Ireland, in the 19th century, had a thriving bog wood industry in Dublin, with representation also in other main cities and in the tourist towns such as Killarney. The wood was thought to be hallowed by its very nature, being the trunks and stumps of ancient trees that had lain in the bogs for thousands of years, including oak, fir and yew. Bog wood was highly desirable with pieces ranging from emblematic jewellery, book ends and candlesticks to intricately carved suites of furniture.

Following the wholesale destruction of the native forests in the 16th and 17th centuries with the employment of timber for building projects, ironworks and ship building yards, the inhabitants of Ireland were forced to turn to the bogs for turf and consequently timber.

For much of the rural population in Ireland, timber came from the cheapest imported softwood. However, for the most impoverished, there was a range of alternatives to buying new timber, and depending on the location it included such materials as bog oak, bog yew and bog fir. Bog wood, especially oak and fir, were utilised throughout the country in a variety of ways including house building, furniture making, small furnishings, ropes and even domestic lighting. However from the 1820’s onwards, bog wood took on a more decorative role.

In the 19th century Neo- Celtic style reflected the growing fascination with Ireland’s ancient, cultural and artistic past. This was a decorative style based on Celtic motifs and designs which were inspired by various archeological discoveries. It was characterised by the use of symbols such as the shamrock, Irish harp, round tower and wolfhound, with interlacing patterns incorporating Gaelic script from the Book of Kells. This was the only style based exclusively on a native Irish source. During this period carved bog wood, incorporating many of these designs, was used for a wide range of decorative pieces.

Bog yew was thought to resemble rosewood, but be superior to it in colour, texture and firmness. It was also very durable. Bog oak became black when exposed to the air and was valued for its great strength, hardness and for the high polish it was capable of receiving. Intricately carved furniture was produced from both bog yew and bog oak. Bog oak was predominantly employed in the manufacture of small articles such as personal or dress ornaments, house hold ornaments, and functional articles.

There is evidence from the 1820s onwards that the fashion for carved bog wood grew rapidly and by the middle of the century, what was once a cottage pastime had become a highly organised and lucrative industry.

By the time of the 1851 Great Exhibition in London and the 1853 Great Industrial Exhibition in Dublin, bog wood carving was a firmly and fashionably established feature of the Arts and Crafts scene in Ireland. Of the Irish bog wood manufacturers listed in the Catalogue of the Great Exhibition of 1853, certain basic information can be gleaned to identify the individual craftsmen and their work.

Killarney, by the middle of the century, had what was reputed to be a flourishing tourist trade especially after the railway reached it in 1854. The raw bog timber was plentiful in this area and accounts for the predominance of artefacts, depicting both Muckross House and Abbey.

Irish cabinetmakers utilised their native bog wood to great effect, however, it was in the field of jewellery and small ornaments that its greatest popularity was achieved. Personal account books show that by the late 1850s girls aspired to owning more than one piece of bog oak jewellery.

The popularity of jewellery in the 1860s was undoubtedly due to the widespread use of mourning jewellery after the death of Prince Consort in December 1861, when, following the example of the Queen, thousands plunged into mourning. In some circles, mourning jewellery was very fashionable. In England, jet was mostly used; in Ireland the more durable bog oak quickly became fashionable and it soon spread to Britain.

Bog oak remained the consistently favoured style of Irish jewellery throughout the rest of the century, although manufacturers were regularly criticised for indifferent standards. Bog oak bracelets, brooches, necklaces, earrings, tiaras, pins, studs, links, solitaires and chatelaines were made in Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Killarney. It was the predominant type of jewellery sold at the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876 and the Paris Exhibition of 1887, and remained popular at the Cork Exhibition of 1883.

Bog wood design in both furniture and jewellery can be divided into three main categories including Irish emblems (such as the harp and the shamrock), emulations of Irish antiquities and designs depicting the flora and fauna. There were also symbols iof the Union between Ireland and Britain depicted on many pieces which incorporated many of the designs, mentioned previously.

The most popular national emblem, the shamrock, is depicted in the majority of bog wood furniture and jewellery. The shamrock had become a universally recognised symbol of Ireland. In the 1850s the designs in bog wood ware increased with the addition of the Brian Boru harp. The harp was made sometime between the 13th and 16th centuries and was restored in the1850s and put on daily display in Trinity College. The Irish wolfhound, another national emblem, was said to be the product of the Celtic Revival. There are frequent references wolfhounds in the ancient stories of Fionn and Oisin. There was certainly great interest in the Irish wolfhound in the mid 19th century and it often appeared as an emblem, with accompanying a figure of Hibernia or Erin or in a group with a round tower and shamrock.

The discovery of the ‘Tara’ Brooch in 1850 gave added impetus to the fashion. It was found on Mornington beach, just outside Drogheda, who in turn sold it to Waterhouse jewellers in Dublin. The brooch became known as the ‘Royal Tara Brooch’ after Waterhouse had the honour of showing it to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1850. The Queen brought two copies and imitations became very popular, many in bog oak. Another popular symbol of antiquity was the round tower, chosen because it was specific to Ireland. Various abbeys and castles and high crosses were also depicted on furniture, bracelets, brooches and necklaces.

Flora and fauna were depicted on both jewellery and furniture. Many of these included fern, oak and sycamore leaves, flowers, ivy and general foliage. Ferns were a Victorian craze, not particularly Irish, except that they were plentiful around Killarney, where a local bog oak carving industry existed.

There was a tendency, up to the middle of the 19th century, to combine recognisably Irish emblems with symbols of the British Empire. These symbols included the lion and the wolfhound, the rose, thistle and the shamrock. From roughly 1860s on, however a reversal occurred, with a noticeable absence of the emblems of the Union.

Another theme, although at the lower end of the iconographical scale were Irish comic scenes. These included such subjects as ‘donnybrook fair’ (notorious for fights), ‘the tail of my coat’, and ‘Paddy and his pig’.

Within the bog wood industry the quality of workmanship varied from the simple brooch manufactured for the souvenier trade to the more elaborately carved piece of jewellery mounted with gold, silver and pearls. The workmanship of the furniture was generally to a high standard, however there was criticism of it being too ornate.

The bog oak industry in Ireland thrived for most of the 19th century. During this period there were many manufacturers of bog wood artefacts. The rarity of the pieces of carved bog wood with trade labels or signatures makes it difficult to attribute any particular piece. However, certain information can be found in the Dublin Directories and the catalogues of the Great Exhibitions regarding the bog wood carvers and their artefacts.

Patrick McGuirk is generally credited as being the first professional practitioner of the craft of bog oak carving. In 1821 he presented a carved oak walking stick to King George IV during the monarch’s visit to Dublin. However, it was reported  that McGuirk presented examples of his carvings in coconut shell to the Duchess of Richmond, who was so impressed that she suggested that he use his skill on his native bog oak. It must be concluded that this must have been some years earlier while the Duke of Richmond, was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, (1807-1813).

Patrick McGuirk first appears in 1833 Dublin Directory at 1 George’s Hill and continued at that address until replaced there by Mrs. Mary McGuirk in 1847 and 1848. However he reappears as Patrick McGuirk, goldsmith and jeweller, until 1854, after which date there is no further mention in the directories of a McGuirk connected with bog oak work or the jewellery trade.

John Neate (1796-1838) from Killarney, is mentioned in The Art Journal, 1865, as having ’so far back as 1820 manufactured articles from bog wood and was certainly among the first to profess it, if he did not actually  originate the trade’. His eldest daughter Anne married Cornelius Goggin who may have been trained by John Neate, and who, in turn, became a very successful manufacturer of bog oak artefacts.

Cornelius Goggin moved to Dublin where, from 1849, he appears in the directories as a bog carver, initially at the same business address, 10 Nassau Street, as Denis Connell another bog wood carver, also from Killarney. Goggin traded at that address until 1851. In the 1853 Dublin Exhibition, he showed a candelabrum in bog oak and Irish diamonds and Irish silver, also a pie case in bog oak, Irish diamonds and Irish silver designed by the Earl of Eglinton for H.M the Queen. He also exhibited bracelets, brooches, necklaces, bookstands, chess boards and other articles and in bog oak. By 1852 Cornelius Goggin had moved to 13 Nassau Street, where he ran a bog oak and Killarney wood warehouse until his death on 1st July 1865. He had also become purveyor ‘to her Majesty’. At the 1864 Great Exhibition of Dublin, Cornelius was able to display his royal warrant, along with a bog oak inkstand copied from the antique’, other ornamental items such as models of high crosses and round towers and personal jewellery, and the candelabra designed by the Duke of Devonshire. He also exhibited a piece entitled ‘Paddy driving his pigs to Donnybrook Fair’.

A bog oak inkstand, in the shape of an owl, by Cornelius Goggin, is on display in the National Museum of Ireland.

Jeremiah Goggin (1814-1898), elder brother of Cornelius, first appears in the Dublin Directories of 1855 as a bog oak manufacturer at 74 Grafton Street and where, by 1864, he was able to add ‘to Her Majesty’. In the same year at the Royal Dublin Society’s exhibition he displayed ‘a set of bog oak ornaments selected by the late Prince Consort… A set of antique ornaments made for the Princess Alice mounted in Wicklow gold and pearls’, as well as numerous other ornamental items in bog oak including ‘a time-piece representing the Minstrel boy with harp, resting on a base supported by an Irish wolfhound and richly carved with shamrocks and roses’.

Jeremiah continued in the bog oak business until his death on January 29th 1898. After his death the bog oak business was carried on at the same address by his widow until her own death in September 1918.

Ellen Mary Goggin the youngest daughter of Cornelius became a bog oak carver. She participated in the ‘Irish Industrial Village’ presided over by the former Vicerine, Lady Aberdeen , at the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. Miss Goggin presided over the award winning, Darra-bochta store where the actual process of bog oak carving was shown as well as finished work. She carried on business for many years at 18 and 20A Nassau Street where in addition to her bog oak ornaments she also sold fine art jewellery, fancy drapery, hosiery and outfitting from about 1900, perhaps indicating a decline by that date for the demand for bog oak. Nevertheless in 1918 she was still trading in bog oak at 14 Nassau Street.

Arthur J Jones and Sons of St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin operated from 1820 to 1860. He exhibited a suite of furniture in Irish bog yew in London in 1851 and in Dublin in 1853, and a selection at the Royal Dublin Society;s show in 1861. He published an illustrated pamphlet, ‘Description of a Suite of Sculptured Decorative Furniture’, to publicise his ware in 1853. The bog yew, he said, ‘resembled the subject illustrated, Irish history and antiquities’.

The suite consisted of a cabriolet sofa (with shamrock pillows), an occasional table, a circular table, a teapoy, an omnium or what-not, a whist table, a stand for a timepiece, a pair of pole fire-screens, an armchair, a semi-circular side table, a sarchopagus or wine cooler and a ‘music temple’.

The armchair had arms in the shape of wolfhounds, one at ease, recumbent, with the motto ‘fierce when provoked’. Two of these armchairs can be found in the reception of Ballygally Castle Hotel, Co. Antrim.

Most spectacular of all was the Music Temple. On its summit sat Ollamh Fodhla, seated with lia fail, or Stone of Destiny, on a platform representing all Ireland mapped out under him, the coastline ‘exhibiting prominent scenery of the four provinces’. The four panels on the side of the piece showed (on the long sides) the opening of the Triennial Convention at Tara and the harpers in Tara’s Hall performing before the monarch and his queen, and (on the ends) portraits of Onaoi, ‘the first musician who accompanied the sons of Milesius to Ireland’, and Carolan, ‘who may be regarded as the last of the Irish bards’. The lower stretcher had the initials V and A ‘embosomed’ in the heart of a bunch of shamrocks, the date 1851, and ‘Erin’ inscribed in ornamental capitals from the Book of Kells.

The firm of James Curran and Sons, carver, was in business in Lisburn, Co. Antrim in the mid 19th century at premises in Castle Street and later in Piper’s Hill. The firm exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851 with a catalogue entry describing ‘A sculptured and perforated armchair from the antique with fruit and foliage from nature but with grotesque figures of Irish Bog Oak found in Moytagh’s Moss, Ballinderry, Antrim. Made by three poor working men expressly for the Exhibition, it occupied the workmen for eight months of unlimited hours. The covering of the seat and back are of crimson silk manufactured by E. Jones 3, St. Andrew’s Street, Dublin; also… a piece of wood in its seasoned but unfinished state with original pencil designs by the carvers who are self-taught.’

A similar chair, by Curran and Sons, was commissioned by the Countess of Eglinton, wife of the Earl of Eglinton, Ireland’s Viceroy 1851-1852, who played a major part in the organisation of Ireland’s Industrial Exhibition held in Dublin in 1853. The chair was displayed in the Exhibition held in Dublin 1853. The chair was displayed in the Exhibition and was described in the official catalogue as ‘made from Irish Bog Oak, richly sculptured and perforated, the design from the antique’. The chair is now on display in Lisburn Linen Centre and Museum. The chair is ornamented with shamrocks, roses, thistles, vine leafs and berries, all symbols of the Union. The inscription on the back of the chair reads ‘Designed and made for her Excellency the Countess of Eglinton, from Irish bog oak, by Curran and Sons Ireland AD 1852.’ A similar chair, by James Curran and Sons, is on display in Holyrood House in Edinburgh.

The Ulster Museum has a carved bog oak chair by Dawson Bell of Belfast. It has a richly carved back, which shows a harp surmounted by a shield with the Red Hand of Ulster, and flanked by shamrock and wolfhound. Above the central group is a cap like object, an illustration which appeared in the Dublin Penny Journal of 25 August 1832, where it was described as an ancient Irish crown, made of gold, discovered in Co. Tipperary in 1692. The chair back also incorporates oak leaves and acorns, which in this context symbolize the Union. The plaque on the back of the chair reads ‘Dawson Bell, Cabinetmaker, Belfast’.

The bog wood industry in Ireland lasted for most of the 19th century. However, towards the end of the century fashion changed and with the beginning of the 20th century and the outbreak of the First World War, there was a decline in the craft of bog wood carving.

Bog wood carving in Ireland today is not on the same scale as that of the 19th century. However, it is still popular for artists and, who are, carrying on the culturally important tradition.

This article appears in the Irish Antique Dealer’s Yearbook 2006-2007

Conservation & Restoration Workshop

Aim

To offer a Complete Conservation &  restoration service that provides a professional, sympathetic approach to your antique furniture by qualified restorers. Our emphasis is on conservation, using appropriate finishes and traditional restoration techniques of the 18^th & 19^th Century to restore Antique items to their appropriate condition.

Over the years we have worked with many important pieces of Irish & English furniture,  often made by the finest makers of the 18^th & 19^th Century. However this need not always be the case, we often restore items of great sentimental value to individuals, who wish to restore their much cherished articles to an appropriate condition irrespective of the item’s monetary value. We take great pride in advising our clients on the steps we believe necessary to revive or Conserve your item to its appropriate condition.

Skills

Our team of qualified restores are: Skilled in the following areas Woodcarving, turning, marquetry, veneer work, Horse hair Upholstery , Gilding,  French polishing, Traditional wax polishing, cabinet making. These are combined with modern conservation techniques to ensure that a period piece will continue looking its best for many years to come.

Service

Here in Straffan we will carry out an initial consultation free of charge.  We will then provide an estimation of the cost of restoring/conserving your piece and talk you through our processes.  We will also provide you with after care advice to help you maintain your piece in the years ahead.   If possible please attach a photo of the piece which requires restoration

Our workshop

Our workshop is located in the courtyard of the old stone farm buildings of Barberstown House Straffan.  On entering our workshop, you will notice that the vast majority of our tools are traditional hand tools, even our heating is provided by a late 19^th century cast iron stove. Our emphasis is on conservation, using appropriate finishes and traditional restoration techniques of the 18^th & 19^th Century to restore Antique items to their appropriate condition. We believe that methods used to make a piece originally such as traditional hide glues should be used in its conservation and restoration to ensure its integrity.

The staff expertly undertakes a full restoration and conservation service on all types and age of furniture, French Polishing, Cabinet Making, Leather Tooling, Repairs, Brass Work, Gilding, Caning, Upholstery, Carving and Cabinet Making to design. If there is a field we don’t specialise in we have various experts  to call upon so that every area of restoration and conservation is covered.

As it is so important to ensure the restoration/conservation does not de-value the piece being worked on, we keep a stock of antique timber and fittings from furniture which is beyond restoration so that if a clients piece needs major repair, timber of the age of the piece can be used to ensure the piece keeps its authenticity.

From the initial meeting with the client Sean will give guidance and advice on what each item needs to bring it back into its original condition including the cost, this quotation is free.  If the client proceeds then the item(s) are collected, worked on and returned at no extra cost.  The quote is valid for three months.  Items are fully insured at all times

Insurance and Probate valuations and estimates are also offered by the Sean. Pieces can be brought by the owner to Ashgrove or Sean offers a service where he will call and give a written valuation for individual items or full house contents

Sean has always striven to offer clients the best service possible and has found over the years that his business has grown because of customer satisfaction and clients recommendations.

Example of Chaise Longue Restoration, Before

Chaise Longue, After Restoration

After World War II many Irish houses including their contents fell under the auctioneers hammer. These houses had in many cases been built by the ancestors of the sellers and in a matter of a few hours the family collection and history was dispersed to the four corners of the world. Ireland was a rich picking ground for dealers both here and abroad. The dealer would in fact be the controller of the prices realised unlike today where the private individual will pay what he thinks is the right price.

Four Irish houses with their original contents were sold between 1964-1984 and today none of them survive as private residences.

Kenure Park at Rush, Co. Dublin was the home of the Palmer family for 150 years until they sold the property and contents in a sale conducted by J.H. North & Co. Ltd. in September 1964. This perhaps was one of Ireland’s finest houses being an 18^th century house that which had been grandly refaced with an enormous portico in 1842 by George Papworth. Internally the house was elaborately decorated with fine plasterwork, a vast staircase hall, with reception rooms on the first floor all wonderfully decorated. The furnishings at the time of the sale were of the best with finest porcelain oriental, Chelsea, Dresden, Spode, Worcester, Mason Ironstone etc. The silver included a William III salver, London circa 1696, a Queen Anne plain cylindrical tankard and cover by James Gibbon, London, 1704, 50 pieces of table silver by John Pittar, Dublin, 1787. Paintings including works by or of the school of Romney, Kneller Cuyp, Guercino, Wouverman, B.V.D. Helst, A van de Velde etc.

The furniture was perhaps the most interesting section with many superb pieces. In particular: Lot 290 a fine pair of carved gilt torcheres comprising a pair of Chinese gilt figures supporting trays on carved tripod bases with paw feet and probably by Chippendale. The piece of furniture that was perhaps the sensation of the sale and indeed perhaps one of the most important pieces of furniture to be sold in Ireland in the 20^th century was a Chippendale cabinet, Lot 291. The description in the catalogue read ‘A very fine Chinese Display Cabinet in mahogany with carved gilt ornamentation and decoration, three gilt pagodas over three door cabinet with glazed doors enclosing shelves standing on a table with three pillared supports at each corner. The table has three drawers, the centre one being fitted as a writing drawer with green baize covered slide.’ This piece was based on a design from Thomas Chippendale Director of 1754 plates 105 to 111. The sensation of the sale making around £5000, it recently reappeared with an asking price of some millions of dollars. All that remains today of this outstanding house is its portico after demolition in 1974.

Castletown House, Celbridge, Co. Kildare is the largest and grandest Palladian country house in Ireland. It was built by William Conolly (1662-1729) the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. He became one of the wealthiest men in Ireland but did not complete the building of the house, this was left to his great nephew Tom Conolly who married Lady Louisa Lennox, daughter of the 2^nd Duke of Richmond, who was instrumental in much of the decoration of the house. In 1966 the Conolly family (who had become Conolly Carew) decided to sell the house and residue contents. The sale was held over two days and comprised of some 1000 lots. There were over 100 lots of paintings but few making over £1000 and yet many today if sold would make many thousands.

Paintings of horses by H. Barraud made between £140 and £620. A painting of Parnel Moore aged 112 in 1761 made £25. There were many portraits from 17^th century. A seascape by R.B. Beechey of the Mailboat Connaught in stormy seas made £95. A portrait of Frances Howard, Duchess of Richmond and Aubegny in France by Vandyck made £320. The furniture included such pieces as a set of 12 reproduction Irish Chippendale mahogany dining chairs by Hicks, circa 1920. Also an imposing pair of 18^th century carved giltwood sidetables. The friezes with symmetrical leaf, berry and gadrooning on angular fluted baluster support terminating in ball feet, with dove grey marble slabs they were seven feet long. A Christopher Columbus sea chest with fitted interior; this had been in the Conolly family since 1720 following Lady Anne Wentworth’s marriage to William Conolly nephew of the Speaker. It was exhibited in Dublin and had been on loan to the National Gallery in the 1920’s.

The property was sold in 1965 and houses were built on the estate. In 1967 Hon. Desmond Guinness bought the house with some of the land and so saved the house from certain dereliction. He immediately opened the house to the public and began restoring it. In 1979 the house was taken over by Castletown Foundation and in 1994 the State took over the property. It is only in recent years that the state has seen the importance in preserving some areas of our heritage. Ireland owes enormous depth of gratitude to people like Desmond Guinness for their determination and foresight in preserving its heritage.

Powerscourt at Enniskerry has a different story as to the fate of the buildings to the two previous houses. Powerscourt was associated with the Wingfierld family from 1609 when Sir Richard Wingfield was granted the property by James I. The house was redesigned between 1731-1740 for Richard Wingfield M.P. who was created 1^st Viscount Powerscourt from a design by Richard Castle who also must have laid out the bones of the garden, but it was not until the 19^th century that the layout came about as we know it today with Daniel Robertson designing the upper terrace. The 6^th Viscount bought the marbles, bronzes ornaments that adorn the garden having bought them on his travels to Italy, he was never to see them laid out because he died before they were unpacked. It was the 7^th Viscount with Daniel Robertson who was to complete the lay out and it was he who wrote that Daniel Robertson was ‘given to drink and suffered from gout and used to be driven about in a wheel barrow with a bottle of sherry’. The 7^th Viscount was the great recorder about everything and he was like his father an inveterate collector who became involved in the National Gallery of Ireland. In 1961 the estate was sold lock, stock and barrel to Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Slazenger. The marriage of their daughter in 1962 to the Viscount’s son maintained the family link. In 1974 there was a disastrous fire which gutted the house. In September 1984 there was a sale of what remained of the contents. Included in the sale was a well recorded view of the Powerscourt waterfall by George Barret RA, £21,600. View of The Lodge of Luggala, CO. Wicklow with Loch Tay beyond by William Ashford RHA, £4,104. A fine portrait of Richard Wingfield 1^st Viscount Powerscourt by Antony Lee, £6,480, this was purchased by the 7^th Viscount at the 1875 sale of Sir Charles Domville, Santry Court, Dublin and also a portrait of Mervyn Edards, 7^th Viscount Powerscourt by Walter Osborne RHA, RA, £2,160. There was much arms and armour on sale as there had been a huge display of this within the house e.g. ‘A fine Irish mid-Georgian mahogany serving table, £15,660. When Lord Powerscourt bought it he recounts in his book how he came to buy it from Mrs. Brady of Liffey Street: ‘I was looking at it and admiring it and I offered her less than the price she put upon it, and she said ‘Oh! Now you had better take it, you will never see another like it, and the General will be here directly and he will have it soon enough’ – the General being the late General Charles Crawford Frazer VC, at that time commanding the troop in Dublin.

Powerscourt today flourishes as a tourist centre, the gutted house now has a roof, the ground floor is a shopping area while upstairs the once elaborate ballroom is again an entertaining area but devoid of all it’s wonderful decoration.

Adare Manor is perhaps one of Ireland’s finest houses of its period. The present house was very much the creation of the 2^nd Earl of Dunraven and his wife Caroline daughter and sole heir of Thomas Wyndham of Dunraven Castle in Glamorganshire. Caroline was a remarkable lady of enormous talent and also came with money. She was a keen shot, sailed, played cricket, was a great tourist and also extremely interested in architecture as was her husband, so they rebuilt the house.

They asked James Pain of Limerick in 1825 along with his brother George Richard who trained with Nash, to b the architects. They had James Connolly as their remarkable mastermason, but by 1840 the Dunravens parted company with Pain. The Earl wrote to Pain ‘I did not cease to employ you professionally for the purpose of placing myself in any other professional’s hands. Building is my amusement and I am a dabbler in architecture and I have now for some years been carrying on the new work entirely from my own designs and without any assistance what so ever!’ The 3^rd Earl was to be in contact both with Pugin and PC Hardwick. The house was completed by 1862. The 2^nd Earl and his wife Caroline had the following inscription carved on the side of the house ‘This goodly house was erected y Windham Henry, Earl of Dunraven and Caroline his Countess without borrowing, selling or leaving a debt AD MDCCL’. Few houses today could have this sign put on them.

In 1982 the Dunraven family decided to dispose of the property and there was two-day sale held which contained many fine paintings including one attributed to John Boultbee of Charles Wyndham’s hound in a landscape, the collar of the dog inscribed with the owner’s initials.

There were many ancestral portraits which had all adorned the Long Gallery, including a massive portrait by Hugh Barron of Charles Edwin and his son Thomas Wyndham, Charles in the uniform of a Ranger of the Forest of Dean. One of the intriguing pictures of the sale and the bargain of the day was a small picture of an open row boat in mountainous seas signed AB. Unidentified by the auctioneers after much research, an American dealer flew in especially to buy it and got it for a modest sum. It was in fact by one of America’s greatest painters Albert Bierstadt – the auctioneers had overlooked in their research the Dunraven families connection with the painter. The furniture ranged from pieces that were in the original 18^th century house to pieces attributed to AWN Pugin and William IV oak throne chairs probably by LN Cottingham 1787-1847. Today the house is a luxury hotel sadly the furnishings etc. have little relationship to the 19^th century.

Gone are the days when there were regular house sales with their original contents. Many house sales with their original contents. Many houses are no longer in the ownership of the original families. Houses were demolished or converted into some other purpose as related in this article.

Castletown is the only one to be furnished again as it might have been during the ownership of the Conolly family. The Hon. Desmond Guinness and a few other dedicated people must be applauded for making the public aware of 18^th and 19^th century heritage at a time when government had little concern. Today there is concern and interest from all quarters.

This article originally appeared in the Irish Antique Dealers’ Yearbook 2001-2002

Miniatures are private portraits, the opposite of large scale public portraiture. The image contained in a miniature is an expression of an individual’s intimate sentiments usually associated with courtship, marriage, death or commemoration. The personal nature of the image is reflected in the composition, which is usually bust or half-length and in the close focus of the likeness and informal attitude of the sitter.

The portrait is one element in an object which was usually part of a piece of jewellery such as a locket that held locks of braided hair and monograms of the sitter’s initials. Miniatures were given as presents to close friends and family, were exchanged during courtship and were the traditional way of commemorating an important event, such as an engagement, marriage or a long separation during wartime or periods abroad. Portrait miniatures were part of memorial jewellery and mourning dress.

The majority of miniature portraits were designed to be worn as jewellery by someone connected to the sitter. They formed part of fashionable dress and were just as susceptible to changes in taste. The portrait was often set in a gold pendant frame or locket and worn on a chain or as a brooch pinned to the décolletage where it was emblematically close to the heart. Miniatures were also frequently worn hanging from the waist on a chatelaine, or on the wrist in a bracelet or sometimes in a ring. Men wore miniatures also. These were usually worn on a chain around the neck concealed inside the waistcoat or at the waist on a chain with watch and seals.

The gold locket that frequently houses the miniature portrait is decorated with precious stones that had symbolic meaning. Romantic ideas were made permanent in the jewels. Thus rubies signified passionate love, diamonds symbolised constancy in marriage and pearls were sacred to Venus, the goddess of love.

The sitter’s initials were often formed on the reverse in seed pearls and decorated with locks of plaited or interwoven hair. Miniatures that were not worn were kept in leather cases, secreted away in a drawer for private viewing or placed as decoration on the lids of snuff or patch boxes.

The second type of miniature, the cabinet miniature, had a slightly more public role. When miniatures were hung on walls or were painted to be part of interior decoration they were usually larger and rectangular in shape. They were framed in wooden and gilded frames and arranged in decorative groups or placed in display cabinets. Nevertheless, these displays were usually confined to the most private, informal rooms of a house such as a boudoir or cabinet-room. These rooms were used by family or close friends and thus emphasise the intimate nature of the miniature.

Miniaturists in Ireland worked in a range of materials that show the continental European origins of the techniques. The principal media used in the eighteenth century were twofold: First there is enamelling, painting with metal oxides on an enamel base. This is a difficult technique which requires that each colour applied to the enamel surface be fired individually. Firing enamel in a kiln was slow and painstaking and the process caused cracking and blemishes on the surface. The enamellists were associated with jewellers and goldsmiths with whom they shared materials and techniques.

The second but most frequently used is the watercolour on ivory technique. By the mid-eighteenth century it was the most popular technique and miniaturists made full use of its unique qualities. The luminosity of the colours used in the miniature portrait made it attractive and the quality of reflecting light through the pigment on the polished ivory surface.

The first Irish miniature portraits painted by known professionals were those done by enamellists. Of these, the first is Nathanial Hone (1718-84). His background was as a goldsmith. In fact Hone spent most of his career in England. Before the enamellists, there were collections of miniature portraits in Ireland, but these did not survive. Also, before the enamellists, miniaturists were known to have worked in Ireland but no signed or authenticated works have survived from this era.

The technique of painting in metal oxides on enamel was practiced by James Gwim (active 1720-69) who worked as an engraver and maker of snuff boxes. The eccentric character went to manage the Battersea Enamel Works with a fellow Dubliner, John Brooks (active 1730-56) who invented a method of painting in enamel on china. Peter Wingfield (1718-77) was a watch engraver and goldsmith who did enamel portraits and later worked in watercolour on ivory. John Stordy (d.1799) a portrait enamellist trained as a watchmaker making enamel plates for watches. His brother Charles Stordy (active c.1757) was an enamellist and member of the Corporation of Painter Stayners and the Cutlers, the Guild of St. Luke in Dublin. Rupert Barber (1719-72) is one of the most underestimated of the enamellists who spent their career in Ireland. Like so many, Barber paid occasional visits to London and Bath where he did enamel portraits. This virtuoso enamellist was apprenticed in London where he learned the technique. Barber was a skilled draughtsman who painted more naturalistic than Nathanial Hone. He worked on a larger scale and his miniatures are particularly interested in capturing the sitter’s personality and character.

The end of seventeenth century saw the demise of the watercolour on vellum tradition and the popularity of enamelling and plumbago miniatures. Thereafter, came the rise of the introduction of ivory as a surface on which to paint portraits. The Venetian, Rosalba Carreiera (1675-1757) is generally credited with inventing the watercolour on ivory technique. She was an accomplished pastellist but originally worked as a decorator of ivory snuff boxes with watercolour fondelli. Her watercolour on ivory portraits were popular with Grand Tourists. Once the technical difficulties were overcome and the quality of ivory portraits improved in the 1750s, public interest in the miniature portrait revived. Accuracy of portraiture was in demand. The informal, intimate, elegant image of the miniature portrait suited the taste of the age. The miniature with its associations with courtship, marriage and commemoration required a likeness or accurate image. The quest for verisimilitude was an important theme in eighteenth century culture.

As with enamel miniatures, ivory portraits formed an integral part of jewellery. They were worn in gold pendants, lockets, bracelets or rings. These miniatures were susceptible to damp, and to changes in temperature. Hence they were commonly encased in glass. Cyphers of the sitters initials, mottoes, a blazen of arms or monogram were included. These portraits were given as presents to close friends, family members, exchanged during courtship and engagement. Miniature portraits became the traditional way of marking an event such as a marriage. They could be encased in a jewelled locket or otherwise adorned with jewels and precious stones. Often these possessed some symbolic meaning, so that romantic ideas could be made permanent. As part of the whole, the sitter’s initials were often arranged in seed pearls. These settings became increasingly decorative and complex.

The commemorative or memorial miniature also became common. As forms of mourning became increasingly elaborate, and the cult of widowhood arose, the miniature became part of mourning dress. The widow wear the image of the deceased, and the locket would contain a lock of his braided hair.

Some miniature portraits were worn on a chain. This formed part of the dress of either men or women. Women often wore miniatures pinned to the breast, obviously either consciously or unconsciously signifying that the sitter was close to their heart. Ivory miniatures encased in glass decorated snuff, powder and patch boxes in the same way as the enamel portraits.

With the revival of interest in the miniature in about 1750, their quality and quantity improved. Graham Reynolds has characterised the portraits of this era as those of the Modest School. This epithet refers both to the small scale of the miniatures and the modest presentation of the sitter.

At this time, practitioners experimented with the technique and developed their own individual styles of painting which was partly the result of changes in taste, and also a response to the technical difficulties of manipulating watercolour on ivory.

The first to achieve success with this new technique was Nathanial Hone. Hone contributed to the improvement of the technique by using linear brush strokes of watercolour mixed with gum Arabic which helped the watercolour to adhere to the ivory surface.

A remarkable number of this group of miniaturists were of Irish birth. Luke Sullivan (1705-71) was trained as an engraver. Sullivan painted miniatures in delicate short linear brushstrokes building up the lines of watercolour like the lines in an engraving. Sullivan was greatly influenced by French rococo engraving, and his miniature portraits have the prettiness associated with this period of French painting. Sullivan achieved his effect by the se of powdery colour harmonies of greys and blues, indefinite outlines and the far away distant gazes of the sitter.

Thomas Frye (c.1710-62) also of Irish birth, trained both as engraver and oil painter. He captured the textures of cloth and gave his miniatures a silvery look by applying short linear brush strokes which have the quality of engraving. During the 1750s, Dublin became a centre of ‘Modest School’ miniature painting. The most important event that influenced the work of miniaturists was the establishment of West’s Academy (c. 1746) which was to become the Drawing Schools of the Dublin Society. There students were taught drawing, and on graduation, were usually apprenticed to a miniaturist. In all, at least 41 miniaturists who worked in Ireland are known to have been educated at the Dublin Society’s Drawing School. Gustavus Hamilton (c.1739-1775), James Reily (c.1740-1780/8) and Danel O’Keeffe (1740-87) attended the schools and established Dublin as a centre of miniature painting.

Samuel Collins (1735-68) worked first at Bath and then in Ireland, worked in watercolour on ivory in quite a different way. Collins was one of the first miniaturists to fully exploit the ivory surface of the miniature. Collins did not cover the ivory completely with paint, but allowed the surface to show through, creating a characteristic effect.

Horace Hone (1754/6-1825/7) began painting miniature portraits in the ‘Modest School’ mode taught to him by his father. The size of his ivories increased, and he adopted linear brush strokes of curving parallel lines. Horace Hone was a close friend of the Irish miniaturist Sampson Roch (1759-1847) and he may have taught Roch to paint miniatures. Hone’s influence may be seen on Roch’s later, larger miniature portraits. Roch combined his own innate neatness of technique with an elegance and freeness of painting he derived from Hone’s style.

Adam Buck (1759-1833) was exceptional by virtue of his serious interest in classical Greek and Roman art. Buck’s interest in the antique pervades his portraits. Buck worked in a fully-fledged interpretation of neo-classicism in his portraits. Miniature painting on ivory was particularly appropriate for exposition of neo-classical taste, since the whiteness of the ivory could replicate the effect of marble. Buck was able to achieve the desired neo-classical effect by the use of muted colours, linear brush strokes and classical drapery, allowing much of the unpainted or thinly painted ivory to show through.

A change may be observed in miniatures painted during the 1790s. Adam Buck and John Comerford (c. 1770-1852) exercised particular influence on the development of the miniature portrait. Again, Chinnery’s works were larger than those of his immediate predecessors. His works aspire towards oil portrait in composition and in the use of freer brush strokes than those characteristically employed by the previous generation of miniaturists.

Cabinet miniatures were popular throughout the eighteenth century. These were miniatures that were hung on walls or were painted to be part of interior decoration. These were usually larger in size than the general run of portrait miniatures and were rectangular in shape. They were usually framed in wooden frames and often arranged in decorative groups on a wall or in a cabinet.

In the eighteenth century these arrangements were confined to the most private, informal rooms of a house such as a boudoir or cabinet-room, rooms used for informal entertainment by family and close friends. Often, the sites were painted either in undress, or in informal pose.

Although miniature painting remained popular throughout the first half of the nineteenth century the vogue for photography rapidly spread. The raison d’etre for the miniature portrait disappeared. The photograph became the acceptable form of intimate, small, portable and esoteric portrait. The photographer could provide such a portrait much more cheaply than the miniaturist. The likeness was indubitably greater. The rise in photography marked the virtual decline and death of the miniature.

This article originally appeared in the Irish Antique Dealers’ Yearbook 2003-2004

Irish glass has long been greatly prized and over the past century, museums and connoisseurs have assembled significant collections, both at home and abroad. However, of the glasshouses whose products fill these collections, it is the Waterford Crystal glasshouse that assumes the greatest renown.

Encouraged by various premiums then being offered to glassmakers, the Quaker merchants George and William Penrose set up this legendary concern in 1783 on the Quay in Waterford. While glassmaking had been carried on in Dublin and Belfast before this, favourable conditions led another two new glasshouses to be set up in Cork and Newry. Such conditions were not to last and economic depression in the early 19^th century led many glasshouses to close. The year 1851 saw the closure of the Waterford glasshouse, which was then owned by a member of the Gatchell family which had maintained involvement with the glasshouse since 1799, when the Penrose period of ownership ceased.

The fortuitous survival of a collection of letters, account books and designs associated with the Waterford glasshouse means that far more is known about it than any other glasshouse. Through use of these sources, it is possible not only to re-construct the history of the glasshouse, but also to gain some insight into design, manufacture and sale of goods from the glasshouse. The subject of Waterford glass is a fascinating one for despite the existence of indisputable evidence, a number of long held misapprehensions exist. The most prominent of these is the idea that Waterford glass can be identified by a blue tint. While not the first to advocate this characteristic, the dealer and glassmaker Mrs Graydon Stannus wrote, in 1921:

Waterford glass is often distinguished by a peculiar cloudy bloom covering the metal, which can be rubbed off but will assuredly return… A soft bloom exactly like that on grapes, the same colour, or even darker than the glass, and often will be found forming a beautiful band of rainbow hue running around the piece it adorns (Mrs Graydon Stannus, Old Irish Glass, 1921. p10).

The same author also advised her readers that Irish glass had a ‘wonderful elasticity and actually bounces in a way… never found in any other glass’. One can judge from these statements that her rather romantic publication can be seen to veer more towards legend as opposed to fact and is ths quite different to that published by M.S.D. Westropp, whose contribution to our knowledge of Irish glass cannot be over emphasised. Westropp’s seminal book, published in 1920, dispelled many myths. Through a vast study of pieces such as decanters, jugs and wine coolers, each impressed with the proprietor of the factory on the base, Westropp was able to state, ‘I wish now, once and for all, to state that the glass made in Waterford has not a decided blue or dark tint always ascribed to it’.

Also pointed out as nonsense by Westropp, was the misguided idea that if measurement of the circumference of he rim of the decanter equalled the height of the decanter, this guaranteed that the piece had been made in the Waterford glassworks. Such bogus tips are thankfully made redundant as the impressed mark on the case reads ‘PENROSE WATERFORD’. After the desired quantity of glass had been blown into the required shape, it was lowered into a ribbed mould which left the desired impression on the base of the object. This was a practice, which was also maintained by certain glasshouses in Cork, Dublin and Belfast, and examples, which bear the names of glass retailers, also survive. However, it is not known which glasshouses ere responsible for making the glass for each retailer. The decanter illustrated might have been purchased from the Waterford glass shop on Merchants Quay in Waterford which was run in association with the glasshouse. At this shop, it would have been sold alongside a wide variety of table glass, light fittings and a vast range of cheaper utilitarian glass objects, which the account books show to have been sold in abundance. Equally, the decanter could have been bought from one of the many retailers and merchants who purchased glass directly from the glasshouse.

The high number of decanters which survive and their often highly embellished appearance reminds us that decanters held an important place within the splendour and performance of 18^th and 19^th century dining but exactly when was the decanter form introduced? Whose job was it to decant the wine and where did the decanter sit during the various courses that comprised the meal?

The decanter form itself first appeared in the late 17^th century, as an alternative to bottles, but it was not established use until after 1750. A servant usually decanted wine and during formal dinners, the decanter remained on the sideboard and was not removed. The desert was laid out, wines and glasses were placed on the table and after one or two glasses, the ladies withdrew to the drawing room to have tea. However, in a servants’ manual published in 1825 (3^rd edition), the author advised that ‘if the wine decanters be put on the table, and there be four decanters of wine and two water bottles, let the wine be placed near the four corners of the table, but not too near’.

The quantity of wine consumed by the Irish gentry was often remarked upon. Lord Chesterfield despaired in 1745 that ‘Drinking is a most beastly vice in every country, but it really is a ruinous one in Ireland.’ It was however, a beastly vice which benefitted the glass industry and decanters, glasses, wine glass coolers and wine fountains, to name but a few objects, were made in various shapes and sizes were available from the Waterford glasshouse, with any pattern of cutting the consumer desired.

Wine, in particular, had been a key element of dining since antiquity and complex rituals developed around the way in which it was to be served. It was a generally served cool and in some cases, particularly in France, it was diluted with water. During the 17^th century, if a diner wished to drink, he beckoned a servant. The servant, having filled a glass at the sideboard, presented the glass to the diner on a small-footed salver. It was considered rude to drink without toasting, so the diner would make a toast, drain the glass and return it to the servant who would place it on the sideboard where it would be washed and cooled in a vessel full of ice known as a ‘monteith’. In reference to this method of serving, Dean Swift’s satirical text Directions to Servants (1745) humorously advised butlers to ‘give no person any liquor until he hath called for it thrice at least; by which means, some out of modesty, and others out of forgetfulness, will call the seldomer, and thus your master’s liquor will be saved…’

Table layouts and household manuals prepared during the 18^th century would seem to indicate that dining a la francaise was the norm. This entailed a true feast for the eyes with every serving plate being geometrically positioned on the table. Such lavish displays of food were curtailed slightly during the 19h century with the introduction of a mode of dining which originated from the Russian court, known as dining a la russe. This involve the food being served individually to each guest, making room on the table for elaborate centre bowls and a selection of glasses, each designed to hold a different type of drink.

Therefore, as the rituals surrounding eating and drinking changed, new objects were introduced. For example, from the mid 18^th century individual wine glass coolers to be placed on the table replaced the monteith. These appeared in both clear and colour glass and were provided with either double or single lips on which the stem of the wine glass rested, leaving the bowl of the glass submerged in the cool water. The servants’ manual of 1825, quoted earlier, explains how the wine coolers should be positioned on the table as well as the change in glasses set on the table:

Let a wine glass be put to the right hand of each person. If there be glass-coolers for wine glasses let them be filled about two-thirds with sprung water and the wine glasses turned up in it: let those be about three inches and a half or four inches from the edge of the table to the right of each person with the foot of the wine glass toward the edge of the table. (T Cosnett, The Footman’s Directory and Butler’s Remembrance, 1825. p.75).

The precision with which the author counsels his fellow butlers to position the pieces on the table emphasises the importance of these pieces within the ritual of dining. Having the correct receptacles, in their proper place and using them in the accepted fashion was imperative to displaying the rules of etiquette, which were expected in accordance with a person’s social standing.

Like the decanter, the wine coolers were also lowered in their molten form into ribbed moulds, leaving behind the Penrose mark on the base. They are of blue glass, which was achieved by adding cobalt oxide to the glass mixture. Evidently, blue glass was made at Waterford. However, it is known that later in the 1820s, in a desire to provide a variety of glass for its consumers, coloured glass was important from Birmingham, and sold in the Waterford glass shop on the Quay.

Waterford Glass finger bowl from around 1790

Wine coolers are often referred to as finger bowls. Finger bowls were, like wine coolers, straight-sided or cup-sided water receptacles yet they did not necessitate a lipped rim in the same way as wine coolers did. Their function was described as Sophie de la Roche, a German visitor to London in 1986, who wrote home: the blue glass bowls used for rinsing hands and moth in at the end are quite delightful’. Not all accounts were so favourable and Mrs Leslie’s House Book, published in 1840, in Philadelphia declared that ‘the disgusting European custom of taking a mouthful of water, and after washing the mouth, spitting it back into the finger glass has not become fashionable in America… most gentlemen preferring to pick their teeth and was their mouths in private’. Mrs Leslie explains that these glasses were generally set around the table just before the cloth was removed, in preparation for the desert course.

Desert came in the form of a selection of sweetmeats. However its importance lay as much in its presentation as in the nature of the food being served. Dried sweetmeats included all manner sugared and spiced fruit, biscuits and cakes. Wet sweetmeats came in the form of jelly, ice cream, syllabub, flavoured creams and custard; the huge variety of sweetmeats available being reflected in the cast range of glasses designed to contain them. Household cookery books published at the time, explain how each was made. For example, Mrs Elizabeth Raffald, whose cookery book appeared in thirteen legal and twenty-six pirated editions between 1769 and 1806, instructed the reader ‘how to make syllabub under a cow’. One mixed sweet bear, cider, and nutmeg, ‘then milk as much from the cow as will make a strong froth and the ale look clear’.

When writing about the preparation of the desert, Dorothea Herbert recorded n her diary in 1793 that ‘Miss Butlar, Miss Blunden and Fanny manufactured the Whipps Jellies and Creams and I made a Central Arch of Pasteboard and Wild Heath with various other Ornaments and Devices’. Dorothea and her friends obviously followed the advice of Mrs. Hannah Glasse who, in her Complete Confectioner, published in 1762 in Dublin, recommended that ‘every young lady ought to now how to make all kinds of confectionary and dress out a desert.’ Various different stemless glasses existed for the purpose of holding jelly and syllabub and the form of the jelly glass is well represented in contemporary prints, often stacked on salvers forming a pyramidal arrangement. However these were generally of a lighter glass than the cut glass jellies. Within the Gatchell letters, reference is found to ‘custards’ which describes the small handled cups from which ice-cream, custard or flavoured cream could have been eaten. Additional evidence that such objects were made at Waterford is found in the surviving designs, thought to have been prepared by Samuel Miller, foreman of the glasscutters, during the late 1820s and 1830s.

Surviving evidence, such as the Waterford account books, letters and designs, combined with other invaluable sources such as cookery books, servant manuals and personal diaries can help us think beyond the surface of the object. While only a very small selection of objects which would have appeared on the table have been discussed, when seen in conjunction with contemporary sources, it is possible to gain some insight into the splendours of dining during the time when the Waterford glasshouse was in operation. An awareness of the value of such an approach will ensure that those pieces of glass which are today and collected and admired are not treasured solely because they reflect the spirit of their times, the settings in which they were used and the manners and customs of those who chose, purchased and enjoyed them.

This article originally appeared in the Irish Antique Dealers’ Association Yearbook 2003-2004.

By Anne B. Mitofsky-Ciron and Laurance B. Citron, Mitofsky Antiques

Demetri Chiparus' Leotard Dancer

Art Deco is indeed a world dominated by the desire for speed, luxury and opulence. It is a world of changing social attitudes where liberated young women drink cocktails, listen to jazz and dance till dawn. Nicknamed the ‘Roaring Twenties’, it is a world where the chains of the past have been thrust aside and all eyes are raised eagerly to the future.

The term ‘Art Deco’ only came to general use in the 1960s, but it refers back to the Great Exhibition of Arts Decoratifs held in Paris in 1925 which presented to the world a dazzling new style that was to be the successor of Art Nouveau, the style of modernism, of the jazz age, ocean liners, cinemas and of sky scrapers.

The Art Deco movement – with its emphasis on up-to-date individuality combined with good taste, fine materials and exquisite workmanship – became all the rage in France.

Other countries including the USA, Britain and Germany produced their own often equally successful versions of the style. In furniture especially, the French predominated: the world had not seen such creative design for 125 years. On the one hand, the virtuoso cabinet-making of Ruhlmann and Primavera, on the other the brilliant originality of Gray and Jean Royere.

The Art Deco period of the 1920s and 1930s saw a clear partnership develop between architects, designers and craftsmen in the production of decorative schemes for the interior of the new Modernist and Art Deco-style buildings and apartments. Interior design employed furniture manufacturers, metal workers, ceramic factories and the textile industry to produce individual items which, when placed together, would create an overall coherent scheme for a room or building.

As in the earlier Art Nouveau period, glass was regarded highly y both connoisseurs and collectors and a very large number of factories were created all producing thousands of items designed by such great names as Galle, Schneider, Baccarat, Rene Lalique, Daum, Joseph-Gabriel Argy-Rousseau, Louis Comfort Tiffany and many others. Like pate-de-verre, the technique of enamelling on glass enjoyed a revival in the Art Deco period. Marcel Goupy (1886-1954) was one of the first to use brightly coloured enamels to decorate his clear glass vases etc., as with Lalique who, as well as cornering the market for perfume bottles made for all the great French houses, invented the cire-perdue (lost wax) process whereby a mould was taken from a wax model after which the wax was melted out and replaced with molten glass. As the mould had to be broken in order to retrieve the glass, each piece was unique. Other countries such as Sweden where Orrefors excelled and Italy where makers such as Vinnin held court were all highly sought after.

The 1925 Paris Exhibition was an important event for manufacturers such as Longwy, Goldschneider, Boch Freres, Rene Buthaud (1886-1987), Lenci Italy and many more, along with the famous Clarice Cliff from England, Sussi Cooper, Carlton Ware, also from the UK. All experimented with new techniques as well as previously unseen designs and textures such as distinctive glass called peau de serpent that imitated the texture of snakeskin. It should be noted that some of the most pioneering works came from the so-called Studio Potters who were more inspired by the desire to discover new and also to explore old glaze techniques and formulas in the pursuit of beauty.

We now turn to one of the most expressional mediums in the whole of the Art Deco period – sculpture. There are numerous publications available dealing solely with this subject – and this article restricts s somewhat for space, we will deal with some of the Master works only – there were many outstanding artists using various materials such as bronze, wood, chrome, spelter, marble etc. and for the collector starting off, the choice can be overpowering, so can the cast amount of fakes which unfortunately are finding their way onto the Irish market, please refer to to ‘Collectors Tips’ which will assist the new enthusiast.

Bruno Zack, Paul Phillippe, Otto Poertzel, Ferdinand Preiss, Marcel Prost, Roland Paris, Gustav Schmidt-Cassels, Alexandre Kelety, Rembrandt Bugatti, are amongst the recognised masters of this category, but one artist stands out for his sheer craft, sense of design and the huge output, he is Demetre Chiparus.

The art forms of silver, metalwork and jewellery also fell victim to ‘The New Look’ and were highly stylised. Using the finest quality materials, artists from the previous Art Nouveau period turned their attentions to the Jazz Age and assisted greatly by the latest technical developments produced dazzling combinations of what now are regarded as masterpieces.

Retailers such as Boucheron, Chaumet, Coulon & Cie and Le Maison Aucoc in Paris who retained their own private workshops, supplied royal households as well as the nouveau riche of the day. It could be noted that the collector starting off need not have to pay large amounts to begin a collection. There was also a huge production of textiles made from wall hangings to carpets.

The Art Deco period also allowed artists to demonstrate their skills utilising cheaper mediums such as graphics and posters, which themselves have turned into highly desirable and collectable art forms in their own right. One of the most well-known artists in this category was Loyuis Icart (1888-1950). A diligent, determined worker, Icart could often complete an etching plate in one day. Most pieces, however, because they did require using various techniques, took about a week to complete. From the outset of his career, Icart knew that the results he wanted were best achieved by employing a variety of medium rather than limited his efforts to drypoint, aquatint or soft-ground etchings exclusively, he would generally employ all these techniques in each work.

Collectors Tips:

1. Always buy the best that you can afford.
2. Ceramics and glass objects are prone to damage so look for restoration or damage to vulnerable extremities.
3. Condition is very important, so look for chips or with furniture, difficult veneers to replace. The cost of restoration can be very high.
4. When buying furniture check for ‘cut down’ pieces.
5. Collectors should buy what appeals to them and which are of interested to them, rather than simply for investment purposes.

This article originally appeared in The Irish Antique Dealers’ Yearbook 2001-2002.

by Susan Gadsby

The story of King House unfolds over 250 years. During that time many different people have lived here. The house has also had many different roles: as a home, as a military barracks, as an office and even as a store. Built as a family home by Sir Henry King between 1720 and 1740, King House was the 18^th century home of the Earl of Kingston. Through marriage and conquest the family became one of the premier land owning families in Ireland.

The Abbey-Boyle estate which had been the property of the Cistercian Monks, was leased in 1603 to John Bingley and John King, both of whom had come to Connaught with Sir Richard Bingham during the Elizabethan wars. In 1617 the Abbey lands (totalling 4127 acres and included the site of the present town of Boyle), were granted in fee to Sir John King of Straffordshire whose ancestors came from Northallerton, Yorkshire. Previously the lands surrounding Boyle belonged to the MacDermot clan. Sir John King had been granted his land for “reducing the Irish to obedience”, achieved in part through violent subjugation and by the enforcement of the notorious anti-Catholic Penal Laws.

King House is one of the more important early Georgian classical townhouses in Ireland. The house represents the heyday of what was known as the Ascendancy. Dating from the early 18^th century its design is attributed to Edward Lovett Pearce, Richard Cassell or William Halfpenny who were the most eminent Irish architects of their time. Sadly there are no surviving records of how King house was constructed.

King House is built symmetrically on four floors in a U-shape. It is almost certain that it would have been rectangular if the grand entrance had been completed as there is telltale evidence that requires closer inspection. Compared to the southern side of the house, which faces the River Boyle, the entrance can be seen to be unadorned and plain. During restoration postholes were found in the walls, which would have held beams. Also the brick dividing walls were visible. There may also have been a possibility that the house could have been planned with wings, as there is evidence in the construction of door-brick to help stop the spread of fire and was also well suited for building vaults, but the use of brick was unusual in traditional building in Ireland. Carpenters played a huge role providing scaffolding and roofing the house.

Of particular note is the main gallery with its tripartite windows on four storeys, the original fine stone tiled floor laid in the pattern “carreaux d’octagnes” (paint can still be seen on the floor from where the building was used as a store), fireplace and front door. The fireplaces, which formed the visual centre piece of an early Georgian room, were constructed from Kilkenny marble which is limestone polished to resemble marble and distinguished by embedded fossils. (note pea pod design on the original fireplace in the gallery). Also of note are the extensive vaulted ceilings on all floors (possibly unique to Ireland) and the splendid main salon on the first floor with its high ceiling and decorative cornice.

Following a fire in 1788, which probably burnt the greater part of the house but was afterwards rebuilt to its present shape, the King family vacated King House and built another large house two miles away at their Rockingham estate. Later the building was a barracks for the British and Irish armies. It was initially leased to the British Army who then bought the house in 1795 for £3000. During the 19^th century it was the home of the Connaught Rangers. It became the headquarters of the Roscommon Militia and with the founding of the Irish Free State the Irish Army moved in. In 1960 the main house with the north and east ground moved into private ownership and was used as a store. The Army continued to occupy the west range and south yard.

In the 1970s tenders were invited for its demolition to make space for a car park. In 1987 it was acquired by Roscommon County Council in a very bad state of repair, so much so that sycamore trees were growing out of the high pitched roof! The council had the foresight to restore the property and retain it for cultural purposes. Restoration began in 1989. This entailed maintaining the house as Georgian as was possible, which included the replacement of panel doors. The only evidence of panelling was in the Long Gallery, but only to waist height. It is thought there could have been panelling throughout the house. Relief stucco in the stairwells was sadly not found during restoration, it was believed to have been removed during the military occupancy.

Today the house is open as a visitor centre. An exciting new walkway through the attic was opened in March 2006 that reveals the structure of the house to visitors. The building gives an insight into Irish life and people for the past 500 years through four historical exhibitions. King House is a venue for many cultural events such as exhibitions, recitals, films and seminars. It houses a permanent exhibition of contemporary Irish art and is closely associated with the very successful Boyle Arts Festival.

THE KING FAMILY

Sir John King married Catherine Drury in 1603 who was the grandniece of the Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1578. His grants of lands together with other numerous privileges took place over a period of years from 1603 to 1621.

Sir John King was an M.P. for the county of Roscommon and by his wife had six sons and three daughters. Hs fourth son Edward was born and baptised at Boyle and was a fellow at Cambridge and friend of the poet Milton. Milton wrote the well-known poem “Lycidas” as a tribute after Edward King was drowned in the Irish Sea when returning to Ireland in 1637, at the age of 25. Sir John King died in Dublin or possibly Lichfield in Staffordshire in 1636 and was buried at Boyle Abbey.

His descendant Sir Henry King 3^rd Baronet was M.P. for Boyle and Co. Roscommon from 1707 to 1739. He married Isabella, sister of Visount Powerscourt, in April 1722 and had by her three sons and four daughters. He built King House around 1730 and it was his wife who insisted that there be large Venetian windows to let in plenty of light and airiness.

There had been a 75-year-old feud between the two branches of the family which was (temporarily) ended in 1769 by the marriage of Robert 2^nd Viscount Kingston to Caroline granddaughter of James, Baron Kingston of Michelstown. Their son George was born one year later.

In 1794 George’s eldest son Edward, Viscount Kingsborough, was the most celebrated man the family produced. Though almost unknown today in England, or even in Ireland, his name and fame will certainly endure, as long as civilisation exists, from his monumental work, “Kingsborough Antiquities of Mexico”. He was born probably in London but possibly in Dublin on the 10 November 1795 and educated at Eton and Oxford. His imagination was fired while at Oxford by a Mexican manuscript in the Bodleain Library and he devoted his life and financial resources to the production of his famous book, which was published first in 1831 in nine volumes at £170 a copy.

For the King family, establishing themselves in Ireland was a process of determined and successful social climbing; inheriting a baronetcy in 1755. By 1768 Edward King had ensured his elevation to Earl of Kingston. This laid the foundation of the King family so firmly that for nearly 300 years they remained among the wealthiest, most extensively landed and most influential of the Protestant-Ascendancy families in Ireland.

BOYLE BARRACKS

The Earl of Kingston sold the house to the War Office in 1775 for £3000. It was consequently converted into infantry barracks for twelve officers and 260 non-commissioned officers and private foot soldiers. There was stabling for five horses and hospital with 30 beds. In the 1800s living conditions in most barracks were overcrowded and uncomfortable. Hygiene and ventilation were poor. Compared with most barracks King House with its lofty ceilings and numerous windows was almost luxurious. By 1914 the soldiers had the comparative luxury of a billiards room, coffee room and gymnasium.

In 1921 the barracks was a British stronghold garrisoned by the Bedfordshire Regiment, with the RIC and a group of Black and Tans stationed in the District Headquarters beside the main gate of the barracks. On July 12^th 1922 the Connaught Rangers were disbanded. In February of that year the British Army began to withdraw form Ireland and the new Irish Government began to recruit volunteers into the Irish National Army.

On the 24 July 1923 the Third Infantry Battalion “The Bloods” moved to Boyle and into Dockery Barracks (Boyle Barracks), named after the Commanding Officer of the North Roscommon Brigade IRA, who was killed in Boyle in the civil war in 1922. A local man remembered that when the weather was wet the soldiers were drilled in the main gallery.

It was continued to be used as a military establishment until the 1930s and was reoccupied during the “Emergency” of 1938-1945, by the 8^th Thomand Battalion, the 11^th Cycle Squadron and the 4^th Motor Squadron.

KING HOUSE TODAY

King House now incorporates the Interpretive Centre which details the turbulent history and elaborate pageantry of Connaught Kings and Chieftains and traces the history of Boyle and the King family. Wander through the many rooms of King House and explore the interactive exhibitions.

PLEASURE GARDENS

The Pleasure Grounds and carpark area are located south of the façade of King House and would have originally been the Georgian gardens attached to the property. During a time when King House was a Military Barracks the Pleasure Grounds were the location for military band recitals and displays. In later years the area was also a home to the Boyle Lawn Tennis Club. Today the newly landscaped gardens provide a pleasant riverside walk with picnic tables and fine views of King House. There is also a children’s adventure playground and an all-weather recreation area.

THE RESTORATION

The house was vacated in 1969 and became a storage and fuel depot. It fell rapidly into decay and dereliction. Roscommon County Council acquired King House on behalf of the county in 1987, more than a quarter of a millennium after it was first built by Sir Henry King. In 1989, having realised the cultural significance of King House and that the building with its impressive skyline is one of the most important structures in Connaught, Rosscommon County Council began an extensive restoration project under the supervision of Maura Shaffrey of Shaffrey Associates, Dublin. Skilled artisans and local craftsmen used traditional techniques and materials to restore its three stories and basement to its former glory. Thirty men were employed on site.

The aim of the project was to retain and restore the essential architectural and structural qualities of the house while protecting all original fabric. Insensitive alterations that had been carried out in past years were tackled to restore the original structure and architectural integrity of the building. The work involved the complete reinstatement of the roof, including the removal of concrete structures and roof coverings erected by the Military, reinstatement of the main double height saloon that had a recent intermediary floor added, reinstatement of structural arches where these had broken through to provide extras doors and windows, provision of new floors where necessary, provision of new doors and windows, the re-plastering of the building internally and externally. Many elements of the original work were retained and provided guidelines for replacement.

Today King House present the past in an exciting and innovative way with the use of modern interactive exhibitions portraying fascinating storylines and accounts of Kings, landlords, soldiers and craftsmen and additionally an educational programme. There are facilities and a 55-seater fully equipped auditorium and lecture theatre. The house is also home to the acclaimed Boyle Arts Festival and the award-winning Civic Collection of Contemporary Irish Art.

Further information can be found on www.kinghouse.ie

This article originally appeared in the Irish Antique Dealers’ Association Yearbook 2006-2007.

Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh (alias Duald Mac Firbis) was the last of a line of hereditary Gaelic scholars based at Lacken near Enniscrone. An earlier member of the family, about the year 1400, produced two great manuscript repositories of medieval Irish literature and learning – the Yellow Book of Lecan and the Great Book of Lecan.

Born after the year 1600, Dubhaltach was trained as a traditional Gaelic scholar at a school conducted by Flann MacEgan at Ballymacegan in north Tipperary. He may have also been at school in Galway city since, together with a knowledge of Irish unrivalled in his day, he also know English, Latin and Greek.

Mac Fhirbhisigh, through his scribal work, has preserved copies of several sets of Irish annals without which there would be major gaps in our knowledge of the history of medieval Ireland. He also transcribed ancient Irish legal texts and translated material from Irish into Englsh and English into Irish.

His most significant work, by far, was the Great Book of Irish Genealogies. Most of the manuscript of 953 pages (now preserved in the library of University College, Dublin) was written in Galway in the years 1649-50, although a portion dates from 1645. The work was done at a time of great unrest, in the midst of the devastating Cromwellian wars. As the storm of war moved inexorably towards the City of the Tribes, Dubhaltach laboured on his book beside the medieval church of St. Nicholas. He completed the work on 28 December 1650, just as the Cromwellian armies crossed the Shannon eastwards.

Mac Fhirbhisigh made later additions to the manuscript in 1653, 1657 and – most notably in 1664. In the mid-1660s he worked in Dublin for the great Anglo-Irish historian Sir James Ware, who lived on Castle St. (Jonathon Swift was born in a nearby house less than a year after Ware’s death and Dubhaltach’s departure.) In 1666 he began compiling a shorter version of the Book of Genealogies, the Cuimre (Abridgement) – the original manuscript is now lost but two early copies survive.

The Great Book is a collection of the genealogies, or pedigrees, of the great families of Gaelic and Anglo-Norman Ireland. Much of it is derived from various medieval genealogical collections (some now lost), but with a good deal of updating and revision. It also contains many poems and prose texts – mostly in Middle and Early Modern Irish, but some in Latin and Old Irish and a small amount in English.

The book records the ancestry of many significant figures in Irish history, including the high-king Brian Boroimhe (or Boru) (d. 1014), Ulick Bourke, marquess of Clanricarde (d. 1657), James Butler, duke of Ormond (d. 1688), Somhairle Buidhe, or Sorley Boy, Mac Donnell (d. 1589), Randal MacDonnell, marquess of Antrim (d.1683), Garrett Og Fitzgerald, earl of Kildare (d. 1536), Dermot MacMurrough, king of Leinster (d. 1171), Myler Magrath, archbishop of Cashel, bishop of Killala, etc. (d. 1622), Feagh MacHugh O’Byrne (d. 1597), Rory O’Conor, last high-king of Ireland (d.1198), Red Hugh O’Donnell (d.1602), Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone (d. 1616), Owen Roe O’Neill (d. 1649), and many, many more – not forgetting the Gaelic and Hiberno-Norman ancestry of the Stuart Kings, Charles I and II.

Both in terms of size and significance, the Great Book of Genealogies is on a par with that other great 17^th-centrury Gaelic compilation, the Annals of the Four Masters. Unlike the Annals, however it is the work not of a team but of one man.

Although several extracts (mostly brief) from the book have been printed over the past two centuries (including about forty pages by John O’Donovan), some 90% of the work (including almost all of the Cuimre) has never hitherto been edited, translated and published.

There was a proposal as far back as 1772 that the book ‘be transcribed and translated’. In 1836 the great scholar Eugene O’Curry transcribed the entire text, while almost a century later Michael Duignan, soon to be professor of archaeology in University College, Galway, commenced work on an edition but it was later abandoned.

Nollaig O Muraile began the latest attempt at producing an edition in the autumn of 1971. It was suggested to him as a suitable topic for a PhD dissertation by his mentor, the then Professor of Modern History at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Fr (Later Cardinal) Tomas O Fiaich.

The work has been slow, tedious and sometimes difficult. As Prof. Gearoid O Tuathaigh of NUI Galway has remarked, it was the kind of task that nowadays is undertaken by a team of postgraduate researchers, backed by a hefty research grant and using the most modern IT equipment. This, instead, was the work of a single individual, without external funding, done in his spare time. The early work of transcription was done with pencil and paper, later moving on to electric typewriters, and only using computers in the later stages of the enterprise. Not that far removed, in some respects, from the work of Dubhaltach himself!

The completed edition runs to five large volumes (bound in full buckram gilt and in presentation slipcase) and about 3,640 pages. Following a lengthy introduction and detailed table of contents, the entire Irish text of Mac Fhirbhisigh’s larger and smaller genealogical works (the Book of Genealogies proper and the Cuimre) and (on facing pages) and English translation of both prose and poetry occupy the first three volumes.

The fourth volume includes:

• A detailed catalogue of every extract from the work that has hitherto appeared in print,
• A series of cross-references to other genealogical manuscripts, colour photographs of more than forty manuscript-pages, and a series of indexes:

• A general index;
• An index of some 6,000 families, tribes and other population-groups;
• An index of more than 3000 surnames and their bearers – most numerous being the Burkes, or Burcaigh, with 750 named bearers –
• An index of more than 3,300 place-names, with identifications where possible; and
• A series of other indexes – initial lines of poems, sources and authors cited in the book; epithets used to form nicknames; the 200 most notable historical figures who feature in the book; anglicised forms of the principal surnames.

• Also a list of subscribers

The fifth and final volume contains the most valuable feature of the entire work, and the one which required the greatest amount of backbreaking hard work over several years – an enormous index of nearly 700 pages of all the personal names in the book. This, the largest collection of Irish-language names ever compiled, contains the names of some 30,500 separate individuals: between them they bore 6,625 different personal names. (So if ever you have difficulty in choosing a name for a christening this is the place to look!) Incidentally, the ten most numerous names are 1. Aodh (768 bearers), 2. Domhnall (613), 3. Donnchadh (401), 4. Tadhg (383), 5. Conchobhar (367), 6. Diarmuid (358), 7. Eochaidh (357), 8. Sean (340), 9. Uilliam, or Liam (308), 10. Aonghus (301), while Tomas is no. 11 with 298 bearers.

Nollaig O Muraile has pointed to a series of interesting coincidences in relation to his edition – he has spent one-third of a century preparing this enormous work, and it has appeared one-third of a millennium after its author, Dubhaltach Mac Firbhisigh, was stabbed to death in somewhat mysterious circumstances near Skreen, in his native Sligo, in January 1671 by one Thomas Crofton. The Irish text runs to one-third of a million words, while this edition – including text, translation, indexes, etc. – contains about one and one-third million words.

Dr. O Muraile, who was awarded a PhD by the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, in 1991, adapted part of his doctoral dissertation for publication as the Celebrated Antiquary: The Lineage, Life and Learning of Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh (c 1600-1671) in 1996; a revised edition of this large and meticulous work appeared in 2002.

A native of Knock, Co. Mayo, Nollaig worked for more than twenty years (1972-93) as a Placenames Officer with the Ordnance Survey and has studied thousands of placenames in all parts of Ireland. Following his appointment as Senior Lecturer in all Celtic at Queen’s University, Belfast, he became in 1995 Director of the Northern Ireland Place-Name project based in the university and General Editor of its publications. He has been editor since 1993 of Ainm: The Bulletin of the Ulster Place-Name Society. In 2003 he was appointed to the Irish Placenames commission. Among his numerous publications are a book on the placenames of his native county, Mayo Places: Their Names and Origins (1985), as well as a study of the place-names of Clare Island published by the Royal Irish Academy (1999).

In all, he has written, edited or co-edited more than twenty books and scores of learned articles, both in Irish and English. One of his most recent publications is Irish Leaders and and Learning Though the Ages, a collection (running to more than 630 pages) of essays and articles by a great historian of medieval Ireland, Fr Paul Walsh. He is also much in demand as a lecturer, having addressed audiences in every corner of Ireland, as well as in the Universities of Edinburgh, Cambridge and Harvard. In 1988 he was promoted to Reader in Irish and Celtic Studies in Queen’s University, and in recent months has taken up an appointment as Reader in Gaelic Literature at the University of Ulster, Coleraine.

Eamonn de Burca, who has published The Great Book of Irish Genealogies, is a native of Castlebar who on returning to Ireland soon became prominent in the antiquarian and rare books business. Over the past decade he has branched into republishing significant historical works that have gone out of print. Among the most notable items he has made available again – often after a gap of more than a century – are The Annals of the Four Masters, The Annals of Ulster, The Annals of Loch Ce, The Irish Fiants of the Tudor Sovereigns, Eugene O’Curry’s Manners and Customes of the Ancient Irish, Patrick W. Joyce’s Irish Names of Places, John Colgan’s Triadis Thaumaturgae, H.T Knox’s History of the County of Mayo to the Close of the Sixteenth Century, Dr. Browne’s Fasciculus Plantarum Hiberniae (published as the sumptuous Flowers of Mayo, edited by Dr E.C. Nelson and illustrate by Wendy F. Walsh), and many others.

Eamonn is himself the author of Burke, Bourke and De Burgh People an Places, a history of the great Anglo-Norman family to which he belongs and A Bibliographic Catalogue of the Three Candles Press. He has also issued several original works by other authors, most notably Tony Sweeney’s Ireland and the Printed Word. His splendid edition of the Great Book of Irish Genealogies – with a beautiful cover-design by the celebrated calligrapher Timothy O’Neill – is his most ambitious venture to date. It retails at €635.

The appearance of this great work is a historic development in the annals of Irish scholarship. Not since the publication of John O’Donovan’s monumental and magisterial edition of the Annals of the Four Masters in the mid-19^th century has something on this scale been produced in Ireland by a private publisher from the hands of a single editor. It is a worthy monument to the great scholar Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh whose heroic labours in the mid-17^th century have left us a work of unsurpassed scholarship which is now available – after a long delay – for future generations, many of whom will be able to trace their descent from some of the lineages detailed in this astonishing book.

This article originally appeared in the Irish Antique Dealers’ Association Yearbook 2004-2005.

CARPET WEAVING is an ancient craft. It has its origins in Central Asia. The oldest piece known, the Pazyryk carpet, kept in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, dates back to 500 BC. However, its structure and quality proves beyond doubt that the craft was well established at that time, suggesting that carpet weaving dates back over many thousands of years. The technique used in the Pazyryk carpet remains basically the same to this day, although there have been many changes for the worse over the past century.

To the layman, the world of Oriental car¬pets may seem both mystifying and confus¬ing. Why, on the one hand, is there a regular occurrence of “Closing Down Sales”, “Liquidation Auctions” and constant 50-70% discount offers while, on the other hand, spectacular prices are paid for certain rugs at international auctions? This article will try to explain the basic difference between genuine Oriental carpets and mere commercial merchandise.

All handknotted Oriental carpets contain three elements: the warp, the weft and the pile. The warp runs the length of the carpet and appears at each end as the fringe. The weft runs across from the warp, over and under in a continuous loop making a start |at the bottom end in what is called the kilim. Its purpose is to prevent the rug from fraying and breaking up. The pile is made up of horizontally hand-tied knots. yarn, cut at the front to form a piled|surface. The wefts are packed in between” each row of knots to secure them. Gradually die rug grows upwards on the
loom until it is finished with a kilim end,after which the rug is cut down from the I loom. The amount of work involved is considerable. A skilled weaver may work at an average speed of 5,000 knots per day, yet she may require around 250-350 working days to complete a typical 7′ x 4′ Kashan or Tabriz rug. Smaller rugs are often the work of one weaver; larger carpets can be a team effort involving 2-4 women. Most Oriental carpets have knot densities of 100 knots per square inch upwards, some reaching 4-500. As a result, even a fairly small village rug takes many months to complete.

There are two fundamentally different methods of designing, or “drawing”, an Oriental rug. Let us start with the “freestyle” group, i.e. rugs woven purely from memory, without the aid of a pre-drawn cartoon. Here, the weaver and the artist are one and the same, each knot being woven from a plan in her head but not written down. The result is a truly unique creation, unlike anything she will ever weave again, since no human mind can remember the exact placement and sequence of several hundred thousand knots.
“Freestyle” rugs were woven by migrating tribes and “primitive” village weavers who made their rugs for barter purposes, gifts or dowry. The rugs contained soul, originality and charming spontaneity, reflecting the weavers’ culture, environ¬ment and artistic skills. Rugs within this group were woven by the main Persian tribes such as the Avshari, the Quasq’ai, the Khamseh etc; other rug weaving tribes included the Turkoman, the Baluchi and the Kurds.

Virtually all of the above have now settled into sedentary lifestyles, losing most of their tribal culture in the process. Many tribal weavers still weave rugs for a living but in most cases they work in workshops or factories, to sterile and predictable designs which bear little resemblance to the beautiful originals. Most experts agree that few, if any, truly tribal rugs have been woven since the 1920s.

The other group, representing 99% of rug weaving today is comprised of rugs woven from cartoons. Originally, this group was made up of the rugs woven in the main Persian weaving towns such as Kashan, Isfahan, Kerman, Tabriz and Meshed. More recently the group has come to include the vast majority of all Oriental Rug weaving, bar a few notable exceptions such as the famous DOBAG project in Turkey.

In cartoon weaving, the designer and the weaver are separate people. The designer draws the rug, knot by knot, in coloured dots on graph paper, enabling him to achieve perfect symmetry and balance in every detail. This slow and skillful work traditionally accounted for a large portion of the cost of the finished product since only one, or one identical pair of rugs, could be woven to the same design accord¬ing to established ethics and tradition.

Following the increase in post-War commercial demand, this code of ethics had to be compromised to save cost. From then on, designs began to be copied, making it possible to make as many rugs from one design as you have weavers to make them. Overnight, the Oriental rug was no longer a unique work of art. Instead it became a mass-produced, albeit hand¬made, furnishing commodity. Today the cruel reality is that most rugs are designed by computer, from special software, meaning that you can create an infinite number of rugs from a particular cartoon.

An original Oriental rug may be com¬pared to an original painting, and a mass-produced factory rug to a print. It is unsurprising, therefore, that an original pre-commercial rug is worth a lot more than a modern, mass-produced copy.

Another key factor is the type of dyes used. In the past, only natural dyes were used for wool dyeing. For generations spe¬cialist dye makers had perfected the art of dyeing blues with indigo, reds with madder and cochineal, yellows with camomile and weld, browns with gall apples, etc., etc.

The trick was to dye the wool so well that the colours would not fade in light, nor run in water, no matter how long the rug was exposed to light, or how many times it was washed. The dye masters had memorised the ancient, and secret, recipes and could dye wool to perfection. However, they had a monopoly on the market and they charged a healthy price for their services.

Around 1870 the first synthetic dyes began to appear in Oriental rugs. They were welcomed by the merchants and weavers because they were cheap, freely available and easy to use. The negative aspects of synthetic dyes only became known to the Oriental merchants many years later. Western importers complained of the new colours fading and running, causing the Persian government to issue severe penalties for handling the worst of the new dyes, especially those based on aniline.

However, it was already too late; the old dye masters had quickly been put out of business and had taken their secrets with them. Over a short time, the ancient skills of natural dyeing had become lost, leaving merchants with no alternative but synthetic dyes. By 1940 the use of the new dyes had reached all regions, even as far south as the town of Kerman.

The synthetic dyes were there to stay and today, with the notable exception of natural dye projects Like DOBAG in Turkey, almost all dyes are synthetic.
Admittedly some synthetic dyes are better than others, but none compares with, or performs like, original natural dyes.

International rug collectors rarely touch a rug that has synthetic dyes — even one single “bad” dye in a small detail can be enough for rejection. It is not simply the fact that a naturally dyed rug will survive far longer than a synthetically dyed one; natural dyes are generally acknowledged as being beautiful in themselves whereas syn¬thetic dyes are not. The brain can receive any number of natural colours without reading them as a “clash”, caused by the slight impurity of a natural dye as against the harsh sterility of a manufactured one.

Perhaps the most damaging development in recent Oriental rug weaving is the “antique wash”. This is a treatment deemed necessary by the furnishing markets which demands subtle, muted colours like those seen in antique rugs.

Since the modern synthetic colours are far too bright for consumption, the rugs are washed in heavy-duty chemicals Like caustic soda and various acids. The result is a rug with washed-out colours, an artificial sheen and a much reduced life expectancy. Fading usually takes place within years and the wool starts breaking up quickly. Needless to say, many antique-washed rugs have very little second-hand value. Sadly, almost all modern rugs, except DOBAGs and a handful of others, undergo some kind of “beautification” processing, unlike the old rugs where time and wear produced a natural and attractive patination.

Let us now focus on the genuine article: the rugs that really matter to the buyer wanting something unique, beautiful, useful and value-retaining. Not all old and antique rugs have a high value just by virtue of their age. The rug must still have an attractive design, have well-matched, beautiful colours and be in acceptable condition. Obviously, if a rug has spent some 100 years on the floor it will show some wear and tear. Slight and evenly spread wear can be acceptable, as long as it hasn’t exposed warps. Minor restoration is also acceptable provided it has been done well, in sympathy with the texture, colour and design of the rug.

Large areas of wear, reduced borders, fragile foundation, severe colour run, extensive restoration and camouflage paint to disguise wear are unacceptable. Unfortunately most old rugs have one or more of the above problems, reducing the really appealing rugs to a very small number. Few people in their right mind would dream of selling an old Oriental rug in good condition. In the East, good rugs are rarely used on the floor — instead they are hung on walls or stored away from traf¬fic, handed down from one generation to the next — hence the term “heirloom”.

Unless a family is in dire financial straits, it would only consider selling pieces from their collection if they were given irre¬sistible offers.

All these factors have resulted in a severe shortage of good pieces in the marketplace.

The countries of origin (Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Russia) are “sold out” — their stocks of good old rugs have long since been exported to the West. Auction rooms are either filled with worn-out pieces way beyond the point of rescue, or else they offer large numbers of ugly, late and otherwise unsalable merchandise, supplied regularly from dealers who cannot dispose of them in their shops. For all the above reasons, a really good, old example will carry a respectable price tag.

Take, for example, a hand-knotted carpet made in Europe, at current labour costs, etc. The only comparison happens to be found in Donegal, Ireland, where hand-knotted carpets are again being woven. The cost of a Donegal is approximately £133 per square foot, ex factory, worked at a knot count of 16 knots per square inch. A carpet of 10′ x 7′ size therefore costs 70 x 133 =£9,300.

A fine semi-antique Kashan carpet also measuring 10′ x 7′ would have perhaps 225 knots per square inch, i.e. 14 times finer than the Donegal. Assuming the absurd, i.e. that a carpet like the Kashan could be woven in Donegal, the cost would be estimated as follows:
14 times £133= £l ,862 per square foot. Size is 70 square feet, therefore, 70 x £1,862 = £130,340.
The price tag on the Kashan, which is in exquisite condition, is IR £l 1,500. Admittedly, this is a spurious comparison, not meant to reflect on Donegal Carpets who are doing great things. It does, however, illustrate the exceptional value of a good Oriental carpet.

You can extend the discussion and compare this with other fields of fine art, especially with painted art. When you con¬sider the incredible skills involved — the time taken to weave it the generations it will survive for and the substantial visual effect it has in a home — you will realise what great value an Oriental rug represents.

There are many highly collectable Oriental rugs that would be within comfortable reach of most aspiring rug collections. You can still buy a perfect, top quality antique Baluch rug for £900-£l,500. Other rare tribal rugs like Avshars and Luris can be purchased in perfect condition, from £1,500. Early tribal bagfaces, hugely collected in the USA, are available for £250-£750. A perfect Persian town rug from the 1930s, such as a Kashan or Isfahan, can be yours from £3,500. For early, rare tribal and Caucasian rugs you may have to pay a little more, say around £5,000 to £10,000. However, look at them as the work of art they are and they suddenly seem very reasonably priced indeed.

Finally, remember that the Oriental rug business is extremely complex, full of traps and pitfalls. If you only buy Oriental rugs as souvenirs while on holiday, or as buy-and-throw-away furnishings, it doesn’t matter where you buy them, as long as you are comfortable with cost.
However, if you want to invest in genuine, old rugs while they are still avail¬able, you are strongly advised to strike up a relationship with a reputable dealer. He or she will already have done the extensive fieldwork of sourcing, vetting and certifying the pieces, ensuring they are in good condition and priced sensibly. He or she will let you try rugs in your home before deciding to buy, and will offer to exchange or trade in your rugs at purchase price levels.

You will not find collectable rugs while on holidays in Turkey, or in the perpetual “Closing Down Sale” shops in High Street locations. Nor will you find them in travelling auctions, “liquidation sales” and the like. There are very few established dealers that specialise in old and antique pieces, but they are the ones you should consult. They will never have “sales” but they will stand over their pieces and offer you the essential back-up services like washing, restoration and exchanges.

The annual HALI Carpet Fair at Olympia in London in June is also Worth visiting — it will give you an idea of the scale of international rug collecting. It will also show you that the quality and value of what is on offer in Ireland compares very favourably in the international marketplace, where these exquisite treasures can be sold for several times above the asking price here.