Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park

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LETTERING AND NUMERALS IN ANTIQUES
FROM MEMBERS OF THE COTSWOLD ART & ANTIQUES DEALERS’ ASSOCIATION

Witney Antiques - Bristol orphanage sampler, dated 1892, in the region of £8,000.

Well in advance of the next CADA Antiques & Fine Art 17-19 November 2023 at the beautiful Compton Verney estate in Warwickshire, the members of the The Cotswolds Art & Antiques Dealers’ Association (CADA) are running an intriguing series of Instagram themed events each month and for February the theme focuses on lettering and numerals used in its diverse forms on pottery, clocks, glass, silver, furniture, signage, needlework and samplers. The Instagram appears simultaneously on the website: www.thecada.org.

Painted, beaten, carved, inset, engraved, embroidered in various styles and in a variety of materials, the lettering and numerals may be functional or decorative or both, often distinctive of an era like the French Art Deco Just clock by Hour Lavigne, circa 1920, £3,950 from Mark Goodger Antiques (www.markgoodger.co.uk). The black and green numbers are the epitome of Art Deco styling, so different from the 17th century ebony basket top table timepiece, made in London circa 1685, £23,500 from Tobias Birch from Evesham in Worcestershire (www.tobiasbirch.com). The Roman and Arabic numerals painted on the clockface differ again from its engraved backplate where it is signed with script flourishes and curls ‘Nathanael Hodges in Wine Office Court in Fleet Street Londini Fecit’, decoratively entwined with tulips and foliage. Mark Goodger Antiques also has an Aesthetic movement oak clock & letterbox attributed to Lewis Foreman Day, circa 1900, selling for £9,500. The top has a clover leaf/trefoil castle turret design and three sides are inset with ceramic blue & white tiles which match the clock face, which uses Western Arabic numerals, a different font for LETTERS on the post box and another typeface for the encased postal timetable notice, complete with rates of postage for letters and parcels.

Mark Goodger Antiques - French Art Deco Just clock by Hour Lavigne, circa 1920, £3,950.

A plaster cast plaque of letters from the Trajan Column attributed to the workshop of Eric Gill (1882-1940), circa 1919, contains a full set of Roman Capitals as they appear on Trajan's Column in Rome, POA from Architectural Heritage from Taddington in Gloucestershire (www.architectural-heritage.co.uk). The inscription at the base of the column has been acclaimed as one of the high points in Roman letter carving. Copies of all the casts including the base were obtained by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and installed there in its plaster court around 1874. The museum sold copies of the inscription for £7. These copies were of the intact inscription not simply an alphabet, in this respect this plaque is unique, only matched by one other copy held in the V&A, it is possible that this plaque comes from the same source. The back of this panel has a roughly painted note on it that reads 'TROGEN ALPH T.C'. The looped R and G with straight descender are reminiscent of Gill's hand and the deliberate misspelling of Trajan sounds like the kind of 'in joke' or pun that Gill enjoyed making i.e. this is the alphabet that had got inside the 'city' and would eventually lead to the fall of the old Victorian order of lettering.

Architectural Heritage - A plaster cast plaque of letters from the Trajan Column.

Newest CADA member, Kendall House Antiques Ltd from Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire (www.kendallhouseantiques.co.uk) has Arts & Crafts beaten copper embossed panels mounted on oak plaques ‘Antique Furniture’, suspended with brass chain, in the manner of the Keswick School of Industrial Arts, circa 1910, priced at £2,500.

Engraved lettering was often used on silver and glass as a presentation for services rendered, maybe on retirement or celebrating/commemorating an occasion like a pair of loving cups celebrating the ship Britannia, which was launched in 1774, with a price in the region of £1,000 each from Brian Watson Antique Glass (https://lapada.org/dealers/brian-watson-antique-glass/). It would appear that the ship's main claim to fame was its involvement in the third Charlestown Tea Party in November 1774. Nine days before the famed overboarding of tea in Massachusetts, the artisans and planters of the Low Country staged their own act of rebellion. While the first of Charleston’s three tea parties was a bit of an anticlimax compared to that staged by their Bostonian cousins, it still made it into the record books as the first ‘tea party’ in American history.

Kendall House Antiques Ltd - Arts & Crafts ‘Antique Furniture’ beaten copper embossed panels
mounted on oak plaques.

A rare English Delftware pottery plate, painted in blue with a half portrait of the King of Prussia Frederick II, the initials in scrip KP featured above the king’s head, dated 1756 to 1763, England, comes with an asking price of £2,450 from John Howard in Woodstock, Oxfordshire (www.antiquepottery.co.uk). The plate was made to commemorate the alliance between Prussia and Britain. Frederick II of Prussia (1712-86), known as Frederick the Great, was Britain’s ally during the Seven Years War (1756-63), resulting in his popularity and fame in Britain. The portrait on this plate derives from an engraving by Richard Houston after Antoine Pesne.

Christopher Clarke Antiques - A silver plated Presentation Salver or Tray

A silver-plated presentation salver given to 'Captain & Mrs Maling On Their Departure From New Zealand From Hervey L. Phipps & Fred. R. Le Patourel. 1878', which is for sale, priced at £145, from Christopher Clarke Antiques in Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire (www.campaignfurniture.com). In this case, the plate is also decorated with a pattern surrounding the engraved inscription to the centre. Hervey Lepel Phipps was the son of the Governor of New Zealand, who along with Irwin Charles Maling and Captain Frederick Le Patourel, was an aide-de-camp to the governor. This salver was given as a leaving gift by two of the Governor's aides to the third.

Houlston Uk Limited - A rare Charles II commemorative joined oak panel-back open armchair.

Also in Stow-on-the-Wold is Houlston UK Ltd (www.houlston.uk.com) with a rare Charles II commemorative joined oak panel-back open armchair, the top rail initialled I O and E O and dated 1677, almost certainly carved to commemorate a marriage and priced at £5,750. Houlston UK Ltd has another Charles II piece - an inlaid boarded oak box with ownership initials M O and the date 1667, £1,350, as well as the crest of Charles I carved into an oak open armchair from Cumbria, dated 1642, selling for £8,950. There are several of these chairs carved with dates between carved mythical ‘worms’ but this chair is one of the earliest recorded examples of the type.

A superb George III period free standing mahogany secretaire library centre cabinet by Gillows of Lancaster, is panelled all round with a secretaire drawer containing “alphabet inlaid” lidded compartments, circa 1790, £12,500 from W.R. Harvey & Co. (Antiques) Ltd from Witney in Oxfordshire (www.wrharvey.com). Strong and important looking library tables of this pattern with sliding partitions, lettered compartments and secret (or private as Gillows called them) drawers were among the most expensive pieces made by them in the late 18th century. Sir Walter Scott ordered an almost identical secretaire cabinet for his home and it stands in the library at Abbotsford to this day.

W.R. Harvey & Co. (Antiques) Ltd - A superb George III period free standing mahogany secretaire
library centre cabinet by Gillows of Lancaster.

Also from Witney, Oxfordshire is Witney Antiques (www.witneyantiques.com) specialist in embroideries and samplers with the largest selection of 17th to early 19th century samplers in the United Kingdom available for sale. Delve into the shop to discover so many examples of young girls’ stitch work, usually with the whole alphabet and numbers, some more richly decorated with animals and scenes from their surroundings.

Visit:

ANF Calendar for future fair dates

Fairs + Dealers to read more about The Cotswold Art & Antiques Dealers’ Association Fair

Cover Image: Mark Goodger Antiques - French Art Deco Just clock by Hour Lavigne, circa 1920, £3,950.