{"title":"New Arrivals","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"vintage-chinese-gilt-lacquered-lotus-wedding-bucket-c-1900-1950","title":"Vintage Chinese Lacquered Lotus and Bird Wedding Bucket, c. 1920–1960","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA lidded coopered bucket with a tall arched carrying handle, lacquered oxblood red and painted by hand with lotus, lily pads and a bird.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe painting is the piece. Lotus flowers open in cream and coral with the petal tips brushed darker, buds stand on their stems beside them, and broad lily pads spread flat in a soft green with the veining drawn over the top in gold. The lid carries the full composition inside a circular gilt reserve, flowers and pads together with a small bird coming in over the top of them, and the same scheme runs around the body. Gilt scrollwork borders frame the lid, and the handle is drawn with gold vine and rosettes down both posts and across the crown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe body is built the old way, from vertical staves fitted edge to edge and drawn tight. Two broad flat bands encircle it, one under the rim and one at the foot, lapped where the ends meet and pinned with two pegs, and both are finished in gold. Where the gilding stops at the upper edge the pale wood of the band shows through, so the bands are worked timber and not metal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe lid drops down inside the rim and lifts out clean. The handle is a fixed arch on two posts mortised into the sides, standing well clear of the lid so the piece carries level. Inside, the bucket is painted flat black and the vertical stave joints run right up the wall, unfilled and unsanded, which is what a working vessel looks like from the inside.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe form is the Chinese lidded carrying bucket, made to move water, rice or food and made in quantity across the southern provinces. Plain ones were farm equipment. A bucket lacquered on every outside surface and then painted was a dowry or presentation piece, carried in a marriage procession or used to send food between households, and it is the decorated ones that survived because they were kept rather than worked to death. The trade sells them as wedding buckets for that reason.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe decoration is not arbitrary. Lotus carries the pun that Chinese ornament is built on, the flower reading as continuous and as harmony, and a bird set with lotus turns the phrase into a wish for a household. That vocabulary is the ordinary language of Chinese marriage goods and it is why the motif appears on this object and not, say, a landscape.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe construction is traditional throughout and puts no part of the piece in the industrial era. Coopered staves rather than a turned or laminated body, gilded timber bands lapped and pegged rather than rolled metal strip, a handle mortised into the sides rather than bolted through, and a sealed black interior that only a vessel meant to hold something needs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe painting sets the ceiling. This is brushwork, laid in by hand colour over colour with the gold drawn on last, and every leaf and border is a little different from its neighbour. The Chinese decorative buckets that reached American shops from the nineteen seventies on are turned or laminated bodies carrying flat stencilled work or applied transfers, and nothing in this piece is either.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn that evidence it is offered as c. 1920 to 1960. Four things would narrow it: whether the staves show hand plane marks or an even machine thickness, whether the bands are split bamboo or sawn softwood under the gilding, whether the small metal plate at one handle post is an original fitting or a later repair, and whether any paper label, export stamp or inked character survives inside the lid or on the base.\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 carrying bucket, coopered wood, lacquered and hand painted\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eChinese\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eConstruction\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVertical staves fitted edge to edge, two gilded timber bands lapped and pegged, drop in lid, fixed arched handle on two mortised posts\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGround\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOxblood red lacquer over the whole exterior, flat black paint inside\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHand painted. Lotus flowers in cream and coral with buds, green lily pads veined in gold, and a bird on the lid, inside gilt scrollwork borders, with gold vine and rosettes on the 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\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1920–1960\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e20 in. overall to the top of the handle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBody Height\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e11 in. to the rim\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDiameter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e13 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e7 lb.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and complete with its lid and its handle. Lacquer ground intact with the rubbing, chipping and small losses at the high points that a carried vessel collects, heaviest along the crown of the handle, the post edges, the rim and the foot, showing pale wood beneath. Painting legible and bright throughout with expected wear. Staves tight, bands in place and pegged, interior black paint worn as used. A small metal plate is fitted at one handle post. Sold as a decorative vessel and not as watertight.\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 piece that does two jobs at once. Closed, it is a lacquered object with a good silhouette, the tall handle giving it the height that a bowl or a box cannot, and the lid painting means it reads from above as well as from the side. Open, it holds things, and a lidded vessel that swallows kindling, rolled towels, umbrellas or stems earns its floor space.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRed, green and gold against wood is the reliable combination. The oxblood is a deep muted red rather than a bright one, the lotus green is soft rather than acid, and the gold picks up whatever brass is already in the room. It gives an interior a single point of colour without committing it to a scheme.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe value is in the hand work. Plain coopered buckets are common and cheap, machine made painted ones are everywhere, and a bucket carrying brushwork of this quality with its lid, its handle and both bands intact is the uncommon version of a familiar object. It reads as collected rather than bought.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50412553371753,"sku":"VE-1691","price":1208.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1691-01.jpg?v=1790243172"},{"product_id":"antique-brass-and-crystal-tiered-wedding-cake-chandelier-c-1910-1940","title":"Antique Brass and Crystal Tiered Wedding Cake Chandelier, c. 1910–1940","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA large tiered crystal chandelier on a cast foliate frame, the lamps held inside the basket so the whole fixture reads as a body of crystal rather than a set of arms.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe outer rim is the piece. It is a cast band that runs in a slow serpentine around the circumference, scalloped in plan and modelled as scrolling branches with leaves laid along them, and at the peaks stand tall cast finials in a flame and bud form. The casting is chased after the pour, the leaves undercut and the veining cut in by hand, and it carries a dark rubbed patina with the gilding worn off the high points where decades of hands and dusters have been.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFour brass hoops descend inside that rim in decreasing diameter, each hung with chains of cut octagon crystal. The chains swag between the hoops at the top and fall straight below them, so the profile gathers inward tier by tier and the whole takes the wedding cake shape the trade names it for. At the centre a cast boss carries the sockets on radiating arms, set inside the crystal rather than above it, with small spear prisms pointing outward between them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAbove the rim a spray of slender brass rods rises from a cast corona of gadrooned urn form under a collar of acanthus, each rod arching out and down to a formed hook carrying a short chain of crystal. It is the detail that lifts the fixture, and it is what keeps the top from reading as a plain canopy. The suspension chain is cast in pierced ornamental links rather than plain stock.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe long bevelled prisms clustered at the base are not original to the fixture. They were selected and fitted in the Viridian Eclection workshop by Walter Hinchman to finish an underside that had lost its terminal, and they add roughly six inches of fall and a good deal of light.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe form is the Continental crystal basket, descended from the Empire corbeille and carried forward by the Bohemian, Spanish and Italian houses that supplied the export trade. What separates the good ones from the rest is where the light sits. A candle arm chandelier throws its ornament outward and its light upward; a basket puts the lamps inside the crystal, so every bead in the fixture is lit from behind and the body glows rather than sparkling in patches.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe build sets the floor. This fixture was made for electricity and was never anything else. The sockets sit on brass tube arms soldered into a cast central boss, purpose built and set at the height that lights the tiers, with no candle cups, no converted tubes and no filled sockets anywhere in the frame. That places it after domestic electrification rather than before it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe construction sets the ceiling. Cast and chased ornament in solid brass with gilding worn through to the metal, bead chains strung on individually formed wire pins, arms soldered into a cast boss, and a suspension chain cast in ornamental links are all pre war practice. What followed uses stamped spiders, cast alloy ornament under bright electroplate and plain stock chain, and none of that is present here. Continental production of metal and crystal for the export trade stopped with the war, and what resumed afterwards was built the cheaper way.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn that evidence it is offered as c. 1910 to 1940. Four things would narrow it: what the socket interiors are made of and whether any carries a maker or approval stamp, whether the original wiring under the cloth is rubber or later plastic, whether the cast rim is brass or bronze under the gilding, and whether a foundry mark or a stamped country of origin survives on the corona, the canopy or the underside of the rim.\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\u003eTiered crystal basket chandelier, cast frame with internal lamps\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFrame\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCast and chased brass, gilt, with a dark rubbed patina on the rim castings\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRim\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSerpentine scalloped band modelled as scrolling leafy branches, with standing cast finials in a flame and bud form\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTiers\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFour graduated brass hoops hung with chains of cut octagon crystal, swagged above and falling straight below\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCorona\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCast gadrooned urn under an acanthus collar, carrying a spray of arched brass rods each hooked with a short crystal chain\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFitting\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRing of sockets on brass arms radiating from a central cast boss, set inside the basket, with small spear prisms between\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBase Prisms\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLong bevelled prisms, a later addition fitted in the Viridian Eclection workshop\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSuspension\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCast ornamental link chain with canopy\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\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1910–1940\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDiameter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e30 in. across the rim\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDrop\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e26 in. for the fixture including the base prisms, plus chain\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e40 lb.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and hanging, and it lights. Crystal complete across all four tiers with the small chips and flea bites at the drilled holes that any strung fixture of this age carries. Gilding worn through on the rim castings and the finials, which is the original surface and not a fault. Hoops, arms and corona bright. Base prisms are a later addition as described above. As with any fixture of this age, have it inspected and rewired by an electrician before installation, and hang it from a box rated for the weight.\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\u003eThirty inches across is a room changing size. This is not a hall fixture or a powder room fixture. It wants a dining table, a stairwell, a bedroom with height, or a shop floor where one thing has to carry the whole ceiling, and at that scale it does work that three smaller fixtures cannot.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe internal lamping is the practical advantage. Because the bulbs sit inside the crystal, the fixture lights itself from within and sends soft refracted light down rather than glare out, so it can hang lower over a table than an arm chandelier can without blinding the person across it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe frame is the part that will still be good in fifty years. Crystal can be replaced and chains can be restrung, but cast and chased ornament with a worn original gilding cannot be reproduced at any sensible cost, and it is what separates this from the bright plated fixtures that fill the market. It is the kind of thing a designer specifies once and a shop sells within the week.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50412577292393,"sku":"VE-1692","price":6125.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1692-01_79a80443-0aa6-4da7-a84e-b9e001997150.jpg?v=1790242660"},{"product_id":"vintage-sorrento-marquetry-music-box-laras-theme-c-1966-1980","title":"Vintage Sorrento Marquetry Music Box, Lara's Theme, c. 1966–1980","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA small Sorrento jewel box in inlaid wood with a Swiss musical movement under the floor, labelled for the tune it plays. Lara's Theme, from Doctor Zhivago.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe lid is the work. A spray of flowers laid into the surface in cut fruitwood, roses opening at the left and right with a lily and a tulip among them, the leaves and scrolling stems drawn in paler wood and the veining engraved into each piece by hand. It is real marquetry, every element cut and fitted, set inside a double line of stringing with a rope twist banding running the whole way round the lid edge. The same rope banding is repeated on the four block feet, which is the detail that tells you the box was built rather than assembled.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt opens on a full length nickel hinge. Inside the lid is plain figured wood carrying an oval mirror in a red cord surround, and the well below is lined in deep red velvet and divided into one long compartment and one short. A small plate at the front edge of the well carries the button that starts and stops the movement, so the music runs when the lid lifts and can be silenced without closing it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is a lock and escutcheon at the front. Underneath, the base is pale beech, the movement screwed through it on two bolts, the brass winding arbor set to one side with its crank key in place, and the maker's paper label between them. It reads SWISS MADE, Carillon STELLA, and beneath that, Dr. Zivago.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo countries made this box. The case is Sorrentine. Sorrento, on the cliffs above the Bay of Naples, has cut marquetry since the nineteenth century, when its workshops sold inlaid souvenirs to travellers coming through on the Grand Tour, and houses such as A. Gargiulo and Jannuzzi turned that trade into an industry. The movement is Swiss, from the Jura valleys where comb and cylinder work had been the local craft for a century and a half. Italian workshops bought Swiss movements by the crate and built cases around them, and the musical jewel box is what that arrangement produced.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA word on the name. Stella is a trade label of this period and not a connection to the Stella disc boxes that Mermod Freres built at Sainte Croix in the eighteen nineties. Those are large cabinet instruments playing interchangeable steel discs and they belong to a different world entirely. This is a cylinder movement in a jewel box, which is what the label describes and what the box is.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe tune sets a hard floor, which is uncommon and useful. Maurice Jarre wrote Lara's Theme for David Lean's Doctor Zhivago, released at the end of 1965, and the melody became a worldwide standard through 1966, when the vocal version reached the top of the American easy listening chart. A Swiss cylinder has to be pinned for a tune, note by note, and no Swiss house pinned this one before the film existed. The box cannot be earlier than 1966.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe ceiling is a trade shift rather than a date. Swiss movements of this class were displaced through the nineteen seventies by cheaper Japanese units, and the hand cut inlay on this lid was displaced by printed and transferred imitations of it. A Sorrento box carrying real marquetry and a Swiss labelled movement sits before that changeover rather than after it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn that evidence it is offered as c. 1966 to 1980. Four things would narrow it: whether the comb or bedplate of the movement carries a maker's stamp and a serial, what note and air count is stamped there, whether a retailer or importer sticker survives inside, and whether the key and lock are original to the box.\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\u003eMusical jewelry box, marquetry case with a Swiss cylinder movement\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCase\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSorrento marquetry, floral spray in cut fruitwoods with engraved veining, double stringing and rope twist banding, four banded block feet\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eInterior\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRed velvet lining in two compartments, oval mirror in a red cord surround set into the lid, start and stop button at the front of the well\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMovement\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSwiss cylinder movement mounted under the floor, brass winding arbor with crank key\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTune\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLara's Theme, from Doctor Zhivago\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLabel\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSWISS MADE, Carillon STELLA, Dr. Zivago, on the underside\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFittings\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFull length nickel hinge, lock and escutcheon at the front\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1966–1980\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWidth\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e8 in.\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\u003e3 in. on the feet\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e2 lb.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and complete. Marquetry tight with no lifting or loss found, finish good with light surface scratching to the lid and the usual handling marks. Rope banding intact on the lid and on all four feet. Velvet lining bright with light crushing and some dust shadow. Mirror clear, cord surround sound. Hinge firm, lid closes true. Movement present with its winding key in place, and the paper label survives complete and legible, which is uncommon. Wind gently and run it before putting it into regular use, as with any movement of this age.\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 music box sells itself across a counter in a way that almost nothing else in a shop does. It is the one object a customer will pick up, open and then hand to the person standing next to them, and a box that plays a tune everybody recognises does that better than a box that plays something they do not.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt also works as an object with the lid shut. Eight inches of floral marquetry on a low footed box sits on a dressing table, a hall console or a stack of books and reads as furniture rather than as a novelty, and the warm fruitwood palette goes with almost any wood already in the room.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd it is complete, which is the part that matters and the part most of them fail. The lock, the key, the mirror, the lining, the working button and above all the original paper label naming the tune are all still here. Most survivors have lost the label and are sold as an unidentified box that plays something. This one tells you exactly what it is.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50412878364777,"sku":"VE-1693","price":613.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1693-01.jpg?v=1790253986"},{"product_id":"vintage-art-nouveau-gilt-brass-candlestick-with-bobeche-c-1950-1980","title":"Vintage Art Nouveau Gilt Brass Candlestick with Bobeche, c. 1950–1980","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA small gilt brass candlestick modelled all over in Art Nouveau relief, the kind of object that does more on a shelf than its size suggests.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe cup is a deep tapered bowl standing on a short waist. Around the outside it carries a repeating fan, a palmette opening in ribbed segments with a leaf curling away on either side, and inside it is turned plain and polished with a short cylindrical socket standing in the floor to take the candle. The wide cup catches the wax that the socket lets run.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBelow it sits the bobeche, a separate eight lobed disc cut like a flower and ribbed in radiating lines from the centre out to each petal tip, threaded onto the stem so it reads as a collar rather than an afterthought.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe foot is the best of it. The stem breaks out of the bobeche and flares downward in fluted strands that spread across a low domed base, and between them the casting carries the Art Nouveau motif proper. Large teardrop pods, each one held in a pair of sinuous stems that loop, cross and run back on themselves in the whiplash line the style is named for. The outline of the base follows the design rather than staying round, waving gently in and out where the pods meet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe gilding is warm and even across the whole piece, bright on the turned rim and softer in the cast recesses. The underside is covered edge to edge in felt, cut to follow the waving outline of the base, so it sits on furniture without marking it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe design is Art Nouveau in its proper vocabulary. The whiplash stem, the seed pod held in a curve rather than presented square, the base that refuses a circle and follows its own ornament, and the fluted foot that grows out of the stem like a root system are all the language the movement built between about 1895 and the First World War. Nothing about the drawing is generic, and whoever modelled this had looked at the real thing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe manufacture is a different question, and the honest reading is that it is later than the design. Three things point that way. The relief is soft edged and rounded rather than chased sharp after casting, with small pits in the surface of the foot, which is what a casting taken from another casting looks like. The bobeche is thin, stamped and cut rather than spun or cast. And the gilding is unbroken, sitting as brightly in the recesses as on the high points, with no wear through at the base rim or the cup lip where a century of handling would have taken it off first.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn that evidence it is offered as c. 1950 to 1980, a revival piece rather than a period one, made when Art Nouveau came back into fashion and decorative brass was being cast in volume for the furnishing trade. It is the honest reading of what is visible and the listing does not claim more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFour things would settle it and could move the date earlier. Whether a maker's mark, a foundry mark or a stamped country of origin survives under the felt. Whether the base is a solid casting or spun from sheet. Whether the gilding wears through to yellow brass or to a white metal, which would mean plated spelter rather than brass. And the weight in the hand, since period castings of this form are noticeably heavier than their reproductions.\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\u003eCandlestick, cast brass with a gilt finish\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCup\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDeep tapered bowl with a repeating fanned palmette and leaf relief, turned plain inside, cylindrical candle socket set in the floor\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBobeche\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSeparate eight lobed disc with radiating ribbing, carried on the stem below the cup\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFoot\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLow spreading dome cast in relief with teardrop pods held in whiplash stems, fluted strands running down from the stem, waved outline\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFinish\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGilt, bright on the turned surfaces and softer in the cast recesses\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eUnderside\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFelted edge to edge, cut to follow the waved outline of the base\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNone visible. The underside is covered by the felt\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1950–1980\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e5 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBase Diameter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e4 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e2 lb.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and stable, sitting flat with no lean. Gilding complete and even across the cup, bobeche and foot with light handling marks and small casting pits in the surface of the base, which are original to the making rather than damage. A little darkening where the socket meets the floor of the cup from wax and age. Bobeche true and seated. Felt intact across the underside with light fibre wear. Sold as a single candlestick.\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\u003eSmall brass on a shelf is a workhorse. At five inches this fits on a mantel, a bookshelf, a bathroom counter or a dining table without competing with anything, and the warm gilt does what brass is meant to do in a room, which is throw a bit of light back at you in the corners where nothing else does.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe relief is what separates it from the field. Most small candlesticks are turned and plain because turning is cheap, and a cast piece with a modelled foot and a modelled cup reads as an object rather than a fitting. Photographed on a stack of books or beside a clock it holds its own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt also takes a real candle rather than a tealight, which is worth saying. The socket is a proper one and the wide cup underneath means the wax goes where it should instead of down the stem and onto the furniture.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50412888719465,"sku":"VE-1694","price":306.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1694-01.jpg?v=1790253888"},{"product_id":"vintage-grand-master-oak-mechanics-creeper-model-hd-a-c-1950-1975","title":"Vintage Grand Master Oak Mechanic's Creeper, Model HD-A, c. 1950–1975","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn oak mechanic's creeper, the low wheeled board a man lay on to get under a car, and this one still carries every bit of its original printing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe body is built the way shop equipment used to be. Solid oak rails running the length, oak boards laid across them, and the whole thing drawn together with large dome head rivets set at close intervals down both sides, every head still bright. Two steel strap plates are screwed across the deck where the boards meet, which is where a creeper works hardest and where the cheap ones let go.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne end rises. The head board is canted up on a short frame so the head and shoulders sit above the deck, and a padded rest in grey vinyl is fixed across the top of it. Underneath, swivel casters are set beneath the frame rails so the whole board turns and tracks in any direction rather than only fore and aft.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe printing is the part that survived, and it is why this one is worth having. GRAND MASTER runs across the head board in bold blue condensed capitals. On the deck below, Professional Quality is laid out in a confident blue script with MODEL HD-A and MADE IN U.S.A. set underneath it in small caps. All of it is screen printed straight onto the oak, and all of it is still crisp and legible.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe oak has gone a warm amber with use, darker around the rivet heads and along the rails where hands and oil got to it, which is exactly the surface you want and cannot fake.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe creeper is one of those objects the American garage invented and then stopped changing for fifty years. Oak because it was cheap, stiff and would take a rivet. Rails and cross boards because that is the lightest way to carry a man. Casters at the rails because a mechanic under a car needs to move sideways as often as lengthways. The form arrived with the automobile and stayed until moulded plastic replaced it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe name is a trade brand rather than a manufacturer. Professional Quality, a model designation and Made in U.S.A., printed together with no company name anywhere on the piece, is the signature of a hardware jobber's house brand, a name owned by a distributor and applied to goods built under contract by a factory that put its own name on nothing. That is how most shop equipment reached the counter, and it is why GRAND MASTER turns up on the board with no address behind it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe materials set the floor. The headrest is grey vinyl over padding, not canvas and not leather, and vinyl upholstery of that kind belongs to the years after the war rather than before it. Every creeper of this form photographed from the thirties and earlier carries canvas or bare wood at the head.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe construction sets the ceiling. A full oak body, riveted, with the graphics screen printed directly onto the timber is pre plastic shop equipment. Through the seventies the trade moved to steel frames with vinyl pads and then to one piece moulded bodies, and a creeper built entirely of wood and steel sits before that changeover.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn that evidence it is offered as c. 1950 to 1975. Four things would narrow it: whether the casters carry a maker's name or a patent number cast into the yoke, whether the caster mounting plates are steel or moulded plastic, whether the headrest vinyl is original or a recover, which the original tack line under the edge would show, and whether a hardware store or jobber stencil survives anywhere on the underside.\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\u003eAutomotive mechanic's creeper, oak body on swivel casters\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBrand\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGrand Master\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eModel\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHD-A\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGRAND MASTER on the head board. Professional Quality in script with MODEL HD-A and MADE IN U.S.A. on the deck, all screen printed in blue\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eConstruction\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSolid oak rails and cross boards, dome head rivets throughout, two steel strap plates across the deck joints\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHead\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCanted head board on a raised frame with a padded rest in grey vinyl\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRunning Gear\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSwivel casters set beneath the frame rails\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1950–1975\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLength\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e40 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWidth\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e17 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e6 in. at the head\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e14 lb.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and solid, sitting square with no racking in the frame. Oak carries the honest darkening, scuffing and oil shadow of shop use, heaviest along the rails and around the rivet heads. Rivets tight throughout. Steel straps in place with all screws present. Blue printing crisp and fully legible on the head board and the deck. Headrest vinyl intact with light wear and some surface marking. Casters turn. As with any piece of shop equipment of this age, check the rivets and the casters before putting weight on it.\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\u003eBranded shop equipment with the graphics still on it is the whole game in industrial decor, and most of what reaches the market has been sanded, repainted or worn blank. This one kept its name, its model number and its country of origin in clean blue print on bare oak, which is the difference between an old board and an object with something to say.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt reads well on a wall. Stood on end or hung flat, forty inches of riveted oak with GRAND MASTER across the top does the work of a sign, and it suits a garage, a bar, a workshop office or a shop wall that needs one honest American thing on it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd it still rolls, which keeps the options open. On the floor it takes a plant, a stack of books or a case of something and moves out of the way with a foot, and it is low enough to live under a bench or a console instead of taking up a room. Sold as found, and it will do either job.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Rue Tool \u0026 Supply Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50412890816617,"sku":"VE-1695","price":788.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1695-01_1b369c5c-a2c2-41a9-8209-dad59089b1db.jpg?v=1790245857"},{"product_id":"vintage-chinese-calligraphy-set-inkstone-and-brushes-c-1982-2000","title":"Vintage Chinese Calligraphy Set, Inkstone and Brushes, c. 1982–2000","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA Chinese calligraphy set, complete and fitted into a fan shaped presentation box, with nine pieces laid into red velvet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe lid holds five brushes, splayed like the ribs of the fan the box is cut to imitate. Bamboo handles, each engraved down its length with characters cut into the surface, black ferrules at the head, gold thread bound at the collar, and a short red cord at the butt for hanging. Four of the five still wear the printed paper band they left the workshop with, red and white with the maker's name set in Latin letters, LUOQUAN. The hair is natural, laid to a fine point, the brushes graduating from a fine liner to a broad wash.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe base holds the rest. In the centre, the inkstone, an oval of grey stone with a broad flat grinding face falling away to a sunken well, and a band of cloud and dragon relief carved into the head. To its right, the ink stick, a black bar with gilt decoration, a dragon running its length between key fret bands at each end and characters gilded beside it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAround them the desk furniture. A brush rest in white porcelain, modelled as a five peak mountain range and painted underglaze in cobalt. A lidded porcelain box with a dragon roundel on the cover, for seal paste. A small porcelain washer with a blue figure in the bottom, for rinsing a brush. And a seal blank in pale soapstone, cut square with a stepped top, an incised character on the side, waiting for a name to be carved into its face.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe box itself is the display. Cut as a quarter fan, covered in gold brocade woven with a roundel pattern, lined throughout in red velvet with a recess cut for every piece, a red ribbon stay holding the lid, and a pair of small clips at the head. Closed it is an object. Open it is a still life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat the set is descended from is the wenfang sibao, the Four Treasures of the Study, a grouping named as far back as the Southern and Northern Dynasties in the fifth and sixth centuries. Brush, ink, paper and inkstone. Everything else on a scholar's desk, the rests and the washers and the seal paste boxes, grew up around those four as the supporting cast.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis set carries three of the four. Brush, ink and inkstone are all here. Paper is the one treasure a boxed set never includes, because it is the one that gets used up, and a set sold with paper would be short of it inside a month.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe lettering sets the floor, and it sets it well. The brush labels carry the maker's name in Latin letters spelled in pinyin. Pinyin was adopted inside China in 1958 but the export trade went on printing Wade Giles and postal romanisations for another two decades. That changed after the normalisation of relations with the United States in 1979, with Western publishing moving to pinyin through the early eighties and the International Organization for Standardization adopting it as ISO 7098 in 1982. An export label romanised this way is a product of that changeover rather than anything before it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe materials set the ceiling. Natural hair brushes on engraved bamboo with paper band labels, hand painted underglaze porcelain rather than transfer printing, a real stone inkstone with carved relief rather than a moulded resin one, and a brocade covered card box with a fitted velvet tray are the older gift format. What replaced it uses printed card, foam inserts and decal decoration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn that evidence it is offered as c. 1982 to 2000. Four things would narrow it: whether a paper import or factory sticker survives on the box, whether the gilt characters on the ink stick name a house such as Hu Kaiwen, whether the inkstone is a named stone like Duan or She or a generic slate, and what the engraved characters on the brush handles say about the workshop that made them.\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\u003eChinese calligraphy set, nine pieces in a fitted presentation box\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBrushes\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFive, natural hair on engraved bamboo handles, black ferrules, gold thread collars, red hanging cords, four retaining their printed LUOQUAN paper bands\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eInkstone\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOval grey stone, flat grinding face with a sunken well, carved cloud and dragon relief at the head\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eInk Stick\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBlack, with a gilt dragon, gilt characters and key fret bands at each end\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBrush Rest\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWhite porcelain in a five peak mountain form, underglaze cobalt\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSeal Paste Box\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLidded blue and white porcelain with a dragon roundel on the cover\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBrush Washer\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSmall blue and white porcelain dish with a figure in the well\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSeal\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePale soapstone blank, square with a stepped top, incised character to one side, face uncarved\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBox\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFan shaped, gold brocade over card with a roundel weave, red velvet lining with a fitted recess for each piece, red ribbon stay\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLUOQUAN on the brush bands. Characters engraved on the brush handles and gilded on the ink stick\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1982–2000\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWidth\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e12 in. across the fan\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDepth\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e10 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e2.5 in. closed\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e3 lb.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eComplete and unused, with every recess filled and nothing missing. Brush hair full and pointed with no loss, gold thread collars sound, four of the five paper bands present and one lost. Inkstone unground with its original surface and light shelf marking. Ink stick whole with the gilding bright. Porcelain sound throughout with no chips or cracks found. Seal face uncarved. Brocade clean with light rubbing at the edges of the lid, velvet bright with some dust and fibre lift, ribbon stay attached. Ready to use or to display 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\u003eIt sells open. A closed box is a box, but this one opens into a fan of five brushes over a tray of stone and porcelain, and it will stop someone walking past a counter in a way that very little else at this price does. For a shop it works as a display piece that happens to be for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is also a complete gift, which is rare. Most calligraphy sets that reach the market have lost the ink stick, the seal or a brush, and what is left is a box with gaps in it. Everything here is present, including the uncarved seal blank, which means a buyer can have their own name cut into it and make the set theirs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd it goes on a desk. Ten inches by twelve is a bookshelf and a console footprint, not a room footprint, and the red and gold against black stone and blue and white porcelain reads well against wood, brass and dark paint. Left open on a shelf it does more for a room than a closed box ever will.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50413634551913,"sku":"VE-1696","price":481.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1696-01_41007853-79bf-452a-9899-cf6a155f89ef.jpg?v=1790260744"},{"product_id":"vintage-sunview-grape-crate-end-panel-delano-california-c-1965-1980","title":"Vintage Sunview Grape Crate End Panel, Delano California, c. 1965–1980","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe end panel of a California table grape lug box, with the shipper's label still on the face. A piece of working packaging that became a sign the moment the crate came apart.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe board is plain sawn softwood, a shade over a foot and a half long and half an inch thick, clipped at all four corners so it would seat into the frame of the box. The back is bare timber, saw marked across the grain, with water shadows and a few dark knots. Nothing has been done to it, which is the point.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe label across the front is lithographed paper, laid on when the crate was made up. A deep navy ground with a green band behind, and two oval vignettes in pale blue cartouches. At the top a bunch of red grapes and a bunch of green gold grapes on the vine with the leaves drawn around them. At the foot a stylised sunrise, orange and rose over a purple ridge, with the vineyard rows running away below it toward the mountains.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBetween them the type. SUNVIEW in tall outlined capitals shaded from white to pale blue, with BRAND spaced out underneath. Down the right hand edge, in yellow, THE BEST FROM THE WEST. In the middle, MARKO ZANINOVICH INC., EARLIMART AND DELANO, CALIF. 93215, a pink panel reading TABLE GRAPES, and at the bottom PRODUCE OF U.S.A. Two small red fleur de lys sit in the field between them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Zaninovich name belongs to a Croatian family that put down roots in the San Joaquin Valley and went into grapes. Marko Zaninovich established what became Sunview around the middle of the last century, working out of Delano and Earlimart in the heart of the table grape country between Bakersfield and Tulare, and the firm is still there and still family run under the Sunview name. This label is from the years when the fruit went out of the valley in wooden boxes and the name on the end of the box was how a grower reached a buyer two thousand miles away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDelano in those years was also the centre of one of the defining events in American labour history. The Delano grape strike and the national table grape boycott ran from 1965 to 1970 and made the town and its crop famous far beyond the produce trade. This label carries no part in that story one way or the other, and nothing here claims it does, but it comes out of that place in those years, and that is worth knowing when you look at it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe ZIP code sets a hard floor. Five digit ZIP codes were introduced across the United States on 1 July 1963 and became mandatory for bulk mailers in 1967, and printers added them to commercial stationery and labels through the middle of that decade. A label printed with CALIF. 93215 cannot be earlier than the summer of 1963 and in practice belongs to the years after it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo things set the ceiling. The state is written CALIF. rather than CA, and although the two letter abbreviations were issued in October 1963 the older form held on in commercial printing into the seventies. More decisively, this is a paper label on a wooden lug. California table grapes moved off wooden boxes and onto corrugated cartons through the sixties and seventies, and by the eighties the wooden lug and the lithographed end label had both gone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn that evidence it is offered as c. 1965 to 1980. Three things would narrow it or confirm it: whether the label is an original lithograph rather than a later reproduction laid on an old board, whether nail or staple holes survive along the board edges from the crate it came off, and whether a packing or lot stamp survives anywhere on the back.\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\u003eFruit crate end panel with lithographed label, wall or shelf display\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBrand\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSunview Brand\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eShipper\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarko Zaninovich Inc., Earlimart and Delano, California\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eProduct\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTable grapes\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLabel Text\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTHE BEST FROM THE WEST. SUNVIEW BRAND. MARKO ZANINOVICH INC., EARLIMART AND DELANO, CALIF. 93215. TABLE GRAPES. PRODUCE OF U.S.A\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eImagery\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTwo oval vignettes, red and green grape bunches above, a sunrise over vineyard rows and mountains below\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBoard\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSawn softwood, clipped corners, bare and saw marked on the reverse\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1965–1980\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLength\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e16 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWidth\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e6 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDepth\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e0.5 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e1 lb.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and flat, standing or hanging without support. Label complete across the face and fully legible, with creasing and light lifting where the paper has moved on the board, scattered surface scuffing and small losses along the edges. Colour strong with no fading to the navy or the yellow. Board solid with water shadows, knots and saw marks on the reverse and light edge wear. A small adhesive shop tag is applied at the upper right and comes away with patience. Sold as found, unrestored and unframed.\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\u003eFruit crate labels sell, and they almost always sell matted or framed under glass, which costs money and takes away the part that makes them good. This one is still on its board, so it leans on a shelf, sits on a picture rail or hangs on two nails with no framing at all, and the bare sawn timber around the paper does more for it than a mount ever would.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe graphics carry a room on their own. Deep navy, a hot orange sunrise and yellow display type is a palette that works against white plaster, against brick and against a dark kitchen wall, and at sixteen inches it fits in a galley, a pantry, a bar or a stairwell where a framed print would be too much.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd it is specific, which is what separates a good sign from a generic one. A real shipper, a real town, a real crop and a date you can argue from the printing. For a wine room, a kitchen, a California house or anyone who grew up near the valley, it is a better object than a reproduction of the same image would ever be.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Marko Zaninovich Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50414019346537,"sku":"VE-1697","price":131.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1697-01.jpg?v=1790261064"},{"product_id":"vintage-sears-amp-wire-stripper-and-crimping-tool-c-1965-1984","title":"Vintage Sears AMP Wire Stripper and Crimping Tool, c. 1965–1984","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA multi purpose electrician's tool from the years when one stamped steel plier did the work of five, made by AMP Incorporated of Harrisburg and sold under the Sears name.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBoth faces are covered in instruction. On the front, crimping nests at the nose marked 22-14 against a red dot and 12-10 against a blue, with an INS. position beside them carrying blue and yellow dots for insulated terminals. Below that a head plate tapped and marked INSERT SCREW HERE with five threaded holes, 10-24, 10-32, 8-32, 6-32 and 4-40, for sizing and cutting a screw without mangling the thread. Further down, STUD SIZES set out in two columns, 3 over 8, 1 over 4, 10 and 6 on one side, 5 over 16, 12, 8 and 4 on the other, so a man could match a ring terminal to the post he was putting it on without leaving the ladder.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTurn it over and the other face carries the cutting work. WIRE CUTTER across the throat, a STRIPPING GAGE with arrows and marks for 12 to 10 and 22 to 14, and down the centre a row of bolt cutting holes labelled COMMERCIAL A.W.G., 7 MM, and 1 to 6, 1 to 4 and 1 to 2. CLOSE and HERE with arrows appear on both sides, because the tool expected to be read by someone who had never seen one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe jaws are stamped steel finished in black oxide with the lettering picked out in white. The handles are pressed steel painted a light grey, ribbed for grip, riveted through at the pivot and again at the tail, and one of them carries the Sears wordmark in blue inside a thin rectangular frame. Just above the pivot sits the stepped steel cutting insert, still bright where the black has worn off it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo names on one tool, which is what makes it datable. AMP began in 1941 as Aircraft and Marine Products, formed to make solderless electrical connections for aircraft and ships, and it was the firm that took the crimped terminal from a wartime expedient to the standard way every wire in America got joined to every other. Sears did not make tools. Sears bought them from firms like AMP and put its own name on the handle, and that is what happened here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe maker's name sets the floor. The tool is marked AMP INCORPORATED, and the company only took that name in 1956 when it re-incorporated. Before that it was Aircraft and Marine Products. Anything stamped AMP INCORPORATED is 1956 or later, and the outside edge runs to 1999, when Tyco International bought the company and the AMP name went with it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Sears wordmark narrows it considerably. The name is set in lowercase inside a thin rectangular frame, which is the form Sears used from the middle nineteen sixties until the frame was dropped in the mid eighties in favour of a plain wordmark. Overlap the two marks and the window closes to about twenty years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn that evidence it is offered as c. 1965 to 1984. Three things would narrow it further: whether a Sears catalogue or stock number survives anywhere on the handles, whether the handle paint is original or a refinish, and whether the tool matches a dated Sears catalogue page, which is how tools of this kind are usually pinned to a single year.\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\u003eMulti purpose electrician's tool. Crimper, wire stripper, wire cutter, bolt cutter and screw gauge\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAMP Incorporated, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRetailer\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSears\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAMP INCORPORATED and HARRISBURG, PA. MADE IN U.S.A. on the jaw. Sears wordmark in blue on the handle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCrimping\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNests marked 22-14 with a red dot and 12-10 with a blue dot, plus an INS. position with blue and yellow dots for insulated terminals\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStripping\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStripping gage marked 12 to 10 and 22 to 14\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBolt Cutter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHoles marked COMMERCIAL A.W.G., 7 MM, 1-6, 1-4 and 1-2\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eScrew Gauge\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTapped holes for 10-24, 10-32, 8-32, 6-32 and 4-40\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStud Chart\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e3\/8, 1\/4, 10 and 6 against 5\/16, 12, 8 and 4\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eConstruction\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStamped steel jaws in black oxide with white filled lettering, pressed steel handles painted light grey, riveted\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1965–1984\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLength\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e7.5 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWidth\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e2.5 in. at the head\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e1 lb.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and working. Jaws meet square and the pivot is tight with no side play. Black oxide good across both faces with the white lettering legible throughout and no pitting found. Cutting insert bright from use. Handle paint sound with scattered chipping and rubbing at the tips and along the edges, and a small paint loss at one shoulder. Sears wordmark clear. Sold as a working tool.\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 still does the job. A crimper is a crimper, the AWG sizes have not changed, and this will terminate a lamp cord or a trailer harness as well as it did the day it was sold. For anyone rewiring old lighting, which is most of the trade, it earns its bench space.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe instructions are the charm. Every surface is covered in white lettering telling you what to do and where to close it, laid out with an optimism about the home electrician that no modern tool bothers with, and that density of type on black steel is why these photograph so well in a flat lay or a shadow box.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd it is honest American manufacturing with two names you can trace. AMP of Harrisburg invented much of how wire gets joined in this country, and Sears put it in a million basements. At this size it sits in a tool roll, on a pegboard or in a frame, and it costs less than any of them are worth.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Rue Tool \u0026 Supply Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50415781707881,"sku":"VE-1698","price":70.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1698-01_d2f5d606-66b5-435a-90ae-98070833e77a.jpg?v=1790318426"},{"product_id":"vintage-wen-model-21-electric-pencil-engraver-chicago-c-1970-1990","title":"Vintage WEN Model 21 Electric Pencil Engraver, Chicago, c. 1970–1990","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA WEN electric pencil engraver, the little red vibrating stylus that put a man's driver's licence number on every television, toolbox and outboard motor in America.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe body is moulded in a hot orange red, pebbled over most of its surface and polished smooth where the hand goes, drawn out to a long tapered nose and swelling to a rounded tail where the cord comes out. It is one of those shapes that could only have been designed to sit in a palm, and it does, pen fashion, with the weight over the fingers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the nose a chromed collar holds the tungsten carbide point, worn grey at the tip from use. At the tail sits the white knurled adjuster that sets the stroke, so the same tool scratches a fine line on the back of a watch or bites deep into a steel casting. Beside it a second white collar takes the strain of the cord, which is the original white flex.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe nameplate is brushed aluminium, foil printed and still crisp. MODEL, with MODELE beside it, then 21. The WEN mark in its red rectangle. Burin Electrique above Electric Pencil Engraver, both in script. Then the ratings, 120 volts, 12 watts, 60 hertz, with the UL listing mark on one side and the CSA roundel on the other, and at the foot WEN PRODUCTS, INC. CHICAGO, IL.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWEN was founded in 1951 by Nick Anton in the Chicago area, and by its own account its people developed the electric soldering gun, the electric jigsaw, the electric engraver and the chainsaw. The soldering gun claim was contested hard enough to reach a federal courtroom in Chicago in 1954, when Weller took WEN to trial over it, which tells you something about how seriously both firms took the patent. The engraver is the one that stayed in the catalogue, and the Model 21 is the shape it settled into.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe nameplate sets the floor, and it does it in two languages. Every line is doubled into French, MODELE beside MODEL and Burin Electrique above Electric Pencil Engraver, with the Canadian Standards Association roundel beside the UL mark. That is a plate built for a tool crossing the Canadian border, and Canada passed its Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act in 1970, after which American manufacturers selling north moved onto dual language plates through that decade. The address helps too. It reads CHICAGO, IL. rather than Chicago, Ill., which is the two letter postal form that took hold from the later sixties.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo things set the ceiling. This is the plain Model 21, and the engraver WEN sells today is the 21B, so this is the earlier designation that the B superseded. And the plate reads WEN PRODUCTS, INC. CHICAGO, which is the original firm. The WEN name now sits with a company in West Dundee, Illinois, so a Chicago plate belongs to the first company rather than the brand's later life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn that evidence it is offered as c. 1970 to 1990, with the earlier end the better supported of the two. Three things would narrow it: whether the original box or instruction sheet survives with a printed date or catalogue number, whether the cord is original or a replacement, and whether the plate matches a dated WEN catalogue page, which is how these are usually pinned down.\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\u003eElectric pencil engraver, handheld vibrating stylus\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWEN Products, Inc., Chicago, Illinois\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eModel\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e21\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRating\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e120 volts AC, 12 watts, 60 Hz\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApprovals\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eUL Listed and CSA, on a bilingual English and French nameplate\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePoint\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTungsten carbide stylus in a chromed collar\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAdjustment\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eKnurled stroke adjuster at the tail for fine to deep cutting\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBody\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMoulded plastic in orange red, pebbled finish, assembled on two screws\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCord\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWhite flex, appears original\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1970–1990\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLength\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e6 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWidth\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e1.5 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e1.5 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e1 lb.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eComplete and intact. Body sound with no cracks found, colour strong, light scuffing and handling marks across the surface. Nameplate crisp and fully legible. Carbide point present and worn grey at the tip from use. Stroke adjuster turns. Cord and strain collar in place with no splits found in the insulation. Sold as found and not tested under power. As with any corded tool of this age, have the cord and plug checked before putting it into service.\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 is a design object that happens to be a tool. Six inches of hot red plastic drawn into a teardrop with a chrome nose is exactly the industrial design that made American tools of that period worth keeping, and it photographs like a prop from a film about the future as it looked in 1972.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt also still has a job. An engraver marks glass, metal, ceramic, leather and hard plastic, and anyone who signs work, labels tools or has ever had a bicycle stolen has a use for one. The adjustable stroke is what separates it from a scratch awl.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd it is a genuinely American story in an object you can hold. A Chicago firm, a patent fight serious enough to reach federal court, and a tool that ended up in enough basements that most people over fifty will recognise it on sight and tell you what their father engraved with it. That recognition is worth more across a counter than most objects twice the price.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Rue Tool \u0026 Supply Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50415795830889,"sku":"VE-1699","price":67.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1699-01.jpg?v=1790318729"},{"product_id":"antique-the-tenderfoot-framed-sheet-music-cover-witmark-c-1903-1904","title":"Antique The Tenderfoot Framed Sheet Music Cover, Witmark, c. 1903–1904","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA colour lithographed sheet music cover for The Tenderfoot, a musical play in three acts, lyrics by Richard Carle and music by H. L. Heartz, published in New York by M. Witmark and Sons. A turquoise prairie sky banked with white clouds runs behind a red proscenium cartouche, two stylised red trees standing to either side of a photographic portrait of Carle in character as the mild, bespectacled figure in clerical black who gave the show its title. The lettering is drawn rather than set, the capitals of the title interlocking in the loose Art Nouveau manner American music publishers favoured at the turn of the century, and the whole design is printed in three worked colours on a single sheet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlong the foot the publisher has printed the full list of numbers from the score with their retail prices, from The Tortured Thomas Cat and The Soldiery through My Alamo Love and Adios to the Chinese dance Hop Lee, the piano selection at two dollars net and the dance arrangements at sixty cents. The sheet is glazed in a wide gilt composition frame with a carved wave and scroll outer moulding and a beaded inner lip.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Tenderfoot opened at the Dearborn Theatre in Chicago on 12 April 1903 and reached Broadway at the New York Theatre on 22 February 1904, where it ran eighty one performances to the end of that April. Richard Carle wrote the book and the lyrics, directed the piece and played the lead; H. L. Heartz wrote the music; Fred Eustis conducted. The action moved between a ranch and an Indian camping ground, and the comedy turned on the figure Carle plays here, the eastern innocent set down in the west.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe cover carries the credit As Produced By The Dearborn Theatre Management. That billing belonged to the show only while the Chicago management held it, from the spring of 1903 through the Broadway run that closed in April 1904, which sets both ends of the window without recourse to style. The printed song list is the second anchor. Witmark sold the individual numbers separately at sixty cents, and the list on this cover is the catalogue the house was working from during the run, set in type rather than stamped or amended later.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the upper left, in pencil, a previous owner has written the name Earl Bierly with the number 130 beside it, the sort of shelf mark a working musician kept on the covers of a bound run of popular music. It is left as found.\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. 1903–1904, fixed by the Dearborn Theatre Management production credit printed on the cover, which the show carried only from its Chicago opening in April 1903 to the close of the Broadway run in April 1904\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTitle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eThe Tenderfoot, a musical play in three acts\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLyrics\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRichard Carle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMusic\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eH. L. Heartz\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePublisher\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eM. Witmark \u0026amp; Sons, New York\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMedium\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eColour lithograph on paper with halftone portrait\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFrame\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGilt composition moulding, carved wave and scroll outer with beaded inner lip, glazed; a later decorative frame, not original to the sheet\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 17.5 in. wide by 20.5 in. high by 1.5 in. deep, framed\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood for its age and handled. Overall warm toning to the paper. An aged tape repair across the top edge and a translucent tape strip laid across the song list, both old and both visible. A small paper loss at the word Fascinating in the song list. Light creasing and wear to the upper corners. The Witmark imprint along the very bottom edge is partly covered by the frame lip. Frame sound and clean.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eProvenance mark\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePencil inscription Earl Bierly with the number 130, upper left\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\u003eTurn of the century sheet music covers were commercial art made to be seen across a shop, and this one still works that way: a flat turquoise field, three colours, a red architectural frame holding a single figure. Hung alone it reads as graphic design a century before the term; hung in a run with other paper it anchors a wall of ephemera. The subject earns its place as well, a documented Broadway production with a fixed beginning and end rather than an anonymous parlour song, which gives the piece something to say when a guest asks.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50416061382761,"sku":"VE-1700","price":692.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1700-01_8037ca8a-5fe0-4880-9116-0e45e683d243.jpg?v=1790327042"},{"product_id":"vintage-smith-corona-sterling-typewriter-green-keys-c-1950-1957","title":"Vintage Smith-Corona Sterling Typewriter, Green Keys, c. 1950–1957","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA Smith-Corona Sterling portable typewriter in the rounded five series body, finished in grey crinkle enamel with dark green bakelite keytops, matching green platen knobs and a long chromed carriage return lever. The model name is stamped into the steel paper table in serif capitals, and the Smith-Corona script sits in low relief on the front right of the shell. Four rows of keys, basket shift, and the deep cupped keytops that made these machines comfortable to work on for an afternoon rather than a paragraph.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt carries a tabulator, a TAB key on the board with the stops set by hand along the rear of the carriage. That is the feature that separates the Sterling from the entry level Clipper of the same generation, which went out without one. The ribbon is in place on both spools, black over red, with the colour selector at the right of the keyboard.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSmith-Corona replaced the angular Speedline body it had used from 1938 through 1948 with this rounded shell at the turn of the decade, and built the five series family on it: Clipper at the bottom, then Sterling, Silent, Super and Silent-Super at the top. The Sterling was the machine for someone who wanted the tabulator and the better touch without paying for the top of the range, and it became the standard student and writer's portable of the decade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dating comes from the finish rather than the shape. Grey body, green keytops, green knobs and the model name struck into bare metal belong to the first half of the run. From the Super 5 era in 1957 Smith-Corona moved the Sterling onto the Desert Sand palette with white keytops and an underlined plastic logo plate, and later still to the Galaxie bodies with bowl bottomed keys. None of those changes are present here, which closes the window at the top; the body itself closes it at the bottom. The serial number, struck inside the rear frame at bottom centre, would narrow it to a single year.\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. 1950–1957. The rounded five series shell was not in production before the end of the 1940s, and the grey body with green bakelite keytops and the model name stamped into the steel paper table was superseded from 1957 by the Desert Sand finish with white keytops and a plastic logo plate\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSmith-Corona, Syracuse, New York\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eModel\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSterling, five series portable\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFinish\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGrey crinkle enamel, dark green bakelite keytops and platen knobs\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFeatures\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFour row keyboard, basket shift, tabulator with manually set stops, margin release, black and red ribbon with colour selector\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 13 in. wide by 13 in. deep by 5.5 in. high\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood as found. Crinkle finish sound across the shell with light handling marks. A chip to the painted shell at the right rear upper edge beside the carriage, roughly the size of a thumbnail, with bare metal and surface rust showing. Keytops bright and legends crisp. Ribbon present on both spools. Mechanism has not been tested or serviced and is sold as found. Offered without a case.\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 grey and green pairing is the reason these machines get picked up and the later ones do not. Grey reads as neutral against almost any shelf and the green keys do the work of a colour accent without a single other thing in the room having to match. It has the weight and the presence of a working tool, which is what makes it hold a surface: a console, a study shelf, a shop counter. Left as found rather than repainted, it keeps the honest surface that a restored machine loses.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50416062693481,"sku":"VE-1701","price":788.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1701-01.jpg?v=1790327431"},{"product_id":"vintage-bostitch-h2b-hammer-tacker-rhode-island-c-1948-1986","title":"Vintage Bostitch H2B Hammer Tacker, Rhode Island, c. 1948–1986","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA Bostitch hammer tacker, the tool a roofer or an upholsterer swings rather than squeezes. There is no trigger and no handle to grip closed: the staple is driven by the impact of the head against the work, which is why the body is a heavy cast aluminium frame carrying a steel anvil and a riveted linkage rather than the light pressed shell of a desk stapler. The model designation MODEL H2B is cast into the side of the frame.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe handle is moulded in a dark olive brown thermoset with fine vertical ribbing along its length and the Bostitch name raised inside an oval cartouche. At the butt sits a painted end cap in a strong turquoise, worn back to bare metal across its face from decades of being set down and knocked about. That single stroke of colour against the grey castings and the brown handle is most of the reason the object reads as well as it does on a shelf.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe firm began in 1896 in Arlington, Massachusetts as the Boston Wire Stitcher Company, founded by Thomas Briggs around a machine that stitched books from a coil of wire. It brought out its first portable stapler in 1914 and the cohered strip staple in 1924, which is the ancestor of every staple sold today. In 1948 the company formally took the shortened name Bostitch, and in 1957 moved to East Greenwich, Rhode Island, where it still sits.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat 1948 change is the floor for this tool. It carries the Bostitch name on its own, so it cannot have been made while the firm was still trading as Boston Wire Stitcher. The ceiling comes from what is absent: Textron bought the company in 1966 and Stanley Works bought it from Textron in January 1986, after which the tools carried Stanley Bostitch branding. There is no Stanley here. The window is documented at both ends rather than argued from the shape of the castings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe H2B was a working tool rather than a domestic one. It was swung to fix roofing felt, insulation, house wrap and upholstery webbing, and it is remembered by the contractors who used it as heavy, durable and easy to clear when it jammed, which mattered more than elegance when you were holding it at the edge of a roof.\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. 1948–1986. The Bostitch name alone gives the floor, since the firm traded as the Boston Wire Stitcher Company until 1948; the absence of any Stanley marking gives the ceiling, since Stanley Works acquired the company in January 1986 and branded the tools Stanley Bostitch thereafter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBostitch, Rhode Island\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eModel\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eH2B, cast into the frame\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eType\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHammer tacker, impact driven, no trigger\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterials\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCast aluminium frame, steel anvil and linkage, moulded thermoset handle, painted steel end cap\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 14 in. long by 4 in. high by 2 in. wide\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood honest working condition. Castings bright with handling marks and light surface oxidation, with heavier rust across the steel anvil and the top plate. Handle sound, ribbing and the Bostitch cartouche crisp. Turquoise end cap worn through to bare metal across its face. Magazine empty and the mechanism not tested or serviced; sold as found and as a decorative object rather than a working tool.\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 the kind of object that earns a shelf without pretending to be art. The silhouette is good from every side, the mechanism is legible enough that people pick it up and work out what it does, and the worn turquoise cap gives it a colour note that nothing else in a room has to answer to. It sits well on a workbench, a studio shelf or a bookcase among tools and paper, and it photographs better than almost anything else at its size.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Rue Tool \u0026 Supply Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50416709599337,"sku":"VE-1702","price":324.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1702-01_9ebaf115-6c07-40e8-a8c5-982eda443168.jpg?v=1790358964"},{"product_id":"vintage-ribbed-pressed-glass-square-ashtray-four-rests-c-1950-1975","title":"Vintage Ribbed Pressed Glass Square Ashtray, Four Rests, c. 1950–1975","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA square ashtray in heavy pressed glass, the four outer walls cut into deep vertical ribs that run the full height and break over the rim, so the piece throws light in vertical bars from every angle. Four cigarette rests are moulded into the rim, one to a side, each a smooth saddle interrupting the ribbing. The well is a plain polished square, left undecorated, which is what lets the walls do the work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is a substantial thing rather than a token one. The glass is thick at the corners, the base sits flat and heavy, and the ribbing is sharp enough to read as pattern rather than texture. Clear and uncoloured throughout, with no gilding, transfer or applied decoration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe large domestic glass ashtray was a standard piece of household equipment for most of the twentieth century, made in enormous numbers by the American pressed glass houses and their European counterparts and sold through every hardware store, department store and premium catalogue. It sat on the coffee table whether or not anyone in the house smoked, in the way a bowl does now. The category shrank steadily from the 1970s onward and has effectively ended as mass production, which is why these turn up as survivors rather than as current stock.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis one carries no maker's mark on any surface photographed. The vertical rib with integral rests is a pattern several houses ran, and without a mark on the base the attribution stays open rather than being assigned on the strength of the pattern alone. What the piece does show is a working life: the flat of the well carries the fine scratching that comes from use, not from storage.\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. 1950–1975, the period when the heavy domestic pressed glass ashtray was in full mass production before the category contracted. Offered as a range rather than a year because the piece carries no maker's mark\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePressed glass, clear and uncoloured\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSquare, deep vertical ribbing to all four outer walls, four moulded cigarette rests, plain square well\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 5.5 in. square by 1.5 in. high\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good. No chips, cracks or bruises found on inspection. Fine surface scratching across the flat of the well consistent with use. Ribbing crisp throughout and the glass bright.\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\u003eMost people buying this will never put a cigarette in it. It works as a catchall by a door for keys and coins, as a desk tray for clips and pins, as a soap dish, or on a bar holding citrus peel and a knife. The ribbing is the reason to choose it over a plain dish: under a lamp it breaks the light into vertical bars and reads as something designed rather than something merely useful, and clear glass sits against any surface and any palette without asking anything of the room.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50416742367337,"sku":"VE-1703","price":226.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1703-01.jpg?v=1790360199"},{"product_id":"vintage-diamond-point-pressed-glass-square-footed-bowl-c-1930-1970","title":"Vintage Diamond Point Pressed Glass Square Footed Bowl, c. 1930–1970","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA small square footed bowl in pressed glass, the body covered edge to edge in sharp diamond points that grow larger as they climb the walls and finish by becoming the rim itself, each point standing proud as a tooth. Two opposing corners are drawn up higher than the other two, so the square reads as a shallow boat from the side and as a pinwheel from above. It stands on a short square foot.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe interior floor carries a moulded rayed star, fine lines radiating from a centre point out to a square panel, which is the detail that lifts the piece: light entering the diamond walls is thrown down onto the rays and comes back up through them. Clear and uncoloured throughout, with no decoration applied over the moulding.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll over diamond point with a sawtooth rim, a square foot and a rayed base is the signature of the American pressed glass houses working from the late 1920s onward, and it was made in enormous volume in clear and in the pinks, greens and ambers that collectors now chase. The pattern family was the affordable answer to cut crystal: a mould could give you the same fractured light for a fraction of the money, which is exactly why it filled American sideboards through the Depression and long after it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis example carries no maker's mark, which is normal for the type, since these houses marked their cartons rather than their ware. The moulding is crisp and unworn, the points sharp rather than softened, and the glass is clear of the grey cast that comes from long exposure. Offered by what it is rather than by a maker's name, because a pattern alone does not settle a house and the piece should not be sold on an attribution it cannot carry.\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. 1930–1970, the span across which the all over diamond point family was in production in the United States. Offered as a range because the piece bears no mark and the pattern was run by more than one house\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePressed glass, clear and uncoloured\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSquare footed bowl or nappy, two corners drawn up, sawtooth rim, moulded rayed star to the interior floor\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 6.5 in. square by 2.5 in. high\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good. No chips, cracks or bruises found on inspection, including along the sawtooth rim where damage usually shows first. Moulding crisp and the points sharp. Light surface marking consistent with careful use.\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\u003eClear pressed glass is the most forgiving thing you can put on a table. It takes the colour of whatever sits in it and whatever sits under it, so it works on bare wood, on linen, on marble, and against any palette in the room. This one earns its place on light alone: the diamond field breaks a lamp or a candle into a hundred small reflections and the rayed floor sends them back. Use it for olives and nuts on a bar, for rings and earrings on a dresser, for paperclips on a desk, or leave it empty where the afternoon sun reaches it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50416753737833,"sku":"VE-1704","price":131.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1704-01.jpg?v=1790360523"},{"product_id":"antique-parian-hand-vase-with-lily-of-the-valley-c-1860-1900","title":"Antique Parian Hand Vase with Lily of the Valley, c. 1860–1900","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA lady's right hand, modelled life size in unglazed parian porcelain, rising from a frilled lace cuff and holding a fluted cornet vase against her palm. Sprays of lily of the valley climb both sides of the cornet, the bells applied separately and undercut so they stand free of the ground, and the rim of the vase breaks into irregular petal points rather than finishing level. The cuff is worked as ruched lace over a knitted band, closed with a small bow and tassel at the wrist, and it spreads into a scalloped oval foot that carries the whole weight.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe surface is the reason to hold it. Parian is fired without glaze, so it comes out matte and faintly waxy, closer to carved marble than to china, and it takes light softly instead of bouncing it. The body carries the scatter of small dark specks that comes with the material, and the modelling stays crisp everywhere it matters: fingernails, knuckles, the lace, the individual bells.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eParian was developed in Staffordshire around 1840 by Copeland and Garrett, who were trying to reproduce the look of white marble statuary in a material that could be slip cast in quantity. It took its name from the marble of Paros and it did exactly what it was meant to: it put sculpture, or something very like it, on middle class mantelpieces for the first time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe hand vase was one of the forms that made the material popular. It belongs to the Victorian language of flowers and of keepsakes, a hand offered, a posy held out, and it was sold as a gift rather than as tableware. Lily of the valley was among the most loaded flowers in that vocabulary, standing for the return of happiness, which is why it recurs on the form so often. These were made across the Staffordshire potteries and rarely carried a factory mark, so the great majority survive unattributed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe underside bears a name in pencil in a flowing hand, too faint to transcribe with confidence. It reads as a previous owner's mark rather than a maker's, which is what the placement and the medium suggest: factories impressed or printed their marks, they did not write them.\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. 1860–1900. Parian was not developed until around 1840, which sets the floor; the hand vase belongs to the Victorian keepsake trade that ran through the second half of the century, and the true parian body, matte and unglazed with firing specks through it, is consistent with period production rather than with the glazed and chalky later copies\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eParian porcelain, unglazed\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHand vase, cornet held in a lady's hand, applied lily of the valley, lace cuff over a scalloped oval foot\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eA name in pencil to the underside, flowing hand, illegible. No factory mark, which is usual for the form\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 9 in. high by 3.5 in. across the foot\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood. Modelling crisp and the applied lily bells present where visible. Scattered small dark specks in the body, inherent to parian and not damage. A trace of red pigment at one point on the foot rim. Light surface soiling in the recesses consistent with age. The applied bells on a piece of this kind are fragile, so small losses at the tips are possible and are not warranted against.\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 holds one stem and that is the point. Put a single rose in it, or a sprig of something from the garden, and the object finishes the arrangement rather than competing with it. Empty it still works, because it reads as a small piece of sculpture: a hand, held out, in a material that looks like marble and costs a fraction of it. On a hall table, a dressing table or a shelf of white objects it does a great deal with very little footprint.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50416825860201,"sku":"VE-1705","price":694.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1705-01.jpg?v=1790366817"},{"product_id":"antique-brass-oil-lamp-converted-to-electric-table-lamp-c-1880-1920","title":"Antique Brass Oil Lamp Converted to Electric Table Lamp, c. 1880–1920","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA tall brass oil lamp, built as a neoclassical urn and since wired for electricity. The font rises from a gadrooned lower bowl over a knopped stem and a stepped circular foot, swells through a plain cylinder to a bold shouldered top, and carries a pair of loose rings hung from cast bosses at the shoulder. Directly beneath the socket sits the pierced gallery, a band of narrow vertical slots that drew air to the burner when the lamp still burned fuel. It is the detail that gives the object away, and the reason the proportions read correctly rather than as decoration borrowed from a lamp.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe surface has been left alone and it is the best thing here. Verdigris has gathered in the flutes, the mouldings and the hollows of the foot in a deep blue green, while the raised runs have worn back to warm brown and flashes of raw brass where hands and cloths have passed over them for a century. It is differential and unrepeatable, the kind of patina that only time lays down, and polishing it would destroy most of the value.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKerosene made domestic lighting cheap from the 1860s, and the brass lamp makers answered with bodies in the classical vocabulary: urns, balusters, columns and pedestals, spun in sections and screwed together so a font could be lifted off its stem for filling and cleaning. This one is built exactly that way, with visible joints between the sections and applied bosses carrying the rings, which is factory work of the later nineteenth century rather than hand raising.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe electrification came afterward and is not original. A threaded nipple carries a brass keyed socket where the burner used to thread in, and the cord and plug are modern replacements, which is the usual and sensible history for a lamp of this kind: they were converted rather than discarded as houses were wired, and the ones that survived did so because somebody kept using them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo maker's mark is present on any surface, and none should be expected. The trade marked burners far more often than it marked bodies, and the burner is long gone. The base retains its original felt, aged through and torn, with old ink staining bled into the pile.\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. 1880–1920 for the lamp itself, later for the electrical conversion. The pierced burner gallery and the sectional font screwed to its stem establish that the body was built to burn fuel rather than made in fuel lamp form for electricity; spun and machine turned construction with applied cast bosses places it in factory production of the later nineteenth century; and domestic manufacture of this class ended as houses were wired through the first decades of the twentieth\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBrass, with a natural verdigris and oxide patina\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNeoclassical urn font with gadrooned bowl, knopped stem, stepped circular foot, twin loose ring handles on cast bosses, pierced burner gallery\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eElectrical\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBrass keyed socket, rewired with a replacement cord and moulded plug. Not original to the lamp\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eShade\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePagoda form silk shade with a ring finial, included\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNone found. The original burner, which would have carried a maker's name, is absent\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 33 in. high overall with the shade, shade approximately 18 in. across, foot approximately 7 in. in diameter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood. Structurally sound and standing true. Deep original patina throughout with verdigris in the recesses, left entirely as found and not cleaned. Original base felt aged, torn and ink stained. Rewired at some point and fitted with a modern plug; it has not been tested under power and is offered as found. Shade serviceable with light age toning.\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\u003eScale is what this does. At around a yard tall with the shade it anchors a console, a sideboard or the far end of a long room in a way that a small lamp never will, and the verdigris means it sits comfortably against old wood, plaster, stone and leather without needing anything else in the room to agree with it. Keep the shade for a working lamp, or pull it and let the brass stand as a column of worn colour. Either way it does not look decorated, it looks kept.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50416829399145,"sku":"VE-1706","price":1138.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1706-01_afef12f7-fff1-46e6-b904-30c005d17210.jpg?v=1790367226"},{"product_id":"vintage-park-cantilever-steel-tool-box-green-crinkle-c-1950-1970","title":"Vintage Park Cantilever Steel Tackle Box, Green Crinkle, c. 1950–1970","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA cantilever box in formed and riveted steel, the kind that opens like a set of stairs. Lift the lid and four trays swing up and outward on their linkages to sit clear of the deep well beneath. The two outer trays are divided by pressed ribs into a row of narrow bays each, the small sorted compartments a fisherman wants for hooks, swivels, sinkers and spinners; the two inner trays are longer open runs for pliers, spools and larger plugs; and the well below takes the reels and the bulk.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe finish is green crinkle enamel, the pebbled texture still crisp across most of the shell. Somebody later brushed the box over in gloss black, inside and in patches outside, and that overpaint is now worn and flaking away in broad islands to show the original green underneath. The result is a two colour map that no finish could be made to imitate. A nickel plated bail handle arches over the lid and a nickel drawbolt latch closes it, over a full length piano hinge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRiveted to the lid front is the original printed label: PARK in black on orange, reg. trade mark beneath, and PARK MFG. CO., GRANT PARK, ILL. alongside a boxed field for the model. That field was left blank, so the box carries its maker and its town but never its model number.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePark Manufacturing Co. worked out of Grant Park, Illinois, a village in Kankakee County an hour south of Chicago. The firm was advertising in Hardware Age in July 1952 and issued its own illustrated catalogue in 1959 under the title Park Quality Tool and Tackle Boxes, both of which survive in the trade literature. That title is the point: Park built one cantilever shell and sold it to the man at the bench and the man at the lake alike, changing the tray dividers to suit. This one was fitted out for fishing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe cantilever box was the format the firm sold on. A plain box makes you unpack it to reach the bottom; a cantilever box does the unpacking for you, and every bay stays visible while you work a bank or a boat. It is a mechanism rather than a container, which is why these survive when plain boxes were thrown out.\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. 1950–1970. Park Manufacturing Co. is documented advertising in Hardware Age in July 1952 and publishing its own tool and tackle catalogue in 1959; the crinkle enamel, the printed foil label with its blank model field and the nickel drawbolt latch all belong to that production period, and no later branding is present\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePark Mfg. Co., Grant Park, Illinois\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCantilever tackle box, four swing out trays over a deep well, the outer pair divided into narrow sorted bays\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterials\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFormed and riveted steel, green crinkle enamel, nickel plated bail handle and drawbolt latch, full length piano hinge\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRiveted printed label to the lid front: PARK, reg. trade mark, PARK MFG. CO., GRANT PARK, ILL. The boxed model field is blank\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 20 in. wide by 8.5 in. deep by 9.5 in. high, closed\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood honest working condition. Original green crinkle sound across most of the shell. Later gloss black overpaint to the interior and in patches outside, now worn and flaking to reveal the green beneath. Handle and latch sound with plating wear. Hinge sound and the cantilever linkages operate freely through their full travel. Label intact and legible. Light surface rust in places. Used, and it looks used.\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\u003eOpen it and leave it open. The cantilever action is the whole argument: a stepped array of sorted bays that turns a closed box into a piece of sculpture and a set of shelves at the same time. Those narrow compartments were sized for tackle, which makes them just right for brushes and nibs on a studio bench, spools and bobbins in a sewing room, screws and washers on a workbench, or keys and coins by a back door. Closed it is a green rectangle with a nickel handle and an orange label, which is a good enough object to leave on a shelf and never open at all.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Rue Tool \u0026 Supply Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50416836673641,"sku":"VE-1707","price":464.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1707-01.jpg?v=1790367645"},{"product_id":"vintage-syroco-lion-skeleton-key-wall-plaque-no-3661-b-c-1969-1980","title":"Vintage Syroco Lion Skeleton Key Wall Plaque, No. 3661-B, c. 1969–1980","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn oversized skeleton key rendered as wall sculpture, moulded in resin and finished in black with gold picked out along every raised edge. The bow is the performance: a coronet of fleurs de lys over a cage of scrolled strapwork, and standing at the centre of it a rampant lion, forepaws raised, modelled fully in the round rather than flattened into relief. Below the lion a leaf capital tops a fluted column, and the shank runs down through a rope twisted section to the bit, a plate of pierced wards diapered edge to edge with rosettes and foliage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is designed to be read from across a room. The pierced work throws real shadow on the wall behind it, the gold catches whatever light is in the room, and the black ground keeps the whole thing graphic instead of fussy. Two triangular hangers are screwed to the hollow reverse, ready to hang as it comes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe reverse is struck with the copyright symbol, DART IND., MADE IN U.S.A. and the model number 3661-B. That number identifies it precisely: it is the Syroco Lion Skeleton Key, catalogued under the same figure by the dealers who handle the pattern.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSyroco began in Syracuse in 1890 as the Syracuse Ornamental Company, carving wooden funerary ornament by hand, and made its name on compression moulded wood pulp decoration sold as SyrocoWood. Through the 1960s the firm moved over to injection moulded polymers, which is the material here, and it became one of the great American suppliers of decorative wall ornament: mirrors, sconces, wall pockets, plaques and, at the height of the Spanish and Mediterranean revival, enormous keys like this one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Dart Industries mark is what dates it. Dart Industries was the corporate name that succeeded Rexall Drug and Chemical Company, a change recorded in the federal courts, which named Syroco among its consumer goods holdings; Syroco ornaments carrying the Dart mark are documented from 1971. That name ended in 1980 when Dart Industries merged with Kraft to form Dart and Kraft, after which the corporate mark changed. The key therefore belongs inside that window and cannot sit outside 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\u003ec. 1969–1980, fixed by the corporate mark rather than by style. Dart Industries was the name that replaced Rexall Drug and Chemical Company at the end of the 1960s and is recorded as its successor in federal court records of 1973; Syroco pieces bearing the Dart mark are documented from 1971; and the name ceased with the merger into Dart and Kraft in 1980\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSyroco, Syracuse, New York, under Dart Industries\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eModel\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e3661-B, the Lion Skeleton Key\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMoulded resin, black with gold highlighting, hollow backed\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStruck to the reverse: copyright symbol, DART IND., MADE IN U.S.A., 3661-B\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 17 in. long by 7.5 in. across the bow, per the catalogued figures for this model\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHanging\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTwo triangular hangers screwed to the reverse, present and sound. Ready to hang\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood. Finish sound overall with the gold highlighting rubbed on some raised edges, partly as made and partly from handling. A small pale chip to the shank where it meets the bow. Light dust and grime in the deeper recesses. No cracks or losses to the pierced work found on inspection.\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 single object this size settles a wall that nothing else quite fits: the narrow run beside a door, the panel between two windows, the stretch of stair wall where a picture would look stranded. It is tall and thin and it draws the eye upward. Hang it alone and it reads as a piece of architecture; hang it over a console with a lamp raking across it and the pierced work does the rest. The lion is the detail people come closer to look at, which is the best thing any decorative object can do.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50416839721065,"sku":"VE-1708","price":289.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1708-01_d25220b8-7ba6-401d-aef0-ee5fbfbbd1a4.jpg?v=1790368337"},{"product_id":"antique-ebonized-colonial-revival-dresser-five-drawers-c-1915-1930","title":"Antique Ebonized Colonial Revival Dresser, Five Drawers, c. 1915–1930","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA low chest of five drawers, three short across the top over two long, standing on turned and tapered legs that spring from carved rosette blocks at the corners. The case stiles are canted and reeded, the drawer fronts are outlined in a fine carved rope moulding, and the centre of the upper long drawer carries a shaped applied cartouche in place of a keyhole escutcheon. Brass ring pulls hang from rosette backplates on the long drawers; the three short drawers take small rosette knobs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe whole case is finished in black. It is worn the way a painted piece earns rather than the way one is distressed to order: through to pale timber along the top moulding where hands and objects have passed, on the crest of each leg turning, and along the base rail at floor level. The top has been polished by use to a soft sheen. Inside, the drawers are bare warm timber, clean and dry, and one of the short drawers retains its fitted divider, the compartmented tray meant for collars, studs and jewellery.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is American Colonial Revival bedroom furniture, the vocabulary the big case goods factories worked in from the middle of the 1910s through the 1920s: Sheraton legs, reeded corners, restrained applied carving, and hardware in the federal taste. It would have been made as part of a suite, the dresser paired with a bed, a chiffonier and a vanity, and it would originally have carried a swing mirror on posts. It is offered here as the case alone, which is how most of them are used now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe construction places it. The drawers run on wooden side guides, the bottoms are the wide laminated panels that became the American factory standard after about 1910, and every joint is machine cut, which rules out the hand work of the previous century. The turned leg over a carved rosette block is the detail that closes the window at the other end: by the early 1930s the American trade had moved to the rounded waterfall forms of the Art Deco years, and this design vocabulary had gone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe black is not original. Beneath the wear the timber shows light, and the finish sits over the carved mouldings rather than under them. Ebonizing a piece like this is an old and honest practice, and in this case it is the making of the object: it turns a common brown dresser into something that reads as architecture.\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. 1915–1930. The laminated drawer bottoms and wholly machine cut joinery place it after the American factories standardised, around 1910; the Colonial Revival vocabulary of turned legs on carved rosette blocks, reeded canted stiles and federal ring pulls belongs to the later 1910s and the 1920s and had given way to waterfall Art Deco forms by the early 1930s\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAmerican, factory made\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLow dresser, three short drawers over two long, turned tapered legs on carved rosette blocks, reeded canted stiles, carved rope moulding to the drawer fronts\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFinish\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEbonized, applied later than manufacture, with honest wear through to the timber at the edges, leg turnings and base rail\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFittings\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBrass ring pulls on rosette plates to the long drawers, rosette knobs to the short drawers, one short drawer with its original fitted compartment divider\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNo maker's label or stamp found in the drawers or on the case\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 44 in. wide by 20 in. deep by 34 in. high\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood and structurally sound. Standing true, drawers running freely on their wooden guides, interiors clean and dry with no odour. Paint worn through to timber at the top moulding, the leg turnings and the base rail, and lightly chipped at the top edge. Hardware complete and original to the piece. Offered without a mirror.\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 furniture solves problems that brown furniture creates. It does not have to match anything, it recedes until you want to look at it, and it makes whatever sits on top of it, a lamp, a bowl, a stack of books, read as deliberate. At around waist height and nearly four feet wide this works as a bedroom dresser, but it works just as well in an entry taking keys and post, under a television, or in a dining room as a server. The rope moulding and the reeded corners are what keep it from being a plain box: they catch a raking light and give the black some depth.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50416911482985,"sku":"VE-1709","price":2100.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1709-01.jpg?v=1790368743"},{"product_id":"vintage-pierced-studio-stoneware-vase-cobalt-brushwork-c-1975-2005","title":"Vintage Pierced Studio Stoneware Vase, Cobalt Brushwork, c. 1975–2005","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA hand-built stoneware cylinder in a warm buff body, its walls raised by hand rather than turned on a wheel, so the form leans and swells and the rim finishes in a soft undulating edge that was pinched rather than trimmed. Two rectangular windows are cut clean through one side, knifed out while the clay was leather hard, their edges left crisp and unsoftened. Opposite them a single spray of cobalt runs nearly the height of the pot, a scrolled plume laid on with a loaded brush in one pass, pooling almost black where the brush first touched and thinning to grey where it lifted away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe glaze is a thin warm tan that lets the body read through, matte over most of the surface and breaking glossy where it has run and gathered. The base is left unglazed: raw buff clay, gritty, flecked with iron, and incised with a single letter D.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe decoration belongs to a specific American tradition. Cobalt brushed freehand onto buff salt-glazed stoneware, in plumes and swags and feathered scrolls exactly like this one, is the signature of nineteenth century American utilitarian pottery, and it was revived by studio potters working in the mid-Atlantic, the Shenandoah and the Carolinas from the 1970s onward, sold through craft fairs and the shops of historic sites.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is one of those studio pieces rather than a period original, and the construction says so plainly. Nineteenth century stoneware was thrown on a wheel and made to hold things; nobody cut windows in a crock. The hand-raised walls, the deliberately irregular rim and the pierced openings are studio gestures, made for looking at rather than for storing salt pork. What the potter has done is take a traditional decorative language and put it on an untraditional form.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe maker is recorded only by the single incised D on the foot. That is not enough to name a hand, and no attribution is offered here. The piece is sold on what it is rather than on a guess about who made 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\u003ec. 1975–2005. The hand-raised walls, pinched rim and pierced windows are studio craft gestures rather than production throwing, which rules out the nineteenth century ware whose decoration it borrows; the cobalt on buff revival idiom spread among American studio potters from the 1970s. The single incised initial cannot be resolved, so the window is offered wide rather than narrowed on a guess\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHand-built stoneware, buff body, thin warm tan glaze, cobalt brushwork\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCylinder with two rectangular pierced windows and a pinched irregular rim\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAn incised letter D to the unglazed base, with a small adjacent stroke. No other mark\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 7 in. high by 3.5 in. in diameter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good. Inspected in hand and sound: no cracks, no chips and no losses to the pierced edges. Faint lines in the surface are forming and glaze marks from the making rather than damage. Rim intact throughout, glaze and cobalt strong. Light soiling in the recesses consistent with age.\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 windows are the reason to own it. Stand a tealight inside and the cut openings throw two clean rectangles of light onto whatever is behind, which is a far better trick than a pot this size has any right to. Dry stems suit it, grasses and seed heads and anything with a bit of height to answer the cobalt plume. Or leave it empty on a shelf of brown and white pottery and let the one stroke of blue do the work. It is a small object that has had real hands on it, and that shows from across a room.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50416915644521,"sku":"VE-1710","price":341.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1710-01.jpg?v=1790369118"},{"product_id":"vintage-venetian-bauta-carnival-mask-gilded-cartapesta-c-1980-2010","title":"Vintage Venetian Bauta Carnival Mask, Gilt Cartapesta, c. 1920–1960","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA full face Venetian carnival mask in the bauta form: squared across the brow, cut away at the temples, and running down to a chin that juts forward at a hard angle. There is no mouth. That is the whole point of the design, and it is the detail that makes the bauta the most useful mask ever devised, because the projecting jaw stands clear of the face and lets the wearer eat, drink and talk without ever lifting it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe ground is a warm cream, aged and gently yellowed, and over it runs a tracery of gilded relief trailed on by hand in raised lines that loop and curl from the temples down past the cheeks: tendrils, spirals, little beaded chains, and a spray of narrow leaves rising over the brow. Around one eye the scheme breaks into colour, two petals of turquoise above a broad lozenge of burnt orange, each outlined in the same raised gold. The other eye is left plain, so the face reads as half masked again within the mask. The drawing is asymmetric and sinuous rather than symmetrical and baroque, and the whiplash tendrils belong to the Liberty vocabulary, the Italian branch of Art Nouveau.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTurn it over and the making shows. The interior is bare cartapesta, the pebbled fibrous surface of layered paper pressed into a mould and left unfinished, darkened with age and settled grime. The rim is hand cut and slightly irregular, and the gilding runs over the cut edge of the eye openings, which means the eyes were cut before the mask was decorated. Woven cotton tape ties are glued to reinforcing patches at the temples.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe bauta belonged to Venetian public life rather than to parties. Citizens were permitted to go masked for something close to half the year, and the bauta, worn with a black hood and a tricorn hat, made every wearer the same anonymous figure: no rank, no face, no mouth to be read. It is first recorded as early as the thirteenth century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Republic fell in 1797 and carnival was banned, but the craft did not disappear with it. Mask making continued at reduced scale through the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, supplying the theatre, commedia dell arte troupes, costume balls and the visitor trade, well before carnival was reinstated as a civic festival in 1979. Masks of this kind were made and sold in Venice throughout that long interval, and this is one of them rather than a product of the modern revival.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe evidence for that sits in the object. The cotton ties have faded along their length from near black to pale grey, holding their original dark tone only where they pass under the glued patches, which is a light gradient that takes years of display to produce. The gilding is worn through on the crowns of the raised relief while remaining full in the valleys, the pattern handling produces and the opposite of how a modern gilt paint fails. Grime has settled into the recesses of the ornament and into the open weave of the interior. The gesso ground has yellowed, the surface carries fine cracking, and the turquoise has begun to spot and darken. None of this can be applied, and together it places the mask well before the revival era.\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. 1920–1960. The dating rests on the making and the wear rather than on style alone: hand laid cartapesta with an unfinished mould textured interior, hand cut rim, gilding carried over the cut eye openings, gold worn through on the relief crowns, a light fade gradient along the ties that is dark only beneath the glued patches, yellowed gesso, fine cracking and pigment spotting in the turquoise. The Liberty derived ornament supports an earlier twentieth century date. No atelier stamp is present to narrow it further\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVenetian, handmade\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBauta, full face, squared brow and projecting angular chin, no mouth opening\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCartapesta, layered papier mache, with gesso ground, hand trailed gilded relief and hand brushed colour\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGilt scrollwork throughout in the Liberty manner, turquoise and burnt orange around one eye\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFittings\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWoven cotton tape ties on reinforced patches at the temples, present and serviceable, faded along their exposed length\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNone found. No atelier stamp or label to the interior\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 7.5 in. wide by 8.5 in. high by 4 in. deep\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good for its age. Structurally sound with no splits, crushing or losses. Gilding worn on the high points of the relief and full in the recesses. Ground yellowed with fine surface cracking, colour softened, light spotting in the turquoise. Grime settled in the deeper ornament and across the interior. Ties soiled, softened and faded. Sound enough to wear and well suited to display\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\u003eHung on a wall it does something almost nothing else does: it reads as a face at a distance and as pure ornament up close, and the missing mouth keeps it unsettling in a way that holds a room. The cream ground means it works against plaster, panelling or a dark paint without fighting anything, and the single eye of turquoise and orange gives a wall of neutrals one place to land. The wear is the argument for it. Gold rubbed off the ridges by hands, ribbon bleached pale by decades of light, dirt in the scrollwork that nobody has tried to scrub out. Lean it on a shelf among books, hang it over a stair, or group it with prints and let it be the object people ask about.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50417176182889,"sku":"VE-1711","price":788.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1711-01.jpg?v=1790417771"},{"product_id":"vintage-disneyland-records-lp-collection-set-of-five-c-1964-1974","title":"Vintage Disneyland LP Set of Six with Psychedelic Alice, c. 1964–1974","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSix Walt Disney long playing records from the Disneyland label, assembled as a group. Four are Storyteller sets, the format that paired a narrated abridgement with a bound full colour picture book so a child could follow the pictures while the record ran. Two are straight song albums from the budget line. Together they cover roughly a decade of the label, from the plain yellow paper labels of the middle sixties to the purple Storyteller discs of 1969 and a Pooh pressing from the early seventies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe one to look at first is Alice in Wonderland, Storyteller ST 3909, printed 1969. Where every other jacket in the group uses the film artwork straight, this one was redrawn for the moment: Alice sits on her mushroom inside a field of acid yellow, surrounded by coiling op art scrollwork in pink, orange, violet and blue, with the Cheshire Cat dissolving into the pattern and the title set in fat psychedelic lettering. It is late sixties commercial design wearing Disney characters, and it is the most graphically ambitious sleeve the label produced.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe rest of the group runs as follows. Walt Disney's Dumbo, Storyteller ST 3904, a gatefold with a bound eleven page book, told by Timothy Mouse. The Story and Songs of The Wizard of Oz, Storyteller ST 3957, taken from the book by L. Frank Baum and carrying the Arlen and Harburg songs licensed from the picture. Walt Disney's Story and Songs from Bambi, Storyteller ST 3903, based on the Felix Salten novel and narrated by Ginny Tyler. Walt Disney's Bambi, DQ 1203, the orchestral soundtrack with the aurora cover. And All the Songs from Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, 1277, with Sterling Holloway as Pooh and the songs of Richard and Robert Sherman, produced by Camarata.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFour of the six carry old shop price tags taped to the front, three of them reading fifty cents. They are not original to the records. They are the marks of long gone stores and they have been left exactly where they were found.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDisneyland Records was founded in 1956 as the studio's own label, and the Storyteller series became its signature format. The idea was simple and it held for thirty years: a narrated story on the disc, a bound illustrated book inside the jacket, and a price low enough that the record could be handed to a child rather than shelved away from one. The budget DQ line ran alongside it, carrying the film scores without narration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Alice jacket is the outlier and the reason it leads here. The film dates to 1951 and the text copyright inside the gatefold still reads 1951, but the sleeve is printed 1969, and by then Alice had been taken up by a counterculture that read the story its own way. Disney redrew the packaging to meet it. Earlier pressings of ST 3909 from 1962 and 1966 carry conventional film art, so the psychedelic treatment belongs to this printing alone, and it is the version collectors look for.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo of the others have a claim beyond the familiar. The Pooh album was issued in May 1965, seven months before the featurette reached theatres in February 1966, and it carries song material that was cut from the finished picture, including a sequence that survives nowhere else. The Bambi soundtrack preserves the 1942 Frank Churchill and Edward Plumb score, first pressed to LP in 1957.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDating these is a matter of reading the label rather than the cover, because Disney carried the same artwork copyright forward across two decades of printings. The catalogue number does the work. Disneyland dropped its letter prefixes in the early seventies, so a Pooh label reading 1277 without the DQ belongs to the 1973 and 1974 pressings, while the Bambi soundtrack still carrying DQ 1203 sits in the window before that change. Alice, Oz and the Storyteller Bambi all keep the ST prefix that later pressings dropped, and all three are printed 1969.\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. 1964–1974 across the group. Alice, The Wizard of Oz and the Storyteller Bambi are all printed 1969 and carry the ST prefix that later pressings dropped, making them first year copies of those jackets. The Bambi soundtrack carries DQ 1203 with a plain yellow label, placing it between 1964 and 1969. The Pooh label reads 1277 without the DQ prefix, which belongs to the 1973 and 1974 pressings rather than to the 1965 date printed on its cover. The Dumbo jacket is printed 1965\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRecords\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSix. Alice in Wonderland ST 3909; Dumbo ST 3904; The Wizard of Oz ST 3957; Story and Songs from Bambi ST 3903; Walt Disney's Bambi DQ 1203; All the Songs from Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree 1277\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLabels\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDisneyland Records. Solid purple on the four Storyteller discs, plain yellow with the castle device on the two song albums\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFormat\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e12 in. long playing records, mono. Four Storyteller sets with illustrated books, two single pocket song albums\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBooks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePresent in the Alice gatefold, in the Dumbo gatefold with all eleven pages, and in the Wizard of Oz pocket\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition, jackets\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMixed and honestly described. The Wizard of Oz is the best of the group, bright and sound with light edge wear and a taped shop tag. Alice is sound and bright with creasing across the face, edge wear, a bumped and broken lower right corner and a taped shop tag over the Cheshire Cat. Dumbo is fair to good with bumped corners and a small split at the lower left. The Pooh has a split and crease through the lower right corner and general shelf soiling. The Storyteller Bambi has paper losses at the upper and lower left corners with old clear tape repairs. The Bambi soundtrack is the weakest, with the paper wrap worn away along the top and left edges to bare board, a rounded corner and ink loss across the printed field\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition, records\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood to fair. Surface marking and handling scuffs visible under raking light across the group, heavier on the Pooh disc. None tested on a turntable and all sold 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\u003eBought one at a time these are common records, with one exception. Bought as a run they are something else: a decade of a single label's commercial art, stacked, with the 1969 Alice sitting at the top of it. Hang that one on its own and it reads as a psychedelic poster that happens to be a record sleeve. Behind it the Bambi aurora, the Oz forest in acid green and plum, the wood plank title board on the Pooh. These were designed to be seen from across a room by someone four feet tall, and the graphic confidence that came with that brief has aged unusually well. A group like this reads on a record ledge, in a child's room, or broken up and framed as a wall of six. The wear is part of the record, and any copy of these that still has its book has already outlived most of its siblings.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67540314914921,"sku":"VE-1713","price":166.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1713-01_40714cb5-065d-42a0-8940-a3356e7dbee0.jpg?v=1790417573"},{"product_id":"vintage-palissy-avon-scenes-blue-transferware-plate-c-1976-1989","title":"Vintage Palissy Avon Scenes Blue Transferware Plate, c. 1976–1989","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA blue and white English transferware plate in the Avon Scenes pattern, printed in a deep indigo on a warm cream ground. The centre gives a gabled manor house standing above a river, its mullioned windows and clustered chimneys drawn in fine engraved line, with a stand of heavy timber beside it and a punt in the foreground carrying two figures, one standing to the pole. A second boat sits far out on the water and the sky above is worked in long horizontal strokes broken by cloud.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe border is the part that carries the plate across a room. Full blown roses and open blossom run right around the rim in dense sprays, set against a cross hatched blue ground and broken at intervals by rococo scrollwork and shell forms. The rim is gently scalloped. The effect is dark and busy in the way the best nineteenth century printed ware is, with the pale reserve of the centre reading as light by contrast.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe reverse carries the printed cartouche: a Royal Worcester Ltd subsidiary, 1790, Avon Scenes, Palissy, England.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlbert E. Jones Ltd of the Garfield Works, Longton, made earthenware under the Palissy trade name from about 1908, and Avon Scenes was one of the two designs that carried the firm, the other being the brown printed Game Series made for the game course of an Edwardian dinner. The company took the Palissy name formally in 1946 and moved to Chancery Lane, and in 1958 it was bought by the Worcester Royal Porcelain Company.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mark on this plate dates it more tightly than the style would. Various markings were used after the 1958 purchase, but the Royal Worcester wording was not put into the factory mark until 1976, when Royal Worcester, Spode and Palissy came under common ownership. This plate carries that wording. The Palissy factory closed in 1989, which closes the window at the other end.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 1790 printed in the cartouche is not the date of manufacture and should not be read as one. Avon Scenes is described by the Museum of Royal Worcester as a blue and white printed pattern based on an English design of the early nineteenth century, so the date in the mark points back at the engraved source the pattern descends from, in the manner of a great many English potteries who printed a founding or heritage date alongside a modern backstamp.\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. 1976–1989. The floor is the mark itself: the Royal Worcester wording entered the Palissy factory mark only in 1976, on the common ownership of Royal Worcester, Spode and Palissy. The ceiling is the closure of the Palissy factory in 1989. The 1790 in the cartouche refers to the design tradition the pattern descends from, not to this plate\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePalissy Pottery Ltd, Longton, Staffordshire, then a Royal Worcester Ltd subsidiary\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePattern\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAvon Scenes, blue and white printed earthenware\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePrinted scrolled cartouche to the reverse reading a Royal Worcester Ltd subsidiary, 1790, Avon Scenes, Palissy, England\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGlazed earthenware with underglaze transfer print\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 10.5 in. diameter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood, honest and used. Transfer strong and evenly printed with good depth of colour. No chips, cracks or restoration found. Utensil scratching across the well from use, visible under raking light, and light rubbing to the rim edge in places. Reverse clean and the mark crisp\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 does a particular job in a room: it reads as pattern from across the floor and as picture up close, and it sits against almost anything without argument. Put this one on a plate rail, hang it on a wall of mismatched blue transfer, or run it under a lamp on a dresser where the border can do its work. It will also still take a meal, which is worth saying about a plate that is over forty years old and has no damage to speak of. Bought singly it is a good example of a pattern the factory made for eighty years, and it is the kind of piece a room accumulates rather than the kind it is decorated with.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67540775043177,"sku":"VE-1714","price":61.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1714-01_a9d00894-46cb-45cb-8e4d-89dbf6fa389c.jpg?v=1790418354"},{"product_id":"vintage-johnson-bros-heritage-white-ironstone-platter-c-1968-1990","title":"Vintage Johnson Bros Heritage White Ironstone Platter, c. 1968–1990","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA large octagonal serving platter in white ironstone, Johnson Brothers Heritage White. The shape is the whole argument for it: eight flat panels cut around a deep oval well, the corners chamfered hard rather than eased, and a fine beaded moulding running the full circuit of the rim inside a raised edge. There is no pattern, no colour and no gilding anywhere on it. The form and the glaze do all the work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe glaze has aged into the piece rather than off it. The well carries dense all over crazing, a fine web running the whole surface, and the lines have taken up colour over decades of use so that the centre reads amber and tan against the white. Some sellers scrub this out. It has not been scrubbed out here, and the result is a platter that looks its age honestly, in the way collected white ironstone usually does.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe reverse is clean and lightly glazed, with a broad oval foot and the printed mark: Johnson Brothers, Made in England, A1.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJohnson Brothers was founded at Hanley in Staffordshire in 1883 and became one of the largest English makers of durable earthenware for the table, selling into America in enormous quantity. Ironstone was the body it built its name on: a dense, hard earthenware developed in the early nineteenth century to give middle class households something that behaved like porcelain and survived a working kitchen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHeritage White is one of the firm's better known shapes and one of its few undecorated ones. The octagonal form is the identifying feature, and the trade sources are consistent about where it comes from. Chinasearch records the pattern as developed in the late 1960s, its unexpected octagonal shape answering a contemporary appetite for unusual form, and MrPottery places its introduction in the 1970s. That matters, because Heritage White is regularly sold as a mid century piece of about 1950, and it is not. It is a generation later than that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis example carries the plain arched mark reading Johnson Brothers, Made in England, with the code A1 beneath. Replacements catalogues the Made in England stamp as a distinct Heritage White backstamp among several used across the pattern's run, and sibling codes such as E1 are recorded on other pieces, so the letter and number read as a works or shape code rather than a date.\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. 1968–1990. The floor comes from the pattern rather than the mark: Heritage White was developed in the late 1960s and introduced around the turn of the decade, so no piece of it predates that, whatever a given listing may say. The ceiling is left open because the Made in England backstamp is one of several used across the run and no dated mark is present\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eJohnson Brothers, Staffordshire, England\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePattern\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHeritage White, undecorated octagonal ironstone\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePrinted to the reverse: Johnson Brothers, Made in England, A1\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWhite glazed ironstone\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 14 in. by 11 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStructurally excellent, cosmetically aged. No chips, cracks, restoration or repair found anywhere on the piece, and the rim and beading are crisp all the way round. Dense all over crazing across the well with amber and tan staining taken up into the crazing lines, heaviest through the centre. Light surface scratching from serving. Reverse clean and the mark crisp. Offered unrestored and uncleaned\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\u003eWhite ironstone is one of the few things that works in almost any room without being asked to match anything, and a platter this size is the piece that anchors a stack of it. Lean it at the back of a dresser, hang it, or put it to work under a roast. The staining is the point rather than the problem: it is what separates a platter that has been on a table for fifty years from one bought new last month, and it is exactly the surface that collectors of white ironstone look for. Anyone who wants it whiter can have it whiter, but it will never get that colour back.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67540785692777,"sku":"VE-1715","price":114.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1715-01_e89f8172-05cc-4743-ba7b-d22f8f7c0df0.jpg?v=1790418706"},{"product_id":"vintage-eales-of-sheffield-hammered-silver-plate-decanter-c-1969-1985","title":"Vintage Eales of Sheffield Hammered Silver Plate Decanter, c. 1969–1985","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA spirit decanter in pressed glass, the lower half sleeved in hammered silver plate. The metal is the reason to look twice. It wraps the body as a continuous planished skin, every facet of the hammering catching light at a different angle, and it is finished top and bottom with a pierced and scalloped border that folds over onto the glass and holds the sleeve in place without solder showing at the front.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe glass above the sleeve carries a band of raised blocks, then a run of broad flutes rising to a panelled neck and a flared lip. The stopper is a heavy ball pressed in the same block pattern with a cut star to the crown, and it seats cleanly. Where the plate has worn on the high points of the hammering, the copper beneath shows through in warm patches, which is what silver plate over copper does and what most of the trade polishes away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe base is covered in a soft pad carrying the maker's label: Eales of Sheffield, since 1779, silver plate and crystal, Sheffield England.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe label is worth reading carefully, because it says less about age than it appears to. Sheffield plate proper, copper fused between sheets of silver, was invented by Thomas Boulsover in the 1740s and made the city's name, and firms trading in silver plate have borrowed dates from that era as a badge of descent ever since. Eales of Sheffield is one of them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe brand belongs to the Leonard Silver Manufacturing Company, established in Boston in 1969 by Leonard Florence, who went on to acquire Towle Manufacturing and build Syratech; Leonard became a Towle subsidiary in 1977. So 1779 is a lineage claim rather than a date of manufacture, and the real floor for anything carrying the Eales mark is 1969. Later Eales pieces turn up marked Italy, which points this one, marked Sheffield England, toward the earlier part of the run.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo further things the label overstates. The glass is pressed rather than cut, which you can read in the softened edges of the blocks and the mould lines running the height of the body, so crystal is a trade description rather than a technical one. And the sleeve is plated, not solid, as the copper showing through the wear makes plain. None of that is unusual for the period. It simply means the piece should be described for what it is.\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. 1969–1985. The floor is documentary: Eales of Sheffield is a brand of the Leonard Silver Manufacturing Company, founded in Boston in 1969, so no piece bearing this label predates that year. The 1779 printed on the label refers to the Sheffield plate tradition the name invokes, not to this decanter. The Sheffield England attribution supports the earlier part of the range, later Eales wares being marked Italy\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEales of Sheffield, a brand of Leonard Silver Manufacturing Co.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterials\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePressed glass with a hammered silver plate sleeve over copper, pierced and scalloped borders folded over the glass\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStopper\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePresent and original, pressed ball form with a cut star to the crown, seats correctly\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePrinted paper label to the padded base reading Eales of Sheffield, since 1779, silver plate and crystal, Sheffield England\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 11 in. high by 4.5 in. diameter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good and complete. Glass sound throughout with no chips, cracks or bruising found to the body, lip or stopper. Plate worn on the crowns of the hammering with copper showing through in warm patches, and light tarnish in the recesses. Pierced borders intact all round. Base pad and label present, the label rubbed but fully legible\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 decanter earns its place by being handled, and this one is built for it: the hammered sleeve gives the hand something to hold and the weight sits low, so it pours without drama. On a bar cart or a library table the planished surface does the work, breaking light into a hundred small facets instead of throwing one hard reflection the way cut glass does. The copper coming through the silver is the part worth keeping. It is the record of the piece being used rather than displayed, and no amount of polishing will put it back.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67540786118761,"sku":"VE-1716","price":236.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1716-01_b7c0e502-ad13-471a-af29-c572aa5cc651.jpg?v=1790419099"},{"product_id":"vintage-japanese-four-panel-byobu-table-screen-signed-c-1950-1980","title":"Vintage Japanese Four Panel Byobu Table Screen, Signed, c. 1950–1980","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA four panel Japanese folding screen, a byobu, in the low table format made to stand behind an arrangement or along the back of a chest rather than to divide a room. Each panel is silk laid over a light board core, mounted in a dark lacquered frame the colour of old rosewood, and finished at the corners and hinges with pierced brass mounts cut in a scrolling leaf pattern.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe painting runs across all four panels as one composition rather than four separate pictures, which is the whole logic of the form. A flowering branch enters at the left with broad blue green leaves and opens into trumpets of orange and vermilion, then thins across the centre into a long trailing spray of white five petalled blossom, buds still closed in coral at the tips, before running out into empty ground at the right. The silk is washed in a warm gold that deepens toward the centre of each panel, and the painter has left better than a third of the surface bare, which is what gives the branch its movement.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEach panel is framed in a band of cream silk brocade woven with a faint figured pattern, and the whole is bordered again in a narrow paper edge. At the lower right, in black ink, are two characters reading Tokumai, with a small red relief seal stamped beneath them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe byobu is among the oldest continuous forms in Japanese interiors, recorded from the eighth century and developed through the Muromachi and Edo periods into the gold ground screens that are the best known surviving examples. The construction has changed remarkably little: panels of paper or silk over a light lattice core, hinged with paper strips or with metal fittings, so the whole folds flat and travels.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe low four panel format of this screen belongs to the domestic tradition rather than the ceremonial one. Screens of this height were made to sit on a chest, behind a flower arrangement, or at the head of bedding, giving a painted ground to an object placed in front of them. The subject follows the bird and flower convention, kachoga, in which a single seasonal branch is asked to carry the whole picture.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe signature is the part a buyer will want to pursue. The two characters read most naturally as Tokumai, and the seal beneath is a carved relief stamp of the kind a painter used alongside a brushed signature rather than a workshop mark. No atelier label or box is present. The screen is offered as signed and hand painted, with the reading of the name given as the best available and not as a firm attribution, and there is room here for someone who reads the seal to know more than this listing does.\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. 1950–1980. Dated on construction rather than on a mark: silk over a board core in a machine finished lacquered frame with stamped brass mounts, and brocade mountings in good modern condition, all of which place it in the later twentieth century rather than among earlier hand lattice screens. No dated inscription or box is present to narrow it\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eByobu, four panel low or table screen, hinged to fold flat\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterials\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePainted silk over board, silk brocade mountings, lacquered timber frame, pierced brass corner and hinge mounts\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSubject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFlowering branch across all four panels, orange trumpet blooms and white five petalled blossom with coral buds, on a gold washed ground\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSigned in black ink to the lower right panel, two characters reading Tokumai, with a red relief seal beneath\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 52 in. wide fully extended by 22 in. high\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good. Silk sound and the painting bright with no flaking, tears or losses to the painted ground. Scattered light foxing to the silk, most visible on the right hand panels. Brocade mountings intact with light soiling. Lacquer frame with minor edge wear and small rubs, brass mounts complete and tight, hinges sound and the screen folds and stands correctly\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 low screen does something no framed picture can: it stands on its own, it turns a corner, and it makes a background wherever you put it. Set it on a sideboard behind a bowl, on a hall table, on the floor at the end of a bed. The gold ground throws light back into a dark room, and because the branch runs across all four panels you can change the whole composition just by adjusting the angle of the folds. The empty ground is as considered as the painted part, and that is the difference between a decorative screen and one made by somebody who knew what they were leaving out.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67541205713001,"sku":"VE-1717","price":1138.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_8afc4151-139b-49dd-9da9-7f771c8feae7.jpg?v=1790425786"},{"product_id":"vintage-cast-brass-neoclassical-table-lamp-silk-shade-c-1950-1975","title":"Vintage Cast Brass Neoclassical Table Lamp, Silk Shade, c. 1950–1975","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA cast brass table lamp in the neoclassical manner, built as a column and weighted like one. The casting is the reason to look at it. From a stepped circular foot the column rises through a collar of stiff water leaf, narrows, and then carries a band of small rosettes set between reeded rings before opening into the main register: a tall cylinder cast all round with pointed leaf arcading, each leaf raised with a defined spine and separated by a deep channel that holds shadow. Above that the form flares to a moulded collar, gathers into a plain brass knop polished bright by handling, and finishes in a reeded neck to the socket.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe shade is the original and is the part that usually goes missing. Cream silk, machine pleated in fine radiating folds that draw to a knot at the centre of each panel, made up over a scalloped bell frame. A gold gimp braid binds the top and bottom edges, and a fringe of looped gold cord hangs from the upper band in linked ogee arches. Inside, the pleating converges on a turned finial at the fitting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe lamp is wired and working. The socket is a brass shell with a turn knob switch and carries a small printed label, now too rubbed to read.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe vocabulary here is Empire by way of the twentieth century. Water leaf and acanthus arcading around a column, rosettes in a banded frieze, a stepped plinth foot: these are the ornaments French Empire designers took from Roman metalwork after 1800, and American and European lamp makers were still casting them in brass a hundred and fifty years later for a market that wanted a formal light for a hall table or a pair for a mantel.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing on this lamp names a maker. What dates it is how it is made. The column is cast in brass in several sections and threaded over a central rod, rather than spun or stamped from sheet, which is what gives it the weight and the crispness in the leaf work. The socket is a standard American brass shell with a turn knob, and the shade is machine pleated silk with applied gimp and a cord fringe, a construction common in shade work from the middle decades of the last century. Together those place it after the second war and before the sheet brass and plastic fittings that took over the trade in the later seventies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe survival of the original shade matters more than it might seem. Silk shades of this kind are usually the first thing to perish or be replaced, and a lamp that still carries the one it was sold with reads as a complete object rather than an assembled one.\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. 1950–1975. Dated on construction rather than a mark: a multi part cast brass column threaded over a central rod, a standard American brass shell socket with turn knob switch, and a machine pleated silk shade with applied gimp and looped cord fringe. No maker mark is present and the printed socket label is rubbed illegible\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterials\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCast brass column and foot, pleated silk shade on a scalloped bell frame, gold gimp braid and looped cord fringe\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOrnament\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStiff water leaf collars, a banded frieze of rosettes between reeded rings, pointed leaf arcading to the main column, stepped circular foot\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eElectrical\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWired and in working order. Single brass shell socket with turn knob switch, standard bulb fitting, original cord\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 30 in. high overall by 14 in. across the shade\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good. Brass sound throughout with a warm patina, darkening held in the recesses of the casting and brightness on the handled high points, no dents, splits or repairs found. Shade original, clean and structurally sound, with light even yellowing consistent with age and a few faint handling marks. Gimp and fringe complete all round. Finial present. Tested and lighting\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 lamp for a piece of furniture rather than a room: a hall table, the end of a sideboard, a desk that wants formality. Lit, the pleated silk does something a paper shade cannot, throwing a warm even wash downward while the folds catch light along every crease. Unlit, the column stands up on its own as a piece of cast ornament. It will read as period without reading as costume, and it asks nothing of the room around it beyond a surface strong enough to hold the weight.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67541256667241,"sku":"VE-1718","price":744.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01.jpg?v=1790427892"},{"product_id":"vintage-thai-celadon-crackle-glaze-dishes-set-of-four-c-1970-1995","title":"Vintage Thai Celadon Crackle Glaze Dishes, Set of Four, c. 1970–1995","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFour small Thai celadon dishes in a warm amber glaze, the kind that pools dark in the well and thins to honey where it runs over the rim. The whole surface is crazed in a fine even net, and the crackle has taken up colour over time so that the web reads as a darker tracery across the amber rather than as flaw. Each dish is shallow, slightly everted at the lip, and sits on a small unglazed foot ring burnt buff in the firing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey are a working set rather than a matched factory one. The glaze breaks differently on each, heavier and browner on two, lighter and more golden on the others, which is what a reduction fired ash type glaze does across a kiln. The undersides carry the maker's mark: Thai Celadon in a running script, with Thai characters above and the impressed numeral 20 beside.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCeladon in Thailand has two quite separate histories and it is worth keeping them apart. The first is the Sawankhalok and Sukhothai kilns of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, which exported stoneware across Southeast Asia and whose wares are now museum and auction material. The second is the modern revival, which began in the middle of the twentieth century around Chiang Mai, where workshops set out to recover the old glazes and the wood ash chemistry behind them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese dishes belong to the revival. The workshops of northern Thailand, Mengrai Kilns and the Baan Celadon group among the better known, built a substantial export trade from the 1960s onward in glazed stoneware finished with the deliberate fine crackle that has become the signature of the style. The crackle is not a defect. It is engineered, produced by a glaze that shrinks at a different rate from the body as the piece cools, and it is then allowed to stain with use so the net becomes visible.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe amber rather than the more familiar jade green places these in the brown or honey celadon family the same kilns produced alongside their green wares. The mark gives the ware name rather than a workshop, so no single pottery can be named here with confidence, and the impressed numeral reads as a shape or size code rather than a date.\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. 1970–1995. Dated to the modern Chiang Mai celadon revival rather than to the historic kilns: a controlled fine crackle glaze on a light stoneware body, wheel finished with a clean unglazed foot ring, and marked in roman script for the export trade, all of which belong to the later twentieth century workshop production rather than to Sawankhalok wares. No dated mark is present\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSet\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFour dishes\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGlazed stoneware, amber or honey celadon with an allover fine crackle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eImpressed and painted to the underside: Thai Celadon in script with Thai characters above and the numeral 20\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 4.5 in. diameter each\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good throughout. No chips, cracks or restoration found on any of the four. Glaze bright and unworn. Crackle stained to a warm brown across all pieces, which is inherent to the ware and not damage. Foot rings clean. Colour varies slightly piece to piece as the glaze intends\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\u003eSmall dishes earn their keep by being everywhere: under a candle, beside the stove for salt, on a desk for paperclips, at each place for olives. In amber they do something a white dish cannot, which is to sit warm against wood and brass rather than cutting against them. Four is the useful number, enough to set a table or to scatter through a room, and because the crackle already carries its colour there is nothing here to protect. Use them.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67541367816297,"sku":"VE-1719","price":245.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_df1a2805-ade1-46d7-8c17-775aa5f94b17.jpg?v=1790428006"},{"product_id":"vintage-matouk-embroidered-placemat-set-of-eight-unused-c-1968-1985","title":"Vintage Matouk Embroidered Placemat Set of Eight, Unused, c. 1968–1985","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn eight piece Matouk table linen set, still sealed in its original packaging and to all appearances never used. The ground is a soft oyster cream, closely woven and smooth, and the whole of the border is worked in a coral red satin stitch: a double line running parallel to each edge, mitred at the corners into a long shallow V, with a small lozenge set at the centre point where the two lines meet. It is a restrained piece of drawing, geometric rather than floral, and the coral reads warm rather than bright against the cream.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe embroidery is machine worked but densely laid, the stitches packed tight enough to stand slightly proud of the cloth, and the line holds its width all the way around without wavering at the turns. The package retains its stiffening card and the printed manufacturer's label, which reads Permanent Press, Soil Release, Styled by Matouk, For a Lifetime of Luxury, fifty per cent Dacron polyester and fifty per cent cotton, Style 108, eight piece set, Made in U.S.A.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe set is offered exactly as found, sealed. Opening the wrap to count and photograph the pieces individually would end the thing that makes it interesting, so the composition is given as the label gives it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMatouk was founded in 1929 by John Matouk, a Syrian immigrant weaver, and built its name in Fall River, Massachusetts, on fine table and bed linens sold through department stores to households that expected linen to last a generation. The firm is still in business and still American, which makes its older Made in U.S.A. stock unusually traceable to a single continuing maker.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe label dates the set more precisely than the design does. Dacron is DuPont's trade name for polyester. Permanent press and soil release are both finishing technologies of the later 1960s, the first introduced to keep a blended cloth from needing an iron, the second developed shortly after to solve the problem permanent press created, namely that treated polyester blends attracted and held oily soil. A set advertising both finishes together, on a Dacron and cotton ground, cannot be earlier than that moment. It belongs to the period when American linen houses were selling easy care as a luxury rather than a compromise.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat is also why a sealed example survives. These were bought for good, put in a linen press for a table that never quite warranted them, and forgotten, which is the ordinary history of almost every unused linen set that reaches the market.\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. 1968–1985. The floor comes from the finishes named on the label: permanent press and soil release are both later 1960s technologies, so the set cannot predate them. Dacron is DuPont's polyester trade name. The ceiling is left open, as American production of this kind of blended table linen continued into the 1980s. No dated mark is present\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMatouk, Fall River, Massachusetts\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePattern\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStyle 108, mitred double line border with centre lozenge, coral red on oyster cream\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFifty per cent Dacron polyester, fifty per cent cotton, with permanent press and soil release finishes\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSet\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEight pieces as stated on the manufacturer's label. The package has not been opened, so the breakdown between mats and napkins is given as labelled rather than counted\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePrinted manufacturer's label to the package: Permanent Press, Soil Release, Styled by Matouk, For a Lifetime of Luxury, Style 108, 8 Pc. Set, Made in U.S.A.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePackage approximately 18 in. by 13 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApparently unused and sealed in the original wrap with the stiffening card and label in place. Cloth bright and unmarked where visible through the packaging, embroidery crisp with full colour and no fading. The wrap itself is creased and lightly clouded with age. Offered unopened\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\u003eCoral on cream is a harder colour pairing to find than it sounds, and it does something no white set can: it warms a table without committing it to a season. The border is geometric enough to sit under modern china and old enough in feeling to sit under transferware, which is a wider range than most patterned linen manages. And because the finish is a blend, this is a set you can actually put on a table and then put in a machine, which is the reason it was bought in the first place and the reason it will get used rather than admired.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67541658304617,"sku":"VE-1720","price":394.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_080153dd-8b53-4a71-a395-cdfa655fb07a.jpg?v=1790428181"},{"product_id":"vintage-remington-6-electric-shaver-comfort-dial-c-1968-1979","title":"Vintage Remington 6 Electric Shaver, Comfort Dial, c. 1968–1979","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA Remington 6 electric shaver, and a small masterclass in how American industrial design handled a bathroom object in the late sixties. The body is a flat black block, squared at the corners and softened only where the mould radius demanded it. A band of bright chrome runs the full perimeter as a single unbroken line. The front is divided in two: an upper panel carrying the controls, and below it a rectangle of grained black leatherette set flush into the face, put there for grip and for the look of the thing rather than for any mechanical reason.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe control is a chromed slotted dial, quartered by an arrow, and around it in sans capitals run the settings: CLOSER, TRIM, CLEAN, with COMFORT DIAL named beneath. At the foot of the panel the name plate reads REMINGTON in a squared geometric face, followed by the numeral 6 reversed out of a single block of mid blue. That blue rectangle is the only colour anywhere on the object and it does all the work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe head carries six chrome shaving foils in a row, fine perforated screens above the cutter block, each separated by a slim bright rib. They are clean, unbent and free of the pitting these usually show. The whole thing is roughly the size and weight of a pack of cards in the hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Remington name on this shaver is not the firearms company, and the split is worth knowing. E. Remington and Sons made rifles from 1818 and first commercialised the QWERTY typewriter in 1873. In 1886 the firm sold the typewriter business along with the Remington brand to the Standard Typewriter Company, which renamed itself Remington Typewriter in 1902, merged with Rand Kardex in 1927 to become Remington Rand, and established an Electric Shaver Division in 1936. The rifle side went its own way as Remington Arms. So the shaver on your dresser and the rifle in the cabinet have shared a name but not a company since the 1880s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRemington Rand merged with Sperry in 1955, and the shaver business ran as part of Sperry Rand through the period this example belongs to. It left in 1979, bought by Victor Kiam, whose line about liking the shaver so much he bought the company became one of the better known advertisements of the following decade. That sale is the useful ceiling here: the numbered Comfort Dial series and this particular graphic treatment belong to the Sperry Rand years before it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat makes the object worth keeping is not the mechanism. It is that somebody took a great deal of care over a thing that lived next to a sink. The proportions, the single chrome line, the one blue rectangle: this is the same design confidence that was being applied to radios and cameras in the same years, applied to a shaver.\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. 1968–1979. Dated on the branding and styling rather than a serial: the numbered Comfort Dial series with this graphic treatment belongs to the period when Remington's shaver business ran under Sperry Rand, which began with the 1955 merger and ended with the sale to Victor Kiam in 1979. No date code is present on the housing\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRemington, then a division of Sperry Rand\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eModel\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRemington 6, six foil head with Comfort Dial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterials\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMoulded black plastic housing, bright chrome trim and foils, inset grained leatherette panel\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eControls\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRotary Comfort Dial marked CLOSER, TRIM and CLEAN\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 4.5 in. high by 3 in. wide by 1.5 in. deep\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eExcellent cosmetically. Housing clean and unscuffed, chrome bright throughout with no pitting or lifting, leatherette panel intact and supple, lettering crisp and complete. All six foils present, flat and undamaged. Not tested under power and sold as a display and design object rather than as a working appliance\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 belongs on a dresser top or a shelf of men's objects, next to a cigarette case and a pair of cufflink boxes, where it reads as a small piece of sixties industrial sculpture rather than as a grooming tool. Black, chrome and one rectangle of blue is a restrained palette that sits well against brass and walnut. It is also the kind of object that stops people, because almost nobody expects a shaver to have been designed this carefully, and almost nobody has seen one survive in this condition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67541804253289,"sku":"VE-1721","price":96.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_f739a90b-6335-4baf-ab61-8318a1d9f980.jpg?v=1790428406"},{"product_id":"vintage-japanese-maple-leaf-porcelain-oval-platter-c-1950-1980","title":"Vintage Japanese Maple Leaf Porcelain Oval Platter, c. 1950–1980","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA Japanese oval porcelain platter, white bodied and thinly potted, painted with maple in autumn. The leaves are momiji, the small sharply lobed Japanese maple, and they are laid across the rim in loose drifts of vermilion and rust, some turned fully red, others caught half green at the base, a few reduced to outline in gilt. They do not sit as a repeating border. They fall the way leaves fall, heavier at two corners of the oval and thinning to almost nothing across the centre, so the eye is carried around the piece rather than stopped by it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe rim itself is finished with a narrow scalloped band in black and gold, drawn as a fine ogee that follows the wave of the edge. Inside that the glaze is left entirely bare. Better than two thirds of the surface carries no decoration at all, and the whole design depends on that emptiness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe reverse is clean and lightly glazed with a low foot ring. At the centre sits the mark: a red iron oxide seal, square with a soft rounded outline, carrying a single character painted over it in gold.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMomiji is one of the fixed subjects of Japanese decorative art and it carries a season the way cherry blossom carries spring. Maple viewing, momijigari, is an autumn practice with a literary history running back to the Heian court, and the leaf has been used on lacquer, textiles, prints and porcelain for as long as those trades have existed. A piece decorated with maple is not decorated at random. It is a piece for one part of the year, and in a household that changed its tableware with the season it would have come out in October and gone away again.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe painting here is hand done rather than transferred. The enamel stands slightly proud where it has been laid thickly at the leaf centres, the gilt outlines wander in the way a brush wanders and a print does not, and no two leaves repeat. That is the useful distinction in this material, because the great bulk of Japanese export porcelain from the twentieth century is printed and only finished by hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mark is a seal rather than a factory backstamp, and the single gilt character over red is the form a decorator or a small workshop used rather than the form a large export pottery used. It names no firm that can be identified with confidence here, so the piece is offered as hand painted and sealed rather than under an attribution it cannot carry.\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. 1950–1980. Dated on the making rather than a backstamp: a thinly potted white porcelain body with hand painted overglaze enamel and gilt, finished with a painted rim band, and marked only with a decorator's red seal and gilt character rather than a factory or country of origin stamp. No dated mark is present\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eJapanese\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMomiji, Japanese maple leaves, in vermilion, rust and gilt across the rim, with a black and gold scalloped edge band\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWhite porcelain with overglaze enamel and gilding\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRed seal to the underside with a single character painted over in gold\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 14 in. by 10 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eExcellent. No chips, cracks, crazing or restoration found. Glaze clean and bright throughout, enamels strong with no flaking, gilding complete with only the faintest rubbing at the extreme edge. Reverse clean and the seal crisp\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 platter that works hardest when it is doing nothing. Stood on a plate rail or leaned at the back of a dresser it reads as a painting of autumn, and the bare white centre keeps it from crowding whatever sits in front of it. Bring it down in October for a roast or a plate of fruit and it does the other job just as well. Red and gold on white is a combination that sits against walnut, brass and plain plaster without needing anything else in the room to agree with it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67541844557929,"sku":"VE-1722","price":236.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/03_3ade2e5f-211a-436d-b7cb-33f7fbf2093a.jpg?v=1790428609"},{"product_id":"vintage-usps-elvis-commemorative-stamp-collection-sealed-1993","title":"Vintage USPS Elvis Commemorative Stamp Collection, Sealed, 1993","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe complete Elvis Presley commemorative collection issued by the United States Postal Service in 1993, still shrink wrapped, and with something most surviving examples have long since lost: the paperwork. The set comes in its original USPS mailing carton, the flaps still carrying the printed address label to the original purchaser and a strip of tape marked Elvis Stamps in red felt pen by whoever put it away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInside, sealed, is the Legends of American Music commemorative album in navy and gold, and laid over it the first day cover: a card printed as a forty five record sleeve in cream and deep red, the Elvis script logo across the top, and set into the centre circle where a label would sit, the twenty nine cent stamp itself, cancelled with the pictorial first day die. That cancel is a drawing of a stave of music running into the brick front of Graceland, and it reads FIRST DAY OF ISSUE, January 8 1993, Memphis TN.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFolded in with it is the original receipt. It records the order placed on 10 March 1993 through the Postal Service's Stamps by Phone line, item A9918, Complete Elvis Collection, forty four dollars ninety five, plus a three dollar service charge, forty seven ninety five in total. It lists what the collection contains and what each part would have cost alone: the commemorative album at 19.95, the limited edition print at 14.95, the stamp sheet and saver sleeve at 11.60, and the first day ceremony program at 5.95.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Elvis stamp is the most consequential piece of paper the Postal Service ever printed. Through 1992 the USPS ran a public ballot asking Americans to choose between a young Elvis and an older one, an exercise that generated over a million votes and a volume of press coverage no stamp had attracted before. The young Elvis won. The stamp went on sale on 8 January 1993, which would have been his fifty eighth birthday, with a first day ceremony at Graceland.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt became the best selling commemorative stamp in American history, and by a wide margin. The Postal Service printed hundreds of millions, and a very large share were bought and never used, which was the point: a stamp that is saved rather than spent is revenue with no service to deliver against it. That is also why loose Elvis stamps are worth nothing today and always will be. They were saved by the tens of millions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat is uncommon is this. A collection still sealed, in its own mailing box, with the purchaser's label, a dated receipt naming the item number and the price, and the first day cancel intact. The stamps are common. The documented, unopened, thirty three year old parcel is not, and everything interesting about this object is the paperwork rather than the philately.\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\u003e1993, documented to the day twice over. The stamp carries a first day of issue cancel dated 8 January 1993 at Memphis, and the enclosed Postal Service receipt is dated 10 March 1993. No estimation is required\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eIssuer\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eUnited States Postal Service, Legends of American Music series\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eContents\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eComplete Elvis Collection, USPS item A9918, comprising the commemorative album, limited edition print, stamp sheet with saver sleeve and first day ceremony program, as itemised on the enclosed receipt\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStamp\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTwenty nine cent Elvis Presley commemorative, issued 8 January 1993, cancelled with the pictorial Graceland first day die\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDocumentation\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOriginal USPS mailing carton with printed addressee label, and the original dated purchase receipt recording item, price and service charge\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOriginal price\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForty four dollars ninety five plus three dollars service, as printed on the receipt\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCarton approximately 12 in. by 11 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSealed and apparently never opened. Shrink wrap intact and clear. Album, cover and print bright with no fading, foxing or handling marks visible through the wrap. Mailing carton sound with light shelf wear, the address label and felt pen annotation intact. Receipt clean and fully legible. Offered unopened\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\u003eFramed, the first day cover alone is a good piece of graphic design: a record sleeve that is not a record, with a stamp where the label goes and Graceland drawn into the postmark. But the set is better left as found. It is a small sealed parcel of 1993, with the date somebody ordered it, what they paid, and the pen mark they made before putting it on a shelf for three decades. Objects that carry their own paperwork are rare, and they are the only ones that can prove what they say about themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67541872377961,"sku":"VE-1723","price":263.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_5f1e9b2f-8324-474b-85a5-4e992a532128.jpg?v=1790429749"},{"product_id":"vintage-superior-steel-combination-toy-safe-bank-c-1940-1965","title":"Vintage Superior Steel Combination Toy Safe Bank, c. 1940–1965","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA child's combination safe bank in pressed steel, finished in a pale grey hammertone enamel that breaks the light into a fine speckle the way industrial paint of the period was made to. The form is a squat strongbox: flat top, square corners softened by the press, and four stubby cast feet at the corners that lift it off a surface. A coin slot is cut into the top. A single knurled dial in scarlet plastic sits on the face, and below it a small keyhole opening.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe instruction label is still on it, which is the part worth noting. Printed on gummed paper and pasted across the door, it reads OPEN COMBINATION, then the steps in sequence: turn left two times, turn right, press knob lightly while turning. Underneath, in smaller type, comes the line that explains why these labels almost never survive: remove label and be SURE to save combination. Whoever owned this never removed it, and never had to remember.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBeside the dial somebody has written a name in black marker, in a child's hand, reading Lucy Ann, and above it two sets of figures that are very likely the combination itself, recorded on the outside of the safe by the only person it was ever meant to keep money from.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe toy safe is one of the more revealing objects of American childhood. Still banks, the kind with no moving parts beyond a slot, had been made in cast iron since the middle of the nineteenth century, and the great age of the figural cast iron bank ran to about 1930. What replaced it was this: pressed steel, painted in the same hammertone and crinkle enamels being used on toolboxes and office furniture, and modelled not on an animal or a building but on the safe in a bank branch or a father's office.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat shift is the interesting part. A cast iron elephant asks a child to like an elephant. A steel combination safe asks a child to practise being an adult with money, complete with a dial, a procedure, and a secret. It belongs to the same postwar impulse that produced toy cash registers, toy typewriters and toy filing cabinets.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe door label carries the maker's name, Superior Mfg. Co., with the location now largely obscured by wear and overwriting. Several American firms traded under that name across the period, so the mark is given here as it reads rather than tied to one company. What the object can be dated on is its making: pressed and spot welded steel with applied hammertone enamel, a moulded plastic dial, and a printed paper instruction label, which together belong to the middle decades of the last century rather than to the cast iron era before them.\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. 1940–1965. Dated on construction rather than a mark: pressed and spot welded sheet steel with a sprayed hammertone enamel, a moulded plastic combination dial and a printed gummed paper instruction label. The cast iron still bank tradition it replaced had largely ended by about 1930, and the materials here belong to the decades after. No date code is present\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePrinted paper label to the door reading OPEN COMBINATION with operating instructions and Superior Mfg. Co., the location worn and partly obscured\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterials\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePressed steel with hammertone enamel, moulded plastic dial, cast feet\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMechanism\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCombination dial with press to release action, as described on the door label. Not tested, and the combination is not supplied by the seller\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eProvenance marks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eA child's name, Lucy Ann, and two sets of figures written in marker beside the dial, apparently by the original owner\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 5 in. wide by 4 in. deep by 4 in. high\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood, honest and unrestored. Steel sound with no dents, splits or rust through. Hammertone enamel largely intact with scattered chips and scuffs at the corners and edges where a metal toy gets handled. Instruction label present and largely legible with losses at one end and old overwriting across it. Marker annotations stable. Dial turns. Offered as found and uncleaned\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\u003eGrey hammertone steel and one scarlet dial is a better piece of colour work than most things made on purpose, and at this size it sits on a shelf of books or a desk without asking for room. But the reason to want it is the writing. Somebody gave a child a safe, and the child wrote her name on it and then wrote the combination on the outside, which is the least secure and most human thing she could have done. Objects that record their owner are worth more than objects that do not, and this one records hers twice.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67543755096169,"sku":"VE-1724","price":149.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_51f6859a-9581-47d1-866f-3af5fd7c6622.jpg?v=1790444357"},{"product_id":"antique-renaissance-revival-walnut-pediment-mirror-c-1870-1885","title":"Antique Renaissance Revival Walnut Pediment Mirror, c. 1870–1885","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA large architectural wall mirror in walnut, fifty eight inches high by forty one wide, built as a piece of classical facade rather than as a frame. It is composed the way a building front is composed, from the ground up. A plain base rail carries a single applied disc at its centre. From it rise two pilasters, each faced with a flat shaped panel outlined by a routed bead, and each capped by a block of tight vertical reeding standing in for a capital. Across the top runs a full entablature with a projecting cornice, and beneath that cornice a course of dentils, twenty odd small square blocks marching the width of the piece.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAbove the cornice the pediment breaks open. Two raked triangular sections rise toward the centre and stop short, and into the gap between them is set a rectangular plinth with its own moulded cap, the arrangement a Roman architect would recognise and a Victorian cabinetmaker used because it reads as authority from across a room. Each raked section holds a recessed triangular panel. Flanking the whole at the lower corners are shaped drops terminating in tight carved volutes, and applied to the crest is a shield shaped ornament cut with a deep double routed outline.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mirror plate is present and shows the mottling and edge loss of long exposure. The surface of the walnut is dry throughout, the old finish largely gone, and the timber reads warm brown with the grain raised and open.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe style is Renaissance Revival, and it is worth being precise about that, because these are frequently offered as earlier than they are. American taste in the 1850s ran to Rococo Revival: serpentine curves, naturalistic carved fruit and flowers, cabriole forms, nothing straight if it could be made to bend. This mirror has none of that. It is rectilinear, symmetrical and architectural, and it borrows its whole vocabulary from classical building: pediment, entablature, dentils, pilasters, capitals. That is the Renaissance Revival manner, which took hold in America in the middle 1860s, dominated through the 1870s, and gave way to Eastlake and then to Colonial Revival by the later 1880s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe making supports it. The applied ornaments are flat shaped panels with routed outlines rather than carved relief, which is the signature economy of the 1870s, when machine routing let a factory apply decoration a carver would have taken hours over. The dentil course is a milled strip. The mouldings are run rather than worked by hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne note offered plainly rather than buried. A nail visible at the back of the mirror backing is a round shanked wire nail with a disc head. Wire nails entered American production around 1875 and displaced cut nails through the 1880s and 1890s. That nail sits in a backing strip, which is the component on a mirror most likely to have been replaced at some point in a hundred and fifty years, so it may well date a repair rather than the frame. It is recorded here because a buyer should have it, and because the style already places the piece in the same window rather than earlier.\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. 1870–1885. Dated on style and construction: a Renaissance Revival architectural composition of broken pediment, dentilled entablature, pilasters and reeded capitals, executed with machine run mouldings and flat applied ornament cut by router, all of which belong to the American Renaissance Revival period rather than to the Rococo Revival taste of the 1850s. A round wire nail in the backing indicates work of 1875 or later at that point, and may represent a later repair\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eArchitectural wall or overmantel mirror with broken pediment and central plinth\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWalnut, with milled dentil course and applied routed ornament\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGlass\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOriginal plate present, with mottling, clouding and loss to the backing consistent with age\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e58 in. high by 41 in. wide\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStructurally sound but unrestored, and offered as a restoration piece. Losses to the recessed triangular panels within the pediment, with one section open to the ground. Damage and partial loss to applied ornament on one pilaster. A break at the lower corner drop. Old finish largely gone, timber dry throughout with raised grain and surface soiling. Splits and old nail and screw holes present. Mirror plate original with significant silvering loss. Cleaned and waxed, or refinished, it would present very differently; it is priced as found and not as restored\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\u003eScale is the argument. At nearly five feet tall and better than three wide this is not a mirror you hang among other things, it is the thing the wall is arranged around, over a mantel, at the head of a stair, or leaned against a wall in a room with the height to take it. The dry unrestored walnut is the other argument. Against plaster or a dark paint it reads as salvaged architecture rather than as furniture, which is a harder and more interesting look than a polished frame, and one that a great many people now pay a restorer to fake. This one has not been faked and has not been touched.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67544470126697,"sku":"VE-1725","price":1925.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_d03fc8ef-c1a3-457a-836c-35dedf33b7b5.jpg?v=1790462695"},{"product_id":"vintage-crystal-clear-frosted-lily-relief-footed-bowl-c-1985-2000","title":"Vintage Crystal Clear Frosted Lily Relief Footed Bowl, c. 1985–2000","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA footed bowl in satin frosted pressed glass, about ten inches across and low in profile, the sort of centrepiece that was made to sit on a sideboard and catch whatever light the room had. The rim is worked in raised relief with a continuous band of lilies: long trumpet flowers on bent stems, lance shaped leaves laid over one another, and small closed buds filling the gaps. The outer edge finishes in a fine twisted rope moulding that runs the whole circumference.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe well of the bowl is plain and clear by contrast, and the centre carries a small frosted wreath of leaves and berries, so the eye travels from the busy rim across an open field to a quiet medallion. The foot is a short shaped pedestal, undecorated, which keeps the weight in the base and lets the relief work read against whatever the bowl is standing on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrosting here is acid or sandblast treatment applied to the raised decoration only, so the flowers sit opaque and white against passages of clear glass. It is the technique that made Lalique famous and that a great many houses used after him, and it is the reason a pressed bowl of this kind photographs so much better than a plain one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe original gold foil label is still attached in the well, printed with the maker name and the country of manufacture. Labels of this kind were meant to be peeled off by the first owner, so an intact one is worth noting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe label reads Crystal Clear, Made in Indonesia. Crystal Clear Industries was an American glass and tabletop house that registered its first trademarks in the early 1980s and ran a substantial giftware programme through the 1990s, commissioning pressed and cut wares abroad and selling them into department stores and gift retailers under its own name. The bulk of its trademark filings fall between 1981 and 2003.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe country of origin is the useful part of the mark. Indonesia developed as a serious supplier of decorative pressed glass to the American import trade from the mid 1980s onward, considerably later than the European and Japanese sources that preceded it. A piece labelled for an American importer and made in Indonesia therefore belongs to the later part of the company history rather than to its beginning, and the style of the label, a small round gold foil disc with a script logo, is consistent with that window.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe design itself looks backward on purpose. Frosted relief floral glass of this type descends from French art glass of the 1920s, and the giftware trade of the 1980s and 1990s reissued the look at a price ordinary households could meet. That is what this bowl is: a late and well made example of a long tradition, not a piece pretending to be older than it is.\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. 1985–2000. Dated documentarily from the mark rather than from style. Crystal Clear Industries filed its trademarks from 1981 onward, and Indonesia entered the American decorative glass import trade in volume from the middle 1980s, so the combination of that importer and that country of origin sets the earliest plausible date in the later 1980s. The gold foil script label is of the same period\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLow footed centrepiece bowl on a short pedestal\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePressed glass with acid or sandblast frosting applied to the raised decoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eRelief band of lilies, leaves and buds to the rim, twisted rope edge, frosted leaf and berry wreath to the centre\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOriginal round gold foil label, Crystal Clear, Made in Indonesia\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 10 in. diameter by 4 in. high\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good. No chips or cracks found. Frosting crisp and unworn. Original foil label present and legible, with the light edge lifting usual on a label of this age\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\u003eFrosted relief glass does something no clear bowl can do, which is hold its shape under a lamp. The raised flowers stay white and legible in low light while the clear field goes to nothing, so the piece reads as a ring of pale blossom floating on a table rather than as a solid object. Fill it with fruit, float a few blooms in it, or leave it empty on a dark wood surface where the rope edge picks up the light. It is also, at this size, one of the few centrepieces that works on a round table without blocking the people sitting at it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67544869142633,"sku":"VE-1726","price":210.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_4f6eca77-d9f1-49c5-a3a2-b9438ce2ec73.jpg?v=1790480790"},{"product_id":"antique-smith-phillips-princess-china-floral-oval-platter-dated-1925","title":"Antique Smith-Phillips Princess China Floral Oval Platter, Dated 1925","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA large oval meat platter in American semi vitreous china, about sixteen inches on the long axis, with a wide flat rim and a gently sloping well. The decoration is a printed and enamelled border laid around the rim in the manner the trade called a chintz or brocade band: a ground of pale ivory carrying a repeating architectural scroll in cobalt and ochre, punctuated at intervals by full blown pink cabbage roses with green foliage, small blue tulip forms, and rows of dotted beadwork. A narrow cobalt line finishes the extreme edge, and a fine line of the same runs where the rim meets the well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe body is the warm ivory that the maker sold under its own trade name rather than the hard blue white of later American hotel china, and the glaze carries an even overall craze, the fine network that semi vitreous bodies of this period almost always develop. Scattered through the well are the small brown specks that collectors call crazing spots, where a century of use has worked into the glaze.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe backstamp is the whole story here, and it is unusually generous. It reads Smith-Phillips China, Princess, and beneath the mark is a two part date code, the numeral six over the numeral twenty five.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSmith-Phillips China Company was founded in 1900 at East Liverpool, Ohio, by Josiah T. Smith and William R. Phillips, who bought the plant of the French China Company on Michigan Avenue in the East End of the city. East Liverpool was then the centre of American dinnerware manufacture, and Smith-Phillips made semi vitreous dinnerware, toilet ware and hotel ware for the domestic trade. In the spring of 1929 the firm was one of eight potteries folded into the American Chinaware Corporation, a consolidation that filed for bankruptcy in October 1931. The plant was briefly reorganised as Johnson Pottery and then failed in the Depression. By 1937 the buildings had been split between two unrelated specialty firms, and a fire took part of the site in 1939.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePrincess is not a pattern name, which is a common misreading. It was the company designation for its ivory bodied line, so the word describes the clay rather than the flowers, and many different border prints were issued on Princess bodies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe date code is the rare part. Smith-Phillips marked a good deal of its 1920s production with a month and year, and six over twenty five reads as June 1925. Most American dinnerware of the period can only be dated to a spread of years by mark style; this one can be dated to a month. It also places the piece squarely in the firm's last independent decade, four years before the merger that ended 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\u003eDated June 1925 from the date code beneath the backstamp, the numeral six over the numeral twenty five, which is the month and year convention Smith-Phillips used on its 1920s production. This is a documentary date rather than a stylistic estimate\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSmith-Phillips China Company, East Liverpool, Ohio, founded 1900, absorbed into the American Chinaware Corporation 1929\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLine\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePrincess, the company name for its ivory body rather than a pattern name\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOval meat or serving platter with wide flat rim\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSemi vitreous china\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePrinted and enamelled rim border of cobalt and ochre scrollwork with pink roses, blue tulip forms and beaded courses, cobalt edge line\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePrinted backstamp, Smith-Phillips China, Princess, with date code 6 over 25\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 16 in. long by 12 in. wide\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood honest antique condition, used and not perfect. No chips or cracks found. Overall fine crazing throughout the glaze, normal for a semi vitreous body of this age. Scattered small brown crazing spots and light staining in the well, visible in the photographs. Border colours strong and unworn. Priced to reflect the surface condition\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 platter this size stops being tableware and becomes a surface. Stand it on a plate rail or lean it at the back of a dresser and the cobalt and ochre border does the work of a small painting. The crazing and the faint foxing in the well are not damage to apologise for; they are the reason the piece looks like a hundred years of Sunday dinners rather than a reproduction, and they are what a decorator is buying when she chooses old ironstone over new. Used as intended it will take a roast, a whole fish or a crowd of biscuits, and it sits comfortably with blue and white, with brown transferware, and with plain modern white.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67544869699689,"sku":"VE-1727","price":306.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_fad3b956-d6fc-4234-b74c-04e9ccd92084.jpg?v=1790480844"},{"product_id":"vintage-italian-travertine-letter-and-pen-desk-holder-c-1970-1985","title":"Vintage Italian Travertine Letter and Pen Desk Holder, c. 1970–1985","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA desk holder cut from a single solid block of travertine, long and low, with a narrow slot milled the full length of the top. The ends are cut away on a steep chamfer so the block reads as a shallow wedge from the side rather than as a brick, and the underside is faced in orange wool felt, fitted right to the edges.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe slot is the whole function. Stood upright it takes letters, postcards, invitations or a stack of business cards and holds them at a slight angle so the top edges are readable across a desk. Laid the other way it becomes a pen rest, the groove keeping a fountain pen or a pair of pencils from rolling. Italian makers sold the form both ways and the catalogues of the period describe it as a letter and pen holder.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe stone is classic Italian travertine, warm biscuit and pale grey, quarter sawn so the bedding planes run the length of the block. The open vugs that give travertine its character are left unfilled, so the surface is honed smooth but broken by small cavities and a fine horizontal striation. No two blocks are the same and this one is figured strongly across the face.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTravertine desk furniture is a specifically Italian and specifically postwar idea. The material had been the building stone of Rome since antiquity, and the Tivoli quarries outside the city were still supplying architectural work in bulk through the twentieth century. What changed after the war was that Italian design houses began cutting the offcuts and shorter blocks into small objects: ashtrays, paperweights, bookends, lamp bases, bowls and desk sets. The result was a product that looked monumental, cost little in material, and sold extremely well to an export market that wanted Italian modernism in a form that fitted in a suitcase.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe firm most associated with the genre is Fratelli Mannelli, working in Tuscany from the 1960s, whose travertine animals and desk pieces are the pieces the trade now names. A great many workshops produced unsigned work in the same idiom for the same buyers, and unmarked examples are the rule rather than the exception. This block carries no maker stamp, which is normal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dating rests on the form and the finish. The stark geometric block with a milled slot, the steep chamfered ends, the honed rather than polished face and the unfilled vugs are the vocabulary of Italian travertine desk accessories from the late 1960s through the early 1980s, the years when the type was in full production. The orange felt base is the period detail that most often survives, and it is present and original here.\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. 1970–1985. Dated on form, material handling and construction rather than on a mark, which the piece does not carry. The solid milled block with chamfered ends, honed face and unfilled vugs is the standard vocabulary of Italian travertine desk accessories in production from the late 1960s through the early 1980s, and the original wool felt base is of the same period\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLetter, card and pen holder, a single block with a full length milled slot\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eItalian travertine, honed, with open unfilled vugs\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBase\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOriginal orange wool felt, fitted to the full underside\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAttribution\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eUnmarked, in the manner of Fratelli Mannelli and the Tuscan travertine workshops of the period\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 11 in. long by 3 in. deep by 2 in. high\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good. Solid throughout with no cracks. Minor edge nicks and light surface wear consistent with desk use. Felt base intact, clean and fully adhered\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 desk is mostly paper and plastic, and one heavy stone object changes the whole character of it. Travertine has the particular advantage of reading as architecture rather than as decoration, so it sits equally well on a walnut partners desk and on a sheet of glass. The warm biscuit tone is a neutral that works against black, brass, oxblood leather and pale oak alike. It is also the rare accessory that is genuinely useful: mail stands up in it where it would otherwise lie flat and be forgotten, and the weight means it stays exactly where it is put.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67544870223977,"sku":"VE-1728","price":1138.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_0b3434d2-443c-45a0-8dc5-7d1e1c0fcd29.jpg?v=1790480904"},{"product_id":"vintage-schick-cordless-travel-shaver-with-fitted-case-c-1968-1978","title":"Vintage Schick Cordless Travel Shaver with Fitted Case, c. 1968–1978","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA compact cordless travel shaver in black moulded plastic with a satin aluminium head, and its fitted case. The body is a flat sided block with softly rounded lower corners, sized to sit in a dopp kit or a jacket pocket. Across the front collar sits a recessed rectangular window holding a milled slide switch, and on the right hand side is a round orange push button that releases the head. The Schick name is set in red on a white plate at the lower front, the only marking on the piece.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe head carries a single rectangular perforated foil in a satin finished frame, with a fine toothed long hair trimmer strip standing behind it. The foil is clean and unbroken, the perforations sharp, and the aluminium has the even brushed grain of the period rather than the high polish that came later.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe case is a fitted clamshell in black, the lid faced in a smooth leather grain and the base moulded plain, with a metal catch at the centre front. It closes square and holds the shaver without rattle, which is how these were meant to travel and is the part that usually goes missing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Schick name on a shaver is more complicated than it looks, and this is a case where the brand tells you less than the object does. Jacob Schick patented the first workable electric razor in May 1930 and founded Schick Dry Shaver to make it. He had already sold his earlier wet shaving venture, the Magazine Repeating Razor Company, in 1928, and from that point the two Schick businesses ran separately. The wet razor line passed to Patrick Frawley in 1955 and to Warner-Lambert in 1970, while the electric shaver operation went its own way as Schick Electric.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat independence is the useful dating fact. North American Philips, the parent of Norelco, bought Schick in 1978 and folded the electric shaver line into its own consumer products operation, where it stayed through the 1980s. A Schick badged cordless shaver of this design therefore belongs to the years when Schick Electric was still building its own product.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe design supports the same window. Black moulded plastic against satin aluminium, a single bright orange control as the only accent colour, and a milled slide switch set in a recessed window are the vocabulary of small appliance design from the late 1960s through the 1970s. Nothing about the shape or the finish belongs to the 1980s, when this category moved to curved shells, soft grey plastics and rubber grips.\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. 1968–1978. The upper bound is documentary: North American Philips acquired Schick in 1978 and took the electric shaver line into the Norelco operation, so a Schick badged shaver built to this design precedes that. The lower bound is stylistic, resting on the black plastic and satin aluminium body, the single orange control and the recessed milled slide switch, which are late 1960s and 1970s small appliance conventions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSchick Electric, the American electric shaver business descended from Jacob Schick's 1930 patent, separate from the Schick wet razor brand since 1928\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCordless single foil travel shaver with pop up long hair trimmer\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMoulded plastic body, satin anodised aluminium head frame, perforated steel foil\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCase\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOriginal fitted clamshell case, leather grain lid with metal catch\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSchick in red on a white plate at the lower front. No model number present on the exterior\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 4 in. high by 2.5 in. wide by 1.5 in. deep\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eExcellent cosmetic condition. Foil intact with no tears or dents. Body free of cracks, chips or heavy scuffing, with light surface dust only. Case clean inside and out and closing correctly. Sold as a collectible object and not tested or warranted as a working appliance\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 industrial design at pocket size, and it is the kind of object that earns its place on a dresser tray, in a cabinet of curiosities, or styled into a gentleman's vignette alongside a cufflink box and a shaving brush. The black and aluminium body with the one orange control reads as pure period design, the sort of thing that looks deliberate next to a modern lamp rather than merely old. For a shop window or a menswear display it does more work than its size suggests, and the surviving fitted case makes it a complete object rather than an orphan.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67544912658537,"sku":"VE-1729","price":158.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_73aca545-e193-44d5-9cb0-81b5d4693e32.jpg?v=1790482309"},{"product_id":"vintage-italian-gilt-tole-six-light-crystal-chandelier-c-1950-1975","title":"Vintage Italian Gilt Tole Six Light Crystal Chandelier, c. 1950–1975","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA gilt tole chandelier of the Florentine kind, built as a flowering plant rather than as a light fitting. A tapered central stem rises from a calyx of downturned leaves and carries two tiers of arms, each arm a length of hand bent strap steel dressed along its run with cut sheet metal leaves. Every arm finishes in a bobeche cut as a five pointed lily, the points curled up by hand so no two sit quite alike, and each holds a cream candle sleeve with a gilt drip collar at its base.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe crystal is the reason to own it. Pear and almond drops hang from the bobeches and from the leaf tips, hung the old way on twisted brass wire pins through small faceted octagon buttons, so that each drop sits on its own short chain of glass rather than being glued or clipped. Longer flat lozenges, bevelled on all four sides, fall at the outer points where they catch the most light, and a faceted crystal ball hangs from a ruffled gilt rosette at the very bottom as the terminal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe gilding is worn in the way these always wear, bright and warm across the flat of the leaves and rubbed through at the folded edges and high points to a dark reddish ground. It reads as a hundred small highlights rather than as a uniform gold surface, which is what separates an honest old gilt finish from a resprayed one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTole is painted or gilded sheet metal, and the Florentine workshops made it their own after the war. Florence had a long trade in gilding and in decorative metalwork, and through the 1950s and 1960s a cluster of small firms there turned out gilt tole furniture, mirrors, sconces and chandeliers in enormous quantity for the American and British export market. The formula was consistent: steel cut and bent by hand into leaves and flowers, a gesso or bole ground, gold leaf or gold finish over it, and crystal added by the piece. The result looked like eighteenth century Italian gilt work and cost a fraction of it, which is exactly why it sold.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe construction here places it in that tradition rather than in the earlier one it imitates. The arms are strap steel, not cast bronze. The leaves are cut from sheet and applied, not modelled. The bobeches are stamped and hand finished. The crystals are machine cut and pinned with brass wire, which is a continuous practice across two centuries and so dates nothing by itself, but combined with the metalwork it points squarely at the postwar Florentine workshops.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe candle sleeves are the other marker. Moulded cream plastic sleeves with gilt metal drip collars are a postwar fitting; earlier chandeliers used composition, paper or metal tubes. These are original to the fixture and show the gentle yellowing of age rather than the flat white of a replacement set.\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. 1950–1975. Dated on construction rather than on a mark, which the piece does not carry, as is normal for the type. Hand bent strap steel arms with applied cut sheet metal leaves, stamped and hand finished lily bobeches, gold finish over a red ground, and original moulded candle sleeves with gilt drip collars together place it in the postwar Florentine gilt tole workshops rather than in the earlier Italian gilt metal tradition the form imitates\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eItaly, Florentine gilt tole tradition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLights\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSix candle arms in two tiers\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGilt tole, which is gilded and hand worked sheet and strap steel, with cut crystal\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCrystal\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFaceted pear and almond drops and bevelled flat lozenges, pinned on twisted brass wire through octagon buttons, with a faceted crystal ball terminal\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFittings\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOriginal cream candle sleeves with gilt drip collars, chain and canopy hardware present\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good honest condition. Gilding warm and original with expected rub through at folded edges and high points revealing the reddish ground beneath. Crystal clean and bright with no clouding noted. Structure sound and arms true. Sold as found and not rewired by us; a buyer intending to install it should have it inspected and rewired by a licensed electrician as a matter of course with any vintage fixture\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\u003eGilt tole and crystal is the rare combination that is both formal and light. Cast bronze at this scale reads heavy and demands a formal room; a tole chandelier of the same size reads as foliage, so it will hang happily over a round breakfast table, in a powder room, at the top of a stair, or in a bedroom where a grander fixture would be oppressive. The crystal does the work at night and the gilt does it by day, and because the leaves are open rather than solid the fixture never blocks a sightline. It also sits comfortably with almost anything: against plaster and limewash it looks continental, against dark paint it looks theatrical, and over a modern table it does the job of a piece of sculpture that happens to give light.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67544913084521,"sku":"VE-1730","price":2625.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_61df0331-5cc9-4201-8b18-fd214cd6c0e3.jpg?v=1790482369"},{"product_id":"vintage-calman-49mm-close-up-lens-filter-set-with-case-c-1970-1985","title":"Vintage Calman 49mm Close-Up Lens Filter Set with Case, c. 1970–1985","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA three piece close up filter set in a fitted case. The filters are threaded aluminium rings in black anodised finish, each engraved in white with the maker name, the thread size and the dioptre strength, and each holding a clear optical element. The set runs plus one, plus two and plus four, which is the standard progression, and the three stack together so the user can reach plus seven without buying a fourth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe case is a snap fronted pouch in grey pebbled leatherette lined throughout in scarlet felt, with three shaped wells to keep the glass from touching. The original polythene sleeve is still inside. Cases of this kind were given away with the set and almost always discarded, so a complete one with the liner intact is worth noting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe rings read Calman, forty nine millimetre, and Japan. Forty nine millimetre is the thread that dominated the amateur single lens reflex market from the late 1960s onward, the standard filter size on the normal lenses supplied with Pentax, Konica, Olympus, Minolta and a long list of others, which is why aftermarket accessory houses produced so much glass in that one size.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eClose up filters are the cheapest route to macro photography. A plus four dioptre screwed onto a fifty millimetre lens brings the near focus down to a quarter of a metre, and a stacked set will fill the frame with a flower or a coin without the expense of a dedicated macro lens or the inconvenience of extension tubes. Sets like this one sold in enormous numbers through camera shops and mail order houses through the 1970s and into the 1980s, then largely disappeared as autofocus systems moved to other thread sizes and as affordable macro lenses arrived.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe black anodised rings with fine white engraving, the knurled edge and the leatherette snap case are the accessory conventions of that period. Earlier accessory filters were chrome or bright alloy; later ones moved to printed rather than engraved markings and to plastic cases.\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. 1970–1985. Dated on the thread standard and the finish. Forty nine millimetre became the dominant amateur single lens reflex filter thread from the late 1960s, and the black anodised ring with engraved white lettering, knurled edge and leatherette snap case belongs to the accessory conventions of the 1970s and early 1980s rather than the chrome ringed sets that preceded them or the printed plastic cased sets that followed\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCalman, Japan\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eContents\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eThree close up filters, plus one, plus two and plus four dioptre, stackable\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eThread\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e49mm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCase\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOriginal grey leatherette snap pouch, scarlet felt lined with three shaped wells, original polythene sleeve present\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good. Glass clean and clear with no fungus, haze, chips or separation noted. Threads clean and turning freely. Anodising unworn, engraving crisp. Case sound with light surface wear and the felt lining bright\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\u003eTwo uses and both of them good. It still works, on any camera with a forty nine millimetre thread, and a plus four filter is the least expensive way anyone has ever found to photograph a flower properly. Failing that, three black rings of optical glass in a red lined case are a handsome small object in their own right, and they style a shelf or a camera shop vignette better than most things their size. For a menswear window, a study, or a display built around a vintage camera, the case open with the glass laid out is the shot.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67554350170217,"sku":"VE-1731","price":79.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/03_397fc8d5-b31d-4bab-b49a-224c5fa6d215.jpg?v=1790529528"},{"product_id":"vintage-steelmaster-streamliner-steel-desk-letter-tray-c-1975-1995","title":"Vintage Steelmaster Streamliner Steel Desk Letter Tray, c. 1975–1995","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA single tier desk letter tray in pressed steel, finished in the warm putty enamel that American office equipment wore for forty years. The pan is drawn in one piece with a rolled lip, the back wall rises straight, and the front sweeps down in a long shallow curve so a hand can reach a sheet without lifting the stack. The sides carry the same curve, which is the detail that gives the model its name.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe underside is formed steel with folded and spot welded corners, pierced at each end for the posts that let trays of the same pattern stack into a column. The maker name is embossed into the metal at the back, and a silver foil label is applied beneath.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe embossing reads Streamliner Desk Trays from Steelmaster. The foil label beneath names Atapco Office Products Group of 12312 Olive Boulevard, Suite 400, St. Louis, Missouri, lists the rest of the range, and is marked made in the United States of America.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSteelmaster is one of the long running names in American office steel, the brand under which index card boxes, cash and bond boxes, vertical and horizontal organisers and desk trays were sold to offices from the middle of the twentieth century. The Streamliner pattern, with its swept front and stackable posts, is a direct descendant of the streamlined industrial design that American manufacturers adopted in the 1930s and then kept selling long after the style itself had passed, because the shape genuinely worked.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe label is the dating evidence and it is worth reading carefully. It carries a toll free number in the 1-800 format and a suite address for a named corporate group rather than a factory address. Toll free consumer numbers of that kind came into general use on American consumer packaging from the late 1970s, became standard through the 1980s, and a vanity number spelling the company name is later still. The label therefore places this particular tray well after the pattern was introduced, in the later decades of its production run rather than at the beginning.\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. 1975–1995. The Streamliner pattern itself is considerably older, but this example is dated by its label rather than by its shape. The applied foil label carries a 1-800 vanity telephone number and a corporate suite address for Atapco Office Products Group, conventions that entered American consumer packaging from the late 1970s and became standard through the 1980s, so this tray belongs to the later part of the pattern's long production\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSteelmaster, Atapco Office Products Group, St. Louis, Missouri. Made in the United States of America\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePattern\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStreamliner, with swept front and sides and stacking posts\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePressed steel with baked enamel finish\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSingle tier letter tray, stackable with others of the same pattern\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStreamliner Desk Trays from Steelmaster embossed into the steel, applied silver foil Atapco label beneath\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 13 in. wide by 9 in. deep by 2.5 in. high\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood working condition. Enamel sound overall with light scratching and scuffing on the base and minor marks consistent with desk use. No rust, dents or distortion noted. Label present and legible\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\u003eOffice steel has become one of the most reliable ways to give a room some backbone. Against wood, brass and paper the putty enamel reads as quiet and industrial rather than decorative, and it makes everything you put in it look intentional. Use it as it was meant to be used for mail and papers, or press it into service on a kitchen counter for post, in a studio for sheet material, or on a shelf for whatever wants corralling. It is also the rare vintage object that costs nothing to live with, since it cleans with a damp cloth and will outlast anything plastic you might buy instead.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67554350202985,"sku":"VE-1732","price":96.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_001b3378-4185-4620-bded-ab614b0a1a72.jpg?v=1790529600"},{"product_id":"vintage-japanese-woven-bamboo-mount-fuji-painted-plate-c-1950-1975","title":"Vintage Japanese Woven Bamboo Mount Fuji Painted Plate, c. 1950–1975","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA shallow round plate woven from split bamboo, the strips laid in a herringbone that changes direction in bands so the surface catches light in alternating panels. The rim turns up in a soft continuous curve and the weave carries right to the edge without a binding, which takes more skill than binding it does.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross the face is a painted landscape in sumi ink and light wash. Mount Fuji stands at the centre with snow streaking its upper slopes and a plume drawn off the summit, the pale disc of a low sun behind it. A stand of wind bent pines runs along the foot of the picture, with a spit of shoreline and still water beneath. The painter has signed at the lower left with a short column of characters and a second mark to the right.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe painting sits directly on the bamboo with no ground beneath it, so the weave shows through the wash and the texture becomes part of the picture, the woven strips reading as haze across the water and as texture in the slope of the mountain.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePainted bamboo ware of this kind belongs to the Japanese export and tourist trade that reopened after the war and ran strongly through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Japan had a deep basketry tradition and an equally deep tradition of ink landscape painting, and the export workshops put the two together to make something light, inexpensive to ship, unmistakably Japanese, and attractive to American and European buyers who wanted to bring something home.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMount Fuji with pines and a low sun is the single most reproduced subject in that trade, and it is reproduced because it works. The composition descends directly from the woodblock tradition, from Hokusai onward, and a competent brush can lay it down in a few strokes. The quality varies enormously across surviving examples, from a few careless marks to work like this one, where the pines are individually drawn, the snow is laid with a dry brush, and the ink is graded rather than flat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDating rests on materials and on the absence of a mark. There is no Made in Occupied Japan stamp, which was required on Japanese exports between 1947 and 1952, so the piece postdates that window. The unlined natural bamboo, the ink and light wash rather than bright enamel, and the artist signature rather than a printed factory mark all belong to the postwar decades of the trade rather than to the brighter, more heavily finished work that came later.\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. 1950–1975. The absence of a Made in Occupied Japan mark places it after 1952, since that marking was required on Japanese exports from 1947 until the occupation ended. The natural unlacquered bamboo, the sumi ink and light wash painting and the hand signature rather than a printed factory mark belong to the postwar export trade of the 1950s through the 1970s\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eJapan\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eShallow round decorative plate or tray\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSplit bamboo woven in banded herringbone, unlacquered\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHand painted Mount Fuji with pines, shoreline and low sun in ink and wash, signed by the artist at the lower left\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 11 in. diameter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good. Weave tight and complete with no breaks, splits or lifted strips noted. Painting bright and unrubbed. Light surface soiling consistent with age\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\u003eHung, it is a piece of graphic art that happens to be woven; the ink drawing reads clearly from across a room and the banded weave gives it a texture no framed print can match. In a gallery wall of plates it is the one that is not ceramic, which is exactly why it works. Laid flat it is a catch all for keys and post on a hall table, light enough to move and handsome enough to leave empty. The warm straw colour sits well with walnut, rattan, linen and black, and it is one of the few decorative objects that costs almost nothing in wall weight.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67554350235753,"sku":"VE-1733","price":193.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_f9a2d9ff-082d-4e82-8a1a-57448ea1047d.jpg?v=1790529682"},{"product_id":"vintage-aero-and-clover-knitting-needles-in-leather-tube-c-1950-1980","title":"Vintage Aero and Clover Knitting Needles in Leather Tube, c. 1950–1980","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA working knitter's set of straight needles kept in a leather tube. The tube is a slim cylinder of tan leather with a push fit cap, patinated to a deep honey at the handled end, of the kind sold for needles and for knitting pins through the middle of the last century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInside are several pairs across a wide range of gauges. Two heavy wooden needles in pale birch, turned with knob ends, are branded along the shaft with the maker name and the metric size. A number of pairs in grey coated light alloy carry moulded plastic end knobs, some stamped with the maker name and the country, others with a script trade name. One pair still wears its original printed paper band with the size and the shop price, which is the detail that fixes the group in time better than anything else in it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe alloy needles stamped Aero England come from Abel Morrall of Redditch in Worcestershire, a firm founded in 1785 and one of the great names of the English needle trade. Redditch was to needles what Sheffield was to cutlery, and by 1961 Abel Morrall employed more than four hundred people making hypodermic needles, sewing needles and the Aero range of knitting pins. Aero was the brand that put lightweight coated aluminium needles into British hands, and they were exported in quantity to the United States.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe wooden needles branded Clover come from the Japanese needlework house of that name, and the pair carrying a script trade name on the knob are continental European. A working knitter accumulated needles the way a carpenter accumulated chisels, one purchase at a time from whatever shop was nearest, so a mixed group of English, Japanese and European makers in one tube is not a failure of consistency. It is the evidence that somebody used these.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe surviving paper band is the dating anchor. Printed bands of that pattern, carrying a size and a price in dollars and cents at that level, belong to the decades when Aero needles were being imported into the American market in volume, which runs from the 1950s through the 1970s. The coated alloy with moulded plastic knobs is of the same period; the earlier needles were bare steel or bone, the later ones moved to bright plastics and then to circular cables.\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. 1950–1980. Dated from the surviving printed paper band, whose format and dollar price belong to the decades of heavy Aero importation into the American market, and supported by the construction: grey coated light alloy shafts with moulded plastic end knobs are the postwar convention, later than bare steel or bone and earlier than bright plastic and circular needles\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMakers\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAero, made by Abel Morrall of Redditch, England, founded 1785. Clover of Japan. One continental European pair\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eContents\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSeveral pairs of straight knitting needles across a range of gauges, from fine alloy to heavy turned wood, with one original printed maker band\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCoated light alloy with moulded knobs, and turned birch\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCase\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTan leather tube with push fit cap, well patinated\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood used condition throughout, a working set rather than a shop stock set. Shafts straight with light surface marking. Coating sound. Paper band present but aged and marked. Leather tube supple with honest wear and an even patina\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\u003eFor anyone who knits these are simply good needles, and the heavy wooden pair in particular is the sort of thing that has become expensive to buy new. For everyone else the leather tube is the object: stood on a shelf beside books it reads as a document case or a drawing tube, and the needles fanned out of it make one of the better small still lifes available for a shop counter or a craft room. It is also a genuinely nice gift for a knitter, which is a harder thing to find than it sounds.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67554350268521,"sku":"VE-1734","price":123.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/03_b46fa296-1e2c-4c7a-9271-1b45f640ca13.jpg?v=1790529754"},{"product_id":"vintage-engine-turned-silver-tone-calling-card-case-c-1950-1980","title":"Vintage Engine Turned Silver Tone Calling Card Case, c. 1950–1980","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA flat rectangular card case in bright silver tone metal, sized for business or calling cards and slim enough to carry in a breast pocket. The lid is worked with a single engine turned rectangular border set in from the edge, a fine double line that frames a plain polished field. The field is left blank, which was deliberate: these were sold ready to be engraved with a monogram, and an unengraved one is the more useful object now because nobody else's initials are on it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe case opens on a full width hinge at the long edge and closes on a small thumb catch, and the two halves meet flush all round. The interior is plain and bright, with a retaining lip along the inner edge to keep cards from spilling when it is opened one handed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe calling card case is one of the last surviving fragments of nineteenth century social ritual. The formal calling card, left at a house to announce a visit, required a flat case to keep it uncreased, and by the middle of the nineteenth century a gentleman or a lady carried one as a matter of course. The ritual faded through the twentieth century but the object outlived it, converting neatly into the business card case that a professional carried into the 1980s and that persists in a small way still.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis example belongs to that later, commercial half of the story rather than to the Victorian one. The engine turned border, the full width hinge with a thumb catch and the bright plain interior are the vocabulary of the mid twentieth century dressing table and smoking accessory trade, the same trade that produced cigarette cases, compacts and lighters in enormous numbers and in the same finishes. The form and the finish are close cousins to a cigarette case of the same decades.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA note offered plainly. No maker mark or metal standard mark is visible on the exterior or in the interior under normal light, and the piece is offered as silver tone rather than as silver. Cases of this type were made in sterling, in silver plate and in plated base metal, and an unmarked example should be assumed to be plated unless a mark is found. A buyer who wants certainty should examine the interior under magnification.\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. 1950–1980. Dated on form and finish rather than on a mark, which the piece does not carry. The engine turned rectangular border, the full width hinge with thumb catch and the bright plain interior belong to the mid twentieth century dressing table and smoking accessory trade rather than to the chased and cast Victorian calling card cases the form descends from\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFlat hinged calling or business card case\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSilver tone metal, unmarked. Offered as plated unless a buyer establishes otherwise\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEngine turned double line rectangular border to the lid, field left plain and unengraved\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNone found on the exterior or interior under normal light\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 3.75 in. wide by 2.25 in. deep\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good. Hinge tight and catch holding. Surface bright with light surface scratching consistent with pocket use and no dents, splits or plate loss noted\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 card handed over from a metal case lands differently from one pulled out of a wallet, and that is the whole argument. It still does the job it was made for, it fits a jacket pocket without a bulge, and the blank field means it can be engraved for a gift or left plain. Off duty it is a good small object for a dresser tray or a desk, and it holds stamps, guitar picks, or a folded note as readily as cards.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67554350432361,"sku":"VE-1735","price":105.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_60f519d7-8ddf-4af8-a501-9da20b69d8f9.jpg?v=1790529828"},{"product_id":"vintage-vaughan-chicago-blatz-opener-and-tap-boy-pair-c-1954-1963","title":"Vintage Vaughan Chicago Blatz Opener and Tap Boy Pair, c. 1954–1963","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo American bar tools from the same Chicago maker, both in plated steel and both showing the honest wear of use.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first is a flat bottle opener in the open frame pattern, a single piece of steel pierced and shaped so the lifting jaw sits at one end and the finger hole at the other. Both faces are stamped in raised letters with a brewery name, so the piece is an advertising giveaway of the sort a distributor handed out by the case, and the maker name and city are stamped along the shank.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe second is a folding bar tool with a spear point can piercer at one end, a bottle lifter at the shoulder and a corkscrew that swings out of the body on a rivet. One face carries the maker name above the model name in an outlined display script; the reverse carries the patent number, the model name again, and the maker's address including the city postal zone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBoth pieces come from Vaughan of Chicago, which for most of the twentieth century was the dominant American maker of the small steel implements that opened things. Vaughan's openers, piercers and corkscrews went out by the million, most of them free, stamped with the name of a brewery or a garage or a feed store, which is why they survive in such numbers and why the advertising examples are collected.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe folding tool dates precisely. Its stamped patent number corresponds to a United States design patent for a bar tool granted on 1 December 1953 to Michael J. La Forte of Park Ridge, Illinois, and assigned to Vaughan Manufacturing Company of Chicago. That sets the earliest possible date at the end of 1953.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe address gives the other end of the window, and this is the useful part. The stamp reads Chicago 24, a two digit postal zone. Postal zone numbers were introduced in American cities in 1943 and were replaced by the five digit ZIP code in July 1963. A tool stamped with a zone number therefore cannot have been made after 1963. Between the patent grant and the end of zone addressing, the piece belongs to a ten year window, which is a good deal tighter than most small metalware can be dated.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe brewery opener carries no patent date, but the same maker stamp, the same plated steel and the same stamping conventions place it alongside its companion.\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. 1954–1963, documentary at both ends. The folding tool's stamped patent number matches a design patent for a bar tool granted 1 December 1953 to Michael J. La Forte and assigned to Vaughan Manufacturing Company of Chicago, setting the earliest date. Its address stamp carries a two digit city postal zone, a system used in American cities from 1943 until ZIP codes replaced it in July 1963, setting the latest\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVaughan, Chicago, Illinois\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eContents\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTwo pieces. One flat open frame advertising bottle opener stamped on both faces with a brewery name. One folding bar tool with can piercer, bottle lifter and swing out corkscrew\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePlated steel\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBrewery name raised on both faces of the flat opener with maker and city on the shank. Folding tool stamped with maker and model name to one face, patent number, model name and city with postal zone to the reverse\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood honest used condition on both. Plating worn and dulled at the working edges with scattered surface marking, as expected on tools that were used. No breaks, cracks or missing parts. Corkscrew swings and seats correctly. Cutting and lifting edges intact\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\u003eBrewery advertising openers are one of the most collected categories of American small metalware, and a named brewery piece paired with a precisely datable tool from the same maker is a better proposition than either alone. Both still work, which is not a small thing; the folding tool in particular will open a bottle, pierce a can and pull a cork, which is more than most modern bar tools manage. On a bar cart, in a shadow box, or loose in a drawer with the corkscrews, they earn their place twice over.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67554350465129,"sku":"VE-1736","price":114.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_5b6c23a0-0a8f-4f81-b71f-1dabe0a1df61.jpg?v=1790529903"},{"product_id":"vintage-dr-seuss-green-eggs-and-ham-hardcover-beginner-books-c-1990","title":"Vintage Dr. Seuss Green Eggs and Ham Hardcover, Beginner Books, c. 1990","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA hardcover copy of Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, in the Beginner Books format, with the pictorial boards and glossy orange ground the series is known for. The front board carries the sceptical Sam I Am character presented with his plate; the spine and rear board are the same orange, and the rear board carries the Cat in the Hat roundel and the Beginner Book Story panel that the series printed for years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe interior is clean and complete, the colour printing bright, with the two colour red, blue and yellow palette holding its saturation. The binding is tight and square, with no cracked hinges or loose signatures.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGreen Eggs and Ham was written on a bet. Bennett Cerf of Random House wagered Theodor Geisel fifty dollars that he could not write a book using fifty distinct words or fewer, after The Cat in the Hat had already been built on a list of two hundred and twenty. Geisel took the bet and won it, and the result became one of the best selling children's books ever printed in English.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA word about the date on the copyright page, because it misleads more buyers of this title than almost any other. The page reads copyright 1960, which is the date of first publication and stays on every printing for the life of the copyright. It does not date the book in your hand. Two features on this copy place it a good deal later. The copyright line names Audrey S. Geisel alongside Theodor S. Geisel, and Audrey did not marry Ted until 1968, so a joint line postdates the original 1960 registration. The rear board also carries a printed retail barcode with the ISBN beneath it, and printed barcodes did not appear on American trade hardcovers until the 1980s and only became standard on children's hardcovers after that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is therefore a later printing offered honestly as one. A genuine 1960 first printing is a four figure book and looks quite different, with no barcode, no ISBN and a sole copyright to Geisel. What you have here is the reading copy: the same fifty words, the same drawings, in a binding robust enough to hand to a child.\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\u003eLater printing, c. 1988–2000. The 1960 date on the copyright page is the date of first publication and appears on every printing. This copy is placed later by two features: the copyright line names Audrey S. Geisel, who married Theodor Geisel in 1968, and the rear board carries a printed retail barcode with ISBN, a feature that reached American trade hardcovers in the 1980s and children's hardcovers later still\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAuthor\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDr. Seuss, the pen name of Theodor Seuss Geisel\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePublisher\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBeginner Books, a division of Random House, Inc.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFormat\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHardcover, pictorial boards, no dust jacket as issued for this series\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eISBN\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e0-394-80016-8\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEdition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLater printing, not a first. Offered as a reading copy\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good. Boards bright with light edge and corner rubbing. Binding tight and square with no cracked hinges. Interior clean and complete with no tears, marks or inscriptions noted. Colour printing strong\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\u003eFifty words, and every one of them earns its place. This is the book children learn to read on, and it is the one they then read aloud to somebody else, which is the whole point of the Beginner Books series. As an object the orange board is a strong flat colour on a shelf and it sits well in a stack or spine out in a nursery. Offered as a reading copy rather than a collectible, so it can be handled, carried about and read at bedtime without anybody worrying.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67554350497897,"sku":"VE-1737","price":39.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_aa373e7f-de55-4f32-a8bc-0f363db0c9a0.jpg?v=1790529978"},{"product_id":"antique-belgian-pastel-portrait-of-a-woman-signed-and-dated-1892","title":"Antique Belgian Pastel Portrait of a Woman, Signed and Dated 1892","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA portrait in pastel of a young woman, shown in three quarter profile turned to the left, the head and shoulders set within a painted oval on a rectangular sheet. She has dark hair dressed back and up from the forehead with the natural curl left in it, level brows, grey blue eyes, and a long straight nose. The mouth is slightly parted. She wears a loose gown in cream and pale blue green with a wide open neckline falling off the shoulder, worked in broad soft strokes that stand in deliberate contrast to the tightly finished head.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe background is an interior rather than a studio void, and it repays looking at. Behind her the artist has indicated a wall with a framed picture hung on it and, above, a rail or ledge carrying hooks, all drawn lightly in line and laid in with thin colour, so that the sitter appears to be at work or at rest in a real room. The palette across the whole sheet is restrained: warm flesh tones against greys, sage greens and chalky blues, with the strongest colour reserved for the mouth and the flush of the cheek.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe handling is confident and economical. The face is built with the side of the stick and then drawn into with a sharpened point at the eyelid, the nostril and the corner of the mouth; the drapery is left almost untouched. This is the work of somebody who could draw.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sheet is signed and dated in the lower right, within the image. The date reads 1892 and is entirely clear, preceded by what appears to be a month. The name itself is written small and lightly in a hard pencil over a pale passage of pastel and is not legible in the photography available.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe work is in a period gilt composition frame with an outer band of running foliate scroll over a bead and reel, an inner gilt slip, and a gilt washed mount cut to the oval. The glazing is in place.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe back carries two pieces of evidence, and together they are worth more than most signatures.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first is a printed trade label applied to the backing board. It reads Maison Adele Deswarte, 28 rue de la Violette 28, Bruxelles, Jules Leurquin, Successeur, Fabrique de Couleurs en Tubes et en Poudre, and goes on to list prepared canvases, panels, cottons, boards and papers for oil, pastel and watercolour, together with artistic joinery: boxes, easels and stretchers with and without keys.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAdele Deswarte is a name that matters in Belgian art. Her business on the rue de la Violette was the colourman and artists' supplier at the centre of progressive Brussels painting in the later nineteenth century, the shop that served the generation around Les XX, and she was closely enough involved in that world to have sponsored and published exhibition catalogues for it. A Deswarte label on the back of a picture is a Brussels address in the fullest sense.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe label also dates itself. In 1883 the business was stamping work as Comptoir des Arts, Adele Deswarte, at number 18 rue de la Violette, under her own name alone. This label is at number 28 and names Jules Leurquin as her successor. Both the move and the succession therefore postdate 1883, which places the label comfortably before the 1892 date on the front and confirms that the support was bought in Brussels shortly before the portrait was drawn.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe second piece of evidence is written by hand in pencil along the backing paper at the top: MARGUERITE RENOZ HAGEMAN, with further faint writing to the right. Renoz and Hageman are both Belgian surnames, and the inscription reads as the sitter's name recorded by whoever framed or kept the picture. Very few nineteenth century portraits of private sitters come with a name at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat the picture does not yet have is an artist. The signature is present but unresolved, and Viridian Eclection is not going to invent one. What can be said is documented: a pastel portrait, drawn in September 1892 on a support bought from the leading Brussels artists' supplier, of a named Belgian sitter, by a hand that plainly had training.\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\u003eDated 1892 on the face of the work, within the image at the lower right, in the artist's own hand. Independently supported by the colourman's label on the backing board, which names Jules Leurquin as successor to Adele Deswarte at 28 rue de la Violette, an address and a succession that both postdate the Comptoir des Arts stamp used at number 18 in 1883\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMedium\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePastel on prepared paper or board, laid down, within a painted oval\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSubject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHead and shoulders portrait of a young woman in an interior\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSitter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eInscribed in pencil on the backing paper, Marguerite Renoz Hageman, with further faint writing alongside\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eArtist\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSigned and dated at the lower right. The date is clear; the name is written small in hard pencil over pastel and is not legible in the current photography. Offered as an unidentified hand and priced accordingly\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBrussels, Belgium, on the evidence of the Maison Adele Deswarte trade label and the sitter's Belgian name\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFrame\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePeriod gilt composition frame with running foliate scroll and bead and reel, gilt slip and gilt washed oval mount, glazed\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFrame approximately 24 in. wide by 28 in. high\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood original condition, unrestored and never opened by us. Pastel fresh and unrubbed with strong colour. Mount with light toning and a few scattered spots. Frame with the gilding largely intact and scattered small losses and rubs to the composition ornament at the corners and edges. Backing paper torn and lifting around the edges as is usual, with the trade label and the pencil inscription both intact. Original hanging wire 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\u003eA good portrait fixes a room the way nothing else does, and this one has the quality that matters most, which is that the sitter is present rather than posed. She is looking at something outside the picture and is about to speak, and that holds a wall. The palette is soft enough to hang almost anywhere, against limewash, against a deep green, over a mantel or at the turn of a stair, and the oval within the rectangle gives it a formality the loose handling then undercuts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is also that rarer thing, a decorative picture that is genuinely documented. It is dated to a month in 1892, the support can be traced to a named Brussels shop with a real place in Belgian art history, and the sitter has a name. Most nineteenth century portraits on the market have none of that.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67554352070761,"sku":"VE-1739","price":2450.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_dfb897c0-52fc-48c7-934b-999648fa4f14.jpg?v=1790529445"},{"product_id":"antique-hand-blown-canary-yellow-glass-bud-vase-c-1880-1930","title":"Antique Hand Blown Canary Yellow Glass Bud Vase, c. 1880–1930","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA small bud vase blown in canary yellow glass, the body a long teardrop swelling low and drawing up into a slender neck that finishes in a collared lip. It stands about seven inches and sits comfortably in one hand. The colour is the first thing anyone will say about it: a saturated acid yellow with a green cast that goes luminous the moment light passes through it, the tone the nineteenth century trade sold as canary.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe lip is applied. A separate ring of glass has been laid onto the neck and worked with a tool, and it sits proud of the wall with its profile thickening and thinning as it travels round. Where the ring meets the neck there is a visible join. Nothing about it is symmetrical in the way a moulded rim is symmetrical.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe base carries a deep push up, domed and set slightly off centre, and at the middle of that dome is a rough irregular patch of disturbed glass. Around it the metal is crowded with seed bubbles, dozens of them, large and small and unevenly distributed, the signature of a batch that was never fully refined.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOver the body runs a fine branching network of pale lines, denser at the shoulder and the lower neck, with scattered dark specks caught in the surface. It gives the glass a soft bloom that breaks up the light rather than reflecting it cleanly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is no mark, no label and no paper on this vase, so the dating is built entirely from how it was made. Three features carry it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe applied lip is the first. A vessel formed in a mould carries a seam that runs up the neck and continues straight over the top of the rim, because the rim is formed by the mould along with everything else. This one has no such seam. The ring was added by hand after the body was blown and then tooled into shape, which is a finishing method that belongs to hand production and was displaced by automatic machinery through the first two decades of the twentieth century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe second is the base. The rough disturbed patch at the centre of the push up reads as a pontil scar, the mark left where an iron rod held the piece while the lip was worked and was then snapped away. On American utilitarian glass the pontil is largely gone by the middle 1870s, replaced by the snap tool. Decorative and art glass held onto the pontil considerably longer, particularly in the European workshops, so the mark here argues for hand production rather than for one narrow decade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe third is the batch. Seed bubbles in this quantity and this range of sizes indicate glass that was not fined out, which is normal for smaller works and for earlier production and is not what a twentieth century factory produced.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA word on the colour, offered openly rather than claimed. Canary yellow of this particular tone is most often uranium glass, coloured with uranium oxide, which the trade later nicknamed vaseline glass. Uranium colouring runs from the 1830s, peaks from the 1880s through the 1920s, and stops entirely in the United States between 1942 and 1958 when the government requisitioned the supply. Uranium glass fluoresces bright green under ultraviolet light, which is how it is confirmed. This vase has not been tested under ultraviolet and is therefore described as canary yellow rather than as uranium glass. A buyer with a blacklight can settle it in a moment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe surface bloom is consistent with long standing, either as mineral deposit from water left in the vase over years or as early devitrification of the glass itself. It supports age without fixing it, and it has been left alone rather than polished out.\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. 1880–1930. Dated on construction, since the piece carries no mark. The hand applied and tooled lip with no mould seam over the rim belongs to hand production before automatic machinery displaced it through the first two decades of the twentieth century. The pontil scar in the push up is hand work of the same tradition. Heavy unfined seed bubbles indicate an unrefined batch. The canary colour, if uranium as the tone suggests, sits inside the same window, uranium colouring having peaked from the 1880s through the 1920s. The range given is what this combination supports without overreaching; an ultraviolet test and a maker attribution would narrow it\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTeardrop bud vase with slender neck and applied collar lip\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHand blown canary yellow glass with abundant seed bubbles\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eConstruction\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFree or dip mould blown, hand applied and tooled lip, deep off centre push up with pontil scar\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eColour\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCanary yellow with a green cast. Not tested under ultraviolet light and not represented as uranium glass, though the tone is characteristic of it\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNone. No maker mark, mould number, label or country of origin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 7 in. high by 3 in. diameter at the widest\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood honest antique condition. No chips, cracks or losses found. The surface carries a fine branching pale bloom over the body with scattered dark specks, consistent with long standing water deposit or early devitrification, heavier at the shoulder and lower neck. Left as found rather than polished. Lip sound with the usual minor irregularity of hand work. Base stable\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\u003eOne stem is all this wants, and that is the argument for it. A single ranunculus or a sprig of something from the garden in a neck this narrow reads as deliberate in a way an armful in a big vase never does, and the yellow does the rest. Against a dark shelf, a walnut sideboard or a painted wall it throws colour the way a piece of stained glass does, because the light comes through it rather than off it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe bloom on the surface is not a defect to work around, it is the reason the object looks its age from across the room. Polished bright this would be a pretty yellow vase; left as it is, it reads as something that has been somewhere. Group it with two or three other small blown pieces at different heights on a window ledge and it will do more work than its size suggests.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67555695755369,"sku":"VE-1740","price":263.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/FFADAA35-28F6-46E1-825A-9D870DDFDABA.png?v=1790583335"},{"product_id":"vintage-silver-plate-fluted-bud-vase-weighted-foot-c-1940-1970","title":"Vintage Silver Plate Fluted Bud Vase, Weighted Foot, c. 1940–1970","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA small bud vase in silver plate, about eight inches tall, built in three parts that read as one line. The rim flares into a shallow fluted trumpet with a scalloped edge, the flutes running down into a slender baluster stem that narrows to a waist and then swells again. At that waist sits a narrow collar band in a warm gilt tone, the single note of contrast on the piece. Below it the foot spreads into a domed shell, radially fluted in the same rhythm as the rim so the top and the bottom answer each other.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe foot is weighted and closed underneath with a disc, which is the construction used on small hollowware to keep a tall narrow vessel from going over when a stem is put in it. Underneath, the plating is worn back across much of the surface and the warm copper alloy body shows through in broad patches, with darkened tarnish caught in the recesses of the fluting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe same wear runs up the outside of the stem, where the silver has thinned across the belly and the copper reads through as a warm bronze glow. On the rim and the foot, where the plate is thicker and the surface less handled, the silver is still bright.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe metal question is settled by the foot, and it settles the other way from what the two tone appearance first suggests. A solid silver vessel, whether sterling or continental eight hundred standard, is the same metal all the way through and cannot wear to a different colour. This one wears to a warm copper alloy across the underside and along the stem, which is exactly what silver plate does when the deposited layer is polished and handled away over decades. It is plate, and it is offered as plate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat also explains the warm stem. It is not a designed contrast between two metals, it is the copper showing through on the part of the vase a hand closes around. The gilt collar at the waist is deliberate; the glow on the belly above it is not.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo maker mark, standard mark or pattern number was found on the exterior or on the underside of the foot. That is common on small plated giftware and it carries no date by itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat does carry evidence is the construction. The body is thin stamped sheet rather than raised or cast, and the fluting on the rim and the foot is machine regular, every flute the same width and the same depth. That is industrial production and it rules out the hand raised work of the nineteenth century. The weighted foot closed with a disc is the convention American makers of small hollowware settled into through the middle of the twentieth century for candlesticks and bud vases of exactly this scale. Taken together the piece sits in the postwar decades rather than earlier.\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. 1940–1970. Dated on construction, since no mark is present and an absent mark carries no date. The thin stamped body and the machine regular fluting are industrial rather than hand raised, which rules out nineteenth century work, and the weighted foot closed with a disc is the mid twentieth century American convention for small hollowware of this scale. The range is what that evidence supports; a maker mark would narrow it\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFooted bud vase with fluted trumpet rim, baluster stem and domed shell foot\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSilver plate over a copper alloy body, with a gilt tone collar at the waist. Offered as plate, not as sterling and not as continental silver\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBase\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWeighted, closed underneath with a disc\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNone found on the exterior or the underside\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 8 in. high by 3 in. diameter at the foot\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGood decorative condition with honest wear. Structurally sound and standing true. Plating worn through across much of the underside and along the belly of the stem, exposing the warm copper alloy beneath, with darkened tarnish in the flutes. Rim and foot remain bright. No dents, splits or losses found. Sold as found and not replated\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\u003eOne stem, and the vase does the rest. The narrow throat holds a single rose or a sprig of something upright without any of the propping a wide mouth needs, and the weighted foot means it will not go over when somebody walks past the table. At eight inches it is the right height for a bedside, a bathroom shelf or a place setting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe worn plate is the part worth arguing for rather than apologising over. Bright uniform silver reads as new. Silver that has gone warm and coppery exactly where hands have held it reads as something that was used and kept, and it sits far better beside brass, walnut and old leather than a polished piece would. Grouped with two or three other small metal vessels at different heights it does more work than its size suggests.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67556004331625,"sku":"VE-1741","price":193.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_8fa0c85b-8bc2-45ba-af12-5a4c9962fb73.jpg?v=1790557407"},{"product_id":"vintage-signed-studio-pottery-house-candle-lantern-c-1965-1995","title":"Vintage Signed Studio Pottery House Candle Lantern, c. 1965–1995","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eA small house built out of flat clay slabs and glazed the colour of molasses. It stands under eight inches to the top of its chimney and it is a candle lantern, not an ornament: the windows are cut clean through the walls, the interior is open, and the chimney is hollow all the way down so the heat has somewhere to go.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe front is a gable with a rounded shoulder rather than a peak, and three openings run up it. The topmost is arched. The two below are rectangular and set one above the other with a thin bar of clay between them. Along each long side, tucked directly under the eaves, runs a row of four small square windows. The far gable carries two larger openings. Light from a single candle comes out of all of it at once, in a dozen directions, at a dozen different sizes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEvery opening was cut by hand with a blade while the clay was still soft. The proof is on the sills, where the tool pushed a small ridge of clay out and through as it came round, and the maker left it. The edges are not ruled and no two windows are quite the same width. The roof is one slab bent over the frame in a shallow barrel curve, with the ridge and the eave lines scored into it with a point.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe glaze is the other half of the object. It is an iron saturated brown that goes black where it pools in the recesses and breaks to amber, ochre and rust orange over every raised edge, corner and window frame, so that the architecture draws itself in colour. It ran heavily during the firing and gathered in the window sills as thick glossy pools. On the roof it thins over the scored lines and the ridges come up gold.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe glaze stops in a clean wiped line above the base, which is a separate square slab projecting slightly as a plinth. That slab is left raw: a white buff stoneware with the woven texture of the canvas it was rolled on still printed across it, a scatter of dark iron flecks in the body, and a brown blush where the glaze bled at the edge.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe signature is incised freehand into the raw base, four or five characters deep in the clay, cut while it was leather hard. Under raking light and enlargement it reads as something close to W E G A. That is offered as a reading and not as an attribution. The strokes are shallow and the canvas texture interferes with them, and no match for that mark has been found in the published studio pottery references or in a reverse image search of the piece itself, which returned nothing at all. It is a personal hand signature, not a factory stamp, and the work behind it is one of a kind.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat the object itself establishes is more useful than the name. This is slab construction throughout: rolled sheets cut to size, joined at the corners, a bent roof, an applied chimney. It is the standard vocabulary of the American studio and community workshop, and it is entirely incompatible with factory production, which would have slip cast or press moulded this form in two halves and left a seam.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe dating rests on two pieces of positive evidence rather than on style. The first is the clay. The body is an evenly refined white buff stoneware with no coarse grog and no inclusions beyond a light scatter of iron, which is a commercially prepared bagged clay rather than a dug and processed one. The second is the firing. The glaze is fully melted, uniformly glossy and consistently oxidised over the whole piece, with no flashing, no carbon trapping and no reduction effects anywhere. That is an electric kiln. Bagged stoneware clay and the small electric kiln are together what put work like this into community studios, school programmes and home garages from the middle 1960s onward.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe glaze family gives a softer supporting note. An iron saturated slip glaze of this character is the type commonly built on Albany slip, the natural clay from the Hudson valley that supplied the American studio trade until the deposit closed in 1986, after which potters moved to prepared substitutes. Substitutes imitate it closely and iron glazes never went away, so this narrows nothing on its own and is not relied on here.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is no manufacturer mark, no country of origin and no importer label. That is exactly what a one off studio piece looks like, since studio work is outside the marking regime entirely, and so it fixes nothing in either direction. The range given below is what the clay and the firing will honestly carry.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ctable\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1965–1995. Dated on construction and firing rather than on style. The commercially prepared white buff stoneware body and the fully oxidised, uniformly melted glaze of an electric kiln place the piece in the post war studio and community workshop era, which is the floor. The iron saturated slip glaze is of the Albany type, whose source deposit closed in 1986, which is supporting rather than determinative since substitutes followed it immediately. The absence of any factory or country of origin mark is what a one off studio piece looks like and sets no boundary of its own. A named attribution for the incised signature would narrow the range considerably\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHouse form candle lantern with rounded gable, barrel roof and hollow chimney flue\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWhite buff stoneware with an iron saturated brown slip glaze\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eConstruction\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSlab built throughout. Rolled sheets cut and joined at the corners, bent roof slab with scored ridge and eave lines, applied chimney open to the interior, separate projecting base slab, all window openings cut freehand with a blade in the soft clay\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGlaze\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGlossy treacle brown running to black in the recesses and breaking amber, ochre and rust orange over every raised edge and window frame. Heavy pooling in the sills. Wiped cleanly above the base\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eIncised hand signature on the unglazed base, four to five characters, reading approximately W E G A. Not identified. No factory stamp, mould number, label or country of origin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOpenings\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eThree on the front gable, the uppermost arched. Two on the rear gable. Four small square windows under the eaves on each long side\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 5 in. square by 7.5 in. high to the top of the chimney\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVery good. No chips, cracks or restoration found. Glaze intact and unworn with the runs, pools and thin spots of the original firing left as fired. Unglazed base carries light surface scratching and a few shallow drying lines in the clay, normal for a raw slab bottom. Interior unglazed and clean. Sits flat and stable\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\u003ePut a tealight in it and turn the lamps down. A dozen openings at four different scales throw a pattern that moves on the wall behind it, and because the windows are hand cut and uneven the pattern never resolves into anything regular. It is the difference between a candle in a jar and a candle in a building.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnlit it holds its own as a small piece of sculpture. The glaze is doing real work here, running dark in the hollows and igniting gold on every edge, which is what makes an object this size read from across a room. It wants a dark surface under it, a walnut mantel, a slate hearth, a stack of books, somewhere the brown can go warm rather than disappear.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of a kind, signed by the hand that built it, and small enough to go anywhere. For a shop it is the piece on the counter that people pick up.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67556067737705,"sku":"VE-1742","price":1094.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/01_2a774d34-31b8-4822-974e-c2b714d59e4d.jpg?v=1790560006"}],"url":"https:\/\/viridianeclection.com\/collections\/new-arrivals.oembed?page=6","provider":"Viridian Eclection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}