It was the special genius of 18th and 19th C. craftsmen to make ordinary objects
extraordinary. Utilitarian furnishings like small looking glasses and watchholders were
carved and painted. Color and design turned pantries and table top boxes into decoration. And early lighting took on a gallery of forms limited only by the gifts of the individual
artisan. We do our best to bring you the rarest and most distinctive accessories in the
hope that they will brighten your home as they did other homes centuries ago.
Early Lehnware Sugar Bucket
19th C. paint-decorated sugar bucket by Joseph Lehn (1798-1892). White oak. 9 ½”h x 8”d. Lehn spent his early life as a farmer in Elizabeth Township, Lancaster County, PA, but in his 50s became a turner and cooper, producing a wide variety of woodenwork and decorating each piece in the style that has made him one of the most collected folk artists of the 19th C. Although he continued to work up until the last year of his life, the cut nails used in the cleat beneath the lid mark this sugar bucket or sugar stand as one of his earlier pieces, probably made between 1855 and 1870. Entirely original, and the oxidized surface is untouched and gorgeous.
$2,550
.
Four 19th C. R.C. Remmey
Stoneware Tavern Mugs
Rare set of four ca. 1850-1860 barrel form pint tavern mugs, attributed to Richard Clinton Remmey of Philadelphia, the last of the legendary Remmey family of potters. Cobalt decorated, with a cobalt infilled inscription to a patron known as “Mc C.” Save for one in-the-making salt drip, all four are quite literally perfect.
$1,925
Buttocks Basket in Red Paint
Late 19th C. ash splint buttocks basket in original red surface. Tightly woven . One miniscule break on the underside. 10¾” L x 8½”D x 9”H to the top of the handle.
$395
Pre-Revolutionary War
Tinted Spectacles
Ca. 1750-1780 hand-formed steel-framed spectacles with articulated temples, tie-on loop terminals and emerald green oval lenses. After 1760 most eyeglasses had adjustable temple pieces and after 1800 spectacles were available with grafted-on secondary lenses on the sides for additional protection. No breaks in rims or temples and the green lenses appear to be original.
$450
18th C. Northeastern Ash Burl Bowl
Large black ash burl bowl with the flaring vertical profile usually found only in early turned burl. Extremely deep with good swirling figure. 16” x 8”, an unusual 2:1 aspect ratio. Unwaxed, unvarnished. Lightly bleached interior, probably from use as a food or bread bowl. Fine incised turnings on the sides. Great early 19th C. forged nail repair of a rim split and a late 19th C. patch to a crack with two sheets of tiinned iron. Ca. 1760-1780. Steven Powers shows a similar bowl on p. 42 of North American Burl Treen, and Nutting illustrates a bowl of identical form as fig. 3792 in Furniture Treasury.
$1,675
Miniature Courting Mirror
Rare early 19th C. American miniature courting mirror. 5 ½” x 9”. Tinned iron frame complete with reverse-painted glass surround, punchwork shell-form scalloped crest and corner bosses, and early, apparently original, mirror. Probably made in Pennsylvania during the first quarter of the 1800s.
$975
Bennington Porcelain Phrenology Head
Rare Bennington Pottery inkwell with cobalt decoration in the form of a phrenology head. Vermont, 1847-1858. 5½”H. Perfect condition with no base chips or repairs. Making its appearance in 1796, phrenology was based on the peculiar notion that one’s character could be “scientifically” analyzed by feeling the bumps on one’s head. Bizarre as it may seem now, phrenology was taken quite seriously and throughout the majority of the 1800s legions of bump-gropers traveled and lectured and groped in England and America. Among the best-known was Frederick Bridges, an English phrenologist, whose name is faintly impressed within the cartouche on the front. The head is apparently his own design and rights to reproduce it were licensed to Christopher Webber Fenton and Bennington Pottery. Ref.: Barrett, 1978, plate 405.
$1,550
18thC. Black Glass Onion Bottle
Good black glass onion bottle with wide bottom, very high kick, sloping shoulders, nice straws in the neck, open pontil, correct wear and very clean string rim beneath the slightly flared fire polished mouth. 7½”H and 5½” across the greatest diameter. No chips, minor hazing near the base, dense amber olive color with good luster to the glass. Never been underground. Ca. 1700-1725.
$295
Halsey Munson Americana
204 North Summit Avenue
Decatur, Illinois 62522
Phone: 217-972-4645
This web site, web content and all related graphics © 2007-2010 Halsey Munson Americana, Decatur, Illinois.
All rights reserved.
19th C. Blue Fruit-Drying Bowl
American beech or basswood shallow fruit-drying bowl in original Rhode Island blue paint. Ca. 1840-1860 and probably turned on a mandrel lathe, it measures 9 5/8” with the grain and 9 3/8” across the grain from age shrinkage, by only 1 7/8” deep. Very light, finely turned with a thin rim and a crisply raised foot. Turning a bowl so fine called for more skill than turning a heavier milk or butter bowl and it’s remarkable that this one has survived without a crack or repair.
$975
18th C. Stepped Burl Bowl
Ca. 1780-1800 Northeastern ash burl bowl with unusual stepped sides and the remains of the original red wash. Strong figuring and excellent mellow color, Dry interior. Perfect. Related to plate 1/30 in American Burl Treen by Steve Powers. 9¾” x 3”.
$1,950
Killer Mustard-Orange Pantry
A frankly superb 19th C. pantry box in a rich shade of mustard-orange that’s not on any color chart I’ve ever seen. Early pantries in lighter colors are among the most desirable and unfortunately the hardest to find. This one does have two nails missing from the base lap, but that’s all! 9”.
$625
19th C. Pantry in Verdigris Green
Ca. 1850-1875 pantry box in a striking shade of verdigris green that matches almost perfectly the honest weathered surface of a really good 19th C. weathervane. 9½” with several helper nails with irregular heads and the painted initials “OH” on the bottom.
$775
The Long Family Mortar and Pestle
Exceptional Hudson River Valley maple mortar and pestle that’s been passed down through the male members of the “Long” family. The mortar is incised with the names and dates of four generations of owners starting with Lewis Long in 1826. Indulging a bit of dry wit, Robert, the carver, left the final two digits of his date blank. Nature loves an optimist. Mortar and zaftig pestle are matched and the mortar retains most of its ancient oxidized mustard paint. Rare is an understatement. Walnut, 5½”H.
$1,275
Halloween Pantry in Pumpkin Paint
An excellent 8¼” ca. 1860-1870 pantry box in rare original pumpkin paint. Good nails, shoemaker’s pegs, including an extra peg inserted when a tiny sliver departed from the lower edge of the base when the box was being made. I included a photo of that, but it’s still hard to see. Found in Ohio.
$825
Signed New Hampshire
Redware Spice Jar
Extremely rare early 19th C redware spice jar. Bellied form with flared rim, tooled shoulder, in clear lead glaze over vivid green and orange ground. Probably Gonic or Orange, NH. The base is signed ”Caroline Shnieter, 1836.” Signed pieces of redware are extremely uncommon; by one estimate less than 1% of all redware is signed; redware signed by a woman potter redefines rare. Base chips. 3¾”H. ex-Kelly Young Collection.
$925
Early Pantry in the Best Blue
Ca. 1860 pantry box in a robin’s egg shade of blue that’s as scarce as….well, as robin’s teeth. I’ve never had one in this color in more than 20 years. Original paint, original pins. 9¾”. A gem.
$850
Stevens Plains Toleware Trunk
Rare early 19th C. American painted tinware trunk with burnt orange ground and decoration in dark red and pale yellow. An extremely unusual trunk in almost every respect. Where the bodies of most 19th C. trunks are built of two pieces, bent at two corners and lapped at the opposite two, the body of this trunk is constructed of four separate pieces with the edges of the trunk face bent back to join the side segments. It’s possible that this may have been necessitated by the shortage of tin during and immediately after the War of 1812.
The design is equally unusual, with a central dark red rose defined by fine white ribbon strokes and overpainted with alizarin, surrounded by mirrored slender dark green leaves edged in yellow. The form of the unopened buds is seen in early Berlin, CT work but the flame-like delicacy of the smaller yellow-edged leaves is seen only in the decoration of trunks from Stevens Plains, ME, probably the work of Sarah Stevens or her nieces. Both ends of the trunk show green and yellow forms similar to the symmetrical design at the base of the wire handle. The underside of the trunk was never painted. Ca. 1810-1830. 9¼”W x 5½”D x 6¼”H.
$1,250
Ca. 1825 Pennsylvania Toleware Sugar
19th C. American covered sugar bowl. Ca. 1820-1830. Probably Pennsylvania. A unique design with uncommon depth and transparency. Yellow edged flowers accented with sienna and flanked by yellow tendrils overlap flower forms with blue fingered off into dark violet, all beneath yellow and black-veined green leaves with sienna buds. The decorator’s fingerprints are partially visible where the colors were blended. In contrast to the balanced designs on the lids of most sugar bowls, this lid is asymmetrical with a single large curving flower shoot. To quote Martin and Tucker, “Covered sugar bowls were items put to hard use and few have survived [in good condition].”
$725
Lansingburgh, NY Toleware Trunk
Small, beautifully proportioned American painted tinware trunk, probably from Lansingburgh, NY, and almost certainly decorated by a painter on loan to Augustus or Edwin Filley from the Bloomfield, CT Filley shop. It’s possible the decoration is by Edwin Filley himself. Note the shallow depth of the trunk, a characteristic Lansingburgh trunks share with those made in Connecticut. The symmetrical swags and yellow borders in combination with the hurried brushwork that seems to be unique to the NY Filley shop, make this trunk’s origins nearly certain. 8 ½”W x 5”H x only 3 5/8”D. Ca. 1816-1850.
$450
New York Toleware Apple Tray
19th C. painted tinware apple tray with black underside and oxidized asphaltum interior. Probably New York. White band around the rim with lobed leaves and classic NY red and alizarin-highlighted flowers with black dots. The floor of the pan is bounded by a yellow band with a CT-style wavy black line. A terrific tray with vivid color in very good condition. Apple trays are much less common than the rectangular or oval bread baskets. Ca. 1840-1870. 11¼” x 11¼”.
SOLD
Filley Toleware Bread Tray
19th C. painted tinware bread tray with vivid decoration. Use-wear along the upper margins of the rim, but the decoration on both sides and the floor is tack sharp. The identifying motif is the large chrome yellow end panel fruit and foliage decoration, unique to the PA shop of Harvey Filley, 1818-1853. This tray is an early Filley product, ca. 1820-1835.
$595
Philadelphia Crystalized Sheet Waiter
One-sheet waiter from Harvey Filley’s Philadelphia shop. Crystallized bottom surrounded by a white band containing yellow-centered 6 lobed flowers flanked by red and blue buds and beautifully drawn olive green and sienna leaves with red dotted center ribs. Note the fine black line work with invected corners on the crystallized floor. 1827-1853.
$695
Fine Early 6½” Blue Pantry Box
Ca. 1870-1880 round pantry box in original
Union blue. Superb condition with perfect
in-use wear. This is an interesting box, and two
distinctions set it apart. First, it was intentionally made with the top recessed about 1/32 of an inch below the upper edge of the rim. That’s why the paint on the top is almost unmarked, while all the wear normally seen on pantry tops occurred
instead to the upper edges of rim. Second, this is one of the few pantries I’ve seen which used only three spaced nails to secure the base lap instead
of the more common five or six. Ash and pine. Copper nails and shoemaker’s pegs.
$975
Scarce Set of Four
Hourglass Form Pewter Mugs
Ca. 1850-1865 set of concave sided pewter pint mugs, made when Britannia hard metal had already taken the world by storm. It took me five years to assemble this set and like all tavern mugs, they have their fair share of dents, dings and soldered repairs. But boy, do they look great in a place setting on a stretcher-based tavern table!
$825
Early Berlin, CT Toleware Trunk
Excellent Berlin, CT painted tinware trunk. Smaller than usual at 7 7/8”, it has the classic salmon-vermillion band decorated with yellow candy stripes edged in alizarin overtones above four swags with drops, each centered with 7 yellow dots. Great color and alligatoring to the paint. This trunk is a microcosm of Berlin, CT decorative forms—forms that were carried into PA, NY and briefly Cincinnati, OH by migrating decorators. Original brass bale handle. Ca. !815-1850
$795
