Tag: kitchenalia

Monogrammed Wedding Gift

Taken from the collection of The Antique Breadboard Museum, Putney:

A charming wedding board, possibly by an amateur, with the initials JES carved in gothic lettering in the central shield, on a basket-weave background, the border carved with plump wheat ears and chunky roses.

Sycamore, 11″, 1800s

French Bubble Dish

Taken from the collection of The Antique Breadboard Museum, Putney:

A French bread dish with ‘Donnez-nous notre pain quotidien’ (Give us this day our daily bread) in chunky bubble lettering around the border. The French mostly use dishes or baskets for bread at table because their custom is to present baguettes as pre-cut wedges to accompany the main course and cheese.

In contrast, the Victorians were in the habit of using decorative flat ‘platter’-type boards as they cut the bread at table in front of guests giving them the choice of ‘Crust or crumb?’

Sycamore, 13″, 1900s.

An exercise in Gothic

Taken from the collection of The Antique Breadboard Museum, Putney:

“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.

Humanity not morality

Taken from the collection of The Antique Breadboard Museum, Putney:

A porcelain bread platter with an intricately painted central roundel depicting Jesus with his disciples in the cornfield, signed H Warren, referring to Mark 2:23 of the New Testament. The raised rim is decorated with wheat and barley stalks on the outside and a ribbed blue stripe on the inside.

Good condition, cracks to glazing at back, unstamped, 13″, 1800s. Henry Warren (1794-1879) was a notable painter, watercolourist, draughtsman and illustrator, who specialised in portraits and landscapes.

Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath – Mark 2:23-28
23. One Sabbath, Jesus was going through the grain fields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. 24. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” 25. He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26. In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” 27. Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Latest must-have in 1848

TAKEN FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE ANTIQUE BREADBOARD MUSEUM, PUTNEY:
A unique family board commissioned by the Sophia Child-Villiers with two Earl’s coronets, top and bottom, distinguishable by the five lofty rays topped by balls, and complimented by four letter Js, one on either side, in mirror image, resembling vines. ‘Middleton’, carved twice in elegant Gothic lettering, refers to the Villiers family’s country seat of Middleton Park in Middleton Stoney, Oxfordshire.
 
An article entitled ‘Potato Bowls’ on p.368 in the Art Union Journal of 1848 reads: “Among the bread-platters which Mr Rogers continues to carve in considerable quantities, we may mention a number which have been produced for special positions: such as one of exquisite finish for the Duke of Richmond, inscribed in ornamental letters with the word “Glenfiddich”; a second for the Countess of Jersey with the family name “Middleton”; and a third, more remarkable than the rest, for Sir Robert Menzies, having, in Saxon characters, the motto, “VIL GOD I ZAL”.”

There is considerable wear to the surface and rim, with worm damage, 13″,
limewood, 1848.