The Big Beautiful Antique Chair

One day last year my sister and I went into an antique store in Lafayette, Ca. We were just looking around. Sis was looking for a drop leaf table for her art room. I was just looking. Then Sis spotted this chair....
I don't know if there can be "love at first sight" with a piece of furniture, but my sister set her sights on something across the room. I saw her move toward a corner filled with armoires, buffets and tables. There was a different look in her eyes. I had seen this look before. It was "furniture lust".
There is nothing rational about it..., nothing reasonable or explainable..., it's just plain old fashion desire for something that's drop dead gorgeous. When we were young and foolish it was a good looking guy, but now it's FURNITURE. Sad but true.

She was not leaving the store without this chair. It spoke to her. .., probably in French. It was saying "Buy me, you will never regret it. I will always make you happy." So she did and at a very good price. This is the most outrageously, over the top, elegant, well made, tapestry covered, carved chair I have ever seen. Look at it!
The fabric is in very good shape and the wood is beautiful. The seat has collapsed and needs to be braced, reconstructed underneath and re-filled with something. Other than the seat it's in excellent condition. I can't find anything like it on the Internet. It's one of a kind and it sits in a new corner; in my sister's bedroom in the condo in Pacifica. It's a love affair of the heart and it was meant to be.
Come..., sit...., have some tea and a brioche. It will make you feel like European royalty.

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The Saturday Evening Post- Feb. 10, 1912

I get caught up in the longevity of some old newspapers or magazines. When something so old survives the ravages of time and is still in one piece it just amazes me. I found this old Saturday Evening Post in a box of papers, not separated from everything else or in a protective sleeve, but just sitting in the bottom of the box. It was laying there..., a bit frayed around the edges, with some pages torn and it was dated February 10, 1912. Two areas were cut out with scissors ,like you would cut out a coupon. Both ads that were cut out said that you could send for more information. I guess someone did.
February 10, 1912. That's old!! In 3 years it will be 100 years old. For paper and ink that's just amazing. My parents weren't born yet. My grandmother was a teenager. We had not even been in a "World War" yet. Campbells soup was 10 cents a can and the center of population in the U.S. was Bloomington, Indiana?????
Wikipedia has some very interesting information on the history of this magazine if you're interested. If you go to this site you can read about it .
The illustrator of this cover is no where to be found. I don't mean the person himself, who is probably dead, but info. about him on the Internet. The famous artists/illustrators of the day like Clarence Underwood and J.C. Leyendecker did many of the covers for this magazine but F. Mehean Cuotes( Cootes, Coates????), it appears, only illustrated this one issue and never again. I can't read the signature clearly, so I may not be Googleing the right name but I looked up all the illustrators for Saturday Evening Post and this name never came up..., anywhere. It's a beautiful drawing. This artist must have been very good to have a drawing on the cover of this magazine.

The stories and articles are wonderful and depict the times that they were written in. Some things have changed drastically and some things haven't changed at all. For being written 97 years ago some of the worries and problems are strangely familiar.
What really surprises me is the advertisements and how many companies are still making these products....: Kellogg's corn flakes, Chiclets chewing gum, Quaker Oats, Campbells Soup, Grape-Nuts and Van Camp's Pork and Beans are all still available in our stores now. I find that very reassuring.
You could even buy a Ford Motel T touring car for $690 , a steel fireproof garage for $72.50 to put it in and build a 5 room bungalow to live in for $868. That included blue prints, specifications, lumber, millwork, floors, doors, and windows. If you wanted a fireplace mantel it was a whopping $11.75 more. Now I know why they called it the "good old days".

Please check out the other vintage items and stories on Past Due Tuesday and join us with your own wonderful things.

(Brasher Girl from Alabama just sent me a comment and gave me the right name for the illustrator of the magazine.She wrote..." I believe the cover illustrations for the February 10, 1912 issue was done by F. Graham Cootes." and she gave me a link. Thank you, thank you Brasher Girl. I really appreciate this.)

These are the photos of the advertisements in the magazine. Click on photo to enlarge the individual pictures.

Beautiful Chocolate Pot Set for PDT.

It's Past Due Tuesday and I have something to show you that is so beautiful. This was my Grandmother's Chocolate Set. I have researched this all morning and I found a lot of information that was mixed into a confusion of Japanese/Nippon/Chinese multi designed and shaped sets from many different decades of porcelain china that was imported here and sold. The only consistency was the shape of the teapot. I found 3 or 4 sets that were totally different in the design of the hand painting, but the shape of the pot was identical in all of them. The biggest mystery of this set is the mark. I found all kinds of information on marks and went through pages of different kinds of marks that identify these varied pieces of porcelain. I never found the mark that is on the bottom of all the pieces in this set.

This is a Japanese porcelain, hand painted set with a water, sailboat and nature design. This is a complete set (minus one cup) and all the pieces have a matching pattern along the saucer and cup edges and also on the chocolate pot and lid. The border is hand decorated with a gold leaf scrolling design. The lid has a cutout with a small piece that is missing. All the descriptions say that the cutout is for stirring the cocoa and that this distinguishing feature differentiates it from a coffee or tea pot. Without the cutout it's not a cocoa pot. The lid has a "cartouche" handle and the pot has a fancy applied handle. The cups have applied elongated loop handles. The saucers are scallop edged, 4 3/4" diameter and the delicate cups are ribbed with tapered cylindrical, scalloped edges at top and bottom, 3" tall. The set consists of the tall chocolate pot, 5 cups and 6 saucers.

I wonder if my grandma used this set when she had company or, like myself, kept it in a glass case somewhere and didn't use it because she was afraid it would be broken. I would love to know how she got it and if it's worth a lot of money. Until I find out more information about the set I will just dust it once in a while and admire it's beauty. Maybe I will set it out on my new/old buffet when I move the buffet into the living room. What do you think?

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A Day Past Due Tuesday: Finding Things in an Old Box

This is a silk dress; wrinkled, fragile, thread bare in places with smocking and a scalloped hem.Sis and I found it in the very bottom of a box filled with letters and diaries. Inside this box were my grandmother's letters from her husband who was a traveling pianist in movie theaters..., letters that gave us some insight (and some questions) about our family. Interesting letters about a time when our grandmother was very young and life was written down in long letters and personal thoughts were put into small books and dated, written with pens that had to be continuously dipped into a container of ink, sometimes dripping onto the page when hands were shaking with emotion. Life spilled out..., hand written, onto pages of small books and journals. Letters and saved things that were important to someone, that meant so much to my grandmother, so long ago. Old photos, report cards, class pictures, advertisements, announcements and obituaries. Life and death, happiness and sadness...,

...,and then, in the very bottom of this old box, folded together.., a young girls dress. A lovely blue silk dress with hand painted flowers and a pink hat, a small hand made purse and a blue handkerchief. It was the only clothing in the old box. It must have been very special. I picture the late 20's. The "flapper" style dress; short, sleeveless..., the "cloche" hat. This was not a grown up dress. It's seems more for a young girl or pre-teenager. A dance dress perhaps. A very special dance. My Mother's? Her sisters? We will never know, for a certainty, who this lovely dress belonged to, but I suspect it was either my Mom's or my Aunt Marcia's because this was my grandmother's box of things.

We found a lot of my Aunt Marcia's letters and journals, school things, pictures she drew and wonderful childhood items that my grandmother had saved.
You see, my mom's sister was always getting sick as she grew up (they think, now, that she might have had Leukemia) and she died at Merritt Hospital in Oakland, CA. in 1937, when she was only 18 years old. My grandma never got over her death. I only remember one picture of my aunt, a large one in a beautiful frame, on her living room wall. She never talked about Marcia unless I asked her and then she didn't say very much.
Mom told me that her little sister was very beautiful, popular and talented. Mom said she had a sweet personality and liked everyone. She was 2 years younger than my mother.
I think that this little box was a place where Grandma put all the memories of her daughter and laid them to rest. I think the dress was Marcia's. Maybe it was made for a "first" dance.
I wish we had known her. I know how important my sister was and is to my boys. There can be such a wonderful connection to an aunt. It's like having a "back up" Mom when you're tired of the one you live with. Another opinion, another point of view and another place to lay your head.
It would have been nice to know my Aunt Marcia, in life, but now I know her a little better ...,because we found this old box of memories.

Please go to Roomies for more Past Due Tuesday posts about old things and stories that need to be told again.

Past Due Tuesday: Candlesticks and Re-purposed plate.

These candlesticks are probably from Italy. My great-grandmother was born in Milan and came here to marry my great-grandfather. I was told she brought a Dowry (which is the property that a woman brought to her husband at the time of the marriage) with her. These lovely candlesticks were far too fancy for life on the ranch. At the time, in the Napa Valley, there were only small farms and a beautiful little town. It was not the fancy, tourist mecca it is today. So, coming from a great northern Italian city and a wealthy family, I suspect that she brought some very nice things with her.
These candle holders are black glass, appear to be hand blown ( there are no "seams" anywhere.) and the design is etched into the glass. They're rimmed with gold which is very worn. There are no markings of any kind that would give us an idea where they came from. Mom never used them that we can remember and these were found in a cabinet above the refrigerator where other assorted candlesticks were stored..., most of them never having been used.

They are really beautiful; very "old world". I will do some research on the Internet and see if I can find some information on them.


This plate of my grandmothers is very interesting. Again, there are no markings. It's carve, beautifully, with rose buds and leaves and looks like it might have had a cup or vase attached to it. Also, there is a broken part that might have been a handle. The pottery is beautiful and almost transparent but I don't think it's porcelain. It's heavy for a small plate. The carved flowers and leaves are very well done.
I use it to burn my large candles on because of it's flat center. I love the way it looks. Does anyone have any ideas what it might be and what it's made of?


Please check out the other antique and vintage things that are "past due" for the attention they deserve at Roomies and add your own wonderful things.

Past Due Tuesday: New Kid on the Block

There is a new VINTAGE blogging event starting today. The folks from Roomies, the blog for the Room with a Past store that I visit every time I go down to my sisters, are hosting a new opportunity to share your vintage and antique items with everyone. Be sure to take a look, here, for other great posts that share the love of things that have survived time and come with "a past". Please join us and share your love of all things vintage.

My offering today is a small crocheted throw that was my grandma's. I remember snuggling unto it on cold days, in front of her fireplace and I have this memory, in later years, of her sitting in an old wood rocking chair (which I was also given) with this blanket over her legs to keep her warm. She was still living in the house in the hills above the town of Napa, California, by herself.
In this quiet and simple house that had wood walls and dusty land surrounding it, this blanket was a burst of color. It's texture is heavy and tough and has stood the test of time. Each square is done with skill and there are a rainbow of colors within the design. I don't think that my grandma made this throw. As far as I know she didn't knit or crochet. Maybe it was a gift from someone she worked with.., or family but it's so lovely and well made. I'm sure the person who made it would be happy to know that this little blanket has lasted this long and now lives in another little house at the end of a dirt road. in the country.
As you can see..., this small blanket was a bright, warm and loving memory of my childhood. It wraps me in so many fond visions of a time when life was simpler and a woman, who didn't get along with the rest of the world very well ,loved me more than life itself. It's a memory of place.., and tenderness.

Please go to Roomies for more stories of vintage things that are "past due" for being shared with others.