Monday, May 28, 2012

Another String Dispenser . . . and More


As I promised in my last post, Dear Reader, today's essay is about our trip to the Rhinebeck Antiques Fair, held in Rhinebeck, New York, every Memorial Day weekend.  First thing Saturday morning we piled in the Rover with our guests, Preston and Digby, and drove straight to the Dutchess County Fairgrounds, where the fair is held.  Not one of us was in much of a spending mood, unless, of course, an inevitable "must have" appeared in one booth or another, and we approached the fair more for entertainment than as a buying opportunity.

Boy's "new" nineteenth-century
English boxwood string dispenser

But, of course, that didn't mean we weren't shopping, because—despite our best intentions—we were.

In a display case at the booth of Michael Haskins Antiques, of Palmyra, New York, Boy spotted a "must have" for his collection of string dispensers, a turned-wood example that complements two already sitting in Darlington's kitchen.

"Three little [nineteenth-century
English turned-wood bee-skep-form]
string holders are we!"

One or two aisles before Boy found the string holder, I spied a large, early-nineteenth-century engraving in a lemon-yellow frame at the booth of John D. Gould Antiques.  It was unceremoniously sitting on the floor, propped against the wall behind a small tiger maple stand.  "What's that?" I asked.  Boy chimed in, "Is it 'The Death of Montgomery . . . '?"

An engraving after a Trumbull painting that the artist
painted for the purposes of having an engraving made.

"No," John said, "it's 'The Battle of Bunker Hill.'"  (Trumbull's painting, the source of the print, is generally known as "The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill, June 17, 1775," so Boy wasn't so far off, simply confusing his generals on a muggy May morning.)

Trumbull's painting, profitably licensed for engraving by
the artist, is in the collection of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.
Other  Trumbull paintings of important scenes of the
American Revolution, including a study for this canvas,
are in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery.
Image courtesy of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

We will hang the print above an engraving of George Washington at the Battle of Trenton or Princeton (I cannot remember without abandoning my laptop and climbing the stairs) on the landing between the first and second floors of the front of Darlington House.  Boy plans to tilt it forward with a few clean wine corks, hanging it in the old taste.

A perfect pair for tilting the top of a painting, print, or mirror.

Our first purchase at the fair was the humblest: two old cast-iron irons, one sporting an anchor on its handle.  Last weekend handyman Rich and his helper, Tony, carried out all of the wicker furniture, lamps, and other furnishings from the barn and the basement, and set up the screened porch.  When we depart Darlington for the city in the summer, we push everything on the porch together and throw a big canvas tarp over the lot, weighing down the corners with old irons.  Last Sunday afternoon, Boy suggested we find a few more of them (several were left behind in the house when we bought it) to better anchor the tarp against stormy winds.  And so we now have a few more of them.

Anchors away?

And that, Dear Reader, completes our Rhinebeck morning, done at Mach speed in under an hour!


Tell me, what did you find out and about in your travels this Memorial Day weekend?

Photographs, except where noted, by Boy Fenwick

30 comments:

  1. I admire your collection of string dispensers. I am partial to the beehive shape, which as a symbol of industriousness, is very appropriate for people about to wrap things up with string.

    You have found a fitting new role for those sad irons; it is very interesting to find a use (beyond decoration) for obsolete items.
    --Road to Parnassus

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    1. Thank you, Parnassas. I am also partial to beehive-shaped vessels and such. I was not familiar with the term "sad iron," and have since educated myself on it, thanks to you! I am much obliged, sir. RD

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  2. The string dispensers are charming, and now that there are three, a true collection.

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  3. Enjoyed your post this week. We were to be in Rhinebeck this weekend but our plans changed last minute so thank you for taking me along with you!
    I use my old iron as a door stop when bringing in the groceries. My mother collected them. Somehow I only ended up with one but perhaps she still has the rest. Nice to see the anchor motif on yours, I like any nautical detail and unexpected on the iron.

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    1. Hello MoB: The Rhinebeck Show was enjoyable, but you didn't miss all that much. There will be more of them, although I heard a rumor that the annual summer sale has been canceled this year, so you'll (likely) need to wait 'til Labor Day for another opportunity. RD

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  4. REGGIE-

    Stately and elegant as always. Your selection is superbly edited.

    I've always wondered about 'boxwood'...because 'box' is very small and would hardly serve up these big chunks of 'boxwood'..what do you think?

    The battle scene is very wonderful--and will give you immense pleasure for years to come.

    happy days, DIANE

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  5. It's interesting how things happen. After reading your post I went to look at my engraving. Yes it's Death of General Montgomery. Painted by John Trumbull, Engraving by JT Clemens. At the bottom it reads London, published March 1798, by AC de Poggi,no 91 New Bond Street.

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  6. Silly me, how doth the string go inside? Does it lift up to house the ball of twine? I love all that you carefully collect and I can only imagine your summer porch to be lively even on the sultriest of a Summer night.

    We washed the furniture to be put back on the porch and love having a night cap there....or reading. There is something special about Summer and porches.
    pve

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    1. Hello PVE: The beehive stringholder unscrews from the base, so that is how one fills it with string. A well-furnished summer porch is, indeed, one of life's greatest pleasures! Rgds, RD

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  7. I would love it if you would explain the corks and tilting a picture with them. I have never heard of such a thing.
    The string dispensers are very charming. The irons made me wonder what happened to my grandmother's irons, she used them as doorstops.

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    1. Hello Kerry, Thank you for the suggestion, I shall dedicate a future post to how one tilts a picture with corks. Rgds, RD

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  8. Hello Reggie:
    It seems to us that despite your disinclination to be making purchases at the outset, in the end you came away with some rather goodly things. The string dispenser, to add to the others, is a very fine example and we are much taken with the engraving.

    Thank you too for the tip of the corks placed behind a picture to tilt it forward. An easy, simple and practical solution to an age old problem.

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    1. Hello J&LH: The cork trick is, indeed, a most convenient one! Thank you -- Reggie

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  9. So love Boy's string dispenser,have never seen that form before. Twenty years ago THEY bought the most wonderful cast iron nut cracker in the form of a dog and a pretty little basket at the Rhinebeck Antique Fair.SHE says it was such fun and followed by a picnic where the basket got its first outing with its new owner.

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    1. Hello Bumble, Reggie is most impressed that THEY attended a Rhinebeck Antiques fair all those years ago, from halfway around the globe! RD

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  10. Thank you for directing me to Yale Reggie. It was wonderful to see my engraving in colour. All those yellows. As the engraving has always been in the family,I've never paid it much attention before. In the interests of giving credit to artists,the engraver is a Dane called JF Clemens ... not JT. See what you started!!!

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    1. Must look at mine more closely. It will entail opening the frame and examining it. I should do that anyway, as the backboards are the original wood ones, and I need to insert some acid free paper behind the print. RD

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    2. Mine needs to be completely reframed. It has been actually sitting in my study behind alot of other paintings.Without you I wouldnt have noticed its neglected condition. I have to find a good art framer. I hadn't thought of acid free paper. Thanks Reggie.

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  11. your string dispensers are really cool.
    i have elegant porcelain fox head where the string comes out of his mouth.
    i am afraid to actually use it for fear of breaking it.

    the ones you have are certainly more practical-

    :)

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    1. Hello Renee: We are rather careful with our wooden stringholders, but yank happily and freely from our cast iron ones! RD

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  12. As you have already found out, sad irons delightedly serve more than one useful purpose; I use my grandmother's sad irons for bookends. Finally satisfied my curiosity about why they are called "sad" irons .... nice story about them at redbubble.com. It seems that "sad" means "heavy."

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    1. JudyMac: It is only as a result of this post that I learned the proper name for such irons, and what it meant. Reggie is most grateful for that education! RD

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  13. Reggie, your solution to the problem of pictures with their hanging apparatus attached too high on their frames to provide the proper forward tilt is much more elegant than my own low rent soution--half-flattened paper-towel rolls--but the effect is what's important. Whatever it takes. There's nothing worse than a room of 19th century pieces where period art is hung flush against the wall, at eye level--for a short woman in her stocking feet. What's wrong with this picture?

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    1. Hello SG: Your solution is equally practical. I agree, hanging pictures flat against the wall is not the ideal solution for 19th century and earlier ones. The desired tilt is most pleasing to one's eye. RD

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  14. I love the string dispensers, but then I love anything that's shaped like an old beehive.

    Coincidentally, your Trumbull print is just like one that was featured on this past week's Antiques Roadshow. Hope you don't mind my posting the link to the PBS page.
    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/200902A23.html

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    1. Dear Anon, Thank you for this link. It is, indeed, the same picture. Mine has been cut down versus the one shown on ARS, so I presume it is worth only a fraction of the assigned value to the one on ARS, which, fortunately, is all that I paid for it. RD

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  15. I'd seen something like Cup & Saucer Dispensers of stainless steel but this is something real cool a string dispenser. Cup & Saucer Dispensers

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  16. Wow antiques collection I personally thanks to u that u post my interested one. Three little which nineteenth-century English turned-wood bee-skep-form I like these three. It is true that furniture make your mind a different freshness and it can do more active one, I must say. I more about to know Rhinebeck Antiques Fair and I am waiting your replay….
    Cup & Saucer Dispensers

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Please do comment! I welcome and encourage them, and enjoy the dialogue.