TAKEN FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE ANTIQUE BREADBOARD MUSEUM, PUTNEY:
A rare holly breadboard with delicately carved berries, wheat and barley ears, perfect for gracing the Christmas dinner table. Noticeable is the luxurious deep patina and numerous knife marks on the under-side, either to spare the carving or while doubling as a kitchen chopping board.
1800s, Sycamore, 13″
A lacquered board with “Manners makyth man”, the motto of New College Oxford (1379), Winchester College (1382) and William of Wykeham (1324-1404), Bishop of Winchester (1366-1404), who founded them. The border is topped by the personal coat of arms of William of Wykeham amid lush acanthus leaves, which both establishments share.
Winchester College describes it thus: ‘argent two chevrons sable between three roses gules seeded or, barbed vert.’ The central silver inlay depicts a hircocervus, a mythical beast with Greek origins, which John Hoskins adapted to depict the many virtues of a perfect servant in 1579. It was located outside the kitchens of Winchester College. A verse accompanied the wall-painting translated from the Latin:
A trusty servant’s picture would you see,
This figure well survey, who’ever you be.
The porker’s snout not nice in diet shows;
The padlock shut, no secret he’ll disclose;
Patient, to angry lords the ass gives ear;
Swiftness on errand, the stag’s feet declare;
Laden his left hand, apt to labour saith;
The coat his neatness; the open hand his faith;
Girt with his sword, his shield upon his arm,
Himself and master he’ll protect from harm.
(Howard Staunton, The Great Schools of England (Shrahan, 1869)
Oak, 12″, Sheffield, 1907
“Take freely and thankfully”, elegantly incised in Gothic lettering with leafy tendrils playfully interspersed between the words. Like the vast majority of bread boards, no evidence of the workshop, carver, date or location is indicated.
Sizeable crack, sycamore, 12″, 1800s.
Breathing new life into antique breadboards 