{"title":"Kitchen","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"four-wine-varietal-plates-in-relief-moulded-grapes-and-vine-mww-market-c-1995-2010","title":"Four Wine Varietal Plates in Relief-Moulded Grapes and Vine, MWW Market, c. 1995–2010","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eFour small round plates, each given over to a single grape variety, and the whole design is worked in relief rather than printed. A gnarled vine runs around the well as a raised ring, twisting and throwing off tendrils that curl back on themselves, and inside it hangs one bunch of grapes with a broad vine leaf beside it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe four are painted apart from one another and that is where the charm sits: \u003cstrong\u003eCabernet\u003c\/strong\u003e in deep violet, \u003cstrong\u003eZinfandel\u003c\/strong\u003e in an inky slate blue, \u003cstrong\u003eMerlot\u003c\/strong\u003e in the palest sea green, and \u003cstrong\u003eChardonnay\u003c\/strong\u003e in a warm coral pink. Each name is written along the lower edge in loose green script, in a hand that runs uphill slightly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe ground is a soft cream with an all-over fine crackle in the glaze, and the leaves carry a dry biscuit-coloured edging where the green thins out. The relief is deep enough to feel under a thumb.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe reverse of each plate is printed: a square device enclosing stylised hands, over MWW MARKET, with MADE IN CHINA and MICRO WAVEABLE AND DISHWASHER SAFE.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMWW Market is the giftware line of Manual Woodworkers \u0026amp; Weavers, an American home-goods company. These were made in China for that line and sold as decorative tableware, not produced by a pottery under its own name.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo things stated plainly, because the surface invites the wrong conclusion. \u003cstrong\u003eThe crackle is a deliberate glaze effect, not age.\u003c\/strong\u003e It runs uniformly across the fronts, the backs, and the foot rings alike, which is how a manufactured crackle behaves and is not how genuine age-crazing develops. And \u003cstrong\u003ethese are contemporary decorative plates, not antiques\u003c\/strong\u003e — the microwave and dishwasher wording on the base is modern safety marking and dates them to the period below.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat they actually are is a well-made piece of wine-country decorative design from the era when that look was everywhere, executed with better modelling than most of its competition. The vine is genuinely three-dimensional and the four colourways were thought about.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"8\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:100%; border-collapse:collapse;\"\u003e\n\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eField\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/thead\u003e\n\u003ctbody\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eFour small decorative plates\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMWW Market (Manual Woodworkers \u0026amp; Weavers). Made in China.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eVarieties\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCabernet, Zinfandel, Merlot, Chardonnay\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eRound plate with raised vine ring to the border and relief-moulded grape bunch and leaf to the well, variety named in script\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eGlazed ceramic with a decorative all-over crackle glaze\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ePrinted to each reverse: MWW MARKET device \/ MADE IN CHINA \/ MICRO WAVEABLE AND DISHWASHER SAFE\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ec. 1995–2010\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eExcellent. All four are structurally sound with no chips, cracks, or repairs. The relief is crisp, the colours are strong, and the script names are complete and legible. The crackle glaze is original to the making and uniform throughout. There is faint scattered surface soiling in the crackle on one or two, and light tan tone at the foot rings. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eSold as a set of four\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese are display objects first and they are unusually good at it, because they were designed to be seen edge-on in a rack rather than flat on a table. Four in a row give you a run of four different colours held together by one repeated form — the thing a good shelf arrangement is always reaching for and rarely gets.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey also work hard in a kitchen. At this size they take a wedge of cheese, a few olives, a teabag, a piece of toast, or a wedge of lemon beside a glass. Four is the right number for a small table.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd the theme lands where it should. A wine room, a bar cart, a kitchen wall, a tasting-room counter, or a gift for anyone who takes an interest — the varieties are named on the face, so it explains itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA note on care: the base says dishwasher and microwave safe and that is the manufacturer's claim, but we would still hand wash these. The crackle glaze is finely cracked by design, which means the surface is more porous than a plain glaze and will take up colour from anything strongly pigmented left sitting in it. Wash in warm water with mild soap, dry at once, and do not soak. Keep beetroot, turmeric, red wine and berries off the well if you want the cream to stay cream.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48029652746345,"sku":"VE-1439","price":48.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/IMG_3753.jpg?v=1789003299"},{"product_id":"bread-slicing-box-in-quartersawn-oak-twin-kerfed-guide-walls-over-a-crumb-tray-base-american-c-1930-1955","title":"Bread Slicing Box in Quartersawn Oak, Twin Kerfed Guide Walls over a Crumb Tray Base, American, c. 1930–1955","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA bread slicing box: a shallow oak tray with a raised lip, and standing in it two tall boards whose top edges are cut down in a run of more than twenty evenly spaced saw kerfs apiece. A loaf goes in the cradle between them. The knife drops into a kerf on the near wall and its opposite number on the far wall, and the two together hold the blade square through the whole stroke. Every slice comes off the same thickness, which is the entire point and is much harder to do freehand than anyone expects.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe oak is quartersawn, and it shows — the medullary ray fleck lies across the base board in short dark dashes, the figure that only appears when a log is cut on the radius. The tray beneath the cradle is the crumb catcher, and its raised front rail keeps the loaf from sliding forward under the knife.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe two guide walls have a shaped top profile that dips at the centre and rises at the ends, and they sit down into slots cut in the base so the whole thing comes apart flat for cleaning and storage. A third board closes the back of the cradle. Two dark plugs sit in the front rail where the base is pinned.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe finish is warm and gently amber, and the kerfs themselves have gone dark brown along their length. That colour is not stain. It is where a blade has run, thousands of times.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA bread slicing box is an object built for a very specific window in American kitchen history: the years when a household ate bread it had baked, in a whole loaf, and wanted it cut like a bakery's.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eEven slices only became an expectation because of a machine. Around 1928 a Missouri jeweller named \u003cstrong\u003eOtto Rohwedder\u003c\/strong\u003e got an automatic bread slicer working, and the bakeries that adopted it advertised the result as the greatest forward step the baking industry had taken since bread was wrapped — which is where the phrase everybody still uses comes from. Within a few years commercial loaves arrived sliced as a matter of course, and the uneven hand-cut slice began to look like a failure rather than a fact of life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA device like this is how a home baker met that standard without a machine. It was also, very often, a shop-class or home-workshop project: the design is simple, it demands accurate repetitive layout, and it turns out a useful object at the end, which is exactly what a manual training assignment or a woodworking-magazine plan was built to do. Quartersawn oak is a considered choice of stock for one — harder, more stable across the grain, and better looking than it needed to be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThere is one wartime footnote that belongs to this object more than to almost anything else in a kitchen. On \u003cstrong\u003e18 January 1943\u003c\/strong\u003e, Food Administrator \u003cstrong\u003eClaude R. Wickard\u003c\/strong\u003e banned the sale of sliced bread in the United States — partly to hold down flour prices, partly because a sliced loaf needed roughly twice the waxed paper of a whole one and paraffin was a war material. It was deeply unpopular, sales fell, the paper savings never materialised, and the order was rescinded on \u003cstrong\u003e8 March 1943\u003c\/strong\u003e. For those seven weeks, every American who wanted an even slice was back to cutting it themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThis example carries \u003cstrong\u003eno maker's mark, stamp, brand, or label\u003c\/strong\u003e anywhere on the base, the walls, or the underside, and it is not attributed here. The range given below rests on the form, the stock and the wear rather than on documentation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003ctable border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"8\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:100%; border-collapse:collapse;\"\u003e\n    \u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eField\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/thead\u003e\n    \u003ctbody\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eBread slicing box, also called a bread slicing guide or slicing cradle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAmerican. Unattributed — no maker's mark, stamp or label is present.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eShallow tray base with a raised front rail, carrying two upright guide walls cut with more than twenty evenly spaced knife kerfs each and a closing board at the back; the uprights seat in slots and lift out\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eQuartersawn oak, the medullary ray fleck showing plainly across the base board; the back board is a lighter, straighter-grained stock\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eNone\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ec. 1930–1955\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eVery good. Structurally sound and square, with both guide walls seating correctly in their slots and the assembly standing firm. Every kerf is intact and open, with none broken through or closed up. The oak is clean and warm with an even surface and no splits, no active checking, and no loose or missing parts. The kerfs have darkened along their length from long contact with a knife blade, which is original use wear and is the character of the piece. Light handling marks to the base and rail. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n  \u003c\/table\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eAnybody who bakes at home has met the problem this solves. A warm loaf compresses under the knife, the blade wanders, and the far end of the loaf ends up a wedge. A cradle with matched kerfs on both walls fixes the blade in one plane and takes the skill out of it. It works on sourdough, sandwich loaves, banana bread, and anything else that needs cutting square.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eOn a counter it earns its place when it is not working, which is more than most kitchen tools manage. Standing empty it reads as sculpture — two fans of parallel lines above a plain oak tray — and the quartersawn figure gives it a surface worth looking at. It also holds things: napkins and cutlery on a table, mail and keys on an entry counter, tea towels, seed packets, a row of recipe cards standing upright in the kerfs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eFor a shop, it is the kind of object that stops a customer walking past. It is unmistakably a tool, its purpose is legible in three seconds without a card explaining it, and it is small enough to sit on a counter next to the register. It also comes apart flat, which makes it unusually easy to pack and ship for something this size.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA note on care. \u003cstrong\u003eTreat it as a wooden board, not as dishware.\u003c\/strong\u003e Never put it in a dishwasher and never let it soak — oak swells, the slotted joints loosen, and the thin webs of wood between the kerfs are the first thing to split. Take the walls out of the base, brush the crumbs from the kerfs with a dry pastry brush or a stiff dry bristle brush, and wipe the surfaces with a barely damp cloth, drying immediately. If it needs more than that, use a very little mild soap on a damp cloth and dry it at once. Two or three times a year, wipe it with food-safe mineral oil or a beeswax and mineral-oil board conditioner, let it soak in, and buff off what remains; that is what keeps oak from drying out and checking. Keep it away from a radiator, a heat vent and direct sun. Store it dry and, if you have the space, with the walls lifted out so air moves through the joints. Do not oil it with a cooking oil — olive, vegetable and nut oils go rancid in the wood and the smell does not come out.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48030709842025,"sku":"VE-0666","price":109.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/D735BFF5-17BC-4530-AFD8-169D31C9DF7E.jpg?v=1789015821"},{"product_id":"signed-cheese-board-with-real-strawberries-and-citrus-cast-in-resin-turned-wood-with-handle-c-1965-1980","title":"Signed Cheese Board with Real Strawberries and Citrus Cast in Resin, Turned Wood with Handle, c. 1965–1980","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA round wooden serving board turned from a single blank, with a shaped handle rising off one side like a skillet's. The face is cut in three levels: a raised disc at the centre, a recessed channel ringing it, and a broad flat rim beyond that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe channel is the whole point. Set into it, alternating the whole way round, are \u003cstrong\u003ewhole strawberries and half-slices of citrus — real ones\u003c\/strong\u003e — flooded over with clear casting resin so they sit permanently under a glassy surface.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eLook closely and there is no doubt they are real. The strawberries carry their actual seeds standing proud of the flesh in individual pits, with the green calyx and stem still attached and the shoulder curving the way only a real berry curves. The citrus slices show the segment walls, the fine radiating membranes, the pith, and along the rind a dense band of oil glands beaded up like bubbles. No mould reproduces that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eBoth have deepened with time. The strawberries have gone from red to a dark garnet-black, the citrus from yellow to warm amber, and the resin has taken on a faint gold cast that lets the wood grain glow through underneath.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe rim is signed in black\u003c\/strong\u003e by the maker.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThis belongs to a specific and very well-defined moment. From the 1960s into the 1970s, clear polyester casting resin became widely available to studios and home workshops for the first time, and an entire craft grew up around it almost overnight: real flowers, leaves, fruit, coins, butterflies and insects suspended in poured plastic, made into paperweights, trivets, table tops, lamps, and serving boards exactly like this one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe material identifies itself. \u003cstrong\u003eThis is polyester resin, not modern epoxy\u003c\/strong\u003e, and the two age very differently: polyester ambers steadily over decades and traps a scatter of fine bubbles at the boundary where it meets whatever is embedded, and both are visible here. Modern epoxy stays near water-clear far longer and is formulated specifically to avoid that bubbling. The fruit itself has oxidised to near-black over many years, which is not something a recently made piece can imitate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eTaken together — polyester rather than epoxy, decades of ambering, and fruit that has darkened all the way through — the range is \u003cstrong\u003ec. 1965–1980\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe board is \u003cstrong\u003esigned\u003c\/strong\u003e on the rim in black, which places it as studio work rather than anonymous factory output. The signature is a short hand and we are \u003cstrong\u003enot attributing it to a named maker\u003c\/strong\u003e, because we cannot read it with enough confidence to put a name in print. There is no other mark, label, or stamp on the face, the rim, the handle, or the underside.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003ctable border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"8\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:100%; border-collapse:collapse;\"\u003e\n    \u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eField\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/thead\u003e\n    \u003ctbody\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eServing or cheese board with handle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eTurned round board with raised centre disc, recessed decorative channel, broad flat rim, and a shaped projecting handle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eGenuine whole strawberries and citrus half-slices\u003c\/strong\u003e embedded under clear cast resin in the channel\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eLight close-grained turned hardwood; polyester casting resin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eSigned in black to the rim. Not attributed — the signature is not legible with confidence. No other mark or label.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ec. 1965–1980\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eVery good. The board is sound and flat with no cracks, splits, or warp, and the handle is solid and integral with no looseness. The resin is intact all the way round with no chips, lifting, crazing, or separation from the wood, and every piece of fruit is complete and fully encased. The wood is clean and warm with an even finish. Expect fine surface scratching across the resin and light handling marks to the rim and underside, consistent with use. The fruit has darkened and the resin has ambered with age, both of which are the natural behaviour of the material and are the character of the piece. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n  \u003c\/table\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThis is a genuinely strange and wonderful object, and it does what almost nothing else on a table does: it stops the conversation for a second while somebody works out that the fruit is real. That is a rare quality in a serving piece.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003ePractically, the raised centre disc is built for a wheel of cheese or a round of pate, with crackers, grapes, figs or nuts going around it on the rim — the geometry was designed for exactly that job. The handle means it can be carried out and set down in one motion, and it swivels neatly on a table so it can be passed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eUsed flat it is equally at home as a display piece: on a kitchen shelf, propped in a plate stand, on an open dresser, or on a counter with the handle angled out. The amber and garnet against pale wood is a warmer palette than anything currently in production.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA note on care, and the resin changes the rules. \u003cstrong\u003eServe on it, but do not cut on it\u003c\/strong\u003e — a knife will score the resin permanently and once scored it cannot be polished back. \u003cstrong\u003eNever put it in a dishwasher and never soak it.\u003c\/strong\u003e Heat softens polyester resin and can cloud or lift it from the wood, and prolonged water gets under the edge of the casting and separates it. Wipe it with a barely damp cloth and dry it immediately, using a little mild soap only if you must. Keep it away from a hob, an oven door and direct sun: heat and ultraviolet are what age polyester resin fastest, and sun will push the ambering along and can eventually make it brittle. Never use any abrasive, scouring pad, or solvent cleaner on the resin. Once or twice a year give the bare wood on the rim and underside a wipe of food-safe mineral oil, keeping it off the cast surface. Set food on parchment or a cloth if it is oily.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48030888820841,"sku":"VE-0673","price":97.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/44624F33-FC15-4684-91B8-3280A2C3F8DF.jpg?v=1789021214"},{"product_id":"italian-blue-spongeware-three-piece-set-painted-ivy-charger-with-two-sponged-bowls-impressed-decorata-a-mano-c-1950-1990","title":"Pair of Italian Blue Spongeware Bowls, Cobalt Spugnato over White, Impressed Decorata a Mano, c. 1950–1990","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA pair of shallow bowls in cobalt on a warm off-white ground, decorated with a sponge rather than a brush.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe blue covers the entire interior of each, edge to edge, in a dense mottled net that goes almost solid at the rim and opens up toward the centre. It is not a pattern in the ordinary sense — there is no repeat, no motif, no direction. It is a texture, and no two square inches of it are the same.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe form is quiet and useful: a low straight-sided well, a soft rounded rim, and a narrow foot ring. They sit flat, they stack, and they are the size that gets used rather than displayed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe undersides are clean white glaze, each struck with an impressed maker's mark.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe decoration is \u003cem\u003espugnato\u003c\/em\u003e — sponge-work — one of the oldest shortcuts in pottery that somehow never stopped looking good. A natural sea sponge is loaded with colour and pressed onto the raw glaze, and every cell and channel in the sponge prints as it goes. Because a sponge is an organic thing with an irregular structure, no two impressions can match, and no two pieces can either. That is the whole appeal, and it is why the technique outlived the transfer printing that killed off so much other hand decoration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe mark is impressed into the clay before firing rather than printed over the glaze, which is why it is still crisp. Around a small floral device it reads a script name, then \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003edecorata a mano\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e — hand decorated — and \u003cstrong\u003eMADE IN ITALY\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe script name is not legible enough to read with confidence, and we are not going to guess at one.\u003c\/strong\u003e The pair is offered unattributed. What the mark does establish is that these came out of a working Italian pottery that struck its own name into the clay.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe country marking is the firm piece of dating evidence. \u003cstrong\u003e“MADE IN ITALY” spelled out in English\u003c\/strong\u003e is export wording for the English-speaking market — that phrasing rather than a bare “Italy” follows the American requirement that country of origin be given in English, a convention governing imported goods since the 1920s. Combined with the body, the glaze and the form, the range is \u003cstrong\u003ec. 1950–1990\u003c\/strong\u003e. It is deliberately wide: sponge-decorated Italian tableware ran continuously across those decades, the shapes barely moved, and there is no date code on either piece.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003ctable border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"8\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:100%; border-collapse:collapse;\"\u003e\n    \u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eField\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/thead\u003e\n    \u003ctbody\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ePair of shallow bowls\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eItalian. Unattributed — the impressed script maker's name is not legible enough to identify.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eLow shallow bowls with softly rounded rims on narrow foot rings; they stack\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCobalt \u003cem\u003espugnato\u003c\/em\u003e sponge-work covering the full interior of each bowl over an off-white ground\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eGlazed earthenware\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eImpressed to each base around a small floral device: a script maker's name, \u003cem\u003edecorata a mano\u003c\/em\u003e, MADE IN ITALY\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ec. 1950–1990\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eGood. Both bowls are sound and sit flat, the glaze is bright and glossy, and the cobalt is strong and unfaded with no rubbing to the sponged surfaces. The impressed marks are crisp on both. \u003cstrong\u003eOne bowl carries a fine line across the underside of the base\u003c\/strong\u003e, visible from below; it does not pass through to the interior and the bowl is stable, but it is disclosed here as a hairline. Light utensil marking and a few small glaze nicks at the rims consistent with use. No chips, no losses, no repairs. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n  \u003c\/table\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eBlue and white on a table is the safest decision in the history of decorating and it has never once looked tired. What sponge-work adds is movement — a printed pattern is identical on every piece, and this is not. The two read as a pair without matching, which is the look people spend real money trying to assemble one piece at a time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe size is the useful part. These are the bowls that get reached for daily: pasta, soup, a salad for one, cereal, olives, a dip set out with bread around it, roasted vegetables brought to the table. Shallow enough to eat from comfortably and wide enough to actually hold a portion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThey also work standing still. Two sponged bowls on an open shelf or a dresser give a kitchen a spot of colour that reads from across the room, and they pair with any blue-and-white already in the house without having to match it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA note on care. \u003cstrong\u003eHand wash these.\u003c\/strong\u003e They are glazed earthenware, and the glaze is what protects a porous body — dishwasher heat and detergent dull the surface over time, and on the bowl with the hairline, repeated hot cycles are exactly what turns a stable line into an open crack. Wash in warm water with a mild soap, dry immediately rather than leaving them to stand wet, and do not soak them. \u003cstrong\u003eKeep them out of the oven, the microwave and the freezer\u003c\/strong\u003e, and never take them from hot to cold quickly; earthenware fails at thermal shock long before porcelain does, and the hairline is the weak point. Avoid abrasive pads and cream cleaners, which scratch the glaze and dull the cobalt. If a utensil leaves a grey metal mark on the white ground, a little baking soda on a damp soft cloth lifts it without cutting the surface. Stack them with a cloth or paper between so the foot rings do not scratch the interiors.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48031500337257,"sku":"VE-0680","price":62.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/IMG_1899.jpg?v=1789063871"},{"product_id":"rectangular-wire-basket-with-pressed-sheet-metal-fretwork-end-panels-twisted-rope-wire-rims-verdigris-patina-c-1950-1990","title":"Rectangular Wire Basket with Pressed Sheet-Metal Fretwork End Panels, Twisted Rope Wire Rims, Verdigris Patina, c. 1900–1925","description":"  \u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA rectangular wire basket, open-topped, built from three different kinds of metalwork in one object.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cstrong\u003erims are twisted rope wire\u003c\/strong\u003e — two strands wound around each other into a spiral cable — and there are two of them, one framing the mouth and a second running around the base, so the basket is braced at both ends of its height rather than only at the top.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBetween them run \u003cstrong\u003eplain vertical wire uprights\u003c\/strong\u003e, and the floor is laid in \u003cstrong\u003eparallel wire slats\u003c\/strong\u003e, spaced so the basket drains and breathes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe two ends are where it stops being a plain basket. Set into each is a \u003cstrong\u003epanel of pierced sheet metal fretwork\u003c\/strong\u003e, cut through in a repeating pattern of \u003cstrong\u003eturned balusters standing under a run of arches\u003c\/strong\u003e, the whole panel closed top and bottom by a narrow ribbed border.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe finish is silver-toned, and it has aged: the raised surfaces have gone soft and grey while \u003cstrong\u003egreen verdigris has settled into the recesses\u003c\/strong\u003e of the fretwork and the twists of the rope wire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe fretwork panels are pressed, not cast and not hand-pierced, and that is the single most useful thing about this basket.\u003c\/strong\u003e Look at the edges of the cut-outs and they are clean, square and identical, and the ribbed borders are struck in relief rather than applied. That is a die working on thin sheet metal: the panel was stamped out in one hit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhy it matters is that it dates the panel to the machine that made it. Stamping presses were turning out pierced sheet ornament of exactly this kind from the 1870s onward, and pressed fretwork became the standard decorative treatment on household wireware for the next half-century — jardinière stands, bottle carriers, cutlery trays, letter racks. It is a period technology, not a modern one. What the pressing rules out is hand-pierced tinwork, where the chisel walks visibly along the line and no two openings match, and casting, which leaves thickness, draft and a rough reverse.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe baluster-under-arcade pattern is borrowed, and knowingly so.\u003c\/strong\u003e A row of turned balusters beneath a run of arches is architectural vocabulary — a balustrade, the sort that edges a terrace or a stair — and it has been a stock decorative motif on metalwork, garden furniture and giftware for well over a century. Its presence tells you what the basket was styled to evoke. It does not date it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe verdigris is real and it is informative.\u003c\/strong\u003e Green corrosion of this kind forms on copper, and it means there is copper in the finish — a plated or washed coating over a steel or iron core — slowly oxidising in air and moisture. It takes years to build up the way it has here, settling into the low points where it is not rubbed away by handling. It is also the reason the piece has not simply gone to red rust: the copper layer has been doing its job.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBaskets of this construction were made for the household and garden trade in very large numbers, on both sides of the Atlantic, and were sold for everything from bread and fruit to letters, cutlery and plants. The \u003cstrong\u003ebasket carries no maker's stamp, no impressed mark, no country-of-origin stamp and no surviving label\u003c\/strong\u003e anywhere on the frame, the panels or the base, and is offered \u003cstrong\u003eunattributed and of unstated origin\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDated on the construction — pressed sheet panels of the period stamping trade, machine-twisted rope wire, and a copper-bearing plated finish rather than the nickel, chrome or lacquered steel that replaced it: \u003cstrong\u003ec. 1900–1925\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"8\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:100%; border-collapse:collapse;\"\u003e\n  \u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eField\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/thead\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eRectangular open wire basket with decorative fretwork end panels\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eConstruction\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eTwisted rope wire rims to both the mouth and the base, plain wire uprights, and an open slatted wire floor\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eTwo pressed sheet-metal panels, pierced with a repeating baluster-under-arcade pattern within struck ribbed borders, set into the short ends\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eSteel or iron wire and sheet with a silver-toned copper-bearing plated finish\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ePatina\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eSoft grey on the raised surfaces with green verdigris settled into the fretwork recesses and the wire twists — genuine age, not applied\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eNone. No maker's stamp, country-of-origin mark or label. Offered unattributed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ec. 1900–1925. Dated on the pressed sheet fretwork, the machine-twisted rope wire and the copper-bearing plated finish beneath the verdigris; the baluster motif is older still and carries no date of its own.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eVery good and structurally sound. The frame is rigid and sits flat with no racking or wobble, both rope wire rims are continuous and tight, every upright and floor slat is present and attached, and both fretwork panels are complete with no torn, bent-back or missing sections. \u003cstrong\u003eExpect the full grey-and-verdigris patina throughout\u003c\/strong\u003e, which is the character of the piece — along with light finish loss on the high points and handled edges, small scattered darkening, and a few points of surface oxidation. No structural rust, no perforation, no breaks, no repairs and no resoldered joints. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn open basket is one of the genuinely useful objects, because it makes a pile of things look deliberate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn a kitchen it takes onions, garlic and shallots — the slatted floor and open ends are exactly what root vegetables want, which is air — or bread under a cloth, or lemons, or the tea towels. On a hall table it swallows post, keys, sunglasses and the things that otherwise colonise a surface. In a bathroom it holds rolled towels or soaps. Beside a chair it takes magazines.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is also a good planter if you line it. Drop in moss, a coir liner or a shallow tray and it will hold pots of herbs, paperwhites, or a low arrangement, and the drainage takes care of itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe reason to choose this one over a plain wire basket is the two end panels. Silver-grey metal with green sunk into the pattern is a quiet, complicated colour, and it does something that new metalware cannot: from across a room it reads as a plain basket, and up close it turns out to have architecture cut into it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA note on care, because the patina is the value and it is easy to destroy. \u003cstrong\u003eDo not polish it, do not use metal polish or a wire brush, and do not run it through a dishwasher.\u003c\/strong\u003e Any of those will strip the verdigris out of the recesses in one pass and leave a bright, characterless frame that cannot be undone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDust it with a dry brush — an old paintbrush gets into the fretwork better than a cloth. If it needs more, wipe it with a barely damp cloth and dry it immediately and thoroughly, working the water out of the wire twists where it likes to sit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKeep it out of standing water and off wet surfaces, since the core beneath the plating is steel and will rust where the finish has worn through. If you use it for produce or plants, put a liner or a tray in first, and lift it off furniture with felt pads so the base wire does not mark a polished top.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48039810007145,"sku":"VE-0700","price":84.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/7FAE906E-3C99-41B6-BACA-80805A5F6BB9.jpg?v=1789118258"},{"product_id":"androck-hand-i-sift-one-hand-flour-sifter-tulip-and-scroll-decal-with-painted-wood-handle-the-washburn-company-rockford-illinois-c-1945-1955","title":"Androck Hand-i-Sift One-Hand Flour Sifter, Tulip and Scroll Decal with Painted Wood Handle, The Washburn Company, Rockford, Illinois, c. 1945–1955","description":"  \u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA one-hand flour sifter in cream-painted tin, with a squeeze lever and a red wooden grip.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe front carries a \u003cstrong\u003eprinted decal\u003c\/strong\u003e: three red tulips rising from dark green leaves inside a scrolled yellow cartouche, with pink flourishes trailing from the base. It is the Pennsylvania-Dutch idiom that ran through American kitchens in the middle of the century — tulips, scrolls, and not much else.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe back of the body is \u003cstrong\u003eembossed straight into the metal\u003c\/strong\u003e, not printed: an oval reading \u003cstrong\u003eANDROCK\u003c\/strong\u003e, then \u003cstrong\u003eHand-i-Sift\u003c\/strong\u003e in script, and beneath it \u003cstrong\u003eMADE IN U.S. OF A.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLook inside and the mechanism is all there: a \u003cstrong\u003esingle fine mesh screen\u003c\/strong\u003e with a \u003cstrong\u003esix-arm wire agitator\u003c\/strong\u003e turning on a central hub. Squeeze the lever and the arms sweep the flour through.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe handle is \u003cstrong\u003eshaped wood painted red\u003c\/strong\u003e, held in a riveted nickel-toned bracket, worn through to bare wood along the gripping edge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe name is a merger written down.\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003eAndrock\u003c\/em\u003e comes from a 1917 combination of a Chicago wire goods division with the \u003cstrong\u003eAndrews Wire and Iron Works of Rockford, Illinois\u003c\/strong\u003e — \u003cem\u003eAnd\u003c\/em\u003e plus \u003cem\u003erock\u003c\/em\u003e. The parent firm traces to 1880, when Charles Washburn started the business incorporated two years later as the Wire Goods Company; after further mergers it became \u003cstrong\u003eThe Washburn Company\u003c\/strong\u003e in 1922, working out of \u003cstrong\u003eRockford, Illinois and Worcester, Massachusetts\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAndrock made the whole drawer: nut choppers, onion choppers, pastry blenders, graters, ladles, egg beaters. But the sifters are what it is remembered for, and the \u003cstrong\u003eone-hand action\u003c\/strong\u003e is why — the cook keeps a hand free for the bowl. Production ran until \u003cstrong\u003e1975\u003c\/strong\u003e, when the Worcester plant closed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe wooden handle is the dating evidence, and it is specific.\u003c\/strong\u003e Androck's pre-war kitchenware is known for bright \u003cstrong\u003eCatalin plastic handles\u003c\/strong\u003e in red, yellow and green. This sifter has no plastic anywhere — it has \u003cstrong\u003eshaped wood, painted red\u003c\/strong\u003e. Plastics went to the war effort, and wood came back into American kitchenware as the substitute; it stayed in use through the years immediately after.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe decal points the same way.\u003c\/strong\u003e Androck's 1950s work is remembered for atomic-era graphics — starbursts, boomerangs, hard geometry. This is none of that. A scrolled cartouche with tulips is the older, softer kitchen idiom that preceded it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWood rather than Catalin, and tulips rather than atoms, put it in a narrow window between the two: \u003cstrong\u003ec. 1945–1955\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne detail is the previous owner's, not the factory's: a \u003cstrong\u003esmall mark in ink on the lower front\u003c\/strong\u003e and a \u003cstrong\u003esmall punched hole\u003c\/strong\u003e beside it. The mark is not a maker's stamp and it is not legible as anything; the hole was made by hand, most likely to hang the sifter on a nail.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"8\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:100%; border-collapse:collapse;\"\u003e\n  \u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eField\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/thead\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOne-hand mechanical flour sifter, squeeze-lever action\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAndrock, The Washburn Company, Rockford, Illinois. Embossed \u003cem\u003eANDROCK · Hand-i-Sift · MADE IN U.S. OF A.\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCream-painted tin body with a rolled rim, single fine mesh screen and six-arm wire agitator on a central hub, side-mounted squeeze lever, shaped red-painted wooden grip in a riveted bracket\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ePrinted decal — three red tulips and green foliage within a scrolled yellow cartouche with pink flourishes\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaker's name embossed into the metal at the back. Also a small illegible ink mark and a hand-punched hanging hole to the lower front, both added by a previous owner.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ec. 1945–1955. Dated on the painted wooden handle in place of Androck's pre-war Catalin plastic, and on the tulip-and-scroll decal rather than the atomic graphics that followed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eVery good and fully working. The body is sound and holds its shape, the rim is true, the screen is clean and completely intact with no tears, holes or distortion, the agitator turns freely, and the squeeze lever and its spring return work properly. The decal is bright and complete with no flaking. \u003cstrong\u003eExpect honest kitchen wear\u003c\/strong\u003e — paint loss to the wooden grip worn through to bare wood along the gripping edge, light scratching and small paint chips to the body, faint denting, and the owner's ink mark and punched hole to the lower front. No rust through, no missing parts, no repairs. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA sifter is one of the few old kitchen tools that has not been improved on, and this one still works.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe one-hand action is the whole point. Hold the bowl in one hand, squeeze with the other, and the flour goes where you are looking — which is why these outsold every crank-handle sifter on the market. Cake flour, powdered sugar over a finished tart, cocoa, matcha, a dusting over a work surface before you roll: it does all of it, and it does it better than shaking a sieve.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is also a good-looking object doing nothing. Cream, red, yellow and green is a full kitchen palette in one small tin, and the tulips read from across a room. On an open shelf, a windowsill, a hutch or the back of a counter it earns its space; it also makes a very good small vessel for wooden spoons, dried flowers or a bunch of herbs hung to dry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor a gift it is easy and specific: a baker, someone setting up a first kitchen, or anyone who likes their tools to have been made by a company that took its name from two towns.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA note on care, and it is the one rule that kills flour sifters. \u003cstrong\u003eNever wash it, never soak it, and never put it in a dishwasher.\u003c\/strong\u003e Water gets into the seams and behind the screen where it cannot dry, and it rusts the mesh from the inside out; it will also lift a printed decal and swell a wooden handle off its rivets.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eClean it dry. Tap it out, brush the screen with a dry pastry brush, and leave it. If something sticky gets on the outside, wipe that spot with a barely damp cloth and dry it immediately, keeping the cloth off the decal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStore it somewhere dry and open rather than sealed in a bag, sift only dry ingredients through it, and do not put the wooden handle near heat.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48041038282857,"sku":"VE-0706","price":41.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/IMG_2045.jpg?v=1789131035"},{"product_id":"hand-thrown-studio-stoneware-mug-oatmeal-and-iron-speckled-exterior-with-turquoise-interior-impressed-potters-chop-to-the-foot-c-1970-1995","title":"Hand-Thrown Studio Stoneware Mug, Oatmeal and Iron-Speckled Exterior with Turquoise Interior, Impressed Potter's Chop to the Foot, c. 1970s","description":"  \u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA wheel-thrown stoneware mug, barrel-bodied and heavier in the hand than a factory cup, with a pulled handle that loops from just under the rim down to the swell of the belly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe outside is a warm \u003cstrong\u003eoatmeal cream\u003c\/strong\u003e, and it is not a flat colour — \u003cstrong\u003esmall dark iron specks\u003c\/strong\u003e are scattered through it, pushed up from the clay during the firing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAround the shoulder the glaze changes: a \u003cstrong\u003edark olive-brown band\u003c\/strong\u003e where two glazes meet and run together, mottled and slightly granular, breaking down over the cream in uneven fingers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInside, the mug is \u003cstrong\u003eturquoise\u003c\/strong\u003e, deep and soft, with the throwing rings showing as a spiral under the glaze and the colour lifting over the rim so that it reads as a band of blue-green from the outside.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe foot is unglazed, cleanly trimmed, and shows the bare \u003cstrong\u003ebuff-pink stoneware body\u003c\/strong\u003e. Pressed into the centre is the potter's \u003cstrong\u003echop mark\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe chop is the reason to turn it over, and it belongs to a tradition roughly five thousand years old.\u003c\/strong\u003e Potters have marked their work since ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome — one of the oldest signed ceramics to survive is a Greek vase of about 530 BCE inscribed \u003cem\u003e“Exekias made and painted me”\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe word \u003cem\u003echop\u003c\/em\u003e comes from the Asian seal, the Japanese \u003cem\u003ehanko\u003c\/em\u003e, and that is what a studio potter's mark is: a personal stamp, cut once and pressed into the wet clay of everything they make. It goes on the foot, where it is hidden in use and found only by someone who picks the piece up — which is rather the point.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA chop is not a factory backstamp, and the difference matters.\u003c\/strong\u003e A backstamp names a company and exists for production records. A chop names one pair of hands, and its function is to build a traceable body of work across a career. This mug came off one person's wheel.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEverything else about it agrees.\u003c\/strong\u003e The throwing rings spiral up the inside where the potter's fingers rose through the wall. The handle was \u003cem\u003epulled\u003c\/em\u003e — drawn down from a lump of clay by hand rather than cast or extruded — and it thickens and thins the way only a pulled handle does. The iron specks come from an iron-bearing stoneware body firing through its glaze, and the way the shoulder glaze breaks and runs is a wood or gas kiln behaving unpredictably, not a controlled industrial firing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe chop is clear and complete, but it is not resolved to a maker here.\u003c\/strong\u003e No name, studio, place or date appears anywhere on the piece, and it is offered \u003cstrong\u003eunattributed\u003c\/strong\u003e rather than assigned to a potter on a guess.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDated on the material and the making — reduction-fired speckled stoneware, a personal chop, and the oatmeal-and-turquoise palette of the studio pottery movement as it ran through American workshops and university programmes: \u003cstrong\u003ec. 1970–1995\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"8\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:100%; border-collapse:collapse;\"\u003e\n  \u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eField\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/thead\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eHand-thrown studio stoneware mug\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eBarrel body on a trimmed unglazed foot, with a hand-pulled handle attached below the rim and at the belly; throwing rings visible inside\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eGlaze\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOatmeal cream exterior with iron speckling, a mottled olive-brown break band at the shoulder where two glazes overlap, and a turquoise interior carrying up over the rim\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eIron-bearing buff stoneware, reduction fired\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAn impressed potter's chop to the unglazed foot — a personal maker's seal, not a factory backstamp. No name, studio or date. Offered unattributed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ec. 1970–1995. Dated on the reduction-fired speckled body, the personal chop and the studio-pottery glaze palette.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eGood and fully usable. The mug is sound with no cracks, no crazing and no repairs; it stands level, the rim is smooth and complete all the way round, the handle is firmly attached with no stress lines at either join, and the glazes are bright and unworn inside and out. \u003cstrong\u003eThere is one small chip to the edge of the unglazed foot\u003c\/strong\u003e, low on the base where it does not show when the mug is standing and does not affect how it sits or holds liquid. Expect the glaze to be uneven where it breaks at the shoulder, and the iron specks throughout — both are the firing, not faults. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePeople end up with a favourite mug whether they plan to or not, and it is almost never the one that came in a set.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis one has the qualities that decide it. There is real weight to it, so it feels like something. The wall is thick, so coffee stays hot longer than it does in thin porcelain. The handle was pulled by hand to fit a hand, which is why it sits better than a cast one. And the barrel shape means it does not tip when you set it down in a hurry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe colours do the rest. Oatmeal with iron flecks and a turquoise interior is a combination no factory would sign off on and no two kiln loads produce identically — you get the blue-green surprise every time you look down into it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is equally good doing something else. On a desk it takes pens and scissors; on a windowsill, a cutting of ivy; on a dresser, keys and coins. And for a gift it is unusually easy, because a handmade mug is a thing almost everybody uses and almost nobody buys for themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA note on care, and with studio stoneware most of it is permission rather than prohibition. \u003cstrong\u003eIt is fine to use every day.\u003c\/strong\u003e Wash it by hand in warm water with a little mild soap, which is gentler than a dishwasher on a glaze that may have been fired to a studio's own recipe rather than a commercial standard.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eKeep the unglazed foot out of standing water.\u003c\/strong\u003e Bare stoneware absorbs, and a mug left sitting in a wet sink or a puddled draining board will draw water up into the foot and stain it. Dry the base as well as the cup.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAvoid sudden temperature changes — no going from the refrigerator to a hot oven, and let boiling water go off the boil before it goes in. Use no abrasive pad or scouring cream on the glazed surfaces, and no bleach soak, which can lift into a crazed or porous foot and stay there. Coffee and tea staining inside lifts with a paste of bicarbonate of soda and a soft cloth.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48041820881001,"sku":"VE-0709","price":48.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/51B1A65C-511D-494A-BABE-4810253B454B.jpg?v=1789140285"},{"product_id":"small-wire-mesh-tea-strainer-with-twin-cup-rests-and-red-painted-wooden-handle-c-1940-1960","title":"Small Wire-Mesh Tea Strainer with Twin Cup Rests and Red-Painted Wooden Handle, c. 1940–1960","description":"  \u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA small handled tea strainer, the working end a shallow cone of \u003cstrong\u003efine woven wire mesh\u003c\/strong\u003e set into a rolled metal rim.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo \u003cstrong\u003ewire rests\u003c\/strong\u003e project from the rim, bent into flattened diamond shapes and standing out at right angles, so the strainer can be laid across the top of a cup and let go of.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe shank runs back from the rim as a length of wire bent into a \u003cstrong\u003edouble diamond\u003c\/strong\u003e — a flattened lozenge worked into the middle of the stem, which stiffens it and keeps it from twisting — before entering a plain metal ferrule.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe handle is \u003cstrong\u003eshaped wood painted a strong cherry red\u003c\/strong\u003e, with a \u003cstrong\u003ehanging hole\u003c\/strong\u003e drilled through the end, worn through to bare pale wood at the ferrule and along the gripping edge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA \u003cstrong\u003ewhite rubber band\u003c\/strong\u003e is wrapped around the middle of the handle. It is not original, and it has been left where a previous owner put it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe strainer exists because of the tea bag's absence, and its decline is the tea bag's fault.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe problem it solves is specific. Early Chinese tea leaves were large enough to open up and stay in the pot. What created the need for straining was the \u003cstrong\u003eBritish plantation tea grown in India\u003c\/strong\u003e, whose smaller, more fragile leaves broke up and came through the spout into the cup. The Victorians answered with the handled strainer basket that rests across a cup while the tea is poured — the exact object this is.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy the nineteenth century the market had split the way it always does: \u003cstrong\u003eTiffany \u0026amp; Co. was making sterling silver strainers\u003c\/strong\u003e for people who could afford them, and stainless steel versions served everybody else.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen the tea bag arrived and made the whole category almost unnecessary. Thomas Sullivan usually gets the credit for 1908, but the better story is that \u003cstrong\u003eRoberta C. Lawson and Mary Molaren of Milwaukee filed a patent for a “tea leaf holder” seven years before he did\u003c\/strong\u003e. Two women got there first and have spent a century being left out of the sentence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe twin rests are the detail that separates a good strainer from a bad one.\u003c\/strong\u003e Without them the strainer has to be held over the cup through the whole pour, one-handed, while the other hand manages a full pot. With them it sits on the rim and stays there, and both hands are free.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe handle dates it.\u003c\/strong\u003e American and British kitchenware of the 1930s ran to bright \u003cstrong\u003eCatalin and other coloured plastics\u003c\/strong\u003e on handles. This has none — it has shaped wood under paint, with a plain metal ferrule. Plastics went to the war effort, wood came back as the substitute, and painted wooden handles stayed standard through the years immediately after. Dated on the wooden handle, the ferrule and the hand-bent wire shank: \u003cstrong\u003ec. 1940–1960\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe strainer carries \u003cstrong\u003eno legible maker's name\u003c\/strong\u003e on the rim, the shank, the ferrule or the handle, and is offered \u003cstrong\u003eunattributed\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"8\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:100%; border-collapse:collapse;\"\u003e\n  \u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eField\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/thead\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eHandled tea strainer for loose-leaf tea, designed to rest across a cup\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eShallow cone of fine woven wire mesh in a rolled rim, with two projecting diamond-bent wire cup rests; wire shank worked into a stiffening double diamond, into a metal ferrule and a shaped wooden handle with a hanging hole\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eWoven wire mesh and wire with a painted wooden handle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eNo legible maker's name anywhere on the piece. A white rubber band around the handle is a previous owner's addition and has been left in place.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ec. 1940–1960. Dated on the painted wooden handle in place of the coloured plastics used before the war, and on the ferrule and hand-bent wire shank.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eVery good and fully working. The mesh is completely intact with no tears, holes, dents or pushed-through areas, the rolled rim is true and round, both cup rests are present and correctly aligned, and the shank is straight and firm with the handle tight in its ferrule. \u003cstrong\u003eExpect honest kitchen wear to the paint\u003c\/strong\u003e — worn through to bare wood at the ferrule end and along the gripping edge, with scattered chips elsewhere — along with light dulling and a few small darkened spots to the metal. No rust through, no repairs and no missing parts. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnybody who has moved from bags to loose-leaf tea needs one of these on about day two, and the old ones are better than the new ones.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mesh on this is genuinely fine, which is the only thing that matters — it catches the small broken leaf that modern coarse strainers let straight through. The two rests mean it stays put on the cup while you pour with both hands. And it is small, so it suits a single cup rather than demanding a full pot.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is not only for tea. The same strainer dusts icing sugar or cocoa over a small tart, rinses a handful of capers or berries, strains a cocktail, or catches lemon pips going into a dressing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHung by its hole on a rail or a cup hook, it also just looks right. Red, pale worn wood and grey wire is a full kitchen palette in one small object, and the wear on the handle is the part people notice — somebody held this the same way, several thousand times.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA note on care, and with a mesh strainer there is one rule that decides how long it lasts. \u003cstrong\u003eRinse it immediately after use and dry it at once.\u003c\/strong\u003e Tannin dries hard in a fine mesh and blocks it permanently, and water left sitting in the weave rusts it from the inside.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDo not put it in a dishwasher and do not leave it to soak.\u003c\/strong\u003e Either will swell the wooden handle off its ferrule and lift the remaining paint. Wash the mesh under a hot tap with a soft brush, keeping the handle out of the water, and stand it to dry with the cone downward so nothing pools in it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNever push a spoon or anything hard through the mesh to clear it — the weave stretches and will not go back. Store it dry and hanging rather than in a drawer, where the rests get bent and the cone gets crushed.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48042418241641,"sku":"VE-0715","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/3463B7DB-26A8-4C3A-A73F-6817E40F2A4B.jpg?v=1789150215"},{"product_id":"androck-flexible-stainless-turner-with-marbled-red-catalin-handle-rockford-illinois-c-1935-1955","title":"Androck Flexible Stainless Turner with Marbled Red Catalin Handle, Rockford Illinois, c. 1935–1955","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA wide kitchen turner in bright stainless steel, with a deep marbled red handle.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cstrong\u003eblade is broad and thin\u003c\/strong\u003e, square across the end with softened corners, and it \u003cstrong\u003eflexes under thumb pressure\u003c\/strong\u003e — built to slide under something and lift it rather than to lever or scrape.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is joined by a \u003cstrong\u003estamped steel shoulder plate secured with three rivets\u003c\/strong\u003e, drawn down into a formed neck that steps up to the handle, so the blade sits below the line of the grip.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStamped into the shoulder: \u003cstrong\u003eAndrock\u003c\/strong\u003e in script, with \u003cstrong\u003eSTAINLESS STEEL\u003c\/strong\u003e beneath it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe handle is a solid bar of \u003cstrong\u003emarbled cherry-red plastic\u003c\/strong\u003e — deep, translucent at the edges, with the swirl running through the body rather than printed on it — squared in section, tapering, and pierced at the end to hang.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAndrock is an American kitchen name that came out of a merger and a place.\u003c\/strong\u003e The name dates from 1917, formed when a Chicago wire goods division joined \u003cstrong\u003eAndrews Wire and Iron Works of Rockford, Illinois\u003c\/strong\u003e — \u003cem\u003eAnd\u003c\/em\u003erews plus \u003cem\u003eRock\u003c\/em\u003eford. The parent business ran back further: Charles Washburn started in 1880, the Wire Goods Company followed in 1882, and from 1922 the whole operation traded as \u003cstrong\u003eThe Washburn Company\u003c\/strong\u003e, working out of Rockford and Worcester, Massachusetts. Production finally ceased in \u003cstrong\u003e1975\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTheir handles are how you date them, and this is the early kind.\u003c\/strong\u003e Androck used \u003cstrong\u003emarbled Catalin-type plastic\u003c\/strong\u003e before the war — deep translucent reds, greens, butterscotch and jade, cast in rod and cut to length, with the swirl running right through the material. After the war they moved to flat opaque moulded plastics and, through the fifties, to printed atomic and starburst graphics. A solid marbled red bar with depth in it belongs to the earlier period.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe blade is stainless, and that is the other half of the date.\u003c\/strong\u003e Stainless flatware and utensils moved from novelty to normal through the 1930s; before that a turner like this was tinned or nickel-plated carbon steel, and it stained. Stamping STAINLESS STEEL into the shoulder was a selling point, which is why it is there.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe flex is the design.\u003c\/strong\u003e A stiff blade lifts a fried egg by breaking it. A thin blade with give runs flat along the pan, takes the food's weight across its whole width and comes up clean — and the stepped neck is there so your knuckles clear the rim. Three rivets through a stamped shoulder is how you make that join survive forty years of being levered on, which it plainly has.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDated on the marbled Catalin-type handle, the stamped stainless blade and the riveted shoulder construction: \u003cstrong\u003ec. 1935–1955\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"8\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:100%; border-collapse:collapse;\"\u003e\n  \u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eField\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/thead\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eKitchen turner with a wide flexible blade. Approx. 11 in long overall, blade approx. 3½ in across.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAndrock, The Washburn Company, Rockford, Illinois, USA\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eBroad thin flexing blade, square-ended with softened corners, joined by a three-rivet stamped shoulder plate and a stepped neck so the blade sits below the grip line; squared tapering handle pierced to hang\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eStainless steel blade with a marbled red cast-plastic handle of Catalin type\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eStamped to the shoulder: Androck in script over STAINLESS STEEL\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ec. 1935–1955. Dated on the marbled Catalin-type handle, which Androck used before the flat opaque and printed plastics of the later 1950s, together with the stamped stainless blade and riveted shoulder.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eVery good working condition. The blade is straight and sound with its original flex, the three rivets are tight with no movement in the joint, and the handle is solid with no cracks, chips or shrinkage away from the neck. Expect honest kitchen use — fine surface scratching across the blade and a soft patina to the steel, with light polish to the handle where it has been held. The Androck stamp is crisp and legible. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a better turner than almost anything sold new, and it costs about the same.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe reason is the blade. Modern turners are either stiff steel that tears, or silicone that is too thick to get under anything. This one is thin enough to slide flat along a pan and springy enough to lift without breaking — eggs, fish, pancakes, cookies off a sheet. It is the tool people go looking for after they have tried three new ones.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt will also outlive you. There is nothing on it to fail: a stainless blade, three steel rivets and a solid bar of plastic. No coating to flake, no seam to trap water, no wooden handle to dry out and split.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd the colour earns its place on the counter. Deep marbled red against stainless is a scheme that has never gone out, and a red-handled utensil in a crock beside a stove does more for a kitchen than most things you could hang on the wall. If you already have Androck in the drawer, the handles match across the range.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA note on care, and the handle is the part with a rule. \u003cstrong\u003eHand wash it.\u003c\/strong\u003e Cast plastics of this type do not like prolonged heat or harsh detergent — a dishwasher will dull the surface, wash the depth out of the marbling and, over time, shrink the handle away from the neck. Warm water, a soft cloth, dried straight away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDo not leave it resting in a hot pan.\u003c\/strong\u003e The blade takes heat without complaint; the handle does not, and it will scorch or soften against a burner.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNever soak it, since water sitting in the rivet joint is the one thing that will eventually loosen it. If the steel dulls, a little metal polish on the blade only will bring it back.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48047022735465,"sku":"VE-0735","price":41.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/22442B1D-6F64-4D50-AB35-7C2FF146DA41.jpg?v=1789273757"},{"product_id":"boker-chromium-poultry-shears-forged-and-chrome-plated-with-coil-spring-action-bone-notch-and-sliding-latch-u-s-a-c-1945-1965","title":"Böker Chromium Poultry Shears, Forged and Chrome-Plated with Coil-Spring Action, Bone Notch and Sliding Latch, U.S.A., c. 1945–1965","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA pair of forged poultry shears in bright chromium plate, built with three mechanisms most kitchen scissors do not have.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cstrong\u003eblades are asymmetric\u003c\/strong\u003e. The upper is plain and strongly curved, drawn to a point; the lower carries a \u003cstrong\u003efine serrated edge\u003c\/strong\u003e along its whole length to stop skin and tendon sliding away from the cut.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJust above the pivot, cut into the lower blade, is a \u003cstrong\u003ecrescent notch\u003c\/strong\u003e — a jaw for gripping and cracking a joint rather than shearing it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the joint sits a \u003cstrong\u003ecoil spring housed in a barrel\u003c\/strong\u003e, which pushes the shears open again after every cut so the hand only has to close.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe handles are unmatched by design: one is a plain closed \u003cstrong\u003ebow\u003c\/strong\u003e, the other a shaped grip finished in \u003cstrong\u003efine diamond knurling\u003c\/strong\u003e around a blank cartouche panel. At their ends, a \u003cstrong\u003esliding bolt latch\u003c\/strong\u003e hooks over to lock the shears shut.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStamped beside the domed pivot rivet: \u003cstrong\u003eBOKER — CHROMIUM — U.S.A.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe word stamped between the name and the country is the one that dates this.\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003eCHROMIUM\u003c\/em\u003e is not decoration; it is a sales claim. These are forged carbon steel under a chromium plate, and the plate is there to keep a wet, acidic, bloody job from rusting the tool. A maker only stamps a material into a blade while that material is still worth advertising — and once stainless steel became ordinary in kitchen cutlery, nobody stamped “chromium” on anything again.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Böker name on an American-made tool carries a genuinely strange history.\u003c\/strong\u003e The family's chestnut-tree mark had been in use since \u003cstrong\u003e1674\u003c\/strong\u003e. Hermann Böker opened \u003cstrong\u003eH. Boker \u0026amp; Co. in New York in 1837\u003c\/strong\u003e — thirty-two years \u003cem\u003ebefore\u003c\/em\u003e his cousin Heinrich founded the Solingen works in \u003cstrong\u003e1869\u003c\/strong\u003e. The American house came first.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThen the war split the company in two.\u003c\/strong\u003e The Solingen factory was firebombed and lost its machines, tools, catalogues and product samples. At the same time the \u003cstrong\u003eUnited States government confiscated Böker's American trademark rights\u003c\/strong\u003e under wartime law. John Böker Jr. bought those rights back independently, in New York, and carried on — which meant that for roughly forty years there were two Bökers: a German one in Solingen and an entirely separate American one, same family name, same tree, different owners.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe rights only returned to Solingen in \u003cstrong\u003e1983\u003c\/strong\u003e, and American manufacture ended at the same time. A tool stamped \u003cstrong\u003eU.S.A.\u003c\/strong\u003e belongs to that severed American branch.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe design is doing three jobs a knife cannot.\u003c\/strong\u003e Serrations on the lower blade only, so the food cannot skate; the notch at the throat to crack a leg joint with leverage instead of force; and the spring, which matters more than it sounds. Jointing a bird is dozens of repetitions in a row, and a hand that has to open the shears each time tires in minutes. Let a spring do the opening and the same work is half as hard. The latch is the necessary companion — a sprung tool will not stay shut in a drawer on its own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe handles are unmatched because the grip is unmatched.\u003c\/strong\u003e The plain bow takes the fingers, the knurled shaped side sits under the thumb and palm where the force is applied, and the checkering is there because the hand doing this job is usually wet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDated on the \u003cstrong\u003eCHROMIUM\u003c\/strong\u003e stamp — a plating claim that belongs to the decades before stainless took over kitchen cutlery — together with the U.S.A. mark from the period when the American company was separate from Solingen: \u003cstrong\u003ec. 1945–1965\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"8\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:100%; border-collapse:collapse;\"\u003e\n  \u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eField\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/thead\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ePoultry and game shears with spring action and locking latch. Approx. 9½ in long.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eBöker, United States — the American branch of the firm, separate from Solingen for most of the twentieth century\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCurved plain upper blade against a fully serrated lower blade with a crescent bone notch at the throat; coil spring in a barrel housing at the pivot; one plain bow handle and one shaped handle with diamond knurling and a blank cartouche; sliding bolt latch at the handle ends\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eForged steel under bright chromium plate, with a domed pivot rivet\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eStamped to the blade beside the pivot: BOKER \/ CHROMIUM \/ U.S.A.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ec. 1945–1965. Dated on the CHROMIUM plating stamp, a selling claim that disappears once stainless steel becomes standard in kitchen cutlery, together with the U.S.A. mark of the separately owned American company.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eVery good working condition. The shears are sound and true, the blades close cleanly along their whole length, the spring is strong and returns the tool fully open, the latch slides and holds, and the pivot is tight with no play. The serrations and the bone notch are complete and undamaged. \u003cstrong\u003eExpect fine surface scratching across both blade faces\u003c\/strong\u003e from honest kitchen use, along with light handling polish to the chrome. No rust, no pitting, no plating loss of consequence, no repairs. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSpatchcock a chicken once with a proper pair of poultry shears and you will not go back to a knife.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat is the whole argument. Cutting out a backbone with a chef's knife is a fight involving a rocking blade, a slippery bird and a cutting board that moves. With these it is four cuts and about twenty seconds, because the serrations hold the skin, the spring does the opening, and the notch cracks the joint that the blade would otherwise have to saw through.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey are also the most useful thing in a kitchen drawer for the jobs nobody plans for. Cutting up a whole chicken, trimming fat and silverskin, jointing a rabbit, taking the fins and tails off fish, snipping herbs and bacon straight into a pan, cutting through a lobster shell, and — unglamorously but constantly — opening packaging that has defeated everything else.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOld forged shears are better than most new ones, and the reason is that the working parts are steel rather than plastic. The spring is a real coil in a barrel, the latch is a sliding steel bolt, and the pivot is a solid rivet. Nothing in the mechanism is moulded, so nothing in it will crack.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd they look like something. Bright chrome, knurled checkering, a shape that reads immediately as a tool made for one job — hanging on a rail beside a stove or lying in an open drawer of good utensils, these are more interesting than anything currently sold in a kitchen shop.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA note on care, and chromium plate over carbon steel has one clear rule. \u003cstrong\u003eDry them immediately and completely.\u003c\/strong\u003e The plate protects the steel only while it is intact; wherever the chrome has thinned at a wear point, the carbon steel beneath will rust if it is left wet. Wash, dry, and if they are going into storage put a light film of food-safe oil on the blades.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNever put them in a dishwasher.\u003c\/strong\u003e The heat and detergent attack the plating and drive water into the pivot and the spring barrel, which is exactly where you cannot get it out again, and a seized spring is the end of the tool.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePut a drop of food-grade mineral oil on the pivot and into the spring barrel once or twice a year and the action will stay as it is. Keep the latch closed when they are not in use — that is what it is for, and a sprung pair of shears loose in a drawer is a hazard.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSharpen the plain blade only, on the bevel, and leave the serrated blade alone; the serrations are the part that makes these work, and grinding them off cannot be undone.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Rue Tool \u0026 Supply Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48047030796393,"sku":"VE-0738","price":52.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/DF909D4A-4558-444A-B3A4-35CA29F262C3.jpg?v=1789275601"},{"product_id":"taylor-smith-taylor-rooster-coupe-bowl-stylised-cockerel-in-olive-gold-and-rust-marked-oven-proof-and-detergent-safe-chester-west-virginia","title":"Mid-Century Taylor Smith \u0026 Taylor Rooster Coupe Bowl, c. 1960–1981","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eA shallow white bowl with a rooster standing in the middle of it, drawn in the flat graphic style of American mid-century kitchenware.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe bird is stylised rather than lifelike: a gold body worked over with fine dark hatching and scale patterning, a tail of olive green and yellow plumes swept back, a rust-red comb and wattle, and one dark eye.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe stands on a spray of small flowers — coral pink blossoms, olive leaves and yellow buds curling out to either side.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe body is a warm off-white with a clean unpatterned rim, so the whole design sits in the well and reads from directly above.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnderneath, printed in grey inside an oval: OVEN PROOF, TS\u0026amp;T, the pattern name Rooster in script, MADE IN USA, and DETERGENT SAFE.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe script word on that backstamp is the pattern name, and it is the one most people get wrong.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTaylor, Smith \u0026amp; Taylor produced two rooster patterns. The famous one is Reveille, which turns up constantly and is what almost every rooster-decorated TS\u0026amp;T piece gets called. This is not that. The mark reads Rooster, which is a separate catalogued TS\u0026amp;T pattern in its own right — documented as a green, yellow and brown cockerel in the centre, exactly as here. Naming it correctly is the difference between a piece someone can find and a piece filed under the wrong name forever.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe firm behind it was a serious American pottery. Taylor, Smith \u0026amp; Taylor ran at Chester, West Virginia from 1900 to 1981. It began as Taylor, Lee \u0026amp; Smith under five owners — Colonel John N. Taylor, C. A. Smith, Joseph G. Lee, Albert G. Mason and William L. Smith — and took its lasting name after Lee left early. Through the middle of the century it worked with designers including J. Palin Thorley and the industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague, and it produced Lu-Ray Pastels, one of the most collected American dinnerware lines ever made.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnchor Hocking bought the company in 1972. Production continued under that ownership until the plant closed in 1981, and the works were demolished in 2012. Nothing carrying this mark can postdate 1981.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe two claims printed around the edge of the mark are the other piece of history, and they are easy to read past. OVEN PROOF and DETERGENT SAFE are not decoration; they are sales arguments aimed at a specific moment. The automatic dishwasher went from a novelty to a fixture in American kitchens across the 1950s and 1960s, and machine detergent was far harsher than anything a sink had ever done to a plate. Decorated dinnerware started failing in the new machines, and potteries had to put the promise on the back of the ware in order to keep selling it. A plate that advertises its own dishwasher survival is a plate made for a kitchen that had just acquired one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDated on the maker's operating dates and the marking: c. 1960–1981, with the closure of the pottery as a hard ceiling.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ctable\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCoupe bowl in glazed earthenware\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 8 in across by 1¾ in deep\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePattern\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRooster — a stylised cockerel in gold, olive green, yellow and rust standing on a spray of coral blossom and olive foliage, centred in the well\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePrinted to the underside in an oval: OVEN PROOF · TS\u0026amp;T · Rooster · MADE IN USA · DETERGENT SAFE\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTaylor, Smith \u0026amp; Taylor Company, Chester, West Virginia\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1960–1981. TS\u0026amp;T operated from 1900, was bought by Anchor Hocking in 1972, and closed in 1981; nothing with this mark can be later.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good. No chips, no cracks, no crazing and no repairs. The bowl sits flat and true, the rim is smooth all the way round, and the printed decoration is crisp and unfaded with the colours strong. The backstamp is complete and fully legible. There is a small pale fleck in the well toward the lower left. The glaze is bright with only the light surface marking expected of a piece that saw use. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/tbody\u003e\u003c\/table\u003e\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe rooster is the oldest device in American kitchen decoration, and this is a good one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is not a farmhouse cliche drawn soft and sentimental. This bird is graphic — hatched, scaled, patterned, closer to a woodcut than a painting — which is why it still looks deliberate on a modern shelf rather than merely nostalgic.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe palette is the useful part. Olive, mustard gold, rust and coral on off-white is a warm, slightly dusty range that sits happily with wood, brass, unbleached linen and painted cabinetry, and it does not fight a room the way a bright pattern does.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA single bowl is more versatile than a set. Stood on a plate rail or an easel it is a piece of graphic art; laid flat it takes keys and change on a hall table, fruit on a counter, or garlic and onions beside a stove. One good object does more than eight matching ones.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt also carries a real American maker. Taylor, Smith \u0026amp; Taylor ran in Chester, West Virginia for eighty-one years, employed designers of genuine standing, and no longer exists — the buildings came down in 2012. That is a closed story, and every surviving piece is finite.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd it is a good gift for anyone who keeps a rooster kitchen, collects American dinnerware, or has a West Virginia or Ohio Valley connection. The pottery towns along that stretch of river made a great deal of what American families ate off for a century.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA note on use. The maker marked this bowl oven proof and detergent safe and meant it, and the decoration sits under a hard glaze rather than on top of it. It is a sturdy piece.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat said, hand wash it. Sixty years of dishwasher cycles is not what the promise was underwriting, and modern machine detergents are more aggressive than the ones it was tested against. Warm water and a soft cloth will keep the colours as strong as they are now.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor food use, treat it as occasional rather than daily. American dinnerware of this period predates modern lead-in-glaze standards and carries no certification to them, so for everyday eating a modern piece is the better choice and this one is better on a shelf, holding dry things, or serving now and then.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAvoid thermal shock and avoid the microwave. Do not move it from a cold shelf into a hot oven, and do not cut directly in it — a knife will leave grey metal marks in any glaze this age.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48061043769449,"sku":"VE-1610","price":43.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/IMG_4166_a4097e4e-de9f-446b-828e-7b0fd64851ea.jpg?v=1789447318"},{"product_id":"kuchenprofi-18-10-stainless-magnetic-tool-knife-rack-c-1988-2010","title":"Küchenprofi 18\/10 Stainless Magnetic Tool \u0026 Knife Rack c. 1988–2010","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA wall-mounted twin-channel magnetic rack in 18\/10 stainless steel, made for Küchenprofi of Solingen and marked with the diamond the firm used on its own-brand goods. Sold as a knife rack; just as good, and arguably better, over a bench.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe form is a single extruded bar with a wide brushed centre panel and a rolled, polished lip along each long edge. Between lip and panel runs a recessed channel top and bottom. The magnets sit behind those two channels, so anything laid across the bar is held at two points rather than one and hangs square instead of swinging.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThat twin-channel geometry is why it handles tools. A single magnetic strip grabs one point and lets everything pivot; two lines set apart hold a chisel, a driver, a rule or a plier by its length, so a row stays a row.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eIt is a heavier section than most magnetic strips. The bar has real depth front to back, the edges are rolled rather than folded, and the whole thing has the weight in the hand of a piece of architectural trim rather than a kitchen accessory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe KÜCHENPROFI mark is etched into the centre of the brushed panel: the name set in a rectangular band across a diamond outline. It is light-etched rather than printed, so it reads as a change of texture in the brushing rather than as a graphic laid over it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eTwo countersunk screws pass through the centre panel to the wall, set well in from the ends. Both ends are closed with a dark moulded cap that finishes the extrusion and sits flush.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe finish is a fine linear brush running the length of the bar, with the polished edge lips left bright against it. It is shown mounted, which is the only way to judge a piece like this: it sits close to the wall, casts almost no shadow, and reads as a line rather than as an object.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eKüchenprofi is a Solingen house, and the mark on this bar dates the object more precisely than the object could date itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe firm was founded in Solingen in 1923 by Artur Schmitz, and for its first two generations it was not a maker at all. It supplied the restaurant trade, then grew into a wholesaler importing foreign brands that were not otherwise sold in Germany. It had no consumer brand of its own and no logo of this kind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThat changed in 1988. The third generation, under Stefan Schmitz, launched the company’s own manufacturer brand and created both the Küchenprofi name and a new logo to carry it. Everything marked Küchenprofi belongs to that programme and to the years after it; nothing made before 1988 carries this name at all. The company moved to its present Solingen headquarters in 1990 and has since gathered Zassenhaus, Cilio and Spring under the same group.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe upper end comes from the mark itself and from the catalogue. The diamond device etched into this bar is the older Küchenprofi identity; the firm’s current mark is a plain wordmark with no enclosing shape, and the magnetic rack is no longer part of the range. The 18\/10 rack in this pattern was in American distribution by the early 2000s, sold as a fourteen-inch bar in eighteen-ten stainless. On that evidence it is offered as c. 1988–2010.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe reason a piece like this survives so well is the alloy. 18\/10 is eighteen per cent chromium and ten per cent nickel, and the nickel is what makes the difference: it holds the passive layer against salt, acid, steam and damp far better than the cheaper 18\/0 used in most magnetic strips, which is why this bar has no pitting and no rust bloom after a working life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003ctable\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWall-mounted twin-channel magnetic rack in stainless steel, for hand tools or blades\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eKüchenprofi, Solingen, Germany (frequently written Kuchenprofi without the umlaut in American distribution)\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMark\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eKÜCHENPROFI in a rectangular band across a diamond outline, light-etched into the centre of the brushed panel\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e18\/10 stainless steel — eighteen per cent chromium, ten per cent nickel\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eConstruction\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eExtruded bar with a brushed centre panel and polished rolled edge lips; concealed magnets behind a recessed channel top and bottom, so anything hung is held at two points; moulded end caps; two countersunk wall screws\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHolds\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eChisels, drivers, pliers, rules, scrapers, wrenches, layout tools and multi-tools over a bench; knives, shears, a steel, a peeler or a fish spatula in a kitchen\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 14 in long, approximately 2 in wide, approximately ½ in deep\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1988–2010. The Küchenprofi name and logo were created in 1988, when the firm launched its own manufacturer brand after sixty-five years as a supplier and wholesaler, so no piece carrying this mark predates that year. The diamond device is the older identity — the current company mark is a plain wordmark with no enclosing shape — and the rack has since left the catalogue, having been in American distribution by the early 2000s.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eExcellent and fully serviceable. The magnets hold across the full length, both channels are clear and undented, and the bar is straight with no bow. The brushed finish carries light surface scratching consistent with steel having been laid on and lifted off, heaviest across the centre panel, and there is faint dulling around the two screw heads. No pitting, no rust, no corrosion anywhere. Both end caps are present. The etched mark is complete and legible. Shown mounted, with the two original screws in place. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\u003c\/table\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eOver a bench, this solves the problem every workshop has: the tools you reach for forty times a day are the ones that end up in a heap.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA drawer buries them and dulls their edges against each other. A pegboard needs a hook cut for every shape and locks you into that layout forever. A magnetic bar takes whatever you put on it, in whatever order you happen to want this week, and gives it back in one motion. Chisels, drivers, pliers, a combination square, a rule, a scraper, a multi-tool. Put a tool back by touching it to the steel.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe twin channels are what make it work for tools rather than just blades. Two lines of magnets set apart hold an object along its length, so a chisel hangs plumb and a plier does not swing out and knock its neighbour when you take the one beside it. A single strip cannot do that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe 18\/10 is the other reason to want this one. Most magnetic racks are 18\/0, and in a shop — damp, solvent, swarf, hands — 18\/0 eventually speckles and streaks. This one has been in service and shows no pitting at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eIt does the kitchen job just as well, which is what it was sold for. Knives kept on a bar stay sharp longer than knives in a block, because a block drags the edge across wood every time a knife goes in or comes out and a magnet only ever touches the flat of the blade. Shears, a steel, tongs and a bench scraper all hold.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eVisually it disappears in the right way. Brushed steel against plaster, brick, tile or dark timber reads as a horizontal rule, and what you actually see is the row of steel hanging off it. Over a workbench that is a considerably better-looking wall than a pegboard.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eOn mounting. It wants two solid fixings — studs, or plugs rated well above the weight of what you intend to hang, because a loaded bar carries more than people expect. Set it at a height that clears the bench or the worktop and leave room above for the lift-off motion. Keep it out of direct spray.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eOn care. Wipe along the brush direction, never across it; a soft cloth with a little neutral cleaner is all it needs. Do not use abrasive pads or chlorine-based cleaners on 18\/10 — the brushing is a finish, not a coating, and it will not come back once it is cut through.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Rue Tool \u0026 Supply Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48065215070313,"sku":"VE-1630","price":203.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/E8EBD5A0-2C96-4C52-94C2-FDBAEBE058F2.jpg?v=1789515133"},{"product_id":"vintage-relief-moulded-neoclassical-biscuit-barrel-c-1930-1955","title":"Vintage Relief-Moulded Neoclassical Biscuit Barrel, c. 1930–1955","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA barrel-form covered jar in cream earthenware, worked in low relief with classical figures in a landscape and tinted in soft blue, rose, green and red-brown, under a clear glaze crazed finely all over.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe relief is moulded, not applied. The figures, the trees and the foliage rise out of the body itself rather than being sprigged on afterwards, and the modelling runs continuously into the ground where it meets it. That is a single press from a worked mould, and it is the difference between this and the jasperware tradition it is quoting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe frieze runs the full circumference. A maiden in flowing drapery carries a basket of flowers on her head; a second stands at a pedestal with her arm extended; a child figure attends between them. Between the figures stand a broad-canopied tree, a young conifer in a pot and a low flowering shrub. Small moulded lug handles sit at either side.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe colour is the interesting part. It has been laid on the raised surfaces only — blue across one figure’s drapery, rose across the other’s, green through the canopies, red-brown down the trunks — and the cream ground has been left entirely bare. Applied thin, the washes read as tint rather than paint: the modelling still governs the light, and the colour only tells you where to look.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe cover is domed, flanged to seat inside the rim, and moulded with oak leaves and acorns radiating from the centre. They are tinted the same soft green, and the finial at the top is a modelled acorn glazed in red-brown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe base is glazed over, with a recessed foot ring and a moulded script name raised from the surface, a number 67 beneath it. Both came out of the mould with the jar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe glaze carries a fine, even craze network across the whole piece, body and cover alike, and the crazing lines have taken a faint warm tone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eWhat this jar is quoting is clear enough. Pale relief figures in classical drapery, arranged as a continuous frieze in a landscape, is the visual language Wedgwood established in jasper in the eighteenth century and which the pottery trade never stopped borrowing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eBut the borrowing here is technical as well as pictorial, and it went the other way from the original. Jasper is an unglazed stoneware, coloured through the body, with white relief sprigged on by hand piece by piece. This jar is glazed earthenware, cream throughout, with the relief pressed integrally in the mould and the colour brushed onto the raised surfaces afterwards. One is slow handwork; the other is one press, one tint and one firing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThat substitution is what put the neoclassical frieze into ordinary houses. A moulded and tinted earthenware jar could be sold for a fraction of a sprigged one and still carry the same silhouette on a shelf, and it became a staple of the giftware trade — biscuit barrels, tobacco jars, jugs and tea caddies in cream relief with washed colour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe oak and acorn cover belongs to that trade too. Oak reads as English, as endurance and as hospitality, and acorn finials turn up across covered jars, tobacco humidors and caddies of the period regardless of what the body beneath them is decorated with.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eOn date, the evidence is what the jar was made with rather than who made it. Integrally moulded relief tinted with translucent washes over a bare cream ground, under a soft clear glaze, is the earlier-to-mid twentieth-century giftware method, before slip-cast bodies with fired-on printed decoration displaced it. The mark supports that: it is raised script lifted out of the mould with a separate shape number, rather than an applied printed backstamp. And there is no country-of-origin mark anywhere on the piece, which caps how late it can be and points away from the import trade. On that evidence it is offered as c. 1930–1955.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe crazing is not used as evidence of date here. An allover craze network is a glaze and body behaving differently over time and tells you about the glaze, not the decade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eWhat would settle it is the name. The script mark is legible as script but does not resolve into a reading under photography, and the number beside it is 67. Read under a loupe in raking light it would name the pottery outright. Until it is read, no maker is claimed and the jar is offered unattributed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003ctable\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCovered barrel-form jar with moulded neoclassical relief frieze and oak-and-acorn cover\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBody\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCream earthenware under a clear glaze\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRelief moulded integrally with the body, not sprigged; translucent colour washes applied to the raised surfaces only — blue, rose, soft green and red-brown — with the cream ground left bare\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSubject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eClassical maidens in drapery with a flower basket, a pedestal and an attendant child figure, in a landscape of trees and shrubs, running the full circumference\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCover\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDomed and flanged to seat inside the rim, moulded with radiating oak leaves and acorns, tinted green, with a modelled acorn finial glazed red-brown\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eA moulded script name raised from the glazed base with the number 67 beneath it. The script does not resolve in photographs; no maker is named and the jar is offered unattributed. No country of origin appears on the piece.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 7 in high with the cover, approximately 6 in in diameter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1930–1955, on the making. Relief moulded integrally with the body and tinted with translucent washes over a bare cream ground, under a soft clear glaze, is the earlier-to-mid twentieth-century giftware method, displaced later by slip-cast bodies carrying fired-on printed decoration. The mark agrees: raised script lifted out of the mould with a separate shape number rather than an applied printed backstamp. No country-of-origin mark appears, which caps the upper end and points away from the import trade. The allover crazing is not treated as evidence of date.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eComplete with its original cover, which seats correctly on its flange. No chips, no cracks, no restoration found on the body, the rim, the cover or the finial, and the acorn finial is intact and undamaged. The glaze carries a fine, even craze network overall on both body and cover, with the lines lightly toned. Some faint grey scuffing and light soiling to the glazed base from shelf contact, and a small area of surface dulling inside the foot ring. All relief is crisp, with no rubbing to the high points, and the colour washes are strong and unfaded throughout. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\u003c\/table\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA covered jar that still has its cover is rarer than it sounds, and this one is undamaged down to the tip of the acorn.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eLids are the first thing to go. They are lifted a thousand times, set down on hard counters, and knocked off shelves, and the finial takes the blow every time. Most jars of this kind survive as bodies with the lid long gone, or with a chipped and re-glued knop. This one is whole, and the acorn is perfect.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe palette is what makes it easy to live with. Cream ground, soft green, faded rose, chalk blue, a warm red-brown — nothing saturated, nothing competing. It sits against limewash, against oak, against a painted dresser or an open kitchen shelf without arguing with anything already there.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe relief does the work that pattern usually has to do. Because the decoration is modelled rather than printed, the jar changes through the day: raking morning light throws the figures into strong shadow, flat afternoon light lets the colour come forward. A printed jar looks the same at every hour. This one does not.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eIt is a genuinely useful size. Biscuits and shortbread, loose tea, coffee beans, sugar, dried herbs, or nothing at all on a shelf beside books. On a bathroom shelf it takes cotton wool; on a desk it takes clips and stamps; on a dressing table it takes jewellery.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eAnd it carries the neoclassical frieze into a room without the weight that comes with it. Real jasper reads formal and asks for a mantelpiece. Cream earthenware with a soft tint reads domestic, which is the whole reason the trade made it this way.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eOn care. Wash by hand in warm water with a mild detergent and dry at once. The glaze is crazed, which means the craze lines will draw in liquid and stain permanently, so do not soak it, do not put it in a dishwasher, and do not use it for anything oily or strongly coloured. Keep it out of the microwave and away from direct heat — thermal shock is what turns crazing into cracking.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eLift the cover by its flange rather than swinging it by the finial, and store it with the cover seated rather than inverted beside it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48065708753001,"sku":"VE-1633","price":227.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/IMG_4338.jpg?v=1789531320"},{"product_id":"vintage-reed-barton-silver-soldered-hotel-sugar-bowl-c-1915-1940","title":"Vintage Reed \u0026 Barton Silver Soldered Hotel Sugar Bowl, c. 1915–1940","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA covered sugar bowl built low and wide, the body a flattened globe sitting on a stepped pedestal foot, with two plain loop handles springing from the shoulder and flattening where they meet the wall. A pair of reeded bands girdles the body at its widest point and is the only ornament anywhere on it. The lid is flat, drops into a recessed seat so it cannot slide, and carries a small turned reel-and-button finial.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is nothing decorative about any of it, and that is the whole character of the piece. No chasing, no piercing, no engraved panel, no applied ornament. Every line is either structural or a place to put a hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe surface has gone a soft grey-brown, with a warm coppery bloom coming through at the handle joints, the rim of the foot and the high points of the reeding where the plate has worn thin. The underside carries a small rectangular pictorial trademark above REED \u0026amp; BARTON, SILVER SOLDERED and the number 3000, together with four blue crayon tally strokes left by some earlier inventory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSilver soldered is not a decorative description, it is a construction specification, and it means this bowl was built for commercial service rather than a dining room. Reed \u0026amp; Barton applied that legend to the hollowware it supplied to hotels, restaurants, railroad dining cars, steamships and naval messes. On those pieces the handles and fittings were joined with silver solder rather than soft solder so they would not let go, and the plate was laid on heaviest exactly where a piece gets handled and scrubbed. Domestic plate was never built to that standard because it never had to be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe plainness follows from the same logic. A shape with no chasing and no piercing has nowhere for coffee, sugar or a cloth to catch, it survives a commercial wash, and when the plate eventually wears it wears evenly rather than leaving ornament stranded on bare metal. Hotel silver looks the way it looks because every decision was made by someone who had to wash it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dating rests on the mark and the idiom. Reed \u0026amp; Barton produced silver soldered commercial ware from around the turn of the twentieth century into the nineteen-sixties, so that legend sets the floor. The number 3000 is a catalogue model number and carries no date and no statement of silver content. The plain banded form is the Colonial Revival language American institutional hollowware used from the nineteen-tens into the nineteen-forties. The piece does not carry the explicit silverplate legend the firm adopted on commercial goods from mid-century, and that absence gives a ceiling only. On that evidence it is offered as c. 1915 to 1940.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVintage, offered as c. 1915 to 1940 on mark and construction evidence\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eReed \u0026amp; Barton, Taunton, Massachusetts\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePictorial trademark, REED \u0026amp; BARTON, SILVER SOLDERED, model 3000, struck on the underside\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCovered two-handled sugar bowl on a pedestal foot\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSilver plate over base metal, silver soldered commercial grade\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFinish\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eUnpolished. Grey-brown tarnish with copper showing through at the handle joints, foot rim and reeded bands\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApprox. 7 in. across the handles; approx. 3 3\/4 in. high\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and stable, lid seats correctly. Tarnish throughout and plate loss to the base metal at the high points and handle joints. Four blue crayon tally strokes on the underside from earlier inventory. Surface scratching consistent with commercial service.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eQuantity\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOne, as shown\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHotel silver is the one silver that looks correct unpolished. Domestic plate wants to be bright or it looks neglected; this was designed as equipment, and grey metal with copper breaking through at the edges reads as use rather than as failure. It sits comfortably next to ironstone, stoneware, raw wood and linen, and it does not ask the room to be formal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUse it for sugar, for salt at the table, for paperclips on a desk, for matches beside a stove, or for nothing at all on a shelf where the low wide silhouette and the two handles can do their work. It also stacks visually with other hotel silver if you are building a group, which is how most people end up owning more than one.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48070498386025,"sku":"VE-1647","price":238.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/222C58D2-7374-483E-BE2A-82C9616DFF48.jpg?v=1789626894"},{"product_id":"vintage-f-b-rogers-footed-silverplate-sugar-bowl-c-1905-1930","title":"Vintage F.B. Rogers Footed Silverplate Sugar Bowl, c. 1905–1930","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA covered sugar bowl with a body drawn as a near-perfect sphere, lifted clear of the table on four cast feet that scroll outward from a shaped and pierced apron. The handles are cast rather than formed, each one capped where it meets the shoulder with a curl of acanthus. The lid rises in a high cone and finishes in a cast tulip finial, its petals folded around a small rosette at the base of the bud.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is a piece built entirely out of curves. There is not a straight line anywhere on it, and the sphere sitting on four outswept feet gives it the slightly comic dignity of something balanced on tiptoe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe plating has worn through across the whole belly and over the crown of the lid, leaving a mottled field of warm copper-gold broken by islands of near-black tarnish, while the cast feet, handles and finial have held their plate and stayed grey. The underside is struck TRADE MARK above a crown flanked by 18 and 83, with F.B. ROGERS SILVER CO beneath it and the model number 1224 below that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRogers is the most contested name in American silverplate. The original Rogers brothers of Hartford began electroplating in the eighteen-forties and their name sold so reliably that for the rest of the century firm after firm attached some version of it to their own goods: Wm. Rogers, Rogers \u0026amp; Bro., 1847 Rogers Bros., Rogers Smith. F.B. Rogers was one of those firms, founded at Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts in 1883 and moved to Taunton three years later, where it spent almost two decades trading as the West Silver Company and making goods for yet another Rogers concern. New owners restored the F.B. Rogers name to its own output around 1904. It became a division of the National Silver Company in 1955 and was gone by the two-thousands.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne thing about the mark is worth stating plainly, because it is misread constantly. The 18 and the 83 flanking the crown are the year the firm was founded, not the year this bowl was made. That device stayed in use for the better part of a century, so a piece carrying it can date from almost anywhere across that span, and any listing that reads the mark as an 1883 manufacture date is wrong.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat the mark does give is a firm floor. A bowl struck F.B. ROGERS SILVER CO belongs to the period after the name was restored to the firm's own production around 1904, not to the West Silver years before it. The number 1224 is a catalogue model number and carries no date. Beyond that the evidence thins: the heavily cast feet, handles and finial belong to the ornamented revival hollowware the American plate houses were turning out before the plainer mid-century lines displaced it, which is a softer argument than the floor. On that evidence it is offered as c. 1905 to 1930.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVintage, offered as c. 1905 to 1930; floor documentary, ceiling from the ornament\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eF. B. Rogers Silver Co., Taunton, Massachusetts\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTRADE MARK over a crown flanked by 18 and 83, F.B. ROGERS SILVER CO, model 1224. The 1883 is the firm's founding year, not a date of manufacture\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCovered two-handled sugar bowl, spherical body on four cast scroll feet, conical lid with cast tulip finial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSilver plate over base metal\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFinish\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eUnpolished and heavily worn. Copper-gold base metal across the belly and lid, grey plate surviving on the cast elements\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApprox. 6 1\/2 in. across the handles; approx. 6 in. high to the finial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and stable on all four feet, lid seats correctly, finial firm. Plating worn through to the base metal over most of the body and lid, with tarnish and spotting throughout. Sold in this state as a decorative piece; it has not been replated and no food use is represented.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eQuantity\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOne, as shown\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe wear is the reason to buy it. A fully plated example of this bowl is a perfectly ordinary grey object. This one has spent long enough being handled that the silver has gone from the belly and the copper underneath has come up in a mottled gold that no finish could be applied to imitate, and against the black of the remaining tarnish it looks less like tableware than like something excavated.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt has real presence for its size, because the sphere on four splayed feet takes up visual room that a plain cylinder never would. Put it on a mantel, a bar cart, a bookshelf or a bathroom counter, fill it with matches, cotton, rings or nothing, and it will be the object guests pick up.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48070498418793,"sku":"VE-1648","price":255.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/FA0E14E0-7993-401E-8910-A623495A5E11.jpg?v=1789626872"},{"product_id":"antique-george-jones-crescent-transferware-set-of-20-c-1893-1920","title":"Antique George Jones Crescent Transferware Set of 20, c. 1893–1920","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA twenty-piece part dinner service in cream earthenware, printed in black and built on a moulded shape rather than a plain one. The rim rises into a band of raised vertical lappets at the outer edge, steps down through a row of small blocks and a fine beaded ring, and then flattens to carry the printed border. That relief is the expensive part of a plate like this: a flat rim comes off a simple mould, and this one did not.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe printed band is a continuous scrolling vine carrying stylised roses and shell-shaped blooms, drawn fine enough that the line work still reads at arm's length. It sits in black against the cream, the two colours with nothing between them, which is why the pattern looks graphic rather than pretty.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe set comprises two dinner plates, eight larger plates, seven smaller plates, one square serving plate and two small bowls. The serving plate is the piece to notice: canted corners, an oval well, and a raised rococo shell-and-scroll cartouche standing proud at one edge, the only moment of real flourish anywhere in the service.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCrazing runs through every piece. It is fine, even and overall, the kind that reads as a soft web across the glaze rather than as damage, and it is neither stained brown nor opened into lines.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGeorge Jones opened a showroom in Stoke in 1856 and built the Trent Potteries around 1865. The firm became George Jones \u0026amp; Sons in 1873 when his sons came in, the works was renamed the Crescent Potteries in 1907, and the business traded until 1951. Jones is best known now for majolica, which is seriously collected and which his factory made at the very top of the English trade, and that reputation carries across the rest of the output. This is not anonymous Staffordshire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mark on the reverse is his: a crescent enclosing the GJ monogram, with CRESCENT above it, and ENGLAND and GEO. JONES \u0026amp; SONS beneath. No pattern name is printed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat mark gives both ends of the date, which is unusual. ENGLAND begins appearing in British pottery marks from 1891, when American tariff law required imported goods to carry a country of origin, and the Crescent name starts appearing in George Jones marks from 1893. Both conditions have to hold, so 1893 is the earliest this can be. At the other end it reads ENGLAND rather than MADE IN ENGLAND, the longer form that becomes standard from around 1921, and it reads GEO. JONES \u0026amp; SONS with no Ltd. Those two are absences and carry a ceiling only, but they agree with each other. On that evidence it is offered as c. 1893 to 1920.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe technique is underglaze transfer printing. A design is engraved into a copper plate, inked, pulled onto tissue and laid onto the raw biscuit, then glazed over and fired, which puts the pattern permanently under the glaze where it cannot wear off. Black was the first colour the process used and stayed the most graphic, and combining it with a moulded relief rim is a deliberately costly piece of specification on what was meant to be an everyday service.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAntique, offered as c. 1893 to 1920 on documentary mark evidence\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGeorge Jones \u0026amp; Sons, Crescent Potteries, Stoke-upon-Trent, England\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCrescent enclosing the GJ monogram, CRESCENT above, ENGLAND and GEO. JONES \u0026amp; SONS below. No pattern name printed\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eContents\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTwenty pieces: two dinner plates, eight larger plates, seven smaller plates, one square serving plate, two small bowls\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCream earthenware with a moulded relief rim\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eUnderglaze black transfer-printed border of scrolling vine, roses and shell blooms\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNo chips, cracks or restoration found on inspection. Fine overall crazing throughout, even and unstained. Transfers crisp and unfaded on every piece. Light surface marking consistent with use.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eShipping\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePacked and boxed as a lot; freight quoted separately\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eQuantity\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOne set of twenty, as shown\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBlack on cream is the one antique china palette that does not read as antique china. Strip the colour out of a Victorian table and what is left is line and pattern, which is why these services sit comfortably in rooms where a floral service in pink and gold would look like an inheritance nobody wanted. It works against white plaster, against dark paint, against raw wood, and it photographs beautifully.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe crazing is part of the appeal rather than a concession. A century of it has put a soft web across the glaze that catches light the way old glass does, and it is the single clearest sign that a plate is what it says it is.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwenty pieces is enough to set a real table and enough to break up. Use the whole service, run the smaller plates as salad or dessert, hang a group of them on a wall, or put the square serving plate out on its own where the shell cartouche can do its work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48072660779113,"sku":"VE-1650","price":1138.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/41A7FAF3-2243-4BE6-ACE5-0A2916E9E895.jpg?v=1789631710"},{"product_id":"vintage-theodore-haviland-clinton-porcelain-set-of-7-c-1936-1957","title":"Vintage Theodore Haviland Clinton Porcelain, Set of 7, c. 1936–1957","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSeven pieces of American porcelain in a warm cream body: five plates and two rimmed bowls. The decoration is a continuous swag of blue flowers running the rim, forget-me-nots and small bellflowers carried on fine blue-grey stems that dip and rise around the circumference without repeating in an obvious way. A gilt line runs the outer edge and a second finer gilt line circles the well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe palette is the reason to look. There are three blues doing the work, a deep one for the stems and the flower centres, a mid tone for the petals, and a pale one for the small bells, and they sit on cream rather than white, which is what keeps the whole thing warm instead of cold.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe porcelain is thin, even and translucent, and the plates ring when tapped. The glaze is bright and uncrazed throughout, which is unusual on a set of this age and is the single best thing about it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mark reads Theodore Haviland, New York, MADE IN AMERICA, Clinton. The Haviland story starts with David Haviland, a New York china importer who moved to Limoges in 1842 to manufacture porcelain specifically for the American market rather than buy it. It is one of the odder arrangements in ceramics, an American firm making French porcelain for Americans, and it worked for well over a century. Theodore Haviland, his son, established his own house in 1892, and the firm later added American production under the New York name.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat gives the date without inference. The Theodore Haviland New York and Made in America mark was in use from 1936 to 1957. The Clinton pattern itself is recorded at circa 1936 to 1961 and is long discontinued. Where those overlap is where this sits, so it is offered as c. 1936 to 1957, documented at both ends rather than argued from style.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eClinton is a restrained pattern by Haviland standards. The firm made thousands of patterns, a great many of them dense with roses and heavy gilding, and this one goes the other way: a single thin blue garland, two hairlines of gold, and a lot of empty cream. That is why it still reads as contemporary and why it sets a table without dominating it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVintage, offered as c. 1936 to 1957 on documentary mark evidence\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTheodore Haviland, New York\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePattern\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eClinton, discontinued\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTheodore Haviland New York in a cloud cartouche, MADE IN AMERICA, Clinton, printed in red and black on the reverse\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eContents\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSeven pieces as photographed: five plates and two rimmed bowls\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePorcelain with blue transfer decoration and gilt banding\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eExcellent. No chips, cracks or restoration found on inspection, and no crazing anywhere in the set. Gilding bright and essentially unworn. Light surface marking consistent with careful use.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eShipping\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePacked and boxed as a lot; freight quoted separately\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eQuantity\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOne set of seven, as shown\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBlue and white china is a crowded field and most of it shouts. This does not. The garland is thin enough to read as a line drawing rather than a pattern, the gold is two hairlines instead of a band, and the cream ground softens everything, so a table set with it looks composed rather than formal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSeven pieces is a useful number. It sets four with plates and leaves two bowls for serving, it works mixed into plain white, and it breaks up beautifully: a single plate on a stand, a group hung on a wall, or one bowl out on its own holding fruit or keys. And because the glaze is uncrazed, these can actually be used rather than only looked at.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48074319560809,"sku":"VE-1653","price":650.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/7903927D-DB3E-4D8B-8801-004A8BE6C7EF_4_5005_c.jpg?v=1789649765"},{"product_id":"vintage-delmar-v-forbis-artichoke-signed-work-on-paper-1968","title":"Vintage Delmar V. Forbis Artichoke, Signed Work on Paper, 1968","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA single artichoke, drawn straight on and filling the sheet, its bracts overlapping in tiers and curling back at the tips into small hooks. The linework is fine and dark green-black, laid in close parallel strokes along the inner edge of each bract so the form turns and the head reads as round. Behind the line sits an olive tone filling the bracts, which is what gives the whole thing its weight.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe design is better than the subject has any right to be. The bracts are stylised almost to the point of flame, the base twists into a knot of leaves that reads as a root, and the whole silhouette comes to a point at top and bottom so it sits on the paper like a heraldic device rather than a vegetable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA fine rectangular line runs around the image. Beneath it, in the artist's own pencil, the sheet is inscribed Experiment I at the left and Delmar V. Forbis 11\/68 at the right.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is presented in a painted cream frame with gilt fillets, over an ochre mat with a dark inner line, cut to an octagonal window.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe inscription is the whole provenance and it is worth reading carefully. On a work on paper the title is conventionally written at the left of the sheet and the signature at the right, which is exactly the arrangement here: Experiment I at left, the signature and 11\/68 at right. In the signature position, that reads as a date, November 1968. It could alternatively be an edition fraction, impression eleven of sixty-eight, but edition numbers conventionally occupy the left position that the title already holds here, and a work called Experiment I suggests a trial rather than a formal numbered edition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEither way the pencil is the artist's. Whatever the medium turns out to be, this is an original signed work rather than a reproduction, and the inscription sits on the paper in graphite rather than being printed into the image, which means the artist held this particular sheet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo published record for Delmar V. Forbis appears in the auction databases or artist indexes. That is not a defect and it is not unusual. A great deal of good American work on paper from the nineteen-sixties came out of university studios and regional workshops, was signed, titled and given away or sold locally, and never reached a gallery that reported to a price database. The work is what it is regardless of whether a database has heard of it, and an unrecorded artist is the ordinary condition of the field rather than a warning sign.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe medium is not settled and this listing does not pretend otherwise. Read from photographs the image suggested an intaglio print, on the strength of the rectangular line around the image and the close parallel hatching. Examined in person the surface reads instead as drawing, coloured pencil or pastel worked directly on the sheet. What decides it is physical rather than visual: an intaglio plate mark is a bevelled impression pressed into the paper and can be felt, and printed ink stands slightly proud of the surface, while pencil and pastel sink into the tooth of the sheet and vary in density along a stroke. The work is offered as a signed original work on paper and no specific medium is claimed. If it is drawing, it is a unique work rather than one impression among several.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVintage, 1968, from the artist's own pencil inscription\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eArtist\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDelmar V. Forbis. No published auction or index record located\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTitle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eExperiment I, inscribed in pencil at lower left\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMedium\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOriginal signed work on paper. Read in person as coloured pencil or pastel; an intaglio print reading has not been formally excluded. No specific medium is claimed\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eInscription\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSigned and inscribed in pencil: Experiment I, Delmar V. Forbis 11\/68. Signed by hand in graphite, not a printed signature\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePresentation\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePainted cream frame with gilt fillets, ochre mat with dark inner line, octagonal window, glazed\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFrame approx. 17 in. by 20 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eImage and inscription clear and legible. The sheet is toned overall and carries scattered foxing. The sheet is adhered to the mat and shows surface skinning, fibre loss and adhesive residue along the mat window edges, visible at the corners and lower edge. Wear and small losses to the frame paint. Not examined out of the frame.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eQuantity\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOne, as shown\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn artichoke is one of the few vegetables built like architecture, and drawn this way it stops being food. The tiers of bracts read as scales, or feathers, or flame, and at a glance across a room the thing could as easily be a pine cone, a lotus or a crest on a shield. That ambiguity is why it holds a wall.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe colour does the rest. Olive green on toned cream paper, in a cream frame, is a quiet palette that goes almost anywhere, and it is particularly good in a kitchen or a dining room where the subject earns its place twice over. Hang it alone where the pencil inscription can be seen, or put it in a group of botanical works where it will be the one people look at longest.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48074367959145,"sku":"VE-1654","price":343.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/6EB7DCC2-48B8-4097-AE32-70C2E9FD46D3.jpg?v=1789650329"},{"product_id":"antique-english-brass-wire-haired-terrier-corkscrew-regd-1922","title":"Antique English Brass Wire-Haired Terrier Corkscrew, Regd. 1922","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA cast brass corkscrew in the form of a wire-haired fox terrier standing in show pose, modelled in full profile with the coat worked in fine broken texture, the ears folded forward, the tail carried upright. A cast ring rises from the dog's shoulders to serve as the finger pull. Beneath the feet a flat bar carries the breed name in raised capitals: WIRE-HAIRED TERRIER. A turned brass shank drops from the centre of the bar and holds a steel helix worm with a sharp point.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe brass has separated into two tones with age. High points and edges are bright gold where hands have polished them over decades of use; the recesses, the flat reverse and the underside of the bar carry a dark, close patina with scattered green. The worm is oxidised steel throughout, with the original point intact and no bend along the helix. The reverse of the dog carries the registration mark, impressed across the flank: REGD No 692112.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat number dates the design exactly. From 1884 the British Board of Trade issued design registrations in a single running sequence, and because the sequence is continuous the published tables convert any number straight into a year. The standard tables place the start of 1922 at 687144 and the start of 1923 at 694999. At 692112 this design falls between them, and was therefore registered with the Designs Registry during 1922.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA registration is a floor rather than a window. It fixes the earliest moment the pattern could be cast, so this corkscrew cannot predate 1922, and design protection ran for an initial five years extendable to fifteen, which puts the commercial life of the pattern between 1922 and the later 1930s. On that evidence it is offered as c. 1922–1935, with 1922 documented rather than argued.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe registration also explains what the object is. Breed-named brass figural corkscrews were protected commercial designs sold as barware through the 1920s and 1930s, not one-off foundry work, and the breed is cast into the frame bar rather than left to the buyer to identify. Surviving registrations across the family run through the same decades, a greyhound registered in 1922 and an Airedale in 1933 among the documented examples. The wire fox terrier was among the most fashionable dogs in Britain and America in exactly those years, which is why a maker registering a dog corkscrew in 1922 reached for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe modelling is knowledgeable rather than generic. The stance, the head and the broken coat all read as taken from a dog the modeller had seen, and at a little over four inches the whole thing is a competent small sculpture before it is a tool.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eType\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFigural finger-pull corkscrew\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSubject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWire-haired fox terrier, named on the frame bar\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterials\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCast brass handle, steel helix worm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEngland\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRegistration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eREGD No 692112, registered with the British Designs Registry in 1922\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1922–1935\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWIRE-HAIRED TERRIER cast in raised capitals on the frame bar; REGD No 692112 impressed on the reverse of the figure\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOverall Length\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e4.5 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFrame Width\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e2.25 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and working. Two-tone brass with bright high points and dark patina in the recesses and across the reverse. Worm oxidised, point intact, helix true. Casting complete with no losses or repairs.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt works, which is most of the pleasure of it. The ring takes a finger, the worm bites, and a small brass dog comes up out of the drawer whenever a bottle needs opening. Left out on a bar cart or a kitchen shelf it reads as a sculpture rather than a utensil, four and a half inches of good English casting with a century of handling in the surface.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is also that unusual thing, a small antique that can be dated to the year from a number on its own back. For a terrier household it is the obvious gift, and for anyone building a bar it is the piece that gets picked up and turned over by every guest who notices it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48075762139241,"sku":"VE-1656","price":438.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/65CD5633-763A-474D-BACA-98B52B2E4677.jpg?v=1789730557"},{"product_id":"vintage-holiday-designs-avocado-drip-glaze-tea-canister-c-1964-1982","title":"Vintage Holiday Designs Avocado Drip Glaze Tea Canister, c. 1964–1982","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA lidded ceramic tea canister in the olive-avocado drip glaze that defined American kitchens for about fifteen years. The body is a plain straight-sided cylinder. The lid is a wide dome rising to a squat mushroom knob, with a deep flange underneath that drops down inside the jar and seats it firmly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe glaze is what carries it. Glossy olive over a cream body, running darker as it moves, so it breaks to a smoky brown-black along the rim, across the shoulder of the lid and around the lower edge where it pooled and ran. Fine dark specks are suspended all through it. The whole surface carries a close network of crazing with age settled into the lines, the kind you only get from decades rather than from a finish.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTEA is lettered across the front in a tall narrow serif in near-black, set large enough to fill most of the width of the jar. It is the only decoration on the piece and it does not want for any more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLow on the wall near the foot, impressed into the clay and glazed over, the piece is marked \u003cem\u003eholiday designs\u003c\/em\u003e in lower case with \u003cem\u003eH4019\u003c\/em\u003e and a copyright symbol beside \u003cem\u003eU.S.A.\u003c\/em\u003e The underside of the lid carries a separate mould number, 2484.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mark settles this, which is better than dating it by its colour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHoliday Designs was a pottery in Sebring, Ohio, on South 12th Street at Baugh Avenue. Eugene T. Meskill bought the plant in 1964 and gave it that name, and it produced canisters, cookie jars, teapots and accessory ware for the kitchen and gift trade. Meskill held it until 1982, when it was sold to Designer Accents of New Jersey, which was itself later bought by Richard C. Durstein of Pittsburgh. In the consolidation that followed, the lower-priced Holiday Designs lines were discontinued. Anything carrying this mark was therefore made between 1964 and 1982, and that is the date offered here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe glaze narrows it further within that run. Avocado green, alongside harvest gold, ran American kitchens from roughly the middle 1960s until the end of the 1970s, on appliances, countertops, linens and every piece of housewares that could be made in it. It arrived with the shift away from the clinical white and pastel kitchens of the 1950s, saturated the market through the early seventies, and was gone by about 1980, displaced by almond and a return to white. A canister in this exact olive belongs to the middle of the Holiday Designs run rather than either end of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe drip glaze is the other half of the story. Flowing glazes that run and pool and break dark at the edges are very old, and American art potteries had been chasing them since the turn of the century, but by the 1960s the effect had been industrialised and turned out at volume for exactly this trade. The result is a piece that looks handmade at arm's length and reveals itself as production ware when you pick it up. That is not a criticism. It is precisely why so much of it was bought and why it reads so well now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is also a survivor on its own. Canisters were sold in graduated sets, usually flour, sugar, coffee and tea, and the tea canister is the smallest and the one most likely to be separated from its siblings over fifty years of kitchens and moves. Finding one intact with its correct lid is more of a coincidence than it sounds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eType\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLidded ceramic kitchen canister\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHoliday Designs, Sebring, Ohio\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGlaze\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGlossy olive-avocado drip glaze breaking dark brown at rim, shoulder and foot\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLettering\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTEA across the front in a tall narrow serif, near-black\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1964–1982\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eholiday designs, H4019, copyright symbol and U.S.A. impressed near the foot; mould number 2484 on the underside of the lid\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e8.5 in. with the lid\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDiameter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e5 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and complete with its original lid, which seats correctly. Crazing throughout the glaze with age darkening in the lines, which is expected and not a flaw in a piece of this date. No chips, cracks or restoration found. The unglazed base carries iron staining and kiln deposits from firing. Interior clean.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAvocado has come all the way back around, and this is the honest version of it rather than a reproduction reaching for the look. The glaze does the work: warm olive that turns almost black where it ran, glossy enough to catch a kitchen light, and a colour that sits beautifully against wood, brass, cream ceramic and terracotta.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUse it. It holds tea, coffee beans, sugar or utensils, and the flanged lid seats tightly enough to keep it honest. Failing that, it is a good-looking object on an open shelf that happens to have a lid.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48085479653481,"sku":"VE-1672","price":200.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/IMG_4799.jpg?v=1789791159"},{"product_id":"vintage-california-pottery-embossed-fruit-cookie-jar-c-1945-1960","title":"Vintage California Pottery Embossed Fruit Cookie Jar, c. 1945–1960","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA California pottery cookie jar in a bright chrome-yellow glaze, moulded in relief with a still life of fruit that wraps most of the way around the body. A heavy bunch of grapes sits at the centre, a pineapple with its spiked crown beside it, a pear and a peach below, a husk of corn at the right, and leaves and curling tendrils filling the gaps. Every element stands proud of the ground and has then been tinted by hand, so the grapes carry an olive wash, the pineapple a deep amber, the pear and peach a warm orange that blends into the yellow, and the leaves a green that runs to blue-green at the edges.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe body swells out from a narrow foot ring and draws back in at the shoulder, and the rim is cut in a soft scalloped line. The lid is a shallow dome with a deep flange that drops down inside, and it is finished with a moulded fruit finial, a peach painted yellow on one cheek and red on the other with a single black stroke for the stem line.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe glaze is heavily crazed across the whole piece, a dense fine network with age browning settled into the lines, which shows up most clearly across the lid and the plain upper body. The interior is glazed the same yellow and is clean. The base is glazed as well, with the mark impressed into it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe base is impressed MADE IN CALIFORNIA, and that mark is doing more work than it looks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCalifornia was the centre of American household ceramics for most of the twentieth century, with the Los Angeles basin as the main production region in the country. The period around the Second World War produced the greatest growth the US ceramic industry ever saw, because the war cut off the European and Japanese imports that had supplied the American market, and California potteries stepped straight into the gap. By 1948, the peak year, more than eight hundred ceramic concerns were operating in the state. Five big producers dominate the histories of the era, Vernon Kilns, J. A. Bauer, Metlox, Pacific Clay Products and Gladding McBean, but the eight hundred figure is the real story: most California pottery came from small and medium shops turning out kitchen and giftware at volume.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt did not last. Through the 1950s trade agreements favouring Asian manufacturing let competitively priced imports back into the American market, and only a fraction of those eight hundred potteries were still working by the early 1960s. Vernon Kilns closed in 1958 and Bauer in 1962.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat arc is why a jar stamps MADE IN CALIFORNIA on its base rather than a maker's name. Domestic origin was the selling proposition in exactly the years when imports were the threat, and a great many of the smaller shops marked the state rather than themselves. On the mark, the moulded and hand-tinted decoration, and the depth of the crazing, it is offered as c. 1945 to 1960. No maker's name appears anywhere on the piece and none is claimed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe hand tinting is worth looking at closely. The relief came out of the mould identical every time; the colour did not. Someone sat with a brush and washed each fruit in, and the way the orange on the pear bleeds up into the yellow ground, or the green on one leaf runs bluer than its neighbour, is the record of that hand rather than a printing fault.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eType\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLidded ceramic cookie jar\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCalifornia, impressed MADE IN CALIFORNIA on the base\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMoulded fruit in relief, hand-tinted over a chrome-yellow glaze\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFruit\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGrapes, pineapple, pear, peach and corn, with leaves and tendrils\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFinial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMoulded peach, yellow and red\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1945–1960\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMADE IN CALIFORNIA impressed on the base. No maker's name\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e9.5 in. with the lid\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDiameter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e8 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eComplete with its original lid, which seats correctly on its flange. Heavy crazing throughout with age browning in the lines, expected in an earthenware glaze of this date. There is a small chip to the edge of the lid and a shallow glaze loss on one side of the body below the rim. No cracks and no restoration found. Interior glazed and clean.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a yellow that modern glazes do not make any more, deep and slightly acid, and against the orange and olive of the fruit it does something no amount of tasteful neutral will. On an open kitchen shelf or a dresser top it is the thing the eye goes to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe crazing is part of the appeal rather than a problem to look past. It gives the surface a fine web that catches light the way old glaze does, and it is the clearest signal that this came out of a California kiln seventy-odd years ago and not off a shelf last year.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48085712961641,"sku":"VE-1673","price":200.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/B0B8CEB3-38AA-4999-AF09-6CCBFC2DAA8A.jpg?v=1789792193"},{"product_id":"vintage-japanese-hand-painted-majolica-biscuit-jar-c-1921-1941","title":"Vintage Japanese Hand-Painted Majolica Biscuit Jar, c. 1921–1941","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA lidded ceramic jar in soft cream, moulded in relief and finished by hand. The body is divided into alternating vertical panels: broad smooth fields carrying sprays of prunus blossom, and narrow panels worked in a fine moulded basketweave that catches the light differently from the plain ground beside it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe blossom is the best part. Each flower stands proud of the surface with scalloped petals in soft green and a yellow eye, strung along thin brown branches that wander up the panels and continue over the lid without a break. The green sits in the moulded relief and pools slightly at the petal edges, which is what tells you it was brushed in by a person rather than printed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA band of warm orange-brown runs around the rim and the outer edge of the lid, laid on in a single confident stroke with the brush marks still readable in it. The lid itself has a gently undulating outline, a moulded bar handle across the middle, and the same blossom and basketweave treatment as the body. Two short lugs project from the sides of the jar, each ending in a flared knob.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe glaze carries a fine all-over crazing, dense and even, with age settled into the lines. The base is glazed with an unglazed foot ring and printed in black with a blossom device and lettering.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mark on the base is a hand-painted Japanese export mark, and the way American import law worked gives that mark a usable date range.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe United States has required imported goods to be marked with their country of origin in English since the McKinley Tariff of 1891. For Japanese ceramics the wording changed in a way collectors can still read off the base. Until 1921 export wares were marked Nippon. From 1921 they had to say Japan or Made in Japan instead. After the Second World War, through the Allied occupation, exports carried Made in Occupied Japan, roughly 1946 to 1952. From 1952 onward the wording went back to Japan or Made in Japan.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis piece is not marked Nippon, which puts it after 1921, and it is not marked Occupied Japan, which takes the 1946 to 1952 window off the table. That leaves the interwar export years or the period after 1952. The moulded relief with hand-brushed colour, the soft cream and orange-brown palette, and the depth of the crazing all belong to the earlier of those two, so it is offered as c. 1921 to 1941.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat it comes out of is a very large trade. Between the wars Japanese potteries turned out enormous quantities of moulded relief earthenware with coloured glazes for the American and British markets, work the trade generally files under Japanese majolica. It was affordable, it was cheerful, and it was decorated by hand at speed by people who had done the same spray of blossom thousands of times. That is why the brushwork here is quick and assured rather than careful, and it is a large part of the charm.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe prunus, the plum or cherry blossom, is the motif those workshops returned to more than any other. It carries a specific meaning in Japan as the flower that opens while the winter is still on, before the leaves come, and it stands for endurance and the turn of the season.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eType\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLidded ceramic biscuit or storage jar\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eJapan, export ware for the American market\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMoulded prunus blossom and basketweave panels, hand-painted in green, yellow and orange-brown over a cream ground\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1921–1941\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePrinted black blossom device with hand-painted export lettering on the base\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWidth\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e6 in. across the handles\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDepth\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e5 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e5.5 in. with the lid\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eComplete with its original lid, which seats correctly. Fine all-over crazing with light age staining in the lines, expected in earthenware of this date and not a fault. No chips or cracks found and no restoration. A few dark specks are fired into the glaze from the kiln. No bail or swing handle is present.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGreen and cream is an easier pairing to live with than it sounds, and the orange-brown rim is what lifts it. Put this on an open kitchen shelf and it reads as warm and quiet rather than loud, which is rare for something with this much going on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt has a lid that fits and a body that holds a useful amount, so it will take tea, sugar, biscuits, or the small things that end up loose on a counter. It also works perfectly well as a jar that simply sits there being handsome, which is what most of them do now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48089232408681,"sku":"VE-1677","price":192.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/834E90AA-8946-473E-BD0A-94F66A2EFE0C.jpg?v=1789811999"},{"product_id":"cream-painted-wrought-iron-ivy-vine-bottle-rack-c-1995-2010","title":"Cream Painted Wrought Iron Ivy Vine Bottle Rack, c. 1995–2010","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA wine rack in cream-painted iron, built as an open wire frame with a vine of ivy leaves running diagonally across the face and a row of rings to cradle the bottles. It works two ways, standing on its own on a counter or a sideboard, or hung flat against a wall.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe frame is round-section rod, bent rather than cast, forming a clean geometric outline that the decoration then breaks up. The rings sit in a stepped row so each bottle lies clear of the next. Between them the rod is turned into open scrolls and loose C-curves, so the negative space does as much work as the metal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe ivy is the point of it. Leaves are cut from sheet, each one shaped with a notched five-lobed outline and a raised central vein, and threaded along a twisted stem that climbs the diagonal. They sit at different angles, some flat to the frame and some turned out, which is what keeps the vine from reading as a repeat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe finish is a warm cream, worn back at the leaf edges and the high points of the scrolls to show darker metal beneath, with small points of honest oxidation where the joints are.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is decorative ironwork rather than smith's work, and the construction says so plainly. The rod is machine-bent and welded, not forged and not riveted. The leaves are die-stamped from sheet in a single operation, which is why every one carries the same veining. Nothing here was made one at a time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat dates it is the finish. A cream ground deliberately rubbed back at the edges to expose the metal underneath is not wear, it is a decision made at the factory, and that decision belongs to a specific run in American home decor. The distressed painted look was launched commercially when Rachel Ashwell opened her Shabby Chic shop in Santa Monica in 1989, and through the 1990s it moved from a California boutique idea into the mainstream, carrying with it a whole vocabulary of cream-painted metal, ivy and grapevine motifs and French country references. By the later 2000s the look had passed its peak.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo the rack is offered as c. 1995 to 2010. The frame carries genuine oxidation at the welds, which takes time and is not part of the applied finish, and that sits comfortably at the older end of the range.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWorth being straight about what it is and is not. It is not antique, it is not hand-forged, and it makes no claim to be. It is well-designed production ironwork from the tail of the twentieth century, and the design is better than most of what was made alongside it: the ivy is properly drawn, the leaves are set at varying angles rather than stamped flat in a line, and the ring spacing is worked out so the bottles actually sit right.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eType\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWine bottle rack, free-standing or wall-mounted\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBent and welded round-section iron rod with die-stamped sheet ivy leaves\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFinish\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCream paint rubbed back at the leaf edges and scroll high points\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eIvy vine on a twisted stem running diagonally across the face, open scrolls between the rings\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1995–2010\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWidth\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e15 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDepth\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e8 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e14 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and stable, all joints firm and all leaves present. Paint worn at the edges and high points, partly as applied and partly from use. Small points of surface oxidation at the welds. No bends, breaks or repairs found.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWine racks are usually either furniture or an appliance, and this one is neither. It is small enough to live on a counter, a sideboard or a kitchen shelf without taking the space a cabinet would, and open enough that it reads as decoration with bottles in it rather than as storage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCream ironwork is quietly useful in a way heavier finishes are not. It disappears against a pale wall and lifts against a dark one, it sits happily with painted furniture, glass and white ceramic, and the ivy gives it somewhere to belong in a kitchen, a pantry or a garden room. Empty it still looks like something, which is more than most racks manage.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48090980712553,"sku":"VE-1683","price":255.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"antique-scoop-with-turned-wood-handle-and-brass-ferrule-c-1890-1940","title":"Antique Scoop with Turned Wood Handle and Brass Ferrule, c. 1890–1940","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA small serving scoop with a flat spade bowl, a tapered round shank, and a turned hardwood handle seated in a brass ferrule.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe bowl is a long rounded rectangle, barely dished, with square shoulders that soften into a blunt end. It is the profile of a tool meant to slide under something and lift it rather than to hold a measure, and the face carries the fine random scratching of long working use.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe shank rises from the back of the bowl in a smooth taper and enters the ferrule without a visible weld or join, the metal drawn rather than assembled.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe handle is turned from a close grained hardwood, banded with two shallow collars near the ferrule and left plain to a slightly domed end. The wood has darkened unevenly with handling, deepest at the collars where a hand sits, and the original finish survives in the grain.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe brass ferrule is a plain sleeve with a light verdigris bloom at its lower edge where it meets the shank. The metal of the bowl is a soft grey with a low sheen, unpolished, with no break in the surface showing a different metal underneath.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe construction is the evidence worth having. A tapered metal shank set into a brass ferrule with a separately turned wooden handle is a hand assembled tool, made the way small kitchen and table implements were made before moulded one piece handles and welded stainless shanks became general. That method runs from the nineteenth century through the early decades of the twentieth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe bowl reinforces it. The spade profile is drawn and planished rather than pressed in a die, and the shoulders are slightly uneven from one side to the other in the way a hand finished piece is and a stamped one is not.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo maker's mark, pattern number or metal standard is visible anywhere on the piece. That absence sets an outer limit and not a starting point, and it also means the metal itself cannot be named from the photographs. The grey tone, the low unpolished sheen and the complete absence of any copper showing through at the wear points are consistent with a solid white metal such as pewter or nickel silver rather than with plate over copper, but this is offered as an observation and not as an identification.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eScoops of this form served a range of uses across a kitchen and a shop counter, lifting and portioning where a spoon bowl would have been wrong. The wear tells you it did that work for a long time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1890–1940. Dated from construction. The separately turned wooden handle set on a tapered shank in a brass ferrule, and the drawn and planished spade bowl, belong to the hand assembled tradition that precedes moulded handles and welded stainless construction. No mark of any kind is present, and that absence gives an outer limit only\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eUnattributed. No mark found\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eServing or lifting scoop. Flat spade bowl, tapered shank, turned handle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterials\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSolid white metal bowl and shank, unidentified and unmarked. Brass ferrule. Turned hardwood handle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNone found\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 9 in. long overall, the bowl about 3 in. by 2 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood working antique condition. Bowl straight and sound with no splits, cracks or repairs found. Overall fine scratching to the bowl face from use. Handle firm on the shank with no movement, wood sound with no cracks, darkened with handling. Light verdigris bloom at the lower edge of the ferrule. Not polished, offered as found\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOld kitchen tools are the cheapest way to make a modern kitchen look like somebody cooks in it. This one has the two things that matter: a shape you immediately understand, and a handle worn by a hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt works. Flour, sugar, coffee, bath salts, potting compost, anything that wants lifting rather than pouring. Left in a crock with wooden spoons it reads as part of a working kitchen rather than as decoration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe pairing of grey metal with warm darkened wood and a ring of brass is a quietly good combination, and it photographs beautifully on a marble slab or a scrubbed board. For a shop, it is the sort of small piece that sells from a counter basket without anyone having to be sold on it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67557733826665,"sku":"VE-1756","price":236.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_debc53e6-4f53-45a0-822b-78d98095b274.jpg?v=1790582253"},{"product_id":"antique-sage-green-tin-canister-chromolitho-scrap-c-1900-1935","title":"Antique Sage Green Tin Canister, Chromolitho Scrap, c. 1900–1935","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA cylindrical tinplate canister, painted overall in a soft sage green and decorated round the body with applied floral groups under a sealing varnish.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe form is a plain straight sided can with a rolled bead at the rim, a lapped vertical side seam running the full height of the body, and a separate base disc crimped in at the bottom. Nothing has been added to the shape. The whole of the decoration is on the surface.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThree floral groups are set around the body at intervals. The first is a full mixed bouquet in scarlet, white and yellow with blue cornflowers and trailing green. The second is a cluster of pale lilac and white daisies with a small butterfly. The third is a bolder spray of orange and gold sunflowers with two butterflies worked into it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe applied papers stand up off the surface in relief. Each flower, leaf and butterfly is cut around its own outline, so the edges of the petals and the wings are the edges of the paper, and the whole group sits proud enough to catch the light along one side.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe green ground is laid on by hand with the brush marks left showing, and it is worn through to bare metal at the rim and around the base where the piece has been set down and picked up for a very long time. The interior is unpainted, with the bare tinned surface gone to an even deep bloom of oxidation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe decoration is the evidence, and it is better than it first appears.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLook at how the florals are printed. The colour is laid in flat, solid areas with hard edges and a fine drawn black keyline running round every form, and there is no halftone dot screen anywhere in them. The poppy is a flat orange red with a flat lighter highlight and a ring of drawn black dots at the centre. The cornflower is flat blue against flat white. The butterfly is a set of flat colour fields inside a black outline. That is chromolithography, printed from a separate stone or plate for each colour. Offset halftone, which replaced it, leaves a rosette of dots under magnification and there is none here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen look at how they are cut. Every piece is die cut to its own outline, right down to the spiky petals of the cornflower and the shape of a butterfly wing, and every piece is embossed so that it stands in low relief. That is scrap, the die cut embossed chromolithographic sheets produced in enormous quantity for the album and decorating trade, largely in Germany. Scrap of this kind was made from around the 1870s, peaked before the First World War, and had effectively ceased by the Second. Postwar revivals are offset printed, flatter and far less finely cut.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe method of application matters too. Mid century decoupage builds varnish up in many coats until the paper edge is buried and the surface feels flush, which is the whole point of the technique as it was taught. Here the paper edges stand proud and the relief is intact, which means the scrap was laid with a thin size in the older manner rather than sunk under a modern finish. The varnish over it has crazed into a fine net, visible across the white chrysanthemum, and that is the behaviour of a spirit varnish with age. A modern polyurethane yellows but does not craze this way.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe can agrees with all of it. A lapped vertical side seam, a rolled rim bead and a separately crimped base disc are early tinplate construction, and the interior has oxidised evenly right through rather than in patches, which takes decades in a dry store.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA correction is owed. This was first catalogued at c. 1955 to 1980 as mid century American home craft, on the assumption that any paper floral under varnish on a tin was decoupage of that period. That was wrong twice over. The printing is chromolithographic with no halftone screen, which the mid century cannot produce, and the paper stands in embossed relief rather than being buried under built up varnish, which is the opposite of how mid century decoupage was done. The date has been moved back accordingly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo maker's mark, label or printed brand survives, which is expected given that any original can printing is under the paint. That absence gives an outer limit rather than a starting point.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePieces like this were made to be used, not shown. That is why they wear the way they do, and why one with the varnish still holding and no paper lifted is worth pausing over.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1900–1935. Dated from the printing, the application and the can. The applied florals are die cut and embossed chromolithographic scrap, printed in flat plate colours with drawn keylines and no halftone dot screen of any kind; scrap of this type was produced from the 1870s and had effectively ended by the Second World War. The paper stands in relief with its edges proud, which is thin size application in the older manner rather than the built up buried edge of mid century decoupage. The varnish has crazed into a fine net, as a spirit varnish does with age. The body is early tinplate with a lapped vertical side seam, a rolled rim bead and a separately crimped base. No mark or label survives, and that absence gives an outer limit only\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eUnattributed. The scrap is almost certainly German export production; the decoration is unsigned domestic work\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStraight sided cylindrical canister, open topped, rolled rim bead, lapped vertical side seam, separately crimped base\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTinplate, hand painted with applied chromolithographic scrap under varnish\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSage green painted ground with brush marks left showing. Three applied floral groups: a mixed bouquet with poppies and cornflowers, a lilac and white daisy cluster with a butterfly, and an orange and gold sunflower spray with butterflies\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNone. No lid present\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 5 in. diameter by 7 in. high\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood honest condition for its age, offered as found. Sound and stable with no dents, splits or perforations found. Paint worn through to bare metal at the rim and the base from long use. Scrap flat with no lifting and the relief intact, the varnish crazed overall and dulled but holding, with surface abrasion across the white chrysanthemum. Interior unpainted with deep even oxidation throughout and age staining. Base oxidised with rust. Suited to dry use or as a holder rather than to liquids\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSage green with scarlet, gold and lilac is a harder colour story than it sounds, and this one works because the green is muted and slightly dirty rather than fresh. It will sit against pine, oak, painted brick and old plaster without arguing with any of them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUse it. Wooden spoons and whisks by a stove, secateurs and twine on a potting bench, brushes on a desk, or dried stems and seed heads on a kitchen shelf. It is exactly the right height to keep a utensil crock from disappearing behind a hob.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe detail that repays a close look is the scrap. Those flowers were printed from a stone, one colour at a time, embossed and die cut around every petal by a German works that has been gone for the better part of a century, and somebody cut them off a sheet and laid them on a tin because it made a plain thing worth keeping. You cannot buy that paper any more, at any price.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe wear is the reason to buy it rather than a reason to hesitate. The rubbed rim and the thin base are where somebody's hands went for decades, and that is the thing a reproduction can never supply.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67557759975529,"sku":"VE-1759","price":394.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_0bff3c47-a330-46b6-92cb-a2af483616dd.jpg?v=1790582538"},{"product_id":"vintage-philadelphia-cream-cheese-wood-shipping-box-c-1920-1960","title":"Antique Philadelphia Cream Cheese Wood Shipping Box, c. 1900–1930","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA shallow wooden shipping box printed on all four sides with one of the most recognisable names in American groceries.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe form is a low open tray. Four thin sawn softwood sides stand around a set in bottom panel, the long sides running past the ends and pinned through at each corner. There is no lid with it. The whole thing is barely two inches deep, which is the depth of a single layer of packed cheese and the reason the box is shaped the way it is.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross each side, printed directly into the wood in a deep ink that has gone almost navy, is PHILADELPHIA in a heavy slab serif with CREAM CHEESE stacked beside it in a lighter condensed face. The same line runs round all four sides, so the box reads from any angle it is set down on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe wood is a pale even softwood with a warm honey tone on the outside and a grey oxidised surface within. One end has taken most of the wear: the printing there is broken up, with letters missing strokes where the ink has been rubbed away, and the arrises are rounded and grubby from handling. The opposite faces are far crisper. Small round nail holes pass through the printed band at intervals, each ringed with a dark iron stain.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe name on the box has a longer history than most people assume, and almost none of it is in Philadelphia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCream cheese of this kind was made in 1872 by William Lawrence, a dairyman at Chester in New York, who was working towards Neufchatel and added too much cream. In 1880 Lawrence went into partnership with the New York distributor A. L. Reynolds and the two of them chose the name Philadelphia for it, because Philadelphia and the country around it had a reputation at the time for the best dairy in America. The name was marketing from the first day and the cheese has never been made there.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the early years of the last century the trademark passed to the Phenix Cheese Company of South Edmeston, New York, and in 1928 Phenix merged with Kraft to form the Kraft Phenix Cheese Company. The brand has been in that family ever since.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat chronology sets the one firm limit this box has. It cannot predate 1880, because the name did not exist before then.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe box carries no corporate name at all. There is no Phenix, no Kraft and no Kraft Phenix anywhere on it, and that absence is the most useful thing about it. Once Phenix merged with Kraft in 1928 the Kraft name went onto the packaging and stayed there, so a shipping box printed with the brand alone belongs to the period before that change rather than after it. An absence of that kind sets an outer limit and not a starting point, but here the limit is a real one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe object agrees. The sides and the bottom are solid thin sawn softwood, not plywood, cut to a scant quarter inch and left from the saw. The nails were iron and have rusted in place, staining dark haloes into the wood around each hole, which is decades of damp and drying rather than a season of storage. The interior has gone grey with oxidation and carries dark product staining worked down into the grain, and the wear across the four printed faces is uneven in the way a box wears when it sits on a shelf with one side out, with letters on one end rubbed away to broken strokes while the opposite face stays crisp.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1900–1930. The hard floor is 1880, when the Philadelphia name was first used, so the box cannot be earlier. The ceiling is set by what is missing: no Phenix, no Kraft and no Kraft Phenix name appears anywhere, and Kraft branding became standard on the packaging after the 1928 merger. Construction supports the earlier reading, with solid thin sawn softwood rather than plywood, iron nails rusted in place and staining the wood around their holes, and an interior grey with oxidation and marked with old product staining. No box maker's imprint or date code is present\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBrand\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePhiladelphia Cream Cheese. Created 1872 by William Lawrence of Chester, New York, named in 1880, trademark to the Phenix Cheese Company in the early twentieth century, Phenix merged with Kraft in 1928\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eShallow open shipping box. Four thin sawn sides pinned at the corners around a set in bottom panel. No lid\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSolid thin sawn softwood, not plywood, printed directly in dark blue ink. Iron nailed\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePrinting\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePHILADELPHIA in heavy slab serif with CREAM CHEESE stacked alongside in condensed capitals, repeated on all four sides\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBrand printing only. No corporate mark, box maker's imprint or date code\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 12 in. long by 7.5 in. deep by 1.75 in. high\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood honest condition, offered as found. Sound and square with all four sides tight at the corners and the bottom panel firm. Printing legible on all four sides, worn and broken on one end where letters have lost strokes, crisper elsewhere. Small round nail holes through the printed band. Interior grey with oxidation, with old dark product staining to the bottom panel and iron staining around the nail holes. Rounded edges and handling grime throughout. Not cleaned, sanded or refinished\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBrand recognition is the whole argument and it needs no explaining. Everyone who picks this up knows the name, most of them have a tub of it in the refrigerator right now, and almost nobody knows the cheese has never had anything to do with Philadelphia. That is a good thing to be able to tell somebody.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShallow is what makes it useful. It is the right depth to corral the things that otherwise migrate: keys and sunglasses on a hall table, salt, pepper and a pepper mill on a counter, remotes on a coffee table, soaps beside a sink, pens and stamps on a desk. Print on all four sides means it works whichever way round it is turned.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVisually it does a great deal with very little. Deep navy type on pale honey softwood is a strong graphic and it sits as well in a modern kitchen as in a farmhouse one, on open shelving, on a marble counter or propped upright on a plate rail as a piece of type.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor a shop it is the sort of small, cheerful, immediately understood object that sells from a counter without anyone needing to be persuaded, and it merchandises other stock beautifully while it waits.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67558760185961,"sku":"VE-1766","price":324.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_2de73f68-84b3-4d54-9ed2-75e9cd5ba8fe.jpg?v=1790589632"},{"product_id":"vintage-cast-brass-openwork-bird-and-scroll-trivet-c-1950-1980","title":"Antique Cast Brass Openwork Bird and Scroll Trivet, c. 1900–1940","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA cast brass trivet, pierced right through, with two stylised birds turning towards each other inside a wreath of scrolling tendrils.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe birds are the whole reason to look at it. Each is drawn as a single flat plane with no modelling at all, a plump breast, a small triangular beak and one incised ring for an eye, and out of each body sweeps a long wing that stops being a wing halfway along and becomes a scroll. They face one another across the centre with their beaks almost touching.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEverything else is spirals. Volutes and C scrolls fill the field between and beneath the birds, curling back on themselves so that the open ground and the metal carry roughly equal weight, which is what stops a pierced design of this density from reading as clutter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA broad plain rim runs round the outside, flat on top and unornamented, and it does the same job a mount does on a print. Three small peened heads sit flush in that rim where the feet are riveted through from below.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe finish has worn the way old gilded brass does. The raised faces of the birds and the scrolls are rubbed to a warm bright gold where hands and cloths have reached them, while the recesses and the undercuts hold a dark near black deposit, and across parts of the surface the gilding has broken up and the metal beneath has gone granular.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is cast in a single piece. The design, the scrollwork and the outer rim are continuous metal with no joins, the edges of the piercing carry the slight taper that a pattern needs to draw from a mould, and the recessed ground has the fine granular texture of a sand cast surface rather than the smoothness of a stamping.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe feet are separate and riveted through the rim. That matters for dating. A later decorative trivet has its feet cast integral with the body because it is cheaper, and separately made feet peened through from below is the older and more laborious way of doing it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe drawing is Art Nouveau rather than after it. The bird reduced to a flat silhouette, the wing that dissolves into a whiplash scroll, the circular field filled edge to edge and the refusal of any modelling or shading are the vocabulary as it was actually drawn around the turn of the twentieth century, and behind it sits the Celtic revival that fed the same movement. Later foundries quoting the style tend to soften it, add relief and tidy the asymmetry, and none of that has happened here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe surface supports the same reading. The gilding is worn through to bare metal on every raised face and has broken up rather than simply dulled, and the dark deposit in the undercuts is hard and layered. That is long handling, not storage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo maker's mark is present on the face. Cast brass trivets are conventionally marked on the reverse rather than the front, so the absence here says only that the front is unmarked. An absence of that kind sets an outer limit rather than a starting point.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1900–1940. Dated from construction, design and finish rather than documentation. Sand cast in one piece with drafted piercing, and feet made separately and riveted through the rim rather than cast integral, which is the older and more costly method. The two bird and scroll drawing is Art Nouveau as the movement actually drew it, flat and unmodelled, rather than a later softened revival of it. The gilding is worn through to bare metal on the raised faces and broken up rather than dulled. No mark is present on the face, and that absence gives an outer limit only\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eUnattributed. No mark on the face\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCircular pierced trivet with a broad plain rim, raised on three riveted feet\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCast brass with a worn gilt finish\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTwo stylised birds in flight facing one another, each with an incised ring eye and a wing drawn out into a scroll, set in a pierced ground of volutes and C scrolls within a plain rim\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNone found on the face\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 8 in. diameter by 0.75 in. high on its feet\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good. Sound and heavy with no cracks, bends or losses to the piercing. All three feet present and tight. Gilding worn through to bare metal on the raised faces with hard dark deposit in the recesses and granular surface where the finish has broken up, consistent with long handling. Offered uncleaned. The green marble slab shown in the photographs is a display surface and is not included\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA trivet is one of the few decorative objects that still has a job. This one takes a teapot, a casserole or a hot pan off a finished table, and it is heavy enough and flat enough to do it without sliding.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt also works with nothing on it at all, which is the harder test. Pierced metal on a dark wood table reads as a piece of drawing rather than as a utensil, and the open ground means it picks up the colour of whatever it sits on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe birds do the selling. Two of them, facing, beaks nearly touching, is a quietly affectionate image and people respond to it before they work out what the object is for. It hangs as well as it sits, and on a kitchen wall or a plate rail it holds its own against much larger things.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWarm gold against green stone, dark oak, white plaster or a painted wall is an easy combination, and brass at this scale is the kind of small piece that finishes a shelf rather than crowding it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67558803079273,"sku":"VE-1768","price":324.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_d3844cdd-b40f-4e56-9f0e-5f83f19e0fb1.jpg?v=1790592794"}],"url":"https:\/\/viridianeclection.com\/collections\/kitchen.oembed?page=2","provider":"Viridian Eclection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}