This pillow case, one of a pair, is pieced of white cotton and a printed cotton with a small colored figure and a red ground. Lining is printed cotton with a small blue and yellow floral figure on a ground of pink and brown stripes and yellow dots.
Dessert fork, with matching knife (See 1986.0531.128). Three-tined with chamfered baluster stem. Tines, stem, and bolster are one piece of steel with tang fitted into tapered wooden block handle with flat sides, chamfered edges and rounded butt. Tang is held in place with a single brass pin through side. Scratched overall, minor discoloration on metal.
Blade of matching knife is stamped: “J. RUSSELL & CO/GREEN RIVER WORKS”; partially worn.
Handle is stamped: “U.S.”
Stamped on neck: “[worn]EL/[worn]ED”
Maker is John Russell & Company, Turner Falls, Massachusetts, 1834-present.
Floral repousse pitcher with tall neck and globular body on gadrooned circular foot. Decoration features a dove or pigeon perched left on front amidst flowers and foliage, including daffodils, daisies or cosmos, dogwoods, ferns, cattails or reeds and ears of wheat. Gadrooned underbelly and hollow C curve handle, the handle alternating with leafy volutes and ending in a reeded volute for lower terminal. Cusped rim has wide, shallow pouring lip. Underside of flat bottom struck incuse with concentric circular mark of "SIMPSON.HALL.MILLER & C\o" bordering "QUADRUPLE (arched) / (upside-down "T" motif) / PLATE" above "215".
Dinner fork. Two-tined, tin-plated steel, with chamfered baluster stem, fitted into a tapered wood block handle with straight sides and rounded butt. Tang is held in place with a single brass pin through top. Tin is heavily worn, minor rust. Handle is scratched. Discolored with adhesive residue on back side near butt. Brass has minor corrosion. No mark.
Small, three-tined fork with slender baluster stem fitted into a slightly flared, rectangular ivory handle chamfered at edges and rounded-over at end that is engraved lengthwise on front “GOOD GIRLS REWARD” in a scrolled banner, colored black; no bolster. No marks. From a two-piece child's or youth's flatware set (knife and fork), 1986.0531.084-.085.
Dinner knife. Straight silver-plated steel blade with rounded tip. Blade and “yankee” style bolster are one piece of steel with tang fitted into tapered ivory block handle with rounded sides and butt. Blade is heavily scratched, tarnished. Ivory is yellowed and discolored overall, minor crazing.
Stamped on blade: “VANDERSLICE & CO”
Maker is possibly Vanderslice & Company, a San Francisco-based manufacturer and dealer active circa 1863-1908.
Baluster- or pear-shaped coffeepot with flared, serpentine-lobed rim and molded midband on molded, flared base; inset, high-domed, hinged lid topped by wood button knop fastened with wing nut; double C-scroll spurred handle with split scroll terminal and ivory-colored insulators; and S-curve spout with split, spurred lip, flat sides and rounded face and belly. Underside of body struck incuse "PAIRPOINT / PEWTER" and "P170"in sans serif letters. From three-piece coffee service, 1989.0122.02-.04.
Maker is Pairpoint Corporation of New Bedford, MA; 1880-1958. Started as Pairpoint Manufacturing Company, producing plated mounts for Mt. Washington Glass Company; Pairpoint merged with Mt. Washington in 1894 and name changed to Pairpoint Corporation. Only glass made after 1929.
Set of six dinner knives (1986.531.162-.167) in light brown flannel carrying pouch with individual pockets for each knife (1986.531.247). Straight silver-plated steel blade with rounded tip and “yankee” style bolster fitted into tapered ivory handle with rounded sides and butt. Tang is held in place with single steel pin through side of handle. Blade is scratched, plate is worn, tarnished. Ivory is yellowed, cracked, and crazed.
Blade is stamped: “LAMSON & GOODNOW MFG Co/S. FALLS WORKS”
Maker is Lamson & Goodnow Company, a manufacturer and wholesaler active in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts 1844-present.
Dinner fork. Three-tined with baluster stem. Tines and stem are one piece of steel inserted into a tapered ivory handle with straight sides and rounded butt. Metal is corroded, moderate rust. Bolster is separating from ivory. Ivory is yellowed, crazed, had long crack near bolster. No mark.
Dinner fork, one of a set of six (1986.0531.028-.33) that match a set of seven dinner knives (1986.0531.021-.27).
Two-tined fork with baluster stem. Tines, stem, and tang are one piece. Bone scales are riveted to the top and bottom of the tang with brass pins to form a tapered block handle with chamfered edges and blunt butt. Tines are discolored, scratched, and have small rust spots, bone is crazed, cracked and chipped around edges and pulling away from the tang. Handle is missing one pin. No mark.
Blades of accompanying knives are stamped: “S. ROWLAND”; with a heart, diamond, and circle above.
Maker is possibly Sleigh Rowland, active ca 1830-1850 in Sheffield, England.
Two-handled, octagonal or panel-sided, urn-shaped sugar bowl on spool stem with conforming base and cover topped by a tiered conical finial. High, spurred, S-and-C or broken scroll handles have lower split-scroll terminals and U-shaped struts attached below rim to the upper terminals. Body, foot and cover have four flat sides and four serpentine corners. Rounded underside of body struck "JAMES / DIXON & SONS" in incuse serif letters with four sets of numbers above and below; centerpunch visible.
Carving knife, with matching fork (1986.531.238B). Straight steel blade with pointed tip; cutting edge curves toward tip. Blade is inserted into white metal bolster cap. Tang is fitted into wooden handle: teardrop-shaped, faceted, with widened shoulders near bolster, painted gray with turquoise butt. Blade is scratched with minor stains. Bolster is scratched. Handle paint is chipped and cracked.
Blade is etched: “A+J/STAINLESS”; diamond around company name (this mark was registered in 1922)
Maker is A&J Manufacturing Company of Binghamton, New York, (founded 1909) which was purchased by Ekco Housewares Company of Chicago, Illinois in 1929, at which time products featured both company's trademarks.
Three-tined fork with chamfered baluster stem. Tines, stem, and rectangular bolster are one piece of steel with tang fitted into a tapered ivory handle with straight sides and rounded butt. Metal has minor discoloration. Ivory is yellowed and separated from bolster, crack on one side. No marks. With matching knife, 1986.0531.113, marked “PRATT ROPES WEBB&Co/AMERICAN CUTLERY".
Dinner fork, part of a matching set (see 1986.0531.049 knife). Three-tined with a baluster stem. Tines, stem, and tang are one piece of steel. Horn scales are riveted to the top and bottom of the tang with brass pins to form a tapered block handle with chamfered edges and blunt butt. Steel is discolored, rusted near handle. Horn is cracked, chipped, and worn around edges and separated from tang.
Underside of stem is stamped: “STEEL”
Blade of accompanying knife is stamped: “H. G. L & Co/SHEFFIELD”
Maker is H. G. Long & Company, active in Sheffield, England ca 1846-present (now a division of H. M. Slater).
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: None on porcelain; on knife blade “CGI” and “14” stamped in oval.
PURCHASED FROM: S. Berges, New York, 1944.
This knife and fork is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
Painted with Indian flowers (indianische Blumen) and a lambrequin pattern the handles on the knife and fork follow the Japanese Imari style. The silver knife blade and fork tines are contemporary with the porcelain handles.
Japanese Imari wares came from kilns near the town of Arita in the north-western region of Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost island, and were exported to Europe by the Dutch through the port of Imari. Decorated in the Aka-e-machi, the enameling center in Arita, Imari wares are generally distinguished from those made in the Kakiemon style by the darker palette of enamel colors and densely patterned surfaces, some of which are clearly derived from Japanese and South-East Asian textiles and known in Japan as brocade ware (nishiki-de), but there are considerable variations within this broad outline. Unlike the Kakiemon style a high proportion of Japanese Imari wares combined underglaze blue painting with overglaze enamel colors.
While the knife has an ancient history as a tool for butchering and cutting food, the table fork is a much later invention. Large two-pronged forks existed in antiquity to assist in the handling of large cuts of meat, but the custom of using a small fork for dining appeared in the cultures of the Middle East and Byzantium in the fifth to seventh century CE. When introduced to Venice in the tenth century by a Byzantine bride at her wedding feast to the Doge’s son, the Venetian court considered the implement a decadent affectation. Nevertheless, forks were adopted slowly in Italy, at first in elite society, and then spread to other parts of Europe reaching England with the traveler Thomas Coryote in the early seventeenth century. Forks arrived with European settlers at a later date in the American colonies, but their use was not wholeheartedly accepted even in the 1800s.
For a detailed account of the Imari style and its European imitators see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750.
Rotondo-McCord, L., 1997, Imari: Japanese Porcelain for European Palaces: The Freda and Ralph Lupin Collection.
For two examples of full sets of flatware with Meissen handles in the Imari style and with Augsburg metalwork see Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band II, S. 50-51.
For histories of the fork see http://leitesculinaria.com/1157/writings-the-uncommon-origins-of-the-common-fork.html
Dinner knife. Straight silver-plated steel blade with rounded tip. Blade and “yankee” style bolster are one piece of steel with tang fitted into tapered ivory handle with rounded sides and butt. Tang is held in place with an iron pin. Scratched overall. Plate is tarnished. Ivory is yellowed and crazed, has crack near bolster.
Blade is stamped: “LAMSON & GOODNOW MFG CO/S. FALLS WORKS”; with anchor in center of pointed ovoid form.
Maker is Lamson & Goodnow Company, a manufacturer and wholesaler active in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts 1844-present.
Raised circular bowl on short flared circular base with four ball feet; engraved on one side with a wreath of oak leaves and acorns above the inscription "Com. O.H.PERRY / CONQUERED the ENEMY, on LAKE ERIE, / Septem. 10\th/. 1813.", and on the other "PRESENTED / by the Citizens of / BOSTON." Die-rolled band of roses at rim above stepped-ogee top portion of the round lower body. Gadrooning at edge of base. Underside of rounded bottom struck "Churchill & / Treadwell" in raised roman letters in a rectangle below centerpoint; "16,,6" scratched upside-down below maker's mark. Rim slightly bent or warped on one side. Few dents at bottom of bowl. One foot reattached. Part of tea and coffee service, 1985.0121.01-.07.
Maker is Jesse Churchill (1773-1819) and Daniel Treadwell (1791-1872) of Boston, MA; dates in partnership given as 1805-1813.and 1809-1819.
Rogers & Bro. "Star" brand No. 12 table knife with straight blunt-tip blade, single-groove ("Yankee") bolster and solid, round-end handle in plain or satin finish; made as a single piece. No monograms. Front of blade stamped "(5-pointed star outline) ROGERS & BRO. 12 / WATERBURY, CONN.” in incuse serif letters. From a boxed set of 6 knives, 1986.531.226-.231, in original manufacturer's box, 1986.531.248.