A Cure for Global Warming!!

A fun item on our website is our POLAR BEAR LAMP , not quite a "Cure for global warming" but the Polar Bear is resting his paws on a simulated Ice berg, the lamp, which has an opaque glass shade which glows. He must be cooling his paws after a hard day chasing seals!!

The lamp is made from Spelter and has a Bronzed finish, to the back edge of the figure is the casting mark and a signature T Cartier. Thomas Francois Cartier French 1879-1943 was from Marseilles in France and he specialized in animal figures made from bronze and spelter.

 The light has an electric lamp holder under the glass shade and is in working condition, it could need rewiring.

Rare Tea Caddies

A very unusual Regency tea caddy just that has just come into stock is shown below, rare because of its interior with space for 12 tea spoons

Regency box wood inlaid tea caddy

I have not had this model of tea caddy for quite a few years, we have put four Georgian silver tea spoons into the slots just to let you see how they fit

The interior of the caddy with 6 slots behind each tea compartment to hold spoons

The caddy still has its original cut glass bowl used of sugar or some times called a mixing bowl to blend the green and black tea.

An other earlier tea caddy in at the moment is this mid 18th century George II Laburnum veneered model in excellent condition

George II Laburnum veneered tea caddy

The interior has three tea canisters with sliding lids, veneered onto oak.

The caddy interior with quartered veneer to the sliding lids

The three canisters with ivory knobs to the lids

The three tea canisters with the lids off

 

Mansion House Art Exhibition

John Nicholson and Dunelm Fine art are to hold an Art Exhibition at The Mansion House  Fernwood Road Jesmond, with the preview on Tuesday evening 13th November 6pm-9pm. The Exhibition will have for sale Oil and Water colour paintings from the 18th, 19th & 20th centuries mostly form the North of England but many other well know artists both British and from abroad.

The Mansion House

Graham Smith Antiques will provide the Furnishings and Objet d'art to compliment the Fine Paintings and Ann, Lorna or my self will be there to help you. I have a few items below which I intend to bring along to the Mansion House.

Regency Mahogany side table

 This wonderful Regency table with ebony inlaid into excellent quality mahogany is a very adaptable piece, dressing table, side table, sideboard , writing table what ever you use it for it is great to look at and oozes quality from the condition of the mahogany to its original handles and ash drawer linings.

Rosewood Centre table

We have shown this tipped so that we can display its great Rosewood veneer, veneered on to mahogany which the better models always are.

Regency Bracket clock

Fine Regency mahogany bracket clock with a wonderful engraved back plate, just come into stock on Thursday of this week.

Look forward to seeing you at the Exhibition.

Regards
Graham

Scottish Furniture

Scottish Vernacular Furniture

By coincidence we have several pieces of Scottish Vernacular Furniture in at the moment (Domestic Furniture) made for the ordinary Scottish croft or house hold.

We have a late 19thC Pine and Black Oat straw Orkney chair and a slightly later model with an oak frame and drop in rush seat.

Pine framed Orkney Chair

The pine framed model some times used drift wood to make the frame as tree where and are scarce in the Northern Isles.

Oak framed Orkney Chair

D M Kirkness a general carpenter set up a work shop in Kirkwall in the late 1800’s to make “Orkney Straw Backed chairs” with White Deal stained or Solid oak frames and in a choice of styles and sizes, the chair above is a Ladies chair. Examples of these can be found in the Bernard D Cotton book on “Scottish Vernacular Furniture pages 250-261.

Oak, Mahogany, Ivory & Bronze Spinning Wheel

Many homes in Scotland had a spinning wheel to spin wool or flax for their own domestic use of as a product to sell at the market.

Bronze Wheel and Mahogany spokes

The wheel we have is slightly more refined with a bronze wheel and turned ivory decorations and we believe come from the Renfrewshire area.