NEWS AND EVENTS

AT THE DRESSING TABLE Exhibition. Ends 30 Jan 2010

This Christmas selling exhibition gathers together a wide range of jewellery, grooming items and dressing table silver for men and women, conjuring up the styles of the 1700s to the late twentieth century.

The fashionable French of the C17th are credited with introducing the dressing table to the boudoir and the piece of material which women used to wrap up their grooming items was called a ‘toilette’. Dressing tables quickly became an essential in the bedroom, inspiring in turn lovely grooming accessories and containers for storing powders, perfumes and trinkets.

Silver became increasingly popular as a decorative element for hair and clothes brushes, pots for powders and potions, and boxes to tidy away trinkets, buttons, buckles and hairpins.

Georgian: Boxes & Brushes
From the 1700s you can see a rare example of a Georgian clothes brush dated 1773 with a pastoral scene chased into the silver. There are vinaigrettes from 1780 onwards when they were very popular. Vinaigrettes are tiny silver-hinged boxes holding a perfumed sponge that one flicked open to ward off unpleasant odours. There is beautiful and unusual one shaped as a bird. Men kept their snuff in small boxes they could slip in a pocket and there is a handsome George III engine-turned snuff box hallmarked Birmingham, 1810. You may even find a silver patch box, in which the tiny ‘beauty’ spots, much favoured in Georgian times (in fact to cover pockmarks), would have been stored.

Before the arrival of gas lamps in the C19th you would need your chamber-stick to light you to bed. The exhibition features a 1784 example by Hester Bateman, and others from 1810, 1817 and 1820. A wax jack was an alternative source of lighting and there are plenty of candlesticks from as early as the mid-1700s.

Victorian: Button hooks, heated hair tongs & scent bottles
A pair of silver Victorian curling tongs complete with heater would have been just the thing to achieve a heavy knot of curls at the back of a sleek chignon or ringlets over the ears. With the extravagant wigs of the 1700s cast aside, Victorian women opted for a more natural look and kept their hair long and swept back, smoothed down with a little oil.

Pale complexions were the order of the day. Anything that was used to provide a little lip colour or blush probably came from the kitchen or the apothecary in a slip of paper, so until the arrival of the first commercial face creams at the end of the century, women would keep their potions in glass pots, often with silver lids. Likewise perfumes or cologne might be decanted into smaller bottles with silver stoppers. There are many scent bottles on show from Victorian times to the C20th.

A mirror, fixed or free-standing, was an essential addition to the dressing table. The exhibition features a large (43cm tall) extravagantly-chased, very feminine heart-shaped mirror; one of several of numerous shapes in the show, this one was designed by William Comyns of London. Hand mirrors were essential to check on one’s coiffure. There was an import trade in Chinese silver in the 1800s and there is a pretty hand mirror with a pagoda scene chased in silver on the back, dated 1890.

A magnificent 1885 example of everything needed to complete one’s ‘toilette’ comes to life in a dressing table set, the contents inlaid with Tiger-Eye stones. The set holds hair and clothes brushes, copious bottles and a mirror. An earlier smaller set of 1861 manages a jewellery box, a hidden drawer with button opener and a mirror. And, made in 1846, there is an all-silver travelling case for a man with silver storage boxes, plus a writing pad and inkwell for letters home. A little Victorian quizzing glass for the short of sight (from c1870) might help with reading those letters.

C20th: jewellery boxes and travel sets
The Edwardian era of the early 1900s boasts some very smart travel sets for men and women. One gentlemen’s design, by Asprey, 1913, includes a drinks flask, visiting card case, a shaving mirror with stand and a soap dish.

Silver jewellery boxes abound in the display, with all manner of decoration. The London Silver Vaults has several specialists in jewellery and watches. Rings, jewellery and cufflinks from the C19th and C20th will be exhibited. Vintage watches (Rolex, Omega, Patek Philippe etc) can also be found at the Vaults.

From the early 1900s there is a variety of colourful enamelled hair brushes in blues, yellows and greens. From 1904 there is a tiny hand mirror which would have slipped easily into an evening bag.

A fine example of a gentleman’s wristwatch from the 1930s is a very covetable Rolex ‘Prince’. It has Observatory quality movement and a sleek silver face with black enamelled numerals. Black enamel also features in a glamorous 1930s woman’s travel set with numerous brushes, comb, mirror and manicure set. These dressing table sets remained popular into the Sixties and from this decade there is a white enamelled set and one in midnight blue with a fleur-de-lys pattern, by Alexander Clark of Birmingham, dated 1967.

ENDS