A prodigious talent, Michael Ayrton is best known as a painter and sculptor. Yet in his short, three decade-long career, Ayrton’s oeuvre encompassed so much more, from novel writing, stage design and book-illustration, to broadcasting and documentary filmmaking.
Popular throughout Europe and colonial North America, the wainscot chair is a style of oak seating that rose to prominence in the early 17th century.
The term wainscot derives from the Middle Saxon term ‘wagenschot’, meaning to line the wall with boards, and refers to the oak panelling common in Manors and Country Houses throughout Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.
A truly remarkable individual, René Lalique is not only recognised as the most gifted jewellery designer of the Art Nouveau movement but was able to reinvent his craft to become the finest glass maker of the Art Deco period.
Lalique was born in the rural village of Aÿ in North-eastern France, an area better known as the heart of the Champagne producing region. Although his family moved to Paris when René was only two years old, the natural beauty encountered on his summer holidays to Aÿ would be a continuing influence throughout his career.
Contrary to popular misconception, the genre of wood carvings known collectively as Black Forest carvings do not emanate from the Black Forest region of Southwest Germany at all.
They are in fact the work of the master craftsmen of the Swiss region of Brienz, on the northern shore of Lake Brienz, situated in the South East corner of the Canton of Bern.
The confusion probably stems from the fact that the rich darker woods favoured by the carvers of Brienz bear a striking similarity to the dark pines from which the Black Forest region gets its name.
The term Okimono is a Japanese word used to describe an ornament for display or decorative object. It derives from the words ‘oku’ meaning to set, place or assign, and ‘mono’ which means an object or article.
To modern collectors the term Okimono refers to the wonderfully intricate and often highly decorative carvings, sculptures and works of art which began production in Japan from the early years of the Meiji Period (1868-1912).
Stipple engraving is a style of print making that was first used by artists in the 15th century, in the production of fine works that we now term Old Master Prints.
The technique most commonly involves the artist scoring their design into a copper print plate by means of a pattern of dots which, when applied to the final print, can convey the effect of shade, tone, or definition.
Although perhaps best known for his poetry and limericks, such as ‘The Owl and the Pussycat”, the author Edward Lear was also a very accomplished artist and illustrator. A prodigious sketcher throughout his frequent travels, Lear’s landscapes of Italy, Egypt and India are now as cherished as his literary legacy.
Perhaps the most colloquial and winsome term in the antique lexicon, a whatnot is the name given to a floor-standing piece of open display furniture, comprised of slender uprights which support a series of shelves, based on the French design known as an ‘etagere’.
The term is a derivation of the old English word ‘whatnot’, which dates back to the mid-16th century and, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, can be used to mean ‘anything’, ‘everything’, or ‘all sorts of things.’
One of the most popular artists of the Edwardian era, Herbert Dicksee delighted a generation of animal lovers with his whimsical drawings of dogs and powerful ‘big cat’ paintings, which remain much in demand with contemporary collectors.
Herbert Thomas Dicksee was born in 1862 into a family already well known for their contribution to the London art scene. His father, John Robert Dicksee (1817-1905), was a portrait painter, genre artist and occasional lithographer who exhibited annually at the Royal Academy from 1850-1900.
In the antiques trade, the term escutcheon has two different meanings depending on which specialism you apply it to.
Silverware
The etymology of the word escutcheon derives from the Norman French word ‘escuchon’, which in turn is a derivation from the Latin word ‘scutum’, meaning shield. Consequently, the first usage of the term is in its traditional heraldic sense, in which an escutcheon is the term used to signify the shield which forms the basis of a coat of arms.
A sailor’s fid, or marlinspike, was an essential item in a sailors’ everyday equipment, and was commonly used throughout the maritime era now known as the Age of Sail (circa 1550-1850). They came in a variety of sizes designed to suit all the requirements of a busy working vessel.
Together with his contemporaries, Thomas Chippendale and George Hepplewhite, Thomas Sheraton was the third pillar in a triumvirate of designers that elevated British furniture to global renown. Their designs not only defined the style and fashion of the late Georgian era but continue to influence contemporary makers and designers more than 200 years later.