grieved my heart; its charm was gone. Great, light, airy rooms have been
added to the old building; an arranger, a labeller, and a model
cataloguer have ruthlessly invaded the dusty cases and weeded out the
boxes of dried-up and shrivelled fruits, the skins of moth-eaten birds,
and of seedy and disreputable fishes. The Chinese paper-fans and woven
baskets, once rare enough to be carefully treasured in a museum, now
seen in every dry-goods shop in the land, seem wholly to have
disappeared. The iconoclasts have prosaically separated each old
sea-captain’s relics into parcels and placed them in wonderfully
well-arranged and classified cases, labelled Madagascar, Alaska,
Sumatra, or whatever the land of their early home may be. I suppose the
shoe-cleaners and hair-oil bottles are there somewhere in their properly
assigned places, but I did not search for them. I glanced at my old
friends, the punch-bowls, and the great duck-tureens, but the old-time
glamour, the “unstudied grace” of the museum was gone.
In many public buildings at the present day, among treasured colonial
relics, may be seen fine specimens of old china. A neighbor of the East
India Marine Company, the Essex Institute, has a small but interesting
and well-labelled collection of old Salem china.
The Bostonian Society displays in its rooms in the old State-House in
Boston a number of old Liverpool pitchers and about twenty Staffordshire
plates and platters with American designs, as well as some pieces of the
china of John Hancock and a few other good Boston citizens.
In the rooms of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, in Locust
Street, Philadelphia, may be seen a number of interesting pieces,
including a set of Dresden cups and saucers, presented to Benjamin
Franklin by Madame Helvétius, of Auteuil, that extraordinary friend of
Franklin’s whose behavior so shocked Mrs. Adams. By the side of this
Dresden set are the beautiful coffee-cups, teacups, saucers, teapot,
creamer, bowl, and chocolate-pot presented to Mrs. Robert Morris, wife
of the United States Minister of Finance, by Luzerne, the French
Minister; a cup and saucer said to have been used at the wedding of
George Washington; a punch-bowl made for the Society of the Cincinnati
by order of Colonel Hampden; several Washington pitchers; a Perry
pitcher, and an Erie Canal pitcher.
In the Deerfield Memorial Hall, in the rooms of the Connecticut
Historical Society, of the various societies of antiquity, and local
associations throughout New England, may be seen good pieces of old
pottery and porcelain, often with an interesting and doubtless authentic
story attached, but too frequently wildly and amazingly labelled as to
place of manufacture and date.
Many rich private collections exist. Vast stores of old colonial
treasures are preserved in private houses in our Eastern States. The
Washington pieces of pottery and porcelain in the Huntington Collection
are far outdone in beauty and in rarity by many private collections,
such, for instance, as that of Miss Powel, in Newport; of Mrs. Russell,
in Cambridge; while the varied collection of old china at the house of
the Washington Association of New Jersey, with the exception of the
historical interest which attaches to it through the story of various
past owners of renown, and excepting, of course, the rare and beautiful
punch-bowls, is equalled and excelled in many a New England home. In
Hartford the collections of Mr. Trumbull, of Dr. Lyon, would make
envious any English china-buyer. In Albany, in Philadelphia, in
Worcester and Providence, in New Haven and Washington, in New York and
Brooklyn, many a closet and room full of well-preserved colonial china
show the good taste and careful judgment of loving owners. In Boston the
collection of Mr. Wales is of unbounded interest and value.
There is but one public collection in America which I have seen that is
of positive and unfailing worth to the American china collector—the
Trumbull-Prime Collection. I mean for the china collector for whom these
pages are written, the gatherer of household wares of colonial times and
of the early part of this century. It is much deplored by residents of
New York that this beautiful and instructive collection has not found a
home on shelves neighboring the Avery Collection of Oriental porcelains
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But it has been placed where it will
serve a nobler purpose than contributing to the pleasure or profit even
of china-lover or china collector—where it will instruct the
china-maker. In the spacious cabinets of the beautiful art building of
Princeton College, it is near the great china factories of Trenton; and
may the owners of those factories soon learn the lesson of beauty and
variety of form, color, and paste, that is so plainly shown in the china
treasures gathered by Mr. and Mrs. Prime.
It has been easy for anyone, for everyone, who had any idea or knowledge
of old china, to form a collection of china in America. Of course, the
value of the accretion was variable, not so much resulting from the
length of the purse of the gatherer as from his judgment and care in
buying. It is still possible to obtain such a collection. The old china
is not yet all discovered and culled from country towns. One china
hunter found in Northampton, that besearched city, in a summer week in
1891—found and bought and bore away in triumph—a large States pitcher, a
Boston State-House pitcher, a Trenton Falls plate, a Capitol plate, two
State-House plates, several pieces bearing the design of McDonough’s
victory, a dozen or more plates with English views, two helmet-pitchers,
several pepper-pots, and, in addition to the “treasures of clay,” a tall
clock and four harp-backed chairs that once were Jonathan Edwards’s, a
Chippendale table, and various trophies of pewter and brass. Dealers
might have visited these Northampton folk in vain, but this beguiling
china hunter bore away his cart-load of old furniture and crockery for a
sum total as small as in days of yore.
It is for such slow and careful collectors that these pages are written,
for the collectors who having read and studied all the foreign
text-books and histories and manuals of pottery and porcelain still know
very little of the china within their gates, the china to be gathered in
America. The number of such china hunters is steadily crescent. In
Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, china collections are being formed; and
many of the finest specimens of American historical china that have been
offered for sale in New York and Boston “antique shops” during the past
year have been purchased and sent to California.
[Illustration: A Beaufet.]
It is a matter of course that this old china should show to its best
advantage in an old-fashioned house, or in a new house built in
“American colonial” style of architecture. But whatever the house may be
in which all these loved china waifs are assembled and cherished, it
should not conceal them, as in Charles Lamb’s “great house,” in a
china-closet. A suitable resting-place for the old pieces is in the
sheltering home in which it passed its early days—in a corner cupboard.
This was in olden times called a “beaufatt,” or “bofet,” or “beaufet,”
or “bofate,” or as Cowper wrote of it—
“This china that decks the alcove
Which here people call a buffet,
But what the gods call it above
Has ne’er been revealed to us yet.”
A corner cupboard seems to be, like all old-fashioned furniture, well
adapted for the express purpose for which it was made. It is not a
modern pattern combination china-closet, washstand, and refrigerator all
in one, but for the simple purpose of china-holding and china-showing it
is perfect. The old china never looks prettier (except when on the
table) than in its wonted home—a corner cupboard or beaufet. The narrow
scalloped or crenated shelves with their wider rounded projections at
the extreme back seem expressly shaped to show each piece to its best
advantage. Even the Gothic small-paned glass door, when present, does
not hide the dainty pieces. The apse-shaped, shell-fluted top with its
pillared frame and carved sunbursts, and its surmounting brass eagles or
balls, seems a fitting roof to shelter the fragile ingatherings.
The old china seems always to look better and more at home in an
old-time setting. On page 44 is shown a shallow dresser, an adaptation
of an old kitchen fashion, with narrow ledges of shelves hung with old
pewter porringers, which proves also a delightful way to show to plain
view the rows of blue and white plates, especially the dainty gems of
“cup-plates,” which are so treasured and loved by the china hunter that
there never seems to be any spot altogether worthy to hold and display
them quite as they ought to be shown. Of course, large articles—what
were called in olden times “hollow-ware”—cannot be placed on a dresser;
tiny pepper-pots, salt-cellars, tea-caddies, very small creamers, and
plates and platters set on edge must form the dresser’s only burden.
[Illustration: China Steps.]
Another old-fashioned resting-place for china may be adopted in modern
times for the sustentation of any broken-nosed, handleless, nicked,
cracked, or scorched treasure, “the broken teacups wisely kept for
show,” which no true china hunter will despise, but which will not bear
the too close examination of scoffers, and to which distance lends a
haze of enchantment and veil of perfection. I mean a “crown of steps,”
or “shelf of steps,” or “china steps,” as they were variously called.
One is here shown, but as they are so rare nowadays perhaps the term
needs some explanation. On top of a high chest of drawers, a “high-boy,”
was placed in olden times a three-tiered, graduated platform of “steps”
to hold and display china. The lower tier of the platform was about
eight or ten inches shorter and five inches shallower than the top of
the “high-boy.” This left free a shelf of about five inches wide upon
the sides and front of the top; the tier was four or five inches high.
The second tier, or step, was made shorter and narrower in the same
proportion, thus leaving a second ridge or shelf. The top tier, or
platform, was smaller still. Thus when the china was arranged around the
three sides of the “crown of steps” it made a pretty pyramid of pitchers
and teapots and jars, and each piece could be plainly seen. Rather high
up in the air they were, perhaps, for purposes of close examination or
for freeing from dust, but safe from danger of breaking. Very rarely an
old “high-boy” will now be seen with a fixed or permanent “crown of
steps,” but usually this set of china shelves was separate, and
frequently was only made of stained wood. Such were probably the “Steps
for China Ware” of Abraham Blish, of Boston, in 1735, which were worth
only two shillings. Such also were “the steps & some small China
thereon” of John Proctor in 1756, since they were worth only five
shillings and fourpence. Another inventory has this item: “1 Japan Chest
Draws and Steps for China.”
On such a “shelf of steps” the china is “out of the way;” and for the
same virtue I like to hang china on the wall—pitcher, jugs, cups, as
well as plates—they are so safe and yet so plainly visible in that
position. Then you can do away with “the dozen little teetery tables”
that litter and obstruct our rooms and make man’s life a burden. There
is a certain restfulness in the spacious parlors of some old houses that
I know, a sense of room in which to move, of liberal elegance, of
substantial good taste, that is owing largely to the absence of small
littering chairs and tables. Everything is upon the walls that can be
hung or placed there; decoration is profuse, but not in the way. I would
rather keep china anywhere than upon a table. Perhaps the upsetting of a
tea-table, with its burden of eighteen teapots, and the utter
annihilation of teapots and depression of spirits that resulted, may
have conduced to this feeling. For the purpose of hanging plates upon
the wall come various little wire frames or holders; but when you have
fifty or one hundred plates in your dining-room, even these cheap
holders are quite an expense. Mr. Prime gives in his book an
illustration and the details of the manner of making a wire frame or
holder by which to hang plates on the wall. This invention of his is
very ingenious and very good; many a one have I in my home; but it
requires for its manufacture a wire-workman or a tinker, either amateur
or professional, and tools of various kinds, and a neatly made spiral
cylinder of wire. This places the possibility of manufacturing Mr.
Prime’s holder quite out of the reach of the average woman. I, too, have
invented a holder, and it can be made by any woman, since she need
employ but one tool—her own distinctive instrument—a pair of scissors.
The materials, too, are peculiarly feminine—picture-wire or strong
twine, and dress-hooks. I will say for the benefit of the masculine
china hunter who may read these pages that both white and black
dress-hooks can be purchased for a few cents a dozen, and of various
sizes, from the heavy cloak hooks, which are strong enough to hold a
thick Delft plaque, to the tiny hooks that are sufficient to sustain a
fragile saucer. And the process of manufacture of my plate-holder is so
simple! You use your tool but once—to cut off the length of wire. Then
place four of the dress-hooks at equal distances around the rim of the
plate, slipping them firmly over the edge. String your wire on the back
of the plate through the two loops at the end of each of the four hooks
and draw it tight. Twist the ends of the wire firmly and neatly
together, make a little wire loop by which to hang it, and your
plate-holder is done. A man may use a pair of “cut-nippers” to cut the
wire, and a pair of pincers to twist it if he so will; but a pair of
scissors is all that is really necessary, and will answer every purpose,
though the usage is not thoroughly conducive to the welfare of the
scissors. I will not say that this holder is better than Mr. Prime’s,
though I point with pride to the facility and simplicity of its
construction; but I think I can boast that it is cheaper.
The dark blue Staffordshire plates especially should be thus hung on the
wall, where they form so rich a point of color that they put to shame
all the thin water-colors and pale French china in their vicinity, and
make us fully appreciate Oscar Wilde’s sigh of “trying to live up to his
blue and white china.”
But let me no longer dwell on the charms of our widely gathered
possessions, lest it be said of me as was of Horace Walpole—
“China’s the passion of his soul,
A cup, a plate, a dish, a bowl
Can kindle wishes in his breast,
Inflame with joy or break his rest;”
but end with the assurance that I fully concur in the words of a
well-known English collector: “China-collecting is not a mere fancy—it
is a complete education.”
INDEX
Acrelius, Parson, 217
Adams, President, china of, 251, 301
Alchymy spoons, 43
Annely, Edward, 80
Anti-slavery plate, 333
Apotheosis of Washington, pitcher, 265
Arnold, Governor Benedict, 45
Auction, country, in New England, 33
“Baby,” Milliner’s, 58
Bache, Mrs., 65
Bainbridge portrait on mug, 310
_Baltimore Advertiser_, announcement in, of sale of china, 235
Baltimore plate, 334
Baltimore and Ohio plates, 334
Barlow, S. L. M., sale of china of, 176
Bat-printing, 156
Beach ware, 26
Bennington ware, 97
Binney & Ronaldson, 93
Bonaparte, Lucien, cup and saucer of, 29
Bonaparte mugs, 152
Bonnin, Gousse, 89
Boston plates, 337
Bostonian Society, the, 305, 311, 411
Bow china, 54, 119, 120, 122
Bowen, Samuel, 86
Bradford, Governor, china of, 45
Bristol porcelain, 123;
teapot, 208
Broseley blue dragon pieces, 131
Buchanan, President, china of, 253
Bugbee, Thomas, 83
Burlington, old pottery at, 79
Burnet, Governor, 60
Cadogan teapot, 204
Calumet, the, 75;
of the Cherokees, 76
Cambridge plates, 321
Canton china, blue, 183;
sale of, direct from the vessel, 186
Castleford pottery, 117
Centennial china, 343
Champion, Richard, 85, 89, 123, 280
China collector, a professional, 13;
a Yankee, 18
China in America, earliest mentions of, 56;
advertisements of, in the early Boston papers, 66;
old American, 70;
inexhaustible materials for manufacture of, in America, 90;
with American scenes, etc., 137
China steps, 418
Chinese ewer, 190
Cincinnati punch-bowl, 223;
of General Washington, 230 _et seq._, 239
City Hall pitcher, 360
Clews, Mr. James, 327
Congressional punch-bowl, 216
Cookworthy, William, 84
Copper-lustre pitcher, 387
Crouch-ware, 109
Crown Derby plate, 380
Danvers pottery, song of, 78
Davis, Mrs. James M., Bristol porcelain urn of, 124
Decatur portrait, 310
Deerfield Memorial Hall, 412
Delft ware, early, 53;
early sale of, 57;
in New York, 102;
on Long Island, 103;
price of, 103;
tea-caddies, 104;
apothecary jars of, 105, 382;
in the Trumbull-Prime collection, 106;
tiles, 106, 158
Derby, Elias Haskett, 180
De Witt Clinton, portrait of, 313
Dextra, Zachary, 104
Drinks, colonial American, 217
Dwight, John, 197
East India Marine Company’s Museum, 409
Elder Brewster teapot, 202
Erie Canal plates, 345
Essex Institute, the, 313, 411
Faneuil, Andrew, 57
Faneuil, Peter, 60
Farmer pitchers, 154
Franklin, Benjamin, sends china to his wife, 64, 91, 157
Franklin pottery, list of, 274 _et seq._
Franklin, William, medallion, 302
Frog mugs, 144
Fulham jugs, 107
Funeral-punches, 211
“Guglet,” 237
Ginger-jars of Canton china, 188
Glazing, Indian method of, 72
Glider, to, 214
Goat cream jugs, 120
Grant, General, china of, 254
Gray, Billy, 180
Haig, Thomas, 93
Hall’s, R., wares, 330
Hamilton, Mrs. Alexander, china of, 243
Hancock, John, portrait, 304
Hanover, First Church of, pewter service of, 45
Harrison pitcher, 314
Hartington house, the, 396
Hayes, President, china of, 255
Henrietta Maria, Queen, recipe book of, 212
Hews, A. H., & Co., 81
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, collection, 411
Hodges, Dr. Caspar Wister, 280
Hound-handled pitcher, 99
Holder for hanging china, 422
Hull pitchers, 143
Hull portrait, 310
Huntington collection, 160;
Franklin pottery in, 287
Hylton pottery, 215
Indian bowls, 39
Indiana Pottery Co., 98
Inscriptions on pitchers, 143
Jackfield teapots, 208
Jackson, President, china of, 252
Japanese teapots, 205
Jefferson, Thomas, Wedgwood cameos of, 115;
hospitality of, 249;
china of, 250;
portraits, 303
Jones, Cadwallader, vases given to, by Lafayette, 174
Johnson. Dr., teapot of, 198
Jug, hot water, of pewter, 50
Keen, Joseph, 93
Lafayette, 241
Lafayette pottery, 288;
list of, 289
Lafayette Landing platter, 294
Lamb, Charles, 1, 378
Lawrence portrait, 310
Lay, Benjamin, 63
Lefferts, John, 103
Lincoln, President, china of, 253
Liverpool ware, 135
Liverpool pitchers, 162
Lowestoft ware, 165;
vase, 174;
value of, 175;
in New England seaport towns, 179;
in the south, 194;
of John Hancock, 195;
teapot, 208
Lowestoft town, 175
Lustre sets, 132
Lyman & Fenton, 96
Lyon, Dr. Irving, 112
Lyon, Miss Henrietta D., 129, 254
Lyon, Governor, sale of china of, 175, 178, 203
Macdonough’s victory plate, 351
Macdonough portrait, 312
Madison, china of, 251
“Map” pitcher, 268
Mayer, Thomas, 324
Metropolitan Museum, 160, 173, 245, 257, 270, 271, 277, 279, 283, 284,
286, 296, 297
Millennium plate, 24 353
Milliners, Boston, sell “chayney,” 58
Miranda, General, 231
Mirror-knobs, 159
Monroe, President, china of, 252
Montgomery pitcher, 304
Morris, George Anthony, 90
Morristown, pewter utensils in the Washington House at, 49
Morse collection, 205
Mottoes on teapots, 207
Mount Vernon plates, 353
Museum of Practical Geology, 110, 112, 122, 140, 154, 168
Nahant plate, 354
Naval pitchers, 141, 309
Neptune, the, voyage of, 181
Newbery’s “Dives Pragmaticus,” 38
New Jersey, early china not plentiful in, 62
New York plates 356
Niederweiler china of Washington, 244
“Noggins,” wooden, 39
Norton, John and William, 96
Osborne, William, 77
“Packing Penny,” the, 57
Pain’s Hill plates, 330
Park Theatre plate, 361
Patch-boxes, 161
Pepys’ tea-drinking, 199
Perry pitchers, 142
Perry portraits, 309
Persian vase, 192
Peters, Miss, 94
Pewter plates and platters, 47
Pewterers, English, 41
Philadelphia, colonial drinks of, 216
Philadelphia, early china in, 63;
plates, 363
Philadelphia Library plate, 319
Pierce, President, china of, 252
Pike portrait, 311
Pilgrim plate, 366
Pitcher, historical, of the war of 1812, 299
Pitcher portrait of Washington, 260
Pitchers, patriotic, etc., list of, 301 _et seq._
Plymouth coffee-pot, 122
Poore, Ben Perley, collection of pewter of, 49
Porcelain ware, early in America, 52
Porringers, pewter, 44
Posset-pot, the, 212
Posnets, 44
“Posy-holders,” 191
Pottery of the North American Indians, 70;
in burial mounds, 73;
in Louisiana, 74;
of the Iroquois, 75
Preble, portrait of, 311
Prentiss, A. M., presentation pitcher of, 158
Presidential china, auction sales of, 255
Pride, John, 77
Province House pitcher, 65
Punch, 213;
varieties of, 217 _et seq._;
bare-legged, 218
Punch-bowl, the, 210;
of lustre ware, 215;
of Liverpool Delft, 215;
Henry Weatherbourne’s, 219;
of Washington, 221 _et seq._;
of the good old times, 226
Puzzle jugs, 145
Quilted china plates, 59
Randolph, Edmund, punch-bowl of, 219
Reed, Joseph, 77
Remmey, 80
Richards, Horace Jones, 300
Richmond, A. G., his collection of Indian pottery, 75
Ridgway, J. & W., china, 318, 328
Rose, Thomas, 172
Sadler, John, 155
Sadler’s ware, 137
Sailor pitchers, 148
Salt-glazed ware, 108
“Savealls,” 43
Sewall, Judge, 200
Seixas, David G., 93
Shrewsbury, old house in, 46
“Slaw bank,” a, 46
Smith, James R., 258
“Sneaker,” 237
Sack-posset, recipe for, 212
“Sourings,” 225
South Amboy, 80
Staffordshire crockery, 316;
marks on, 324
Standish, Miles, 45
Steamboat plate, 350
Stienwerck, Cornelius, 61
Syntax, Dr., designs on china, 321
Tea, in Boston, 200;
price of, 201;
drinking of, 199
Tea-sets, Staffordshire, not uniform. 317
Teapot friezes, 206
Teapots, mottoes on, 207;
Lowestoft, 208
Temperance plate, 371
Thomas, Gabriel, 79
Timberlake, Lieutenant, 72, 76
“Tobys,” 323
Toddy strainer, 189
Transfer-printing, 155
Trenchers, wooden, 40
Trumbull-Prime collection, 96, 99, 123, 178, 261, 268, 279, 291, 304,
413
Truxton, Commodore, 142
Tucker, William Ellis, 94
Van Braam, Mr., china given by, to Martha Washington, 233, 242
Voiders, china, 69
Wales, George M., 145
Ward, J., poem of, on the Potter’s art, 42
Warren pitcher, 304
Washington, George, china, 177, 229;
value of, 248;
letter of, to Colonel Tilghman, 234;
portraits of, on china, 257, 265
Washington, Martha, plate, 8;
china, 240
Washington pitchers, 138
Washington Association, 174, 203, 216, 223, 243
Washington pottery, list of, 262
Washington toddy-jugs, 261
Washington, D. C., plates, 374
Wedgwood, Josiah, his alarm at the progress of china manufacture in
America, 87
Wedgwood, Thomas, pewter plates of, 42
Wedgwood ware, in America, 114, 116;
teapots, 209
Welsteed, William, 57
Willow-pattern ware, 130
Winthrop jug, 54
Worcester ware in “Japan taste,” 29;
porcelain, old, in America, 133
Yendell, S., presentation pitcher of 155
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
● The caret (^) serves as a superscript indicator, applicable to
individual characters (like 2^d) and even entire phrases (like
1^{st}).