Chats on Household CuriosBurgess, Fred. W. (Frederick William)
History
Chats on Household Curios
Burgess, Fred. W. (Frederick William)
Antiques; Collectors and collecting; Interior decoration
It is thus that the books are often thrown away after the pictures or
even superadded illustrations or mere name-plates have been removed. The
collector of bookplates searches for his treasures. Some talk of the
vandalism of the collector of ex-libris, but they must remember that it
is quite easy to remove a bookplate without injuring the volume, and
there are many worthless books. The name labels or bookplates found in
English libraries range from the early dated plates of the close of the
seventeenth century to the present day. The different styles of ornament
in vogue in the respective periods of their engraving were with few
exceptions adhered to by the printers of such plates. Thus the collector
classifies his albums and rejoices in the variations and details of the
engraver's fancy, while he separates them into such well-defined groups
as early armorial, Jacobean, Chippendale, ribbon and wreath, urn,
pictorial, armorial, and simple shield. To other than the enthusiastic
collector, bookplates may possess merit in that they have belonged to
famous men, and are souvenirs taken from the volumes which were once
handled by distinguished statesmen, divines, and men of letters.
Old Scrap Books.
The making of scrap books or the filling of portfolios was not always an
amusement for children, neither did older folk make those quaint scrap
books with such assortments of literary and pictorial odds and ends
solely for the amusement of their visitors. Many enthusiastic collectors
stored their treasures in such books, the binding of which was often
very costly and quite gorgeously ornamented. Some pointed with pride to
collections of prints, others to albums of frontispieces, printers'
marks, and tailpieces, some of which were beautiful little pictures.
In modern times collectors rescue from the flames old tickets, pictorial
benefit tickets, theatre passes, and quaint pictures which tell us of
great events which happened in days gone by at Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and
other places.
Ranelagh, where the entertainments of which relics in the shape of
beautifully engraved tickets are to be found, was at Chelsea, and the
gardens visited by Walpole, Johnson, and Goldsmith were famous for their
promenades and for the music and singing which might be enjoyed, among
the evening pleasures being displays of fireworks and masked dances. In
the summer tea and coffee were sipped under the trees, and there were
water carnivals on the river. There were also masquerade balls and
dances, for which tickets engraved by Bartolozzi and other famous
artists were issued. It is these tickets which are preserved and
collected now.
The autograph hunter extends his hobby by adding old parchments and
deeds with seals, for among the odd bundles of parchments in old
libraries are many documents attested with thumb-marks and seals--"His
mark," of days when many of the landed proprietors could not write their
own names.
[Illustration: FIG. 78.--ANCIENT CLOG ALMANAC.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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