VI
HOME
ORNAMENTS
CHAPTER VI
HOME ORNAMENTS
Mantelpiece ornaments—Vases—Derbyshire spars—Jade or spleen stone—Wood carvings—Old gilt.
We are apt to wonder sometimes what it is that makes the house homelike, and why there are such strong attachments to the old home. Surely it is the familiar aspect of the furnishings, rather than the bricks and mortar, that makes the old home so dear! To the original owners there was an individuality about every piece, although to the collector the same characteristics of well-known objects tell that in days gone by the cabinet-maker followed stereotyped lines, and there were but few who moved out of the regular ruts and made distinctive designs in home ornaments and sundry furnishings. It is noteworthy, however, that however much alike in furniture no two houses were alike in their ornamental surroundings. The pictures and portraits on the walls have peculiarities recognized and understood by those who have dwelt for many years among them. Familiar table appointments, however humble, have a homelike look, and there are odd bits of old china in the cabinet and silver or pewter on the sideboard which distinguish one house from another; and it has ever been so. Chimney ornaments, which may be quite commonplace, have well-known characteristics which cannot be duplicated. It is undoubtedly among the home ornaments that the tenderest thoughts linger, and it is the trinkets of comparatively little value to an outsider that members of the family store when the old home is broken up. There are such ornaments in every household; and whenever there is a sale there are those who gladly buy them because of their associations with those by whom they were owned and valued. The collector rarely gathers them on sentimental grounds, securing them as curious specimens or characteristic styles wanting in his collection. Some specialize on old china cups and saucers; others on rare porcelain figures; some on the beautiful gilt and ormolu knick-knacks which looked so well on the early Victorian drawing-room table, and others prefer odds and ends, some of which are mentioned in the following paragraphs. It is, perhaps, from the old ornaments of the home that we learn most about the true home-life lived in former years. Wood carvers, silversmiths, leather workers, glass blowers and potters fashioned their ornamental things after the living models they saw about them, in the days in which they worked. Thus in the groups of Staffordshire figures, now much sought after, we learn something of the story of life in the Potteries in the closing years of the nineteenth century. The story is recorded in the earthenware "landlord and landlady," "lovers arm in arm," and rustic cottages with which collectors are familiar.
FIG. 54.—BRASS CHIMNEY ORNAMENT (ONE OF A PAIR).