. Photo by Hillel Burger, courtesy The Botanical Museum, Harvard University.

The following is excerpted from "The Glass Flowers at Harvard" by Richard Evans Schultes and William A. Davis:

"The truth, then, is that no secret process ever went into the manufacture of the models. All the techniques employed were known to glassworkers of the period. The only difference was the combination in one individual of the meticulous skill unmatched patience, accurate observation, and deep love of the subject that the two Blaschkas brought to all of their work. These models have been described as "an artistic marvel in the field of science and a scientific marvel in the field of art – certainly a more apt observation would be difficult to imagine."

A Blaschka Iris, with buds and faded blooms.
Photo by Hillel Burger, courtesy The Botanical Museum, Harvard University.

"On April 16, 1890, father and son glass artists Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka signed a ten-year agreement to make plant models exclusively for Harvard University. This relationship with Harvard would ultimately span a half century and culminate in one of the most unique and breathtakingly beautiful collections ever created."

Malus pumila Emperor Alexander Apple (affected by apple scab disease), 1932.
Rudolf Blaschka. Photo by Hillel Burger,Courtesy The Botanical Museum, Harvard University.

"The Glass Flowers collection was commissioned by Harvard Botanical Museum Director George Goodale and financed by Boston residents Elizabeth C. and Mary Lee Ware. The Ware Collection of Glass Models of Plants, as it is officially known, consists of 4,400 models that replicate the tiniest details of plant anatomy with astounding precision."

 Nepenthes Sanguinea: Flytrap,
 by Rudolf Blaschka. Photo Hillel Burger, 
courtesy The Botanical Museum, Harvard University.

These works, so beautifully preserving the ephemeral, have been described as   masterpieces, works of art, scientific marvels, and as physical equivalents of Mozart's compositions. The poet Mark Doty described them in this way:

He’s built a perfection out of hunger,

fused layer upon layer, swirled until

what can’t be tasted, won’t yield,

almost satisfies, an art

mouthed to the shape of how soft things are,

how good, before they disappear. 

-Mark Doty, “The Ware Collection of Glass 
Flowers and Fruit, Harvard Museum,” in 
My Alexandria, 1993 

If you'd care to learn more about these fascinating artists and their works, I've included 2 videos here.  The first, from the Corning Museum of Glass, concerns the Blaschkas' lives and their work: http://youtu.be/rHOx5H5vNx4

The second video is a YouTube tour of the Ware Collection with close views of many of the specimens. Enjoy! http://youtu.be/RZZffuyUIKQ

A Selection of Charming Paper Knives

A few of the antique tools currently in use on my desks, top to bottom:
a 19th century continental sterling letter opener/bookmark  given to me
by my dear husband last Christmas,
a 19th century coin silver pen knife, engraved "Willie" on one side of the blade and "Mamie" on the other,
 a second coin silver pen knife chased with a rose pattern and beaded edging
and lastly, a shortened  but well-loved Clan Stuart Tartanware page turner.

I love to collect objects that are not only beautiful but useful in daily life as well. Today, I've gathered a collection of paper knives and letter openers for you. In days past, these tools were used to open envelopes and slit the uncut pages of books. While books are generally made with clean, trimmed pages these days (I for one am still happy to bind books in the old way-- I love the deckled effect of pages slit by hand after binding...), a beautiful letter opener or paper knife still has a useful place on an elegant desk. 

An early 20th century  gold-mounted jadeite paper knife, attributed to Faberge.
Because of their lovely fitted boxes, many of Faberge's objets d'art have survived
a century or more in perfect condition. 

A fabulous English sterling and tortoiseshell paper knife from Asprey. This
multi-purpose tool can be used as a page turner, paper knife, letter opener and has a perpetual calendar fitted in the handle--wonderful!

The everyday task of opening envelopes can be swiftly and satisfyingly accomplished by a number of antique desk tools intended for alternative purposes. Page turners were designed to help cultivated newspaper readers avoid ink stained fingers. But with their very long and delicate blades, they often survive in a shortened state, making them perfect for the task of opening envelopes.

A diminutive Victorian silver paper knife with a chain that would have allowed
it to be hung from a chatelaine.

Victorian mother of pearl and tortoiseshell paper knife,.
Image courtesy of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

An early 20th century  McBeth Tartanware pen knife 

Early pen knives were used to trim quills, and are similar in design to more modern multi-purpose folding knives like the one above.  Both make excellent desk companions.

A second Russian paper knife with Faberge and Nicola Schepelew marks.
 This one features a jadeite blade, white guilloché enamelwork, 
and the Russian double-headed eagle coat of arms.
I especially love the beautiful gold swan head at the end.

And now for something completely different:  Charles Dickens' eccentric
paper knife, with an ivory blade and a handle made from his beloved cat's paw.
The blade is engraved: "C. D. In Memory of Bob 1862" the year of Bob's death.

I do hope you'll enjoy hunting for similar tools which are easily found in antiques shops, auction houses and on the internet. William Morris famously said, "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." A meticulously crafted paper knife or letter opener is a joy to look at and to use, and is a perfect opportunity to put Morris' sage advice into action. 

Treasured Books, No. 2: Clifton Fadiman's "Reading I've Liked"

My collection of books by Clifton Fadiman and his daughter, Anne Fadiman live
on my coffee table, ready for perusal the moment the fire is lit. You may notice I have 2 copies
 of "Party of One": recently,I found a copy inscribed by the author, but couldn't bear to
part with my older, well-thumbed and annotated volume...perfectly logical.

 

“And now we welcome the new year, 

full of things that have never been.” 

R.M. Rilke

                                                                                       

Happy New Year, Everyone!

I hope the holidays were wonderful for you all. We had a fantastic holiday season at the bindery and send our thanks to our lovely clientele with hopes that you all will enjoy your pieces for many years to come. After a week of family, friends and time in my favorite reading chair, I'm back with you, invigorated and ready for the adventures of  the new year. 

In these Treasured Books posts, I have the great pleasure of sharing some of my favorite books and authors, all of whom continue to surprise and delight me, and I hope, will do so for you. What better way to begin a new year than with an old friend, an author whose companionship I've enjoyed for many years. I came to know of Clifton Fadiman through the excellent writing of his daughter, the essayist Anne Fadiman. One day, while having a browse in a used book shop, I saw the familiar surname on the spine of a book entitled, "Reading I've Liked: A Personal Selection Drawn from Two Decades of Reading and Reviewing Presented with an Informal Prologue and Various Commentaries," by Clifton Fadiman (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1941). How could I resist?! 

Clifton Fadiman was a man of extraordinary erudition, remembered by many for his work on the radio and television during  the 40's and 50's, but he considered himself primarily as a teacher, or as a  guide to the wisdom of other people. He  believed that the most rewarding of leisure activities is: "the cheerful, unaffected but conscious training and exercise of the mind" ("Any Number Can Play," 1957) and wrote bountifully for that audience on subjects ranging from quantum physics, to  George Santayana to cheese.

After all these years, it took a Google search to discover that my dear Mr. Fadiman has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame... very amusing! If you'd care to see a video of Mr. Fadiman at work,
visit the Encyclopaedia Britannica website (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/200119/Clifton-Fadiman), where they have posted many videos of classes on literature and the humanities
he recorded for the Britannica. They are of their time and very charming. 

In "Reading I've Liked," Mr. Fadiman introduces us to examples of writing culled from his work as a book reviewer for the New Yorker, with each piece introduced with a generous and beautifully constructed essay describing it. One of the things I enjoy most about reading his work is that he is absolutely dedicated to excellence and fine craft in writing, and is of a time before post-post-modernism and bricolage that was unafraid of assessing the quality of a work of art. His superbly well-formed opinions are shared sincerely, clearly and convincingly. Although one may find a passage here or there that feels dated or exclusionary by our contemporary standards, the more common experience is one of awe in the startling prescience of his views on contemporary life.

Mr. Fadiman received the 1993 National Book Foundation's 
Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
at The National Book Awards Ceremony.

In the introductory essay to "Reading I've Liked", entitled "My Life is an Open Book: Confessions and Digressions of an Incurable," Mr. Fadiman writes: “It happens that you will find in this book biographies, anecdotes, brief fiction, semilong fiction, excerpts from novels, sketches, essays (both familiar and formal), a book review, humorous pieces (including one complete book of humor), excerpts from a dictionary, a judicial decision, reflections of nature, a long letter, an excerpt from a speech, and a collection of epigrams.” There is one constant among all these pieces, he writes: “I believe everything you will read here, if the product of hands other than my own, is of its kind extremely well written.” 

This is one of those wonderful, classic books that lends itself to rereading, along with so many other of Mr. Fadiman's works. He famously said, "when you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before, you see more in you than there was before," and I  enthusiastically agree. On these cold, snowy evenings, it's one of my great pleasures to open any of them up to a random section, and sit by the fire with my old friend. I believe that if you come by any of his works, (not such a difficult task thanks to Amazon and ABE Books), you'll be similarly rewarded. 

Clifton Fadiman, 1904-1999

Christmas at the Bindery

A commission-in-progress at the bindery: ingredients for a set of bespoke Parvum Opus Christmas
crackers include fountain pens, tiny bookmarks, ink  cartridges in fun colors,
and of course, a paper crown and a very bad joke. The center of the cracker awaits decoration.

Each Christmas, along with our holiday commissions, we look forward to constructing Christmas crackers at the bindery. We make them in small batches in the traditional way, jacketing cardboard tubes in beautiful papers and filling them with special treats customized for a particular family or event.  Of course the classic ingredients are all there: friction snaps, tissue paper hats and very bad (yet artfully chosen) jokes, but we take great pleasure in choosing extra special  trinkets for our crackers.

Some of the elements for this project gathered on a work table.

In the past, these have included vintage sterling silver charms and lockets, antique bird calls, antique collapsing travel cups, monogrammed seals and sealing wax sticks, custom address labels, and more. Today, we're putting the finishing touches on a set of six crackers for a family of bibliophiles, and so have filled each one with a Kaweco Sport fountain pen. 

The Kaweco Sport fountain pen is available in a variety of fun colors 
and nib sizes, making it a nice choice for these literary crackers.

This petite German pen was chosen for its beautiful line quality, and since it's only 4" long when closed, it's a perfect fit for the limited capacity of the cracker tube. Along with the pen we've included a packet of ink cartridges in festive colors, and a set of tiny handmade bookmarks made here in the bindery. For this particular set, the crackers are finished in a classic embossed tartan paper and tied with bright green double-faced satin ribbons--simple and festive!

A bundle of tiny 4" tall duodecimo bookmarks made with
Italian, French and Japanese papers here at the bindery.

According to Wikipedia, "The Christmas Cracker was devised in 1847 by an English confectioner and stationery manufacturer,Thomas J. Smith of London, whilst on holiday in Paris with his family. In the early days, the crackers were called Bon-Bons - meaning lollies or sweets in French - and as a consequence were still quite small in size with a fairly plain wrapping. Later he added a colored outer wrapper and a friction strip – consisting of two overlapping strips of cardboard coated with a small amount of explosive powder - that is inside all ordinary crackers - and joined together, which became known as a "snap" - because when the cracker is pulled apart the strips rub across each other setting off a chemical reaction that produces an audible bang."

An early example of Tom Smith's Christmas Cracker packaging

Upon his return to London, Mr. Smith combined the elements of the bon-bon with a trinket, novelty gift, tissue paper hat and a joke, and the Christmas cracker as we know it was born. The English tradition of placing a cracker at each place setting at Christmas dinner has spread cheerfully across the globe, and is a highlight of the season for countless families, my own included. 

Another example of a box of Tom Smith crackers, this one ca.1891

Participating in this Christmas tradition is a joy for us at the bindery, and we look forward to these small but meaningful projects all year long.    

We send you all our warmest wishes for a wonderful holiday season, a very Merry Christmas,  and hope that the new year brings health, happiness and all good things for you and your families. 

Sunken Treasure

The third painting from the 2013 Parvum Opus Desk Calendar:
A Gold Cup, Peru? 1670-1715, from the cargo of the Santo Cristo
de San Roman, sunk in 1715

After a long absence due to an incredibly busy few weeks in the bindery, I'm very pleased to be back and to bring you the third installment of posts on the antique art objects from the Parvum Opus 2013 Desk Calendar. As you may recall, each year we add twelve new motifs to our library of original watercolor paintings, which are then featured in our desk calendars, ex libris bookplates and address labels. All of these can of course be seen at http://www.parvumopus.com.

 

For the month of March, I chose to paint a three hundred year-old  gold cup, probably from Peru, filled with a jaunty posy of hydrangea and ivy: a perfect complement for any elegant desk, wouldn’t you say? Interestingly, it’s one of two pieces of sunken treasure featured in this year’s calendar. This cup was part of an enormous load of treasure aboard the Spanish galleon, San Cristo de San Roman, sunk during a hurricane off the coast of Florida in 1715.
 

A Spanish galleon, by Everett Hickam:
a sister to the Santo Cristo de San Roman, perhaps?
 

According to Allen Tony at Wrecksite.com, “Santo Cristo de San Roman brought up the rear of the fleet and acted as a guard ship. The 450 tons ship was armed with 54 cannons. The holds of the ship contained the second largest amount of treasure within the fleet. The manifest is as follows: 2,687,416 pesos in silver and gold, 53 chests of worked silver, 14 chests of Chinese porcelain, 728 leather bags of cochineal, 1,702 leather bags and chests of indigo, 139 sheets of copper, 682 tanned leather hides, 26 chests of pottery, 48 chests of vanilla beans, balsam, liquid amber, chocolate, oaxaca, cochineal, brazilwood and sasparilla. During the hurricane of 1715 she ran aground on a reef when 1,500 feet from the shore, eventually coming to rest on the second reef when 700 feet from the shore in 12 feet of water.”

A map of just a few of the shipwrecks off the coast of Florida,
including the San Roman, second from the top.

The San Roman’s treasure had been destined for Spain where it surely would have been useful to the heavily debt-burdened Philip V (no comment). After her sinking, recovery of the San Roman's treasure began almost immediately. Our gold cup was among those objects recovered by divers in 1715.

As you can see in the painting, despite being slightly dented from its underwater adventures, this is a very sensitively worked cup. This is not at all surprising given the long history of goldsmithing in South America. Metal working in the New World seems to have developed in the Andean region of modern Peru, Colombia and Bolivia with gold being hammered and shaped into intricate objects, (particularly ornaments) as early as 2155 to 1936 BCE. Gold in the Americas was an especially prized material, valued for its religious symbolism. For the Inca and other peoples of the Andean region of South America, gold was thought of as the "sweat of the sun," the most sacred of all deities.

 

 



An early Inca sun motif gold mask



 

Our anonymous South American goldsmith formed this beautiful cup from a sheet of gold, alternating between hammering and heating the metal until it had the desired shape. This was no brutish, primitive task: the molecules in the gold had to be hammered carefullly into alignment to create a rigid, but not brittle finished vessel.  He would have soldered the two handles, and then worked the design on the cup using  complex techniques of repoussé and chasing. In repoussé, specialized tools are used to impress the design into the metal from the back (repoussé being from the French, “pushed up”). About three hundred forty years ago, then, our artist ancestor would have refined his design by delicately working with chisels from the front of the cup (chasing). Having studied metalwork during my art school years and after, I romantically imagine that his chasing tools, made specifically for his hand, would not have been so very different than my own handmade tools, forged with the guidance of my undergraduate mentor.

 

 A selection of handmade chasing tools, reminiscent of some of my own,
courtesy of Anvil Fire

 

How wonderful that in a time in which we value the virtual more highly than many things, working with one’s hands provides a unique path towards understanding our ancestors and the objects they created. Using the traditional, sometimes even ancient craft techniques and tools passed down through generations of artisans, allows us to relate to the people and objects of the past on a very human, intimate level. Brilliant.

 

If you'd care to learn more about the history of gold in South America, I invite you to take a look at this video tour of the magnificent Gold Museum in Bogota, Colombia. Having visited many times myself, I can tell you that the predominant golden hue of this video wonderfully represents  the fantastic, unreal glow of the place. Enjoy!

                                           http://youtu.be/X4aZDhAA2WM