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Tea Cups

Collecting teacups and saucers can be a rewarding pastime, often conjuring memories of comforting care provided by a friend or relative. Sets can be acquired for pennies making teacup collecting accessible to virtually anyone, yet values that reach into the hundreds maintain appeal to the more committed collector.

Source: http://www.architecturals.net/newsletter/2008_07_13.html
Cups designed for specific hot beverages emerged in the seventeenth century. The first teacups were made of silver, which was quickly found to be a poor choice for delivering hot beverages. Small porcelain and stoneware bowls were imported from China by the East Indian Trading Company starting in the early 1600’s, a tea-drinking solution that Europeans found uncomfortably hot and overly messy. In the eighteenth century handles became available on the tea-bowls to those who could afford the luxury and by 1810 handles were routinely fitted to the tea-bowls giving rise to the contemporary teacup.
Not all handled cups with a matching saucer are teacups. Coffee cups and saucers are most prevalent as they were routinely included as an essential part of dinnerware services alongside teacup and saucer sets. Coffee cups and saucers are typically larger with a wider more pronounced rim. The more obscure chocolate cup typically has straighter sides and a matching lid, which if missing could make identification difficult.
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Tempera

Tempera (also known as egg tempera) is a type of artist's paint and associated art techniques that were known from the classical world, where it appears to have taken over from encaustic and was the main medium used for panel painting and illuminated manuscripts in the Byzantine world and the Middle Ages in Europe, until it was replaced by oil painting in Europe. It has remained the required medium for Orthodox icons. It is paint made by binding pigment in an egg medium. However, the term tempera in modern times is also used by some manufacturers to refer to what is called in America poster paint,[1] which is a form of gouache that has nothing to do with real egg tempera.

One might observe simply by washing breakfast dishes that egg yolk dries quickly and adheres firmly. Tempera was traditionally created by hand-grinding dry powdered pigments into egg yolk (which was the primary binding agent or medium), sometimes along with other materials such as honey, water, milk (in the form of casein) and a variety of plant gums. Many of the Fayum mummy portraits use tempera, sometimes in combination with encaustic. Oil paint was invented in the north of Europe during the Middle Ages (Theophilus mentions oil media in the 12th Century) and was the principal medium used from the 15th century in Early Netherlandish painting in northern Europe. Italy, Greece, and Russia were the major centers of tempera painting. Around the year 1500, oil paint replaced tempera in Italy. Tempera continued and continues to be used in Greece and Russia. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there were intermittent revivals of tempera technique in Western art, among the Pre-Raphaelites, Social Realists, and others.

Tempera paint dries rapidly. The techniques of tempera painting can be more precise when used with traditional techniques that require the application of numerous small brush strokes applied in a cross-hatching technique. The colors, which are painted over each other, resemble a pastel when unvarnished, and are deeper colors when varnished.

Tempera is normally applied in thin, semi-opaque or transparent layers. When dry, it produces a smooth matte finish. Because it cannot be applied in thick layers as oil paints can, tempera paintings rarely have the deep color saturation that oil paintings can achieve. On the other hand, tempera colors do not change over time[2], whereas oil paints darken, yellow, and become transparent with age.[3]

True tempera paintings are quite permanent, and examples from the first centuries AD still exist, eg the Severan Tondo and some of the Fayum mummy portraits.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempera

The Mean

The Mean - The mean is the statistical average arrived at by adding all observations and dividing the sum by the number of observations used.

Peter C. Sorlien, ASA

The Median

The Median - The median is the middle numerical observation of a ranked population. That number which splits the sample population into the upper half and the lower half.

Peter C. Sorlien, ASA

The Mode

The Mode - The mode is that numerical observation which appears most frequently in the sample population.

The Range

The Range - The range is the difference between the largest and smallest numerical observation.

Peter C. Sorlien, ASA

Tool Marks

Tool marks in the wood grain of furniture are essential to identification of its period, quality, region and authenticity.

Regionally, methods used in the timber yards of England were less mechanized than their counterparts in Continental Europe for centuries. Saw mills were operating on a large scale in 15th century Continental Europe. Reciprocating action frame saws were used and produced coarse uniform cuts generally at right angles to the grain of the wood. In England, the majority of primary lumber conversion was done by hand into the 19th century. The pit saw remained active in some England timber yards well into the 20th century.

Hand-sawn lumber is easily identified by irregular, overlapping cuts usually at an angle to the grains. Distinctive signs of individual workmanship in hand-sawn lumber is apparent in the lack of uniformity of the cut. Riven Oak is split along medulary rays to form the most stable cut for paneling. Riven Oak was often used for the bottom boards of a drawer. Furniture with hand plane or adze marks would be difficult and time consuming to duplicate. Such marks can signify authenticity.

The circular saw and steam engine were invented in the late 18th century precipitating a gradual change in wood working techniques. The concentric marks of a circular saw are evidence of mass production in the Victorian era or after.

The band saw was invented in the early 19th century but not a reliable tool until the mid-19th century. At the end of the century, the band saw was accepted as the standard for mill work. The band saw creates a "regimented" parallel cut; any fault in the blade will produce a repeated sequence of marks. This repeated pattern of marks denotes mechanized production. The hand-saw and the frame saw repeated an identical pattern of faults. Marks left by frame saws and hand-saws are irregular by comparison to modern mechanized saws.

Evidence of wood working machinery and counterfeit pieces may be found in obscure areas or areas that may be hard to reach with a hand plane. Study any piece carefully to determine authenticity. Remove drawers and study all sides; while out check the interior, sides, top, backboards, dust boards, and drawer runners. Examine the underside and back carefully. Look inside and beneath the rails of tables and chairs. Scrutinize any area that is not visible in the course of daily use for the slightest sign of woodworking machinery marks.

Any evidence of modern equipment use requires a closer look. This may be a sign of fraud or a legitimate repair. Usually legitimate repair is easily identifiable. Craftsman tend to match material and technique as closely as possible, but will not attempt to mimic the original on repair surfaces that are not seen in the course of daily use.

Smooth and evenly spaced ripples on surface areas is evidence that a planning machine was used. Grains in molding with evenly spaced ripples are evidence that a spindle molder was used (areas that are not easily finished with sand paper by the counterfeiter).

What's in a grain? The whole story.
Source: http://www.architecturals.net/newsletter/2007_07_29.html

Transferware

John Sadler and Guy Green of Liverpool developed the transfer printing process in 1756. Transfer printing required the use of copper plates that were etched with the design. The plates are coated with ink and the pattern is transferred to tissue that is placed atop a bisque-fired ceramic, which must be glazed and fired again.
Complete hand-painted dinnerware sets were only affordable to the affluent prior to the development of transfer printing, a process by which decorative ceramics could be mass-produced. The result was high quality tableware that was affordable to the rapidly expanding 19th century middle class.
Initially produced in single colors, blue was the most highly coveted and expensive while brown tended to be more common and less expensive. Subsequent technological developments in transfer printing rendered double or triple color transfers possible.
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Trefoil

Trefoil is a term in Gothic architecture given to the ornamental foliation or cusping introduced in the heads of window-lights, tracery, panellings, etc., in which the center takes the form of a three-lobed leaf (formed from three partially-overlapping circles). One of the earliest examples is in the plate tracery at Winchester (1222 - 1235). The fourfold version of an architectural trefoil is a quatrefoil.

A trefoil combined with an equilateral triangle was also a moderately common symbol of the Christian Trinity during the late Middle Ages in some parts of Europe

Tressemanes & Vogt

Born in Germany to a family of porcelain and glass merchants, John Vogt (1815-1906) founded a New York based import business in 1840. Vogt established an office in Limoges, France in the 1850’s and began decorating porcelain for export.

Son Charles Vogt in collaboration with his nephew Frederic Dose joined the New York branch is 1865 and began trading porcelain as Vogt & Dose. The duo also set up a decorating studio in New York. In 1886, Frederic Dose took over the operation fallowed by Gustave Vogt (1849-1937), who had taken control of the Limoges branch from father John by 1870.

Gustave Vogt entered into partnership with Emilien Tressemanes in the early 1880's and in 1891 they acquired two Limoges porcelain factories in Faubourg Montjovis, producing high quality whiteware for export to the United States. The company was commissioned in 1891 to produce a dinner service for President Harrison.

Tressemann retired in 1907; making Gustave Vogt the sole proprietor of the organization and Vogt changed the company name to Porcelaine Gustave Vogt. Martial Reynaud purchased the business in 1919 and continued using the T&V mark as well as his own Reynaud mark. Reynaud porcelain remains in business today.

Shown here is a Limoges plate crafted by Tressemanes & Vogt. Adorned with an intricately hand painted design featuring grape vines bursting with clusters of fruit ripened to varying degrees and gold gilding atop a raised pattern surrounding the rim. Measuring 9 ½ inches in diameter, the green T&V makers mark in use between 1892 and 1907 can be found on the back side, dating the piece within that 15 year period.
Source: http://www.architecturals.net

trumeau mirror

A trumeau mirror is a mirror on a panel with a decorative surrounding or painting, typically placed over a mantel piece. Originally these ornamental panel treatments of the Louis XV and XVI periods adorned the walls of elaborate rooms in the grand chateaus of Europe. As the panels aged and were damaged, and decorating fashion changed, the paneled rooms were disassembled and sold individually or as entire rooms. Some of the panels had meticulously carved designs or applied plaster ornaments.
 
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