The practical book of early American arts and crafts

Front matter

LIBRARY

ANNEX

Bib

Foreword

THE aim of this book "is to present a thoroughgoing, informative, and practical guide to the Arts and Crafts of our forefathers for the use of the collector and general reader. Its timeliness win be evident, for the present still offers opportunities of securing desirable specimens which the increasing number of collectors will soon render difficult to come by. Private collectors, artists, archaeologists, historians, museums and those reviving our old Arts and Crafts are aU, from their individual points of view, interested in the subject — and justly so when we remember the wide and diversified range of early American workmanship.

The period covered goes back to the beginnings of permaip.ent European colonisation on the continent of North America on the one hand and, on the other, includes the early years of the nineteenth century. Attention is directed to what things are to be found and, in man,y oases, where they are likely to be found. It will thus appear how rich and broad a field lies open to the enthusiast, a field in some directions almost untouched.

The general reader wiU. find the record of early American achievement in the decorative arts so intimately interwoven, from the outset, with the story of the nation's social and economic growth that it may not be disregarded if any value be attached to an intelligent and comprehensive knowledge of American history.

Contents

PAQB

I. Introductory 11

II. Early Mexican Maiolica and Glass ... 19

Chapter I Inteoductory

PEODUCTS of the decorative arts afford the visible evidence of man's progress in civilisation. This is true of the world's history considered as a whole. It is equally true of the history of each individual people. It is essentially true of our own history in both its Colonial and national phases. If we would fully know what manner of men and women laid the foundations of our country and builded thereon the first courses of a structure now grown to imposing size, if we would have a true and lively picture of their daily circumstances, we must know somewhat of the arts they practised, arts which, simple and homely as some of them were, none the less played a significant part in the lives of our forebears.

In our school and college days the political and military aspects of our Colonial past were chiefly impressed upon us and their dramatic appeal to the imagination was often emphasised at the expense of the less obviously insistent factors of social existence. In our subsequent study, the homely, quiet forces have all too often been overshadowed and put in abeyance by national affairs that loomed larger upon our mental horizon than did the products of unobtrusive craftsmanship. In consequence, comparatively little attention has been paid the less conspicuous but nevertheless highly important manifestations of a deeply implanted instinct, common to the human race in all ages and in every land, to contrive adornment and add the perennial interest of colour and design to everyday surroundings. Indeed, we have sometimes been in ' ' danger of wholly forgetting much that was worthy and memorable in the lives of our forefathers. ' ' Furthermore, we have been altogether too ready, in many instances, to attribute specimens of worthy craftsmanship to an imported origin without sufficient warrant for the assumption. This has been notably the ease with regard to silver, for how many know that there were more than four hundred silversmiths working in the American Colonies ? Thus, through our careless ignorance, has the American craftsman of past generations often been robbed of the recognition that is in justice due him.

From the rude bone scratchings wrought by the primeval cave-dwellers to the delicately finished lacquer or the gracefully moulded and chastely decorated porcelains made in China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, or the wondrous fabrics and beautiful furniture produced by the artisans and craftsmen of Europe at the same epoch, the achievements in the several decorative arts furnish us with an eloquent commentary upon the men and manners of each succeeding generation, and give us an insight into their social condition and ideals more intimate than we can get in any other way. If we remember Mr. Lethaby's dictum that "art is the well doing of what needs doing, ' ' we shall better understand and more truly appreciate the spirit that actuated and inspired the artificers of the past who put i^to so much of their handiwork a vital quality and livening touch of personality that shame the products

INTRODUCTORY 13

of sordid industrialism to which we of to-day have become too much accustomed. If work was primitive, and it often was, it was, however, honest and possessed of strong individuality, and generally showed a striving to realise, albeit blindly and imperfectly at times, the inherently sound principle of ubiquitous grace, so dear to and so consistently practised by the Greeks, who deemed the meanest pots and pans not unworthy of comely shape and fitting ornament. Many of the articles were the product of home manufacture, and so it would not be fair to contrast them with the work of skilled artisans. And yet, if we do contrast them with much of the cheaper present-day merchandise it would often be to the advantage of the home-made ; for, while frankly amateurish and primitive, few examples of this home-made work were downright ugly, as are the hideous carpets, pieces of furniture, and the like, sold by some of the cheaper establishments of to-day. Few things are more to be lamented than the lost art of "making things" formerly practised in families ; in this respect American homes are far below the peasant families of Russia and Scandinavia, upon whom we look down for their ignorance, but who could, we suspect, teach us many things in the art of living. If we look for a trustworthy commentary upon the intimate social history of past nations and races in the varied record of the arts and crafts they practised and are well rewarded, we may look, with equal propriety and with equally confident expectation of fruitful results, for an insight of the greatest value into the everyday social conditions of our own land in the past from a study of the work achieved by early American craftsmanship. Incidentally, we shall boi^ establish for ourselves a truer standard of "appreciation of our historic and artistic heritage" and create a "more vivid and human background" for the events of our national history. The industrial arts ' ' touch life at many points and intimately; and the students and collectors of Americana have been, unconsciously perhaps, reconstructing for us a more living picture of the men and manners of a former time, and history is made thereby a more vital thing. The collector has ceased to be absorbed entirely by the quest for a bargain and has become a delver after human facts."

The story of the pursuit and development of the decorative arts in Colonial America is replete with varied and, needless to say, engrossing interest. From the beginnings of European colonisation in the new lands of the Western World to the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, while the afterglow of the Colonial period still shed its waning light and the exercise of the decorative handicrafts had not been wholly blotted out by the fast falling night of industrial banality and machine-made ornament of ugly, sordid character, we find a wide diversity in the products put forth by the workers in the decorative crafts and an equally wide geographical distribution of localities where they wrought. From the lofty table land of Mexico to the forests of Canada and Nova Scotia, craftsmen and craftswomen plied their skill, partly in a continuous commercial manner, partly in the occasional creation of some homely embellishment or the adornment of some object of domestic utility.

While several of the arts considered in the following chapters were carried on almost everywhere throughout the Colonies, others were purely local in their practice. Still others were applied in sundry different

INTRODUCTORY 15

places where conditions favoured their pursuit. Of the arts or crafts practised more or less universally throughout the Colonies may be mentioned, besides the spinning and weaving of linen and the making of other homespun textiles, the weaving of woollen coverlets, now eagerly sought after in all parts of the country and regarded with admiration both for their colour and the beauty of their pattern ; the piecing, patching and quilting of bedspreads; the working of samplers and the more ambitious embroidering of allegorical, scriptural or pastoral pictures, both forms of stitchery held ia high esteem as satisfactory evidences of proper and indispensable feminine accomplishment ; the embroidering of wearing apparel and lesser objects and, finally, among the activities pursued by women, the making of dyes and the dyeing of the threads or fabrics to be used in the sorts of handiwork just enumerated. These activities did more than satisfy the promptings of the world-old creative instinct ; they were a source of companionship and a boon to the woman who had to endure the inevitable hours of frontier loneliness. They provided wholesome occupation for the brain as well as for the hands. If more of these household crafts were practised at the present day, contributing their quota of colour and constructive interest to humdrum and pathetically colourless lives, we should probably not hear of such appalling statistics of insanity among the wives and daughters of farmers. Many a city woman, too, might profitably take pattern from her grandmother's manual skill and industry in womanly crafts. While not a few are busied in a manner beyond criticism, there are, nevertheless, far too many whose preoccupation with bridge, and kindred devices for killing time, could well give place to employments better calculated to increase feminine capability, charm and dignity.

Among the decorative crafts practised by men in practically all the Colonies, one naturally expects to find metal work and carving in wood and stone. The metal work includes the simpler decorative forms for domestic or architectural use in iron, copper, brass, lead and tin. Nor must we forget furniture making and decorative painting on furniture, glass, tin, and other substances — ^both arts pursued in distinctively local forms, at one time or another, along the whole Atlantic seaboard.

The arts that were purely local began, in point of time, with the making of glass and maiolica at Puebla in Mexico towards the end of the sixteenth century. The next essay at making glass on the continent of North America took place at Jamestown shortly after the arrival of the colonists. Almost wholly local, too, were the later attempts at making glass until nearly the end of the eighteenth century. As will be seen in the chapter devoted to early American glass, whether the establishment of eighteenth century glass houses was undertaken by Caspar Wistar, the picturesque Baron Stiegel or their energetic New England contemporaries, the manufacture of this brittle commodity was virtually confined to Pennsylvania, South Jersey and Eastern Massachusetts until the time of the Revolutionary "War, or slightly later. The making of slip-decorated pottery was confined altogether to Pennsylvania with the exception of sporadic attempts at a similar process in Connecticut and in West Virginia. The art of "fractur" painting also was essentially local and was prac-

INTRODUCTORY 17

tised only among the German population in certain counties in Pennsylvania.

The making of silverware, on the other hand, was practised wherever conditions were favourable to the craft of the silversmith, that is to say, in the cities and large towns or wherever there was a recognised centre of wealth. Hence Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Eichmond, Charleston, Newport, Newburyport, Albany and various other places could boast the production of silverware of the most admirable workmanship at a very early date. Pewter was as widely made, and in much larger quantities, and the pewterers, not content with merely copying British models, originated several interesting local forms which are noted in their proper place. Allegorical painting, sign painting and very early portraiture, which is scarcely to be judged by the same standards as we are accustomed to apply under ordinary circumstances, were, like silversmithing, practised chiefly in the cities or in centres of local wealth.

Without entering into a full catalogue of all the Colonial craft activities, it is plain to be seen that every part of our country settled before the third decade of the nineteenth century has some share in early craft development, some point of interest, some cause for proper local pride. It is also to be noted that, in most cases, early American art was truly folk art. That is, it was of and by the people. Therefore it was vital. The truest and most vigorous art has generally come from the -people. upward and not from one or two individuals downward. Great masters in craftsmanship have been those that did the folk things pre-eminently better than their fellows. The vitality and vigour of early American decorative craftsmansMp are two of its greatest charms and it is gratifying to note that several traditional forms of craft expression have persisted to our own day in the Southern mountains while other forms are being revived in many different places and under widely different auspices. The industries of the Southern mountaineers have been placed on a basis pecuniarily remunerative to the workers, and their wares are marketed in the cities of the North by philanthropists whose laudable philanthropy consists largely in helping others to help themselves. The excellent and growing collections of Americana in our museums are doing much to stimulate interest in the old and to encourage the effort at revivals. If the following chapters shall contribute to an increased and patriotic appreciation of the decorative craftsmanship of our forefathers or yield encouragement to the more vigorously constructive task of reviving for our own use what was best in the practice of bygone generations, the authors will feel the most sincere gratification.

Chapter II Eaely Mexican Maiolica And Glass

MEXICO is a land of surprises. This is true, at least so far as most of us in America are concerned. Although Mexico is our next neighbour, we really know but little of the country or her history as compared with the knowledge of European countries deemed essential for every educated person. The majority of people, and well-informed people at that, do not know that the making of maiolica was a craft, important both artistically and commercially, as early as the last quarter of the sixteenth century, and that it so continued until near the middle of the nineteenth, when it fell into a debased condition, from which in recent years attempts have been made, and not altogether without success, to restore it to its former dignified estate.

There was a tradition that pottery like the Spanish Talavera earthenwarfe had anciently been made somewhere in Mexico, but nothing wasi surely known about it until, within very recent years, the thorough investigations of Dr. E. A. Barber, of the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, disclosed the fact that tinenamelled pottery was being produced soon after the Conquest. This ware students of ceramics had previously either ignored or attributed to a Spanish origin. We know, however, that from the sixteenth century onward the fabrication of this ware has gone on without interruption, and that it dropped into obscurity only in the nineteenth century, when its character declined.

20 EARLY AMERICAN ARTS AND CRAFT

Puebla, or Puebla de los Angeles, to give the town its full name, a city founded by the Spanish conquerors in 1531, one hundred and fifteen miles south-east of the city of Mexico, at the foot of Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl, was the first seat of various manufactures introduced into the New World by European craftsmen, and here, among other enterprises, glass factories and potteries were established. For nearly three centuries Puebla was the only place where maiolica was made in the western hemisphere. The art of glazing, brought hither by Spanish maiolists — ^the Aztecs had made only unglazed pottery — prospered, and there is little doubt that by 1575 or 1580 Mexican-made tiles of excellent quality were produced in sufficient quantity to render the new land almost independent of Spanish importations. Tiles were not the only objects made, for the craftsmen turned out all the various articles usually fashioned by potters.

By 1653 the industry had assumed sufficient importance in Puebla to warrant the incorporation of a potters ' guild with stringent regulations and penalties attached for their infraction. The manufacture and sale of pottery were regulated by law, and no one might practise the trade of a potter without examination by the inspectors of the guild. A certain standard of quality in the wares was rigorously enjoined and jealously guarded.

Pbocesses. From, the rules of the guild we learn that there were three grades of pottery: the fine, the common, and the yellow. The difference lay in the workmanship and the glaze employed. Two clays were used, white and red, being combined in equal parts. The variations in colour to be found in the body in different

MEXICAN MAIOLICA LAVABO DECORATIONS IN BLUE OUTLINED

WITH BLACK, HISPANO-MORESQUE PHASE, c. 1650

Courtesy of Pennsvlvania Museum and School of Industrial Art

MEXICAN MAIOLICA BARREL-SHAPED FLOWER JARS, CHINESE INFLUENCE, c. 1750

BLUE DECORATION.

. Sffl „

N H S

O g

woz |-

M 2 'a

S ti ^ m k o

EARLY MEXICAN MAIOLICA AND GLASS 21

pieces are due to the amoTint of firing and not to tlie varying proportions of the clay ingredients. After the various pieces were shaped and allowed to dry they were put in the first kiln. When taken out of the kiln they were dipped in a liquid glaze or enamel and then allowed to dry. The decorations were next painted on in vitrifiable colours made from metallic oxides, and the pieces were then subjected to a second firing, during which the colours became incorporated with the glaze and took on the appearance of underglaze painting. The glaze for the finer ware was made of twenty-five parts of lead to six of tin ; the glaze for the common and yellow ware had twenty-five parts of lead to two of tin. These lead and tin oxides were carefully baked, ground, and mixed together, and water and fine sand were added. A little molasses was also put into the mixture to make it adhesive.

Colours. It was permissible to use five colours in decorating the finer ware, and for the common ware three colours were permissible. This did not mean that the use of so many colours was in any sense prescribed, and many of the finest pieces have monochrome decoration. If vases and other ornamental pieces had polychrome decorations before the beginning of the eighteenth century, they have disappeared. Tiles, however, which were classed as common ware, have been found in three colours and undoubtedly date from the seventeenth century^ as they were built into the walls of churches and convents erected at that period. 'Blue, green, and yellow were favourite hues for tile decoration. It was also enjoined in the directions for making the fine pottery that the ware was to be first painted with black "in order that its beauty might shine out."

This evidently meant that the pattern was to be outlined with black or dark brown and then filled with blue or whatever colour was to be used, for some of the earlypieces were treated in this way, especially some of the pieces done in the Chinese style.

Vabieties. The manufacture of Mexican maiolica may be divided into four well-defined phases, which began at successive dates, but several of which continued concurrently. The first was the Hispano- Moresque phase, which lasted till the end of the seventeenth century and shows a strong Moorish influence, which is characterised by the strapwork and interlacing scrolls. The second phase was the Spanish or Talavera, so called because the style of design peculiar to the maiolica made at Talavera, in Spain, furnished the inspiration for a type of decoration developed by the potters of Puebla and practised by them from about the beginning of the seventeenth century to almost the end of the eighteenth. The third phase was called the Chinese, in which the motifs and style were derived from the Chinese pottery and porcelain imported into Mexico in the early seventeenth century. This style made its appearance about 1650, and endured to the end of the eighteenth century. The last phase was the Hispano-Mexican or Pueblan, which began about 1800 and lasted till slightly past the middle of the century, when it sank into a totally debased commercial style. By comparing dates, therefore, we see that the Spanish or Talavera and the Chinese phases apparently possessed the greatest vitality and enjoyed the longest vogue, lasting concurrently through the greater part of two centuries.

HisPAN-o-MoRESQUE. While it is quite true that a

EARLY MEXICAN MAIOLICA AND GLASS 23 good deal of pottery and a good many tiles were imported into Mexico from Spain, from which patterns were copied or adapted, it is also quite true that the native potteries in Puebla were flourishing vigorously and the decorators there employed were fully capable of developing designs that displayed not a little originality, and this truly Mexican quality often helps to identify them as of Pueblan origin. The work-

^g. 1. A, inverted Pear-shaped Jar, blue deoorations outlined with black, Talavera period, c. 1650-1750. B, Albarello or Drug Jar, aame period.

Courtesy of Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, Philadelphia.

manship, too, differs somewhat from Spanish methods, and a noticeable characteristic and almost infallible proof of Mexican authorship is the way in which thick, blue glaze stands out in visible relief from the surface. Talaveea. One of the characteristics of the Spanish Talavera maiolica was the introduction of animal, bird, and human forms along with flowers and foliage (Fig. 1, A), oftentimes crowded together without the least feeling of restraint in composition. Blue figure-work on a white enamel ground was also characteristic. These features the Talavera phase of Mexican maiolica incorporated, and another distinctive peculiarity is found in it besides — the tattooed ornamentation "rudely painted in dots and dashes in dark blue, ' ' which appears on many of the pieces of this period. It is distinctly impressionistic in suggestion, and must be regarded at a distance to get its real artistic value and see the coherence of its design. Another highly characteristic type of decoration found upon the Mexican Talavera maiolica consists of flowers, birds, or heavy conventional patterns, boldly silhouetted in raised dark blue, nearly covering the white surface.

Chinese. So early as the fore part of the seventeenth century trade relations of some magnitude existed between Mexico and the Orient, and, naturally enough, a good deal of excellent porcelain and pottery from Cathay found their way through this channel to the shores of New Spain. Naturally enough, also, their presence produced an appreciable effect upon the colour, design, and shape of Mexican pottery. The Chinese influence, once introduced, lent a new refinement to the ware made at Puebla, and continued a powerful factor in the maiolica industry until quite the end of the eighteenth century. This influeaice is easily detected in colour, a full rich blue; in shape, in the contour of jars, which closely followed the lines of ginger jars, and, also, in the contour of vases, of which not a few were potted in the inverted pear form ; finally, in types of design and methods of decoration we find not only Chinese figures and decorative motifs freely employed', but also a noticeable following of Chinese forms of combination.

MEXICAN MAIOLICA JAR (18 INCHES

HIGH). POLYCHROME DECORATION

PUEBLA PHASE, u. 1800

Courtesy of Pennsylvania Museum and

School of Industrial Art

MEXICAN MAIOLICA BASON (20K INCHES IN DIAMETER).

BLUE TATTOO DECORATION; TALAVERA PHASE, c. 1680

Courtesy of Albert Pepper, Esq.

1. Mexican Maiolica Salt, Foiychrume Decoration. Mexican Phase, c. 1830

2, 3 and 4, Mexican Maiolica Drug Jars or Flower Vases. Blue Decoration.

Talavera Phase, c. 1700-1740 Courtesy of Dr. Edwin AtLee Barber

MEXICAK MAIOLICA TILES 1, 2 and 3, Chinese Phase, Dark Blue Ground, Figures Reserved in White, c. 1650- 1700; 4, Painted in Blue, Talavera and Chinese Phases, o. 1666-1680 Courtesy of Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art

EARLY MEXICAN MAIOLICA AND GLASS 25

Four varieties of Chinese decoration are found in the Mexican maiolica. In the first, designs in white are reserved in a blue ground ; in the second, Chinese figures appear in the scheme ; in the third, the important figures are of European character, but there is a perceptible addition of Chinese motifs, while in the fourth variety there are white medallions upon which are conventionalised floral designs.

Hispano-Mexican or Pxteblan. The fourth phase of Mexican maiolica, the Hispano-Mexican or Pueblan

Fig. 2, Polychrome Tile, Hispano-Mexican phase, u. 1780. Courtesy of Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, Philadelphia.

phase, was really ushered in during the latter part of the eighteenth century by the introduction of a greater range of colours, in which greens, purples, yellows, and browns were of frequent occurrence. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the Chinese influence was a negligible quantity and the Mexican maiolists were developing a style in which crudely drawn figures (Fig. 2) appeared. There was also greater chromatic latitude, and red, black, and other hues, in addition to those already mentioned, came into popular use. Much of the more delicate colouring, such as rose and mauve (Fig. 3), were introduced at a later date. Some of this fourth-period work was exceedingly gauche and clumsy, while some of it, on the contrary, was delicate in conception and beautiful in execution and colour. The period of decay had set in and, by 1850 or 1860, nearly all the ware of Puebla had sunk to a state of commercial vulgarity, with very little to redeem it.

In very recent years efforts have been made to restore the craft to its old level, and much creditable work is being produced. The movers in this renais-

Fig. 3, Bowl in green and mauve, Hispano-Mexican phase, c. ISOO. Courtesy ot Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, Philadelphia

sance of Mexican maiolica, while adhering to the old processes, are not copying the old designs nor trying to deceive purchasers. Since interest has been manifested in the old ware, fakers have sprung up and achieved a certain degree of success in counterfeiting the original pottery, so that a collector must be keen-eyed in examining specimens. By close observation, however, and comparison with authenticated pieces it is possible to detect forgeries. The objects usually found in Mexican maiolica, besides the tiles with which the fagades and interiors of churches and convents were often encrusted, are albarelli or drug jars, jars for

EARLY MEXICAN MAIOLICA AND GLASS 27 chocolate or cocoa, vases, barrel-shaped flower jars, bowls, circular dishes, salt-cellars (Fig. 4), inkstands, dishes, cup-holders, and basons.

GiAss. There is record of glass being made in Puebla at an early date, and much glass of beautiful quality and workmanship has been collected in Mexico. For a long time some of this was thought to be of Mexican origin and was so labelled in museum coUec-

A B

Fig. 4. A, Inkstand. B, Albarello. Both polychrome. Hiapano-Mexican phase,

c. 1800-1830.

Courtesy of Pennsylvania Museum and Schoool of Industrial Art, Philadelphia

tions. On more recent investigation, however, it turns out to have been of Spanish manufacture, made for the Mexican market. There are also simpler pieces of doubtful origin. It is impossible to say definitely whether they were made in Mexico or not.

The best collections of Mexican maiolica are in the Pennsylvania Museum of Industrial Art, Philadelphia, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Chapter III

ONCE broken, never mended. The frailty of glass is proverbial, and doubtless it is chiefly because of this unfortunate quality that the search for specimens of the glass-Howers * art, an art of absorbing interest and variety, has afforded less encouragement to collectors than some other less brittle products of the craftsman's skill. Its fragility is certainly to blame for our not having more of it left from bygone days. Even with care, accidents will befall from time to time and treasured heirlooms meet a tragic end beyond all hope of salvation from rivets or glue. And this, too, though one sedulously averts the ravages committed by well-intentioned but heavyfingered housemaids, whose feather-dusters occasionally become veritable besoms of destruction. '

Nevertheless, despite all ruin and breakage, we still have a good deal of old American glass remaining — quite enough to whet the appetite of the collector and add zest to the studies of the antiquary or historian.

In the magazines that pay more or less attention at intervals to subjects of special interest to the collector or connoisseur, old American glass has received less notice than anything else. Indeed, such scant consideration has it been accorded that not seldom do people say in an incredulous tone, on hearing it mentioned, "Old American glass — ^what is that?" It is only since the recently awakened wave of appreciation for the smaller antiques of American origin has swept over the land that people have gone a-searching in musty, dusty, and long-neglected corners and brought to light many a vitreous treasure whose existence they had entirely forgotten or to whose charms they had hitherto been blind or indifferent.

High honour is due to glass by right of seniority among American crafts or manufacturers. Glass-making was the first manufacture engaged in by our English forefathers in North America. It was first made in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608, and this initial essay at what is now a vast and immensely profitable industry was undertaken under the supervision of Captain Christopher Newport, while the second, a few years subsequently, was carried out under the eye of that most picturesque and redoubtable old hero, Captain John Smith.